Wednesday, March 25, 2015

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Happy Wednesday my friends! It is time to link up once again for What I'm Loving Wednesday! Please be sure to check out my co-host Jodi's blog as well! 

If you would like to participate, grab this button over on the sidebar or link back to our blogs. Be sure to leave a comment on the blog listed before yours (it's always nice to meet a new blogger with these link ups!) :)

What I'm Loving Wednesday


I'm loving...
That by the time a lot of you read this post, I will be in Florida. Sadly, not on vacation, it's for business. BUT, it's always nice to get out of the office every once in a while. :)

I'm loving...
That a lot of my friends sent me this story last week (they know me so well). Click here for the article.


I'm loving...
That I got to have dinner with two of my sweetest friends this week. It's been a while since the three of us have been able to hang out together. I had a rough day on Monday, but being able to laugh and talk with them for a few hours ended my day on a good note. And getting hugs from them didn't hurt either. ;) 

I'm loving...
That I've been busy planning some summer road trips. I'm so excited about them! :) 



I'm loving...
That one of my favorite authors sent me this book. She saw on Twitter that I was looking for a book of hers, so she asked for my address and mailed me a copy. Thank you again Rocki!! :)



I'm loving...
That I'm actually writing this post early, and not at midnight (like I did last week).

Hope everyone has a great week! I'll do my best to get to your What I'm Loving Wednesday posts today, but since I'll be away on business, it might take me a few days!!

XOXO!!


Friday, March 20, 2015

Beach Boys Concert!

I have said many times I was born in the wrong decade. Sometimes I think I'm a 60 year old trapped in a 29** year old body. I would rather watch reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show or Leave It To Beaver on Netflix than Modern Family or New Girl (no disrespect to either show. I've never seen them so I couldn't tell you if they are good or not). In most cases, on a movie night I would rather watch something that starred Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck, or Audrey Hepburn. Or just about anything else that airs on the Turner Classic Movies channel. I would rather listen to a "Best of the 50s and 60s" Pandora station than "Today's Top Hits". I know, I'm just weird. Actually, I don't think I'm weird, I think I'm unique (which is just a fancy word for weird, but I'm going with it). I've been told MANY times I have an "old soul". I agree. 

**Okay, I'm not 29, let's move on!**


If you have been following my blog for a while, you already know this. I went to see Davy Jones (may he rest in peace) and David Cassidy back in 2010. If you missed that, you can check that post out here. Then in 2013 I went to see the (remaining) Monkees in concert (you can check out that post here). Both times I went with my college roommate Mel (who also love oldies music and is always willing to check out a concert of an "oldies" group). Last night we were able to go to The Beach Boys concert (oddly enough, at the same venue where we saw the other concerts).

We got to the Verizon Theater in Grand Prairie just as the front doors had opened, so we debated if we wanted to buy anything from the merchandise table (we passed- that time) and then found a bench to sit on (the main doors weren't open yet because the band was doing a sound check). While waiting for the doors to open, we found out that the Verizon Theater has a Mazda VIP suite for Mazda drivers (and their guests). I am a Mazda driver, so we took advantage of that. It was a nice suite complete with a "refreshment" area and even had seating in the arena portion if you wanted to stay there during the concert. Our seats were a tad bit closer to the stage, so we opted not to stay.

I love going to these concerts because the age range of the fans usually varies. We saw a lot of older men walking around in Hawaiian shirts, which was cool. There were a few people who looked younger than us, or maybe some about our age, but a good amount of the crowd had obviously been Beach Boys fans since the beginning. The concert was great. There were only two members of the original Beach Boys there (Mike Love and Bruce Johnston). There is a long, messy story about a "disagreement" that has torn the surviving members apart, but I'm too lazy to type about it (and honestly, most of you probably don't care, so why waste my time). :) Mike and Bruce were two of my favorites, so I was okay that they were the only ones there (for you Full House fans, you may remember their appearance here). The rest of the "new" Beach Boys band did a fantastic job as well. For a lot of the concert, there was a beach ball being thrown around the crowd. It was just a fun atmosphere. 

