life lately

Well...it's been a minute. Haha. Long enough that when I just now went and looked at my blog so that I could see just HOW long...I was surprised to see my "new" design that I'd completely forgotten I did. Ha! 

We're trucking right along into fall- in our hearts and outfits and food and decor, if not in our weather. Life is really, really good. Millie is at such a fun age, although she certainly has her challenging moments (and days...hahaha)...but overall, three has been pretty fantastic so far. We're still finding fun "firsts" to celebrate when we can!

Yes, apparently Millie still utilizes the Ergo...

We had our first family trip to a UGA football game! We did go to a G-Day (spring scrimmage) game a few years ago, but this was a legit SEC home game. Interestingly (to me, anyway)- it was also the first game Matt and I have ever been to together, despite both being UGA students who attended games in college! We just didn't happen to meet until right after college, and have never been lucky/dedicated enough to get tickets and go to a game in the 13 years since. 

It was funny, though, thinking about the differences between this game and the last game I went to. The last game was in late November of 2004, my senior year of college. It was the last game of the season, versus Georgia Tech, and it was pouring rain and sleet and MISERABLE. We were losing. And we were just frozen solid. And so my friends and I left the game early- truly it may have been the first and only game I ever left early. I HATED people who left games early, haha. But we were too cold and too sad and I stood there knowing it might be a long time until I got to go to a game again, but I left early anyway. And I always regretted it, to be honest. 

I definitely didn't know that it would be THIS long- thirteen years- until I returned to Sanford Stadium for a game! And the next game I'd attend would be with my husband of over a decade and our three-year-old. Oh, and there would be drone cameras flying over the field, and every person in the stadium would have a magical device that allowed them to take pictures, text, and access the internet- WHILE THEY WERE AT THE GAME!!! (Bahaha- SMARTPHONES weren't even invented at my last game. THAT is what made me feel oldest.)

Anyway- we had a blast. Hopefully we won't wait another 13 years til we go back, but no promises. We're pretty lazy. Haha.

Millie has developed a pretty intense love of horses lately. It's basically my favorite thing ever. Looks like we're gonna have to move to a farm or something, because girlfriend NEEDS a horsey.

Until we can make THAT happen, though, we've got Adda the stick horsey to fill that void in her life. Adda's doing a pretty good job. That thing goes everywhere with us. And if the stick part isn't convenient, we just carry her head. (crying laughing emoji) Yes, it is as disturbing as you might imagine to see a horse head lying around. 

I actually bought Adda to complete Millie's upcoming Halloween costume (you guessed it: cowgirl!!!!), but I underestimated how amazing she would be. I hope she makes it til Halloween, haha. Millie loves hers so much we ended up getting the UNICORN version (complete with neighing and "magical" sounds!!) for my niece for her birthday. I mean, who doesn't need a stick horse? They've come a long way since I was a kid (much like football games, apparently).

We're looking forward to all the usual fall fun- pumpkin patches and mountain trips and hopefully, God willing, some cooler weather at some point. Not much looking forward to the time change and dark evenings, though. The other evening we were playing outside and we heard crickets start chirping. Millie put her hand up behind her ear and said "I hear somesing!"

"What do you hear?"

"I hear da bugs talking!"

"Yes, Millie! That's the crickets."

"Da bugs turn off da lights."

"Huh?"

"When da bugs talk, dey make it dark outside!"

Soooooo where is her Mensa application?? Girlfriend is a genius.

In other exciting family news (haha...don't get TOO excited), we are finally getting a king sized bed! This is "family" news because strangely enough, more than two people usually end up sleeping in our little queen-sized bed most nights, so...gotta accommodate. I would feel more ashamed, but she's just such a cute little snuggler that I can't bring myself to get too worked up over it. Most of the time she just wanders in when she wakes up around 6:30 or 7, and I'm totally fine with her snuggling with us for a few minutes before we get up. Occasionally it's more like 2:00 a.m., and if Daddy catches her first, he will walk her back to her bed...but if she makes it to my side, she just climbs on in and spends the night. Hahahaha. I can't help it. She's too cute, and I'm too tired. (And at least now she actually lays relatively still and SLEEPS, so it's not a miserable experience for anyone. And it'll be even less miserable once we have all that sweet extra rooooommmm!!!)

We're going to do a full-house-shuffle of our other furniture, though, to make room for the new bed in our room, so that should be not exciting. If you see me looking annoyed and haggard over the next week, it'll be due to some deep cleaning and organizing and furniture deconstruction/moving/reconstruction. Bah. But hopefully it'll be worth it in the end! I'm staying true to myself and my lazy ways, ordering the new bed and mattress from Amazon, so we'll have to do the hard labor ourselves, but hopefully it won't be bad. We did the same thing (different brands, but same ideas) for Millie's room this summer and it was pretty easy and we've been SO happy with her big girl bed, so...I have high hopes! I'd like to say I'll come back with updated pictures of our fabulous new master bedroom, but given my blogging track record of late...better look for that update on Instagram, sorry. Ha.

