Fun times!

Yesterday I went and picked out our wedding invitations. They’re so pretty. Works of art, I tell ya. Can’t wait to get them! And then send them! Eeep!

Finished Harry Potter last night. I was sad to finish it. Just one more book! I can hardly believe it. Seems like just yesterday I was anxiously awaiting book four! (Cue wiggly lines a la seventies sitcoms or Wayne’s World…) Anyway, loved the book. Now I want to reread the whole series. At least they’re easy, fast reads.

I know I had more to say, I can’t remember now, though.

Can’t wait for trip to Dallas this weekend. Finally I get to see my friends’ cool houses! And the friends that live inside of them, of course. It’ll be fun. Road trip woooooo!

Am very sleepy this morning. Stayed up late last night reading Harry Potter. I can’t believe I was so stupid as to waste my weekend by *not* reading it. I can’t believe I went and saw a movie while HARRY POTTER REMAINED UNREAD! And now I am paying the price by being at work with the book unread. Sigh. This is not good. My productivity will be nil today, as I wait anxiously for lunchtime so I can devour a hundred pages or so (hey, I’m a fast reader AND a good pun-maker!)

But I don’t regret spending Saturday with my good friend and mama-to-be Laurie. I don’t see her often since she has been in nursing school, so it was good to spend the whole day with her. We visited my dress (so I could try on my shoes before they dye them) and had lunch and went to the mall and cooed over baby clothes.

Yesterday, George and I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I enjoyed it, but didn’t really see the point of it. The first one was trippy enough. But it was definitely entertaining.

Mmmmmm….

We ended up at Jacque-Imo’s for dinner last night. My favorite restaurant! We were going to go to this place called Dick & Jenny’s that I’ve always wanted to go to, but when we got there, they were closed. For a month and a half for summer vacation. Sheesh! And we didn’t know exactly where Clancy’s was, so no SJP sighting.

I must say, it was rather disturbing that we walked into Jacque-Imo’s and there was no line. We were immediately seated. At 7 pm on a Thursday night. This is unheard of. Usually there are waits of 90+ minutes. Disturbing because there was a somewhat negative review of the restaurant in this week’s Gambit. Do people really believe it? Say it ain’t so!

Anyway, our meal was excellent, as usual. We started off with the fried grits, and then George had blackened lamb and I had mahi-mahi. All with yummy sauces involved.

And then there was dessert. Hey, I said yesterday I was going to have dessert, and boy did I. White chocolate bread pudding. Did I mention that George hates bread pudding? Yeah. So I ate all of it. (Don’t think I’m evil for ordering something I know he hates. He told me to. He didn’t want dessert.) Yes, ALL of it. (Okay, it wasn’t massive or anything, but big enough.) Mmmm. Yum. Delish.

Not many huge plans for the weekend. Except that tomorrow I’m going to hang out with my friend (and mama-to-be) Laurie, who I haven’t seen in ages. Yay!

I did it! I did it! Unless, of course, wine has sugar in it. But
George pointed out that the sugar is fermented so it’s okay.
Well, whatever. In any case, I had a heck of a lot less sugar
yesterday than most days. So that’s two days without sugar! And
I’m still alive! Miraculous.

I also got a raise. Nothing earth-shattering, but enough to blow
on two pairs of shoes. From Payless. Ha ha! But very cute shoes.
I think I should go buy another pair so I can have a spare. That
is how much I love these shoes.

Tonight George is taking me to a fancy restaurant. I hope it is
Clancy’s, because I read in the paper today that it is Sarah
Jessica Parker’s favorite restaurant here. (She is here while
filming something.) I think I will wear my new shoes tonight,
because I feel they are something Carrie Bradshaw would approve
of. (Even though they are not Manolos.)

Oooh, I got some info in the mail about tap dancing classes.
They start up again in August. I can’t wait!

Ohhh, is Kettie ever in trouble! For today is:

Operation Sugar Detox, Day 1, Attempt #2.