Before and during the concert
During intermission, I broke down and bought a tour shirt. After the concert Mel decided she wanted to buy a souvenir program so we went back to the merchandise table. I wasn't going to get one originally since I had already spent a good amount of money on a shirt, but I decided at the last second to buy one as well.

When Mel and I go to concerts at the Verizon Theater, we usually hang around the stage door to see if anyone is signing autographs. After the Monkees concert, there was a huge crowd by the stage door (sadly none of the group signed that night). We were kinda shocked that no one else was there after this concert. We stayed there a good 30-40 minutes, making small talk with the nice security guard. We eventually saw Bruce walk out and get on the bus. A few minutes later, the bus started backing up, so we figured we were out of luck. The bus had to drive by where we were standing and it stopped right in front of us. The security guard spoke to the bus driver and he said Bruce was willing to sign for us. **Thank you to the nice bus driver who had noticed us waiting and told Bruce, and he said he would stop.** Originally we were going to hand him our programs, but he was like, "it's cold out there and you aren't wearing jackets, come on in here." (Mom: Ignore that part about me not wearing a jacket. It was 80 degrees when we went inside the theater, I didn't realize it was going to cool off so much). Mike had left earlier, but we were able to meet Bruce. He was super nice and signed our programs and took pictures with us. He wanted to make sure he knew our names, and used them when he said bye. He thanked us for coming to the concert and we thanked him for stopping. Super cool moment.


I'm so glad that I decided last minute to get a program! :)


Yes, it was another adventure in my so-called exciting life. Thank you for letting me share!

XOXO!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

I know, it's been a week since I last posted! Sorry about that- just blame laziness. And I was out of town over the weekend, but mainly it was due to laziness. :) And Netflix. Blast you Netflix. 

What I'm Loving Wednesday

It's time once again to link up with yours truly, and Jodi, for What I'm Loving Wednesday! Be sure to tell your friends and followers about the link up, we would love to have more blogs to check out! :) As always, please be sure to link your post back to our link up (feel free to grab our nifty button located on the sidebar). Also, check out and leave a comment on the blog listed ahead of yours. 

I'm loving...
That I got to see my best friend Mandy over the weekend. If you are new to my blog, this is my best friend I've known almost 27 years. She lives in Austin so we don't get to see each other as much as we would like, so we make the most of any time we have with each other. Sadly my time on Saturday was just about six hours, but we had fun. Yes, I drove (round trip) 7.5 hours to spend six hours with a friend. Totally worth it! :)


I'm loving...
The sweet hugs and kisses I got from these adorable kiddos (Mandy's kids). It was Miss E's birthday the other day, and she invited me to her party last Saturday (that was the main reason I made the drive to Austin, but spending time with Mandy was a bonus!) :)

I can't believe Aunt Rachel's sweet girl is already 4!! I love our "duck lips" picture in the right upper corner. She's slowly perfecting it. Lol. 
It was harder to get pictures with A, but we managed a few good ones! :)
I'm loving...
My sweet Twitter friends Will and Brandon for talking me off the ledge when I wanted to throw my laptop out the window last night. I was working on my blog post when my computer just shut down (no warning). I got a message that it was updating (which lasted about 30 minutes). Then I got another message that said the update didn't work and it was undoing all changes (that took almost an hour). At the 45 minutes mark, my laptop was in danger of taking a flying leap out my apartment window. Now it's almost midnight and I'm trying to get this blog post done before I go to bed. I know, it's my fault for procrastinating.

I'm loving...
Free steak dinners. I mean, who doesn't? Well, besides vegans and vegetarians. A friend of mine was invited to a seminar (she's in the medical field) that included a free dinner at Chamberlain's Steak House. She was allowed to bring a guest. Technically the guest was supposed to be in the medical field as well, but we overlooked that part.

