Love Love

Remember on Shrek when Shrek asks Donkey, “Really?” and Donkey replies, “Really Really!”? Well that has always stuck with me, and it extends to love. I sometimes tell Taylor that I ”love love” him – because saying it once isn’t enough. So, in honor of the DAY OF LOVE, but without grossing anyone out, here are a few things that I love love:

- Chocolate mousse. Seriously. I could eat it every night for dinner with a glass of red wine and be the world’s happiest (and fattest?) girl

- Dancing

- Red Dirt Country Music. Jason Boland, I die every time.

- Sitting around a fire, listening to a friend playing guitar, and drinking red wine. All 3 separately, or any combination of the 3.

- Reading trashy gossip magazines

- Red carnations. Snap dragons. Orchids.

- Puppy breath

- Hugs from the Harold (officially called the “Wheaten Welcome”, Wheatens innately know how to give you a hug)

- Road trips

- Sunsets in Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona, California, and Mexico.

- Pedicures

- Perfectly cooked, lemony white fish with asparagus, orzo, and lots of red wine.

- The very few and far between nights where I can pretend I’m in college again.

- Dallas, and everything that comes with it.

- Hugs

- The smell of brewing coffee, especially Dunkin Donuts Hazelnut or Java Dave’s Snickerdelicious

- Pioneer Woman’s Drip Beef (the recipe that uses pepperoncinis). It could convert a vegetarian, no joke.

- Skeleton Keys

Oh there’s so much more.

What are some things that you love love?

Dine Out for Haiti This Weekend

Don’t cook on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday! DINE OUT FOR HAITI at any of the following restaurants and help others while maintaining your own peace of mind (i.e. no kids arguing with you over what to eat!):

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Hope to see you all out there!

Why I Haven't Been Around Lately

Okay so I know I took some time to put up a few quick posts apologizing for my absence and giving a half-hearted effort at posting the COTW, but now I can finally let you guys know what I’ve been doing.

Last week I was in Baltimore for the National Association of College Admissions Counselors national conference. Since we work with colleges and universities, this is our prime opportunity to interact with our clients and meet potential new clients. This was a very exciting conference for us, because we unveiled what we have been tirelessly working on: our new iPhone App for schools!

Video here:

Yes, I helped build that. Not all the code and stuff, that was left up to programmers. But I got to help “make it look pretty.” And I absolutely love it.

SO if you know anyone who works at a college or university, we would love to talk to them. I know it’s a shameless plug, but as a college alumna, I would L*O*V*E it if my alma mater had an iPhone app. Wouldn’t YOU?

Anyway, I’ve been helping work on that, and now it’s out there in the market, so hopefully I’ll have time to write on here some more.

Take care!

-C-

COTW: RAINN

I know I have been MIA lately and I apologize profusely. I am in the midst of moving and just found out we’re changing our move date to TOMORROW instead of Friday, so this is my 5 minute break from running around like a chicken with my head cut off we moved a day earlier than planned, so I had taken a bit of time to post a Charity of the Week. (Also, I apologize for not posting anything, even a charity, last week.)

The Charity of the Week this last week (but let’s carry it into this week) is:

 

My good friend Mel suggested this cause to me (suggestions/comments/questions are always welcome!) and I had to move it above a couple of other philanthropies on my list. It is such a good cause and yet another way that we can all help, whether by giving money, time, or just by spreading the word. Christina Ricci is the spokesperson for RAINN, and I have tremendous respect for her. I have tremendous respect for any actor or celebrity who use their fame for good.

Since school is starting this month, RAINN is presenting National Campus Safety Awareness Month. Let’s promote campus safety as students go back to school. Encourage college-age women you know to carry their cell phones and keys with them when they leave a building (rather than become distracted by digging through their purses), to use the buddy system, and to always let people know where they are going and when they plan to return. Small acts such as this that are normally taken for granted could save lives.

So this week (and month) let’s spread the word for RAINN.

Aww, She's All Growed Up!

