I'm Thankful....

This year I'm counting my blessings.

Trinket should count at least twice!

These are my "sisters" at home.

Holly - she is really bad!


My very first "sister" - we got her when I was in 8th grade. After growing up with her as soon as I got out on my own I knew I wanted to adopt my own Chihuahua. They make the best babies. This picture was taken in South Texas circa 2005.

Family and friends.






Oh, and I'm very hopeful this year as well. Hopeful that my Fighting Gamecocks will be victorious against the Clemson Tigers. Home for me is deep in Tiger Country. I will be watching the game in the little dive I worked in for years and I have a lot of pride, I don't want to be in there admist lots of ugly orange and be a loser! I make a sore loser so hopefully the Cocks won't dissapoint! Oh by the way for those of you not familiar with Clemson, the girls attend football games in ORANGE OVERALLS. If that is not a fashion don't, I don't know what is! I think a black dress and pearls is much prettier! That's just me though :-D

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

I'm packing and I don't know when Trinket got so much stuff!! Blankets, sweat suits, pp pads, food, snacks, her traveling crate....I could go on! Yikes!

XOXO
Gamecock Queen

Movies...

This weekend I saw New Moon and I really liked it. Of course nothing is as good as the books, but still, it was really good. About the only movie that I like as much as I like the book is The Prince of Tides. And that's partly because I love Barbara Streisand. I also think that is Pat Conroy's best book. I'm reading South of Broad right now. I like it, but it is not my favorite. I'm getting off track here...
Back to New Moon. I think I may have to be on Team Jacob now! I can't believe I would turn on my precious Edward. How is THAT the body of a seventeen year old? And how come the guys at my gym don't look like that?! Shouldn't that be my reward for working out all the time?
Speaking of working out all the time, I think I may have done something to my knee. It feels really stiff and creeky. To make a comparison everyone can understand, it is like Barbie's knees. You know how Barbie's knees are when you try to bend them so she can ride one of her horses or drive one of her cars? That creeky popping? THAT is my left knee right now. I shouldn't have gone to spinning last night, but I was feeling really fat.

OUCH! Anyways, back to the movies. We grabbed some lunch after New Moon (Wild Wings, and it was terrible) and then we were window shopping when we heard from our #1 guy friend. His girlfriend, one of our good friends, was out of town and he was bored to tears. We told him to come meet us. We went somewhere much better for dinner (Mint Julep-very good) and then saw Pirate Radio. I thought it was going to be stupid, but it was a really fun movie. It was kind of like The Big Chill in that a lot of the movie was a good music. If you like old stuff and classic rock this is a good movie to see.

I have to get back to work now. Will this nasty weather/rain EVER stop? Please?

XOXO
Gamecock Queen

TGIF

Last night my best and I went to Vista Lights, which is a celebration in our city to kick off the Christmas season. I love getting to do something different from the same old things we always do and going to same old places we have been going since college. I was going to bring Trinket and then decided not to (okay, that is a lie, A begged me not to b/c she wanted to go in somewhere to eat and I pouted about it-ha!). When we got there we saw lots of other little dogs and I totally wished I had brought her! She would have enjoyed it and I like to have my "child" with me whenever I can. We did not eat anywhere special, ended up eating at Wendys, and then walked around with heartburn all night from the Taco Salads we had consumed there. I rarely have heartburn and yucky! It is no fun at all.
We left somewhat early and made it home in time to watch Real Housewives of OC. I am soo into this season. Ever since I went to Las Vegas last month I have been starving for anything West Coast. When I was a little girl I used to go visit my grandparents in Rancho Santa Fe CA. Ranch Santa Fe is a really nice area. It is close to San Diego and not far from OC. Alexis, the new housewife, is quickly becoming a favorite. After seeing her and Gretchen in the gym last night I am motivated to work out extra hard in the gym today! Look at those legs. I wish I knew what she ate. I am willing to bet it is not what I eat....chicken fingers, french fries, Duke's mayonaise, and sweet tea! I am not in my tip top shape right now and that is something I need to work on! It doesn't feel good to know that I have been slacking off. Actually, it makes me kind of dissapointed in myself.
As I mentioned before, her hubby reminds me of an ex I had. Only mine had red hair and was mean! I am not trying to bash anyone or talk trash here...he's was a meanie! He popped up on my facebook as a person I may know the other day and I friended him. I was so curious as to what he does now I couldn't not friend him, even though common sense would say not to. He has commented on my status "funny how things change, huh? ha" YES! Funny how they change and I now know how I deserve to be treated! I hope that did not sound bitter, I'm not. I just had a lot to learn when I was in my late teens/early 20s and was dating these guys...didn't we all? I think that is what they call a "learning curve".