That's about all I can think of...life just keeps zooming by, and I try to savor and appreciate as much as I can. There are so many tragic and terrible things happening in the world right now, I try not to take a single minute or privilege for granted. It feels trite sometimes to focus on all these silly and ordinary things- stick horses and home decorating, fall festivals and mountain trips- but I find that these are the things that keep me from spiraling into fear and anxiety about everything else. So I play dolls with my daughter, and I annoy the hell out of my senators and "representatives" (lol), and I look forward to pumpkin spice everything, and I read books by really smart people that awaken me to the much bigger world and its much bigger problems, and I try to teach and show my daughter kindness, and I pray and sign petitions and donate money to people working to make a difference. It's a weird balance, really, but it's life right now. I'm so thankful for the goodness, wherever I can find it.

 

the one with all the manatees

We had a wonderful, relaxing trip to the beach last week! It was Millie's third year going to Cocoa Beach with us, and each year gets more and more fun! 

Ever since we took our mini-vacation to Cape San Blas in April, Millie has been BEGGING to go back to the beach. Parenting pro tip: maybe don't tell your distraught daughter about your next beach trip while you are leaving from your current beach trip if there is more than about 2 days until the next one. "In July" meant NOTHING to Millie, and so it's been a lonnnng three months of telling her "not today!!" every day when she thinks we are going to the beach that day.

See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me...and no one knoooooows how far it gooooooes...

But finally the day came and we got back to her beloved "BIG water!" and all was well with her soul. And mine. But then...

But then.

Then it was Thursday. Thursday, July 13, to be exact. A day I shall forever remember with fondness, joy, and delight.

On Thursday we decided to go kayaking. Same place we've gone before- the Banana River, less than a mile from our condo. The river is where my love of manatees was born back in 2010, when I unexpectedly came upon them while kayaking. I've been a woman obsessed ever since. But I've never had as much success finding them again. Occasional sightings, a glimpse from afar...enough to keep fueling my passion, but not enough to quench it, right? But I get it. It's July. It's hotter than Hades. It's not "manatee season," even though it's a manatee zone. So I keep my expectations low reasonable-ish.

But on Thursday...

OH MY GOSH THERE IS A MANATEE RIGHT NEXT TO MY KAYAK!!!

A manatee? There wasn't a manatee.

There were four.

Four giant, lovely, fat, happy, playful manatees. They were hanging out in a little cove, doing what manatees do. Rolling around, being adorable, and BE STILL MY HEART, curiously checking out the kayakers who happened by.

THIS IS MATT TOUCHING A MANATEE!!!!!!!!!

Like, they just came up to us! They KEPT coming up to us! The swam under us and rubbed their backs on the bottom of our boat! The stuck their noses up and sniffed us!!

I GOT TO PET A MANATEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot even describe this.

Over and over and over, they came up, rolled around, said hi (with their bodies. I speak the body language of the manatees, trust.).

Millie's sweet little hand got to PET A MANATEE!! She was so brave!!

Indescribable, people. Absolutely amazing. I have videos (and videos, and videos) of the whole experience and my voice is like 12 octaves higher than strictly necessary and I am gushing and nearly sobbing and like OH MY GOSH I WAS BEING SWARMED BY HAPPY, ROLY POLY MANATEES!!!

They have whiskers!! Or "beards," if you're Millie.

They showed off with cute party tricks like this!

Oh look, it's Erika tanning on the beach a manatee tanning in the water! (P.S. I touched their bellies too, don't worry. They were much smoother than their backs and didn't have all the algae/barnacles. Very interesting!)

We stayed in that cove and just watched and played for over half an hour. They never left us- they kept swimming around us and coming up. I really just cannot believe it happened. I think I'm still in shock.

This is how we felt about the whole experience.

I am just so incredibly thankful for such an amazing, unexpected opportunity. That my parents, Matt, and Millie got to experience it alongside me was even better. You better believe none of us have stopped talking about it ever since. And now that we're home, with no upcoming beach trips on the agenda, Millie asks "when we see manatees again?" and like...what am I supposed to tell her?! At least I've got a co-manatee lover in the house with me.

July 13, man. July 13. You know, on the Tuesday and Wednesday before, I'd been sick with a stomach bug and stuck in bed (so stupid on vacation!!). But on Thursday, I woke up, felt a bit better, and figured we may as well go for a paddle down the river. What a wonderful spur-of-the-moment decision THAT turned out to be!!!

silas the lemur

Yesterday I cuddled with a real live lemur.

