Mere053

Brush fire! Eek! IDK exactly what burned today and it's kind of hard to tell from the pic (I took it from the car while we were up in LH) but early this afternoon something out toward Burnet was on fire. And it looked like a big one. Ugh, wildfires make me nervous.

Mere052

Yup, there's Dale and Amy, "Uncle John"-ing it up at my mom and dad's during our big family day on Saturday! Maw-Maw came for a visit and we had a great day hanging out and goofing off. Notice the ghost orb floating around in the middle of the room - I wonder who that is!

Mere051

The only victim of the great Callison Fire of February '09. Luckily I was home when this little piece of plastic started burning in the dishwasher and I was able to take care of it quickly, I hate to think about what could have happened if the Puggy was home alone! God is definitely looking out for us. Eek!

Mere050

Ohhh this pic. So this is at Casino Night at Dale's work, and they have a dance contest every year for the RAs and RA applicants. They dance and D and his ARD wander around and tap people on the shoulder when they're out. See the girl currently getting tapped out by D? Not in the contest. Not supposed to be, at least. She just spent the entire evening dancing all by herself up by the DJ, which is fine, but this was a contest she wasn't even supposed to be in. So Dale politely tapped her on the shoulder and told her she was out. A few seconds later, she was back in, dancing away. Dale finally had to say something like "YOU AREN'T IN THIS CONTEST, PLEASE LEAVE THE DANCE FLOOR." The "you freak" was implied. :-)

Mere049

St. Valentine's Massacre 2.0! Somehow Cam ends up being my Wednesday trivia photo every week. We took Amanda's divorce papers so Mary got to pick a bag and it had some wackadoo stuff apparently from Tabu Lingerie. Here's Camden with his Max Control! Yeah I don't know. He would later go on to be used as a biological weapon against GTYO. Fawesome.

Mere048

So if you've ever been to our apt you may have noticed our living room shelf. You may have even knocked some stuff off of it once or twice. Anyway - Saturday night at the Pants Party it took its last hit and we started to get worried that it might actually fall, ripping part of the wall away with it. So we decided to move it BUT apparently moving it requires minor wall repair. LUCKILY Dale patched it with bubble gum! Ok it's not bubble gum it's actual wall putty stuff but it goes on pink but dries white. Fun home repair!

Mere047

So I'm disappointed in the quality of the picture here because the glare bounces off the best part of the photo, BUT: I was at Wal-Mart yesterday with Dale, and I hate Wal-Mart because it's evil and disgusting but D was using a gift card from work to buy a prize for their casino night, so we really didn't have a choice. Anyway, the sign says "Dare You To Touch One" but...you can't because it's under plastic. Wal-Mart you dirty piece of crap.

Mere046

Dale and I didn't really celebrate Valentine's Day but my MOM, now there's a different story! :-) She gave us these awesome little cups filled with candy (it's hard to tell from the picture but they light up!) AND she gave me an iPod shuffle! Freakin amazing!! And Dale got a gift card to Cheesecake Factory, which will be wonderful, too, but the iPod completely blew my mind! What happened was, I had one and I loved it because I LOVE running but I have to run to music or I get bored, and it was in my purse and I'm pretty sure someone stole it out of my purse at work one day! And what's even worse is that I know who did it but I can't be 110% certain so I could never say anything, I just know that this person happened to have the very same one as me right around the time mine went missing and she had easy access to my stuff. CRAPPY! So anyway this upset my mom who awesomely gifted me with an unexpected but much-needed replacement!!!!!! I LOVE IT, I'm so excited!! As soon as we got home I set it up (it's name is "My Mom Is Awesome") and now I have the ULTIMATE WORKOUT MIX OF ALL-TIME on it. I'll have to type up a copy of my running mix, it's pretty awesome. Anyway I know this is a super long post for this little blog but I'm just SO! EXCITED!! Also she gave Rygel a toy, a red loofah dog with a heart that says "I WUFF YOU!" and he's already flattened it out completely. HAPPY VALENTIMES! Aww, Tracy Jordan.

