Is anyone watching Survivor: Gabon?

Here are my two favorite contestants:

Marcus, the doctor.

And Matty, the personal trainer.
And it is totally because of their strategy and personality...

Although, I've got some competition for Marcus. The token gay dude on the show has a major crush on him.

Desperate Housewives - Season Premiere

Spoiler alert!
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Ok. First, I just have to say, um WOW! A whole heck of a lot happened in this season premiere. For those of you who don't remember, at the end of the season finale last year, they jumped forward 5 years. We saw that a) Susan was no longer with Mike Delfino (boo!), b) Bree had some big career going, c) Gabbie had two daughters!! I really thought that was just a glimpse into the future to keep us all watching and wondering, but I honestly thought that we would have to wait 5 seasons to figure out how all those changes happened.

Turns out... We didn't!

This season started 5 years later. I've never seen a tv show jump 5 years like that! Lee thinks it is because all the actresses were looking too old for their parts. I don't really think they do... For whatever reason, it worked!

I spent most the show assuming that Mike was dead and mourning the death of one my fave characters. Turns out, he's alive! He & Susan are just divorced. Which, at least gives me hope that he'll still be on the show. Bree has a catering/cookbook company. Her daughter is married to a lawyer now and came back and took her son from her. Orson served time in jail. We don't know a whole lot about Lynnette except that her sons are now 16 and they are huge juvenile delinquents. Edie is back and she's married to a rage-a-holic (he's addicted to rage-ahol) and he seems to want to harm someone on Wisteria Lane. Gabbie has two daughters, one of which is an obese 4.5 year old.

All in all, I was pretty satisfied with the season premiere. It definitely caught me off guard! Hopefully it will be a good season!

Friday night at the Drive-in

Friday night Lee and I decided to go up to Valpo and go to the 49-er Drive-in Movie Theatre. They were showing a double feature of The House Bunny and Pineapple Express. I hadn't really wanted to see The House Bunny, but I had wanted to see Pineapple Express. The House Bunny actually did offer a few laughs. Pineapple Express was decent. The Drive-in theatre was awesome. They started out playing this song. At certain points in the song, everyone would honk their horns. It got faster & faster. Then, they made everyone stand for the National Anthem. Then they went through a whole history of drive-in theatres. Then, finally, the movies started. Lee and I also had burgers and cheese-fries for dinner. YUM! All in all, it was a fun Friday!!

Lauren's Country Song this Week

The song I love this week is "Sounds So Good" by Ashton Shepherd. The song is basically just talking about driving around in a pickup truck listening to country music with a cooler of beer in the back. Or maybe it's pop. But, I'm guessing it's beer.

'Cause there ain't nothin' like the sound
Of a cooler slushin' on the bed 'a yo' truck
And ain't nothin' like the sound of real country music
C'mon, turn it up

The end of an era...

Go to the site below to watch the RCA Dome in Indianapolis deflate. It's about as exciting as watching paint dry, but for some reason I'm still watching it. I remember attending many a High School Final Four basketball games at the Dome. Back before Indiana went to lame-o class basketball.

Watch the Dome deflate!

Fortunately, the Colts have a nice new stadium to play in now! (However it doesn't seem to be helping them play well...)

Mr. & Mrs. Phelan!!

Sean & Ali had a beautiful wedding in South Haven, MI this weekend. And of course, it was a fun crew to celebrate the occasion with! Here are some pics!

Ali, her dad & granddad walking down the aisle.

The newlyweds coming out of the church!

Introducing Mr. & Mrs. Phelan!

I was nice and shared my date with Ploth. Our table nearly went up in flames when our number went up in flames! Before I even knew what was happening, Lee threw it on the ground and stomped it out (and managed to dodge catching my hair on fire). Here is a pic w/ the firestarter!

Cornhole in honor of the Neyer's who could not be at the wedding. Everytime someone made it, Ali & Sean would kiss. We had them making out there for awhile! We took some sunset pics.
Ploth eating the sun. They don't call him Jabba for nothing!
The Reuts!
The ladies!

Congratulations Sean & Ali! I wish you a lifetime of happiness!

HGTV in my bedroom!

So, I am totally obsessed with most shows on HGTV. I especially like the house flipping shows. It is amazing what they can do with some super ugly houses!

Lee has started remodeling out master bathroom and I feel like there is a HGTV show going on in our bedroom. I am taking a lot of pictures along the way.

This first picture is with only the mirror removed. I actually took the mirror down a couple months ago... And I may have broken part of it. Whoops. I got a pretty severe lecture about it from Lee though. Notice the lovely yellow tile on the walls, the awesome 70's shell sink, and the nice new tile that the previous owners put in on the floor. The new tile is nice, but it doesn't match the bathroom at all. And it is obvious that they just had some leftover tile after doing our other two baths and threw it in there.

The next pictures is after the sink & vanity had been taken out. Lee couldn't get the water to turn off, so he had to make his own clamp-off. Look at that hideous flooring that used to be in the bathroom. Eek!