It was probably one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

Source

The lemur's name was Silas. This picture isn't Silas, it's whatever I found on Wikipedia, but it looks just like him. Only Silas was only about six months old, so he was smaller and more adorable. Don't worry, I have plenty of pictures of Silas and I bonding...it's just that they're extremely blurry because LEMURS ARE EXTREMELY SPASTIC AND FAST.

It was Staff Fun Day at work. You may recall that back in March, we did some amazing pottery for SFD. This month we brought in a zoo. It's one of those hands on traveling zoo programs that normally visit elementary schools and summer camps...but one of the bosses here was absolutely dying to bring them in for us. I was skeptical at first. I was proven wrong.

I CUDDLED WITH A LEMUR. That's enough to change any stoic's heart.

There were lots of other animals, too- a baby kangaroo!! A spotted Asian baby deer! Some weird large rodenty thing! A (tiny) alligator! A constrictor! All of those things I also petted, although I did not cuddle with them. There was also some butt-ugly horn-beaked tropical bird thing that looked like a dead vulture. It was not cute and I backed up about twenty feet when it was 'petting time' because oh hell no I am not insane. That thing had CRAZY ATTACK BIRD written all over it.

Anyways. Then there was Silas the Lemur. Arguably the greatest animal on earth. I actually have been feeling really guilty ever since meeting Silas...doubting my devotion to my previous Favorite Animals (manatees and Lola, of course). But seriously. LOOK HOW CUTE HE IS!!!!

He was maybe the size of a smallish house cat. He was softer than those velvety blankets you give babies. He was as hyper and spastic as a two-year-old who drank a liter of Mountain Dew. He crawled all over me, tickling me with his tiny little monkey hands- they have fingernails, not claws, and they're short (like human nails...well, humans who keep their nails short), so they don't scratch you when they crawl on you. And their paws (hands/feet?) are really soft, too, like they have butter leather gloves on or something? It's really bizarre. I expected the paws to feel more like those of a declawed cat or something (kind of scratchy due to the pads?)...but it really felt like itty bitty leather gloved human hands. Totally crazy.

Silas perched on my shoulder and nibbled on my ear and earrings for a minute. It didn't hurt, but as you can see from the blurry pictures...it was just SO precious and hilarious, I was squirming around like a crazy person.

Silas's keeper kept him on a leash because he is REALLY fast and a REALLY good climber/jumper...he kept eyeing the shiny chandeliers in the room we were in. It's safe to guess that if he hadn't stayed leashed, we may have spent the rest of our Fun Day trying to capture him from the chandeliers. Which would have been fun...but not as fun as having him jump all over us.

So in conclusion, if you ever have the opportunity to cuddle with a lemur, DO IT. I'd go so far as to say you should try to make an opportunity to cuddle with one. Let it be your new life goal. It's kind of like a cross between a monkey, kitten, puppy, panda, and toddler human. In other words, the best thing ever.

PS. Requisite HP Status Update: I'm currently about halfway through Goblet of Fire (Book 4) and it is SO good!! The Quidditch World Cup was one of my favorite scenes/stories so far, particularly all the parts about interactions with Muggles, the anti-Muggle security systems, trying to camp with no magic, and all that. SO funny!

unexpected visitors

 We had some unexpected visitors on Friday night. Steve and Jess, my brother and sister-in-law, dropped in for an evening of Monopoly, wine, and laughter. They live in Charlotte, so the chance to spend a random Friday evening hanging out doesn't happen too often. It was great!

I don't know why I always think I like playing Monopoly. I clearly didn't learn my lesson at Christmas. Once again, despite my best attempts at socialism...I lost. Big time.

Oh well. At least there was wine. With wine, there are no losers. ;)

Around 11:30, Stephen went to get something from their car. No sooner than he'd stepped onto our front porch, he was back. Ummm...do you guys have a new pet?

I was assuming he'd forgotten about Aidan, our ancient porch-dwelling outdoor cat. Aidan takes up residence on the glider at night. As I leaned to look through the glass door, I discovered that Stephen was actually not talking about Aidan.

Look carefully inside that kennel.

Definitely not Aidan the orange tabby cat.

If you've been pondering how the zoom on an iPhone 4s works in low lighting with the flash turned off, now you know. Stunning, isn't it?

Apparently a possum (technically an opossum, but that silent o really drives me insane, so I'm just gonna spell it like it SHOULD be spelled) decided to take a cue from Aidan and spend the night lounging on our luxurious front porch!

