{So, I've been thinking...}

I guess this has been bothering me a lot since I'm kinda publicly announcing this (kinda because I only know one of my friends who reads this). So, my friend I had lunch with the other day... I can't be friends with her any more. Not that we were the bestest of friends to begin with. But, she's a negative person in my life when she drinks. She puts us in bad situations. One of the reasons I know she said what she did is because she asked me about a particular situation from the last time we went out almost immediately after I told her what she supposedly said. I knew that was the reason she'd said what she'd said. Well, yes, this did happen but only because you put us in that situation and I was not sober enough to stop it. I blame myself as well. I knew what she was like when she drinks. I knew she made bad decisions. Yet, I let things happen also. I can't even begin to tell you, reader, how many times I've had to look after her on nights we go out for dancing and she gets so obliterated that she can't even walk and I've had to get someone to help me walk her to the lightrail (public transportation) or our car (me being sober enough to drive because I'd only had 1 or 2 drinks). She's been kicked out of establishments twice with me because she was so drunk. The one and only time I've ever been kicked out of an establishment for being so drunk was with her. We almost went up to this {strange} guys condo that he'd said was him and his friends hotel, with 2 of  his male friends before I, thankfully, was able to get her to change her mind. She gave 2 guys (the same night) we didn't know a ride to their place on the other side of town. She took one of those unknown guys back to her place and then left me alone with him. Yeah. And then you're going to judge me? Fuck you, asshole. I'm done and won't be participating any longer, thank you very much. So, I'm done with her. She can make bad decisions with someone else. It's just too bad that it's taken this for me to finally say I'm done with her. I should never had gone out with her that night.  I knew what she was like, I knew it wasn't smart and I most certainly should never have drank anything at all know how she is. I am the idiot and boy have I paid for it.

{Plans for the day}

I still feel yucky and while I would love to spend another day just sleeping it off, I've got too much that needs to be done. Boo. So, the list for today is:

• clean! Blah. No one wants to do this. It must be done, however.
• Grocery shop :( Does anyone really like grocery shopping? I know I hate doing it.
• Make food for the next few days at work
• This I will enjoy :)

The cleaning thing though...that's what will probably take the longest. I think to get the most out of my time, though, I'll begin with grocery shopping. That way, I can begin some of the "make food" stuff and clean at the same time. Efficient. 

By the way, I still have no idea what I'm doing, if anything, for New Years Eve.  Lame.

{Blah}

I hate getting sick! I feel so bad for my little Gandalf when I'm sick. I just sleep all day and when I'm awake, I'm still not doing much from my drugged haze on the couch. I am thankful that the lil guy is an awesome nap-taker! He sleeps when I sleep and required little attention. When I finally took him outside for his final potty trip, he did a lot of his crazy runs which I know is his way of expelling his energy. Now, he's passed out on the love seat, cute as a button. My place is a mess right now. I've got stuff from my trip thrown all over since I was sick when I got home from the trip and then had to work 2 days before this awesome 3 day weekend.

Here's to hoping for me to feel better tomorrow. Either way, I've got too many errands to run to have another bum, sick day like today. *le sigh*

{Update from previous post...}

I had lunch with my friend. She said she's very upset with him for telling him what he said and told me her beliefs. Funny thing is, she never denied saying it. She made it seem as though she didn't say it but never did she once say she did not say that. I believe with all my heart, from watching her facial expression and body language that she did say it and she was more upset that the person she told, told someone else. Oh well.

I also stopped at Petco (I, personally, prefer PetSmart but Petco was closest at the time) and bought Gandalf some Flea Oatmeal shampoo. I also stopped at Walgreens and picked me up some meds (and a few extras) to help me feel better from whatever this is I have. Now that Gandalf's been bathed and my fingernails have been Essied (ha), we're going to relax and watch some movies until I pass out. In 4-6 hours, we'll do it all over again.

{Fav New Shirt}

I love this green shirt from Old Navy!

Ready for lunch

It's extremely comfortable and the color green is perfect! 

Another fav shirt of mine is the one I got from Banana Republic. Talk about comfortable! I wore it for Christmas Eve. The red Old Navy cardigan was perfect with it.

