Home Alone- ughhh

This weekend sucked! Not only did I have to close 3 nights at work, as well as work Friday-Sunday, but I was home ALL ALONE!

I am a huge chicken. I'm the one who lays in bed and thinks every little noise is someone trying to break in, so as you can imagine I didn't sleep very much/very well the past few nights with Joshy being gone.

It also wasn't helpful that I had to come home to an empty house every night at 10:30 pm - talk about creepy! So I made sure to leave every light on, have my pepper spray in the ready to use position, and I may have also slept with my dresser pushed up behind my bedroom door. Yes, I realize this isn't normal behavior haha.

And no, I don't live in the ghetto or anything, it's actually a really cute neighborhood, I am just THAT paranoid. Maybe I should invest in a body guard, or get a dog after all!!

Hope you all had a better and more restful weekend than I did!

-Katie

that's just great...

On Tuesday the store I work at was robbed. LOVELY.

A man came in, pretended he wanted to get a job, asked for an application, brought it back in, asked some questions about the product, and then proceeded to do a "grab and run", he grabbed 8 bags - totaling over $3K in losses.

As he was running out to his get-away car a customer in the parking lot took a picture of the car's license plate. The woman who was driving is being cooperative with police, so hopefully this slime ball will be caught sooner than later.

He was spotted in another one of our locations 45 minutes away from our store in Vacaville yesterday, looking at the same items he took from our store. The associates from the other store were all over him like white on rice, so he got spooked and left.

Turns out after confirming everything on video, this same guy robbed the Vacaville store on 8/3, and robbed our store earlier this year.

Just a few thoughts running through my mind:

1. Why hasn't he been caught?
2. What happens when he decides he wants whats in the registers instead of the bags?
3. What happens if he is armed?
4. WHY IS MALL SECURITY SO EFFING USELESS??
(they got to our store and offered to call the police for us -- UM thanks but NO THANKS, we can do that ourselves)

Ridiculous. This guy is obviously getting more ballsy and doing this more frequently, and thinks he can get away with anything, so I'm just hoping he gets so cocky that he starts getting sloppy at what he is doing so we can catch him. I think the worst part about it is how he plays us, he totally acts like a customer, and asks questions about the bags - gets you really involved in helping him, and then when you go to lead him to show him something, you turn around and he is SPRINTING out the door with tons of merchandise on his arms.

so annoying! It's a RETAIL job, they don't pay me enough to be a security guard too haha.

-Katie

Gym Freak Of The Week

Yesterday I went to the gym. Did some laps, and headed out to the parking lot to go home and make some dinner.

To the naked eye, this scene would seem totally normal. But at the Gym of Freaks, there is something strange going on in the parking lot...

When observed closer, the red car parked in the handicapped space has their front driver air bag deployed.

I KID YOU NOT! The airbag was seriously inflated. I mean REALLY, who gets in a car accident (in which the air bags deploy) and STILLS goes to the gym??!!

FREAKS I TELL YOU!

I honestly couldn't make this stuff up if I tried, I think I need to start looking into other gym options haha

-Katie

Bookmarks...

Whenever I find a website that I think is funny or has something cute on it, I usually bookmark it for later. But the whole process is actually pretty pointless because I RARELY go back and reference my bookmarks. So for the heck of it, I thought I would look through my bookmarks and see what I had saved....

Here are the weirdest/most random ones:

AOLer Translator
- it translates normal sentences into 12 year old aim sentences.
ex: "Hi my name is Katie. My favorite color is pink"
translates to: "HI MAH NME SI KATEI!1!1! OMG MAH FAVORIET COLOR SI PINK!11!1! LOL"

Girl Who Never Closes Her Mouth
-my Brother sent me this link, it's a girl who takes a bunch of pictures with a really stupid looking face

Useless Facts
-the name says it all, but just in case...
ex: Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
or A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.

Reject Crayons
-exactly that. reject crayons.

Do you use/keep up your internet bookmarks??

-Katie

Busy Busy Weekend!

This weekend was my weekend off for the month from work, so Josh and I made sure to make it worth while!

