Social-ism

That's about me being social, not actual socialism. :) No fights on this blog!
So what have I been up to the past week or so? Well ... I've been quite social! (Heh... okay so maybe I'm not as funny as I think.)

• Picked up my beautiful shoes! I was going to post a picture of them, but I haven't taken one yet. Soon, young weedhoppahs. (Psh, I don't know why I say that, my dad always did when we were kids.) I also picked up my veil from the shop, but no pictures of that will be posted. :)
• Two weekends ago, went home for a wedding for one of Matt's friends from high school, and got to spend some time with both our families.
• This past Wednesday we went to a bar called Tap, since they were doing a piano bar night. I was feeling kind of anxious, so we didn't stay that long, but we met up with some of Matt's friends and had Long Island Iced Tea, and the piano night was pretty cool. Piano Dude took requests on drink napkins, but wouldn't play the songs unless they were accompanied by an insult. He played a lot of famous TV themes (So no one told you life was gonna be this way...) and country songs, and it was pretty cool.
• Friday we went to the Revolution Bar in downtown to see a percussion group that Stephanie recommended to Matt (hi Steph!), but I don't remember the name of the group. They were really neat though, I enjoyed the music a lot. There was this funny hippie dude that must have been a roadie, and might have been high, because he danced freakily by himself for the whole night, and was wearing capris and moccasins ...
• Easter Sunday! I hadn't had plans for Easter, so I sent around a Facebook message asking if anyone in my book club wanted to do a potluck dinner, but no one responded. I got a call from one of them, though, who was making an entire Easter dinner for just her and her husband, so she invited us over. We went to church and then headed over there, and it was soooo nice and relaxing, having lunch/dinner with friends, playing cards, drinking beer. Wuuuuuuunderful!

Anyway, spent all day thinking it was Wednesday, so now I have more time than I thought to get stuff done, so I'm off to put a dent in my list!

... Are ya'll tired of hearing me talk about shoes?

Note to Self

Must remember:
Spending a fortune on the wedding will not make the marriage any better. It won't make us happier in the long run, it won't provide a better future, and it won't make us love each other any more.
The only thing that matters about this day is that we walk away married. The food, the flowers, all that is just details in the big scheme of things. Your wedding is no more or less because of the details.

Today was a rough day in this department. But I am staying positive, trying not to let myself stress out, and bringing myself back to this.

In good news, we booked a venue yesterday! My mom was in town for the weekend, and we got quite a lot of stuff done! Also, I ordered some SHOES! I will put pics up when I get them in, because they look a little different online than they will when I get them.

I'm sorry if I talk too much about wedding stuff.

Also, today I saw The Bounty Hunter, and I thought it was cute and funny. I heart Jennifer Aniston.

Noooooooooooo!

Today I got an e-mail saying my pretties are not in stock, and they're sorry but they won't be able to send me my shoes!!!!! I would say this is the worst thing ever, but somehow in the last 24 hours I got my nose bashed by a washing machine and a bruised eye from a doorknob, so there you go.

Shoe Lust

Tonight was the premiere of cycle 14 of America's Next Top Model, but SOMEONE didn't get to see it because the TV CHANNEL WAS PLAYING A STUPID BASKETBALL GAME INSTEAD. Matt told me it was the national championship for college ball. The Sooners were playing. I should have cared, but I was TOO FREAKING MAD about missing ANTM. I had a long day at work, and I just wanted to see Tyra get up to some seriously ridiculous shenanigans.

Instead, I looked at shoes online. Matt and I went to go get nachos at Freebirds. We watched a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory, which it turns out is a really cute show, and quite funny too. Oh, and I bought some shoes online when I found them for $50 cheaper than on zappos. Wanna see?! Of course you do.



Cute, eh?

I also found these ... and tried to justify buying them for about 30 seconds ... but let's just say they cost more than my wedding dress and veil combined.



Oh, D&G, you're such a tease.

