Annoyed... But better now

UPDATE, I got it back up! 

I had a great post up about my Philly girl weekend and SOME HOW it was deleted. I don't know what the heck happened. I will be reposting it later but it was actually really long and I have to go back and rethink the whole weekend. I am so upset.

I am sorry to all of you that are dying to hear all about my weekend. Kate I swear it was not on purpose love!

Philly girl weekend re-cap!

I had the pleasure of attending the bachelorette party of a great friend Kate. She is marrying one of her longtime friends and an all-around great guy Matt. If you don’t remember Matt is the cop that was in a horrible accident about a year ago. They have worked so hard to get healthy and stick together. I know they are going to have a really special marriage and I am so lucky to know them both.  Right away I knew I wanted to attend this girl’s bachelorette party because I knew it was going to be a great trip. 

I headed out at the ass crack of dawn on Friday morning and landed in Philly around noon. After some last minute shopping and a tour of Kate’s adorable 1950’s Cape Cod style home we got the party started. I made queso and guac which I am sure the Philly girls thought was weird. I also busted out my favorite Oreo truffles. They are amazeballs, and super easy to make.  We hung out all night with all the bridesmaids and got to know each other. Gallons of champagne will really speed that process up! We finally headed to bed at 4am after a lot of great story telling and yummy snacks. 

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast and then headed to the real party in the city. It had literally been years since I had been out in Center City. It was so much fun to be home. We stayed at a cute hotel right across from City Hall. After we all finished getting ready we headed out for some drink’s at Steven Starr’s “Continental Mid-Town”. I had a huge fight with a cab driver who refused to make change for a $20. Curse words were said and I did not pay. I did not cut anyone, WOOOT WOOOT! I feel I have really had some growth in the cutting department… 

We headed into the bar and went right up to the rooftop lounge. The weather was perfect and we had survived the rapture so it was time to get the bubbly flowing. Kate had about 25 people at the party including her mom and MIL. I thought it was so cute to see them all out and ready to party! We ordered a bunch of appetizers and yummy drinks. I had a freaking heart attack when I paid for my first drink and it was $9. I took a picture because I had to keep a reminder of what $9 champagne looked like. BTW- It totally looks like $3 champagne… 

Bride looking fabulous.

My champagne that I sipped so slowly... It was so yummy!

My outfit for the night. Thoughts? It was the first time I wore heals in like a year.

We then headed to another bar called “Time” in the gabor-hood. Loved it, but they played horrible techno music so we headed to our final destination. We had to walk through a shady alleyway and there may or may not have been a raunchy photo shoot in said alley. It was the funniest part of the night. We then got into “McGillians Pub” the oldest bar in Philadelphia. Such a cute pub and I have been going there for years. Kate got hit on by some randoms and we all fell down a lot at this point. We then walked back to the hotel and hit the sack around 345am not without some awesome Philly pretzels and more drinks. 

The next morning the bride took us all to a bunch at the ironically named spot “Supper”, such a cute spot. It reminded me a lot of a few cute Austin spots. We had a riot at brunch sharing stories from the night before. Everyone was tired and hung over. We again had many $9 mimosas, which I again had a heart attack when I heard the price.  We had some really yummy food and then said our goodbye. The whole thing went by in a flash. 

GGAB? Maybe. But I thought she looked fabulous for the day after her party!

Right after brunch I had a few minutes to catch up with my good friend Sarah who also still lives in Philly. She took me to this totally cute little coffee shop “Spruce Street Coffee” and I had an amazing cup of cappuccino. We caught up and she of course looked fabulous! I am always amazed at how Sarah pulls off looking better and better through the years (that bitch). After coffee Sarah walked me to the train station and got me all set up with a ticket to the airport. I hopped on the train and off I went. I headed home and after a very long weekend was back in Mr. A’s arms. 

Love the heart in my coffee!

 I can’t begin to tell you how touched I am to have such great friends. Kate is one of those people who will always be there for you and never ask for anything in return. I feel so blessed that I can be a part of her wedding and maybe in some way return some of the MANY favors and acts of kindness that Miss Kate has shown me over the years. I can’t wait for the big day, her wedding is going to be amazing! Congratulations Miss Kate!

Hunger Games Porn

Thanks to Amelia I have become a Hunger Games addict! I read the first book in five days and I am in the middle of the 2nd right now. If you have not read these books you have too! They are an easy ready but still super intense. You will find yourself up late at night with a flashlight reading. Mr. A hates these books because I do not even pay attention to him wile reading. I could not care less if he lit himself on fire! It is that amazing.

So amazing that they are making the book into a movie! WHOOT WHOOT!

Here is the first image of Katniss!!!!!

At first I questioned the casting of Katness Everdeen but now I totally see it and I am DYING to see how they pull of everything else from the book!

Hope the rest of you from Panem are as happy as I am!

Conclusion

Sorry for the delay folks, this Yankee was one sick puppy this weekend. I still feel like death but I am working through it with lots of NyQuil and sleep.