I think Kettie will agree that she even said I could blame her for being an enabler. Here is what happened. I was verrrrry good yesterday. Ate no excess sugar. (I can’t say no sugar whatsoever because I’m sure there are bits of sugars in lots of things I
eat. But you know what I mean.)

And then Kettie and I went to dinner. (Kettie is my dear high school friend who was in town for work last night. She is also a sugar-enabler.) We went to Drago’s and I finally had their famous char-grilled oysters. (Can you say HOLY CRAP? They were so freaking good. Oh. My. God.) And then I had some fish as my entree. And THEN the waitress comes out with the dessert menu. I say no. Kettie says yes. The waitress and Kettie ridicule me for giving up sugar (in a nice way.) Kettie insists. I relent. I am v weak. The waitress brings out an ENORMOUS, seriously gigantic brownie sundae. Ah well. It was worth it. 🙂

So alas. Today is Day One. Again.

Today is Day One of my sugar detox program. Wait, I need a better name for it than that. Hmmm. How about “Operation: Sugar Death”? Okay, maybe that’s a bit extreme. Anyhoo, that’s not really important. What’s important is that I’m giving up sugar. Aaaaaggghhh!!!!

Here are my rules for Operation: Sugar Free (but I don’t like that name so someone come up with a better one.)

1. No candy, cookies, cake, ice cream, etc.
2. Fruit is allowed.
3. White bread, white rice, pasta, etc allowed.

Simple! So basically I’m just giving up sweet junk food. I just eat waaaaay too much of it and I have to wonder if that’s what’s keeping me from losing weight. I mean, I record my points when I eat sugary treats, so it’s not like I’m ingesting the extra calories and not keeping track of them. I am. I wonder if it isn’t something more chemical than that. Something to do with insulin or other things I’d only understand if I went to med school.

If nothing happens (i.e., I don’t feel better or different) in a week, I will change to whole-wheat bread (I don’t really eat much rice or pasta as it is) and cut out fruit to see if that helps.

Already I had toast with a teeny bit of butter for breakfast instead of my usual toast with peanut butter or jam. Or sweet cereal. And I’ve ignored the Hershey’s miniatures on a (thoroughly evil) coworker’s desk.

In other news, tonight is the premiere of the reality show on CBS where they try to pick a new lead singer for INXS. Of course I’m going to watch it. Anyone who knew me in high school knows I’m going to watch it. Even though I loved INXS mostly for
Michael Hutchence. Sigh. Anyway, I hope the show doesn’t suck too badly.

Well, now’s as good a time as any to post about my trip to Los Angeles. It was tons o’ fun, and my mom told me today that we spoiled Ellie mercilessly – apparently she doesn’t sleep too well anymore, not without Aunt Pam and Aunt Jenny and Granny to spoil her rotten and rock her to sleep and carry her around. Ooops!

So here’s how it went:

Friday: Flew in. Went to Evan and Jennifer’s house, got to see Ellie. My mom was holding her when we got there (Jenny, Rob and I) and she handed her to Jenny. All was peaceful. Jenny hands her off to me and she starts wailing. Waah! So I hand her to Granny and all is well again. Pooh. We eat birthday cake for Rob – it’s his birthday. Obviously.

Saturday: Go to E + J’s house in preparation for the christening. I ride with E + J + E to the church. Evan dresses his daughter but puts her bonnet on backwards. Men! Christening goes smoothly, Ellie is undisputably the cutest baby there. (Okay, I will allow the other parents to think their babies are cuter, but they are brainwashed by their own children.) Lucas, Jennifer’s nephew, does cute little kid things.

After the christening, we head to Pasadena for lunch. Mmmm. Lunch. Jennifer’s family was there, we ate yummy food, ate cake. Afterwards we went to a few shops in the area. Fun.

Saturday night, I went to West Hollywood with J + R to see Rob’s cousin Karen. She is ubercool animator for the Simpsons. Her fiance is comic book artist and draws Spiderman and stuff. Cool. We went to some dive-ish bar that really just felt like the Bayou or some other grotty LSU bar we used to go to. Didn’t see a single famous person. Dang.

