Last Week In Pictures

Since I didn't have the computer cord for my camera with me last week, I couldn't download all the  pictures I took so I'll just post them now.

Starting with the ones from Cinco de Mayo and meeting the Babysitter for swirl margaritas.

The Babysitter came with a bag full of gifts of perfume samples, ear rings, and Lady Gaga sunglasses (sorry no picture of the sunglasses).

 I showed all the loot to the Murph when I got back home.

And the photo bombing little cat.

I really love the red neck wine glasses that Little L gave me as a going away gift. She doesn't want me to forget sweet home Alabama when I'm living in Florida.

Red neck wine glasses

I told her that the part of Florida we are moving to is pretty much the same as Alabama, just not called Alabama. I also told her we could still end up back in Alabama, just the lower part of it.

I was really afraid that the Murph wouldn't like the red Dixie cup wine glasses since it took many months to break the Boy and I from using them. They were a staple in our house when I was a single mom. No dishes to wash! The Boy still misses them.

I haven't tried drinking out of the wine glasses yet. Little L said I should pour the Murph a beer in one. That would be funny! Do I dare?

Then we had the big move Part 1 last Monday. My car was full of clothes, boxes, 2 broken remote control airplanes that the Boy needs for some unknown reason and a cat in a large carrier. (or should I say a large cat in a carrier?)

Ready for take off!

You can kind of, sort of see Phantom in the back seat inside the carrier. He's not real happy! He calmed down as soon as I turned the satellite radio to the jazz channel. It had to stay there the entire drive or he would start meowing and drive me nuts.

We had a couple of really beautiful beach days and got lots of sun.

And ate lots of seafood. I love shrimp and grits!

 And had some adult beverages.

Then before we knew it, we had to take Phantom to stay with the Boy while we headed north again for more stuff and more cats. It was a very long and tiring process that required trips to Walmart, lots of out of the way driving, sorting and cutting pills in half, disinfecting the Boy's filthy bathroom, loading up bags of trash and once we finally got home, more adult beverages.

Cadence was happy when we got back to Birmingham. He meowed loudly at us for about an hour. I tried to take pictures of him but they all came out like this because he kept moving around.

 And meowing!

Ed hid under some furniture at first but he was glad we were home too,

 Next trip they are going with us. It will be an interesting drive since Ed hasn't been in a car in about 10 years.

I don't really know why this picture was on the camera. It was the last one I took Saturday morning after my run. Maybe it's to show how healthy I'm eating these days. But really I had to eat that healthy stuff because we were out of just about everything else, including Lucky Charms.

Also, the coffee mug next to the bowl of cereal is kind of cute and pink.

I just hope we don't have to go to Walmart again this week! Moving the cats will be bad enough!

I'm A Little Late Doing This Post But... Surviving Cinco de Mayo

Image from margaritagrill.com

I know I'm a little late writing this post seeing that Cinco de Mayo was two days ago and now I can't even add my own pictures in the post because once again I don't have the camera cord that hooks to my computer. We were on the road yesterday with the big move part 1. Needless to say, the last couple of days have been busy!

I am fully recovered from all the Cinco de Mayo festivities and even made an exception and had a few margaritas despite the fact I don't do well on tequila anymore. (you can read more about that Here ). The Murph doesn't care for margaritas or Mexican food, so he opted out of the festivities.

My friend, the Babysitter and I decided to meet at a local Mexican restaurant and have a couple of drinks and some chips, salsa, cheese dip, guacamole, the works! I've missed my Mexican food fix since the Boy went away to college.

The Babysitter use to keep an eye on the Boy when I was out of town. That's why she's called "the Babysitter." Mostly she"baby sat" for him that time in 2010 when he was 18 and I was racing in Ironman Canada and he was still in high school. He calls her "the crazy lady", but he still preferred her to his anal retentive dad that weekend. He actually thinks she's pretty cool, but would never admit to it.

After we had a couple of drinks and chips at the first busy, but calm restaurant, we decided to head over to another restaurant down the street called The Margarita Grill.  It is the Boy and my all time favorite Mexican restaurant. We use to be regulars there and I love the taco salad with chicken and the chicken enchiladas. I was excited that I would have a drink there and then get a taco salad to go.

The place was packed and we had to park way down the street. The tables were full and it was standing room only by the bar and into the outside patio area. A band was playing. When we walked in I saw more friends S, the baby chick pinger and C, the cat killer.(you can read more about how they got those names Here) I started talking to S and the next thing I know a ruckus starts right next to us between two sisters. The Babysitter looks over at me and says, "Girl fight!" S runs over to her friend who was the calm sister in the girl fight. I think to myself, "oh know!" and back away and began texting the Murph. "Help, come get me!"

