Amber Alert

Reason I haven't been blogging #4:
This vicious-looking animal has been holding me captive. 

(WARNING: This is an extremely long blog post. Readers may experience fatigue, eye strain, and bladder problems from having to hold your pee for so long. Also, this has not been proofread, or reread for that matter, so read at your own risk.)

Amber Alert! I've been missing. And nobody has come to D.C. to make sure I am still alive, very disappointing, but I will still blog because you have at least made comments through facebook, text, email, phone calls, etc. I was holding out for someone to send me a hand written request for a new blog post, but alas I have too much to complain about to wait any longer.

First, my excuses for not blogging. As a warning to readers, you will probably find most of these reasons illegitimate, mostly because they are, but I will tell you them anyway.

1. I have been sick, cough cough. Really I think it has just been the migraines because of the seasons changing. Must do something about that season-changing thing, put that on my to-do list House Husband!

2. I have been busy. Bahahahahaha, aren't we all? Have you ever noticed that everyone always feels busier than everyone else? Why is that? Must figure out the answer, put that on my to-do list House Husband!

3. Let's see what has really been keeping me busy...

I have no idea what order these are supposed to be in, as it has been almost a month since I last blogged (I was trying to wait a full month, but I hate to keep my fan (no there is not supposed to be an "s" at the end of that word) waiting. After all, in that time Mother's Day did pass. Speaking of...

I sent my mother this gift she really wanted, but then it broke in the mail! I sent my Mother-In-Law, affectionately known as "MIL" by me, the same thing and hers got there fine. This is outrageous, I must get me mother something else to make up for it, put that on my to-do list House Husband!

Oh wait, cross that off House Husband, I already did it:

The yellow one is my new purse (Crate & Barrel!) and when I was telling Ma about it, she got the old green eye of envy and then brought up her broken Mother's Day gift for some reason.... haven't figured out why, her thought process is so random... If you didn't know this already, my mother and I have an unhealthy obsession with patent leather. In fact, I used to exploit this many times growing up.

ME: "Mom! Can I buy a new pair of shoes?"

MOTHER: "No. You don't need a new pair of shoes, you have plenty of shoes, we have to save money for you to get your wisdom teeth taken out, read my lips 'no new shoes,' get over it you are not getting new shoes no matter what."

ME: "But Mooooooo, they're so cute. Look, they're patten leather...."

MOTHER: "Oooo those are cute, do they have them in my size too?"

Still never had my wisdom teeth taken out. Count it.

Speaking of cuteness, my little sister got married and my brother came to D.C.! Wait, switch that. I would do it, but my pinkie is so lazy today it doesn't want to reach its little self up to the backspace. Where was I? Oh yes, my little sister was in D.C. this week for her 8th grade school trip!

I got to catch up with her at the mall, not the National Mall, an actual shopping mall. The mall where I met her was only a short five-minute car ride from my apartment, but I hadn't been there since my 8th grade trip 10 YEARS ago. I still never understood why they took us to a mall on our trip, but from the looks of it the schedule hasn't changed in decades, so why mess with a good thing now?

I need to brag on J for a second now. In the past year, she has been in so many school plays, gone through the confirmation process, is going to graduate this weekend, and coolest of all- won a scholarship! They didn't have an awards ceremony or scholarships when I was at our alma mater, but I was so happy because (a) she won it for being a good person- (big sister taught her everything she knows so pat on the back to moi), and (b) it's for $1,000!! It's for private high school tuition, and she needs it, because my other alma mater is super expensive now. But all that fancy edamacation goin' on der really paid off fur me, so I guess it's worth it!

Speaking of classes-- oh wait, my brother GOT MARRIED!! That's right people everywhere, another Niblock is officially off the market. (P.S. did I ever mention that my father got married and my mother told me after she saw the update on facebook? Oh there is not enough blog space in the world for that story, right?). The eldest Niblock child, CNIB (or Chris to normal people), officially tied the knot recently to his long-time girlfriend, his absolutely no question about it soul mate, the ridiculously smart, cute, and funny Faith.