Sunday, we met for breakfast. Then Rob dragged me and Jenny and Mom to the Gamble House. It was cool, though. It’s the Arts & Crafts home of the Gamble family, as in Proctor and Gamble. After that, Rob dropped us off to meet Jennifer for tea. Love tea. We ate cute little sandwiches and scones and drank, well, tea.

Later on, Mom, Evan, Rob and Jenny went to a Dodgers game. I stayed home with Jennifer and Ellie. Ellie fell asleep on me, the cuteness was overwhelming, but I managed to stay in one piece. The Dodgers lost.

Monday was the fourth of July. Jenny and Rob and I hopped in the convertible and drove to Venice Beach. Though it was chilly, I got a terrible sunburn. I felt like such an amateur. Even now my shoulders and nose are peeling. Charming. But it was neat to walk along the beach. We saw Muscle Beach, walked down the boardwalk and saw multi-zillion dollar houses, walked down a pier and saw a plane draw an ad for the Fantastic Four movie in the sky, and then drove to Santa Monica. Went into some shops, got ice cream, burned a little more.

Went back to E + J’s house, barbecued. Evan and Rob played croquet. Ellie peed on me. E + J’s friends came over with their 5 month old baby, Josie. She was very smiley and happy, and she’s about the age Ellie will be when they come here for the wedding. Can’t wait.

On Tuesday, we had breakfast with Jenny and Rob before they left. Then Mom, Jennifer, Ellie and I went to the Huntington Gardens. It’s very beautiful, but my sunburn was hurting. We ate lunch there, then they dropped me off to meet a friend. We went to Sephora and Paper Source. Are there any two better stores in the world? I don’t think so. When I got back to E + J’s house, we went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

And then on Wednesday, Mom and I went home. And we missed all of Tropical Storm Cindy’s excitement. Thank goodness. The end!

You want pictures, you got ’em!

No time for a recap of the vacation just yet, but soon, I promise!

Hard to be lighthearted after what’s happened in London, so I think I’ll save my Los Angeles recap for a little later.

(In a nutshell, it was a great trip and Ellie is hands down, officially, undisputably, my cutest blood-related niece. Whew. How is that for not offending any of my friends’ babies?)

(Really, she’s the cutest baby on Earth.)

Went to Target last night to get some things for my trip and I got this purse on clearance that has a light inside to find things. Genius! Although I wonder if Rebecca, a friend I went to high school with, is aware they stole her idea. She had installed a light in her purse years ago! She used to be an engineer. Now she bellydances and teaches art. Very interesting woman.

Am getting off work early today because my boss gave me the choice of either leaving at lunchtime or taking part in a “professional development session,” i.e., watching Office Space. I do love my job! As much as I love that film, I am glad I’ll now have time to go to the gym and have lunch with Regan. And finish packing. And go by Sears, possibly, to buy a new refrigerator. Urgh.

Okay, I get it. You people can’t handle change. That must explain the sudden lack of comments. Sigh. Don’t you know I am validated by comments? I need them to shore up my self-esteem. Tee hee, just kidding.

In approximately 52 hours, my little Ellie will be in her Aunt Pam’s arms! I can’t wait! Cannot. wait. Eeep!

Think our refrigerator has bit the dust. Maybe. Not sure. Hope not. Keep our fridge in your thoughts, please. Don’t die on us! (Although a nice new major appliance is always a treat.)

Went to my cousin Monica’s house last night to give her son Max his birthday present. It’s a talking Nemo. If you know Max, you know that he loves Nemo. I think he has a new best friend. (Not me, Nemo. Though I did make his favorite blankie.) I like to go
over there with George so he can talk to Monica’s husband Tom and realize that my entire family is not Republican. (Though I love my entire extended family, regardless of political leanings. And so does George.)

Had pizza twice yesterday. Yum. And have some for dinner tonight. Could there be a more perfect food? I don’t think so.

Got invitation mockups from the designer yesterday. I think my excitement over invitations is second only to my dress. Too bad everyone just throws them away. Sigh. (Not these – they’re going to be so incredible, people are going to frame them!)