Life With Frenchie

Who doesn’t love a deal?!?! Today, after scooping up EP from the house, we went to lunch and then to run some errands. Part of those errands was to find some pants for EP. We stopped by Ross and I ended up finding a pair of Lee Relaxed Fit jeans for $7. Score! After not finding anything that really tickled his fancy, EP and I headed on over to Marshalls. I found another pair of the exact same jeans I had just gotten at Ross, only for $10. This was not quite as exciting as the first find, but still very good. So far, $80 in jeans for $17. While EP was trying on some pants, I wandered over to the tops. I had to surgically remove myself from that area after discovering a whole slew of Ralp Lauren tops for under $20!!!! In all, I came out of Ross & Marshalls with two pairs of jeans and five Ralph Lauren tops, including a sweater, for just over $100! And to think, I was excited last week when Winn Dixie had their Raisin Bran Crunch (and yes, the commercials are accurate - you can’t hear poop while chewing that cereal!) BOGO and I came home with four boxes! :shrug:

I think I found a new addiction boys & girls….when’s the next payday?

In high school, I had two BFFs - Alisha and Teresa. Teresa and I attended the same school, while Alisha and I met at church. If I wasn’t at work, I was with one of them. After high school, Alisha and I ended up going to college in the same town in Massachusetts while Teresa stayed in Georgia. For several years, I kept up with the both of them. But, as time passed, I did not see either of them as much. Now, some 15 years since I graduated from high school (DAYUM!!! I’m getting O-L-D!!), I am getting a chance to reconnect with both of them.

Alisha has ended up back in Georgia, not too far from where we grew up. She is happily married with three absolutely gorgeous little girls! I have actually gotten to see her twice in the past several months. We try our best to keep up with one another and our families via e-mail and brief visits whenever we’re in the same town. And, I’ve given her enough notice that she has no excuse not to be at my wedding!

Teresa is another story. She is harder to keep track of than a black cat in a dark room! She is always popping up somewhere new. Not too long before I started dating EP, she tracked me down somehow. I don’t even remember how long it had been since I had last seen or talked to her. At the time, she was in Mountain Home, ID! I had never even heard of that place….the funny thing was, it turns out that one of EP’s long time friends was there as well! Apparently there’s an Air Force base there or something. Anyways, we kept in touch for a bit even after she relocated to Wyoming (WTF?!?! Where is this girl going?!?!). However, it was inevitable that we’d lose track again. Lives just get busy as you grow up (I’m still fighting it!!!) and your best intentions get derailed by….responsibilities!!

The other day, though, I realized I needed to track her down once again. I couldn’t exactly have the wedding of my dreams and not have my other BFF there! I knew her parents still lived in the same town but I just couldn’t find their info. I was able to dig out an old e-mail address I had for her and just crossed my fingers that it was still good. In these days where people have multiple e-mail addresses (I have 7 that I actually use, not including work!) you never know if it’s one they actually use. Needless to say, I was very happy to see a reply from her in my inbox this morning! So, I was able to chat with her a bit this afternoon on my way home from work and now have her cell phone number and she is sending me her mailing address as well as her parents’ and hopefully they will all be there to share in one of the happiest days of my life!

Thanks to Mama Frenchie for this gem. The sad part is, I’m sure there are women out there just like the ladies in this video. Enjoy!

With college football season long gone and the NFL done as of a couple of weeks ago, I am normally pretty sport dormant this time of year. I used to only have to wait until baseball started up to get my sports fix, but as of late, the sport has lost a lot of its appeal. It has nothing to do with The Mitchell Report - my love for the game started cooling off a few years back. But, that’s for another time. At any rate, I have never been accused of being a fan of basketball whether it be pro or college. Every now and then, my buddy would get me wrapped up in March Madness, but that was more because of his excitement over it. However, since meeting EP, I have been introduced to the wonderful world of women’s college basketball. Specifically, the Lady Vols. *GASP* I know! I can’t believe it! ME? A Bulldog fan falling in love with the enemy?!?!? Will they revoke my fan card? I can’t help it. It’s like a dirty little secret.

