Weeds

Last night my roommate and I (Have I mentioned she's the best roommate EVER! My other roommate, Spike, the sharpshooter with an anger problem, is the second best roommate ever) tackled my yard. I've been so busy lately with grad school (it's over Monday... yea!) that I haven't had a spare minute to do yardwork. It got so bad that I had to close my eyes each night as I pulled into my driveway because the sight of all those tall weeds made my eyes bleed.

Okay, now I'm just being mellodramatic, but it looked awful.

So roommate mowed and I edged, then we both swept. When we got done, I decided to pull a few of the big weeds. And all of a sudden, I couldn't stop. Every time I thought I was finished, I would spot a new clump of those little suckers. I had fun social plans for the evening, but I couldn't seem to tear myself away from pulling those weeds. I think it was because I could see immediate progress, and the night was pretty, and the ground was damp so they came out fairly easily. Whatever it was, my obsession grew and grew until I filled a full garbage bag. I wanted to keep going, but my friends were expecting me, so I finally gave in and quit.

But this morning, as I sit down to work on my research paper, I have this strange, burning desire to go pull more weeds! I think it may be a problem. Or maybe it's my subconscious telling me it's sick of working on this research paper.

Maybe I'll go pull just one...

Complaint Blog

It's bad enough that I have to spend my beautiful Sunday afternoon doing homework instead of playing flag football with my church friends... but when I downloaded and printed the 20-page article off of some random business database that I'll have to critique (among several assignments on my list for today)... the text is so blurry I can barely read it. So I get to read 20 pages of blurry text. Thanks a lot. It's bad enough that this will be negatively impacting my social life, but now it's also goign to make me go blind.

So here's my critique--if you're going to spend a year of your life getting an article published, at least make sure it's readable!

Boo school! Thank goodness there's just one more week!

Behind

Sorry that I'm behind on posting new blogs, but if it makes you feel better, I'm behind on most things at the moment. I'm behind on homework, behind on putting up my laundry, behind on running some errands. As soon as I catch up, I'll be back. In the meantime, I've had a great week...

-I planted 120 flowers in my front graden over the weekend. Pink petunias and cute little silver leaf plants. My garden definitely says "girly"! I'm taking bets on how long they survive my green thumb...

-Monday was my favorite middle sister's birthday (I also have a favorite little sister, but her birthday isn't until December). The big 2-4 celebration will last all week, culminating with a huge night out this weekend. I already have my shirt (and dancing shoes) picked out.

-Last night, as part of birthday celebration week, my two sisters and I went and got pedicures and then to our favorite little coffee shop to hang out afterward. I never laugh so hard as when I'm with my sisters. They're hilarious, and totally "get" me. Now we all have gorgeous,pampered toes painted a vast array of bright colors.

Now it's time to catch up on putting away that laundry that is sitting on my bed so that I have a place to sleep tonight. That means I can cross one "to-do" item off my list. Eighty more to go.

Oh--and tomorrow I have to give a speech in front of 200 business people. Here's hoping that tomorrow's speech won't make my Top 10 List of Most Embarassing Moments. I hope it's nice and forgettable.

Random hilarity (at least, to me)

I was shopping at Target tonight, and heard the following page over the intercom:

"Pam Beasley, please report to Register 26. Pam Beasley, please report to Register 26."

It's good to have The Office back. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Then tonight I saw this story on Yahoo. I love how superstitious all sports fans seem to be. Apparently when you put on the jersey, you check your sanity at the dugout. But I support anything to make the Yankees lose.

Middle-of-the-night severe weather blog

I seem to be blogging a lot before 6 a.m. and it needs to stop. This morning at 3:30 I woke up to a huge storm--louder than I have heard in a long time. My electricity was out, the wind was howling, and it sounded like hail pelting my windows. I have put off buying a weather radio for a year, so I had no way of knowing if what I was experiencing was as bad as it would be, or if tornadoes were on their way. I would hate to get hit by a tornado while I lay in bed reading an US Weekly under the covers with my flashlight instead of hiding in my closet under a mattress like a responsible girl.