Stephen said that when he stepped out the door, the possum wasn't in the kennel, he was just standing on the porch. Then he got startled by Stephen/the door closing and ran in the direction opposite of Stephen...which dead ended in the kennel. Oopsies. Speaking of backing into a corner...at least it was a corner with cushy blankets?

We all had quite a time laughing at our new "pet" (and pondering where Aidan was during all this. Why didn't he scare off the possum? Or did the possum scare off Aidan? We're pretty sure the possum was actually bigger than the cat.) and thinking about things we'd never before considered: where do possums actually live? I've probably come across 183,928 possums in my lifetime, and 183,927 of them were dead on the side of a road. It never occurred to me that at some point in their life cycles they were actually alive somewhere.

I must sadly inform you that alive possums aren't any cuter than dead ones. Those are some ugly suckers. They look like large rats with huge claws, and also bear a strong resemblance to the ROUSes in The Princess Bride. So if you haven't had the pleasure of being within 6 feet of a possum in your lifetime, I can definitively say you haven't missed much. But it still made for a pretty exciting Friday night. Monopoly, wine, and possums. Just another Georgia Friday night.

the important details

Well, well, well-- apparently my rendering of the Pukey Puppy story yesterday was not wrapped up to everyone's standards! Let me fill in the key missing details for ya today.

For starters: I do not have any photographs of the adorable wiggly itty-bitty. I KNOW. Failing at life/blogging. In my defense, we were a little bit distracted by...I dunno...OCEANS OF VOMIT. But I don't want to let you down, and I certainly don't expect you to just take my word for it that the puppy was cute. So I contacted a renowned local artist* and had her render a drawing of the puppy. 

Presenting: The Cute Puppy (or maybe a grown small dog) from the Garage!!

To answer your newest question: Yes, the art community in Athens is beyond blessed to have artisans of this caliber.

Now for the sad news. The puppy left us. After he gobbled down some food, we made him a little home in the garage-- we set up Lola's crate, filled it with (non-vomity) towels, and put it all in the back of the garage (closer to the house, further from the outside). We wanted to help him through the night, but really couldn't justify keeping him in the house. There's like a 1% chance he's housebroken...not to mention the puke issue...and if we kept him in a cage in the laundry room, he probably would have just whined all night and driven us (and Lola) crazy. So we figured that if he's used to roughing it in the woods at night, then upgrading to a pad in the garage (at least out of the wind and with some warm blankets and food) would be better for a night, until we could figure out a better plan. 

We left the big garage door (the one that the cars drive through) cracked at the bottom so that he could go outside to potty...or escape. We knew it was a possibility. But it's also a possibility that he has a HOME (that he escaped from...multiple times, because this ISN'T the first time he's come to hang out with us) that he would return to at some point. So we left him with a cozy little garage nest. 

And in the morning he wasn't there. So we don't know when he left or where he went, but we haven't seen him since Pukegate. But like I said, we've seen him before. Actually, the last time he dropped by and visited for an afternoon (and then left when Matt was running errands), Matt had said "if he comes back, we're keeping him"...because that man was SMITTEN, let's be honest (hi Matt! Puppy lover!!). So this was the "OH HE'S BACK, HE'S OURS!!" night...but...I guess it wasn't meant to be. But if he comes back AGAIN? Then he's really really really ours and we're not gonna let him escape again. (But before unnecessarily aggressive anonymous people call me an unfit puppy mother, disgusting, and a dognapper, please know that we will make every effort to locate his rightful owners, if they exist. We've done this three times in the past, with a 100% success record, so we're well-versed in posting signs, notices on Craigslist and at the dog park, and having a vet check for a microchip. SO THERE.) (Sorry, am I still a little bitter and scared of the anonymous people? Maybe yes.)

So the tragic conclusion to this chapter of the Pukey Puppy story is that he has returned to the wild (or a loving home)...but at least now you know how cute he is. Thank God for amazing artists, right?

I can't leave you on this sad note, so I'll share a more uplifting story of wildlife and jewelry (my two passions, evidently). Yesterday Diana graciously gifted me with these bad boys:

Handcrafted (because the artiste copyrighted and signed her name/date on the back!! In silver pen!!) blue mouse earrings?!??! Yes. They exist, and they're on my ears. Well, they were for the 40 seconds it took to snap this picture. I'm not sure I can handle the overall majesticness of such earrings, so I had to take them off. Now they're staring at me with beady little fake mouse eyes from the side of my desk, which isn't creepy at all. Anyway. Thank goodness for friends willing to pass on gems like this, right?

Have a good weekend! If you happen to be in my neighborhood and you notice a puppy matching the picture above wandering around, lemme know! Our towels are all freshly laundered...we're ready for Pukegate 2.0 any time!