Can I just say that married life has been great for Fergie? I mean, look how awesome she looks – natural makeup, clear face sans eyebrow piercing, and luscious dark locks (no more brassiness!). Now, if only “My Humps” didn’t pop into my head every time I see her…

She got that Boom Boom Pow!

Definitely Fergalicious (come on, I had to).

Because She's a Catie…

Lance Armstrong twittered this link and I thought I would throw it in here because her name was “Catie” and because it’s a great cause…all you people in Texas, keep an eye out for this!

http://vivacatie.blogspot.com/

New Obsession: Planet Earth

Sorry if the title is misleading – I have not gone green or become obsessed with saving our planet (although that is very commendable and I do try to be green in whatever I can…after all, I did trade in my SUV for a fuel-efficient Honda Civic). No, what I am saying is that Taylor and I stumbled upon the Planet Earth series on the Discovery Channel and I am now obsessed! This 11-part mini series took over 2000 days to film, with crew members sometimes sitting in blinds, by themselves, for 8 hours a day for weeks. Now that’s dedication! Taylor and I have DVR’d almost all of the episodes and watch 1 or 2 each night. If you haven’t watched yet, tune in the the Discovery Channel and find out what you’re missing out on!!

PLANET EARTH: DISCOVERY CHANNEL

Kim Loves Her Curves

Okay, so if I had cellulite and still looked like this:

Kim Kardashian's New Cover Shoot for Life & Style

I WOULD LOVE MY CURVES, TOO!

As is, every day I find another little wrinkle or bump, and I curse Father Time. Kim, we now have a love/hate relationship. I still love you, but I hate my genes just a little bit more.

I’ll probably feel better when the sun is shining again and I can get just a teensy bit more tan…

This Will Be FUN!

Okay so one of my new favorite blogs is 2Birds1Blog and today I was reading a post from earlier this year and it reminded me so much of myself that I have decided to do a fun little exercise. I am going to paste the entry in here (giving credit, of course – see above) and then I am going to talk about how I have done close to or almost the exact same thing. Everything in red is from 2B1B – everything in black is from me. Feel free to do it for yourself as well. HERE GOES:

An Annotated Anthology of Awkward

One of my defining characteristics has always been that I’m “charmingly awkward.” Charmingly awkward just means that means I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m awkward and frequently find myself in awkward situations, but said awkwardness doesn’t interfere with being able to function in society on a daily basis (for the most part). Well, tonight I was feeling a bit nostalgic and decided to read the LiveJournal I kept in college. I thought my emo little Internet journal would be full of rich and compelling entries about growing up, finding myself, discovering what I wanted to do with my life and the like. Instead, my journal is basically an anthology of awkwardness. I feel like at least 70% of my entries end with one of the following: “God I’m so awkward,” “God my life is awkward,” or “I am so painfully awkward.”

Here are some choice excerpts:

• In college writing this morning we had a round table discussion that I was not having. Instead I decided to fantasize about watching Golden Girls and eating a delicious bagel with Helena, Caitlin and Allie after class…because the only reason I go to college writing is to get a bagel on the way back. Anyways, apparently I was thinking about how sweet my bagel would be when people started counting off 1 through 5 as a means of assigning groups for some activity we had to do. So then all of a sudden I’m hearing “1,2,3,4″ and then everyone is looking at me and I had to be like “uhhh…how high are we counting here?” and my professor was like “…..5. You are 5.” God I’m awkward. 
• C: Kind of like how the only reason I used to go to the SUB was so I could get a kolache from Shipley’s…no way was I really studying OR going to Dr. Pepper Hour. Also, I have totally zoned out in class (not to mention in my Leadership class while we were at the Ropes Course, which luckily ended with no serious injuries) and been called on and looked completely idiotic because I had no clue what was going on.