So I woke up my roommate, called and woke up sister Lindsay, who lives in Dallas, and she was kind enough to relay the weather warnings from the TV news. Apparently we were under a tornado warning, along with my parents who live about 30 minutes away. So I called home and woke them up, then got back on the phone with Lindsay so we could get updates and find out when it was safe to go back. It was a funny sight... me, my roommate, and Harley the Wonder Schnoodle, hiding under a mattress in my closet, with my comforter just in case we needed the extra cover. After 30 minutes of waiting (and catching up with Lindsay on school, work, and life while we had her on speaker phone), she cleared us to go back to bed. But now it's 4:30 and I am wide awake, unable to sleep and happy that I at least have a wireless internet connection.

I think we did well tonight. Tomorrow I may be hating life as I try to work with only 4 hours of sleep, but tonight we were brave and resourceful. I found the following quote, and while I don't fully understand the meaning, I think it's pretty fun, sassy, and a bit descriptive of our evening:

When life gets you down - just put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

Office

The Office is back tomorrow! After six months of no new Jim love, he and the rest of the crew are back, and I can't wait! I'm supposed to have a watching party after my softball game tomorrow night, but my Tivo is on the blink, so we may be in trouble. Would it be inappropriate for me to skip my softball game to watch a TV show?

We lost, but it's okay

The Rangers lost their home opener 8-1, but I didn't really care. We never led the whole game... in every clutch situation, we blew it.

But I didn't care, because I was having too much fun. About three hours before the game, someone gave me a handful of suite tickets to the game, so I got to bring my parents and a couple friends to hang out, eat lunch (and ice cream in a helmet!) and enjoy baseball.



I was supposed to go again tonight, but the game was postoned due to bad weather. I'm relieved, because the weather guy was predicting heavy hail, tornadoes and flooding. And since I'm a big scaredy-cat, I whimped out and stayed home. I think we're clear now, although my dog is still a little worked up. He's scared of storms, and I'm scared of having my car get hailed on. After all, Snowflake (my car) is sensitive.

I'm also posting some pictures from last week's Mav's game:



In this picture below, it looks like a giant pepper is balancing on my head...

Opening Day!

I'm so excited about my Texas Rangers' Opening Day today that I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and haven't been able to go back to sleep. My stomach is doing flip-flops as I think about how fun it will be to be back at the Ballpark, with all the familiar sights and smells and sounds... the crack of the bat, the national anthem, our first good play, the dot race, hot dogs and peanuts and lemon chills...

This day ranks just behind Christmas as my favorite day of the year. Probably because going to baseball games is one of my favorite childhood memories. The moment I step into a ballpark, everything seems comfortable and easy and fun. Nothing else seems to matter. For four hours, it's just me and 40,000 other people like me getting to watch a baseball game.

Go Rangers. Play ball!

I must be nuts

Over the past week, I have done the following:

Biked 8 miles.
Played 1 softball game.
Played 1 whiffle ball game.
Played 2 hours of flag football.
Played 1 hour of sand volleyball.
Roller bladed 10 miles around a lake.

So now I'm bruised, sore, slightly sunburned, worn out, and quite content. It was a fun weekend!

Home run

This has been a pretty cool week.

Wednesday I went to a Mavericks game (saw Dirk's first game back from his ankle injury) and sat right behind the Mavs' bench. Even better, they won!

Thursday I hit a home run at my softball game. That happens... well... never. But somehow I hit it over the outfielders' heads and made it all the way home without getting thrown out. I think it was a miracle from God. It's the only plausible explanation.

Then tonight I saw Ginny Owens in concert at my favorite coffee shop. She is wonderful--her lyrics express a lot of the things that go through my head on a regular basis. I already have several of her songs on my ipod, and I'll definitely be adding a few new ones this weekend.

The only thing I didn't do this week was sleep, and since I had a skinny cafe latte during the concert tonight, it looks like I won't be sleeping tonight either. Luckily, I have a Sunday School lesson to write, and maybe some itunes shopping to do later.

The worst feeling

Today I'm hosting a group of community leaders at the hospital all day for "health care day." They're learning all about health topics and getting the "inside scoop" on how hospitals really run. We're in a boardroom, listening to speaker after speaker, and I'm making sure everything runs smoothly.

Mid-morning, I had to switch out somebody's presentation on the computer at the front of the room. I was talking, and squatted down quickly to stick the flash drive in the back of the computer.

RIP.

That's the worst feeling. Ever. I've got 20 community leaders staring at me, and I'm not sure if my pants are in one piece or two. Or in shreds. All I know is that I heard a terrible, terrible sound. A ripping sound, right in the back of my pants.

Thankfully, I only ripped the lining. The outside is still intact. For now at least.

But it looks like I'm going to need some new pants.