Newt on the Loose Day 8

I decided that Sunday was pajama day.


Coffee, everything bagel and puppies make for a perfect morning.


Finish reading a book


Hmmm, what to do first?


Pull apart the rest of the fridge


Clean and scrub.


We went from having NO room in the fridge to having: milk, oj, lemon juice, syrup, 1 jar of jam (instead of 9 moldy ones) cheese, ketchup, mustard, bbq sauce, teriyaki, 4 dressings, chicken stock, beef stock, butter, and nail polish. That's it. And a whole lot of empty shelf space.

FABULOUS!


Then it was upstairs to clean up the bedroom.


1 hour to pick up, arrange, and put away shoes


5 minutes to pick up clothes, hang them up, or put them in the laundry basket


5 minutes to sweep floor


5 minutes to wash floor


5 minutes to change bedding


Bedroom spacious, clean, fresh smelling and shoeless.


Scrub down bathroom upstairs.


Housework finished. No more for the day. I'm done. Gonna relax.


Play around on computer. I had burned a bunch of digital photos on to a disk since the files were all on my work computer. So I slowly sorted, labeled and filed lots and lots of digital pictures onto the home computer.


Took shower - got myself all soft skinned and good smelling.


Choose cute but sexy outfit.


Run over to a different Herbergers to see if they have the dress I just bought. Wanted to try one size smaller since the one I got fit with a little room to spare. No such luck. BUT they offered 20% off coupon for each item you brought in for Goodwill. The coupon was good on fragrances. Which NEVER happens with department stores. Coupons are never good for fragrances or make-up. My scent had a free gift offer going AND they had a special packaged box with a cologne, lotion, and body wash for just $3.00 more than the cologne normally costs. The free gift included another lotion and body wash. HOT DAMN!


They didn't have my dress there but they did have a really cute ruffly black sweater that was on sale plus my additional 20 off.


Then, as I was paying for my cologne the phone rang. The hubster had arrived.


Yippee!!!!!!


Off to the airport.


Pick up hubster in cute and sexy outfit, smelling freak'n incredible.

Get home and we make dinner. Steak, corn on the cob (Which I got at the farmers market the day before - it was freak'n incredible) pasta salad.

Yes, believe it or not, dinner was the first thing we did. We chatted about his trip and watched Rear Window. The puppies and kitties really missed their daddy so the cuddle fest was very important to them.

Soon after though, the cute and sexy outfit paid off.

Oh yeah, the hubster is back.

***she says as she smokes another cigarette

(j/k I don't smoke but if I did............)

I will close with cute pictures: The first is Caleb and Socs this morning. The second is Lily doing her squirmy worm with me. She loves to jam her head between the couch and my back and squirmy worm around.

Newt on the Loose Day 7

Sometimes we have an absolutely perfect day.

A day in which from start to finish it just feels good

The heart smiles

And the head doesn't think too much

Girl J and I had one of those days

A perfect day with a perfectly wonderful friend

First stop: Minneapolis Farmers Market

Which by the way, at this time of year is full of vendor man candy

We lost our train of thought more than once trying to decide what to buy

Corn, strawberries, grapes, zucchini, tiny bananas, kiwi, and more

And I bought a rock

Well, it is a rock that had little feet and a beak added to it so it looks like a bird

It's beautiful and unique

Then we went to Rosedale Mall

Macy's shoe sale

Got the red shoes that we fought over Thursday

So now we both have a pair of super fun shoes

And Girl J found a pair of Born sandals for 20 bucks.

That felt like little pillows for your feet

And I got a pair of sassy red plaid peek-a-boo heels by Tribeca

We got them partly because my name is in the brand

Then Victorias Secret

Girl J wanted another pair of capri's - most comfortable pants EVER

Then on to lunch

Big Bowl - very yummy

Herbergers

HUGE sale - additional 80% off all clearance - no shit 80%

We found Lil A the CUTEST prom dress. And snapped it up

She doesn't have a dance to go to any time soon but when she does. She'll look like an angel.

And we found her the cutest little denim skirt with pink flowers on the pockets.

And while wandering around I found a knee length formal

And tried it on for shits and giggles

And cried

And walked out of the store with it

Because we know that when I need to find a formal, I won't. And I sure as heck won't find one on sale, that looks fantastic on me, and is elegantly beautiful

I'm sure we will go to the symphony at some point.

It will be perfect for it

Then we wandered the mall

And stopped in a bridal store -it was a brown dress in the window that caught our eye

And saw the most beautiful wedding dress - off white with a small band of light green across the bodice. And the back below the pearl buttons where the train began to flow down the back they put that same green silk. It was just exquisite.

