Ouch!

I was at Harris Teeter getting some essentials - Lean Cuisines, drinks, and candy for the trick-or-treaters - and I went through the self check-out. I was in a bit of a hurry and when I swung one of the oversized bags of candy over to the bagging stand, my ring finger (literally) slammed into the stand.













{On an unrelated note, would anyone like to read my palm?}

Guess I'll be saying goodbye to the rest of my nails tonight. My mom taught me right - you break one way down, the rest have to go. Whether long, short, or in between, your hands and nails just look better when all the fingers look the same. Anyone else get shivers when they see that one REALLY long pinky nail on the checkout girl? ::shudder::

Another episode...

...of Wild America.

The craziest mushroom is growing at the edge of the driveway.













And the lizards are taking over.













Two of them camped out on my spider overnight. I couldn't believe they were still there in the morning.













How is my plastic crow going to have an impact on the trick-or-treaters when it can't even scare away a couple lizards?

I was outside on the front porch tonight playing with candles - a sort of dress rehearsal for Halloween - and I saw what I thought was the last three-quarters (actually, let's hope it was more like the last seven-eighths) of a snake. Of all the nights for the McHusband to work late...













If anyone needs me, I'll be out buying mothballs.

Best McHusband Ever

I've gotta give the McHusband a shout out.

For starters, he brought me not one but TWO flower arrangements for our anniversary:











Then he spent tons of quality time with my dad, sister, and nephew while they visited.

He and my dad worked on the windowpane molding under the chair rail in the dining room most of the day on Saturday.













Uh oh, here come the supervisors...













They got about halfway around the room and it's an improvement already. Ultimately, I'm going to paint under the chair rail white and above it will be one of those dark gray paint samples.













That night, we had steaks, corn casserole (the one Chelle and I made), grilled onions, and sweet potatoes for dinner.

The McHusband cut the onion and grilled the steaks. As you can see, he was closely supervised in each instance.











My dad made a delicious sauce out of shallots, mushrooms, beef consomme, soy sauce, a little cornstarch, and minced garlic. There was supposed to be red wine in it, too, but since we aren't red wine drinkers and the one bottle I did have had been open since Women's Night...













{Jeremy, we even saved you some. Sorry, no leftover steak though.}

Time to dig in!



























The McHusband even found time to be a great uncle in between his chopping and grilling. **Warning: Heart-melting photos ahead.**




























Thank you, McHusband, for everything. I can't adequately tell you or anyone else how much I appreciate you. Hopefully me shouting it from the cyber rooftops will suffice.

Now put the ice cream away and get crackin' on the rest of that molding.

Fall Festival

Our neighborhood had a Fall Festival in our cul-de-sac today. It was actually supposed to be yesterday, but the weather didn't cooperate.

We had a chili cook-off and pie bake-off. People were obviously more into the chili because there were ELEVEN crockpots of chili compared to just three pies. I contributed to each contest.

One of the neighbors hooked up a trailer and gave hay rides to the kids, most of which came in costume.













Somehow the McHusband ended up as the fourth chili judge even though no one tied to any of the chilis was supposed to be rating them. He said he pulled as hard as he could for my chili without seeming like he had something at stake; in the end, he was pretty sure mine was the runner-up. Second place out of 11? I'll take it.













I'm not sure what happened to the pie contest. Only three were contributed (an apple pie, a pumpkin pie, and my/Pioneer Woman's Peanut Butter Pie) so I think the organizer decided we were all winners.

Two neighbors and I judged the kids' costumes and there were some really cute ones. One little boy was a chicken and he had a sign written in the Chick-Fil-A font that said Eat Mor Kow. He was our favorite in his age group with an adorable giraffe coming in second.

The scariest costume award went to Elmo. What, you don't think Elmo's scary? When he's a 30-something-year-old man wearing red face paint, he's just not the cuddly Elmo you expect. I didn't exactly want to reach out and tickle him, you know? (He's toward the left in the picture.)













All in all, it was a very nice evening and I'm so glad we were able to participate. They had last year's festival right before we moved in so this was a good way to continue to get to know our neighbors as well as meet some new people.

Now I've gotta work on my chili recipe so I can win next year.

Fisher Price, Schmisher Price

Who says Aunt Stephie and Uncle McHusband don't have any toys for the kids?

So long as there are kitchen utensils,




























mountains, er, stairs to climb,














and maracas to shake, who needs Fisher Price?


More on our visit with Shannon, Owen, and my dad soon.

Quiz

If it hurts when you pee, you:

A. probably have a UTI.
B. are recovering from an episiotomy.
C. attended boot camp last night and went up and down a steep hill a million times with 500,000 of those treks being done BACKWARDS on the way up then ran sprints and finished the hour with 8 sets of walking lunges across the parking lot and 50 mountain climbers and knee sweeps.
D. Any or all of the above.

I'm pretty sure I don't have a UTI and let's hope I didn't just have an episiotomy beccause that would come with a whole 'nother set of pains.

Boot camp - or booty camp as the McHusband calls it - was tough last night. We used a relatively short but very steep hill to do drills like running down then staying on our toes to run/shuffle our way up backwards. Did you know you have "backwards muscles" that don't get used all day long? I know I have them because I worked them last night, and I'm paying for it today.

We also ran down and back up facing forward, did walking lunges and bear crawls up, and finished strong with another set of going up backwards. I gotta say, push-ups had never seemed so appealing as they did when we finished with that hill.

After the hill, we used a parking lot to run 21 sprints with two tuck-jumps after each "lap" and then walking lunges with three push-ups after each "lap."

Did I mention that I ran about 2 miles before boot camp even started?

