"Beam Me Up, Scotty"

I put this outfit on yesterday and when Ken sees me wearing it the first thing he says is "Beam me up, Scotty," the famous quote from Star Trek.  This somehow reminds him of what Spock and Captain Kirk were wearing in the shows.  Kind of a stretch I think, but Ken had fun with it as we ran our errands yesterday.  Everywhere we went I heard "Beam me up, Scotty!"  

I actually bought this dress from Bebe's about two years ago.  Either I've gotten bigger or it has shrunk so now I wear leggings under it unless I'm at the beach.  The leggings came from Cache, BCBG shoes from Saks Fifth Avenue and Louis Vuitton handbag and sunglasses, also purchased at Saks Fifth Avenue.

"Beam Me Up, Scotty!"

Tattletale

This morning as Ken (aka The Murph) and I were about to walk in our gym, we saw this little old lady trying really hard to pull into a parking spot.  It was the first spot and she had taken a sharp left and then had to take another sharp left to get into the spot.  A large, white minivan was parked next to the spot she was trying to get into, so she had to maneuver her car for several minutes to get into the spot without bumping the white minivan.  She wasn't doing very well and from our vantage spot, it looked like she was bumping the side of the van at least 3 times as she backed up, went forward, bump, backed up, went forward, bump..... this went on for at least 5 minutes as Ken and I watched horrified.

We could still see her maneuvering when we went inside the gym.  Ken told the girl at the desk about it.  We then watched as the little old lady got parked, fumbled around inside her car for another 5 minutes, hung a handicap sign from her rear view mirror, and hobbled out of her car to the beauty parlor next door.

Ken was beside himself.  The girl at the gym and I felt sorry for the little old lady and didn't think he should tell on her.  Rude, idiot drivers are one of his pet peeves, but this was just a little handicapped old woman.  He always complains about drivers around here so when he sees somebody hit another vehicle and not even put a note on the car she hit, well, that's it!  The old woman just got out of her car and went to get her hair done.

 To top it off, he then sees the owner of the white minivan, another elderly woman,  come out of the beauty parlor and get in her car to drive away.  He runs out of the gym to stop the woman in the minivan to tell her about the little old lady bumping her car.  She sees him running toward her and looks a little scared as she's trying to hurry away.  Ken was able to stop her before she got away and tell on the little old handicap woman.  Luckily, there was no damage done to the minivan and the minivan wasn't in that great shape anyway.  The minivan owner seemed to know the" hit and run" lady and said everything was all right.

 Ken felt better.  I couldn't help teasing him a little though for "telling on" a little, old, handicapped lady.  Ken the Tattletale.

Sweet Tea - Gotta Have It

My fav sweet tea

Ken and I usually do our grocery shopping on Friday or Saturday, but I'm already out of sweet tea which I have to have, so we went to the store today after our walk.  Ken doesn't really appreciate sweet tea and thinks I shouldn't drink it.  He thinks I am too obsessed with it and it's almost like a drug that makes me way to hyper for him to handle.  Ha! Ha!   He doesn't even recognize his refrigerator and pantry since I moved in.  His diet was way healthier than mine.  His idea of flax seed is this....ground up and added to his morning smoothie....

Mine is this...  right after I've had a couple of handfuls of chips and always accompanied by a glass of sweet tea in the largest glass I can find...

I go from eating something salty such as pretzels, crackers and potato chips, right to something sweet, usually cookies.  This amuses him.  Salty, sweet, salty, sweet.  This process goes on for most of the day.  Ken always has a grocery list when he goes to the store and he use to tell me to "just add what I wanted/needed to the list."  This didn't work for me because I don't know what I want or need until I get to the store.  It's usually Cape Cod Chips, some sort of cookies, crackers, cheese, bananas, power bars, fitness water, etc.  I have my favorite brands and I usually stick with them.  Now he just lists my stuff under "Barbie's (insert my real name here) Crap".

My crap includes, but isn't limited to some of these items....

Whenever Ken starts up on me about the sweet tea drinking, I come back on him about his beer drinking.  Ken's "crap" always includes these items....brands vary, but never, ever include Budweiser, Miller and most of the other domestic beers.  He's kind of a beer snob....