On Friday night when I got off of work I headed to the gym, then came home and we had some yummy BBQ Chicken and Potatoes :) then we relaxed and watched some shows off of our DVR. Although it sounds uneventful and boring, it was probably one of my favorite parts of this weekend haha.

On Saturday we got up and got ready to go to San Francisco! I've been wanting to go for a few weeks now, but we've been too busy with all of the moving chaos. So we finally were able to go on Saturday!

It was pretty foggy driving across the Golden Gate Bridge!

When we got to SF we had lunch at Bistro Burger, which was Deeeeeeeeelish!

Then of course we had to make a stop at Vera Bradley! Can you tell how excited Josh is? At this point we had probably been in the store for almost an hour hahah

We walked around downtown a bit, visiting the essentials: Anthropologie, Crate and Barrel, and of course Bloomingdales!

:)

After our shopping adventure in SF we drove home [read: Josh drove home while I napped] and we went out to our favorite Italian restaurant for dinner! On our way home we stopped by the grocery store and picked up some ice cream then headed home to have dessert, watch some tv, and do some laundry.

Sunday Josh had tryouts for a semi-professional Roller Hockey Team, so we spent half of Sunday at the rink. I read my book, and Josh got sweaty haha.

After tryouts we headed home to my parents to visit with them and to see our dog Bo, he had to have hip surgery on Friday, so I had to go home and see him. I felt so bad! He had a big cone on his head and was all zoned out on drugs :(

After dinner Sunday we headed home and went right to bed, seriously, after a long weekend, nothing is better than your own bed!

Hope you all had fabulous weekends as well!

-Katie

Nothin' like a good pair of slippers :)

I've been wearing the same ratty old pair of slippers for a LONG time now. I have some sort of weird attachment to them. They fit the way I like, they are washable, and they are comfy.

But I have recently realized, my need for a new pair is out weighing my love for the current ones.

So I stopped in to good old Payless Shoe Source during their BOGO sale earlier this week to get some flats for work, and stumbled across these little cuties (which may or may not remind me of Mr. Roger's haha)

The best part? Aside from only being $11, they have a hard sole so I can wear them out to get the mail or to do laundry in the garage :) Excellent!

They were so inexpensive with the BOGO and they are pretty comfy, so I'm thinking about going back to get another pair for when these ones wear out... just trying to be prepared for the future - seeing how I have a hard time of replacing things that I like haha.

Happy Friday! I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!!

-Katie

Decisions Decisions...

As you all know, I recently started my new job as Assistant Manager of the Coach store near where I live. I personally haven't gotten a new Coach bag in about 3 years. To be honest, nothing has really tickled my fancy, and the idea of paying over $350 for a bag just isn't my cup of tea anymore. PLUS, I've found a new love in Vera Bradley, which is fun and bright, and 1/3 of the cost.

BUT, I hate to say it, the girls at my store are totally judging me for not sporting a Coach bag in to work everyday. Although I don't really care what they think about my Vintage Rose VB Bag, because I love it!
Sadly though, I think it is time to buy a Coach bag.... but then I am left with the tough decision of what to get?!

What do you ladies think?

I really like the Maggie in Black Patent Leather...

But the Blue is pretty too!

More Maggie Views...

So much space!!

I'm also a big fan of hands free purses, I love having the cross-body feature when I am shopping or on an adventure.

So naturally, I also like the Large Ali Hobo, with the extra cross-body strap...

What do you ladies think? Do you like either of these? What features does your ideal purse have?

Check out the Coach Website and let me know if you think I missed a good one, or if you have any ideas for a future giveaway :) I need to start putting my generous discount to use!

-Katie!

Gym Freak of the Week

The other day my friend Stephanie and I went to the gym to go swim some laps, just like any other day. When we got in the pool we saw a man by the spa doing a rather interesting stretch...

He was laying on the ground with his legs up in the air leaning on the wall - spread eagle.

Ok Ok, so maybe some people have weird stretches, but he stayed like this for our ENTIRE workout. I don't think you need to stretch something for more than 30 seconds to a minute, let alone a half hour!!! Maybe he is one of those freaky people who likes the feeling of your blood leaving your limbs???

I don't know, but whatever it was, it was really odd.

-Katie

Picnic Day!

