National Ice Cream Day 2015

In case you don't have any social media accounts, yesterday was National Ice Cream Day.  I don't even know if that was a thing prior to.... now - but alas, it was, and I celebrated.... more than once.

I hung out with my BFF and #bffbaby in the afternoon, and she made us a batch of brownies to accompany our ice cream.  That was at approximately 5 pm.

I thought I had the whole National Ice Cream Day in the bag - but alas, there was more!

My husband got off of work with 2 hours to spare before our best local ice cream place closed.  Or - he was supposed to.

With about 15 minutes to spare till closing time, my husband swept me into the car where we were pretty much last in line at the ice cream shop.

I made my order, and Mr. RH ordered the most ridiculous order - a banana split.  Huge, massive hot mess of an order in 90% humidity.  Whatever.

So we wait for a few minutes, closing time passes, and the girl at the window is shouting out "sugar cone, birthday cake."

And again,  "sugar cone, birthday cake."

I'm thinking to myself, "hello, who ordered that damn cone?!"

Oh, right, that would be me.

 Not the same cone.  Because... you'll see.

I take my shame face up to the window and get my cone.  About 2 seconds later, licking my melting prize,  the scoop, perfectly perched on top of the cone, falls off the cone.  Amateur hour.

Directly into my purse and onto my phone, no less.

So, as a rational adult... I reach down into my purse and grab the dang scoop and put it back on top of my cone.  And then I proceed to turn my back to the people eating nearby and discreetly try to lick my phone while attempting to forget every single 20/20 episode where they tell you your phone is the dirtiest thing you own and will likely kill you someday.

Embarrassment aside, we finally grab Mr. RH's banana split and high tail it to the car.  He holds it like the golden ticket and I pretend I don't know the goon with the giant banana split.

Walk into the house, sit on the couch, and suddenly Mr. RH's banana split is leaking all over his lap and the pillow from the couch.

National Ice Cream Day: 2.  RH Family: -0.

Ice cream, if I didn't love you so much, we would be finished.  Alas.... nope.

Until we meet again, old foe.

Happy Birthday, Mr. RH!

Last week, Mr. RH and I celebrated his birthday with a week of complete laziness, road trips, and with two birthday cakes because I messed up the first one.

Needless to say, it'll be a quarter to never before I make another red velvet cake from scratch, mmmkay?

The cake and frosting are a cclassic RH family recipe, so I was reluctant to try them in the first place... and I think this has sealed the deal:  no more family recipes.

The first cake wasn't sweet enough, even though I followed the recipe.  Not to mention, I think it was undercooked, so it collapsed once I took it out of the oven.  Ick.

However, my frosting game was apparently correct, as seen on Mr. RH's abandoned piece on our nastiest plate.  I almost cropped the free weights and yoga mat out of the background of that pic, but I couldn't stop laughing - so it stays. 

The second cake was allegedly better.  So - after the homemade cake fiasco, I decided to use a boxed cake.  Of course, after my oven was heating and ready to go - I realized I didn't have red velvet cake, per the birthday boy's request. 

So I googled it, and you can use ingredients in your own pantry to turn a boxed white cake into a red velvet cake.  WHO KNEW.

I did, however, make extra-special RH family frosting that includes Crisco.  Only because I love this man would I voluntarily use Crisco in a recipe.   For one thing - eww, it's like gelled fat.

For another thing... you can't even get it off your hands.  Like... once it's on you, it doesn't leave.  Eww.

So my cake was not pretty, but the 2nd one was at least edible. 

As for Mr. RH's birthday.... I kinda droped the ball on his gift.  I had originally planned to get him an Apple Watch (eyeroll), but at the last minute he decided he didn't want one anymore.

Therefore, poor Mr. RH got 3 pairs of fancy Stance socks and a pair of boxers for his birthday. 

If you've never heard of Stance socks, your husband is not a hipster who likes to dress fancy.
 

Happy Birthday, Mr. RH.  I'm sorry I suck at gift-giving, and I promise I'll do better next year.  Probably. Maybe.

As for my Worst Wife of the Year Award... I'm expecting to go home with the big trophy

Better luck next year?

New Year's Resolve

You know, do you ever look at yourself in May and think, hey, I should blog about my New Year's resolutions?

Ha, yeah, apparently ME EITHER.

So I don't do resolutions, but Mr. RH and I decided to do a few things together this year.  And by "do things" I mean catch up on each other's favorite TV shows.  So on January 1st, we started watching two programs:  Grey's Anatomy and Sons of Anarchy.  I'm not sure if you'll know which of us prefers which show... but I thought the ratio of 92 episodes of Sons to 250 episodes of Grey's.... seems totally fair.

Things were going great with Sons until Jax and Tara had sex right next to a dead body.  After that... well, we haven't watched another episode since January.  I'm traumatized, and I need to not associate dead bodies with sex, even if Jax is delicious, ok?

Since January, we've been watching Grey's.  You see, Grey's and I go back to 2005, when I was a senior in high school and life was so different.  The series premiered while I was on spring break in Key West with my family - and I had seen commercials about it.  I'm pretty sure I berated my family to be "home" to our hotel (condo?) so I could watch the premiere.  I. was. hooked.

I introduced it to everyone I met in college, and I remember our first night in the dorms, crowding into a couple of loft beds to watch the fall 2006 episodes, and I sobbed with my college roommate on our futon after the Superbowl to watch "the bomb episode".  Gah.