It's been over a year now and I'm still a sweet tea drinking, cookie eating Southern Gal and he's still my "piss drunk Irishman". ( I heard that expression once and thought it was funny so I use it on Ken since he's Irish even if he's not usually piss drunk.)   I told him if he wants me to give up my sweet tea then he's going to have to give up his beer.  I think I can safely say I'll be drinking sweet tea for a long, long time.

Ed And Boo And The Antique Chair

Ed and Boo (Ken's cats) are the sweetest cats of the bunch.  The other two cats (mine) are little rascals.  When I moved in with my cats and all my furniture, Ken wanted to give this antique chair to charity.  We couldn't find any of our friends or family who would take it.  After seeing these two kitties always hanging out on this chair, their favorite, I refuse to give it away.

 Ken says, "It has to go!"

I say, "No!"

The chair and these cats have endeared themselves to me.  Besides the chair is my favorite color.  Pink!

Busy Race Weekend

I know it has been several days since my last posts, but it has been a very busy weekend traveling, racing, and getting The Boy back to school.  I am just now getting back on the Internet and have only been using my phone to check emails.  I had about 200 to delete today when I finally hooked my laptop back up to the Internet.

Thursday we were on the road headed to the beach with a stop at The Boy's college to purchase his text books for the upcoming semester.  He is only taking 4 classes, but still the tab was almost $500.  Amazing what books cost these days.  He started reading one of them this weekend and says he's almost finished.  It was one on programming, of course, his favorite subject.

Saturday I competed in a 1/2 marathon in Pensacola Beach.  It was cold at the start, but not as cold as I thought it was going to be.  I thought the a.m. temp was going to be around 28 degrees F, but actually it was 47 F.  Not too bad when you are running.  It was a great race.  Only half the pain of a full marathon and there was no swimming involved since it wasn't a triathlon.  Not bad, not bad at all!  I can handle it.  I wasn't as under trained for it since I just did a full marathon in November and have been doing some faster running on the treadmill and a 12 miler and an 8 miler during the holidays.  My time was 1 hr 57 min which put me 4th in my age group.  My goal was to run it in under 2 hours, so I fulfilled my goal and only went through one bad spell around mile 11 when my feet were screaming in pain and my calves felt like somebody was sticking pins in them.  I decided for a brief moment that I hated myself for being so slow and out of shape.  Then somebody yelled that I was almost finished and I was coming in under 2 hours.  That made me feel better.  I started liking myself more and more and really felt great as I crossed the finish line.  Big hug to myself for being slow but not that slow and finishing the race in under my goal time and a bigger hug for Ken for being there to support me.  He's a great "athletic supporter."

My legs are still sore and I am walking funny.  Ken and The Boy make fun of my funny tip toe walking, but my calves are so tight and sore that I can't help it.  They need to get out there and run 13 miles before they make fun of me!

Today we just got back from dropping The Boy off at school.  I have my fingers crossed that he makes straight A's this semester.  I know he can do it!  (if he doesn't, I'm signing him up to run a marathon with me - ha!)  When he was little, he did participate in some very short triathlons and some fun runs and I pulled him behind me on my bike until he was old enough to ride his own bike.  That's the price a kid pays for having a parent who's a triathlete.  He's a good sport most of the time!

Sunrise with Ken, my athletic supporter

Beautiful day at the beach

Front group of runners

Here's my gloves....

The last of civilization until the turn around

Breakfast Of The Champs

This is what I actually had for breakfast this morning.  I was having a craving from my childhood days (about two years ago, ha).   A fruity blast from the past.

Ken couldn't believe I was really eating it this morning.  He actually tore himself away from his daily morning ritual of reading the news on his computer to come look at me shoveling it in my mouth.  He's never had any high sugar, artificially colored cereal in his life or any cereal that wasn't low sugar, high fiber for that matter.

He was better supervised on Saturday mornings as a child.  My brother and I were totally out of control and unsupervised on Saturday mornings.  My poor mother was worn out from trying to get us up for school during the week.  We could eat any sugary thing we wanted too including her soft drinks and chocolate candy bars if we could find her stash.  (My brother always could!)  All I needed was some Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker and Scooby Doo cartoons playing on the television.