The steak was not that dark, I know it looks burnt here, but it wasn't. I think it was the lighting in the room. Trust me, it was just perfect. As were the mashed potatoes. I'm getting hungry looking at this picture.
I'm loving...
This picture of my sweet little great-niece, Miss L. I can't wait to meet her!!


I'm loving...
The features on PicMonkey. I'm so addicted to this website. I make a lot of my picture collages for my blog on this website. It's also how I put the watermark on my pictures. They just added a new feature that allows you to make pictures into comic books. I had too much fun with that! Lol.



I'm loving...
That I can update my 101 in 1001 list. I made a tater tot casserole the other day. My sister makes this sometime, but I followed a recipe on this blog here (because I couldn't find the recipe my sister sent me). The only thing I changed is that I used broccoli instead of green peas. I also altered the cooking time to 25 minutes instead of 30 minutes (my oven seems to cook faster than what most recipes call for). While the broccoli was okay in it, I think next time I'll just leave it out and have it as a side dish. :)

101 in 1001 List. #49. Learn to cook 10 new meals. I am now at 5/10. :)

I embraced my inner Baptist and made a casserole... :)
Thanks to everyone who links up with us!! If you didn't get a chance to link up today, we do this every Wednesday, be sure to come back next week!! If you didn't do a What I'm Loving Wednesday post, but want to comment below with what you are loving, I'd love to hear it! :)

XOXO!!

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

I've realized it's REALLY difficult to write a What I'm Loving post when I've felt like doing this to people all day long.

There will come a day when I "Gibbs" slap someone, it's gonna happen
But anyways, Jodi and I are excited to bring you another installment of What I'm Loving Wednesday (even if it took some time and thought for me to write mine). Lol. :) Like I say every week, we don't have a lot of rules for this link up, but try and leave a comment on the blog of the person on the list before you. Link ups are a great way to meet new bloggers and friends! :) Also, be sure you link your post back to mine and Jodi's so others can join in on the link up fun! :) You can grab a button from the side bar to the right!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I'm loving...
That I'm finally on Book 6 of the Harry Potter Series (I finished Book 5 last Thursday during my snow day). I started Book 6 then got distracted by my Castle marathon. I have just one more book to go in the series after this one! I know, I know- I've been reading this series forever (as one of my best friends keeps reminding me). I will say that Book 5 was the best one of the series so far (in my opinion).

I'm loving...
That my Rangers season tickets are in the mail!! I should have them this week! I'm so ready for baseball season. For better or for worse, I'm a Rangers fan for life (although sadly it's been "worse" lately). :(


I'm loving...
That I had a lengthy conversation with actor Tim Dunigan on Twitter the other day. You can check his IMDB page here (he left his acting career in 2002 to become a mortgage broker, so he hasn't been in anything recently). My best friend and I remember him best from his days as Davy Crockett back in the late 80s. She and I were are Texas history nerds fans aficionados and are partial to all things surrounding the Alamo. Davy Crockett has always been my favorite Alamo defender. Hey- all Texans have a favorite Alamo defender. At least I think they do. I think they should. Lol. 

Fun fact about Mr. Dunigan: He was cast to play Face on the TV Show The A-Team, but they felt he looked too young, so he was replaced by Dirk Benedict. Another fun fact. He was in an episode of Diagnosis Murder, which starred my favorite actor (as you all know by now), Dick Van Dyke.
This is pretty much the only video I can find of the Davy Crockett show he was in. Well, they were more like movies that Disney aired on Sunday nights. I forget which station it was on- some network station I believe. I do have a photo of me at age 10 dressed up like Davy Crockett, but I'll save that embarrassing photo for another day.