So Girl J tried it on because the clerk said she was dying to see someone in it.

And she looked incredible. And we both choked up a bit.

How many brides find the perfect wedding dress on the very first try?

They wouldn't let us take pictures but I assure you, you would have choked up too if you could have seen her in it.

More mall wandering

Then we hit up a big thrift store

Followed by a trip to Girl J's old neighborhood.

She lived in a big old beautiful house on the East Side

Unfortunately the drug dealers won the neighborhood

Which is sad considering the houses are big and beautiful and at one time quite grand

Then we headed for home

After Girl J headed back to her house I played with the pups for a while

Then went to JoAnn fabrics.

And finally found the perfect fabric to re-cover chair cushions with. Once again, when you give up looking you find the perfect thing.

Also picked up cat food and a few groceries.

Going to make a special dinner for the hubster when he comes home

Watched the new series Torchwood on BBC America - it's a most excellent spin-off from Dr. Who

I talked to the hubster and to my folks

And fell asleep thinking about how incredibly perfect the day was.

Make the most of a craptacular day

So, I was a little lot cranky yesterday and so was Girl J. To alleviate that we went out for the evening. Shopping of course. What else do girls do???

First up: Kohls. And boy did I find a sexy little dress. It makes me quite boobalicious. I bought the dress but plan to put lace or something across the front. Just a little, but as it is now I am leaving NOTHING to the imagination. But the dress was fabulous and really inexpensive so I figure it was worth the sewing I would have to do.

After that of course we went to DSW and I found these:













They are SO comfortable.

DSW is located in a pretty cute little shopping center. So of course we walked around. Ann Taylor was having a fabulous sale - extra 40% off clearance. I found a black skirt and a cute black tank top. I really needed to get a nice business style black skirt because the one I have got some bleach on it. :-(. And the tank, well, it was cute - the top is all crocheted lace, and it is made out of the softest freak'n material. I couldn't walk away from it. Too comfortable.

Aside from shopping I do have to share a funny. We had pretty good thunder storms yesterday so I knew when I got home that Lily would be a basket case. She was. She panted and paced around my feet all night. I bent down to pet her and she got really scared and pee'd. But then, she looked up at me, got a big smile on her face and sat pretty for me. Right down in the pee puddle. And she swished and wagged her tail through it - cause she was SO happy to be getting love from mom. I quick scooped her up and put her in the kitchen sink to clean her up. Laughing the entire time. I wish you could have seen how pretty she sat for me in that puddle. That little peanut just makes me smile.

People tell us how good we are for the dogs and how lucky they are to have adopted us but I gotta tell you, Michael and I are the lucky ones. They fill every single day of our lives with love and laughter.

Girl J gives good gift

Yesterday Girl J surprised me with this: she saw it at a thrift store and HAD to get it for me. It's the vinyl version (complete with protective paper sleeve) of the album my Dad raised me on at Christmas time. How sweet is that????? Of course I had to call dad and tell him. And he thought that was the COOLEST thing.

And then, THEN the girl comes up to my desk today to tell me that she was at the post office and stopped at this really cute gift shop. And in the window she saw something that she had to get me. How FABULOUS a purse is this? Hmmm? It's too cute. And so very GIRLY!

And because Girl J has been asking me if I blogged about it yet:

A Minnesota "Nice" Moment:

So, Monday morning I head for the bus and realize sadly and to my horror that my Ipod is out of power as is my back-up battery pack. Dang it! It was just fine Sat. night. What the heck????
So, it's a tuneless walk to the bus and worse, gasp, sigh, a tuneless ride into work. But there is a HUGE silver lining to this.

A woman got on the bus and sat down. As she was getting comfortable in her seat her bus pass dropped out of her bag and landed in the isle. Two people leaned down to pick up her pass for her. TWO people! The woman that got it handed it over to the lady.

Lady: "Thank You so much."
Other lady: "Ya you betcha."

Yes, that's right she actually said "Ya you betcha."

I had to hide my head in my book to keep the giggle to myself. It was just so, so, so midwest.
I loved it.

Look below, if you haven't done my Daemon survey give it a go. Tink says it's addictive.

Shoe Emergency

First and most importantly, if you haven't said hello yet go on over and say Hi to Boy J - he's started blogging!

And now for the heart of the post:

I'm going to totally girl out on you by the way.

Last night I picked out my outfit for work just like I always do.

