Aggie and Kim would be proud

I would never admit this to them, but there are some perks to having two guys as room mates. I've always got someone to open a tricky jar, they always know where the tools in the house are and they insist on us having Dish Network.

Before I moved into this house, I had no idea what I was missing.

One of the best stations of many we have at our disposal is BBC America. Lately Room mate #1 and I have gotten hooked on "How clean is your house?" Let me tell you, there is no show on HGTV, TLC or Discovery that even comes close to how great HCIYH is. The basic premis is that Aggie and Kim travel all over England helping people clean up their mess of a house. And when I say mess, I don't mean a few piles of stuff here and there and the dishwasher is still full from the night before. The places they clean are serious candidates for EPA Superfund status.

This house has nothing on them.

Gaining inspiration from the exploits of Aggie and Kim, we've started a top to bottom clean up effort at the homestead. Repairs are being done, bags of trash are being filled and taken out and boxes that haven't been emptied in the four years since we moved in are finally getting organized.

A big part of the fun is that as I've been cleaning I've been finding some pictures that, well, let's just say let them speak for themselves:

This I think, was taken on my first day of kindergarten (I'm 4 in this pic, turning 5 in November), in the backyard of our old house. I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly my mother had to wrangle me into the dress. The hair was freshly cut because my mom got tire of fighting me when it was longer.

I don't remember this picture very well but I had a major jones for Mickey and the crew when I was little. Right down to my Mickey Mouse tennis set, bath buddy and stuffed Minnie.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'm pretty sure I was getting in trouble in the picture, hence the smile to disarm any potential punishment. That little shelf thing behind me was at the top of the steps at the old house (a nice semi-detached with a freaking cool backyard). Because of my daredevil ways, I liked to climb up on the shelf and jump as far as I could down the steps...which is how I ended up giving myself a concussion at the age of 3 and a dent in my forehead which is still there. No really...right here...you can feel it...

One year ago...

The sunshine of my life, my niece Rylee, came into this world after causing her mommy a lot of pain.

Now we like play on the floor, have "I hold" battles and eat italian ices. I can't wait to show her more of life and how much fun it can be. And that no matter what, there's nothing she can't do.

KOP on $15 and 3/4 of a tank of gas

New Years Eve when I stopped by Chad and Jen's an old friend of ours from college was there. Heather, or Barker as we called her back then, was in for the festivities with her husband Sid. As I was dropping off my contribution to the party, she extended an invite I couldn't resist.

"You should come out this weekend! My friends are in this great 80s cover band. Mostly hair band stuff..."

"Sure, sounds like fun. I'll message you later in the week."

She snapped my picture, I said my good byes and ran back to the car where JP and Kel were waiting for me.

I had forgotten about the conversation until Wednesday, when The Guy told me he needed time and space. Yeah. We all know what that means. I've reassured him that he should take his time, figure things out then get back to me if and when he's ready. Seriously, what else would I say? But I'm getting off track. Between that and decision my co-director and I made to cancel the rest of our indoor season, I needed a night out.

And a night out with Heather, well, that's always a good time.

So Saturday night I hit the turnpike with as much gas as I could afford (the bank account is very low pending my paycheck this week) and the remainder in my wallet. All $15 of it. Yeah, that's right, $15 freaking dollars...which also had to cover my turnpike tolls. There was definitely some creative drinking going on and a round or two now owed to Heather and her friend Kat. Showing the girls helped a little too. Ahem. And the pole dancing, I'm sure that helped the situation too.

We laughed, we sang, we danced and had a freaking hellacool time.

Sunday we slept in, watched a little football then Heather, Sid and I had lunch before I made the hour 30 minute drive home. As I was leaving Heather asked if I had a good time and when I hugged her goodbye I told her it was "definitely what I needed."

And yeah, it was. Last week was a complete roller coaster of emotions from New Years Eve (Hot Musician kissed me three times) to the pausing of things with The Guy to Saturday night's dance-drink-a-thon, the trip to KOP (King of Prussia) was soooo worth it.

So, so, so worth it.

Help, help I'm being repressed!