*myself

fighting fatigue with gold jewelry and other nonsense

I'm tired this morning.

Last night was a late night. Just your typical, run-of-the-mill tired that results from finding an adorable stray puppy at 11:00 p.m., playing with him in the freezing cold for half an hour until you decide to bring him inside, playing inside for a few minutes until he suddenly and without warning starts spewing the foulest-smelling chunky vomit you've ever experienced in your life EVERYWHERE on your floors...over and over...while you and your husband panic and try to figure out how to get him out of the house, while simultaneously gagging over the disgusting and putrid fumes filling your house...and then trying to figure out how to care for the dog and keep him warm at night but also how to do that without subjecting your house to further episodes of Death Vomit. And then having to clean up your whole house, using every last towel you possess, and then having to immediately start laundry because the stench of the towels was more than your poor sensibilities could handle. Oh but also continuing to play with the aforementioned adorable (but pukey) puppy in the garage...while trying to figure out how to keep him off the streets and out of the cold overnight...and MAN that dog was cute...oh and then he puked on my robe. And my slippers. AND OH THE SMELL.

And this was concluding somewhere around midnight.

So today I'm tired. But sometimes cute puppies are worth it.

To combat the tiredness-- and the fact that this week is draaaaaaggggggging on and on-- I pulled out my favorite weapon: gold jewelry, and plenty of it.

I even resurrected a long-unused ear piercing (the cuff of my left ear)...because MORE GOLD JEWELRY. So between my five gold earrings, the gold studs on the collar of my shirt, my grandmother's gaudy gold cocktail ring, and some red lipstick for good measure...I think I'll survive the day.

Random other factoids you probably don't need to know but I'll tell you anyway:
-I'm up through Season 2, Episode 13 of Scandal. That show is ridiculously awesome and the only reason we're doing insane things like staying up til 11pm on a weekday in the first place. 
-I discovered an awesome new blog yesterday: Brightest Bulb in the Box. It's a makeup blog, which I normally don't get really into, but this girl is hilarious. I almost totally disagree with her review of the Naked3 palette but I also don't care because she's funny and entitled to her opinion. And also she knows way more about makeup than I do, so I'm going to stick around and learn something.
-Buying gifts this year is insanely stressful for some reason. That's sad. I'm never a SUPER enthusiastic Christmas-present-shopper...I don't look forward to it all year or start shopping in June or something...but I don't normally dread it like this year. Oh well. Sorry everyone. Enjoy your gift cards...maybe I'll feel more inspired next year.
-I've gone on 3 runs with the new shoes now. I still hate running. I think next time I'm going to skip out on expensive shoes and just save up for liposuction instead.

let's give 'em something to talk about

Lest you think we've forgotten our soon-to-be-dethroned first child in all the excitement of an impending HUMAN BABY, I'm here to report that she is still currently receiving plenty of attention. For now. I understand that that will probably change once the aforementioned human is on the premises. But these days Lola is still blissfully unaware of the doom that awaits her, and she soaks up our attention and love the same as she always has. 

Well, maybe not exactly the same.

You see, Matt and I have decided that some of Lola's more endearing (haha) qualities may not actually be so quirky and adorable once there's a baby around. So we've decided to take a proactive approach to our dog-parenting and are going ahead and doing our best to prep her for the life that's in store for her next month. While we feel that the science behind our prepping and our execution of it is spot-on, I'm going to have to admit: we look like total lunatics. But at least we can laugh at ourselves.

So the first Get Lola Ready for Baby thing we did was introduce her to the idea of a small, noisy, strange-smelling thing that gets all of our attention and causes us to talk in the high-pitched voice that was previously reserved for Lola-talk. 

May I introduce you to BooBoo:

BooBoo's been an important part of my life since my own infancy, or so my parents tell me. Although we haven't been as close in recent years as we used to be, BooBoo's the kind of friend you can just stuff in a box in your guest room closet for a few years and then pull him out and catch up like nothing ever happened. He's such a great guy bear that even after all that, he's willing to help me train my fur-child. I highly recommend finding a friend like BooBoo.

So anyway. In order to get Lola used to a baby, we created something baby-like and then pretty much just used our imaginations and acting skills to close the deal. We should get an Oscar. I have some baby blankets on loan from my friend Mollyanne, and they even smell like baby-- all the better to prep with. So we wrapped BooBoo up (note: learn to swaddle for real). Unfortunately, BooBoo is a bear of few words. Fortunately, YouTube is full of crying baby videos. So we cued up a crying baby video on my phone, hit play, and tucked the phone into the blanket with BooBoo. 

Bam. INSTANT BABY.