 

• Yesterday I had a total Tommy Boy moment. I got out of Religion early because we had a test, so I was going to jet over to Hurst to drop a paper off that was due in a half an hour. So I walk up the marble stairs to the old doors and I was tugging on them and it wouldn’t open and I was like “SHIT! THEY LOCKED ‘EM!” I was pacing back and forth wondering what I was going to do. Finally I just walked away and then these construction workers were like “MISS, YOU JUST HAVE TO PUSH THE DOOR NOT PULL!! IT’S NOT THAT HARD!” I was like “oh…hah…thanks.” Awkward.
• C: Remember freshman year, when we had an actual fountain that looked like the Vietnam Memorial in the middle of campus (between Carroll Science and the SUB)? Yeah, I fell  in. Multiple times. Many times while trying NOT to fall in. Also, when I wanted to be a Biology major for about 2 weeks I got a C- on my first exam and thought that was the BEST GRADE EVER and had a total, “I passsssed!! I’m gonna graduate” moment, even though it was 10 days into freshman year.

 

• I was so tired this morning. When I was getting coffee before class, instead of pouring the cream into my coffee and throwing the empty container in the trashcan, I poured the cream in the trashcan and then dropped the container into my coffee. A janitor laughed at me. God I’m awkward…
• C: This is what happens when your college puts a Starbucks in the parking garage and you and your roomate DRIVE to the other side of campus, even though you live a block away from campus, and you just want a double tall mocha that badly even though since you stayed up the whole night before and you could have slept another 45 minutes. Ohhh Garage-majal, I miss you.

• I fell asleep in class today but snapped back awake when my head did that dozing off thing. I went to chug some coffee and didn’t realize my mouth was no where near the opening…so I just put the cup up to my mouth and leaned back and poured coffee all over myself. Ugh, awkward.
• C: The first time this happened to me, I wasn’t even in college yet. I was sitting in my AP Chemistry class and instead of my head snapping back, I actually fell forward and hit my forehead on the lab desk (and knocked over my coffee). This was particularly bad because my teacher was a Vietnam vet who was sliced hip-to-hip by “Charlie” and upon hearing the loud noise, proceeded to yell at us all to, “GET ON YOUR BELLIES!” Very bad.

 

• Today I was writing my paper and listening to my itunes and I double clicked the song “Bootylicious” and a window popped up that said “WARNING: YOUR COMPUTER IS NOT AUTHORIZED TO PLAY “BOOTYLICIOUS” I died laughing because all I could think of was “Kelly, can you handle this? Michelle, can you handle this? Beyonce, can you handle this? Meg’s computer, can you handle this? I DON’T THINK YOU’RE AUTHORIZED TO HANDLE THIS, WOOOOOOOO!” …Sorry. That was awkward. [note: It's a whole other level of special when you can make it awkward with yourself in your own personal journal.]
• C: I just think this is funny.

 

• My dorm phone has been broken for a really long time [note: dorm phones?! How archaic!] Some old guy was just banging on my door. I freaked out thinking it’s the guy that’s going around harassing girls on my floor, but it turns out he’s here to fix our phone. Finally! The only problem is that I have Golden Girls on and he keeps stopping to watch it for extended periods of time. He’s like openly laughing out loud at it. I really have to take a shower now, but I don’t want to prance around in my robe for him.Ugh, I don’t want to awkwardly ask him to stop watching Golden Girls and fix my phone and get out of my dorm….This sucks.
• C: My first DAY in the dorm, my neighbor’s dad was helping her move in but since it was after 6:00 pm (we had visiting hours, yea private school!), I figured no one except residents would be in the hall. WRONG! The minute I step into the hall, wearing only a towel and carring my shower caddy, I RUN SMACK DAB INTO MY NEIGHBOR’S DAD. Also, I watch(ed) Golden Girls whenever possible

 