Someday when I become incredibly rich ... oh who am I kidding, I don't think I'll ever be able to justify dropping that kind of money.

Overall a salvaged evening, I'd say! So whatcha think about the shoes?! :)

Mini-Series

(1)
Seems like my sister is always in town when I have exciting stories, right? That's because when I'm by myself, I do things like research, or go grocery shopping on a Saturday night.
R is in town because today there is a big bridal fair, that we will be going to in a little while with my also-recently-engaged friend Jackie. We intend to win lots of free stuff and try lots of free cake, and generally just die at the ridiculous price tags of everything we see.
Anyway, whenever R is in town, she wants to go do stuff, which is good because it keeps me from being a total bore. I already had some stuff planned, so I hauled her along, but I don't think she had a very good time going to book club with me (despite the free cake and Diet Coke). She wanted to go to a martini bar in the bar district, Northgate (the C-Stat version of Campus Corner). Wanting to beat the bar traffic, we went around 9. Turns out, it didn't open 'til 10, so we went over to Jackie's to hang out for an hour, then went back. And it was dead.
Since we had free rein of the bartender, since no one else was around, I ordered a dirty martini, since I'd always wanted to try one. Note to everyone: don't order dirty martinis. Even if you love olives. I do. It was gross. Martini #2! Cherry! Much better! By then, more people had shown up, and started dancing, and people started making out with each other, and R said she was going to fall asleep, so we left and planned to come back next time at a later time (and to take a nap so we can stay up later ... 'cause we're old and lame).

(2)
Matt and I went back to my parents' house for the weekend to do taxes and get our engagement pics taken by my lovely and wonderful former roomie!! (Is there a better way to say former roomie? It doesn't really flow well, and ex-roomie sounds mean.) I can't wait to see how the pictures turned out. We hit up a bunch of places around our hometown: the lake, our high school, a park by the high school, Town Square. It was so much fun! Plus, it was the weekend right after Slake had gotten over a foot of snow, so everything was snowy and icy and beautiful. Take that, everyone else in Texas!!!
After that, I ditched Matt at home (sorry, honey! ^__^) and took my mom, aunt, sister and Julie to go dress shopping. And found the dress. And ordered it. And bought a veil, which I hadn't originally intended, because I'm not really a veil-type of person. But Julie convinced me, and she was right: the dress looks more complete with it. And it's beyoooooooteeeefullllll!!!

(3)
I found out the Harlem Globetrotters were coming to College Station at the beginning of February. Matt and I started watching The Amazing Race last season after Matt found out two of the Globetrotters were competing. He was really excited about it, so I got tickets to go see them. Now, I didn't know that the Globetrotters weren't an NBA team. And I didn't know that there is very little basketball actually played during Globetrotter games. But that didn't really matter (in fact, it was probably more interesting for me since it wasn't real basketball!). It was so much fun! It was corny and funny, and Matt loved it, and there were a lot of really neat basketball tricks.

(4)
I invited some people from my book club over for a Super Bowl party - the first time I've had a bunch of my own friends come over for a party. I am sociable again! There were cupcakes with Super Bowl rings on them! And pizzaaaaaa. After the game, a couple of the girls stuck around to watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians reruns, and just hung out. Yay! I miss hanging out.

(5)
Matt has been meeting with a Realtor, and we have been looking at townhouses. Well, we found one that we love, put in an offer, and it was accepted! Pending inspections, loan attaining, etc., we gots ourselves a house! It's cute. :)

(6)
The other day, I got really mad about the lack of recycling facilities in College Station, and the fact that the recycling facility in the city next door doesn't allow most of the stuff I want to recycle. I mentioned to a co-worker in a rage that I miss Oklahoma. Then he made fun of me for missing Oklahoma, saying "No one in the history of the world has EVER missed Oklahoma!"
Maybe he's right, but I do miss Oklahoma.