Last week just before a crazy storm with no rain and lightning during the sunset, I finished my frame selection.
Then I made my templates for the frames a la Young House Love.

The storm was wicked awesome... you can't tell in this picture.

Again an awesome use for the magazines you have laying around...

I then taped them to the wall and go and even better sense of the space. The hubs even helped out a bit with shifting the taped mock ups around for me!

Once happy with the layout I began hanging the frames. The tip that Young House Love gave me about measuring out where the hooks were on the template and them hammering in the hook on the paper totally helped. I only had to redo a few frames. For sure worth the extra step.

Off to a good start as you can see, wait for it, I screw something up soon...

I only had one mishap, a frame fell off its hanger:

What a shitty hanger!

It looked like this:

Damn you cheap frames!

But this is what I ended up with:

Don't worry it will look awesome once I take out the upside down pictures...

I love love love it. Next step will be getting the pictures selected for the space and getting the matting cut for the frames. I will post a final conclusion conclusion then. That process will take a while for sure! Ugh!
Hope you like!

The saga continues

After I got what I thought was all of my frames spray painted and put back together I thought it was best to get a better idea of the space I was going to fill.So I did a rough measurement of the current gallery wall I had created over my sofa, then marked it out with tape on the floor. I thought this would help me figure out what I was working with.

Of course I vacuumed before I took this picture...

Turns out it was a huge help. The space was actually way larger than the amount of frames I had prepped. So of course panicked and ran around the house grabbing all sorts of frames (some of them I am not sure Mr. A would be happy about me stealing, SHHHH!)

Ignore the pictures in the frames they will be replaced with more fabulous stuff at some point.

I then started my layout to determine if I really needed to use all the frames I grabbed.My first attempt I thought was to forced looking so the second picture is what I have been working off of.

I thought this looked like I was trying too hard, but then I realized I am trying too hard and decided to roll with it.

More changes to come I am sure of it.

Since it has ironically been raining for the first time in 6 months here and I actually need to be outside (damn you Obama for coming here and saving all of us by bringing rain with your magic powers!) I have not been able to finish the picture frames. But once I do I will show you my next step, template making and hanging the pictures.

This what happens when I read other peoples blogs...

I think I am cool and artsy.

This past weekend Mr.A had to work. So left alone to my own vices I decided to start on a new gallery wall for our living room. I was so inspired by Young House Love's gallery wall that I thought I would give it a try and see what kind of mess I could make.

A little background history for you. I bought a bunch of gold picture frames for our wedding that we used on the guest book table. I loved them for the wedding but I hated them for our house. I intended on selling them but after that failed I put them away in the closet and did not think about them for 6 months. After falling in love with what John and Sherry did I decided I needed to try it out. I had done a very basic gallery wall in the apartment when we first moved in. I used mismatched frames and just made it work. It actually came out pretty good considering I did not measure anything and I had no plan when I started it. But I never really loved it and I always wanted to try something new.

The ugly gold frame example. Just one of sooo many!

After I started to pull down the gallery wall I used to have. But you can see the space.

So this weekend I devised a plan. I would go through all of my frames and organize them. Then I would spray paint them to match! I. am. a. genius. So after I laid out all of my ugly gold frames and thought this is going to suck. So I ran to Home Depot and picked up some primer, masking tape and Kaki colored matte spray paint. I hit my first snag when I realized that the back of some of these frames did not come off. Meaning that I could not spray paint these frames very easily without them looking cheap. So I left the glass in the frames and taped them up as you can see here:

I found a use for all those copies of Time we have laying around. Read them you say? Never.

I then went to town on my frames out on my balcony, after the guy at Home Depot told me to wait because it was to humid out and too hot. NONSENSE I said. I have special powers. And I began. Turns out he was right. It took much longer for the paint to dry than the ten minutes it said it would on the can and I also sweat a lot more sitting in the sun while spray painting.

Looking good so far, I think!

Oh so many frames... At this point I want to die from heat exhaustion.

Up next, I will show you how I am going to lay out all my frames and plan the space. Let me give you a hint, I needed more frames... and I am still not done with spray paint.

Once again, no, I am not a stalker...

I just really really want to be like Kate Middleton.

I bought these shoes yesterday. Do you think Kate and Wills would want to go sailing with me!?!

I know I am late to the "Party", get off my back.

In my last post I said I was going to post about the royal wedding. I really had planned a huge post about the food I cooked and the drinks we drank and my friend's colorful opinions of all of the hats. But I just never got there. Last week seemed to fly by and then this weekend was like, POOF! So I will give the abbreviated version for you all.

Let me start by saying as a little girl I honestly dreamt of marrying William. I really had this whole idea that because I was part English I could totally marry him. His birthday is the day after mine, but he is just a year older than me. I would look to see what schools he was going to so I could apply to them. I totally looked into St. Andrews and totally would have gone if I could have. Then history would have been different. Kate for sure stole my idea. That B. But now I am in love with Kate too. So I have gotten over my rage of not landing the prince and decided to celebrate their marriage.

