I have a blog?
It has come to my attention that I am supposed to update this thing every now and again. Oops!
Dear Anonymous,
I am deeply sorry that I haven't met your blogging expectations. Please forgive me.
Yours,
Brenda
In other news, here's what's going on!
Let's see, I last left you with the exciting news that I'm getting married in May. As you can imagine, this requires a good bit of our time. But there is plenty going on other than wedding news. I have a dog with liver problems. The vet's "not sure" why but I'm certain it's because she binge drinks when I'm at work. That would explain all the vomit I come home to.
In October, my mom was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer and had a mastectomy in November. She began chemo this month and is getting on remarkably well. She's so brave, that woman. I really take my hat off to her. She's been such a trooper. The doctors have every confidence that she'll make it through this. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.
It's kind of hard to follow up after news like that. But I'll keep going anyway. Christmas was fun. New Year's was great. Now we're just counting down the days until we're married. Maybe I'll post again before then! That would be something, wouldn't it Scott?
It's been so long...
Sorry 'bout that. Scott's been on my butt to post again, but I'm lazy. So I figured this post would be exciting for those of you who missed me over the past 2 months (!).
Let's see, where to begin...
Well, I moved. Again. But I won't be moving until next May when Brad and I get our own house because...WE'RE ENGAGED! That's the big news, kids. May 5, 2007 we will officially become husband and wife. Woohoo! So here's how it went down:
Saturday night, August 26, 2006 we went to a lovely dinner at
Cabana where we enjoyed awesome food (seriously- go there and get sliders, lump crab hushpuppies, and the rainbow trout. It ROCKED!) and some nice drinks (lemondrop martini for me and extra dirty martini for the gentleman, we both had mojitos that were super refreshing) .
Then, when I wanted to order the "trio of fried pies" (because holy doodoo, that sounds good), Brad protested. "I have dessert in the car," he said. Okay...dessert in the car. Should be interesting. And melted. But I went with it. (We have been looking at rings, people, and I'm no dummy...I had an idea in the back of my mind what might be happening)
So halfway down Hillsboro Road, I was blindfolded. You see, I'm what Brad likes to call a little "Sherlock Holmes". I don't like surprises. Never have. Since childhood, I have scouted out numerous birthday presents, Christmas presents or any other mention of a "surprise". I feel like it's my inner CSI coming through. My mom got so good at hiding them that she hid them from herself.
So, there I am, sitting in his car, blindfolded. I know that looked interesting to passers-by, but he said there was no one around really. Then I heard the blinker go on and I felt the car veer into the left lane. "You're turning left, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not." At which point, Brad turned right to throw me off. Because the whole time I'm thinking, 'Okay, we're going down Hillsboro. I know that much. So where could we be going if we're turning left.' And then bam! He hits me with this right turn and almost immediately a strange curve. I was all confused so I gave up. I kept trying to pry hints out of him using my girlish charm, but to no avail.
Everytime I asked, "Sooo....how much further," he would respond with "about 10 or 15 miles". Gee, that's awesome. Blindfolded for 10 or 15 miles. I was starting to feel like a hostage, but I let it go. And then I heard it. The crunch of gravel under the tires. "We're at Ellington*, aren't we?" (*Ellington Agricultural Center in Crieve Hall has a beautiful iris garden and we both had talked about having our wedding there already. Plus, it's gorgeous!)
"What makes you think that," he asked with a smirk.
"Because I heard the gravel." I'm pretty sure he was shaking his head at that point, but I don't know for a fact because, oh yeah, I was blindfolded.
He lead me through the grass where he told me to "step high" because there were grass clippings everywhere, and I took this to mean "walk as though you are in the TSU marching band" because my high-stepping was met with laughter. Hey, when you're blindfolded and being lead around, it's a good idea to do everything you're asked.
We finally stopped and, when he took the blindfold off, lo and behold, we were at Ellington! (Am I good or what?!?) But nevermind that, in front of me was a white picnic cloth, a picnic basket, tray of fruits and chocolate, a bottle of Riesling (my favorite), candles galore and a dozen red roses! Brad proceded to tell me all kinds of wonderful things that you, the internet, have no business hearing because it's private. He got down on one knee, pulled out a little blue box, and asked me if I would do him the honor of being his wife.
Now, because I blubber when I watch "A Wedding Story" on TLC, I was already boo-hooing at this point and answered, "Yes!" I think I may have said it multiple times. It was fabulous! We sat and drank our wine, ate some fruit and chocolate, and called everyone we love to tell them the fabulous news. It was the best proposal ever.
So now we're planning our wedding for May 5, 2007, and it will happen in the same place: the Iris Garden at Ellington. I can't wait!
P.S. Blogger won't let me upload my pics right now, and thusly, I hate Blogger. I'll put some up later. And I promise, these won't have puke in them.
Puke-tastically Good Times
So this pile of nastiness is what I came home to Tuesday afternoon. Isn't it pretty? I think that's a turd in the vomit. Nice, huh? It kind of makes me want to puke looking at it. Yum!
(picture removed at readers' requests- sorry guys, I think vomit is funny!)
Alright, so which one of you did it?
Aiko, is it yours? I have good reason to believe it is. 1) Your daddy taught you to puke in the bathroom if you get sick. 2) When Aggie pukes, she prefers to do it off the side of the coach like a drunk slut or all over my bedroom (have ya'll ever seen that episode of Crank Yankers where David Allen Grier's puppet calls a phone sex line and then explosively vomits whenever he's turned on...that's how I imagine Aggie pukes in the daytime: random, uncontrollable hurling explosions all over the place. It's awesome. I especially like cleaning it up-she's lucky her Uncle John is a carpet cleaner* or I'd be packing her up for Happy Tales Humane)
Aggie says, "This time, it wasn't me....I swear!"