Some steps in the right direction

I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions. By calling your goals resolutions, you're practically dooming them to fail. We always talked in marketing classes about needs. You don't NEED a new Mercedes - you don't even need a car - you need a way to get from A to B. You don't need a steak dinner - you need something to satisfy your hunger.

Here are my needs:
• Friends
• A way to de-stress
• Something to do

Here are ways I am/will be meeting my needs:
• Today I signed up to be a member of the gym that's across the street from my apartment. As I don't work out much, being a member of a gym doesn't serve much purposed except ... they offer classes. I am much more likely to go if I have a class I am going to every week. (Plus, they have a hip hop class, which was a big draw.) They offer pilates, which will help me relax. It will give me something to do. It will give me a new outlet for meeting people. BAM - three in one. I have a meeting with a personal trainer this week to figure out what I need to be doing as far as working out on my own, plus to figure out how machines work because I avoided using them for most of college just because I didn't know how to use them properly/to my advantage, plus I didn't want to look stupid for not being strong enough to use the machines at their lowest weight. Sorry for the run-on sentence, but it's late so I'm not going back to fix it.

Other goings-on:
• Had a wonderful Christmas break. Took some time off work, and got to spend a lot of time with my family, a few days with Matt's family, some fun road tripping and finished an audiobook. Very relaxing and lazy, but now I'm ready to get back into a routine.
• Got an iPhone for Christmas, which I am now addicted to. It does EVERYTHING, including auto-correct spelling and punctuation! That was one thing that always bothered me about my old phone, the difficulty in punctuating things properly. LOVE.
• I love the show "How I Met Your Mother," as you may know. My mom and I went shopping one day when I was home, and I am THRILLED to announce that I am now the owner of a dress that Lily wore one episode. This brings my total of Lily-clothes to two. I just spent like 20 minutes looking for a picture of it, but can't find one. Sad.
• It's way past my bed time, so peace out yo.

It's beginning to look a lot like ... COLD!

After weeks and weeks of warm when everywhere else has been frigid, it finally got cold here in C-Stat. It's MISERABLE! It didn't just get cold, it got cold and rainy. Yuck.
So I'm not going to lie, the reason I haven't posted anything lately is because I've fallen into a bit of a slump. I go to work, I come home, and I either park on the couch and watch whatever's on TV or I putz around the house and/or cook something while watching whatever's on TV. I wouldn't say I am particularly happy with this arrangement - but the past few weeks have been busy enough to keep me from being too miserable about it. But now that I have nowhere to be until Christmas ... I am lonely sitting around doing nothing all the time.

I'll do a quick rundown for anyone who's interested. What have I been up to lately?
• A few weeks ago, Matt and I took a road trip up to Oklahoma. Alyson and Nash and Lola were all coming into town too, so we got together and went out for drinks, and a watch party at Meg's for the OU/A&M football game, and another party with some other friends that are still in town. It was so much fun, and I miss them all so much!
• The week after that, I went on my first business trip! LAS VEGAS! I'd never been before, and I was only there for about three days, but it was FABULOUS! I wish I'd had more time to explore, but we had to work all day in our trade show booth. I need to plan another trip to go back, because I didn't get to see very many of the hotels! (I was staying in Circus Circus, and we only got to see Wynn, Bellagio, Caesar's Palace and Paris. Wynn was ridiculous - there was a Ferrari dealer inside the hotel!) Needless to say, very glad I had the opportunity to go.
• The NEXT week (see where this is going?) was Thanksgiving, and Matt and I headed to visit my grandparents, where we were having Thanksgiving with my family, and his parents were coming up to meet my family. After Thanksgiving "dinner," we headed down to Austin to see his family and also go to his cousin's wedding.

After all that ... this was all I wanted to do. (And I just took this cute pic of my kitty.)

