slothing: the good ol' days

Yup, it's Wednesday already.

This week I don't have anything in particular (or anything super hilarious or embarrassing, let's just be straight up) that caught my eye to share. I was just clicking through old photos and was overcome by the general sense of happiness that I feel when I look through all the old pictures of me and my college roommates.

Did you have awesome roommates? I must say, it was probably my favorite thing about college (and post-college) life. Living with a houseful of girlfriends is SO MUCH FUN, and at least in our case, came with surprisingly little drama. Sometimes I'm almost a little sad that I'll never get to do it again-- until, of course, all of our husbands die (in their late 80s, of course), and we (being the strong and healthy women) are left on our own...in which case we have already decided to move back in together. It only makes sense.

Anyway. I dug out a few pictures that accurately portray what life in the 115 was like. To save me from labeling the same people in every one, you can just remember that Elizabeth (no blog, for shame) is the one with red curly hair, Catherine looks like a Tinkerbell-ballerina (her life dream), and Kristina is the "ethnic" one. And I'm me. You should recognize me by now.

This is a typical evening in a house of girls (although I think this picture was actually on a snow day). This is the roomies with our next-door and down-the-street BFFs (from top of the couch: Lisa Marie, Catherine, Laura, me, Kristina, Elizabeth...Aidan the cat is creeping on the pile of pillows to our right). We did a lot of "slothing" (our term for what's going on in this picture: laying around, doing nothing, being comfortable...slothing!)

Luckily for us all, I LABELED this picture when I saved it: this would be the roomies celebrating the last season of Friends. With pina coladas, naturally. It's how we celebrated anything worth celebrating.

There were random enthusiastic trips to Six Flags for UGA Night (this is at the Superman ride, obviously).

There was no shortage of chocolate. Or laughing.

There was music and art. And I'd like the record to state that Kristina was crafty back before crafty was cool. She single-handedly provided all the wall decor for our house.

There was laundry.

There was cooking. We each had a night each week to prepare dinner for 'the fam.' It's how I learned to cook!

There were huge amounts of chillaxing in your mis-matched loungewear with silly slippers and plenty of coffee and girl talk.

And it was so much fun.

I was almost done, but then I saw the (hideous) cabinets in this picture and it reminded me of a story. When we moved in to this place, we decided to divvy up the cabinet space for each roomie. Sadly, there wasn't a lot of precious cabinet real estate to go around, and a good chunk of it was wasted on those two cabinets (you can see them) above the stove. The HIGH ONES that NO ONE can really get that much use out of?

Guess which roommate got nominated and voted to get those cabinets?

Yup, that would be me. Their reasoning? I was the "tall one."

OK, sure, I'm a good 4 inches taller than Kristina and Catherine-- I'll give 'em that much. But Elizabeth?? PLEASE. I'm like maybe 1/8th of an inch taller, which you would never even know because her hair is fluffy on the top and mine is flat, which makes her look taller. But she milked that eighth of an inch like it made all the difference in the world while she shafted me with those stupid cabinets. I'm not bitter or anything...it's just we should have at LEAST gotten to rock-paper-scissors for it or something.

Whatever. Roommates. What're you gonna do? (Note: when we move into the nursing home together, I am NOT getting shafted with that tall cabinet again. YOU can climb up a chair every time you want a stupid bowl of cereal. HA!)

a saturday well spent

So I see lots of people do these "my week in Instagram" (or maybe they have a cutesier name, probably) posts, but I've never joined in for several reasons. A) I don't have Instagram-- or rather, Androids don't. At least not the last time I checked. So I use something called Lightbox instead, which I think is kind of the same...but until last night, I never figured out (or rather-- thought about) how to use it from a computer...which meant I didn't have very easy access to my pictures (I pretty much just emailed the ones I liked to myself)...which meant that most of my photos from Lightbox remain on my phone. B) I don't take pictures of very exciting things on my phone, because I just got a Big Girl Camera and I much prefer taking pictures with it. Okay, so those are basically the only reasons I don't get in on this blog trend-- but today's a new day! Or rather, yesterday was. Because yesterday I took like FIVE pictures on my phone, which clearly qualifies me as a Phone Picture Blogger. I also took about 70 pictures on the Big Girl Cam, which also qualifies me as a Real Photographer (or NOT...I'm pretty sure I am still categorized as a 'fauxtographer' according to this web page).