• I forgot to bring a jewel case for the CD that my design project is on. So what do I use to protect my CD? A ZIPLOCK BAG WITH LITTLE BITS OF CRUNCHED GOLDFISH CRACKERS AT THE BOTTOM I FOUND IN MY MESSENGER BAG FROM GOD ONLY KNOWS WHEN. Who the fuck does that? And then to compensate, I wrote “sorry about the bag” on it, but I forgot the “y” in the word sorry. So I had to draw a little carrot and a y, making myself look like an even bigger asshole. So now I’m that girl who came into class 20 minutes late the first day, who’s computer is never connected to the server and who presented her first project in a ziplock bag with bits of goldfish crackers and “sorr for the bag” scrawled on it. I am so fucking awkward. [note: I damn near had a panic attack remembering this incident. The next time our class met, the professor (whom I had such a huge crush on) held up the bag in front of the entire class and delivered a five-minute lecture on how disrespectful I was and how designers who don't take pride in their deliverable should change their major. I have never felt so stupid in my entire life. I went back to my dorm room and cried my fucking eyes out. Oh my God.]
• C: In college, I didn’t really think I would “need” to know how to use PowerPoint, so I never really tried to learn it. That is, until I had to do a presentation for my honors class and every other person had all these charts, slideshows, graphs, videos, spreadsheets, graphic design animation, what-have-you…and I showed up with a single-column handout. That looked like I had typed it out right before the class. I got an A on the presentation, but scored lowest out of 200 people on “presentation materials.”

• This morning I remembered that I was freak dancing with Danielle’s Big’s boyfriend at formal Saturday night and he randomly asked me what my favorite letter is. Regrettably, I answered with “DUH, it’s R” He asked why, to which I responded “because RRRRRrrrraaaaaaarrrrarrrrr” whilst doing a sexual cheetah-clawing motion at him…awkward.
• C: Some advice…never mix screwdrivers and foam crush parties. You WILL smell like orange juice, and you WILL make the exact same face in every. single. picture.

• I seriously am the most awkward person alive. I should not be allowed to interact with people. For one of my rolls of film, I took a picture of these two puppets my dad brought back from Thailand. I had just made a test of the contact sheet with those pictures on it when in swoops the fabulous Iwan [legendary hip photo professor at AU] with his fabulous Gucci shoes and matching belt all- “Darling, let me see that.” So I hand him my contact sheet all nervous like. He sees the picture of the Thai dolls and goes: “Ohh! You have Asian parents?? You were adopted, that’s FAHHHBULOUS!” My response: “…Yes. Yes I have Asian parents.” Iwan: “That is fabulous!” Me: “…Yea, adoptions not bad.” WHAT THE HELL?! Who does that?? So he can never meet my parents and/or I’ll have to hire Asian actors to be my parents if he ever needs to meet them.
• C: This is just funny. Nothing about my family, except I think I was the only kid at my college who had divorced parents.

• This morning in Gender in Society, we were discussing “The Glass Escalator” which is when men enter “women’s fields” like teaching and get promoted quickly to administrative positions because they are men…patriarchy…matrix of domination…blah blah blah. Anyway, all I could think of was Mr. Feeny from “Boy Meets World” and how he was first their middle school teacher and then followed them to high school and finally was promoted to became a college professor. Mr. Feeny like owned the Glass Escalator. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about how hot Eric Mathews was. And how comical Rider Strong’s name is, and how odd it is that he’s gay. Who knew?! Then I realized why I have an A in the class and a D in participation. So when I was walking to Art of the Renaissance, I was still thinking about my Mr. Feeny-Glass-Escalator-Theory and blatantly tripped and fell flat on my face in the quad, producing a giant cut on my leg, which was bleeding during class. So there I am, bleeding-out in the middle of class trying to take notes and maintain consciousness. Why is my life so awkward?
• C: Why did I not know Rider Strong was gay?? (Ride-her Strong, tee-hee!!)