I threw the shoes in my bag - just like I always do. (I wear sneakers or other outdoor shoes into work- keeps the good shoes looking nicer)

So this morning I got into work, turned on the computer and while it was booting up I took off my sneakers, grabbed my shoes and went to put them on. OH MY HORROR. They looked absolutely painfully awful with the outfit. Not just, please don't look at my feet awful, but flashing red neon light pointing at my feet, can't miss it awful. So I did what any self respecting shoe psycho would do. I put my sneakers back on, called Girl J and explained that I had a shoe emergency. She met me in the lobby and we hoofed it over to Macy's.

Good thing they have a big spring sale going on. And good thing they had just the right shoes to go with the outfit. And truthfully, a pair of shoes in a color I've been needing. So all's well that ends well.

I've set this damn standard for myself here at work. I'm known for my shoes. People stop me in the hall so that they can see what I'm wearing. I'm a sort of a shoe guru. Go figure. Me, without a lick of fashion sense is known for having great shoes. The fun thing is that I get them all on dirt cheap clearance so it's not as if I am the Carrie Bradshaw of the Twin Cities. I don't own a pair of shoes that cost over 50 bucks. Most average between 10 and 20.

Speaking of Twin Cities we caught a blurb on the news about the tourism board here is planning on rolling out a new catch phrase for the Minneapolis / St. Paul area. They want to change us from being referred to as the Twin Cities to something hipper and more metropolis. They tried to claim that no one outside a 5 state area knows that the Twin Cities is Minneapolis/St. Paul.

So, a lot of you are outside the 5 state region - did YOU know that Twin Cities referrs to Minneapolis / St. Paul? This is an honest question. If you didn't it's not like I would call you dumb. Cause honestly, I'm not sure I knew before moving here that it was called that. I truly can't remember if I knew or not.

And aside from "Colder than Hell 9 months a year" what the heck else could they come up with that is hip and trendy and screams wonderful metropolis? I mean really?

What suggestions could you have for our area?

The Antarctic of the US?

Cold but fun?

Cold nose warm heart?

Well, Spring and Fall are nice here......

Any good ideas out there to rename our lovely metropolitan area?

I'll close with another picture of one of the cutest little peanuts on the planet.

Junk or Funk? and Get'n Goofy with the Goils!

I decided to give up on The God of Small Things. And start reading a book I had picked up at the library. It is a mystery set during the time of Arthur Conan Doyle. And is in fact about him and how Sherlock Holmes came to be. It sounded like a good read, the opening pages seemed to say it would be a good read but I found myself not having the slightest bit of interest in the story.

So then I got to wondering what was going on. It’s such a rare thing for me to have two duds in a row. And the more I sat and thought about it the more I can’t classify this new mystery as a dud. It’s a fast and easy read so far. So what’s up? Am I just in a book funk.

Well, for me there is a pretty easy way to check. I have a handful of authors that can not write a bad book. So this morning I grabbed the next book in a series I have been enjoying. And wouldn’t you know it, I was happily reading along. No funk. So, either my mood is just not right for these books or these books are just not right for me. I always try to keep in mind that there are millions and millions of books out there waiting to be read. Why slow myself down on ones that just aren’t clicking.

But thinking that way opens up another can of worms. My personality doesn’t let me just give up on something. I will read a book all the way through just to confirm that it was indeed crap. Or at least not a book I personally liked. My first example of reading for torture was a book called Smila’s Sense of Snow. It got rave reviews. Everyone had to read it. So, being the good little literary sheep I picked it up. But I never liked it. Not from page one through page whatever at the end. I actually hated the book. But I kept reading hoping to discover what makes it so great.

On the flip side of that coin was Stephen Kings The Stand. I tried reading it when it first came out and I gave up after page 10 or so. It was so mentally graphically disgusting I just couldn’t do it. So I shelved it. Then umpteen years later he came out with an expanded version. And I decided to give it a second try. And I LOVED the book. I couldn’t get enough of it. It comes in at over a 1000 pages and I had no problem whipping right through. To this day it’s still a favorite of mine.

I guess what it boils down to is I worry I am missing something wonderful. So I keep reading. The most annoying part of the whole thing is that I think about the book I put down. Like defeat in battle I go over what I might have done “wrong”.

And this just sounds silly to me. I shouldn’t CARE if I give up on a book. It’s just a freak’n book. My life will not end because I didn’t read it.

Argh………………………..

And now for something a little fun.

It was girls night at the mall.

Girl J’s daughter and I had some fun with the camera. A couple of the girls were trying on clothes so we sat in the dressing room on the floor and got goofy. Then Lil’Girl A got goofy with her mom.

We gave our fashion opinions to Girl C and Girl S. And then a few women that were trying on clothes alone actually came out of their dressing rooms and asked for our feedback. I think we could find a job in there somewhere. Just lounge around in fitting rooms and encourage people to buy. We’d be so freak’n good at it. We’re honest about our feedback. So if something doesn’t look good we tell the person. But we also make suggestions. And help them find things that might look better. Or colors. Or whatever. It’s actually a lot of fun.