I'm loving...
That I'm slowly getting out of my "staying at home all the time" funk and am making plans to go out and socialize. I am attending a Girls Weekend in Houston in April and in May my college roommate and I are having a Roommate Reunion one weekend. I'm super excited about that! :)

I'm loving...
My friend Dianne's jewelry. She posted this picture on Facebook as I was working on this post. I had to include it as something I was loving. In fact, I just bought one of the necklaces in this picture. :) Please check out her store here. She has amazing pieces! 
Hope everyone is having a great week! Thanks for stopping by, don't forget to link up below! 
XOXO!

Monday, March 9, 2015

Mobile Monday Weekend Update!


You would think having a four-day weekend with basically nothing to do, I would have updated my blog at least once during that time. But no, I was lazy. Okay, I was binge watching Castle. How come I never watched this show before?? I love it. I'm now on season 3.

Anyways. Wednesday night/Thursday morning Dallas got another round of snow. It started about 11 on Wednesday night and it snowed pretty hard for about five hours or so. Originally my office was going to have a noon opening on Thursday, but about 8:45 that morning, I got a text that we were going to be closed for the day. I had already requested Friday off, so that gave me a four-day weekend (weehoo). I will shamefully admit that I pretty much stayed in bed Thursday and Friday, either reading, or watching Castle

I will also admit that about midnight on Wednesday I went outside to take pictures (because that is what Texans do when it snows). 
This was about midnight after an hour or so of heavy snow
Thursday morning I woke up (thinking I would eventually have to go into work later that day), and went outside to get a few daylight pictures. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We hadn't seen the sun in like 10 days at this point, so it was a welcomed sight. The sun probably helped melt a lot of the snow and ice, because by the early evening, it was all pretty much gone.

Again, we take snow pictures! :)
The top picture was taken about 8:30 a.m. The bottom picture was taken about 4:30 p.m. Amazing what the sun and temperatures above freezing can do!

Saturday I was forced dragged against my will convinced to take a break from my Castle marathon (and actually put on real clothes) to meet up for a Rangers Spring Training watch party. I'm going to skip over the ugly part of the weekend which involved the bad news we got about Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish. I don't want to talk about it, I still want to try and be positive about this season. If you really want to know, you can Google it. 

I was able to meet some of my Twitter friends at this party (and also made some new Twitter friends), so that was cool! Of course, my friend Jasen and I had to take pictures to post on Twitter while we were there. :) The first one was a special request from another Twitter peep. :)


After the Rangers meet up, I hung out with my sweet friends Matt and Anna (and their adorable pups!) Last week I did a post about a dog named Rusty (please click here if you missed that). I finally got to hang out with Rusty on Saturday night! I'm pretty sure we are new BFFs. He pretty much stayed by my side the whole night.
My Saturday night date was cuter than yours...
I will shamefully admit (again) that Sunday afternoon I returned to my Castle marathon. I wonder what life is like for normal people who take their time watching TV shows online? Lol.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

XOXO!

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I'm so glad that I have Jodi helping me with this blog hop because I totally lost track of this week and almost forgot to do a What I'm Loving Wednesday post. This week had been CRAZY at work (I'll spare you the gory details). But alas, here I am! 

I'm loving...
That my book club was finally able to meet last night. We had to cancel last week due to the "ice storm". We only had four ladies who were able to make it, but we had a blast. I met a few new people this week, I'm really glad that I joined this club. Last month we read What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. I will do a book review eventually on here (spoiler alert: I liked it!) I'm behind on posting some of my book reviews. Okay, a lot of my book reviews, don't judge! :)


I'm loving...
That Jimmy Kimmel replied to a tweet of mine last week. And he also "favorited" my tweet about my fan girl crush on him. It's true. I don't know how long I've had it, but I totally fan girl over Jimmy Kimmel. It's almost embarrassing. Haha. I wonder if I will ever grow out of this fan girl stage I seem to be stuck in. Lol.