• [This is a story about doing a design project with a senior designer who I had a crush on when I was a freshman] It was one of those situations where in your head you’re thinking, “OMG WHY ARE YOU BEING SO AWKWARD?! THIS IS NOT YOU! SAY SOMETHING BACK TO HIM, HE JUST ASKED FOR YOUR OPINION!!!” and all that comes out is “Uhh, yea. Good stuff.” I think I said “good stuff” like 80 times. And of all the lame things to say, why “good stuff”?? We later had to relocate to the design lab in McKinley. Once we got there, he used this random-ass back entrance that I didn’t know existed. I didn’t want him to think that I was some amateur 19 year-old design girl, so I was like err yea I know where I’m going. So we walk in and I head for the left hall and he heads right. Hot Design Boy: “Oh…you go that way?” Me (trying not to star in amateur hour): “Oh yea…all the time. But let’s go your way!” Hot Design Boy: “Oh no, I want to see your way, I didn’t even know you could go this way.” Me (thinking ‘oh shit I have no fucking clue where I’m going, this building is a maze’): “Umm okay…follow me!” So I lead him around the building for like 5 minutes not knowing where the hell I’m going. At every intersection he’d go one way and I’d go another and he’d be like “Oh…you can go that way?” until finally he was like “…you don’t know where you’re going, do you?” ::Meg hangs head in shame:: “That’s correct, sir.” So. painfully. awkward.
• C: If you knew me, at all, you knew about either Hot BIC Brian, or Reid the English grad student. Or Both. Because I literally drooled whenever they came around.

 

• I awkwardly outed Andrew to our entire comm class today. We were sitting in class at the conference table and Andrew informed everyone that the British Navy is apparently trying to recruit gay men. So I slapped Andrew on the back and said, “HAHA! Looks like you’re going to sea Andrew!” He was not thrilled. But that just gets him back for the time we were having lunch with a bunch of people that I didn’t know and he chose to break a lull in conversation with “Hey, did you guys know that Meg invented the blow job and now calls it a “Row Job?”
• C: Chase??

• This morning when I was walking back to my apartment, Scott Kalman (better known as “Sweater Vest Scott”) was approaching. We proceeded to (and in COMPLETE synchronization) do the meeting of eyes and slow head-nod to acknowledge each other. However, we did this social ritual faaarr too early. So after we did the head-nod, we were still walking towards each other for about 10 more seconds. And we were both listening to ipods, so we couldn’t really do the “How are you?” courtesy conversation to pass the time, so we both just kind of awkwardly kept nodding our heads. It was intensely awkward. And I couldn’t help but laugh. Which added to the awkwardasity of the situation. It reminded me of the time over the summer where I ran into Jeremy and we hugged, but he added the courtesy cheek kiss to the mix. I hadn’t taken him for the kind of guy who busts out the courtesy cheek kiss, so I didn’t reciprocate, instead I thought about how I really didn’t take him for a courtesy cheek kisser and then I was like shit, COURTESY CHEEK KISS BACK ASAP! So, a delayed five seconds after our hug was over I was like…….MWAAAA, and kissed him on the cheek, which at that point just seemed like a random and oddly affectionate thing to do to someone I’m not that great of friends with. Awkward.
• C: Any of my fraternity guy friends…or J, my “we’re going to date but not really even though we don’t really see anyone else because we’re in college and shouldn’t have titles” thing.

There’s a fine line between quirky and Asperger’s. And apparently in college I was flirting with that line. A lot.

Apologizing in Advance

So I am going to go ahead and apologize in advance, but I will probably be MIA for the next few weeks. We have a LOT going on and I will have to be around to help the Hubs as much as possible. Just to show you what we are up against, here is a very brief timeline/countdown:

April 18-21: I just got done with a work conference in Raleigh, NC

April 27: Taylor’s last day of law school (!!!)

April 29: Taylor starts finals

May 4: Taylor finishes finals

May 5: My brother-in-law and his wife find out the sex of their baby

May 8: My 25th birthday, and Taylor’s mom and sister arrive for graduation weekend

May 9: Taylor graduates from LAW SCHOOL, dinner with the fam for his graduation, my birthday, and mother’s day

May 10: Mother’s Day, Taylor’s mom and sis leave

May 23-25: Memorial Day Weekend (lake with friends)

May 29-31: Shawna’s, Mindy’s and Blake’s weddings and surrounding events

So if I don’t have anything fun/new/interesting to post for a while, that’s why. Sorry!! Leave some love!