So here you go: Goofy Pictures.

Happy 2007 Part 2

New Years day was spent lounging. I read an entire book. And it was marvelous.

I also attempted to read this book but I couldn’t get past page 65. It was trying too hard to be slapstick or clever or something and it wasn’t working for me. Which was an unexpected bummer for me. I’ve been looking forward to reading this book for a long time. But I mentioned my struggles with Boy J and he had the same problem. He didn’t care for it either. And given the reviews I’m a little surprised. I did however bring it to work. Every once in a while I forget to bring whatever book I’m reading with me. Then come lunch I am totally at a loss. So this way I have a back-up.

So now I am reading this book. And I like it so far.

I have updated my Literary Blog with the latest books.

We did break out of our sloth routine and walked over to Boy J and R’s house to finish off the New Year snacks and to watch some Simpsons and Heroes. Ok, so the only non-sloth activity was the three block walk to their house. Because as soon as we got to their place we resumed our slothing.

On the fun and uber girly side I got a call from Girl J letting me know that the DSW holiday sale got even better. See they have these racks in the back of the store that are clearance shoes. And you take 30,40,50, or 70% off the tag price. Well on top of that they had an additional 50% off. So shoes were seriously dirt cheap. I got the hubster some Dockers casual dress shoes (lace up, don’t worry Scott), I also got him some sneakers. For myself I got a pair of mid-calf boots in brown. A pair of brown dress heals, and a pair of black “ballerina” sketchers. They are super cute and dressy enough to wear at work. In total we got 5 pairs of shoes for less than 80 bucks. I don’t think that’s too bad.

Wednesday ramblings

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Last night me and the girls went to the mall for our monthly girly get together. We tried Pucks Express for dinner. It wasn’t bad. They have a fabulous variety of food and the prices are quite reasonable. ($6-8 range) Especially considering this is all in the mall where even McDonalds cost you more than normal.

We also explored a little shop there called PB Loco. And we had SO much fun. We sampled some very unique peanut butter mixes. (including sun dried tomato) And they gave us a piece of their feature sandwich – Smore’s. OH MY STARS! It was amazing. Here’s what they do – take two pieces of wheat bread smear them with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff then sprinkle on chocolate chips, crumble graham cracker and then take the sandwich (shmush it a little) and then grill it. Alright, so it’s a diabetic shock waiting to happen but DAMN was it good.

I know you will all be shocked to hear that I found a fabulous pair of shoes. Black pumps with white stitching and a sexy little diagonal buckle thing going. They are actually one of the more grown-up “corporate America” pairs of shoes now in my closet. I tried to find a picture of them on the internet but didn’t have any luck. I modeled them for Girl J and she made a comment that went something like – “Oh bitch, you HAVE to get those, those are fabulous, just fabulous.” So of course I listened to her.

50 cent crack whore
I have started to pull together my “Paris Hilton” outfit for the trip to California with Lily. I have found a fabulous faux fur vest in a snow leopard like print. I also found a fabulous and huge pair of black earrings. At this point the plan is to wear the vest with a black shirt underneath, jeans, and then a pair of black boots. Understated and not quite the 50 cent crack whore I was going for but still for me, WAY out of my normal comfort zone.

On the Puppy Front
The pups are doing marvelous right now. Caleb is getting more comfortable with us. We had our morning session of playing ball and today when I went to gather up all his little stuffed toys for another round of toss he didn’t shy away from me. Normally when I gather balls he scoots far away from me if one of the balls is close by. But this morning he allowed me to pick them up and he didn’t move away. That’s HUGE.

Lily loves to be on the couch with me. She is huge into what we have coined “Schnuffeling” in which she wriggles around burying her little nose in the couch cushions, under our arm, under our leg. And while she is doing that her whole body contorts and wiggles. It’s too cute. If Sophie is up with me (which she usually is) then she schnuffels all over and around and under her too.

New Blogger
I have decided I will take the big leap and switch to the new blogger over the weekend. That way I have several hours to tweak and play. I have copied into a word document my entire blog history so that if I loose everything I still have a record of all the crap I blogged about. And I have copied all of my links and the info for my stats. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and jump in with both eyes open wide.