Judging by that guilty look, it was Aiko. How can you stay mad at a face like that though? (FYI-I threw the bathmat away)
*Shameless plug for my brother: If you ever need your carpet cleaned at a reasonable price by a trustworthy guy, let me know. MaxClean Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning is the best in the biz.
Odd...
So my parents' neighbors have this Golden Retriever who resembles a small bear. He's huge. And he also thinks he lives with my parents. He'll come over to their house, come inside, hop up on the couch and lay his head in your lap like it's a daily routine for him. Last night I went over to their house with Aggie and Aiko for some play time and to visit with the folks and Chance decided to stop by. Aggie is one of his favorite fat-bottomed girls so he always comes over when he sees me pull up in the driveway. Apparently Chance has a new admirer, however. While sitting there watching the dogs play, I noticed Aiko walk over, sniff Chance's backside and start humping the air. She didn't make any effort to jump on him in an attempt to dominate him. She just stood there and humped her butt like she was dancing to doggy music in her head. It was really strange and funny. She walked away like she was a little embarassed and then came back for more. I have to admit- we were all laughing too hard to do anything. And Aiko looked mostly ashamed.
Memorial Day Report
Brad and I went camping at the lake with my family this weekend. Here's a bulleted run-down of the weekend.
- Friday night- To avoid a repeat of the previous weekend's camping wetness, my parents let us sleep in their camper. Four people, four labs, thirty foot travel trailer- you do the math. At least we didn't have to sleep in water. There was some musical dog-in-bed action going on throughout the night.
- Saturday morning- Brad and I were responsible for breakfast and we'd planned on sausage links and pancakes. Where are the sausage links? Are they in the cooler? No.... Are they in the fridge in the trailer? No..... They're still at my apartment! Awesome! So we all took an early morning trip to Wal-Mart to replenish our sausage link supply and breakfast was yummy as a result. (And in the grand tradition of Wal-Mart, left the place with more than we had anticipated)
- Saturday afternoon- Boat trip with John. Fun times with Aiko and her duck decoy. She fetched it over and over and over and over and over (and over). She lives up to the name "retriever". At one point she tried to retrieve a small tree that was growing in the lake.
- Saturday night- Steak dinner! Then we realized we'd have to set up the air mattress we borrowed from my brother. Not easy to do in the dark. Oh yeah, and the pump didn't work. Trip #2 to Wal-Mart to buy an air pump.
- Sunday morning- It looks like we've figured out which air mattress of my brother's has the leak in it. Butts on ground. No fun. Looks like later... trip #3 to Wal-Mart for our own air mattress. My sister and brother-in-law fix a nice breakfast of bacon and cinnamon rolls. Aggie decides that a mugful of bacon grease would be a tasty treat and indulges herself.
- Sunday afternoon- A little galavanting through the Natchez Trace State Forest/Park to see the "Big Pecan Tree" and some impromptu off-roading. Come back for more boat rides and swimming with the fam. Grillin' out for dinner. This time we fixed the air mattres before it got dark so there were no surprises at bedtime.
- Monday morning- Plans change. Forget going home early: let's go for more boat rides, more swimming, and more duck retrieving with Aiko!!! Fun fun fun!
- Monday afternoon- Decide to go eat up river and everyone heads out in boats. Dad attempts to cross cabin cruiser's giant wake in his boat and almost swamps the damn thing, giving us all heart attacks. Luckily, everyone is fine and there is no damage to boat. Everything is wet except the for the Lay's Stax potato chips- maybe we should write to Lay's about how indestructible their plastic potato chip containers are and make some money off of this. We get to the boat dock where we had planned on eating lunch and surprise!surprise! the restaurant burned down in March. No lunch there. We all decide it might be time to head in and pack it up for the weekend.
Several hours and much sunburn later, we return back to reality. Brad and I headed to Cracker Barrel for dinner where everyone asked "Ya'll been on the lake" on account of Brad's raccoon eyes and my mucho sunburned shoulders. Fun times.
Cinco de..... CRAZY!!!
Amanda and Chris hosted a fabulous Cinco de Mayo party (and if you're paying attention-this post is 20 days late, but F it. I'm a busy person). She made the world's strongest margaritas which, after imbibing, created insane amounts of laughter and crazy picture taking. Bernie and I forced Brad to take our picture over and over in order to obtain the perfect photo. Damned digital cameras. They let you see how horrible you look so you can keep retaking the picture until you have an epileptic seizure from the flash.
We also had some fun with political action figures, courtesy of Amanda's latest trip to Wal-Mart. Ah, Wal-Mart, I'm sure you had no idea when you sold Action Hero Rumsfeld and Action Hero Old Man Bush that we would be doing what we did to them. I want you to note the smiling expressions. Man, he really likes taking it up the butt.
Hopefully the next time these kiddos host a party, it won't take me ten years to post about it. But here's what we've all been waiting for... (drumroll please)
Awwww....so cute. I think this is where we gave up, after take 832,059. The camera battery was dying and I suspect Brad was tired of looking at us.
I imagine that Bush is turning his head back as though to say, "Hey Rummy, you brought the KY and condoms, right?"
This is my alter-ego, Beaker. Here me saying, "Meeeeepmeeeeepmeemeeeeeeeeeeeeep"
All he needs now is a brewsky and a football game on TV.
