Ahhh, what a city I live in! Gotta love it.

Not much to say today. I went to the gym yesterday. Am sore.

Am going to visit Kristina in a couple of weeks. Must take Matron (ugh) of Honor duties v seriously and help her look at dresses. I think it’s too early to buy one yet, but there’s no law against looking! I am v envious, too. Dress shopping was my favorite part. I wonder if I can take off my wedding band and um pretend like I um need to um try on dresses too. Um. I am a bad liar, though, so maybe I should just let Kristina have her time. And Anne too, I hope she comes with us.

So many weddings! So much fun!

Did I mention that the other day my scale said I’d lost 5.2 lbs already? I love my scale.

Okay, picture!

I tried to post earlier, but alas, blogger wasn’t cooperating. Anyway. Let’s recap.

I’m starving and I’d do almost anything for some sugar. Smarties! Hot Tamales! Chocolate! Anything!

That pretty much sums up the past two and a half days.

Actually, today has been better. But last night I went to dinner with my friend Peggy. We had sushi. It is hard to fill up on sushi when you can’t eat the rice. Gets expensive.

Today is the big haircut. In less than two hours! Yay! Am excited.

No one cares about my exciting new quilt purchase. But really, it was on clearance and that, my friends, is always exciting.

Off to drink another peach fresca. Mmmm, fake sweet.

(Mind you, I will never resort to fake chocolate. Will not happen.)

Oh dear sweet heaven, help me. I might kill someone for a lousy piece of sugary goodness. Eeeeeeeeeee! Day One is hard!!! For lunch I had chicken cold cuts with low fat cheddar cheese. Must get to grocery store tonight.

I WANT SUGAR mmmmm sugary goodnessssssss!!!

Okay, here’s why I don’t want sugar…because I don’t want to look like this after my haircut on Thursday:

teeheeeeeheheheeeehee okay now I feel better.

Nice birthday. After dinner, we went to the movies and saw Casanova. It was good! The middle dragged a bit, but overall, I was pleasantly surprised.

There, I’m done being a movie critic. But I have to say, it was kind of fun stuffing myself with carbs (Smarties, Crunchie bar, popcorn, non-diet soda – dear god, when was the last time I drank a non-diet soda? But blame the movie theater for not offering non-diet, non-caffienated beverages that you can get with your “free small drink” coupon.)

Day 1 of South Beach Diet.

I wasn’t very prepared for breakfast or lunch today, since I wasn’t home last night to fix anything, but I managed to whip up a portobello mushroom and turkey bacon omelette. It tasted pretty good, but boy did I want toast with it! I have some deli meat and cheese and almonds for lunch – clearly, I need to go shopping for some fresh vegetables. After work. Promise.

The most depressing part of the morning was weighing myself. Argh. But I must be honest, so I’ll post it over on the right.

I know this is going to upset some people, but I can’t hide the truth any longer…

I’m cutting my hair on Thursday. Not a trim, either. But I’m doing it for the sick kids, so you can’t say anything bad to me about it. Think of the children, people!

Anyway, yes, it’s the typical, cliched post-wedding haircut. What can I say? I’m a sheep.

Woo. Happy Birthday to me. Birthday’s just aren’t very exciting anymore. Ah well. (And birthdays should never be on Mondays. That’s just plain evil.)

Nevertheless, my horoscope was pretty decent this morning, I thought…

Happy Birthday for Monday, January 9, 2006: You naturally make the right choices [why, thank you!], but at the same time, you might choose the easier path. YOu have a laissez-faire attitude this year that makes love, relationships, work and life in general far easier [nice…]. You also see the good in others [ha ha ha ha ha], and as a result, you bring out the best in people [tee hee hee hee]. Your creativity surges this year. Tackle that book or project. If you are single…[okay, skip this part]. If you are attached, you might re-create your honeymoon [all right! Another trip to London this year? Hmmm. Maybe they’re talking about our trip to Mexico in November?], while others [hi Jenny!] might add to their family. GEMINI [Ellie?] pushes you hard.

Interesting, yes?

Had a great birthday weekend. Since my birthday is on a Monday this year, I thought of the past weekend as sort of a “PMK Day Weekend.” (Get it? Sorta like MLK Day Weekend?) On Friday, I went to visit my mom in Baton Rouge. She bought me some books I wanted (South Beach cookbook, for one) and we went to dinner at Macaroni Grill. One last bread-and-pasta-and-dessert blowout before tomorrow’s SBD start. It was nice to spend time with my mom.