I need a maid or maybe just a miracle
I’m also hosting Saturday Breakfast with my girlfriends. This should be interesting. I will have to figure out a way to make the house presentable enough that they don’t feel the urge to call the health inspector. But to do this I have to get up at the crack of dawn that same day. To even think that I can clean a day or two before is just ludicrous. Hell, I can’t even clean up stuff in the morning without Lily trailing behind me grabbing everything up and taking it back to the living room. It’s hopeless. Of course it cracks me up that as I clean a path through my living room the path is returning to it’s original disastrous state right behind me. Sigh……………..

Gone Fish'n
I think Newt’s Muse will be closed tomorrow due to having to go out in the field and train a group of service techs. I love these training days. They are a nice break from routine. And best of all – I get to wear grubbies. Chick operating heavy machinery HERE I COME!

Monday Mayhem

RUSH RUSH RUSH

Have to get to work for a meeting at 8. Has anyone ever tried to get MY hubster out the door early? It’s impossible. I even dragged my sorry ass out of bed at 5:30 this morning to try to help the process along. I was shooting for a 7:15 leave time. We got out the door at 7:35. I arrived at work at 7:50. So I had just enough time to go up to my office, change shoes, de-fur my clothing and run upstairs for the meeting.

This did not give me time to get REAL coffee for a four hour meeting. Yes 4 hour meeting. All I had was the swill in the pot here at work. And that is NOT a good thing.

DAMN DAMN DAMN

How is it that I have nothing to do 364 days a year. But then there comes one day, one night actually in which all good things that I would love and enjoy doing all happen at once.?????

The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra is giving this amazing concert of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy this coming Saturday at the absolutely incredible St. Mary’s Basiclica in Minneapolis. We bought tickets in February. And it has since sold out. It’s one of those once in a lifetime sorts of concert spectaculars!

But then I was looking at when I could go see a new gallery show at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. And they are having a gala evening with wine, food, dancing, etc. all surrounding this art show. It’s after hours. It’s all adults. And because we joined the museum it wouldn’t cost us anything. A perfect adult evening. But, yes, it is on Saturday night.

And now, my boss just emails me and asks me if I wanted to go to the Wild game. There are two tickets available. And these aren’t just tickets. They are seats in the company box. The very exclusive, very good view, very NEVER going to be offered again to me club seats.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

At Victoria’s secret they have these nightshirts. It’s a long sleeve sleepshirt and I am in love. I got one a few weeks ago and I have been living in it. I picked up another one last night and let me tell you, it was very hard to get out of bed this morning. Go out and treat yourself girlfriends! They are $22.50, they are located on tables right when you walk into a store. They are wrapped up with ribbon. And they really are FABULOUS!
Oh, and they run big (too big). So go a size down from what you normally wear.


CALEB CALEB CALEB

My little boy decided to revert back to day one this morning. We couldn’t go near him. And he wouldn’t go near us. I have no idea what caused this set back. He has been doing so well. I am confident that he will be okay when we get home. But this morning he didn’t want to play ball. And he always plays ball with me in the morning. And he wouldn’t go outside to go potty. Nor would he come in once we got him out. It’s very odd. But just like Lily bounced back from her weird day I am sure he will too.

Friday Ramblings

Before going to the farewell party last night I went to Borders. I had gotten a gift certificate for my birthday and thought I would put it to good use. While I was there I realized that book stores are one of the most relaxing places I go to. I feel completely at peace with the world and any cares or worries I might have are completely forgotten. I loose track of time too. I think I could have stayed in there all night and never gotten bored.

So, where is your favorite place to loose yourself?

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At lunch today I will give the shelter a call to ask about Cora. I've been having second thoughts though because I don't know if it would be fair to Max and Sophie. I mean, they already act starved for attention. What if there are now three to compete for loves? And at what point do I become the crazy pet lady? Most people think we are already there. And they are probably right.

*********Warning*********Girly TMI Moment*************

I can feel my hormones getting all squirrelly on me. You know, those days when the commercials on t.v. make you cry. And the songs on the radio. And the dead animal along the side of the road. I think that means I need chocolate.

***********OK, TMI moment over***************

My shirt is missing a button. So everyone can see my belly button if I am not careful.
That's probably another TMI thing right there. Sorry, bout that.

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And once again I have to say that I got a kick out of being a girl that can operate heavy machinery and make it look easy. It's an ego boost. I admit. Teaching a room full of big burly men how to work a floor machine is more fun than I want to admit to. Me, the girl, held the machine in place for them while they got a feel for how it runs. The guys are great sports and don't really mind the fact that a girl is holding the machine in place for them. Someone had to do it for me too a few months back. But still, when a girl can be the tough/experienced one in a man's industry, it's a bit of a high.

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I miss the people I spent time with in Indy. I really had a great time and got to know some amazing people. I look forward to going back.

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I wish you all a wonderful weekend.

So long and thanks for all the fish.