My first time with them was during last year’s women’s tournament. I got more and more excited each time I saw them play. Once football was done for the year, I found myself being inexplicably drawn yet again to the ladies in orange. Pat Summitt is truly amazing, being the winningnest coach in all of college basketball - women and men!

I am not Catholic, but I feel like I should go to confession. But, instead of a priest, perhaps I should confess my sins to UGA VI???

I found this while browsing around on The Knot, but it was too good to just put up on my wedding blog.

One of the things that I’ve learned about during the planning is that a lot of women have boudoir pictures done as surprise gifts for their fiances. I’ve seen some samples on photographer websites when trying to choose a photographer for our wedding, as well as women on The Knot who have shared their own. They have always been very tasteful and reveal just enough to keep the man in suspense…until now!

This is a real photographer and these are actual samples. Maybe these girls didn’t know any better, but this guy seriously ripped them off! But, as much as I feel sorry for the bad “deal” these women got, I can’t help but laughing to the point of crying when I look at these. Needless to say, this is not what I will be getting for EP!

I logged on today to post a blog about the aggravating drivers I encountered today and found out that I have been pegged as someone who Colleen thought should complete this Crazy 8’s meme:

8 Things I’m Passionate About

1. My daughter
2. My fiance (I love how that sounds!)
3. Finishing my Actuarial Exams
4. Doing good through volunteering
5. Expanding my knowledge
6. Opening my mind to new things
7. TRAVEL
8. Wedding planning for the next 14 months!

8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

1. Visit every state in America (I cheated off of Colleen)
2. Get over my fear of heights
3. Finish my Actuarial Exams
4. Meet my grandchild(ren)
5. Live in another country
6. Run a marathon
7. Lose weight
8. Take my last breath? (This is harder than I thought!!)

8 Things I Say Often

1. I hate stupid people!
2. MM!!!!!
3. I love you!
4. Hey baby…. (to both MM and EP)
5. GRETCHEN!!!
6. What the f***?
7. Hey Goober (MM)
8. Don’t touch me there!!!

8 Books I’ve Read Recently

1. John Adams by David McCullough
2. ???? - I really haven’t had time to read anything lately! How sad is that? I have started several, including #1 on my list, but have not gotten anywhere near finishing anything..
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

8 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over

1. American Pie by Don Maclean
2. Cowboy Take Me Away by Dixie Chicks
3. Mary by Tori Amos
4. Spoiled by Joss Stone
5. ANYTHING by Prince
6. AAARRRGGGHHHH this is impossible!!!!
7.
8.

8 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends

1. A sense of humor
2. Intelligence
3. Open mindedness
4. Non-judgmental
5. Someone who can tell when I’m being sarcastic
6. Loyalty
7. Fairness
8. Fun seeking

8 People I Think Should Do Crazy 8s

1. Kim
2. I don’t know 7 more people who blog…I could just list 7 others, but they wouldn’t necessarily read this. I need friends.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Okay, now that Colleen has taken up a good 30-minutes of my time, I will have to wait to kavetch about the drivers that ticked me off today! Time to spend some quality time with EP!

My friend Colleen is the one who got me started blogging. She is this really cool, sassy, and HI-larious chick! I always find myself chuckling or shaking my head when I read her blog. In certain aspects, she’s so much like me in some ways, it’s scary. I guess that’s why I get so amused by her. But there was no way I was expecting what I read today on her blog! Actually, I had seen a hint of it in an earlier post of hers that left me scratching my head and getting a little scared, but I totally forgot about it and was just floored when I read this entry:

Alternate Title For Post: Why Colleen will always wash new clothes from now on.

Let me preface this by saying if you are:

Easily offended
Easily grossed out
Have a rotten sense of humor
Stop reading NOW and go elsewhere.