Yesterday was a pretty typical-and-good Saturday. Here's the things I didn't get pictures of (the first half of the day): 9am Zumba (sorry all you peeps who are holding your breath for a video! Not today!); Matt taking Lola to the vet; hanging out/drinking coffee/becoming emotionally healthy with Catherine; visiting the new Aldi for the first time.


Around 3 o'clock, we got ambitious and busted out the camera. And walked around the yard. And took pictures of exciting things such as (but not limited to) ourselves, our cat, and weeds growing in the yard. I know, it's hard to lead such an exotic life.

After we exhausted all of the photo possibilities in the yard (5 minutes), we decided to head to our small downtown and hit up some antique shops and see what we could see. This is when we started getting a little photo-happy. Antique stores are FULL of photo-worthy things!

 All ready for Catherine's masquerade party!

 An old-timey dentist chair!! It was super amazing. I spent at least 10 minutes trying to justify spending $500 on it and ultimately could not. But at least we sat in it and took some pictures!

A "ho primer"??! Personally, all the hoes I know seem like it came pretty naturally...but just in case you wanted to take your ho game up a notch, there's a guide for that.

 It was at this point that the epic song "You's a Ho" got stuck in my head. And I know almost all the lyrics STILL, so there should be some sort of prize for that. Why you take a ho to a HO-tel? Ho-tel everybody, even the mayor...reach up in the sky for the HOzone laya!... Hey ho, how's it goin', where ya been? Prolly doin' ho stuff, cause there you ho again!

You're welcome.

This is definitely the first and probably only time there will ever be a link to a Ludacris song on my blog. Relish this moment. Because it's the funniest song ever. [LANGUAGE ALERT IF YOU LISTEN TO THAT UNEDITED VERSION I JUST LINKED TO! Beware!]

ANYWAYS. Back to our Saturday. After we finished laughing at all the stuff in the antique store, we wandered around downtown and found brick walls to take pictures with. 

 Note: that's my phone in my 'pouch'...I do not have rectangular fat rolls. Just FYI.

 After the brick walls and a few more thrift stores, we considered downtown to be exhausted and headed back home.


We finished off our Saturday with making some semi-homemade Indian food (baby steps, yall!) and doing our taxes. And we GET MONEY BACK this year, which is slightly insanely exciting and I plan on getting all of it in gold coins that I can throw around and dance in, like Scrooge. Or not, but that's always a fun idea. And wouldn't that make for a sweet photo shoot? Maybe next weekend, folks!


Enjoy your Sunday and your football and/or Puppy Bowl!


You's a ho...HO!...You's a ho...HO!...I said that you's a ho... (it's still stuck in my head)

my apologies

Dear Every Single Vet/Vet Tech/Vet Office Employee/Groomer in the Greater Athens Area:

I would like to apologize for Lola. I am so sorry. I totally understand if you all use her as your go-to example of "Difficult Patient" and are probably driven to alcoholism after she leaves your office.  We are so sorry. We have no idea how she turned out this way, but we do our best to make sure she never graces your doorways more than once a year. Thanks for your valiant efforts at attempting to give her shots/exams/toenail clippings. Even though none of them ever work out, we appreciate the effort. In the future, I will plan to go to veterinary school myself so that we can just take care of her at home, without maiming anyone else and causing you to re-evaluate your career.

I know it's hard to believe this, but outside of vet offices, she's actually a very pleasant dog. We've had many people compliment her sweet demeanor and comment on how well-behaved she is. I'm sorry that you have to work in the scariest places in the whole world and therefore see her at her absolute worst. 