Aren't they the cutest couple you've ever seen?

I don't want to come right out and say they completely followed in me and House Husband's footsteps, but I mean, the similarities are eerie.

• The new Mr. & Mrs. Niblock got married by the pool of Faith's house (that's right, she's a homeowner, C knows how to pick 'em!) with only a few people there; House Husband and I got married on a golf course with only a few people there. 
• CNIB & FNIB are going to the Dominican Republic now to have their official wedding; HHUS & ANIB wanted to go somewhere tropical too, but we were broke. 
• C & F are then hosting a party when they get back; H & A, yeah we did that too.

CNIB, I know you crave to be like me, but really, a girl is supposed to look up to her big brother- and you are already so much like me as it is, we have the same mother and father (P.S. did you hear that Dad got married? Yeah, it's true, facebook confirmed it).

I (but really my mother, I just made the invitations) threw Faith a Wedding-Shower-In-A-Box since everyone in our family lives all over the place. We all sent my mother a gift and then she took them to Faith (on her wedding day actually) to open at one time. It was like a Wedding Christmas!

My mother blocked out their last name on the invites for privacy,
but after this blog post- the jig is up!

 

Speaking of showers, we had another baby shower at work! It is in the water up here, but not to worry I only drink diet coke. Liz, one of the bigger wigs in our department is pregnant with her first child! Her husband, not a House Husband, wanted to do a Star Wars themed baby bedroom for their little girl, but that idea won an instant veto by Liz. If you're interested though, Pottery Barn actually has a pretty tasteful collection out. I know, Star Wars and tasteful decor don't really go together, but it's Pottery Barn and they can make anything beautiful. (I had a few clever suggestions for people, items, or places that we should put Pottery Barn in charge of making over, but after little consideration, I decided it wouldn't be very tasteful, or Pottery Barn-esque, for me to make them).

Anywho... for Liz's card, I did print out a piece of paper with two babies dressed as Star Wars characters, and told her "Congratulations! The force is strong with this one." Which went along perfectly with the Yoda-inspired baby robe and butt cream I gave her, her words not mine.

Speaking of (I really need to thesaurus "speaking of" later, put that on my to-do list House Husband!) work, everyone and their co-worker went to Annual Meetings in North Carolina sometime last week or the week before and so headquarters was a ghost town! Okay, far from it, but our department was pretty peopleless, but not less of pretty people. But while Kara's feet where about to fall off from exhaustion in NC:

I was throwing a karaoke party in my office. It got pretty crazy:

Actually it was pretty low key. In fact, I vowed to take longer lunches while everyone was gone, but I kept forgetting to because I didn't have five people reminding me everyday when it was lunch time. So low and behold, hours would pass and the next thing I new I was looking at my clock and thinking "dang it! I forgot about lunch." and I would run out to the local book store or Starbucks, chill and read my book for awhile, and then my super-fast phone clock would tell me to get back before someone did rounds to make sure we all came back from lunch (nobody ever did anyway, but there is always that fear they would do it on the one day you decided to come back late) and I would rush back to work only to realize that not only had I NOT been late getting back, but that I was actually early! Everyday, 45 minute lunches. What is wrong with me? I think it is a form of Stockholm's Syndrome or something. 

COMMERCIAL BREAK! Please take a moment to look at the picture below of the show House Husband and I fell in love with over netflix and then had our hearts broken when it ended after only three short seasons. Or go to the bathroom, get something to munch on, and feed your dog, because this is the longest freaking blog post ever. 

Speaking of reading (before the commercial break), I read three books this month. That's right people, read it and weap-- three! Okay, so it still isn't very much, but I am getting better about reading more. I read this hilarious book by Joshua Ferris called "Then We Came To The End". I don't know where I read about it, but after clicking a link on website and then another and another (the wikipedia phenomenon, as I like to refer to it) I was eventually reading the first eight pages of his book on Amazon and thought I was going to collapse if I didn't get to keep reading it soon. So I bought it the next day, and was laughing so hard. It is office humor, so if you work in an office environment, especially a more corporate one, I think you could really enjoy it. KELSEY, READ IT, I THINK YOU WILL LIKE IT. TELL JANA I SAID HI. 