The rest of you still with me? Good…you’re going to enjoy this story! It all started a month ago, before my trip to Amsterdam. I decided to head to the after Christmas sale at the Old Navy in my town and get new pants for the trip. I found two pairs (same style, different colors) on sale and after trying on one pair, bought them and took them home.

I am not a “wash clothes before I wear them” type of person. Well, I am now, but I didn’t used to be that way. In fact, I’ve made fun of my husband on more than one occasion because he would wash brand new clothes that had obviously never even been tried on! I saw it a waste of time, especially when you could see the crease marks in a brand new shirt, or the pants still had the tages and size sticker attached.

So I head home from Old Navy with my new pairs of pants - the green pair I tried on in the store, and the brown pair in the same size that I didn’t try on. A few days later, I put the pants on so that I could head out. I had the pants on all of 10 minutes before deciding I should hit the toilet before leaving the house…just like I tell my kids, you always potty before you go out. As I sit down on the can, pants down around my knees, I noticed something odd in the crotch area of the inside of the pants……

From there, the story just gets funnier (grosser?? scarier??), but nonetheless, I was absolutely speechless! I can’t even imagine what the heck I’d do if that had happened to me! EP would probably still be laughing at me days later and I’d have developed something akin to a nervous twitch because I’d give an involuntary shudder everytime I thought about!! :shudder:

No wonder Old Navy has such great bargains!

This one is going to be a randomly updated post because I’ve come to realize my memory is not what it used to be and I’m already forgetting stuff from the 1st half of the game.

While the pre-kickoff events were going on, we flipped it over to Animal Planet and watched a bit of Puppy Bowl IV. I had heard of this in previous years, but never even thought of watching it. For some reason, tonight I decided to give it a try. Well, let me tell you, Gretchen absolutely loved it! Here is a great picture of her being totally enthralled by the Puppy Bowl action! I mean, everything came to a halt for her - she was not taking her eyes off of the television! It was priceless. Eventually, we did switch back to the game. So far, through the 1st half of the game, EP & I have seen a few Super Bowl ads that have “tickled our fancies”. One of those is the Doritos commercial with the mouse trap. As they showed the guy in the commercial setting up the mousetrap, EP is next to me say “No! No! I can’t watch this! No way!” and I’m thinking “There’s no way Doritos is going to show that!” We were stopped dead in our tracks as a giant “mouse” crashes through the wall and tackles the guy with the mouse trap and proceeds to beat the crap outta him! Priceless! Two other commercials that had us chuckling were the “Women like men with accents..” Bud Light commercial and the Justin Timberlake Pepsi commercial. Those were pretty good. So far, the “cute” vote goes to Budweiser’s classic Clydesdale commercial.

But, by far, the highlight of the Super Bowl, thus far, was the revelation that my dancing referee was officiating this game!! For anyone who has never paid close enough attention, you have got to watch Mike Carey when he officiates. He is just too smoove! Particularly when he is indicating a first down or announcing posession after a penalty. There’s something about the way he moves that seems like 1980s Solid Gold coreography. And, if you click the link above you’ll discover what I just did - that Mike Carey is the first African-American to referee in the Super Bowl. I am not sure where this fascination started, but EP is well aware of it. I was seriously upset at the beginning of the season because we never seemed to be watching any of the games he was in. It took a few weeks before I saw him. And now, with this being the last game of the season, I have to endure 7+ long months without him! EP has already informed me that, when an angry black woman shows up at our door asking “Where is she!?!?!?” he’s giving me up without hesitation!

Oh, and yeah, the game. Meh. I hate New England, and I think Eli is a pathetic excuse for a professional athlete. However, I think my desire to see New England decimated, overpowers my dislike of Eli - GO G-MEN!!

Okay, back to the game. Second half highlights later!!!

(Shaq as a jockey!!! PRICELES!!!)

