In Case He Reads Our Blog

(its pretty, and it used to be my window)

Dear Dude Who Busted out My Civic's Window,

    I would just like to let you know how lovely it was to come out to my car, after an especially laborious day at work mind you, to find my drivers side window in a million pieces and my GPS gone. I was starving for dinner, but instead got to waste two hours filing a police report, removing shrapnel off my seat with a snow scrapper, finding an open car wash (without the aid of a GPS) and vacuuming out the remaining shards. I'm really not all that livid about the GPS (though it was a useful tool.) It's all the wasted time, the inconvenience of having our only car missing a window (and no open window shops till Monday!), and the cost (a couple hundred) of replacing said window. I mean really, how much could a year old Costco GPS be black market sold for? Like $40? I would have gladly given you forty bones from my wallet to leave my window alone if you needed it that badly. Think about it.

Sincerely,

Lauren

P.S. I want to punch you in the kidneys

(is the window down? nope. it's just gone)

Redneck Day.

Circa my year of 1st grade, Santa Clara elementary decided to take 2 hours of instruction time, which probably could have been used to teach me to read or something, and give it to the Rodeo. All of the students sat out front of the school and were propagandized by the clowns, riders, horses, and most importantly to me - THE RODEO PRINCESSES.

(this year's Utah Rodeo Princess. I want to be her.)
They were beautiful. Big curled blond hair, fake smiles,  pink hats, sequined tops, size 00 wranglers, and their bedazzled horses! They made the Rodeo sound like freaking Disneyland. On Acid. By the time their "presentation" was over, I knew that I MUST go to rodeo and join the Princesses in this fun fest. But as soon as I got home my dreams were smashed:

Me: Can we go to the rodeo? Please, they gave us free tickets! Its so much fun.
 The princesses said so!!!!

Mom: Lauren, dad's working tonight. I don't really want to take three

 little girls to a dirty dusty beer fest. You really won't have fun. 

Me: I'm going to kill myself. 

I lived on. And married Dan Mealy. The man who would take me to the 

Salinas, CA RODEO (and inadvertently, the horse parade)!!!

My mom was right, it was a dirty dusty beer fest (with a fair helping of animal cruelty, ever seen calf roping?). But on the later she was oh so very wrong:

It was way fun. Yee-haw for being Rednecks*.  

* Literally, we got super sunburned. We forgot once you go outside the boundary of Monterey city doom and gloom vanishes and there are actual rays of light. 

Lauren and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

So this afternoon I'm hungry and I decide I want to make blondies from a particular cookbook. And the Pacific Grove library has said cookbook.  Dan is gone to his college math class and has the car. 

No problem, I will walk - the weather says its supposed to get sunny and its not that far. Except, it totally is. Garmy informed me its a full 4 miles round trip. 

So I finally make it to the library, and in the time it took me to walk there, someone had checked out the book. No joke, the librarian confirmed it. 

But this is where it gets good. I proceed to trek home, and come to the busiest intersection in P.G., a four way intersection. The cars all pause for me and I hurry across the road. Next thing I know, I'm sprawled flat on my stomach on the ground in the middle of the road. Yup, totally biffed it in front of maybe 10 cars, a dozen pedestrians, a few dogs.... My phone flew out of bag so I had to collect all the pieces before hobbling across the road. Someone even got out of their car to try to help me. 

My right leg had a giant hole in the pants, through my g's, and then my skin. It hurt. It was embarrassing. I still had to walk 2 tear stained miles home. And the sun never came out.

To recap: I didn't get to make any blondies, I humiliated myself in front of a great number of people, ruined my very favorite jeans, dinged up my 2 week old phone, and didn't even get any sun! 

And I'm still hungry.

The End. 

P.S. The day got better. After a good cry and Dan laughing at me ("Let me get this right, you tripped in a crosswalk in town's square?"), we went to dinner at a nearby restaurant (so I could photograph the scene of the "incident"), bought Dan some jazzy new pants to complete his Euro Chic ensemble, and saw Inception. 

Dude, Inception is a trip. If you want your mind blown, go see it. Right now. And be careful in those highly visible crosswalks.

The End for Real. 

The watch makes me Run

Meet the watch that changed my life. 
The Garmin Forerunner 110, or Garmy as I call her. She monitors my heart rate, tells me how fast my pace is, how far I've run, and excitingly, how many calories I've burned!

My first few days with her I was a calorie burning fiend! Then I discovered she thought I was a 5'10 male. I corrected her settings. My calorie burn for a 3 mi jog dropped from  342 calories, to 171 calories. That's like half a cookie. Dang.

So my abolition of sweet treats lasted 9 days. But it wasn't my fault... I was asked/commanded to make a dessert "refreshment" for a Youth Fireside, a Relief Society Board Meeting, and my delightful little sunbeams, all in the course of week.  You can't resist God's will. I had to do it. 

Also on the Suzy homemaker topic: Craft blogs. I sometimes read them. I see these women who take crap from the DI and turn it into Pottery Barn Treasure. And sometimes I think "I could do that." And even worse, sometimes I actually carry it out.