Part of me wishes that Grey's had ended after it's major heyday, maybe sometime in the neighborhood of the time Izzy got cancer?  But then again.... I think there were some episodes after that were some of the best Grey's I've seen... so who knows.

So we're somewhere in season 8, kind of past the major heyday of Grey's... but it's just one of those shows that knows me, ya know?  And then, a couple weeks ago social media officially informed me of the spoiler I really didn't want to know.

Depressing.

I had to give up my Grey's several years ago, when Mr. RH and I were dating and I no longer had time to park myself in front of the TV every Thursday night.  I gave up McDreamy for my McDreamy... so I guess it was a good trade-off? 

Luckily, my McDreamy is paying it forward now by letting us catch up.  Poor guy, he's dying.  He says it's literally the worst television since... well, since Izzy did CPR on a dead deer. 

Excellent point, my McDreamy.  Excellent point. 

Pick Me, Choose Me, Buy Me.

Well, like I said in my last post, I'm still recovering from the February funk.  Being as it's almost May.... well, hopefully I've really recovered.  Now that it's above 50 degrees on a regular basis.... I am finding my mojo - and I miss this blog.  Many thanks to not wearing pants anymore for helping me find my mojo.

And yes, I popped back in here because I really think your life will be better if you make a specific purchase.  And stop wearing jeans because winter is OVER.

Enter my new BFF:  Old Navy.

Never fear:  I may not have posted in 51 days, but my crappy outfit photos are exactly the same.  The front-on photo of the skirt makes it look wide because when I stood like a normal person there was too much of my toes in the picture.  Nothankyou.

Anyway, you can get this shirt in black/white, gray, black, OR this fab red/navy stripe that I highly recommend.  It's listed for $32.94 but I got it for at least 30% off.   I'm wearing a medium in the picture, but I think next time (duh I'm buying the black/white stripe) I'm going to buy a small tall.  The medium fits, but I find that tall always has a little more room than the regular size.  #sizingishard


Let's recap:  Life is better in the summer.  Life is better wearing clothes that don't require leg-shaving.  Life is better when I have this blog.  Hi, I've missed you!!

Bye February Funk

In my head, I've been busy lately, and the words seem to disappear every time I try to write them down.

I say I've only been busy in my head, because if I try to recall what has actually been filling up my calendar... I'm coming up rather empty.

I interviewed for a job last week, and it went well.  I felt like for once I actually asked the right questions - but then after the interview, I was able to actually think of more that I should have asked or been more firm about.  It was weird - the lady interviewing me, who would have become my boss, really seemed quite content to let me do the majority of the talking - so I can't figure out if my questions clued her in to the fact that I knew what I was talking about... or if she was just generally.... I dunno, not inclined to ask more?

I was feeling 50/50 - I felt like I actually did a good job of digging around, but she didn't really quiz me or ask me much that I felt like I needed to answer... so that was weird.  The interview ended with her telling me she would have an offer on Friday.  And she did call on Thursday afternoon, as soon as she had an offer prepared.

I know, rationally, that I probably need to get a move on.  I've outgrown my job, and the only options for moving up are basically taking me in a direction I don't want to go.  So - an offer on the table should make my decision easy, right?

HAH.  I had been contemplating it all week.  Was there a magical number that would make the decision for me - yes and no.  Was there a part of me that wanted to get out of my current job just to prove I could - yes.  Did I make myself crazy worrying - duh. 

In the end, after I really reviewed what we had talked about in the interview - I was able to make up my mind in a second.  The work-life balance the new company was offering was SO poor compared to my current job.  As in - working the entire week of Thanksgiving.  As in, 7 days.  Even in the crappy game of retail - that is some real BS, folks.  My store can function just fine and doesn't require my physical presence to do business.  Thankgod.

The interviewer also talked significantly about "work-life balance", which is a fun little phrase that I think can cover all kinds of poor management strategies.  She even said that she personally really valued work-life balance - but also that she was available "24/7" to her team and her family was grown so she was all work, all the time.  RED FLAGS DANGER WILL ROBINSON.

(Side note:  who is Will Robinson?  I feel better now that I know that.)

So.  I obviously turned down the job cold.  She told me that she was really pleased with my offer (it was a definite low-ball, 100%), and I said I just felt like there was a lot of lip service to a company practice that was probably not totally on board with the concept.

It felt good to know that I can make a move when the right job comes along, and it also really felt good to say no to something that was just going to end up  being a huge mistake.

I'm fairly certain this is not what I was planning to blog about today.  Like - not by a long shot.  But all through February I had this weight on my chest and felt like I needed to make a move, make some decisions, and nothing paralyzes me more than a life-altering decision.  Blah.

Onward and upward, March!  Don't let me down!

Side note:  If you too have a bad habit of eating your feelings, don't marry my husband because he is an enabler.  We had planned a little midweek date with the TV and in the midst of my stressing, he brought me something from the Taco Bell drive through... and it was literally disgusting and delicious at the same time.

Cinnabon Delights.  Seriously, don't even try them.  It's like an elephant ear had a baby with cream cheese frosting.  Warm, melty cream cheese frosting.  I don't remember loving them while I was eating but omg I've having bad dreams about them now.

Certainly that helps with the end of February funk, right?