The 3rd picture is Lee starting to take the tile off of our walls. The bathroom has a tiny stall shower, and the part behind the shower is boxed in and tiled. We always wondered what was in that box. Was it pipes? Or wasted space? Or buried treasure?

Turns out it was wasted space... That is good news for us fitting in a bigger shower. But, seriously, what were they thinking? Why didn't they put in a closet or something there??

Anyway, I am very pumped to be making progress on the bathroom. Although it just looks like we're trashing it at this point. Oh, and an extra bonus, our trashman picked up all the junk we put out at the curb including our sink & vanity! Lee wants to leave him a 6-pack of beer next time as a thank-you!

For a second there...

I thought Clint had started doing the advertising for Grape Nuts. Their new slogan, "It is what it is," is one of Clint's favorite sayings.

But, then I saw this ad...
Definitely not the work of Clint!!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 2 year anniversary. In some ways, it seems like it has been much longer. Probably because Lee & I have known each other for 13 years. At the same time, it seems like the 2 years has flown by. This could have something to do with the fact that we only got to spend 1/2 of the time together because of the Navy!

I look forward to many more anniversaries to come! (I told Lee that he has to at least live until we make it to our 50th anniversary!!)

Worst... Commute... Ever!

I thought that my day was going to be a good one when it started. When I got my Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich out of the freezer, it had an extra piece of sausage! That has to be a sign of a good day starting! But then... The commute started!

Apparently almost every road in NW Indiana is closed right now due to flooding. This includes 80/94 and I-65. I did see a lot of standing water during my drive and the rivers & streams are all almost touching the bottom of the bridges. It is pretty crazy!

Here is a rundown of my commute this morning:

5:45am - Leave my house. Head to I-65.
5:55am - Hmmm. The ramp to I-65 North is closed. WTF? I pull a U-turn and head back to 231 North.
6:10am - Get up to SR2. I hit a stop sign and every direction except for the one I came from is closed. Not good. I drive past one of the signs.
6:15am - There's a truck blocking the road. I guess they mean business. Otherwise I would totally be one of those people that tries to cross the high water and gets swept away in their car. I ask the dude standing there if there is anyway to get to Chicago. He tells me to take a detour over to 41 North.
6:30am - I decide to take 55 North to Crown Point.
6:50am - 55 is treating me well. I'll continue on until Merrillville.
7:05am - Get to Merrillville. Take 30 West. At this point, I am planning to take 30 over to 394 North.
7:10am - Radio says that people are getting directed onto 394 South. Ruh Roh.
7:15am - Decide to take 41 north.
7:16am - 8am - STANDSTILL TRAFFIC ON 41 NORTH. Apparently since all the roads in Indiana are closed, everyone has to take either 90 West or 41 North into the city. Not good.
8:03am - Get to the exit for 80/94 West. It appears to be open... I'm going for it!!
8:05am - WOW. There is no one on this road. It is kind of creepy. I'm flying! I see a sign that says 45 minutes to get to the Loop. Ugh!
8:20am - We hit the traffic from 90 West. Ouch.
8:45 - Finally, I get to the parking lot.
9am - I'm at my desk. And it only took me 3.25 hours to get here. OUCH!

I am praying that the trip home is not this bad!!!

Update: The ride home was WORSE. I left work at 5:15 and didn't get home until 8:45pm. Worst day ever! If the roads aren't open Thursday, there is no way I'm going in to the office.

Welcome Home BBQ

This weekend we had a BBQ to celebrate Lee being out of the Navy. During the day we had a good turnout of friends & family. Unfortunately, we had some rain & humidity from the hurricane. And we had to keep most the activities indoors. Fortunately football was on, so that kept people busy.

At night, the party crew stuck around and we played some flippy cup.
Somehow the team with two girls and my dad kept winning. It could be because Lee was not doing too hot... But, it was his party, so we couldn't ridicule him too much... Or could we?
We realized that it was also 7 years on the dot since Lee's little drunk driving incident back home. Wow, that's a long time!
Fubar was playing with Lee's tools all evening. This was after he came out of "powersave" mode. Here he was using a tool to drink his beer. He was also using the drill to drill people's legs. At one point he decided to drill his own head. That turned out to not be the best of ideas.
Even my dad made it all the way from New Jersey to celebrate! It was nice to see him and show him our new house.

And, at the end of the weekend, my house was only semi-destroyed. Thank goodness I have a house husband to clean it up!

Fox News - Tina Fey Returns To SNL Spoof Sarah Palin-Clinton

New song I'm obsessed with...

And it's not country!

It is the song that is in the trailer for the movie Pineapple Express. They started playing it on a couple Chicago stations, and I like it. I had to look it up, apparently it is called Paper Planes by M.I.A. I had to look up some of the lyrics. I just like the part that goes "Sticks and stones and weed and bombs." And it has cool gunshot sounds in it.



I apparently have a thing for gunshot sounds. There was this rap song back in 1997 that I LOVED that had gunshot sounds in it. It was like "click click boom boom". For the life of me, I cannot remember what song it was or who sang it!