Anyway, back to the main point - I'm finally back home for a while. Hooray! My sister came in to see me this weekend. (She is lonely too, now that she is living back at home and is in a long-distance relationship.) It gave me an excuse to find things to do, and I compiled a list of things to do now so that I don't sit around my house all the time. We went Christmas shopping (and regular shopping!) and had a good time. We went to go see the wind tunnel that Matt's been working on for the past, oh forever, which was pretty sweet (and now I know what Matt does for a living!). Hehe. Aaaaand now my house is a disaster, with dishes piled everywhere and trashes overflowing, and is generally gross, and it is NOT cool. But I am looking forward to this week now.

Blogging has been on my to-do list for a couple days, so I guess I should get on that.

After all, I know you all find my words RIVETING. But YOU know how much I like crossing things off lists, so let's get to it.

Last week, I tried a lot of local food. I won't get into it, because food is not that interesting if you don't know what I'm talking about. (Sarah: Pho John's and Los Cucos. Both MMMMMMM.) Let's just say that local Mexican gives El Fenix a run for its money, and NOBODY puts El Fenix in a corner.

I need to do dishes in a bad way. Also, I know my newspaper amigos will be sad, but I changed my newspaper subscription today so that I will only get it on Sundays (for the coupons!) instead of every day. I don't have time to read it every day, so it piles up and looks like this ... and I'm tired of my living room looking like this. Note the cute new shoes, which I bought while my sister was in town.

WHICH LEADS TO MY NEXT TOPIC ... this past weekend, my sister came into town. I love my sister, and I'm glad we don't live in the same house anymore, because we get along fantastically now that we don't. We got to catch up (on both life and the fourth season of How I Met Your Mother, since she hadn't seen any of it yet). Saturday, Matt took us to an airshow in Bryan that he'd heard about, so we went out to this Air Force runway thing where they had all this little two- and four-person airplanes set up, and they had pilots doing formations in the sky. It was pretty cool, and Matt was pretty much in heaven. Afterwards, we went to get barbecue at C&J's, and the OU/texas game was on, at the point where OU was actually winning. I was wearing my OU shirt, and Rachel was wearing my OU sweatshirt, and there were a bunch of guys there who were doing a little smack talk, and I was slightly confused, because I thought all Aggies hated Texas all the time. Apparently when it's Texas vs. other states though, Texas wins? I am still getting the hang of this. It's weird here.

After a nap and Freebirds nachos (Rachel always insists on going to Freebirds every single time she comes to town), we went to play minigolf and arcade games, and we attempted to play Dance Dance Revolution like we'd never stopped five years ago. Two songs in and we were failing and out of breath, but it was way fun.

On Sunday she went to hang out with one of her friends from middle school who is in college here, so I went shopping for a couple of things. When all of my friends graduated college the semester before me, they gave me a ton of shelving, minor furniture and cleaning supplies, all of which I have put to good use, because I'm into free stuff. Well, I acquired this little metal rack that I had been using as a pantry, until I came home with groceries last week and realized I couldn't fit everything on it anymore. So I bought these awesome shelves, and now I have tons of space to store my foodstuffs. (Sorry about the picture being sideways, it uploaded wrong and I'm too lazy to fix it.) I also complain daily about how cold my office is at work, so I went to buy a space heater to keep under my desk. I unpacked it and put it with my stuff to take to work, and ... it's defective. I'm taking it back tomorrow. Fail.

That's all I have, and I'm sure ya'll were all bored out of your minds about six paragraphs ago, so I'll go. *Checks off to-do list*

My Family Portrait (or "A picture's worth 1000 words ... but will 1000 words paint you a good enough picture?")

I went home to visit my family this weekend, and it was very much needed. I hadn't been home since probably June, and they've only come to visit me once since then. My sister and I went to lunch and went shopping, because she loves spending money and I love learning how to be fashionable and then refusing the advice because it's too expensive to be fabulous. I did take a little bit of what she told me, though, and walked away with a cute purse and a few rings. I also got to cook fajitas with my dad and hang out with my mom and aunt.

