Random compliments and UFC

Last night was our first UFC party since moving home. We hopefully roped in some new fans and can make this a monthly occurance. Also it was fun because there was delicious food cooked by Jenn and Matt. Although they obviously didn't know that if you host the fight, you're not supposed to do any work! I was especially proud of Jenn for sitting down and watching a couple of the fights, and even rooting for one guy to win! It was cute the way she cringed when Gonzaga spit blood down Couture's back, etc. I was actually very touched how she sat with me while she ate even though she obviously abhorred what was on screen. Thanks Jenn Ki. I love you!!

Today as I was leaving the post office, a stranger passed me and as we smiled, he said, "You look very scholarly in your glasses!" I smiled bigger and thanked him in a rather excited manner. As I got in the car, I thought what a great random compliment that was. In my many (or not so many, compared to others) years of living, I have tried to look many things. Silly, beautiful, mature, sexy, alluring, legal, but never scholarly. And really, scholarly is the best out of all those! It's a confidence booster just to know that I can look something even if I don'tI live up to it. After all, when I got in the car and "Emotions" by Mariah Carey was playing, I knew all the lyrics. There's x% of my brain power. Another x% goes to Christian romance novels. Another x% goes towards movie trivia that only gains me power on Facebook. Another x% goes toward remembering things I have to do, things I need to tell people, things I need to make up to people, things I need to get over, and other odds and ends. Seems like I have a lot of wasted brain power. Ergh. How embarrassing.

My Gracious Mom

So, mom calls me this morning at work to tell me that for a "small fee", she will come to work and run around screaming. (The kids are back in school today.) I tell her I have to check the budget, but I decided to check her qualifications first.

Mom: I can scream, and I can run around, maybe not as fast as I used to, but I can.

Me: Can you start fights?

Mom: Oh yeah! (proceeds to shriek) YOU'RE BREATHING MY AIR!!

Me: Very good! Can you play Hide and Seek?

Mom: Yes!

Me: Can you hide under my desk?

Mom: Uh... I don't know how big your desk is.

It's romance every night in our house

Me: Look, I'm getting a wrinkle on my stomach from sitting at the computer all day long!

Stephen: Oh well, it wouldn't be there except for the extra skin.

Me: (staring blankly at him, then regaining my composure and walloping him over the head with my book)

There's a saying in Missouri, if you don't like the weather just wait 5 minutes. In Blaine, with hard work, I think we can get that down to 3 or 4.

I've been putting off posting on this because I didn't have these pictures on the computer yet, but now I do so I have no excuses. These are the pictures from Stephen K.'s surprise birthday party last Friday night. It was my first surprise party and I thought it was hilarious!

Here we are waiting patiently for Stephen and Christy to get home...

One more picture since we rarely get ones of ourselves...

Here is Stephen coming in the door. If you could zoom in, you'd see his eyes are as big as platters. Awesome!

Here he is still shocked and slightly ticked off.

This is where he throws down his stuff in mock anger.

My beautiful sister and me.

Us again, cheesing it up.

Beautiful Jenn and Beautiful Lauren

All the cool girls.

Saturday night we went to Jenn and Matt's for dinner and game night again. (2 Saturdays in a row - ROCK!) We played a new game called Hear Me Out that Stephen and I love. It's really funny, cause one part of the game you have to talk about a random topic for 45 seconds. 45 seconds is actually a really long time when you're asked to do something like that! The funniest, most random one was one of Jenn's. She had to talk in a nonsense language to the person on her left (that would be me). For the whole 45 seconds, the rest of us were just breaking up because we weren't really sure what she was supposed to be doing, and she was talking very excitedly!! Stephen said he thought she was speaking gibberish at first. It was so absolutely hilarious! Once I had to teach an aerobics class. I don't remember either of Matt or Stephen's being particularly funny, but the game is really fun.

Yesterday I went to lunch with Jenn. C. and her baby-in-womb Mark. She's only a couple of months from popping! I can't wait to meet this baby!