Oh and speaking of facebook, the word for the year 2009 is "unfriend". I read it on NY Mag online. So there is your smart fact of the day, curteousy of me!

Sunday I am going (with A for support so I don't get nervous) to the cute guys church with him. For the past two Sundays we have gone to my church. We are going Sunday night and his church is actually just a few blocks from my house.

Have a great weekend. I have plans to see New Moon and I can't wait! I will post about it after I've seen it.
XOXO
Gamecock Queen

Weekend Recap

This is me and my best this weekend. The Gamecocks lost, but overall it was not a bad weekend at all. We were going to get Chinese Saturday night. Why is it so hard to find decent Chinese food? The place we went to was not much to look at (which is OK with us) and the food was SICK. I mean it was really nasty. I prefer PF Changs (really I would prefer PF Changs in Las Vegas, but we can't have everything we want LOL), but I would be happy with somewhere that didn't make me feel like I was going to come down with food poisoning. Luckily we were able to recover.

Please excuse the very outdated kitchen!

Sunday I met the guy from last Sunday for church again. This weeks message was for women, or more specifically on the characteristics of a woman a Godly man should pursue. This question really stuck out at me from the guide. To give you the context of this question it is a question to ask yourself about the dating relationship you are currently in:

Is this the kind of love God meant when He created Adam and Eve, the kind between two people that truly reflects His love for us (the 1 Corinthians 13 kind), or are you settling for less than God’s “immeasurably more than anything you can ask or imagine”?

It just really made me realize how much I have compromised in the past. I totally settled! Looking back at the way I went about things it is really no surprise how my relationships always crashed and burned (I've only had three boyfriends and all of them cheated on me, which ended all of those relationships {although I wasn't above taking them back later} - and I was devestated each time).

After church we went for coffee again. This time we stayed for almost two hours. The conversation flowed really well and he is super easy to talk to. From what I can tell this is the kind of guy that is few and far between! The kind that really talks the talk and walks the walk. I have only ever met one other guy like this. Freshman year of college I met a guy, G, that was a really strong Christian and ran college cross country. He was really cute too! We went out about two times, but I was on-again off-again with another guy and never gave G my full attention. G also seemed like he wanted to take things slowly and get to know me gradually (and why did I think that was a bad thing?). I had no patience for that! I couldn't really invest in getting to know him because of the on-again off-again guy (that was a huge jerk BTW), because I didn't have any patience for getting to know someone (ahem, stupid? YES), and because I've always been drawn to really "flashy" guys.

This time around I am fine with letting him set the pace and getting to know him slowly. I realise that guys like this are few and far between, after all, that was almost 7 years ago that I went on the two dates with G. I know things will happen in God's time and in the past I always went about things with wrong way-MY way and on MY time frame.

Oh, and you know how this goes girls, when I got in my car after church and coffee I checked my phone and guess who called? My Mr. Big. After close to three months with not a word out of him of course he would call when I'm going to church/having coffee with a guy that is not a weirdo or loser! Of course! Don't ask me how exes always know these things, but they do. They seem to have a radar and they know when you have either met someone or you are doing really good!
My real life Mr. Big is not ever going to come around like the one from S&C did. He is like the old phrase "a leopard never changes it's spots" LOL

XOXO
Gamecock Queen

Real Housewives and Boys....

I'm loving the new season of Real Housewives of OC. Housewives is one of my guilty pleasures. I love it! I might even go so far so to say my favorite, or one of my favorite times of my day, is when I am in my pajamas in my bed (or in A's bed with her - we have always been really close like sisters so we sit in the same bed to watch TV) watching my shows! I am a big fan of Ghost Hunters too.

Last night they introduced the new housewife, Alexis. She is so so pretty! Look at those legs! Wonder how much she works out to look like that? I feel like I workout non-stop and I know my stomach does not look as good as hers. The only thing I didn't like was that her husband reminded me of one of my ex boyfriends and thinking of him is creepy to me! And he was not a millionaire like hers, maybe he would have been more tolerable if he was! Kidding, just kidding! My fantasy of beng a trophy wife died long ago. I know no one but ME can take care of ME and I like suporting myself and having my own money, that I made.
Sometimes I get annoyed when I watch this show because I'm thinking who can afford this stuff? As I mentioned above, I don't want a sugar daddy to take care of me, but it would be nice if I could afford some of this stuff for myself! I just wish I earned more! I guess we all do though.