By now you have seen THE DRESS. All I can say is WOW. She looked amazing. Every part of the look was spot on. I am so glad I did not get married after her because I would have totally tried to copy her veil, dress and whole lookand it would have totally cost me a lot of money.

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 Then there were all the cute moments, that really brought the wedding down to a level that we could all relate too. I loved that they were not robots, that you could tell how much they were in love. I loved that Harry took a peak at her before his brother. How cute was it that William joked with her dad at the alter? All of it made you realize this was not just a royal wedding, but a wedding of two people really in love.

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I loved the kiss, and I totally love again how real the moment was. Kate even said "Oh WOW!" as she walked out on the balcony. I thought it was so sweet to see both sets of parents taking in the moment off to the side. Charles even seems like a warm person, holding up Camilla's grandchild so he could see. Just so sweet.

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 Most of all I thought it was so cool of them that they drove off in a car together, just like normal newlyweds! Never mind that it was a rare Ashton Martin that is worth more than most houses, and they were driving from one palace to another palace... it was still so cute!

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I will finish with my normal craziness. I am totally convinced that if Mr.A and I moved to Anglesey and we ran into Wills and Kate at the market we could totally be friends. I imagine Kate inviting me over for a glass of wine and a chat. We would totally hang out. I know it. In the mean time I will continue to obsess about everything that Kate wears and grow my hair out just like her. She would not find that weird at all when she met me at the market, would she?

The weekend that never was...

This weekend recap is going to a huge rant about why it sucked, sorry. Reviewing all the BS that happened will make you want to slit your wrists, sorry again. It is now Wednesday, deal with it. So here goes.

Friday we had our normal movie night, except when giving my dog belly scratches I realized that he had two ticks. Fast forward to us calling the doggy hospital and running to Pets mart  to buy flea wash and meds. (I was already taking him to vet the next morning but we felt we should not wait) Then Mr. A washing the dog in flea and tick bath as I try to make french macaroons for brunch the next morning. Over beating the macaroons while helping the hubs get the meds on the dog and then realizing the tea sandwiches are not quick to make. Annoyed, I then am up till about 1130 making sandwiches. Go to bed, then hear a helicopter floying around my house, I look outside there are about 10 cop cars parked across the street and three helicopters circling. I try to wake Mr.A, he tells me to hush and snuggle, says its nothing. I am scared to death that some man hunt is going on outside. So I read my book, "Huger Games" (awesome book by the way), and try to fall asleep. As soon as I dose off, Mr. A wakes up and announces he cant sleep and that I woke him up. He goes to living room, I dose some more. I am woken up by him whipping open the door and telling me to lock the bedroom door an stay in the room with our dog. I panic and do the only rational thing you can do, open the door and go find him.

I find him in the man cave putting together our gun, (why we have a gun is a whole other story) that I make him have in 6 pieces. He then says someone is trying to break in to the apartment downstairs, I freak out. We sit in silence in our living room, waiting. Now both of us are terrified thinking that the man hunt going on across the street that just ended has begun again at our front door. Well about 30 mins go by and nothing. We calm down but not enough to go to bed so now we decide to watch the classic movie, Fast and Furious because you know, that is what you do at 230 am when terrified. So we do and then we fall asleep around 330am.

Saturday morning at 7, we take the dog to the vet for them to get the ticks off of him, turns out my dog just need to exfoliate more. He has a freaking BLACKHEAD on his pee pee and that is what we were worried about. UGH. So after $150 bucks at the vet and $80 on his tick meds and wash we are not happy. We head home, I start hosting my friends at the house to watch the Royal Wedding.

I totally want to write whole other post about the wedding because it was AMAZE-BALLS. I will do that tomorrow. The girls were great, everything looked perfect. We start having fun. That's when it hits me, I am going to throw up! I sit down before I pass out and my friend Whitney helps me by making me a mimosa, because that cures everything. I feel better and I ignore the dizziness. Nothing can stop me from day drinking and wedding history!

Meanwhile my dog starts to poop everywhere in the living room. Runny gross stuff. It was not adding to my ladies brunch I was hosting. SOOO I get that cleaned up while wanting to toss my tea sandwich all over the place. Whitney, again helps me by making my dog some rice to help with the runny poo. Dog poops 4 more times in the house throughout the day, leaving them spread out all over the house like special gifts for me to find. I am not happy.

Hubs gets home, I am still sick, he eats leftovers and we pass out.

Next AM, our dog shits again everywhere we take him to the animal hospital. THREE HOURS later we get out of there, $100 bucks lighter. He needs YOGURT!!!! The dog prescribed yogurt and relaxation apparently he was stressed. REALLY!?!

SO now that my dog is ZEN I worry I am totally prggers, I have convinced myself of this while waiting at the pet hospital. I then rush to Walgreen's and buy 4 tests. I pass all of them!!! WHOOO WHOOO no ginger baby around these parts yet! So the hubs and I celebrate with mangia pizza and too much wine. All the while not figuring out why I am dizzy and sick. Ehh we will worry about that later.

SOO how was your weekend? Better than mine?