I'm going to try very hard to feel grateful for these coming up dreary days. I know we need the rain so much, so I'm very thankful, but I hate looking out the windows to dark skies. I've not walked Cassie the past two mornings because it's just too dark outside when I get up. Poor girl. Well, I'm off to get something accomplished!

It's not easy being green. - Kermit the Frog

I love "going green". I've always had a rather green heart, and I loved the post Libba did about Gray Water. I've started a recycling center at work for everything but cardboard (because we don't get a lot of cardboard here), and we recycle at home. Stephen gets smacked when he throws his Mt Dew cans in the trash, but he rarely does it. Now paper, it's hard for him to remember to recycle. We were lucky enough to buy a washer and dryer that are eco-friendly, we compost instead of use our disposal whenever possible, we only do laundry about every 10 days which saves water, if it ever rained we would save that rainwater for future uses, and we drive cars with awesome gas mileage. I guess you'd say we pretty much do our part for the environment, but I never feel like I'm doing enough. I just think most "green" things are so simple to do, that I can always do more. One of my pet peeves is people buying 2, 3, 4 bottled waters a day instead of refilling them. I've had the same two water bottles for about 4 months now that I switch off filling up, putting in the fridge to stay cool, etc. I came across this article today - actually, it came across ME because it was emailed to me by a newsletter - about bottled water and I really wanted to post it:

As the industry grows it becomes more and more of an environmental issue mostly because of packaging. US bottled water sales are growing nearly 10 percent annually and the trash from tossed containers is climbing just as quickly. The irony is that the United States has some of the best public water supplies in the world. Not only that, but bottled water sold in the United States is not necessarily cleaner or safer than most tap water. At the end of July beverage giant PepsiCo was forced by public pressure to explain on its Aquafina bottled water that the contents inside come from...the tap. Yet the public still consumes four billion gallons of water a year in individual-sized bottles. According to the Earth Policy Institute, it costs the United States 1.5 million barrels of oil a year to produce the plastic bottles used for water. And if one adds the energy required to transport it -- especially premium water imported all the way from France, Italy and even the Fiji islands -- the negative impact on the environment rises quickly. Do we really need all that bottled water?

Helpful tips from the article:
* There is nothing evil about bottled water. Sometimes it is just more convenient to buy a bottle of water then spend time looking for a water fountain. But do you really have to buy two or three brand new individual bottles a day? Whenever I buy a bottle of water I try save the bottle, if it is convenient, and re-fill it with tap water. I almost always have half-a-dozen bottles of ice cold water in my fridge that I haven't paid a cent for, and it's just as easy to bring one with me in the car in the morning or to the gym at night as it is to buy a bottle while I'm out.
* Tap water tastes funny to you? Install a water filter on your sink at home. A faucet mounted water filter can be as cheap as $40 and will remove 96-99 percent of chlorine, 92-99 percent of lead, and between 95-99 percent of at least a half dozen other chemicals and impurities from your tap water.
* Your filtered tap water will not only be cleaner than the typical bottled water but a lot cheaper. Filtering your water with a faucet mounted filter will cost you about 20 cent per gallon, versus more than a dollar for one pint of bottled water.

Just thought that was interesting.

And to think that in some countries these dogs are eaten.

Is it just me or is Cassie getting harder and harder to walk in the mornings? Last week I was awful about walking her. I've just been so exhausted lately. And it's way too hot to walk her in the evenings - no dog should be walking a mile or two in 105+ temperatures. Now that it's cooled down to the 90's we can get back in a routine perhaps. Anyway, that's why I prefer walking her at 6:15, 6:30 in the morning, when it's about 75 out, breezy, sun's just rising, and no one else is around. It was very calming. It was very relaxing. It was a great way to start my days off. But yesterday and today, it's been like she was possessed by some demon of play. She's way too big to jump on people, but she loves to jump on me. This morning she knocked me over and then kept trying to pat my head and lick it at the same time. I ended up having to give her a spanking. Guilt flashed in her eyes only a brief second before her tongue was hanging out and she was panting, "arentwegoingwalkingletsgowalkingcomeongetyouracttogethermomiamsoreadytogothatiamgonnajumpagainyepi'mgettinreadyi'mgonnajumpi'mgonnajumparentwegoingwalkinghuh Huh HUH??!?!?!?"