Now an update about the boys I blogged about earlier. The guy from Halloween texted and called for a week. We talked a lot and then he went MIA over last weekend. I don't care and I made no attempt to get in touch with him. Oh well. Sometimes I think these guys must have a wife at home and that's why they are weird like that! Or maybe I'm just suspicious of that because a friend recently dated a guy that we think must have been secretly married the entire time. He was very sketch on the details of his separation/pending divorce (and never took her to his place) and I think that's never a good thing! But then again, maybe it's just me. I tend to jump to conclusions like this because I've been cheated on before so I naturally assume any sketchy behavior means the person is involved.

The church guy and I met at church. He is really cute! And yes it was distracting to be sitting next to something that cute during the service! The message was a little bit akward, or at least for me it was. The current series is about relationships and last Sunday's message was specifically for men. The church I attend is really cool and very open, which is usually a good thing, but there were topics brought up last Sunday that made me a little tense, but only because of who I was sitting next to if that makes sense. I am usually very open (I used to work in HIV Prevention/Public Health) so I can talk about anything with anyone and not get shy, but I had to cringe a time or two last Sunday. After church we went and got coffee and that was fun.

We are going to meet at church again this Sunday. I'm still not sure if this is a friends thing or what, but I am leaning towards friends. I think if a guy likes you he'll man up and ask you out and so far this guy has not. I guess I'll just go with the flow. I have a saying about men, "they always reveal themselves" so I guess I'll just be enjoying the view for the time being LOL.

Have a great weekend!
XOXO Gamecock Queen

Jeans Snob No More

I am a huge clothes horse. I love shopping for clothes, buying them, wearing them. It may come as a surprise knowing this, but until recently I did not own a pair of skinny jeans. Even my MOM got skinny jeans before me - like two years ago! I have been deathly afraid of them. I didn't want to try skinny jeans because I thought that they wouldn't look right on me. I felt like I was too athletic...my thighs are on the bigger side from years of working out and sports in high school making them muscular and my booty...well, I could give J Lo a run for her money!

I got some great new brown/caramel colored boots for winter from 9 West and I realized unless I was only going to wear them with dresses, I would have to jump on the skinny jeans bandwagon. Horrors!

I have always been a jeans snob. It is not unheard of for me to go to Atlanta and drop $100 or $200 on a pair of jeans. My favorites are Paige Denim (and if you are built like me with a big booty I highly recommend these because the thick fabric has some stretch to it that pulls everything in-very slimming and flattering). I also like Paige because they are super long and I am almost 6 feet tall. The runner up in my favorite category is Citizens for Humanity. I wear these as my casual/everyday jeans.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money on skinny jeans because A. I'm on a budget and I'm trying to save money (I still really want a new car, hopefully a 'Stang) and B. I didn't know how much I would like or wear them. I went to Dillards after going to American Eagle where all the jeans were so low cut that they are not wearable. I found some Levis and decided to give them a try. I have not had a pair of Levis since the 8th grade. I used to love them and they were about all I wore. I tried them...and I love them! And the best part is they were only $30!

After this I think I am reformed and I might not be a jeans snob anymore! I can't believe it!

Saturday night I went to watch a friend in a Miss America circuit pageant and I wore the Levi Skinny Jeans with the boots and a red plaid top and carried a cute/funky kind of beat up rustic looking brown leather purse. I like it so much, I woke up the next morning and wore the same outfit to church! I think I partly like it so much because it reminds me a little of Jessica Simpson. I love Jessica (we are both from Texas) and think she always looks like a million dollars.
So if you are trying to cut back like I am and still love to shop like I do, try out Levis. I think the ones I got were skinny jeans with a curvy fit.

XOXO
Gamecock Queen

Update....

An update on the guy I met at the party on Saturday night: I heard from him. I think it was the same day I was blogging that I hoped I would. We have been talking on the phone and texting, so we will see if anything becomes of this. The last dinner date I went on was just awful, so I'm due for one a little less painful!
I also know this really cute guy from work. I have known him, just casually, for a few months now. I hardly ever see him, but we are friendly when our paths cross. He is from near my hometown, so we have a few mutual friends at home, but I never met him until a few months ago. He knows several people on staff at my church and we have talked several times about my church and about volunteer work. He mentioned before that he would like to check out the satellite campus my church has here. I have seen him at work a few times this week. I thought he was being flirty when I ran into him this week. And of course, I was all for that and flirted back because he is gorgeous. Today I got an email from him wanting to know if I would like to meet him at my church on Sunday. We emailed back and forth for a few minutes and set up a time and place to meet in front of the church. I'm not really sure if it's a friend thing or a flirtatious thing, but I'll let you know how it goes. I think it's going to be hard to concentrate with that view during church!! LOL

XOXO
Gamecock Queen