Also, Matt and I are grateful to all of you wonderful people for giving us this excellent opportunity to work on compromise in our marriage. Obviously we cannot both go and face this level of embarrassment annually, so we take turns. I am already dreading 2013: the year it's my turn again. And all of you are probably dreading it too, as we have not yet decided which of you will have the supreme delight of seeing her. We hate to force anyone to see her twice, so we spread the joy around town.

Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Thanks for the doggie Xanax, though. We will be sure to feed her about half the bottle before we come in next time.

With great admiration and respect,
Erika & Matt

baby wearing (1983 ed.)

Happy Way Back When-sday! 

So it seems like "baby wearing" is all the rage these days. In the past few years, I feel like I've seen more versions of baby wraps than I ever imagined could exist, both on people I see or know in real life, and in pictures/blogs/magazines. In fact, here's what comes up if you do a Google image search for 'baby wrap': all this. It's a little overwhelming, actually...when the time comes for me to decide what kind of wrapping and wearing I'm going to want for my own kid, I'm sure I'll be completely overwhelmed and paralyzed with the many options! Yippee! And then I'll probably ask you people for advice, so go ahead and be thinking about that.

ANYWAYS. So I've always figured I'd be into some sort of baby wrap thing. Not creepy into it, you understand...like, some people seem to wear their babies 24/7 until they drop them off at pre-k. And then they expect me to be able to teach that kid? Who never left momma's side for 2 seconds? Right, thanks. But that's beside the point anyway. Some women look like they're pregnant for about 3 years: there's always SOME sort of lump under the fabric on their bellies...for awhile it's probably an actual pregnant belly; for the next few years, just a lump of a kid. Whom you never get to actually see. I'm not planning on being that into baby-wearing. Just a regular amount of into it.


Today, as I looked through an old photo album, I realized why the idea of baby wearing seemed so appealing to me. Apparently MY parents were big into baby wearing. Who knew?! But in a good number of pictures, I was appearing as merely a lump in a (really retro) Baby Bjorn-type-thing...mere head and legs sticking off of my mom or dad's torso. So apparently the desire to baby wear is genetic. And look how great I turned out! I am like a walking campaign for The Benefits of Baby Wearing. Some company (Baby Bjorn? Moby? Anyone? Bueller?) should definitely be paying me to be writing this blog right now.

So, on with the pictures! The first one is really awesome. The second two...questionable. You'll see what I mean.

The writing on the back of this one informs us that I am 2 months old and we are at Niagara Falls. (This would be my one and only trip so far this lifetime to Niagara Falls. Too bad I don't remember it.) There are so many awesome things about this picture-- namely my Nana and Poppie's spectacularly classy outfits (and pipe). Then there's my dad...rocking out some retro sneakers, with me on his chest. This is a very acceptable usage of baby wearing: walking around some touristy place. Much more convenient than having your arms get tired holding the infant, or pushing the stroller all over. Ideal usage, Dad. A+.

 A few months later, we find ourselves back home, ready for Family Exercise Hour. According to the writing on the back of the picture, "bike riding with Mommy while Daddy runs: 3 1/2 months". Ummm....okay.

WOW, do I look comfy or WHAT?!!! I think I STILL have neck pain from that experience. Also, I am a huge 3.5 month old. And also, I'm pretty sure this would be illegal in like 19 different ways in the present day. But you know what? Back in the 80s, it looks like the government had better things to do than make up rules about everything in the world, so rock on with your bike-riding self, Mom. At least our family wasn't succumbing to the obesity epidemic.

And on an unrelated note, if you will closely examine all three pictures, please compare my dad's outfit in the first with my mom's outfit in the other two. It would appear my parents SHARED their outerwear! Since they were at that time living in a Very Cold, Snowy, and Godforsaken State, one would think they had more than one coat between them...but maybe not. Ah, the 80s.


So! Thus concludes today's lecture on baby wearing. Bottom line: You should wear your babies at appropriate times, such as while shopping or visiting Natural Wonders of the World. Probably not while exercising...but then again, that could be the very thing that turned me into the fitness enthusiast I am today (HAHAHAHAHAHA), so who am I to judge?