Madelyn's First State Conference

A few weeks ago I took my precious Madelyn to her very first C.A.R. State Conference (if you don't know what that is, then you obvs don't know me very well and should probably stop reading). One of my all time favorite mamas, Mama G, was kind of enough to ask Madelyn to be one of her personal pages for the Conference. Usually this entails walking in front of the officer you're a page for, standing whenever they stand, and delivering notes and running errands as needed. Since Madelyn is all of 3 1/2, we decided it was probably best not to test her attention span with having her sit on the platform, so all she did was walk in... and she did it beautifully! And I got to buy her the most adorable white dress for the occasion.

She had a blast at C.A.R. and especially enjoyed all of the presents. Home girl racked up in loot. She was presented with a gift from Mama G for paging, won a door prize (which entitled you to pick out two things), and I presented her with two pins in honor of her first State Conference. I fear she may have a skewed perception as to what actually goes on at C.A.R. events, but she has fun with her friends and I love being able to pass on something that I love to her.

Here are a couple of cute pictures from the event... yes, I know they're sideways. I've tried to upload them like 5 times over the last two days and I officially give in, just turn your head. Can't believe how big sweet Mady is getting!

Madelyn and William waiting to walk in.

Sweet Mady!

The mystery of the check engine light.

I'm just going to go ahead and start out this post by admitting that I am not the most attentive car owner. You're probably shocked because of the family of mechanics I come from, right? Well, I didn't inherit any of those genes. So now that little fact is established, onto my tale...

The check engine light in my car has been on for awhile. About a month and a half, awhile. For the most part, my car has been running fine, with the slight exception of when I'm idle at a stoplight. After a few seconds, the car starts to shake a little and then the check engine light starts flashing. After I accelerate from the stop light, the car stops shaking and the check engine light stops flashing.

The boyfriend doesn't know much about cars, but he thought that perhaps my oil needed to be changed, along with the filter. Not so sure when that last happened, so I agreed. Had that done last week, and there wasn't a change.

On Saturday, he needed to get a new tire for his truck, so I followed him to the store. While we were out running errands I suggested a stop by Auto Zone so they could run the diagnostics test on my car to see what the problem is since I have to drive to Dallas this weekend. The guy ran the test and I almost kissed him when he informed me that it was a misfire in cylinder 3 which just equated to the spark plugs needing to be replaced. How easy is that! And, I have a wonderful twin brother who knows how to do such a thing and lives in the same city I will be visiting very soon! I was absolutely giddy with this news.

On Sunday I noticed that my car was driving much smoother. The check engine light was still on, but the car wasn't shaking at stop lights and the light wasn't flashing. When I left work on Monday I stopped by the grocery store. When I arrived at the grocery store, my check engine light was on. When I left the grocery store, the check engine light was no longer on and hasn't made an appearance since. How strange is that?

I called the boyfriend to see if he somehow had managed to fix my car without me knowing, but he hadn't. I like to believe that the spark plug fairy paid me a visit and made my car problems go away : ) Here's hoping for safe travels tomorrow as I venture to Dallas for DAR State Conference!

A Final Farewell

Well, it finally happened. I wasn't sure it ever would. I have officially and fully resigned from Bath and Body Works after 10 1/2 years of service. Back in October (or was it November?), I went from being a sales floor associate to only working floorsets. I guess I needed to ease myself into the idea of no longer pushing bath products.

A few weeks ago I received a nice little promotion and pay raise at my real job. This was something that I've been working toward for the last two years, so I've been rather pleased. Of course, with great power comes great responsibility, so I needed to not have to worry about my "for fun" job getting in the way of my "real" job.

I have to say, my departure was rather anti-climatic. There was no cake, no present, no real celebration of all of my time served, even though you could probably add up the years of service of ALL of the other staff at our store and not equal my individual service. Instead, I just quietly worked through my assignments and then departed with a few hugs and well wishes (and early because I'm kind of a rock star at completing tasks in less than the scheduled time). Peace out, BBW.