 Lola was immediately interested in this tiny, strangely-scented bundle of screams I was giving all of my attention to. Naturally, her inclination was to jump up and claw/lick the strange thing in an attempt to figure out what it was. This is why it was great that it was just ol' BooBoo and not, say, an actual baby. Babies vs. 50 lb labs...I just don't wanna see how that one ends. So Matt and I take turns carrying our crying bear around, talking and cooing to it in high pitched voices, and ignoring Lola unless and until she politely sits down.   

 

 She's not getting an A+ just yet, but I'd say she's moved from her beginning score of F up to a solid C, so we'll call it progress. We also just randomly turn on the crying baby videos on the computer really loud and let them play for 10 minutes. She runs around the house frantically at first, but then I guess she figures out that tuning it out is her best bet, and she goes back to hide in our closet (her favorite spot). Smart girl.

So cuddling the crying bear was pretty hilarious, but at least no one except us had to witness it. Well, and now all of you. But we're all friends here. And you probably already suspected I was a little bit...off.

But people who don't really know us probably think we're normal. Like, let's say...our neighbors. For the most part, we're pretty great neighbors. We keep our grass cut. We have pretty gardens. We pick up our dog's poo. So if you only know us by sight, you probably think we're average to normal.

Not anymore. Last night we cut loose and let our crazy flag fly.

High.

 

Why yes, that would be Matt, Lola, and I (not pictured) taking a lovely evening walk. With our stroller. Our baby-less stroller.

You see, Lola happens to be a teeeeensy bit (and by teensy bit, I mean WHOLE HECKUVA LOT) scared of things with wheels. Skateboards. Bikes. Roller blades. Strollers. If we are out walking and ANY of those things dare cross our path (or within 100 yards of us), she loses her mind. She rips our arms out of joint as we attempt to keep her on-leash and not-murdering-people. It's awful and embarrassing. Of course, maybe she just wants to sniff them. Or lick. But we'll never know, because with the way she acts/sounds...it's just plain scary. So anyways. Obviously that's not gonna cut it when we have a baby we want to walk in our stroller. And this stroller is freaking amazing, so that's gonna be often. And so Lola either needs to learn to walk next to a stroller, or she'll be doing some sad singin' as she watches us walk away without her. So that led us to last night: no time like the present to start walking next to strollers, right?? RIGHT!

We did debate for a few minutes: is it weirder to walk an empty stroller, or a stroller with a bear wrapped up in a blanket? Tough call, but we opted to let BooBoo sit this one out. 

You know that scene in Gone With the Wind where Scarlett goes in to Ashley's birthday party and everyone's staring at her and judging her (she was just caught in an embrace with Ashley, for goodness sakes!) and she so bravely holds her head up high and walks through all of them? It kind of felt like that. Only people weren't judging my marital fidelity, they were judging my sanity. And I looked like I was losing. But we held our heads up high and bravely marched on, completing our no-baby-in-the-stroller, wacky-dog lap around the neighborhood. I could feel the stares through the windows. 

But you know what? Who cares. About halfway through, Lola worked out a truce with the stroller and managed to walk like a normal dog, so we're calling it a win.

I'm pretty sure this dog-training stuff is going to require a lot of diligence and commitment because she seems to forget her lessons about 10 seconds after we finish them, but it's a pretty fun way to pass the time. And even if she never learns to act right...well, at least we had fun trying.  

 

don't let the cuteness kill you

Like most self-respecting ladies in the Eastern Time Zone, I'm draaaaggin' a bit this morning. Three hours of Bachelorette finale-ing, not ending til 11 p.m.?? That's intense, but well worth it. It truly was the most dramatic finale ever (declares Erika, who has watched exactly 1 season of Bachelor and now 1 of Bachelorette and is obviously qualified to make such sweeping statements)!! Mollyanne and I have been Team Chris since around the talent show episode (the man rocked high heels and hula hoops and made it hilarious, so we loved him then and have been rooting him on ever since) so we were happy to see Des come around and make the right choice. Although a lot of people (via Twitter, my main source of Bachelorette information, of course) seem to think she was just trying to convince herself that she liked/loved Chris, I think she really did. I think once Brooks's luscious hair was out of the way (PS- hair wasn't looking so luscious during ATFR; neither was the sketchmo facial hair) she was able to clearly see that Chris was what she needed. So I'm happy with how it all shook down. And like every other woman on Earth, I'm thrilled with the choice of Juan Pablo as the next Bachelor. If any of you ladies are not currently attached, I would highly recommend auditioning for the next season...

SPEAKING of things that are ridiculously cute.

Baby animals!

Seems like the voting contingent of blog readers here are all in agreement about that one.