{Cotton Mouth}

So, about two days into my trip to Texas my sinuses began bothering me. I was pretty much drugged up on night and day sinus medicine the whole time I was there. The plane ride back to Denver my nose started to run. I think it's an allergic reaction to my parents cat. Which, completely sucks. Anyway, yesterday was the worse with my nose running and sneezing. I've now got a non-productive cough as well. I really hope it's allergies and NOT a cold or anything else. So, tonight I took some benadryl  and passed out super early, like 7:30pm early.  I have the worst cotton mouth since I've woken up. It's terrible. Anyway, so my dog woke me up at some point. I'm not quite sure what he wanted because I just kind of petted him and then passed right back out. Around 10:30pm though he woke me again because he was sleeping in the living room and whimpered in what sounded like pain. The couple who watched him mentioned he was doing this as well. So, I called him to me and he came and let me pet him. The wife said she thought it might have been his legs so I was trying to feel his legs and, she's right, it's his left back leg. I was gently rubbing it and he slightly nipped at me. My poor lil fella! I also found a FLEA on his yesterday before I passed out! If I hadn't already taken the benadryl, I'd have left right then for Petsmart. He's never had fleas! So, tomorrow I'm making an appointment for him to have his leg checked out. He needs to be updated on his shots also anyway. I feel so bad for him! No wonder he was acting all weird and stuff. I've no idea what could have happened to his leg and the wife didn't seem to know either.

I'm also supposed to have lunch with my friend who supposedly talked about me to someone else. We'll see how I feel.  Saturday night I'm supposed to watch Les Mis with another girl who works in my building. I can't say we're friends exactly. Acquaintance friends right now. We've hung out with the same group of friends a few times now and she seems pretty cool. Bah. We'll see how Gandalf and I both feel. Who knows, we may end up just staying home all weekend and relaxing.

{Merry Christmas}

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

{Family Photographs}

Yesterday's photographs went way better than I ever could have imagined. My niece and nephew did so good and I'm so proud of them. They also looked awfully cute! Afterwards,  I treated my family to Cici's Pizza. It was a good day. :-)

{Crafty}

Yesterday was a great time with my niece & nephew! We went to hobby lobby and bought some stuff for craft night. I think we did great on them all! The deer head and love canvas, I got the idea from pinterest. The handprint one was an idea from pinterest also but the canvas too small. It was supposed to be the handprint tree but didn't quite work out that way. I still love it though and think it's beautiful.  The snowman and tree, I got the idea from the pinterest deer head. The snowman I love! I didn't think of the snow on the ground or the snow falling until I was adding the glue.
We had a blast making them and they turned out beautifully! 
Today are our family Christmas photographs. I really hope this goes as smoothly as our crafts did yesterday!

{Travel day}

Today I'm headed to Texas to spend the Christmas holiday with my parents, sister, niece, nephew, Aunt, and Uncle. I've got tons of craft ideas for my niece & I to do. I'm taking our family photographs for the year. I'm also hoping for a very peaceful and stress-free visit. Only two people there have the a ability to stress me out. I will do my absolute best to make this as stressless as possible though. I am very much looking forward to seeing everyone open their presents. :-)
By the way, Texas is only home in the sense that my love's live their currently. I can't wait to see them! Three times in one year! Early next year will see me visiting my grandparents in Louisiana. :-)

{An interesting day...}

So, last night I heard from a friend that another friend potentially spoke bad about me. I'm not sure of the truth of this. It did bother me some (and still does) but I already know I'm going to ask her about it Thursday when she takes me to the airport. What I'm most unsure of is her response. If it's not true then that's great. If it is true, however, then what? How important to me is our friendship compared to what she said and if she truly believes what she said is true? I don't know. Is that sad that I'm unsure? What I can tell you is that she's a keep-her-feelings-to-herself-type-of-girl-until-she's-drunk. I thought we were kind of close, but if the rumor is true, then I guess we're not.  I guess I'll find out.

I can say, that's not been weighing too heavily on my mind throughout the day. I had work today and training. Although it really was me running the position; which is good! Anyway, so the guys I worked with are hilarious and I love them. I would ask if it's crazy to love your co-workers, but I already know the answer to that. The answer is, No! I'm with these people more than anyone else and, sure we have our moments where we may get on each others nerves, we take care of each other.  These people are the best (occasional rotten apple and all).

After work, I spoke with my mom and asked about my sister spending the holiday at my parents. My sister can be...hmm...quite sensitive. If anyone upsets her over any little thing, she'll decide to keep my niece and nephew with her. It hurts my heart that we have to walk on eggshells around her and can't just... be. Anyway, she says she'll be there bright and early Christmas morning after they have Christmas at their place (her and her BF just got an apartment and moved in it today). Immediately, my stomach clenched and I stressed about it. I want, more than anything, to see the looks on my my niece and nephews faces as they open their gifts.