Kids play

The boyfriend and I went to dinner last night at a neighborhood Italian place he likes. I'd never been, but it was definitely tasty. Of course, my opinion could be a little biased as I unintentionally skipped lunch yesterday, so I was starv-ing. The place had a few arcade games and after we ate he wanted to play Golden Tee.

As I waited for him to get change, I became intrigued by the Toy Chest game. What kid didn't love that game growing up? I mean you could win an actual toy! I think as a kid I won maybe 2. Well, now I have 3! After about 5, maybe 6 tries I walked away with this:

Southpark came out when I was in high school. At the time, Lufkin didn't get Comedy Central. One of my friend's Aunt would tape a bunch of the shows and then mail them to him and we would all get together and watch. We all adopted characters and had their stickers on our cars, because that's the sort of cool thing we did. It just so happens that mine was Stan, so my new toy is especially appropriate. Plus, the boyfriend liked this option much more than the Longhorn I originally sought.

Hopefully this means I'll have plenty of good luck this week! I could use it, that's for sure.

The Great Apartment Flood of 2011.

Texas experienced some really cold temperatures last week. I believe there were 4 days in a row where Austin didn't get above freezing. Because of this, my apartment complex warned everyone to drip their faucets and keep their apartments at 65 degrees and above. Of course, my stupid upstairs neighbors who I didn't like in the first place, did not do this.

I pull up to my apartment on Thursday evening after work and notice some vans outside of my building. I think oh goodness, someone's pipes have burst. I grab my phone as I go to get out of my car and realize that I've missed a phone call because I had my phone on silent. The phone call was from my apartment complex. This can't be good. I listen to the voicemail and I'm informed that my apartment has taken on some water damage. I call back to talk to the manager but no one answered. I decide to go see for myself.

I walk into my apartment and most of my living room furniture is shoved into my laundry room and my entry way. There are two guys with a machine that is extracting water from my floor. I walk into my kitchen to see three giant holes in my ceiling. Oh, boy.

The fans have been going to dry out my carpet since Thursday night. They are hoping that the carpet will be dry today and that the pipes in the ceiling will also be dry. From there they will have to repair the dry wall and then repaint. It will be most likely Wednesday, at the earliest, before I can get back in my apartment.

Thankfully, my apartment requires renters' insurance. There are three pieces of furniture (all my Ganny's antiques) that took on a LOT of water. Fortunately, they're antiques, so they may survive. I have to wait for them to dry before those assessments can be made. I'm hoping my television was damaged because it's really old, I'd like a new one.

The boyfriend has been nice enough to let me and the CAts crash at his place. He also cooked dinner for me the night of the flood AND got me a present (both of these were planned before the flood). Too bad the present makes me think we should break up. Just kidding...

My "holey" kitchen 

Dining room/living room water damage



Side wall damage

 My yummy post-flood dinner!

And my present: a Snuggie. Obvs the boyfriend didn't realize I was serious with my anti-snuggie rants. After all, it's just a backwards robe! And to top it off, it's not even that soft. Present fail.

Resolutions, Month 2

January's resolution was to run at least once a week. I'm happy to report that this goal was met! Sometimes I even ran more than once a week. I plan to keep this one up. It's a Session must.

February's resolution: no fast food.

This is a two-parter:
1) No fast food will lead to (hopefully) healthier eating choices.
2) No fast food will lead to spending less money on meals.

I'm super jealous of everyone who has gotten snow days this week. We've had the bitter cold, but absolutely zero precipitation. I'm tempted to get a few buckets of water and ice the roads myself.

That's how I roll...

Did you know that my nephew is a baby genius? Of course you did, because he's related to me, right? Check out his new trick:

Yep, my 1 month old nephew rolled over last night. Not once, but twice. So that means it's for real. And that he's super smart. And don't you love his rockstar hair? It's all natural, with no product. Ryan Cabrera is super jealous.