Mere045

Here's some nostalgia for those of us who go WAAAAAY way back: Old Brown! Still alive and kicking (well...it has a new battery and it starts ALMOST every time) at Susan and Donnie's. We hung out there this afternoon and Rygel had SOOO much fun zipping around the property! For those of you who don't know, Old Brown was Dale's truck until he graduated from high school. By the time they bought the Dodge, Old Brown had no air conditioner, only one mirror (The rear view mirror melted and fell off and the driver's side mirror got smashed by a chicken on Highway 29 in Liberty Hill. Yeah you read that right.), the ceiling hung down but was tacked up in places with thumbtacks, the front passenger seat didn't always lock into place and sometimes slid around when Dale accelerated, until he put the CD player in the radio didn't work so he kept a boombox on the floor, and the driver's side door didn't latch all the way (still doesn't if you look closely at the pic) and flew open every time he made a right turn. We pretty much lived in that truck the second half of senior year, driving all over the place just for fun (gas was like 99 cents a gallon and neither of us paid for it ourselves back then) and taking it wherever. It's kind of a symbol of some of the best times ever.

Mere044

Awesome Cake, anyone? This was my dessert contribution to the Pants Party/Mere Quit The Bridal Shop Celebration: Rainbow soda cake with vanilla frosting, a.k.a. "Awesome Cake". Delicious? Hmm yes.

Mere043

Oh well HEY look who showed back up at trivia! Camden has mostly beaten the mono and is once again on the loose! In his Google shirt and sunglasses. Rockin.

Mere042

I don't often post anything very personal online, I am including this because I want people to know about the person I am writing about.

Didn't take a picture today. I went to a memorial service for a woman who very well may have saved my life during the first half of my senior year of high school. That was the most difficult time of my life and when everyone that I loved and trusted had either betrayed my trust or just abandoned me, the high school crisis counselor was there, taking care of me. Her name was Jinx Lacey and everybody who knew her would tell you she was crazy, but really I think she had it together better than anybody I've ever known. I was so sad to hear of her passing last week and I was so grateful to be able to attend her memorial tonight. She was funny, loving, free of judgment, and a steady presence for the thousands of lives in turmoil that she touched. I will never be able to fully express my gratitude for people like her, and I hope that everyone whose life she touched will honor her existence by striving to live by her example. She had unlimited talent and could have chosen to do anything with her life, but she chose to work in public schools. She chose high schoolers. She chose all of us. She was an amazing, amazing woman and I am grateful beyond measure for having known her. One of the most significant things I ever heard her say came during a press conference at school just after a classmate was killed in a car accident in front of the building, and I hadn't heard it again until McNeil's principal said it again tonight. I hope these words mean as much to you as they do to me:

"When you share joy, you double it. When you share grief, you cut it in half." - Jinx Lacey

Mere041

This is the story of my day. I'm driving, and I see a light, it's green...it's green...it's green...I get close to it ANNND it's red. BOO YOU, STOP LIGHT GODS!

Mere040

Went to my grandma's today! :-) Yay! I'm working on a photo project about her kitchen and here's one of the shots I took. It just sits there in the corner, observing the entire family coming and going, towering over at least three gigantic buffets a year and by now I'm sure it is infused with all of the wonderful aromas of forty years of home cooking. Thought I'd share!

Mere039

You haven't had a pug picture in a while; I have literally done not a lot all weekend. Just hanging out with the husband and the dog. Oh yeah and I decided not to work at the bridal shop anymore. Why? It has something to do with me being awesome and that place sucking hard core. Unemployment party on Friday! It'll be awesome!

Mere038

Check out what I found at Target! It's exactly the kind of thing I would love to have, except it doesn't match anything in our apt and it wouldn't fit anyway. But yeah - I thought it was kind of awesome.