So, I'm glad I went to the gym after speaking with my mom. I took my stress out on the elliptical, bike, and stair master. 55 minutes of cardio later and I feel so much better. I'm just not going to worry about it and just... be.  :)

Oh, navy sweater! How I love thee!

{Last shopping spree of the year...}

Today I made my way over to Old Navy and the Park Meadows Mall. Boy oh Boy. Everything I bought today was on sale. Luckily, I work in an environment that's more casual but I can get away with wearing dressier clothes when I work during the day (I also work night shifts).


 Ready to shop!

Old Navy
Black Puffer Vest on sale for 1/2 off
Skinny khaki's on sale for $15
I ended up not getting the skinny jeans

The Classic Navy Sweater                                                         Coral & Navy Striped
Sweaters on sale for $15                                                               Great Sale

Too cute!
Sale item

This shirt I'm loving!
On sale also

Banana Republic
Seen above with Old Navy's Classic Red Cardigan (on sale)

So, one great thing about Old Navy... I always forget if they have a military discount or not. I asked for it and the cashier said they usually only give it on Monday's but she'd ring my stuff up with it anyway! How awesome is that?! So, not only was everything I purchased on sale, I got an additional 10% off.

At Banana Republic, they were having a pretty good sale as well. Your purchases were 40% off before 1pm and 25% off after 1pm. I decided on their polka dot shirt. Sooo many things I can pair it with!

I also found this Outfit Posts that has some great ideas. She even goes so far as to make a few One Suitcase blogs that are amazing.

One happy woman.

{School Victims}

I'll be completely honest, I've been avoiding the news about the Sandy Elementary School shooting in Newton, CT. It's possibly one of the saddest things I've heard about. I do not know anyone involved, and I do not have kids of my own, but my heart hurts tremendously from this. Tonight, I watched a few videos on ABC.com for the first time. It's just unfathomable that someone would murder so many innocent children. My heart, my thoughts, my prayers are with each family member who has lost their precious child.... with the children who have lost childhood best friends... with the other family members whose lives will no longer be able to be touched by that one special child. Presents are under the tree that will never get opened. Middle school, high school, college graduation, marriage, future family memories that will never be formed. Parents hearts are broken. I pray they will find some solace in their lives and, if they have other children, are able to continue loving them as though there is no tomorrow.

{Puppy day}

Ok, I guess he's not really a puppy anymore at 3 years old! That's 28 in dog years. He's almost as old as I am now. ;) haha  So, since we didn't get to the dog park yesterday, I took Gandalf today. He had such a good time! I could see it in the smile on his face as he ran around like a maniac at the park and the way he's passed out on the couch right now. Too bad for him he's about to get a bath to have him go from Gandalf the Grey (dirty dog) to Gandalf the White. I know, I know... I'm a huge dork!  Here are some photographs of him having fun!

Back in the car, ready to go home.

He did so good at the park! One thing I noticed is he definitely got possessive of any toy he was playing with. If another dog tried to come over to play with that toy, he'd growl at them! He's never done that before. Other than that, he played well.  When it was time to go, I took his leash out of my pocket, told him it was time to go, to get some food and he followed me to the gate with no issues.  Well, now it's time for his bath.  :)

{ 'ello }

I'm so tired right now. Today was a pretty long and busy day at work. Again, lots of things though to train on, so that was good. I do like my trainer; we get along great! So, I've been having to buy coffee at work (which isn't too bad considering one coffee mess only cost $.25). However, I'm a mess if I don't have at least 1 cup before I get to work and I kept forgetting to buy it. Today, however, I stopped at the grocery store for veggies and I remembered to get coffee. Thankfully, the place I went to sells the Kona brand coffee from Hawaii! Amazing.  Soo, delicious.

I also wore my new jacket today. I {heart} it.

I also spoke with eHarmony guy and told him I'd be selfish on days like today and not drive the distance, especially if I had to work the next day. Waking up at 4 a.m. to work 12 hour days and then have to drive 40-45 minutes to see someone is just not ideal to me. Plus all the other stuff I mentioned here. I felt horrible because he really seems like a nice guy. I guess I must really want to stay single. :^/  I won't settle though.

{Don't Ya...}

• Don't ya hate it when you're super tired and you skip out on something you planned because you just know you can fall asleep at any moment?
• 30 minutes - 1 hour late you are wide awake, wishing you'd gone anyway
• My thoughts on skipping the gym today
• Don't ya hate it when things change on you?
• Like the work schedule you took the job for
• Seriously? Two days and two nights? How dare you say I have a day off once I get out of work at 5pm just because I don't have to be back at work until 5pm the next day. That is not a day off.
• Don't ya hate it when assholes appear to get their way in life just because they are assholes?
• Like Crazy Train who has multiple complaints and write-ups against it (I've determined it is an it) and never gets spoken to about it or "punished" in any way. Yet, the moment Crazy Train goes to HR, the ENTIRE company it works with gets spoken to.
• Apparently, we are going to the wrong people for our own complaints
• Don't ya hate it when your dog is like family and leaving him for 6 days is heart-breaking



Just look at his happy face!