Yesterday was my day off, so my good friend Allie and her puppy Brady came up for the day! We decided it would be the perfect opportunity to have a picnic so I could use my picnic backpack from Jon and Steph's Giveaway!!

Here's the pack, all loaded up, complete with my ducky blanket to sit on :)

I decided I would ride my bike and meet Allie at the park, so I got to use the sweet side strap on the backpack, it even had a spot for my iPhone!

We got to the park and set up our spot!

Allie and Brady

Brady :)

Josh met up with us after his summer school class got out. Can you tell how much he wants a dog? He was SO happy!

Then we went back to our place and let Brady run around our backyard (which we are slowly nursing back to health from the previous tenants).

Josh turned the sprinkler on and Brady was running through it and getting all hyper

It was really good to see Allie, because I haven't seen her since Graduation in May, and to see her little pup! After she left Josh asked if we could go look at puppies tomorrow, I felt so mean when I said no haha.

-Katie

Blog Awards!!

Yay for blog awards! Yesterday my great bloggy friend Ivy over at Little Woman, Little Home gave me two blog awards!!

The first one is, "It's a Major Award!"

The Rules for this award are to Name 10 things you love and pass it on! I'd like to follow in Ivy's footsteps and write 10 things I love about Christmas!

1. Making WAY too many Christmas Cookies with my Mom :) We always have cookies until like April haha
2. Decorating the Christmas Tree. This is probably my FAVORITE part about Christmas time, I love driving all over town to the different tree lots to pick out a tree, and then coming home to decorate it!
3. Christmas Music! I love it so much I listen to it all year round haha (but I know I'm not the only one, ahem... Erin and Jennifer....)
4. Visiting with Family, this is the one time of the year where everyone somehow manages to get together and I just love it
5. The local soft rock station turns into a 24/7 Christmas Music Station, I know -AMAZING!
6. On Christmas Morning we open our stockings and presents, even our dogs have stockings haha
7. The smell of the Christmas Tree
8. Going out to look at Christmas lights on houses, and how everywhere you go there is Christmas cheer!
9. Shopping for Presents! I hate the crowds, but I love picking out gifts for people and wrapping them up
10. Christmas Movies! Charlie Brown's Christmas and A Christmas Story are a few of my favorites

This Award I MUST pass on to my two Christmas Loving Blog Friends:

Jennifer over at Crazy Shenanigan's
and
Erin at A Tiger's Tale

~~~

Next is the "Official Seal of Awesome" Award!

What can I say, Ivy has good taste! haha. This one states I only need to pass it on to some fellow bloggers, so here we go!

Mary Ellen over at Mare's Mind
and
Lindsey at Life As Lindsey

~~~

Happy Monday! Today is my day off so I'm heading to the park on a picnic lunch with my friend Allie to try out my new picnic backpack from Jon and Steph!!!

-Katie

Show Us Your Life - Favorite Vacation Spot!

Today is Show Us Your Life - Favorite Vacation Spot- over at Kelly's Korner!

Although Josh and I haven't traveled out of the U.S. together yet, we still have some favorite places we like to go. And of course Hawaii would have to be my all time favorite so far!

Two summers ago Josh and I went to O'ahu for 10 days and had SO much fun! I want to go back really bad, but we are currently saving to go to Europe hopefully next summer :)

Here are some pictures from our trip!

Here is a picture right before we landed!
Literally the FIRST thing we did when we got to our hotel was change out of our traveling clothes and left to go hike Diamond Head! Although I'm glad we got the hike out of the way first, we were kinda sore the next few days haha
Everyday we would do a different activity around the island, and every afternoon when we would get back to the hotel we would go out to the beach and swim/nap by the ocean. Joshy made this for me :)

We went to Pearl Harbor of course, it was amazing, I am so glad I got to see it.

We also went to Hanauma Bay and did some snorkeling! It was a lot of fun. We got underwater cameras, and I Josh and I swam pretty much next to each other but I was ahead a bit, so every fish I took a picture of... 2 seconds later Josh took a picture of it too haha. So all of our pictures were pretty much the same.

The Sunset from our balcony on the 18th floor!

We also went on a really cool submarine ride! We had to take a boat out onto the ocean where we offloaded into the submarines.