I'm loving...
That this sweet comment on Facebook from a friend of mine totally made my week. Like I said last week, a kind word can go a long ways. Thank you Jay! :)


I'm loving...
That we are supposed to get sleet and ice starting this afternoon and it will continue into tomorrow morning. Okay, I'm not really loving that. But if we get a delayed start at work tomorrow, I will love THAT! Lol. :) My weather app is toying with my emotions saying that we might hit 70 degrees next week. I'll believe it when I see it (feel it?) I'm so ready for spring.

I'm loving...
That Fox Sports Southwest has asked two of my questions during the Rangers Twitterviews at Spring Training. (For those who don't know, I am "Averyfan"). I'm so ready for baseball!



Don't forget to comment on mine or Jodi's blog. Also, check out another blog and leave a comment for someone new! :) Thanks for linking up! XOXO!


Monday, March 2, 2015

My weekend!

Hello my sweet friends! I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! Mine was pretty relaxing. It started on Friday with SNOW in Dallas. Okay, I'm sure all of you up north will laugh that we were excited with the little amount of snow we got, but hey, it doesn't snow that often, so when we see any amount of it, we get excited. We also get stupid when driving (but alas, that's a story for another day). 

It started snowing about 9 am. I was already at my office, so about 10:30 I asked a co-worker if she would take my picture in the snow. Yes, we are also nerds that have to document the snow with pictures. My office had once again allowed us to wear jeans (I tell you, this NEVER happens, much less twice in the same week). 

Yes, it wasn't a lot, but hey, it was snow. The picture on the top left is my new favorite picture of me. :)
Fridays are usually my half-days at work anyways, so I left by the early afternoon. I decided to go to the grocery store then, just so I wouldn't have to worry about it later in the weekend. It was still snowing pretty hard by the time I got home, so yes, I took more pictures. Lol. 

I'll have to remember what my pool looked like covered in snow when it's 107 this summer. 
I was told that I needed to do a Mary Tyler Moore pose (I guess the picture of me looking up at the snow reminded people of the Mary Tyler Moore Show intro.) For those who don't know it, here you go...

I never want to disappoint, so I went ahead and took a picture like that...along with some other ones. Lol.

"I'm gonna make it afterall..."
Despite the crummy weather, my friend Monica and I rode the train to the American Airlines Center to see a Stars game for our friend Beks' birthday. I guess the weather must have scared off a lot of people, because there was hardly anyone at the game. Or it could have been the fact that the Stars are stinking it up this season, but why go there.
We got to see our good friend Michael (bottom L) and I got to meet the infamous Grubes (bottom R) ,who is a Twitter friend. I also finally met the new Stars mascot, Victor E. Green.
Starting at top L: Me and the birthday girl Beks; spending some time talking to Beks' husband Chuck; The Stars paid their respects to Mr. Spock. I never watched Star Trek, but I know Leonard Nimoy was loved by millions; Me with Beks and Monica- my hockey homegirls!
When we got back to the train station after the game, it was still snowing/sleeting. The drive to my apartment wasn't too bad, there was a little ice on the one bridge I had to cross. I was happy to finally get home. The rest of the weekend I spent pretty much inside my apartment. I got caught up on some DVR watching (I possibly watched about 10 hours of TV on Saturday- don't judge me). I did workout both Saturday night and Sunday night (after a guilt trip from my friend Matt-lol). I also drank a lot of hot tea (I couldn't seem to get warm), and I read a little (yes, I'm still reading Harry Potter. As God as my witness, I will finish reading this series. Lol). I've been in such a reading funk lately. I can't seem to get motivated to read anything. :( 
Picture proof that I actually worked out. Also, my favorite tea mug that my sister Martha gave me. And the 5th book in the Harry Potter series.
So, how was your weekend? Did you do anything exciting??

XOXO!


Sunday, March 1, 2015

Please help Rusty!

My dear friend Matt started a Go Fund Me page for his sweet dog Rusty, who is in need of surgery. I asked Matt if I could share it on my blog, and he said yes. If you would be interested in helping out Matt and Rusty, please check out their Go Fund Me page here. Please see below for information on Rusty and his surgery.



XOXO!