• Don't you hate it when you begin reading a book called, "The 5 Love Languages for Singles" and it depresses the shit out of you?

All in all, today was actually pretty good.

{Lust me, Baby}

Today was an interesting day. After doing the BodyFlow class at 24 Hours Fitness, I go downtown Denver to meet eHarmony guy. On the way down there, I call my mom to tell her about it (gotta be safe and let someone know about it). She mentions something about him not looking like his picture. I respond with, "Psh, I'm not worried about that. I've never had that happen to me before." Yeah. Way to jinx myself. eHarmony guy has gained weight since his photograph. His photo was definitely not a current day representation of himself.  Ugh. Which sucks because we kinda bonded through text. So, I'm not sure how I feel about this. The way I see it, if you're not going to accurately represent yourself online, what else in your life are you not going to accurately represent?  You know? Anyway, so it was a good, decent time anyway. We walked around a block downtown and then sat in Subway for the remainder time. He was just on his lunch break, so we only had an hour. On the way home, though, I just kept on thinking about everything else... He's in a lot of debt from his very recent divorce. He said it's only been final for a few months but they've been separated for a year. Also, he lives in Westminster. It's not close at all but completely on the other side of Aurora.



See?  That's a good 40-45 minutes away!! With my crazy schedule, I'm not sure this is a good thing. Also, he said he was thinking of applying for a job in Jonestown; which is even further away. *sigh*  I did say I'd meet him again.  I think it's going to be Sunday.  Anyway...

So, I'm preparing dinner for all week with some baked chicken. I'm also making some Pumpkin Lust Cake. Seriously, this stuff is amazing.

photo credit

{This little piggy went shopping}

Today was a pretty good day. I'm actually really tired right now, which is a good thing. I woke up pretty early, thanks to a telemarketer. I'd originally woken up at like 6 something but then fell back asleep until that call around 8 something.  I had to check out all of the social media pages I go to then. I probably check out way too much stuff, but it's just Gandalf and I right now, so who cares. South African guy is still chatting me up, which is a good thing I guess considering I won't meet him at his place.  Anyway, when I finally woke up I headed over to Target to see about finding a calendar. I found the cutest pig calendar I just had to buy.

Isn't it adorable?!  Anyway, so I also bought a new pair of workout shorts and t-shirt for myself as well as a navy blue cardigan for my sister for our family photographs. Have I mentioned how excited I am for these pictures? I think mostly because I'll be taking them and I'm excited for the experience.

So, after shopping I headed over to the gym. I was really NOT looking forward to this workout, but did it anyway and I felt so much better after working out. I am really disgusted not happy with the way I look right now. I mean I workout so much more than I use to and I am GAINING weight. Really? I just don't get it. Oh well, Once I get back home from Texas I am going to start attempting to eat better. I'd start now but the funds are low from all this shopping I've been doing. I'm a firm believer in the, "Why wait until til tomorrow what you can begin today" type of saying.

There are also bills I need to get paid off. I seriously cannot wait until they are gone. It's not too bad, just enough to piss me off.  I've bought all of my Christmas gifts with cash though (ok, really my debit card but it's  the same thing really) and nothing is on credit. I just need to pay off those other credit accounts.  Three credit accounts remaining!!  I'm not including my car though. I figure I'll always have a car payment.

{I love my friends}

I've got great friends! Yesterday I received a text from D, inviting me to dinner and the Denver Zoo of Lights. I couldn't make it to dinner but met them at the zoo.

Once I got there the line was so long! I, smartly, decided to buy my own ticket while standing in line. While doing that, the couple behind me stated the line was ridiculous and wondered out loud if they could buy their tickets online. I showed them my phone and told them I was! It was so much quicker!

Anyway, I've never been to the Denver Zoo of lights and I've lived here for 6 1/2 years. It was so much fun! D brought in extra Rumple-mints to add to our hot cocoa! It was quite tasty! I only had a little of it since I was driving back to Aurora. W also bought carousel tickets for us all to ride! I could only get photo's of those around me but we had to spread out.

It was a good time with great people. Enjoy the photos!

I {LOVED} this exhibit! 

It started snowing!