The next morning, she made breakfast while I lounged around in my wedding dress. One last time to wear it before we send it off to be cleaned!

Then I ran some errands and headed back to New Orleans. We went to the pub that night where I had the most delicious red velvet cake and hung out with my friends. One last alcohol blowout before tomorrow’s SBD start.

Yesterday, a bunch of friends came over and we had a massive English fry-up breakfast. No kidding, heart attacks on a plate. Bacon, English sausages, eggs, bread fried in butter, mushrooms and tomatoes. Yum. One last grease blowout before tomorrow’s SBD start. After breakfast, Polly and Teresa and I played Scene It. Fun! (I won.) Then I went grocery shopping to stock up on healthy foods in preparation for tomorrow’s SBD start.

Tonight, George and I are going to dinner and maybe a movie. I think it’s going to have to be a chick flick. It is my birthday, after all. And that way I can have one more popcorn-and-candy blowout before tomorrow’s SBD start.

I did make a good choice of spouse. Today I came home FROM THE GYM (yes, you read that right) and I had a new monitor on my desk! It was a birthday present and very much needed, even though I’m about to get a new laptop (I hope a laptop and not a desktop.) My old monitor was popping and crackling and generally telling me it wants to burn our house down.

Yay for big screen, but small monitor! I actually have room on my desk to rest my forearms whilst typing. I think that is important.

So it was exciting to go to the gym because when I got there, so did Polly and Colin – they joined today! And I got a free t-shirt! Hee hee. It wasn’t a surprise that they were there, Polly had called me earlier to tell me, but it was still exciting. And I got her a Sixteen Candles calendar at B&N because it is so very her. That was before I knew they were joining my gym.

Okay, okay, that’s just the wine talking. I should go. I have to eat all the candy and drink all the wine in the house before I start South Beach next week. I’m going to get this sugar monkey off my back once and for all!!!

So let me tell you what’s not fun. Getting woken up at 4:45 in the morning by your alarm going off. No, not your alarm clock. Your security alarm. The really loud one. The one that usually means someone has broken into your house and wants to kill you. Okay, or the one that means you turned off the circuit to its power and the battery died at 4:45 a.m. But still. No fun.

Speaking of no fun, I think I might try the South Beach Diet after my birthday. Anyone tried it? I am disgusting. Desperate times, desperate measures, that sort of thing. I’d go to the gym after work to start working on it, but after my 4:45 a.m. wakeup call, I don’t think I’m feeling up to it. So tomorrow. For real.

Didn’t do much yesterday, except watch George pull out our old dishwasher. (Hence the turning off of the circuit. Who would guess the dishwasher and security alarm would be on the same circuit? Not us.) That was very stimulating, let me tell you. I think the most fun part was picking up a bag of homemade tamales from my friend Terry’s house. Well, then we went to the pub, that was fun. I got to watch that SNL skit (see my last post) on a friend’s iPod.

I’m getting a new computer soon. Yay!

Am v tired. Not making sense. Must go.

This makes me giggle.

Happy new year!

Okay, so you want the Linens ‘N’ Things story? You got it…

A coworker gave me a very generous gift card to LNT. I wanted to use it to buy a featherbed, some linen napkins for Christmas dinner, and a turkey baster to aid in the cooking of my festive bird. I was perusing the site online on December 22nd when I noticed they have “in-store pickup” available. So I ordered my three items and opted to pick them up in the store near our house.

Everything’s in stock, yay! So I eagerly await my email saying the items are ready to be picked up. Meanwhile, my gift card is charged the total for my order.

No email comes, so I go to the LNT website to track my order. Everything’s been cancelled! Oh, thanks for telling me, LNT. To add insult to injury, my gift card has not been credited back the amount of my purchase. So I call up Customer Service (what a joke) and describe what has happened. The faux-helpful woman on the other end said my card would be credited within a day or two. So I figure, I’ll just go back on Saturday to get what I wanted.

But no. The card is not credited. On Monday, I call CS again and am told there is no mention of this on my order notes. I was lied to.

It’s now Thursday, and I still can’t spend my gift card. Because of a fault with the LNT crappy website, they have taken my money and won’t give it back. Possibly for 7-10 business days. They suck. SUCK SUCK SUCK.

Whew, I almost feel better now.

UP WITH BED BATH & BEYOND! DOWN WITH LINENS ‘N’ THINGS! At least an ampersand makes sense.