Because I Like To Torture Myself? April 5, 2010

Those of you who are friends with me, either in real life or in the world of Facebook, know that almost a year ago I took up running.  When I say “took up running”, I don’t mean just a couple of trips around the block to stay in shape, I mean running for the purpose of training for half marathons, and in October possibly my first full marathon.  A couple of weeks ago my boss sent me an e-mail that he had received from another district manager about a relay that one of his store mangers was trying to get a Starbucks team together for.  I did a little research and signed myself up to run.  I even got two of the people who work at my store involved.  Over the last week or so I have been thinking about what is actually involved in the relay, and here are some of the “highlights”.  Run approximately 15-20+ miles broken up in three sections over the course of about 28 hours, when not running ride in a van with 5 other sweaty people, get little to no sleep over the course of the relay, plan on spending the 24 hours after the relay exhausted and trying to catch up on not only a sleep you missed, but also resting from all the running.  The more I think about it, the less fun it sounds.  What on Earth have I gotten myself into?  And where am I going to poop during all of this?

How Lucky Can One Girl Be? March 29, 2010

When I was getting into my car after work today, I found this laying in the gutter next to my door.  I picked it up and popped it in my CD player, and quickly learned that I knew none of the songs on this disc.  I wasn’t surprised by this, because I mean really, Will Smith hasn’t had a decent song since he was the Fresh Prince…that was him, right?  I did get to hear a snippet of a song about him being a “nice guy”, as well as a little tune on which he was accompanied by Snoop Dogg, if you can believe that.  I had no idea they ran in the same circles.  Tomorrow when I go to work I may return this CD to the gutter where I found it.  It’s owner may be looking for it.  Which makes me wonder what the owner of this CD looks like…hmm, I’ll need to ponder that one.

Thanks Starbucks, You’re About To Make A Fatter America. March 24, 2010

Some of you may still not have heard this, but if you watched Ellen on Tuesday then you have already seen it.  Starbucks is set to introduce a new cold cup size called “trenta”.  Hold on to your hats and glasses kids, because this new size holds a whopping 30 oz. of liquid.  It’s like the Big Gulp of Starbucks.  I already feel bad when I have to serve someone a venti caramel frappuccino, which they have asked me to try to cram extra whipped cream and caramel sauce onto, but the first few times I have to serve one of these trenta beasts I might vomit a little in my mouth.  Seriously, what is America coming to?  Who needs that much caffeine and sugar?  I have had a couple of customers ask me about the new size, and it took all the power within me to not jump up on the counter and yell from the top of my lungs my manifesto of disgust about the trenta.  Just writing this blog post is making me angry, and a little sick to my stomach.  On a lighter note, here’s a video shot inside my store of one of our regular customers.  Last time he came in I had to kick him out for talking too loudly and being disruptive.  He told me that it was because Bill Gates was inside his brain.  I asked him if Bill Gates was going to be able to keep his voice down.  Yadda, yadda, yadda, he told me I was going to be terminated, yadda, yadda, yadda, I asked him to leave.  Enjoy.

The Things You Learn About The Person You’re Married To. March 22, 2010

Last night after an awesome day with our friends, and a great movie night with The Bean, Keith and I were in bed doing what a lot of couples I know do, which is fooling around…on our computers.  Some how we ended up on the topic of Amy Grant, and Keith said that he used to like her. In fact, I think he might have even said that she was cute.  Whatever.  I said that in her videos, the ones that pissed off Christians everywhere, you know, this one, and this one where in both she can be seen canoodling with a man who is not her husband, that she could pass for Elaine from Seinfeld (back there when I typed “this one” twice, that was supposed to link you to the YouTube videos of “Baby Baby” and “Good For Me”, but thanks to embedding disablement, you will just have to look them up yourself.  I would recommend it, by the way, as they are quite a visual slice of the 90’s).  Then Keith came across this video, which I must say is probably one of the scariest things that the 80’s left behind.  The pants and jacket say it all, and boy are there a lot of white people in that audience.  Oh sweet, contemporary Christian music.  Your beginnings are so sad.

Because I’m Too Tired To Be Witty March 18, 2010

To most of you this video is old news, but personally I don’t think that you can put a time line on funny, which is why I have decided to post it here on my blog.  Keith played this for some guys at our house on Sunday, and I don’t think that either of them laughed once.  When it was over all they really talked about was which guys didn’t deserve to be in it.  I don’t now if that was a round about way of saying that they should be in the club instead of these celebrities or not.  Either way, here you go.  And I somehow want to figure out how to get Keith to let me name our next child Handsome Hawk.