Whew. I walked her around the yard and the course a bit, trying to stream out her energy, before I walked her past the neighbors' houses, just in case she tried to trample me again (so I wouldn't be embarrassed that I can't handle my 10-month-old) and then we started walking. She was better after that and maybe even a bit worn out. She's also started whining in the mornings, after I go back inside. I don't know what to do about her.

People say that babysitting is the best form of birth control. What about dogs? I can't even handle this 50-pound puppy!

*Note: Cassie is one of the better dogs we've had. I get frustrated with her but I love her to death and she's really not THAT bad.*

Pictures

Pictures from several events I've been meaning to post.

Not so great picture of us (of me, that is)

My cutie patootie husband

He was forced to wear these Scooby-Doo ears to fit in with the theme of the party!

And I just thought they were cute! We all had to wear these masks to play the games (Pin the Tag on Scooby, bouncy ball games, BINGO)

On our way to the Braves game

Outside Turner Field

My sign says, "McCann is the MAN!", and Jenn's says, "I "heart" CHIPPER!" Stephen's is a tomahawk chopping up the Cardinals. Rarr!!

We were practically inside the bullpen during batting practice. Here's Julio Franco up close and personal!

Cartel performed one night - they were really good!

11 Angry Jurors

Thanks, dad, for the assistance in an appropriate title for yesterday's blog. His suggestion was "12 Angry Men." There's also a CSI episode (which many of you know, I'm addicted to CSI) called 11 Angry Jurors where a juror actually dies during deliberation. It turns out he was allergic to something in the lunch - no one actually killed him. I had jury duty this week for my very first time. It was State vs. Valleriano for charges of drug trafficking. Halfway through the trial yesterday, Valleriano changed his plea to guilty. I was happy because we got to leave early, but sad for the guy because I think his lawyer was really, really awful. In fact, I'm about 105% sure I could have done a better job.

Since my last update, we went to Georgia for Stephen's birthday. We went to 3 of the 4 Braves/Cardinals games for their series. Braves won 2 of the games, which isn't too awful, but on Stephen's birthday, they won 14-6 and we set a record for attendance - 53000 people! I've got some pictures I'll put up sometime soon hopefully. The first night we sat right behind first base, the second night we sat behind third base, and the third night we sat behind first base again. The third night we went as soon as the gates open for batting practice. We saw up close and personal: Julio Franco, Woodward, Saltalamacchia (I spelled that without checking it so that's probably wrong), Chipper Jones, and several more that I can't remember now. We made big posters to pledge our loyalty to certain players (Jennifer's said "I love Chipper", mine said "McCann's the man" and "We love Andruw", and Stephen's was a tomahawk chopping up the Cardinals. Not the birds, the word.) Anyway, we had tons of fun. It made me miss the hockey games we always went to in Charleston. There's nothing like that around here really. And it's super cheap in Charleston too.

We went to Carowinds with our youth group last week and had a BLAST. Only one kid threw up, but 6 almost did. Three wouldn't even ride the kiddie rollercoasters. Two wore white shirts and couldn't ride the log flume. But all in all, it was an awesome day. Stephen and I taught the kids how to pose for the cameras on the coasters, which made for some hilarious pictures.

I took off the side bar that had the last 5 books I read. I read 4 while we were in Georgia and I just don't have time to update that like I want to. So, 'tis gone.

Well, I haven't updated in forever because I felt like I had so much to say. But now I can't think of anything. So I better run and get some stuff done.