Mere037

Breakfast for dinner! Amy and I have been craving blueberry pancakes with migas all week so we managed to make date for Friday night after she got done watching "He's Just Not That Into You". ANYWAY, we went to the new Kerbey Lane on Anderson Mill, kind of across from where the old Kerbey Lane used to be. Pancakes? Awesome. Migas? Awesome. Company? Fantastic!

Mere036

Click here for the review!

Mere035

Is that an alien hat? Damn right it is! We won trivia (Austin and Dallas, TToA FTW!) and somehow Duffy found out that I have never seen The Empire Strikes Back and he just about threw up and then somebody goes "She hasn't seen any of them!" which a fairly disgusted Duffy then announced to everybody in the restaurant, and then he went and got the alien hat off of the trophy and told me I had to wear it. For not seeing Star Wars, really? Bah.

Oh also GTYO removed the picture of the Duffy/Camden snuggle session from the Hannah Montana guitar. Apparently the guitar "fell apart" in the trunk of someone's car and they "forgot" to put the picture back in. But they glued the guitar back to the trophy without it. Bitches.

Mere034

Check out this little bit of awesome, taken by Dale in Vegas! He's staying at the Bellagio for the Student Housing Something Or Other Of America Conference (I don't pretend to know what's going on), and he took this of the fountains outside. Rockin!

Mere033

Ugh, destroy the yuppies. It's not nearly as bad as Katie's life in Dallas but the conservative Republican aroma still lingers in the air in north Austin. It's really hard to tell from the awesome camera phone pic (Dale took our camera to Vegas) but this person's rocking my three least favorite things: an SUV (A yellow SUV of course, 'cause she's still preoccupied with 1985.), a Texas A&M decal, and a Republican sticker. The Republican sticker is even worse because it's a Palin sticker that just says "Sarah!" with the McCain/Palin thing underneath. Like maybe they'd ever be on a first name basis with Caribou Barbie. Seek life elsewhere.

Mere032

It's Super Bowl Sunday and all you're getting is this hilarious picture that Mark texted to me. Apparently, this is written behind EZ's in Austin. We spent a good long while talking about how we're anti-hipster so when I read this awesome little bit of graffiti, I have to agree.

Mere031

Amy's! Katie and Jenn head back to Dallas (BOOOOOO DALLAS!) tomorrow so we had to go get either wine or ice cream. Seeing as how Dale and I have to be up early tomorrow we picked ice cream. I had sweet cream with strawberries because when I get anything else it is never as good and then I just get mad and wander around trying to figure out why I did that. Yay shenanigans!

Mere030

This is maybe the most awesome pic I've taken in a while. A bunch of us went to see Ben's friend's band Phoenix Down play at Shakespeare's and look who showed up! Andrew's been MIA a whole bunch lately but it was fun to get to hang out with him for a while! Oh and also that's Katie's free tank top he's holding up. We're awesome at getting free stuff!

Mere029

I went to Abel's amazing kickboxing class for the first time in a while. This bottle is my new best friend. I officially can't voluntarily move my body without wanting to cry a little bit.

Mere028

Do you know this d-bag? If you do, tell him exactly what I think of him. Also remind him of Life Rule #322: Do not allow your total d-baggery to be viewed by others, lest you end up immortalized in the d-bag hall of shame. And now all 5 people who read my blog know what you look like. Kthxbye.

Mere027

Amy Adams is officially one of the cutest people on the planet. Today was gross, cold, and misty so I stayed home and got Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day on demand (thanks for not sucking, Time Warner!). Adorable!! I want the DVD now so I can watch it whenever I want. Also I had soup at the Whole Foods with Katy Jo this evening. I didn't get a pic of it but it was worth mentioning!