My sister recently moved back home, and with her came her annoying kitten, Audrey. Now, my parents have had our cat, Tugger, for 13 years, and he is very set in his ways. He likes to lay around on my dad's chair, "make muffins" on my mom's lap, and growl at everyone. Audrey likes chasing Tugger's tail, rolling on her back in front of him, and hissing at everyone that isn't my sister. Tugger hates Audrey, but Audrey LOVES Tugger. I spent the whole weekend trying to make Tugger feel loved, because now that there's a New Cat on the Block, everyone seems to have forgotten about him, and he very much resents that, even though he doesn't like anyone as a general rule.

I bought The Office season 5 last week, watched it all in a matter of days, and then left it with my sister, and now I want it back. I am also wondering why How I Met Your Mother is not out on DVD yet, but I have plenty of other things to watch in the meantime. TV this season is pretty much legendary so far.

I guess it's time for me to go to bed now, so I can function at work tomorrow.

Chicken Pork Sunday

This weekend has gone by WAY too fast. But, for all of my complaints of not getting to hang out with people enough and not knowing very many people, I definitely made up for it this weekend.
• Thursday night I went to Ozona with a friend from my internship for my birthday and got a yummy drink.
• Friday was the last day of my internship, so we went out to lunch at this fancy place that was REALLY good but for some reason I've forgotten the name of. Then Matt and I went on a double date to Abuelo's with one of his engineering friends and his girlfriend, and played board games for awhile.
• Saturday got the oil in my car changed and went shopping for awhile for some cute things to wear to work (somewhat unsuccessfully ... see Grievances, below). Then bought birthday cupcakes (just plain frosting with sprinkles, no Harry Potter ones this year) and had people over to play poker. Made me miss Oklahoma a little, when we used to have penny poker nights and Huck would win every time.
• Today I ran errands, did a little more shopping and cooked dinner in my Crock Pot, but it's been a pretty lazy day. Attempted to go to church this evening, but it turns out the church we tried to go to only has the evening service when students are in town.

Grievances:
• I know people will hate me for saying this, but hey, if you don't want to read my blog then don't. I love shopping, but I hate that it is so hard to find cute, professional clothing for people who are smaller than "women's" size. Fine, maybe I am not a woman! Maybe I am still a little girl. But I can't be the only little-girl-sized person in the working world.
• All but one of the cute shirts I bought are sweaters, so even though they are cute and new, I can't wear them because summer in Texas is miserable. Why is it so hard to find summery, cute, professional clothing?
• I'm not even sure I need to have cute, professional clothing for my job. I am going to be very sad if I don't need to, because I have waited all this time to be able to do so!

Anyway, I start my new job tomorrow!!! I am excited and nervous. I hope it is fun.

That is all. Matt is watching the Rangers game on TV, so I am going to go watch Canada's Next Top Model while I can. :)

Lessons Learned

You get what you pay for.
Today I bought a vacuum cleaner. Matt and I had dinner party tonight (went well, by the way), and the apartment kind of badly needed a good cleaning, even though it wasn't really obvious (hooray beige carpet!). I went to Target to look, figuring a decently cheap (but not crappy) vacuum would be around $50. I found one for $39.99 and got really excited, so I bought it and used the extra money I WOULD have spent on the vacuum to buy a cute pair of green flats. ^_^
So I get the vacuum home, and it is CRAP. I should have spent the extra $10-$30 for a less crappy one. I don't like it at all, and it definitely requires quite a bit of assembly. I assumed vacuums were meant to be idiot-proof, but Matt told me that when they price them that cheap, they remove the idiot-proof features.
Spend the extra money. You get what you pay for.