Happy Birthday CFunk!!

~~~~note, in this picture, Clint is not puking. He is actually pretending to lap up spilled beer~~~~

For his birthday, I thought I would include some great things about CFunk:

* He is easy to find in crowds.

* When I type his name into email & spellcheck it, the spellcheck thinks it should be "chunk" and that makes me laugh.

* He is one of the only guys not raised in the 1950's that still uses the word "toots".

* Every now and then Clint or Michelle will send a random email out at 4:20, and that also makes me laugh.

* He is the only person I have seen pass out laying down on a couch at a bar and not get kicked out (Quencers).

* He is one of the only people I know (possibly in the world) that truly likes shots of Malort.

* He once made a comment about one of my blog posts that was longer than the actual blog.

* He eats pounds of corn and thinks it is a good "drinking base". It's not.

* He taught me how to play craps. Kind of. I still don't know what I'm doing, but it was fun.

* He calls men over 6'2" "little man".

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CFUNK! Sorry I couldn't make it up to Chi-town to celebrate with ya!

Genius!

This morning when I got to the Gary Metro Center to catch the South Shore train, there was a cute old white dude in an Obama hat that said "Good morning ma'am, are you registered to vote?" I said "I sure am!"

Now, the Gary Metro Center is a genius place to try and sign up voters for Obama. First of all, anyone that knows Gary, IN, knows that it is predominantly a black community. (Not that all black people vote for Obama.) Not to make any generalizations, but I am guessing quite a few of the people around that area are not registered to vote. Plus, it is just a high traffic area in general. I hope he gets some people signed up and on the Obama bandwagon!

...However, he may have to come back in November and make sure everyone votes too!!! Registering is only half the battle.
This barn is in in Elkhart, IN. There are a handful of barns across Indiana and Ohio that are now Obama Barns. I think they're adorable! This one happens to be a friend of a friend's dad's barn in the picture. I saw an interview with him and he said that he made sure the paint will last for 8 years!

Livid

Yesterday I was working at home when my internet went out. This definitely puts a halt on my productivity. And it annoys me because I am pretty much addicted to surfing the web. I tried the normal fixes like unplugging the modem & router, etc. Then I went out and checked our tv. The cable wasn't working either. SO, as any normal person would conclude, we were having a service outage. I called Comcast.

After after 15 minutes on hold, I finally got to talk to someone. You had to pick tv or internet issues, and I chose tv first. Lucky me, I got non-native speaker. This is a great start. I'm bad with accents, so trying to navigate that adds another issue. I explained that the cable and internet went out at the same time. We tried restarting the cable box. Unplugging it. Plugging the cable directly into the tv, etc. I said again, I don't think it is the cable box. My internet went out at the same time and it is not even connected to the cable box. He insisted. Finally, he had exercised all his expertise and had to set up an appointment for WEDNESDAY between 10am - 1pm. Um, I'm supposed to go 2 days without internet & cable? Are you mad? I asked to be connected to the internet person next. I hoped maybe this person would be able to help me.

Nope. This guy insisted that it was my modem that was broken. So, my modem & my cable box apparently conspired to break at the EXACT same moment? Are these people f-ing idiots? I said about 10 times "Why would my modem & cable box both go out at the same time?" Apparently these people aren't taught to think outside the box. He said that there were no outages reported in my area so it simply had to be my modem. Um, isn't that what I am reporting right now? He added internet to my appointment for Wednesday. I am so freaking annoyed. And I am missing the first week of some shows. Oh Comcast. I am ready to go postal on you.

Happy Birthday Stacia!!!

Hope you had a fun weekend of celebrating and get some good nap time in today to recover!!!!

So excited...

FOR FOOTBALL TO COME BACK ON! (I don't count pre-season NFL.)

I made my picks for my first week of my office pool.

Going down to Lafayette for the first Purdue game tomorrow!

Breaking out the Manning jersey for their first game Sunday. (Although I am wearing Bears pajama pants right now.)

BOILER UP! ~~~~ GO COLTS!!!

I'm turning into Bryan!

I haven't been posting too much lately. I think I'm just rather dull right now. I've been working, studying, helping Lee study for his class and getting the house in shape for when my dad comes to visit. Hopefully with all the new tv shows coming back on in the coming weeks, I'll have more to talk about!! Anyway, a quick rundown of my long weekend:

Friday: After work, Lee and I hit up Marti's Place. This is a big restaurant/bar on the Kankakee River. We had some of the fattest catfish I've ever seen (and that's saying a lot, I've seen a lot of catfish in my day). We also had some beers. I had Bud Light draft (shocking) and it cost $2. Awesome. Lee had a Coors Light draft (also $2) and then a Leine which cost $1.50! Sweet!

Saturday: We went over to Kokomo and spent the day with my mom, grandma, uncle & 2 young cousins.

Sunday: We hit up Lake Freeman. Pretty low-key day for everyone really. We boozed during the day at the sandbar (just like the Kid Rock song), but everyone left and Lee & I were watching HGTV with his parents by 9pm.

Monday: We came back up to DeMotte and spent a good 3 hours washing/waxing our vehicles. It was a pretty hardcore cleaning. Then Lee did some homework and I did some work. Pretty exciting stuff!