3rd Update: Okay, so we missed a few minutes of the 3rd quarter as a result of a DVR-malfunction. Namely, EP hit a button, and in our rush to cancel it so channels didn’t change, we changed the channel. The Patriots had just won a challenge on whether NY had 12 men on the field and then we jumped to the Giants having the ball and the Patriots had not scored. DOH! But, immediately following that, saw another commercial that had EP and I laughing - the E-Trade baby and him puking on the keyboard! LOL!!!

Anyways, my reason for really updating right now was because when I saw Pam Oliver it reminded me of somthing I don’t remember hearing before tonight - she said “green zone” instead of “red zone”. Can you tell I’ve either ignored commentary this year or have fast forwarded through it. What is the “green zone”??

DOH! I just missed the commercial we’ve been waiting for - the NFL player story that people voted to hear. Rewind…

Oh, that was good! Chester Pitt of the Houston Texans - playing the oboe and bagging groceries to being a 2nd round pick!

But that did remind me of a commercial in the first half that I forgot about - T-Mobile’s “Fave Five” with Charles Barkley and Dewayne Wade. That was hilarious how Wade has been trying to get into Barkley’s Fave Five forever and when he finally does, Barkley turns into a stalker to rival Margaret R. Ray.

Okay, this has got to stop somewhere! Now the Stewie & Underdog Coca-Cola parade balloons commercial is on. Classic! Okay, back to the game!!!

Disturbing ad of the night - A tie between the Wil Farrel movie (Bud Light - “Suck it down!”) and the Amp(?) commrcial with the guy dancing to Push It!!!

OMG! Just saw Eli escaping the sack with less than a minute left. WTF is this guy Tyree???

Oh, I almost forgot, the James Carville and Bill Frist Coca-Cola ad. That was just perfect!

GIANTS WIN!!! GIANTS WIN!!!  GIANTS WIN!!!

The end. Happy Super Bowl Sunday to everyone..and to everyone, a good night!

One place I’ve been to several times and still can’t get enough of is London. There is just so much to do there! I love the variety of the city and its cultural richness. I have been there both with family and alone and I never have to worry about things to do either way. My mother loves to shop! I really enjoy the theatre. And, amazingly, MM just adores visiting the museums and castles and other historical sites.

One thing my mother likes to do when we’ve visited London is to go to Harrod’s and have tea before browsing around. Usually we’ve stayed right near Trafalgar Square when visiting, but it would be much more convenient to actually stay closer to Knightsbridge so we can be right at Harrod’s front door. I don’t think my mother would ever leave London if we did that! Of course, that would mean she’d have to find a reasonably priced hotel so she’d have more money to spend in the stores. My mother’s not one to skimp on comfort though, so it would have to be nice. I found this one, Rembrandt Hotel London,  in Knightsbridge for about 99GBP a night. It would also be ideal for MM because it’s directly across the street from the Victoria & Albert Museum. It’s also close to the Natural History & Science Museums and West End Theatres.

If you want to stay in a little more style, you can always stay at a hotel on Oxford Street. And you can still get your shopping on because there are over 600 stores!!! The Radisson Edwardian Marlborough Hotel London has all the amenities one could possibly want and has rates just over 100GBP per night. This is a great location if you travel to London in January to catch some of their great sales.

Of course, if you’re like me, you may want to shop, but you don’t necessarily want all the crowds and you don’t want to spend a lot on your accomodations. There’s High Street Kensington, which has a more relaxed shopping atmosphere. There are also department stores, which can offer a variety of goods. The hotels in this area are also a lot more affordable. I was able to find one starting at 55GBP per night. I found that, the last time I went on my own, if I spent less on my hotel, then I was free to do a lot of other things. There’s so many different things to do around London, I found I didn’t spend much time in my room anyways.

I think the most important thing to think about when planning a trip to London, or anywhere for that matter, is to figure out what exactly you want out of your trip. Are you there to shop? Do you want to stay in luxury or just need 4 walls and a bed? There are a lot of things to consider before you decide which hotel and area are best for you.

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