Funny for a rainy Wednesday (or one of the many reasons I love Monty Python movies)

Because acting like an idiot is the way to go

"O.k. girls, who's buying drinks. Where are we going?"

My friend Abbey and I were fighting the crowd outside of Camden Yards. The O's had just lost, again, and I was in no mood to deal with the drunk fools we wound up walking next to.

"Come on ladies, he said the line, now one of you needs to do the deed. Who's going to f*ck him?"

I just threw him a side glare out of the corner out of my eye. Abbey just raised her eyebrows, "Do you want to take this one or should I?"

"No, I've got it."

The guys were still walking next to us, making rude propositions. I turned to the closest one looked him dead in the eyes and said, "Look, there isn't enough Jameson's, Jose or Jack Daniels on the face of this earth to get me drunk enough to sleep with you. Besides that, I don't do pity caes."

That shut them up...until they saw a new target.




It was floppy hat night last night, I never miss it! This was taken around the second inning...when the birds were down 5-1, hence the lack of a smile.

I nearly peed my pants when I saw this...

Might as well just call Shennanigans right now

I am so excited about this weekend, primarily tonight more than the other two days because my very cool and wonderful friend L is rolling back into to town.

We've been friends for a long time, L and I. I think we initially started hanging out in middle school when her group from the other elementary school and my group merged into one. Some of the group drifted away but L, myself and a few others became fast friends and have stayed that way ever since. It's kind of spooky actually. No matter how long we go without speaking, or seeing each other, we can pick up just like we only saw each other yesterday.

Because I am usually working my second job, the last few times we've missed getting together. But tonight, oh no, tonight will be a fun, drink filled girls night out. There's a lot of catching up to do over drinks at any one of our favorite watering holes.

And I'm sure, serious hijinx will ensue.

This is going to be the BEST SUMMER EVER!

Today, on the way to the gym (now that I actually have the time I'm a regular atendee and have dropped about 6lbs so far) TBD called.

"Let's go get dinner."

"Umm, I just used my last $10 to buy gas until I get paid Tuesday at midnight. I'm seriously poor until I start getting paychecks from the baseball team."

"Oh. Well, I owe you for drinks from that one time. I'll pay."

"No, no. I don't want you - "

"No, really, it's o.k. I'll pay for your dinner. No biggie. We'll be even."

Well, if you're going to twist my arm...o.k."

"5ish o.k.?"

"Sure. Call JP and let him know. I just got off the phone with him."

"O.k."

We hung up. It's weird but we've been talking and hanging out a lot more than ever lately. I like it. I like that we've become such good friends. I like that we've made this transition to hangout buddies.

TBD and I met up at one of the best places in town with a deck, settled in with drinks (him a jack & coke, me a water) and an appetizer of steamed shrimp and waited for JP to show up. We talked about this and that, his school year ending, my summer of baseball and general nothingness, both of our attempts at making ourselves smaller. He's about 15lbs from his goal, which I greatly admire after seeing all of the hard work he's done over the last couple of months. I'm getting back into the swing of things. Just need to cut the carb intake (it's an addiction) and stop the beer drinking and I think I'll be on the right track.

After JP arrived we ordered, continued with our regurlarly scheduled sillyness and decided to walk to the new baseball stadium. TBD isn't that familiar with the downtown area and JP just wanted to see what was up with it. After a nice walk, we started making our way back to where we had started when we passed another of the incredibly cool bars downtown. I happened to notice a motorcycle that looked suspiciously like one belonging to the amazingly hot keyboard player.

It was him. I hadn't intended on saying anything...but I did. And I'm glad I did! He invited TBD, JP and I to join him for drinks on his tab at the bar. Not ones to give up free drinks, we did. Boy did we. I know I knocked back at least 2 shots (a three wisemen and a surfer on acid, i think) and a beer. Sweet moses. I was a little tipsy by the time we left, but declined The Keyboard Player's invitation to join him at my former place of employment.

Oh man, if this is what my summer is going to be like, hanging out with fun (and hot to boot) guys, knocking back drinks and laughing my patootie off, then this is definitely going to be one of the best summers ever!