Kitty Shit Ramblings

         The new litter box for the Murph's cats.  Simple, unpretentious,
 non self-cleaningso the cats have to do what Ken calls the "turd dance"

Yesterday Ken (aka The Murph) and I went to PetSmart to purchase new litter boxes for our four cats, fresh ones for the new year.  I keep one downstairs for my two cats, Phantom and Cadence and he has one upstairs for his two, Ed and Boo.  His cats have always used the basic, uncovered plastic box which is the cheapest and most economical one.  Mine use to use one of the more fancy covered ones with the filter on top until a couple of years ago when they started using the self-cleaning one.  This is the cadillac of all litter boxes and the most expensive.  They sell for around $100 compared to the most basic one for around $7.  The cats jump in, do their business and after a couple of minutes (to make sure the cats have had time to cover up their poop and jump back out) the litter box cleans itself out by pushing the kitty crap down to a special storage container at the bottom of the box while leaving the litter in the box ready for next time.  All you have to do is change out the storage container once a week and the cats don't have to jump into a dirty litter box if you forget to scoop.  Ken and I never scoop so I really liked this feature.

Unfortunately, the litter box stopped working while we were living at the beach last fall.  I'm not sure what happened, but probably the motor burned out.  That's my best guess anyway.  Special litter has to be used in it and maybe I forgot and put the wrong litter in it.  All litter looks alike to me.  Ken thought the litter box was a little much.   He said his cats were perfectly happy with their litter box and he thinks all cats should have to dance around their turds when they jump in the litter box.  Why should my cats be any different?  Personally, I kind of liked the idea that when my cats got into their litter box they weren't stepping in old poop and their paws were staying a little cleaner because of it.  Cadence slaps me in the face with those paws every morning to wake me up!  I don't want any germy residue on them!

Since I couldn't spend $100 on another litter box that cleans itself but breaks in less than two years, I had to decide on another kind of box.   Ken goes into PetSmart and picks his seven buck cheap, dark red box right away.  I decide to go with another covered one so I can use plastic liners.  This helps when cleaning the box and a cover is needed to hold the plastic liner, otherwise the cats pull the plastic liner off the sides of the litter box when they are covering up their poop.  The entire time, Ken was shaking his head, rolling his eyes, saying how his cats were perfectly happy with the simple uncovered litter box, how nice they are, how unspoiled they are, how my cats were spoiled, not nice and not very happy, how every cat should be happy to dance around their shit and enjoy it.  How his cats have a fine litter box that any cat should be honored to take a shit in and what the heck are "liners" anyway...   I heard this rambling all the way to the cashier and across the parking lot to the car and all the way back to the house.  I was laughing so hard at his kitty shit ramblings, I thought I was going to be sick.

I am happy to say all the cats love their new litter boxes and Phantom can even get his large butt through the small door of the covered box.  I was a little concerned he wouldn't be able to and I would have to go with the simple, uncovered box sans liner.

My cat's new litter box that offers a little more privacy, but the cats will
still have to do the "turd dance" since there's no self-cleaning function

Love These MK Rain Boots

Today was a rain boot kind of day.  It has been raining here all day long.  Yuck!  I have had these Michael Kors rain boots for almost three years now and love them.   I first saw them on a Sales Associate at Saks Fifth Avenue.  The Saks where I live didn't carry them so I started looking online.  It was right before Christmas and most places were sold out.  I found only one pair and it wasn't my size.  I thought I had waited too late and would never find a pair in my size.  I looked at other rain boots, but these were the ones I found that I really, really wanted.

I didn't give up.  Right after Christmas, I finally found a pair online (I think on Zappos.com) and ordered them.  I have been wearing them whenever it rains ever since.  I get lots of comments on them, some not so complimentary from Ken.  He laughs at me when I'm clomping around in them, but hey, my feet stay stylishly dry!

The other day I went into a local grocery store and was checking out.  I was wearing my black Ugg boots at the time, not the Michael Kors rain boots.  The cashier tells me she found a pair of boots just like mine.

 Confused, I say, "The Uggs???"

"No," she says, "the Michael Kors rainboots.  I saw you wearing them the other day and looked all over for a pair and finally found some and ordered them."

I really never knew she paid that much attention to me or my shoes, but I knew exactly how she felt.  I felt the same way when I saw them on the woman at Saks.  I had to have a pair!

      See Ken, these clunkers are way cool!

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