Nuthin’ but an H thang, Baybay…

Weekends in the summer are packed, aren’t they? Since the weather’s so awful for months on end, it’s as if we jam everything into the 3-4 months when we have favorable temps.

This past weekend was no different.

Friday night, we went over to one of my coworker’s homes for a House Warming party. Her townhouse had such a cool layout, complete with winding staircases and a sunken living room. We enjoyed some beer out on her deck, where her house backed up to a gorgeous wooded ravine. As you can tell, I’m very excited for her!

Saturday morning, I woke up gloriously early to make the trip to MOA to get mah hair did. After a couple hours in the chair, my hair was cut, highlighted and all shiny again. I got to hear about my hair stylist’s three week European vacation too, which made me want to take one. With my hotstuff hair, I went shoe shopping. I ended up at DSW and found some sexy black strappy shoes to go with my new little black dress. I picked up a new pair of pants and a top as well – both black. I really need to diversify my wardrobe, no? Adamah and I later headed down to the Jacksons’ house for a barbeque. Tom, Gwen, the McReynolds and many other folks were there – we were treated to some excellent food and company. My thanks go to Jon and Keri.

On Sunday, I actually slept in til 6:30am…not bad, for me. Adam made us a phenomenal breakfast and I became a sloth on the couch for awhile. My sister’s graduation party was taking place that afternoon, so we ended up at my mom’s for that. My mom is the best cook I know – everything was fantastic. Got to chat with relatives and play with the kids. I was so glad to spend some time with my Grandma Mason, who recently had surgery for breast cancer. Don’t worry though, her prognosis is good! We left around suppertime and picked up AdamV and Dena. We had dinner at RedStone in Minnetonka by Ridgedale. AdamV and Dena are one of my favorite couples to dine with…we’re both so comfortable with them and conversation is so easy; they’re like family, only funnier. I know I’m repeating myself when I say this but, well, too bad: I’m so thankful we have such wonderful friends.

After a problematic week on the router front, Adam came up with a solution to our website woes: we outsourced! Instead of hosting our sites on his equipment, he found a service to not only host our data but one that more-than-sufficiently backs it up too. We had a scare with a hard drive some weeks ago and we feared our data (photos and blog entries and more) would be lost forever. Thankfully, he recovered our stuff…but it was a reality check.

So anyhoo, we’re back!

On the way to my bus stop today, I was lost in the deep recesses of my pink plaid shoulder bag. Pilfering through my junk, I was searching for my iPod so that I could walk to the beat of my Heather’s 90’s Mix. Just as my hands felt the velvety case, I heard a deep voice in front of me say:

“Dayamn girrrrrlll. You got that BOOM (uses his hands to outline a curved shape in the air). I like that BOOM.”
Me: “Uhh, thank you.” Wry smile.
Him: “Ah-ight then.”

It seemed like a pretty harmless compliment…at first. I mean, I’m a very curvy lady; most of the time, I’m proud of my curves. Though a teensy bit embarassing, it felt kinda good to have some random guy call me out. Then I started thinking about it: does this mean I’ve gained weight? Are my curves “booming” out of control??

So here’s the health-skinny on me:

The Good:
I’ve kept away from regular sugar-loaded soda. My portions are usually small. I consume three meals every day and very few snacks in between. I don’t often eat after 7pm. I take walks on my lunch breaks – and Adam and I have been taking walks around our neighborhood to get some movement in our bones. Adam just bought an exercise ball too, so that we might roll around all over the house. I do most of the household cleaning, which provides a little exercise as well.

The Bad:
I’ve been eating buttery, starchy, sugary and fried foods over the past couple months despite promising myself I’d do better. I don’t drink water as I should. I eat very few vegetables. I despise working out in the gym. Even my healthclub, Curves, became severely boring to me after awhile.

The Ugly:
Normally, I hover between 125 and 135 lbs but I’ve teetered closer to the 135 mark lately. I have several pieces of clothing I can technically wear but I don’t because in my head they “make me look fat.”

Much as it hurts, I can’t live on popcorn, candy and Diet Coke with little exercise anymore.

And it’s just not fair.

At my office, I am affectionately known as “The Donger.”

If you’re as old as I am (or older), you should remember the movie “Sixteen Candles”, right? The Donger is a character in the movie who is an exchange student from Asia. Everytime he comes on the scene, you hear a gong (not very PC, I know). English is, of course, his second language and he flips out plenty of fantastic one-liners throughout the flick. I happen to have a habit of repeating these non-PC one-liners around work, and hence, I was christened The Donger.

On Friday, I had TWO *phat* deals close.

The ritual used to be that when a large contract came into the sales department, the salesperson who closed it would ring a loud bell. Upon hearing this ring, everyone would gather ’round for the sales rep to tell the crowd about their deal. At some point, our VP, Charley, was chatting with my boss and me about one of my contracts that had just freshly come in off the fax. All of a sudden, something occurred to him. He told us to wait. He returned a few moments later with a small hand-held gong he borrowed from the marketing department. He decided, “The Donger must bang the gong.” Ever since that day, all large contracts are now called out with the gong.

So back to Friday: because these two contracts of mine came in on the same day, I got to bang the gong TWICE! I have to admit I have waaay too much fun banging that gong.

Don’t be surprised if you come to my house and see a gong displayed in my living room very soon…

After another long work week in Mexico City, Adam’s finally home. I picked him up yesterday from the airport around lunchtime and begged him to let me take him to Cecil’s for my coveted corned beef sandwich. He did me one better: not only did we go to Cecil’s to obtain the best deli food ANYWHERE, we took our meal To Go and headed over to Minnehaha Park. We found the perfect semi-shaded tree spot away from the crowds and plopped down on the grass. After stuffing our faces with corned beef and cream cheese, we walked over the water’s edge where about 30 people (adults, kids and dogs alike) were frolicking in the rushing current of the river from the falls. Adam wouldn’t go in because his feet were overdressed for the occasion…since I was wearing only flip flops, he talked me in to taking a brief walk in the water. The current was strong! It took all of my might to keep myself upright.

We arrived at the house at around 3:30. Adam inspected our newly painted home again to see the finished job – we’re both so pleased with it. We each ended up passing out for about 3 hours and caught up on a little sleep. After our nap, Adam got ambitious and applied a paint-removing solvent on a selected area of brick at the front of the house: we’re attempting to get the brick back to its natural state (we’ll know if it’s working on Sunday night). When he was finished, we decided to have a fire in the backyard and we enlisted AdamV, Dena and Rob to come roast marshmallows with us. They stayed and chatted around the fire until around 11.

So glad to have Adam home.