We have a fully functional dresser I decided need to be massacred/re-decorated:

I carefully read how-tos on this blog, bought myself some spray paint and went to town.
This is what resulted:

Definitely not Pottery Barn but not too bad. Except, I have this problem. I get all gung ho about a project, and then get about half way in and my patience runs out. If its a small project I just tuck it away in a bin. But if its something big, like say our only dresser, I usually resort to getting really sloppy and hurrying it up. Like when I realized I failed to paint the legs, but had already spent most the day on it, I decided to just leave it. Martha would not be proud:

As for Dan, he is king of avant garde footwear.

He still gets looks when he wears his five fingers about. He doesn't just wear them running. They are ADVENTURE SHOES. And you never know when adventure will strike. So you must always have them on.

But now he has these new Palladium boots. They're French. And he wears them everywhere. The Five Fingers are getting very jealous... Though I can't say I'll miss their appearance at Date Night tomorrow. Huzzah! 

When I'm Stuck with a Day, that's Grey, and Lonely...

Monterey, CA

66°F

Tue

65° | 54°

Wed

66° | 55°

Thu

68° | 55°

Fri

70° | 55°

If a certain family of vampires ever tires of Forks, I think Monterey could serve as a suitable replacement. (I just read an article about Twilight's effect on marriages by the way haha). I swear there hasn't been a full day of warm life giving sun here since I returned from the Mecca that is St. George, Utah.
 It's getting me down! I need my vitamin D offering sunlight, and these endless overcast days are throwing me into a spiral of depression. I'm trying to focus on the few good things in this costal hell,  to pull myself out of the spiral (sufficiently dramatic?):

One thing this place has going for it is the Farmer's Market. Gives Dan and I something to do on tuesdays. See cool dogs, random musicians, and eat samples. Often we buy some good (but expensive) produce and eat delightful Gyros.

Usually I bake delicious delights to lift my spirits. But, Dan and I are trying to eat healthy right now (the tri-weekly cookie baking was doing us no favors.) So I decided to bake something nutritious. Enter Bran muffins packed with flax seed, fruits, strands of carrots and other ridiculously healthy things. They were actually fairly tasty once you get past the aesthetics. Other attempts included Granola (not as healthy as one would hope, that brown sugar could be put to good use in cookies thank you very much!)

One legitmate spirit lifter is this awesome birthday announcement we received from our niece.

I know I've made some less than favorable remarks about Ginger kids. But really, I've had a disproportionate amount of evil auburns in my life. But that doesn't mean there aren't some good ones. My cousin Aimee.... Princess Ariel.... And of course, our one and only niece! Every time I see this on the fridge I can't help but smile. She's that cute. 

But I don't recant on giving up any gingers that Dan and I are so at risk of someday creating. 

Not only is it grey here, but I actually am lonely. Dan is off on an overnighter hiking a mountain in San Francisco with a prominent conservative Political Science professor at UCSF. That's right. He's out hiking a mountain and listening to politics. For fun. His good friend Mark, who gifted him a NOBAMA shirt, is the mastermind behind this excursion. I can support that. Kind of.

Perhaps Orphan Annie is right. Maybe the Sun will come out tomorrow.
But if you're living in Monterey, I wouldn't bet my bottom dollar on it. 

Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue

With a large Military demographic, the city of Monterey has no choice but to honor such a patriotic holiday as the Fourth of July. Just check out the calender of events on their website:

4th of July Parade - CANCELLED

Fireworks over the Harbor - CANCELLED

I'm not sure if its their state's total debt crisis or a general Californian anti-America attitude, but there weren't any flags flying here. In their defense, I guess their was a BBQ at some park, on Sunday, while us God fearing people were at Church. 

To add insult to injury, the town is littered with signs reading 

"NO FIREWORKS IN MONTEREY! $1,000 Fine!" 

And no, I'm not bitter about them ruining a wonderful holiday, thank you for asking.

Left to our own devices, we had a quiet (aside from Dan's Toby Keith blasting) BBQ at home on Saturday with our good friends the Streeters.

They showed Monterey and wore their Flag Shirts proudly. Awesome. 

I made Texas Sheet Cake Cupcakes in homage to state that actually celebrates the country its part of.

America is Awesome. I came to this realization last year. As I sat in Amman on the 4th eating a really bad flag cheesecake (we didn't have access to cream cheese or graham crackers...)  Angie and I made, it dawned on me that the USA really is the best country on earth, (Jordan is the worst by the way). 

My home country offers opportunities and freedoms that people die trying get to, and soldiers give up their lives defending. 

I am so proud to be an American.  I know this is getting pretty deep for a blog with a Zombie header, but I appreciate our country and the wonderful life I enjoy because of it. Its something worth celebrating. Too bad Monterey didn't get the memo....

A tale of two Date nights

FRIDAY

 Matinee of guilty vampire indulgence + lots of shirtless Jacob + (smuggled in) Pretzel M&Ms + Delicious Mexican Food + Sunset Walk on Beach 

= Lo's Ideal Date Night

Saturday:

 7-11 Beverage Run + Jose's Underground Lounge (21+) + Indie Band Show w/ a Viola +No Shirtless Jacob and girls squealing 

= Dan's Ideal Date Night

Marriage is all about Taking turns. And Seperate Sleeping Blankets. 

Always Seperate Sleeping blankets.