No Such Thing

There is no such thing as perfect. I will never be the perfect wife. I don't even know what that looks like! I certainly don't know any, so what would I model myself after? I think I will just be me but try and be the best me that I can. I like to think that I am constantly considerate of my husband and others but I could be better at it. I could be better at my job with more effort on planning and preparation, I could be a better cook, tennis player, gardener, photographer but I will never be perfect at any of these things. I need to pick something to truly excel at and have fun with all the rest.

I choose to be best at my relationships. All of them. At the advice of Depak Chopra, I will give each person I come into contact with a gift. Whether it be a physical gift or a compliment, prayer or smile, I will be a giver.

Counting my blessings as we speak!

reasons that i love whole foods market

1. the staff member who saw that i had 6 apples in my hands trying to open a produce bag and did it for me. that just doesn't happen elsewhere.

2. the juice bar. enough said.

3. the hot/salad bar at lunch. they have THE BEST oil free balsamic dressing, tuna salad, black eyed peas, (uhhh, the brown rice is almost always hard - consider yourself warned) and steamed veggies.

4. self checkout

5. free samples of gelato!

i will not be going to any whole foods today but i will be going near one :) i miiiight have to stop by!

slack ass

so obviously i am a slacker. i am pretty much going to blame this on jen lancaster. i just emerged from my 4th of her books in a row. and i still have 1 more to go. this chick got me with pretty in plaid and i continue to gobble her books up one by one, devouring every word.

but i thought that i would get back on here and not give up. so, here i am.


lately i have definitely waivered between my footloose and fancy free self and my responsible self. it is summer so i think there has been a lot more fun and a lot less cooking, cleaning, sewing or gardening.


just this weekend i have gotten back in to sewing and actually finished my friend's wedding gift blanket. guess who is lame and forgot to sew the monogram on before she sewed the blanket together? so you can see the stitches on the back. guess who doesn't care? my husband told me that handmade is always appreciated. p.s. i also got her 2 items off of her registry so i don't suck too much.

it is wool felt for the body of the blanket and different cotton prints that i ordered off of various websites. all of the prints reminded me of her wedding and i ordered samples of dozens of prints before i got these that all worked together. so, there ya go. it only took me...3? 4? months to complete. yay me!

i actually have been cooking dinner, though it doesn't feel like it because we have eaten out 5 of our last 6 meals. in the past 2 weeks we have had...damn! i can't even remember anything but the pork chops. but obviously i am doing something right...billy has gained 10 lbs.! on the downside, i did. damn. back to being disciplined tomorrow.

on the other hand, there was the 4th of july, girls night with nicole and mer, and maybe a few hungover sunday mornings due to consumption and competitive dominoes tournaments with billy on saturday night but...what cha gonna do?!?

wah-wah

i have been pretty busy! wait, no i haven't. i just had 1 baby shower and meredith came to town (of which i have no photos) and worked. not even traveled, by the way. just worked locally.

anyhow, here are scenes from chrissy's shower:

the hand sanitizer favors i ordered. chrissy does not care much for germs.

i did the cake. it is hummingbird cake and it was a little bitch to bake. i suck at making frosting - it tasted amazing but melted right off the cake! same with the cupcakes. i also did the veggie tray and forgot the celery and tomatoes. i am a wreck.

this was supposed to be the Bakerella pudding cups but i got tired and never finished them. i would insert a link to Bakerella but i don't know how.

mmmm. red velvet. cute cupcake cups are a waste when working with this medium.

bloody mess!

so then i went out to my car this morning to grab the shampoo i bought and forgot about until i was about to step in to the shower and saw this guy:

doesn't his neck look like a little periscope poking out of it's shell? maybe i should name him "red october"...his shell does have red on it.

i am so in love with this turtle that lives in our yard. he does not, sadly, love me.

different kind of awww:

cayenne is salavating. she would absolutely munch that poor guy up. side note: look at that white face. when did my baby get so old???

more scenes from my yard. i am totally in love with all of this right now.

do you know what those yellow flowers mean? tomatoes are coming soon!

my prized hydrangeas!!! except they've never gotten a prize and i don't grow them, B does.

but aren't they beautiful?!?!

my cactus that reminds me of home. hearty thing, too. i hardly give it a thought and it just keeps on living. thanks for that, cactus. kind of reminds me of me when i first moved here. i'll have to write a post about that time in life.

ACKKKKKK. humidity is a real bitch. look at that mess.

why do things have to be so hard?

in particular, why does not shopping have to be so hard?

tales from the enchanted forest

first off, i don't think that "forest" has 2 r's but it might and if so, forgive me. i am too lazy to spell check. if you haven't figured out that i am lazy by now by my lack of capital letters, here is my official admission. whatever.

so any day now the department of forestry (forrestry?) or fish and game or whatever is going to come here and quarden our front yard as an official bird refuge. it's totally insane. not to mention, these birds are pigs and extremely ingrateful. i provide food for them:

and they spill it all over the front porch:

please excuse the dilapidated condition of our front porch. this is husband's problem, not mine.

that bird feeder was full not 2 weeks ago. furthermore, it is supposed to be squirrel-proof and it is absolutely not. i find those fat asses up on there all the time. and even when i don't actually catch them in the act, when the thing is swinging like a tornado just ripped through, it's a dead give away that one of them just jumped off.

this bird situation is no joke. in the evening you hear no less than 7 different KINDS of bird chirps and calls. this one bird family sets up nest in our garage every year. over the weekend, B helped the baby birds learn to fly. he actually was scooping them up and helping them fly. that's weird, right?

yesterday morning, i heard a weird noise and looked out at the feeder and there was a woodpecker on it trying to peck through to the plastic to get to the good stuff in the feeder! apparently not all of the seeds in there are good enough, hence the mess on the porch. i planted some onions in the planter below the feeder and it is constatly overgrown with weeds that i have to pick!!! B pointed out that it's probably all the seeds. ungrateful ahole birds.

in my diet-pill fueled haze i just realized that i wrote a post about the birds in my yard. who am i?!?

so lame

well it's official that i am a lame blogger. however, i have an excuse this time and while i HATE excuses more than life, this one is a tiny bit legit: i regressed this weekend and am having to be housebroken all over again.

i waved all domestic responsibilities good-bye on thursday and went to the beach with 25 friends for the wedding of the year. (it's 2010 now and i was married in 2009 - different years, you see?) we all stayed in this magnificent house on the beach with an elevator, a pool and a putting green with a sand trap. magnificent, i tell you.

i didn't drive myself there, i roomed with some of my besties, i didn't cook, clean or even fix my own cocktails. there was someone there to do everything for me! it's like when a dog goes out into the woods for awhile and become a little bit feral and when they come home you have to train them all over again. B wasn't able to come so i didn't even have a husband to care for!

well, i guess today i have to start that process. sunday when i got home i wa sick with sinus yuck and B had already cleaned our house, cooked me dinner, put fresh sheets on the bed and later, he even tucked me in to bed! monday i was still sick and so he baked me chocolate chip cookies and made me sandwiches for dinner. do you see?!? how am i supposed to become the domestic wife that i am supposed to be if everyone keeps doing everything for me?

starting tonight i will cook dinner and i think it will involve meat. meat always helps. and then i will start sewing the wedding gift i am making for my friends. that should ease me right back into the swing of things around here.

now...how the hell am i going to motivate myself to work today?!? that's another thing all together.