I read my first-ever Stephen King book and it wasn't even one of his novels, it was a book he wrote about writing. I kept reading in other books about writing that everyone who likes to write should read this book, so finally I did. I didn't see why it was so dire for writer's to read it, but I did really enjoy reading it. You can really tell, or at least it comes off that way on paper, that Stephen King really wants everyone to do well- you can feel his passion for others pursuing their dreams, but he is also very firm on his tips to going from "someone who likes to write" into becoming "a writer". 

Speaking of writing, I signed up for a creative writing class. My first assignment seemed well-received enough (there are no grades, just for fun), but I am mostly taking it to make myself keep writing. Kind of like this blog. I did submit a story to Writer's Digest's Writing Prompt "Your Story" Contest and didn't make it into the top five, which is disappointing, but really just confusing because the top entries they did pick were a little... well, not as good as mine- my Mother and House Husband's words, not mine (okay, yes mine too, but I am more biased so me saying it wouldn't really hold that much weight for arguments sake. But neither does my Mother and House Husband's because, well, they are super biased too). Either way, I take pride in being pretty objective about my work, or if anything even more critical than others are, so I was a little baffled. I would post it, but this blog is already too long- plus, I think it was better than the others, but still not that great. 

Speaking of losing, I went with some of my co-workers and ex co-workers to see the Braves play the Nationals in D.C. recently. Mostly because Kara is in love with Chipper Jones, why I have no idea, but I was hoping we could recreate that episode from Sex and the City where Carrie catches a foul ball and then starts dating the baseball player. Kara didn't get her date with destiny, but she did get hit on non-stop by a George Clooney look-a-like who sat in front of us at the game. He was apparently a pilot at the pentagon, which is no professional baseball player, but he was a ball of entertainment for all of us watching as he attempted to talk Kara out of leaving Chipper for him. 

We saw them again as we were walking out of the stadium and crashed their picture. 

Speaking of the Braves, House Husband is a huge Braves fan. Speaking of House Husband, House Husband is now a free man! who is now trapped in the house all day. Exams are over, and the usual law-school studying student Husband of mine is now a full-fledge desperate House Husband until his summer internship starts later this summer. A call to me at work after only a week of playing stay at home puppy daddy: 

HH: "Hey, whatchya doin?"

ME: "Workin'."

HH: "Oh, well I just called to say that I miss you..."

ME: "You are bored."

HH: "No I'm not, I just really miss you..."

ME: "You must be really bored."

And then he asked the question you never ask, "well, is there anything you want me to do?" Within 20 minutes he had an email with a list of about 100 things he could do in our tiny apartment. I am super particular, so I knew most things he would do would bother me anyway, but he has been doing better than I expected. Don't get me wrong, he gets the laundry done and folded, but it doesn't always get put away- a small detail I am willing to overlook as he has taken on a new Trophy Husband persona and has been working out during the day, leisure reading what normal people like me consider heavy "intellectual" reading, and taking Matlock on longer walks than usual.  

Speaking of looking good, Husband and I made a contract to lose weight and get healthier by May 31st and if we reached our goals, he would get two new suits (which he probably would have got anyway, considering he needs them) and I would get to buy myself a nice DSLR camera (which will go nicely with those photography classes I took in high school, right Ma?). I still have 2.5 pounds to lose before May 31st- check out my hoping to healthiness frog at the very bottom of the blog to track my progress), but House Husband's was more of a "visual" thing as he would be putting on more muscle. And he looks good in his new suits!

This is the only good picture I could get of him since we just got the pants back from the tailor today and he didn't know I had the camera in my hand. I feel like it was only yesterday he was karate chopping in our oversized sweatpants:

Speaking of sweatpants, it's bedtime folks. Tune in on May 31st to see if I meet my weigh in goal. If you don't see a blog post, it probably means I didn't reach my goal, or that I forgot. I've got to remember to blog more, put that on my to-do list House Husband!