Sometimes it's a good thing to own two bottle openers that sing "Boomer Sooner."
Somehow in college Julie and I acquired one of these singing contraptions. It was funny at first, then was annoying to no end. Then, soon after graduating, I acquired a second one. Since I had just moved to College Station, I wanted to cling to anything OU I could, so I kept both. I hadn't really used either of them since moving (I'm not really a big beer drinker), but since we had people over tonight, they got put to use. It was good to hear "Boomer Sooner," believe it or not. I really miss OU.
Also, there is nothing better than irritating die-hard Aggies. :) Luckily I retrieved my bottle opener from the garbage before anything happened to it.

America's Next Broke Homemaker

GREAT day yesterday. Okay day today. We're going to do this by topic today.

Money. Already broke my no-more-spending rule, but it was for a good reason! Yesterday I FINALLY found a "manly" bedspread (this was a requirement; Matt wanted it to be manly, I wanted it to be pretty, so we compromised on getting a pretty set in semi-manly colors), and it is BEAUTIFUL! Sage green and brown. When I ever get around to taking pictures of my apartment, I will post them for all to see. I wanted to wait until my curtains were up, but I am STILL having issues with that one (see topic: Lowe's).

Party. Last night we went to a party with some of Matt's friends, and it was a fantastic time. We basically hung out outside all night, and it was really nice; I can't remember the last time I just sat outside. Despite the many bug bites I discovered this morning, it was much needed social time. Matt's friends are really cool, and their girlfriends are cool, so I am looking forward to getting to know them better. (See topic: This Evening)

Lowe's. In an attempt to finally get curtains hung today, I took a little trip to Lowe's. This was much more complicated than it sounds. Apparently Google maps doesn't know that one of the streets here splits into two different streets, and so I went on a 10-15 minute run-around trying to find a street that didn't exist on the wrong fork. When I finally found Lowe's, they didn't have screws short enough to fit into the wall (for some reason I can't drill more than half an inch into the wall, and the screws that came with the curtain rod are too long). The college guy running that aisle told me I should buy a hacksaw and get one of the thicker screws and just make it shorter myself, but I have no idea what I would do with a hacksaw once I got one. Plus I'm not spending money, remember?

This Evening. Overall, today has not been the best. But it had its good moments, the first being that I went to Layne's for the first time for some chicken (here, it is in heavy competition with Raising Cane's, but to be honest, they are pretty much exactly the same). Matt's friend Matt works there, and invited me to come tonight for some free chicken with the purchase of a drink (Allie likes free food). It was slow, so we got to sit and talk for a little while, then I came home to watch So You Think You Can Dance and other quality TV (see topic: Modeling Shows). After a little while, I decided to go to the McDonald's across the street to get a Redbox DVD, since Matt went to see the Rangers play and that means I can watch bad chick flicks. I opted for Bride Wars, which NONE of you wanted to see with me and it was REALLY CUTE AND YOU MISSED OUT!!! :) I am thinking this Redbox thing is a good idea, since there are quite a few movies that I wanted to see over the past semester, but never got a chance to (THANKS, CAPSTONE).

Modeling Shows. Tyra Banks may be freakin' crazy on America's Next Top Model, but damn does she know how to turn out fierce models. While flipping channels, I came across She's Got The Look, a modeling show for women over 35. I think this is a great idea; you know, embrace aging, all women are beautiful, etc. However, in watching the photo shoots and casting calls, I am struck by how unprofessional everything is in comparison to ANTM (despite SGTL also featuring supermodels, though not ones I've ever heard of). The judges absolutely raved over this one woman's photo, even though her face was totally dead. I wonder how the other modeling shows are, because other than that crap Most Smartest Model, I haven't watched any of them. But even through the madness, I will still have mad love for ANTM. I can't stop my curiosity about what will come out of Tyra's mouth (and imagination) next.

In Response. Pam, try going to a secondhand furniture store. Not like Goodwill, but a place that only sells furniture. In Oklahoma, Alyson and Lola bought a couch for a semester from a secondhand store, and it was decently nice. Amy, I am glad I am not the only one with a padded dining room table. My mom had one too, but my family is kind of weird about furniture. My dad spent a year in California, and he slept on a blow-up mattress and only had furniture he found in the garbage outside his apartment complex.

