It's been awhile...

It's been awhile. A lot has happened since my last post!

Ella turned 4! I can't believe it, she's getting to be such a BIG girl.

I have a new baby cousin! Braxton Blake Perry was born on May 19, 2009 a little after 5 pm. I hear he's a cutie, and can't wait to meet him the next time I'm in Lufkin.

I signed my new lease for a one-bedroom apartment in my current complex starting in July. For those of you not in the know, my roommate is engaged. Second roommate in a row to get engaged to a guy after dating him for less than 4 months. I think I might be a magnet. I'm sure once I'm living on my own my cats will be next in line.

I updated my resume and sent it out in search for jobs since my current one will be ending soon. So far there haven't been any bites, but I'm optimistic that something will come along soon. Everyone is too wrapped up in the train wreck that is the House Floor to be the least bit concerned about what is going to happen AFTER Session.

Smokey has finally stopped peeing on my bed. Instead, she pees on my clothes. Guess that's what I get for leaving them in piles on the floor. I'm sure Ganny is just laughing at me from heaven right now.

You can just hear the bills dying...

Tonight at midnight is the biggest deadline of the Session for the House... consideration of House Bills and House Joint Resolutions on second reading. We have a 23 page calendar, which they have been working on since 9 am... and we are on page 6. If we make it to page 10, I will be highly impressed.

I am actually impressed with how fast we got through our Committee hearing this morning, we were in and out in an hour! If we hadn't finished testimony on the three bills we were hearing we would have been forced to come back after the House adjourns after midnight. Not exactly my idea of fun when I got to work before 7 am.

Went home for Mother's Day. I have pictures from Ella and Eric's birthday party, but I keep on forgetting to upload them. Enjoyed my time with the parentals, especially my yummy dinner that my daddy made on Saturday. For Mother's Day I took pizza and flowers to the lake. And then took a 2 hour nap. It was quite nice.

And now back to work.

A case of the Tuesdays?

I don't think today is going to be my day. A few things have already gone wrong, but I won't bore you with the details of my job. I will share that earlier this morning I went up to the cafeteria to get a Diet Dr. Pepper and as I walked out the door to return back to my office I realized I probably should pay for my drink.

That is all.

Sunday Funday!

It's been a nice little Sunday, if I do say so myself. I can't remember the last day I spent that did not involve work of some sort. With the end of Session less than a month away, committee work is starting to slow down. The House was in session yesterday, and that included passing out our largest bill... the Texas Youth Commission / Texas Juvenile Probation Commission Sunset bill, and all went well. So I definitely earned a break from work today!

I started out my morning with a little personal training with Sam. I had cancelled my Wednesday session because allergies attacked me hard (not the swine flu), and I was so conjested that bending over to touch my shoe gave me a headache. After training I met up with my dear friend Elizabeth and some of her friends for brunch to celebrate her recent engagement. It's finally started to happen that my high school friends are getting hitched. There's been a wedding or two in the past 10 years (Happy Anniversary to Cameron and Deacon!), but now it's becoming more common.

After brunch I stopped by Bunker's to let the dogs out since he was camping this weekend and I am an excellent dog-sitter. I then headed to the grocery store to stock up on some healthy food. I can't remember the last time I bought groceries, could have been a month ago. I don't get to eat at home much with my long work hours, and I've used that excuse to not always eat the best. Depending on the day, I've gained about 5 lbs this Session. I know that 5 lbs isn't anything to freak out about, but when you've worked as hard as I have over the last year and a half, and you realize that 5 can easily become 10 and so forth, you take 5 lbs seriously! So I'm going to eat better this week.

I then enjoyed the sun and laid out by the pool for about two and half hours with a book! It's been months since I've read a book! I've made the conscious effort to not indulge in non-work related reading, because it would be too distracting. So it was nice to spend some time in the sun with a book. I followed up my pool time with a little quick cleaning of the apartment.

Then I headed out to Brushy Creek for a run! It's been way too long since I've gone for a run, and today was too beautiful not to. I was impressed because I had convinced myself that I have gotten way more out of shape than I actually am. I did an easy two and a half miles... gotta start back up slow. I am determined to run at least 3 times a week, hopefully I can stick to that.

Now I'm watching my shows (Cold Case and In Plain Sight) and then I'm going to relax in the tub with my book and a glass of wine before heading to bed. This relaxing day is going to be just what I need to have a great week. : )

Happy Birthday to the original favoritest cousin...

Today is Kathryn's Birthday! I won't say how old she is, but I will say that she is definitely not 40, which the birthday card from my family implied (gotta love Jay and Jesse). Kathryn is the daughter of my dad's identical twin brother... and in case you can't tell from this picture, we tend to look just a tad bit a like. I was a freshman when she was a senior at SFA, and people would often mistake us for one another while on campus. It probably didn't help that we were both Chi Omegas. But we go back way before then... as Scott recently told Ella, Kathryn and I were little girls together and we played all of the time. I've almost forgiven her for that time she played with me for 45 minutes and then stepped on me because she didn't see me laying on the floor. : )

Happy Birthday, sister-cuz!

Convention '09

Just a little photo re-cap of C.A.R. National Convention '09:

Me and Rachel: can't believe it's her LAST Convention as a member, and really can't believe that she's getting married in a MONTH!

Royal Roomies. AKA My biffles. One of these days all 7 of us will be reunited. I promise.

The sisterhood. So proud of how it's grown!

Madame National President Peanut.

It's almost illegal not to get a picture at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House. Especially with with your biffles. That's best friends for life, people.

I've got more to say, I promise. Session '09 is starting to wrap up and my work load is decreasing, so perhaps that means more time for blogging... we shall see. I'm hanging out with my cats this weekend. As weird as that may sound, it hopefully keeps Smokey from peeing on my bed, so it's totally worth it. Plus I'm sleey tired. All. of. the. time.

A "short" week

My short work week is coming to close, and I've racked up close to 50 hours of quality time under the Pink Dome. Monday was observed as a holiday by the Speaker's office so I only came in for 6 hours and I won't be at work tomorrow because I'm headed to D.C. for C.A.R. National Convention where I will in charge of 30 lovely children all under the age of 11. If you don't hear from me again, it's because I finally died of exhaustion.

By the way, I'm sitting in our Committee hearing. We began at 8 am, broke while they were on the House Floor arguing the supplemental Appropriations bill from 10-4 and have been here ever since. You probably won't believe me when I say this, but I heart my job. I just wished I had already packed.