Joshy on the submarine, he is holding a piece of glass that is the thickness of the windows.

Inside the submarine

The Submarine from the loading boat

And who could forget the gangsta' taxi that took us back to the airport hahaha

We also went shopping, on a circle island tour, visited the Dole Plantation, went to the swap meet, and ate at a bunch of amazing restaurants! All in all we had a great trip and did a LOT of stuff! I can't wait to go back again, I love Hawaii!!! :)

-Katie

Painting Predicament : Part 2

First I want to say Thank You to all of my lovely bloggy friends for weighing in on my painting predicament post yesterday! I basically left for the store to buy a new color as soon as I posted my blog yesterday.

I know myself (as many of you know me as well haha) and I knew that I wouldn't learn to like it. So I went to the store, picked out a random yellow that I thought would work, bought the paint, went home and tested it out... and FINALLY came out with a winner!! By the time I got home from work last night Josh had already painted the entire room with two coats, Thanks Joshy :) **Poor Josh painted the entire room 3 times in 3 different colors, can we say good sport??!**

Here are a few pictures, bad quality, and the colors aren't really showing true, but you will get the idea.

Here is the second color, Josh called it Rubber Ducky Yellow, this is the paint that had me asking everyone's advice...

Here is the Winning Color! It is a really soft yellow, called Silk Cypress. It kinda looks like something that would be in a nursery haha, but I woke up this morning LOVING it! I wish the picture did it more justice...

Now we just need to get some pictures hung up to make it all homey :)

-Katie

The Painting Predicament

I decided we should paint our room :
1) so we could patch up the holes from the previous tenants
2) so we could have clean walls, because they were pretty dirty looking
3) we couldn't just patch/spot paint because the room was a weird yellow color and the landlord doesn't have any extra paint

So here is where such a simple project turns disastrous, wasting time AND money - two of my pet peeves.

I collect a ton of yellow swatches, knowing we need to stay in the yellow area because that is what the landlord already had - not my first choice. ANYWAYS, yesterday we decided on a color called Colonial Yellow, which appeared to be a subtle yellow that won't blind you when you walk int he room. I buy two buckets of it from Wal-Mart @ $8 each - I know I know - not a bad price.

I get home and Josh starts painting, it's looking good... but then it dries, and looks like macaroni and cheese. GREAT. So ugly. So I have a freak out attack and decide we should go back to our second choice, a yellow called Straw Hat. It appears brighter and happier.

Before we waste any more time Josh goes to Home Depot to buy the new color, which of course is made by Behr so we now up the ante to $20/1 gallon bucket. Josh starts painting the new color, and I instantly love it, I mean compared to the mac n cheese, and the funky original color, it is a drastic improvement. Josh finishes the first coat while I am at the gym, I come home, and I am still liking it and relieved that it isn't super dark, so I go buy a second gallon for him to finish painting today.

This morning I wake up and I'm having second thoughts. It's SO yellow, like highlighter yellow. It isn't blinding, but its definitely YELLOW when you walk in the room. So now I'm out about $60 and I'm still not happy with the color. So I'm freaking out because Josh doesn't have time to keep repainting every time I change my mind, and I don't have the money to keep wasting to paint a room in a house I don't even own. But I am so OCD I know I can't have a room I don't like.

WHAT DO I DO???? I'm kind of freaking out, will the yellow be less drastic once we hang stuff on the walls, or should I just go to walmart and buy some White and call it a day??? I don't know what to do!!!

It doesn't help that I close at work the next 3 nights, then work all day Saturday and Sunday, so Josh and I can't even sit down and figure out what to do until Monday. Ughhhhhhhh.

What should we do???

-Katie

Good Morning to You Too...

Today is my day off... and I woke up to the wonderful pounding of hammers and nail guns on the wall RIGHT next to my bed, I felt like I needed a helmet in case something came flying through the wall or something.

The neighborhood our townhouse is in is being renovated so there have been workers redoing the roof, siding, and paint, and today was the day that they finally got to our house. It just happened to be my day off -in which I would have enjoyed some extra ZZZzzz's. Lovely.