My Contribution To Late Night Breast Feeding Mothers Everywhere. March 17, 2010

My husband informed me a few days ago that I had been called out by a friend of ours for not keeping up my blog.  This friend of ours would probably not even realize that I wasn’t blogging if it weren’t for the fact that she is a new mother, and spends a lot of late nights with her boobs hanging out looking for something entertaining to keep her from falling asleep on the adorable creature suckling below.  In my defense, I must say that I have a very good reason for not blogging, and that reason is…Facebook.  I may have mentioned that before on here, but it’s seriously addicting.  I literally could spend my whole evening with my laptop on my lap (of course) refreshing the Facebook status update page every 2 minutes, waiting for someone new to post an interesting tidbit.  Every once in a while I will check out the pictures page, but mostly I’m just a constant “refresher”.  Wow, now that I say that, I sound pretty pathetic.  Jamie, I promise you that I will try to limit my sad, sad obsession so that in those wee hours of the morning I can offer you at least a few minutes of entertainment.  If I am successful your husband’s boyfriend (Stephen) will be so happy as well.  Love you Jamie, and I want to eat your baby’s face up…in a good way.

We May Need To Pad Her Room. November 23, 2009

Tonight was another spirit night at Chick-fil-a for Ellie’s school, so once again I called on the Hutton’s to come with me since Keith couldn’t make it, and that way I wouldn’t have to brave the restaurant full of two to five year olds by myself.  Dinner was lovely, and when “Mark” came over to say hello to Ellie, Jackson didn’t look like he was going to beat him up.  He did however stare him down and then make fun of him after he left.  Three year olds can be mean too.  Ellie had said that she wanted ice cream and I told her that she had to finish her chicken first, but she said that she was done and told me that I could eat it.  I was not going to pass up the offer because those chicken nuggets are some of the most delicious bites every made.  So as we’re leaving Ellie says again that he wants ice cream, and I again told her no because she didn’t finish her chicken, and that my friends is when the child LOST HER MIND!  Right then she started screaming…SCREAMING, about how she wanted to eat her chicken.  Even Mike couldn’t calm her down, and she looooooves Uncle Mike.  She screamed at the top of her lungs and kicked all the way through the parking lot.  Then once in the car she continued to scream for another 20 minutes.  I have never seen a temper tantrum so grand in my life.  Me laughing through most of it probably didn’t help, but the fact that she screamed “I WANNA EAT MY CHICKEN”, chicken that she knew didn’t exist, for over 20 minutes was hilarious.

Not One, But Three. November 18, 2009

Update on a previous post. The doctors have found not one bone marrow match for little Liam, but three.  If everything works out well he will have his transplant early next year.  Thank you to all of you who prayed and registered yourself to be a donor, and I know Liam and his family thank you too.

This Is For My Friend Katie. November 14, 2009

Hopefully it doesn’t send her into a major panic attack.

Never Would Have Thought About It Before. November 12, 2009

Meet my friend Ann, and her youngest son Liam.  I have known Ann since first grade.  She and I started elementary school together, then we went to high school together, then she moved to Southern California while I went to a junior college back home.  When my roommate Jenn and I, who also went to high school with Ann, the two of them were practically inseparable, moved to Southern California for school I got to hang out with Ann a lot more.  She and I would spend our Summer’s tanning and loading up on Caramel Frappuccinos, while perfecting our Britney Spears dance moves.  Ann has since moved back to Northern California and married an awesome guy named Jeff.  Together they have two little boys, Cole who is three, and Liam who turned one a few months ago.  The last time I saw Ann was when she was still pregnant with Liam, so unfortunately I have never had the opportunity to meet the little guy, but this blog post is actually about him.  A few months ago Liam was diagnosed with a disease called HLH.  It is an extremely rare disease that requires chemo, spinal taps, MRIs and possibly bone marrow transplants, but it is not cancer.  Since the diagnosis Liam has had good days and bad days, and if you have children of your own you can imagine how hard those bad days can be on Ann and Jeff.  Liam has had to spend nights alone in the hospital because he was so sick.  Through all of this Ann and her sisters have kept everyone up to date through the power of Facebook.  Because of this I came to realize how important it was to become a bone marrow doner.  What if I am able to help Liam or another person out there.  I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to help my friend, or a total stranger whose life I could save.  So tonight my swab kit came in the mail.  It took me about five minutes to take four swabs of my cheek cells which I will send off to the bone marrow registry, who will let me know if I am a match for anyone in the future.  If you are interested in helping someone you may or may not know, and are willing to donate some marrow, check out this link.  http://www.marrow.org/