That's a lot of love for baby pandas!! But who can blame you? I've been known to kill hours watching the baby pandas romp around via the Atlanta Zoo's PandaCam (also, please pay attention to that URL if you happen to click over. Note that it's zooatlanta.org/1212/panda-cam... 1212...12/12...MY BIRTHDAY??!! This proves that the baby pandas love me the best and want to cuddle with me the most. BOOM!). Obviously my top choice is manatees, but baby pandas are a close second and I would welcome both to move into my backyard anytime. I think they'd be great habitat-mates. 

But I don't know what happened. Obviously I wasn't thinking clearly when I created this survey, as I left out a very important member of the Cutest Animals Ever family. Luckily, several of you called me out and wrote it in:

BABY ELEPHANTS! How could I have forgotten? I feel terrible. Baby elephants, manatees, and baby pandas...the trifecta of best animals ever, and here I've gone forgetting one of them. My deepest apologies to my fellow pachyderm enthusiasts. As penance, I will share an amazing video that another blogger shared yesterday. And that Mollyanne forced me to watch during Bachelorette commercials. It took a lot of convincing, let me tell ya.

Behold! The Cutest Video of The Cutest Baby Elephant Ever!

You are so welcome. Baby elephant, you are welcome in my backyard anytime. ANYTIME.

Relatedly: where can I post a job for a full-time elephant pooper-scooper? Guessing that's a job I'll be wanting to outsource...

my animal planet

Don't you love when your plans and schemes work out exactly the way you'd hoped they would? It doesn't happen nearly often enough, so I'm really enjoying this particular one while it lasts.

Last summer, when I dug up and created a new flower bed along the back of the house, I intentionally planted flowers that I hoped would grow really big and showy and attract pretty butterflies. And I planted the biggest and bestest of these plants right outside my bedroom window. I had high hopes that one day I'd be able to enjoy a front row (indoor, air conditioned) view of some really pretty wildlife. And one year later, I'm happy to say that it worked like a charm.

What? HOW DARE YOU COME TO MY WINDOW, butterfly?!! WATCH YO' BACK.

 Every afternoon when we get home from work, we open the curtains and blinds and plop down on the bed to watch the Butterfly Show on the lantana, roses, and canna lilies for a little while. It's beautiful and relaxing and altogether happy times.

iPhone photography on the left, dSLR on the right. Equally poorly focused, let's be honest.

We also see an occasional hummingbird. And lots of bumblebees. I'm telling you, it's straight up Animal Planet out there. Lola likes looking out the window too, but mostly she's looking for the cute little bunnies that hop over from the woods. Or the cat.

I couldn't care less about that giant black barking indoor THING. I rule the outside!!

 This morning the cat truly earned his keep. As I went out to feed him on the porch, I discovered he'd left us a little gift on the front door mat. RIP, mousie. And nicely done on the kill, cat. It looked like the mouse just laid down to take a nap and never woke up. Relatively un-traumatizing. For me, that is.

You feeble-minded humans can carry on with your lame butterfly watching. I'll just be out here taking care of business. And pooping on your sidewalk like a huge freak.

Do any of you have DirecTV? And a dog? Then you should be sure to be checking out your free trial of DogTV August 1-14. We flipped it on to make fun of it, basically. But then (after a few minutes of coaxing to get Lola to figure out how to LOOK at the TV) the joke was on us because actually it was pretty awesome and Lola totally loved it. 

Heeeeey sexy...I like long walks on the beach, too! Oh wait, no I don't. I'm terrified of water.

Weirdest thing ever. It was like dog reality TV. It's kinda blurry (to us) because it's made so that dogs can see it, but there's nice background music (along with the sound of dogs panting). Turns out Lola is just as scared of water on TV as she is in real life, so that was an interesting discovery! I'm pretty sure DogTV isn't awesome enough to merit actually paying $10/month for, but we may DVR a few episodes for Lola's future entertainment.

So things have been rather animal-centric around here lately. But they're all sorta lame animals. Dogs, cats, butterflies, bunnies, dead mice...not too exciting. That led me to some brief pondering about what could constitute a really exciting backyard animal invasion. Which led me to create a survey!! YAAAY!! You know, and also because it's Friday and on Fridays you need to be questioned.