Exhibit A:

Please note the forklift (fully equipped with a BEEP BEEP BEEP noise maker), the big containers that make a shrieking noise every time the doors are opened, and let us not forget the nail gun sitting right outside my window, oh oh or the worker man who repeatedly yelled "bano! bano! bano!" (spanish for bathroom) while standing on the roof outside of my window.

So I guess it is time to get my day started....

-Katie

Our Weekend!

So this weekend FLEW by! We got a lot done, but I still have a million things on my "to-do" list.

Friday night after I got home from work, Stephanie and I went to the gym to work out, then we came back and made some delish BBQ Chicken for dinner, yumm :) Then after dinner, Stephanie and her boyfriend Anthony, Josh, and I all headed over to the park across the street to play some B-ball and tennis! We ended up staying out there for a couple of hours and had a lot of fun. After trying our hand at being Venus Williams for the night (I suck so bad at tennis, I was hitting all of the balls over the super high fence) we made chocolate milkshake's and watched Wall-E! It was such a cute movie and I am so glad we finally saw it! Yay for Netflix instant streaming!

Saturday was my brother Clay's birthday. He dedided to have a big BBQ with all of his friends rather than do something with just our family, so Josh and I were going to stay here and not go visit because we wouldn't really hang out with him much anyways since all of his friends were there. Buuuuuuut around 10:30 in the morning I just felt weird not being there on his birthday, even if he would be hanging out with his friends all day. So Josh and I randomly changed plans and left for my parents house around noon, and got there around 2pm.

But before we left we had to load up Josh's dresser into his car because we want to repaint it so it needs to be sanded but we don't have a sander. Sooooo we figured we would bring it home with us and use my Dad's sander to get the job done. Side Note: Josh's dresser is his mom's old purple dresser that he then covered in bumper stickers, so it has been in our walk in closet for the last year because it is too ugly to be put on display in our room. So we have begun operation Repaint Dresser, in order to make more room in our closet.

Once we got to my parents house, we wasted no time in getting the dresser out and we started sanding it right away! Kevin even helped!

Watch out, I'm armed with a power tool.

Then we had some BBQ burgers and sang Clay Happy Birthday and had some chocolate cake :)

Josh and I hung out with my parents and some family friends for a bit after dinner and then we headed back home around 9. Clay even made an effort to ditch his friends for a bit to hang out with us which was really nice. I'm so glad I went home to see him, even if it was only for a few hours, it just felt so strange not to be there for his birthday - does that make me weird? haha

On our way back into town we stopped at Wal-Mart at 10:30 pm (luckily they close at 11) to pick up some paint to paint the dresser! When we got home we put on a quick base coat and finally ended up in bed around 1am, which is way past my bed time!

On Sunday we got up and got dressed and put another coat of paint on the dresser and then ran all of our errands. We went grocery shopping and to Home Depot to get some cute glass knobs for the dresser! Now we just need to let it finish drying and we can put the knobs on!

Here it is in our garage drying... finished product pictures to come...

We also picked up a cute little flower pot thingy to hang over the railing on our porch! Now our silly rooster has some pretty flowers to look at :)

Among other things, we also hung a bunch of pictures on the walls today, Stephanie and Anthony worked on the backyard and fixed our fountain, we did some laundry, cleaned the ceiling fans (AGAIN before I would allow them to be turned on haha), we made a delish Pork Loin and some Baked Potatoes for dinner, and I have FINALLY emptied out all of our piles of stuff from moving that were in the garage. Being unpacked feels so great! The house is starting to come together and it is much more of a home now :)

It is just crazy, even though I've accomplished so much this weekend, I still feel so overwhelmed with things to do. Our next big project is to paint our bedroom, stay tuned for pictures of that! :)

I hope everyone else had a fabulous weekend!

-Katie

Happy Birthday Clay!

Today is my little brother's 18th Birthday!!!

It is so weird to think that he is taller than me, can drive, and is going to start college in the fall! I remember the days when he wore barney underwear, liked Pokemon, and when he told all of his friends that we moved because we had howler monkey's in our old house (he also put it in a project that was hung on the wall at his 1st grade open house night haha).

Taking pictures in the vineyards for Mother's Day!

Clay's Senior Ball

Clay's High School GraduationHappy Birthday Brother!

-Katie