Next thing I know I hear, "Get your hands off of me NOW!!" I look over to see the Babysitter restraining a very irate blond girl. The Babysitter refuses to unhand her and begins screaming for the bouncer to come throw her out. Here's kind of how the Babysitter looked during this scuffle...

They promptly threw the blonde out and calmness resumed.

Close call!

S and C came over and asked where the Murph was. I told them he's at home won't come over, so C grabs me and tells S to take a pic with her phone and send it to the Murph.

"I bet this will get the Murph over here, " he said as he attempted to grab me in a bear hug as I struggled to get away. S laughed and snapped the pic to send to my husband. I'm thinking, oh great I'm in trouble now!

The Murph got a good laugh out of it, but still had no desire to come over. I can't say I blamed him at that point! With all the commotion going on, I failed to keep an eye on the Babysitter. Left to her own devices, this could mean trouble.

Why does it seem like most of my friends are like that?

I saw that the Babysitter was sitting at a table with what looked to be a bunch of 20 year olds and she was laughing and having a great time. Maybe a little too great! I decided I better head on over.

When I got to her table, one of the young guys looked at me, pointed at the Babysitter and said, "SHE"S LOOKING AT MY BUTT!!"

The Babysitter started laughing and shaking her head. While I didn't believe for a minute that she was looking at his butt (wishful thinking on his part), I played along and apologized for her and told him I just couldn't take her anywhere!

At that point a young girl came out of nowhere and began to chew the guy out. The Babysitter hurriedly gets up from the table and once again I'm clueless as to what's going on. The Babysitter told me the girl is mad because he's flirting with her. Maybe that's his girlfriend. Who the heck knows!

I realize at this point that I need to get the Babysitter out of there and fast! Forget the taco salad!

I told her to follow me and we made our way out through the wall of people. When I got home and told the Murph he shook his head, laughed and said the Babysitter is just a troublemaker. I reminded him that he thought I was a troublemaker too. He agreed, but said I'm a different kind of troublemaker.  He said she gets a little too involved in other peoples business and she should stay out of it.

I told the Murph that that is impossible. It's against her religion. We were in the restaurant barely 5 minutes and she's trying to single handedly break up a girl fight.

 I told the Murph that the Babysitter was coming to visit us at the beach on her birthday, which is the same weekend that there is a big festival on the beach. It should be FUN!

He said that would be okay, but first she's going to have to sign a waiver. She MUST sign a waiver! No trouble making and stay out of other people's business, fights and such. A non trouble making waiver.

Knowing the Babysitter, that's not gonna happen! She might sign the waiver, but it would be next to impossible for her not to get involved in things. Next to IMPOSSIBLE!!

Christmas Party

Friday night we had our 2nd annual Christmas party.  It was a small gathering since it's so close to Christmas and we had several friends who couldn't make it because they were either out of town or had other family obligations.  We put 7:30 on the Evite, but when nobody was here at 8:15 we thought for sure that nobody was going to show up.  The Murph and I got excited and thought we would be able to put on our pj's and watch a movie.  Then everyone showed up at once.   We ended up having about a dozen people.  We thought they wouldn't stay long and move on somewhere else for a late night drink or two somewhere other than our house, but at midnight they were all still here.  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  The Murph and I ended up having a great time after we got over the disappointment that we wouldn't be able to put on our pj's just yet.

I made sausage balls, sweet and spicy nuts, crab and avocado on toasted baguettes, stuffed olives, 2 kinds of chips and dips,  fruit and cheese trays, and ricotto and honey bruschetta  I picked up a veggie platter, cheese straws, petitie fours, wedding cookies and peppermint bark.

Everybody brought their choice of wine to drink, but I made a champagne punch with cranberry juice and frozen orange juice and had soft drinks and other bar mixers and liquors set out, including egg nog and rum.

I didn't get a lot of pictures of everyone once they got here and the Babysitter showed up late and refused to have her picture made because she knew they would be all over Facebook the next day.  So these are all I managed to get.

Everybody must have had a good time because nobody would leave so The Murph had to throw them all out promptly at midnight.  It was way past our bedtime.  We are not in our twenties anymore!   We slept in on Saturday and were totally useless the entire day.  

We didn't even get our workout in on Saturday which is almost unheard of!  I made up for it today by running 10 miles with little L (former Running Nazi) and then going to the gym and spinning for 30 minutes and about 10 minutes of weights.  

After running I finished up the rest of my Christmas shopping early this morning and picked up a honey baked ham at the HoneyBaked ham store.  I love those things!  It was great not having to wait in lines or dodge traffic!  No crowds at the mall yet!  Only us runners that early on a Sunday morning.  I was home by 10 a.m.  

Now I just have to wrap everything and get ready for my family and the Babysitter to come over Christmas day for lunch.  And the Boy comes home tonight from his dad's house.