Mere026

I don't know if I've told you this already, but last week at trivia TToA dominated once again, awesomely, even though there was a chug-off with the Giant Ten Year Old (GTYO)'s team. It was just because they won 5 points for their lame ass team name (although I will be honest, ours was not our best work) we ended up in a tie for first. Their only guy didn't want to chug and none of our boys were exactly down for it either, so I offered to do it if they'd put up a girl. Now, at 25 I'm not the drinker that I once was, but there was a New Year's Eve where I beat every single boy at the party at kegstands. Sorry, hidden talents like that don't just disappear because you left school and moved to Cedar Park. Anyway, I won and we had to figure out what the hell else to do with the trophy, so we added a tier (it's below the skateboard, you can't see it in the pic) and also put a dress on GTYO's damn gnome. And Ben gave him some new facial jewelry!! In the form of a 7" screw. Suck it, GTYO.

Mere025

Here's some copyright infringement for you! Actually, what really happened was that since it was a course weekend I wasn't carrying my purse and therefore did not have my camera but after the course ended on Sunday Ben, Dale, Pam, and I went to Trudy's (mmmmfood.) so I ganked this pic off the interwebz and now I'm using it as my Sunday picture. Deal with it!

Mere024

"Say something, Haircut!" Yeah so on Thursday I *did* actually wander on over to Ulta and get my hair did. I like it, I think. So far most of the ppl I've seen since I did it have kind of raved about it, even though I only asked ONE person (Griff!) since I saw her right after I did it. Anyway, ignore the crazy eyes and the lack of makeup, I was about to clip my hair back and head to the Center so it was early and I didn't really care what I looked like. Katie said she wanted to see it so here's your dorky Caturday pic!

Mere023

Here's some crap I haven't seen in a good long while: a sunrise. Particularly, the sunrise over good ol' 183 Southbound. BOO early mornings!

Mere022

This is my printer. Today, we had a GIGANTIC fight. It was pretty much one-sided, with me screaming obscenities at it and the printer just glaring at me, killing me with its silence and its refusal to cooperate. It used the laptop as a go-between, sitting atop its perch and saying to the laptop "Laptop, please tell Mere I am not talking to her. Please tell Mere that I think that this ink is not compatible with my systems. Please tell Mere she sucks." NOOOO!! Ultimately, I was victorious, because let's face it: I have a human brain. Homo sapiens sapiens FTW.

Mere021

It's so hard to tell from this angle but this guy totally looks just like Dwight Schrute. I'll get a better pic next week, hopefully. Anyway, we won trivia again. Holla.

Mere020

How much do I make you want to puke? Dale went to bed early last night so I went around the house leaving these precious pink sticky notes with cute stuff like "I [HEART] YOU!" and "Have a great day!" written all over them for him to find in the morning. I KNOW! I'm the cutest wife ever! This is one of my favorites, located above the towel bar in the shower (I don't know why we have a towel bar in our shower - I guess we have a giant shower?). Anyway.

Mere019

Screw the gnome! So last week after we dominated crazy-awesome style at trivia we had to take home this monstrosity, complete with a horrid talking garden gnome. It never shuts up! So we decided to put screws in its face. It still won't shut up, but now it's got screws in its face.

Mere018

Check it out! Men's Wearhouse got the boys some adorable tuxes to wear on the weekends, here's Edna modeling her awesome tiara and Eric rockin the rental!

Mere017

Amy at her (our?) awesome wine-tasting/house-warming/drink-a-lot-and-sit-in-the-dark party! Her new house is SUPER cute!!

Mere016

Pug Burrito OR Rygel's Best E.T. Impression. Awesome!

Mere015

So we missed the Anchorman Quote-Along at the Alamo Drafthouse because we didn't know about it until two hours before it started and those things always sell out so Mark, Katie, Dale, and I had our own! Really I just drank a lot of Malibu and occasionally yelled stuff out ("I FREAKIN LOVE YOU BACK!" "I ate a big red candle." "Dorothy Mantooth was a SAINT!" etc.) but it was fun times. So here you go.

Mere014

Trivia trophy or a piece of a float from a Gay Pride parade? You decide...