Headline: Allie single-handedly saves newspaper business through subscription

I am trying to think of an Office-esque ridiculously long subhead to go with that spectacular (and totally realistic) headline. But seriously, I did purchase a subscription to the local newspaper today when I went to get groceries at HEB. A woman outside the door was selling subscriptions, and I figured that, since I'm new to the area and will now be a not-college-student resident of this town, I might as well get to know what's going on in it. Plus, the woman promised me a $30 HEB gift card (and it turns out it costs a lot to cook things for yourself and a 22-year-old male when he comes over for dinner). I accepted, immediately spent my $30, and now cannot be blamed for the demise of the industry. Plus, I was flipping through the paper this afternoon, and I am very pleased with the way my $11 went, because it looks like a very good paper.

I feel like I've spent a lot of money since moving. (This may be relative, since I spent the last four years clinging tightly to every penny that came my way.) I am cheap, but I keep having to buy things, some of which end up being a waste. For example, today I bought Hercules Hooks. I bought them to hang my curtains, because supposedly the wall is too shallow to hold the screws that came with the curtains. I didn't think about how the Hercules Hooks work prior to buying them (the wall can't be that shallow), so now I have Hercules Hooks and nothing to use them on. Goodbye $15. If anyone would like to buy them from me, I would be more than happy to pass them off to someone who might use them. PLUS I'll throw in the laser light level thing that came with them ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!

I also finally bought a kitchen table. No chairs, just the table. One day at a time. It's one of those little folding tables that's padded on top to make it look a little fancier, and I think I will use some of the leftover cloth from reupholstering my chair as a tablecloth to hide the metal. My mom has promised to lend me some folding chairs to go with it (until I decide to buy the Real Thing), but she doesn't know when she's coming to visit. At least the table is light enough that I can always move it to in front of the couch, because it turns out balancing plates on your lap on the couch and trying to cut things is a good way to slop food everywhere.

After all this buying, I decided that I am NOT going to spend any more money. So I went to get the mail, and got an invoice from a magazine I subscribed to last month, demanding I pay them.

Other things of note: I love coupons, but need to remember to use them. Target has wine bottles with really cute labels.

Women are not meant to use tools. This is why we keep men around.

I really don't get the point of those plastic "anchors" you're supposed to put in the wall before you put in screws before hanging things up. Is plastic really that strong, that it is necessary on top of METAL to keep something as simple as a (very lightweight) piece of fabric from falling off the wall?

It sucks that my boyfriend has a broken leg, and does not have the full range of motion that he usually does, but he was so good today when I freaked out about aforementioned anchors when I tried hammering one into the wall and it shattered. Turns out I didn't have the right tools to install my living room curtains, so he promised to get them tomorrow. Just goes to show, Dad may buy a toolkit for his high school grad, but Daughter won't necessarily figure out that an electric screwdriver is not a drill. In the meantime, Matt hung up some shelves for over my TV (which I bought mainly to disguise the ugly thermostat that hangs RIGHT. IN. THE. MIDDLE. OF. THE. LIVING. ROOM. WALL.) and I am very happy with the way they look. I am very much looking forward to taking pictures of everything decorated nice.

Never got a chance to hit up Hobby Lobby, but Sis and I did go to the mall (note to self: don't wear platform heels when going to an unfamiliar mall) to see what was there (and where I will be shopping this week when I run out of other things to do), and we bought curtains, miscellaneous decorative items, and the best floor rug in the world. We also had lunch with Matt's parents while they were in town for the day, and nachos for dinner. Yes, I know I dislike cheese, but Freebirds nachos do not count, because while there was definitely cheese on them, there was SOOO much other stuff that I couldn't even taste it over the guacamole, pork and refried beans. Yummm.

Learning my way around a little better. Matt drew me a map, which has been extremely helpful. Also, my sister is really good at reading maps. I am not.