So put on your thinking caps, ladies, because this is a really serious one. As always, vote for as many as you like, and feel free to justify your choices or suggest something better. I was going to give a prize to the first person who could guess what my answer would be, but then I decided that I'd rather just dole out a harsh punishment on the first person who DOESN'T know my answer, because seriously. This isn't even tricky.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

vacation observations

Well...we're back. Back to America, to our non-vacation reality, to boo-hiss-regular-life. You can probably guess how I feel about that situation:

We felt like this as we sat in the lobby of our resort, waiting for our shuttle to come pick us up this morning. Boo. Vacation is over. BOOOOOOOO. Thankfully, our travels home went off without a hitch, so at least there's that. Am I the only one who has Brokedown Palace-inspired nightmares about international travel? I swear that movie scarred me for life. Anyway, instead of complaining (you know, the only thing I'm truly great at in life), I thought I would share with you a few observations and tips I gathered on my trip this week. Ya know, in case you were thinking of traveling (especially to a Mexican resort) anytime in the near future...maybe this will come in handy. Or at least enlightening/humorous.

1. You can leave your Big Girl Camera at home. Now THAT was a depressing realization, but here's the thing: the temperature/humidity change that occurs when you take your camera (in its case) from your extremely air-conditioned room (more on that later) out into the extremely hot and humid outside air causes all KINDS of fog to appear on all KINDS of lenses that you apparently can't reach (to clear them) unless you care to completely dissemble your camera (which you won't, since there is sand everywhere). I saw other people with their DSLRs outside and asked how on earth they were able to get any pictures that didn't look like this:

 ...and they all agreed that it was the sudden temp/humidity change causing the problem, and the only solution is to give your camera a long, long time (like an hour) of just sitting outside, and it will adjust to the temperature and the fog will clear. So unless you just feel like sitting outside with your camera for an hour (trying to avoid all water and sand)...then don't bother. Therefore 95% of our (non-foggy) pictures are from my phone. I was particularly bummed because we hauled our dang TRIPOD all the way there, just KNOWING we were going to have such fantastic beach shots...no dice. We did set up the tripod once, in our room, because I refused to NOT use it. So we took some pre-dinner shots.

 Not sure why Matt busted out the pregnancy/prom hand for that last shot. Read nothing into it.

2. The iguana situation is out of control in Cancun. For real now. Those things are running as wild as squirrels and deer run in Georgia. Only they're a lot more dragon-like. Oh, and Erika-like...as in, they can normally be found basking in the sun and/or checking out plants. Hopefully Matt did not break any laws by taking it upon himself to feed them:

3. This one is a biggie, yall. We need to discuss the BATHING SUIT BOTTOM COVERAGE NORMS I observed in Cancun. Here in the good ol' US, most women at beaches/resorts/public places where people wear bathing suits stick to, shall we say, a more full-coverage bottom? Even if it may have string ties on the sides, or be of the low-rise persuasion, the SEAT is...covered. NOT SO, my friends, in Mexico. NOT SO. Matt and I had our eyes assaulted MANY times with buns of all shapes and sizes (and degrees of cellulite). And I'm not JUDGING the buns of all types...because I can go ahead and tell you, if MY buns were out there on display, they would not be winning any prizes (except maybe the one for "whitest", or "greatest color contrast with the rest of her body", or "least cute") but...well, possibly that's why I keep 'em covered up with a nice piece of fabric on my ol' bikini bottom. I haven't heard myself singing Thong Song this many times since my senior prom (thank you, band at the senior prom for that lovely 45-minute-long rendition, by the way. It was awesome.). And the funny thing was that the demographic of the bethonged was as wide and varied as the asses on display: in addition to the expected early-20s, looking-for-attention-type-girls, there were moms playing with their kids...grandmas playing with their grandkids...oh Lord help us all. It was equal parts scary and hilarious. Just sayin'. If you're headed to Mexico, be prepared to see something special.

4. Since #3 would be a scary note to finish on, let's throw in one last observation/tip before you travel to Mexico: Figure out Celsius temperatures before you go, lest you FREEZE TO DEATH trying to guess what temperature you might like your room to be while you sleep.

Hello, arch-nemesis.

 I'm sure I learned a formula to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius at some point in my illustrious educational career, but obviously I don't remember it. Therefore, when presented with the thermostat pictured above, I figured that somewhere in the middle would be just fine...since I'm all about the moderation. Unfortunately, that would be wrong, since setting it somewhere in the middle means that you wake up with frostbite. What the heck, dude? Why can't we all just use Fahrenheit? Sheeeeesh. Also, I just LOOKED UP (because I'm all about furthering my own education), and 10 degrees C would be 50 degrees F...who in the world would set their thermostat at 50 degrees???!!?!! Like...Santa and the elves, vacationing in Cancun, wanting a taste of the Motherland?? What the heck, dude??!

And with that, you should be allllll set for your own upcoming trip to the best place on Earth, the Caribbean. And if you don't have an upcoming trip there (like me, now)...then we can all mourn that fact together. And yet silently rejoice in the fact that at least we won't be assaulted by unsolicited buns in our faces tomorrow...so, at least there's that.