Mere013

Two pug pics in a row! Not sure if you can tell, it's been quite the slow week. Looking for a new job and cleaning the house don't make for many great pictures, but this is actually a really precious one of Rygel and Dale.

Mere012

PUG DAY!!

Mere011

BLAH, slow day today. All we pretty much did was hang around and recover from our trip. We *did* go wander around HEB though, and Dale stepped on a tomato. IDK, maybe you had to be there but there was the SQUISH sound and he got this weird look on his face and was like "Uhh...I stepped on a tomato." I laughed a lot.

Mere010

In some way this was the perfect end to a great cruise. We pulled into Galveston early this morning, hung out in the hallway and made fun of people for a bit while all the people on the lower decks were herded out of the ship, got through customs, got a shuttle to Ben's truck and just as we finished up loading the luggage into the truck and getting the tarp set the wind started howling and blowing like crazy and the temperature dropped about twenty degrees. And as soon as we started driving, the rain started pouring down. It was like the universe said "Ok, hope you had a nice trip, here's some winter for you!" Thanks for that, Universe, as a matter of fact, I had a great trip. :o)

Mere009

Our last dinner on the ship was awesome! We alternated between talking about how much we loved our waiters Pande and Adi and how much we wanted to cut the people at the table near us. The people at the table near us are due for a blog on Shut Uppp at any minute, so let's focus on the positive here! The two guys in the picture with us are Pande and Adi, both from Indonesia, and they were absolutely awesome!! They were both SO polite and sweet and they were so much fun to be around. The entire staff on the Ecstasy were just amazing, I can totally see how they've won so many awards, and these two guys took wonderful care of us. Aw but this picture kind of makes me sad. I miss the cruise!

Mere008

BEACH! One thing you must know about me is that I was born a beach bum. My dad's mom was from Hawaii and for Dad and me there's something in our blood, if we don't regularly visit the ocean we could, like, die. Maybe that's a little dramatic but life is so much better when lived in salt water. So here's Cozumel, I took this right after a little rain shower and right before Mark and I went out on a tiny sailboat. How do you say Aloha in Spanish? :o)

Mere007

Uxmal! I was reluctant to go, having done the Mayan thing in school (Hey-O Drs. Juarez and Romo!) from like 1998 until...still, but Dale and Katie were really excited about it and in the end I was really happy to have gone. I hadn't been to Uxmal since '98 (how was that eleven years ago?!) and it was awesome! Also, a week into '09 Dale finally makes his first appearance in the 365! Hooray, Dale!

Mere006

It's such a good thing they have the cocktail party early on during the cruise. Already by this point I'd eaten about four days' worth of food and that dress was awfully tight. Oh, and because we're not new to cruising and are also awesome at it we successfully attended both the early and late captain's parties (you can't tell us what to do) and also made it to our dinner on time (like we were gonna skip a meal, please!). I don't remember which party this pic was taken at BUT I do remember that those whiskey sours were gooooood and I had about twelve of them because I would also never waste free liquor.

Mere005

"It's like a hurricaaaaaane! Oh wait, too soon?" - Katie

So it was suuuuper windy and cold the day we left Galveston, but Katie and I managed to take this picture on deck before our hair got too stupid looking or we froze to death like the people in Titanic.

Mere004

T-minus eleven and a half hours 'til we leave for the cruise! Wow, ridiculously excited. The only downside is that we had to leave our FAVORITE little guy (RYGEL!) behind. He's in absolutely awesome hands, though, with some co-workers of Dale's that love dogs so he'll be fine, it just made me sad. Here's a pic of me saying bye to him while he pretty much chewed on my hand! Sweet puggy. See you when we get home, little Rygel!

Mere003

Slim pickins today, folks! Not a lot going on, spent the whole day at work and the only thing remotely interesting was absolutely inappropriate to photograph (even for me). So here's an awesome pic of my sister's dog Miss Ollie! She's hiding under a recliner because that's how she behaves in public. Aw!