We ended with 50 mountain climbers and 50 knee sweeps.

The muscles that hurt today are the ones that you use to lower yourself down and lift yourself out of your seat.

Thus, it hurts when I pee.

Love and marriage

{How many of you now have the "Married...with Children" theme song in your head?}

Today is our four-year anniversary. Well, our four-year wedding anniversary. If we want to be technical about it, we're just about a week shy of our THIRTEEN-year anniversary of being together. Crazy, huh?

I thought I'd take you all on a little trip down memory lane.

We got married at The Magnolia Room in Rock Hill, SC. The huge built-in bar pretty much sold the space to the McHusband.

Here's how the room and tables looked on our wedding day.

Did you know that it takes a team to get a bride ready on her wedding day? And I'm not talking about the nail technician or the hair and make-up ladies (although I had those, too). Nope, I'm talking about the bridesmaids.

Our entire bridal party in front of the ceremony area.

That's a good-lookin' bridal party, don't you think?

Me with my Matron and Maid of Honor. You may know them better as Bri and Shannon. Raise your hand if you think we look alike. Strangers tend to know we're sisters, but people who know us have a harder time seeing the similarities.

Our first dance to Tim McGraw's "It's Your Love."

The cake was a team effort. The McMom made all the cake layers then took them to Penny, a one-time pastry chef and instructor, who iced and decorated the cake. See all those calla lillies? Penny MADE them from clay and painted them. Talk about an amazing wedding gift.

I knew we could count on Bri to get down on the dance floor, but it looks like my mom had a blast as well.

And we're off to the Ballentyne Resort (Thanks, McInlaws!) where the Rolling Stones were also staying for the night.

Happy Anniversary, McHusband! I love you!

{Once again, I apologize for strange formatting. If I could reach into my computer and strangle Blogger, I would.}

Girls' Night

We girls went to PF Chang's for dinner Friday night. I really appreciate everyone agreeing to go there since I was the one who suggested it, and I was DYING to eat the Sichuan from the Sea (with shrimp). See, I'd had it about a month ago when we went to PF Chang's for a coworker's birthday, and I just loved it and have been craving it ever since. It also happens to be one of the healthier (not healthy, but healthi-ER) options so I didn't feel too bad about clearing my plate.

I checked out the drink menu, but I just wasn't feeling any of the restaurant's special drinks so I asked for a margarita. I got a Bamboo-rita. {Sorry it's a little fuzzy, I didn't realize the camera was focusing on Chelle in the background.}

















Vanessa decided my Bamboo-rita sounded good and Jennifer, who told the waiter she liked her drinks fruity without any chunks, went with the waiter's suggestion and ordered a Poolside.

















The whole gang: Jennifer, Vanessa, Maret, Chelle, Vickie, and me.













I had a great time and hopefully we'll all get together again soon for a boys-not-allowed night out.

For the McInlaws

The McDad got Tucker a ball. We took the ball back with us from Charlotte to Raleigh and straight to our backyard where it lasted about 9 seconds.













You can't tell, but it was actually a pretty big ball.













He tried to keep playing with it, but it just wasn't as fun.













Thank you, Grammie and Papaw!

Icebreaker

We've created a monster.

Tucker loves ice. He comes running if he hears you getting it from the fridge, and he will sit and stare at the McHusband when he has a drink with ice in it because he's waiting.

What's he waiting for? Take a look.

Brrrrrr!

It is CHILLY today!














This is our upstairs t-stat one morning earlier this week, but I think it probably read about the same this morning. We have yet to turn the heat on, although we have used the fireplace a few times. The 76 is what we keep the a/c set to during the day, and the 61 is the actual temperature.

Cold temps mean it's time to break out the outerwear. I really didn't like hanging coats and jackets in the laundry room because everything was too long to hang free and would basically sit on the countertop we installed next to the dryer.

So last night the McHusband and I picked up a set of hooks.


















During the installation last night, we were holding the hook-thing up against the wall, and I adjusted one end of it pretty drastically to straighten it out. The McHusband said, "That's crooked as hell." I said, "No, it's not," so he grabbed the level to show me just how crooked the hook-thing was.

The bubble was dead-on in the middle.














The McHusband's pretty lucky to have a helper as good as me.

TGIF!

Owen says, "Have a great weekend!"














The McHusand and some friends were supposed to do a car thing in Maryland this weekend, but that event's been canceled because of the weather. We Mustang widows and a few other friends had plans for a girls' night dinner tonight - and we're keeping those plans. Sorry, boys, you'll have to fend for yourselves!

I better enjoy my night out tonight because I have a weekend full of chores ahead of me. My dad, Shannon, and Owen will be visiting at the end of the week so I need to get the house, especially the floors, spic and span. I also want to paint the guest bathroom and plant pansies so we'll see which of those, if either, get done.

Hope your weekend has more pumpkins than chores in it!

Bad bad bad bad bad bad dog

The dogs are a little stir crazy because of the yucky weather we've had here today. They were just going crazy here in the bonus room, wrestling like two drunk rednecks in a backyard wrestling match. Then they got quiet and that's when I got nervous.

Guess what I found?













We have NEVER allowed either dog on the furniture or on our bed. EVER.

I don't know if Tucker was contemplating stealing a pillow off the couch or if he was going for the big blue ball. Either way, I'm glad I was here. I would never have believed that he'd gotten up there if I hadn't seen it for myself. Our dogs just don't DO that.

Oh yeah, guess what else? Tucker chewed up some hanging folders yesterday so he was back in his crate today, and he'll probably stay in there through at least the end of the year until he matures a bit more.

Sorry, Tucker-bud, it's back to puppy jail for you.