One Reason

Just one reason why David is pretty much the best husband ever:

Saturday morning I woke up around 3:30 am and couldn't fall back to sleep. I had Toby laying between my legs and Gabby laying in my arm, and was so hot and uncomfortable. I spent the next two hours tossing and turning - I got Gabby to leave the bed a couple times, but she's like a boomerang - she just keeps coming back. By 5:3o am, I was still awake and very whiny. When Gabby jumped up for the millionth time, I finally said something to David about how I couldn't fall asleep and I had no room because the cats were hogging the bed. He's so cute he offered to move to the couch in the bedroom to sleep to give me (and the cats) the bed. I felt a little bad for taking him up on the offer, but I was so tired that I was pretty desperate to get some sleep. I had considered moving to the couch myself, but the reality is that if I would have moved to the couch, the cats would have moved with me (especially Gabby).

So, David is so sweet that he got out of bed Saturday morning to go sleep on the couch. Aw.

Tat Update #3

David went in yesterday for another round for his tattoo. I had thought they were going to finish it yesterday, but they did about 3 hours and he still needs one more session. Yikes! Yesterday they added some color - red, green, and orangish. I'm still not able to picture what the final product will be, but it's looking pretty cool.

Here's a pic from last night (taken with my brand new pink camera). There's a glare on the photo because I had just put tattoo goo all over David's back.

Christmas Picture

Thought I'd post my favorite Christmas picture of David and me. We spent the weekend before Christmas drinking a lot of Boones Farm (I think I mentioned that already). It was a blast!

Anxiously awaiting UPS...

Whew, so my moodiness from the last week seems to have gone away for the most part. Must have been PMS.

Right now I am terribly excited because the UPS driver is on his way to my house. Yes! He is coming with a box full of books from Amazon.com. I ordered the books on Christmas Eve - as soon as I got some money for Christmas, I told David to get ready to deposit it into checking, because it was going straight to Amazon. So, I have the following books on the way to my house:

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
New Moon by Stephanie Meyer
Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer
Forever Odd by Dean Koontz
Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane (author of Mystic River)
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Plus, since I knew I couldn't wait until the books came today, I had also picked up a couple of books at HPB on Monday...Tommyknockers by Stephen King (I have no idea how I've never read this book before) and A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving. I'm currently reading both of these books (although I'll probably just go to Tommyknockers tonight so I can concentrate more and get them both done!).

So, overall Christmas was a whole lot of awesome. David and I had a great day together on Saturday - we ate some pizza, did some cannon balls (involves chugging Boones Farm), drank some beer, opened some presents, and watched my favorite movie - Love Actually. Sunday was spent with David's parents and grandmother. We turned off the Packer game early (it was wretched), and played some dominoes before David and I made our fish dinner (which I ended up not liking). On Monday we drove up to EC with my brother Bob and his fiancee Nikki and opened presents with my mom and Grandma, and then Tuesday we had to stop by both sides of my family for Christmas.

As usual, the Present Game at my mom's side was a lot of fun, although it seemed to drag on FOREVER. Everyone was fighting over a few specific gifts, mainly because we knew they contained alcohol. :) David and I had a good giggle once the game was over - we didn't end up with any alcohol (it was Boones Farm and Asti!) but we got off pretty easy - two things of candy, a book (Nicholas Sparks - I'll read it eventually), and a hideous bracelet that will go in the game next year. David and I played the game well and were pretty proud of our (lack) of gifts.

Cranky

I've been really crabby the last few days...heck, even weeks it feels like. I'm seriously hoping Christmas will make it better. I'm in such a rut - nothing that I usually do sounds very fun. I'm sick of reading crappy books (I've been reading Mirror, Mirror for over a week now and am literally 30 pages into), I haven't been into TV (I somehow still have the last two episodes of Heroes on my DVR, among others), and I have even looked at EVERYTHING on the Internet. Almost.

David and I decided that it's probably because I haven't been drinking very much lately. That, and of course our usual reasoning - I'm not blonde. I was always more fun then.

So, anyway, thank goodness for this weekend - on Saturday David and I are doing Christmas together. We decided to have our Christmas dinner together be Pizza Hut (so nerdy), and I'm going to enjoy a Pina Colada (or two) with a tasty Red Vine straw. Sunday we are going to do our Christmas with David's family, where I plan on enjoying multiple glasses of Prosecco. Yumm...

And to demonstrate how cute my hair looked with blonde highlights, I'll take you back to October 2006 with I first met little Raina:

Dinner Drama

There is a reason I don't cook. Ok, there are actually a lot of reasons why I don't cook, but the main reason seems to be my lack of attention to detail.

A few weeks ago David and I were making pancakes for dinner. We bought one of those easy little plastic containers - just add water! I seriously read the instructions 3 times - and then proceeded to fill the container to the top, rather than the fill line. Needless to say, we did not have pancakes that night.

Tonight David and I were making Four Soup Casserole. David was browning the hamburger, while I was mixing the soups. I read the instructions over a few times. "Brown hamburger and drain. Mix soups together. Lightly mix soup & noodles together; add beef." I thought it was a little weird that I didn't have to cook the noodles, but since we had only made this meal once quite awhile ago, I couldn't remember. I added about half of the (uncooked) noodles to the soup when I read the instructions (again). "Brown hamburger. Cook & drain noodles. Mix soups together." Whhaaa? How did I miss the "cook and drain noodles" the first 15 times I read it? Grr. David had to throw on shoes and drive to the grocery store for more soup while I finished browning the hamburger and (oops) cooking the noodles.

By the time David got back, the noodles were cooked, the hamburger was browned, and I was ready to mix the soups. Except...instead of a can of cream of mushroom soup and a can of cream of celery, David came home with 2 cans of cream of celery and no mushroom. There was a bit of dramatics in the house then - David was pissed that he had bought two of the same soup and was convinced dinner was officially ruined, and I was pissed that he was pissed about something so stupid. Good times. We finally got everything in the dish and into the oven, with me saying all the time "I don't remember putting cheese on it last time" (as the recipe calls for).

Forty-five minutes later, it came out of the oven and was actually really good. I am completely convinced that last time we didn't put cheese on it, which is weird, because I'd top everything with cheese if I could. David can't believe we made the casserole twice and haven't done it correctly yet. Oh well. It still ended up being delicious.

I had been feeling ambitious before we started making dinner, and had planned on making chocolate chip cookies after dinner. Not any more.

Tat Update

David went in for Round 2 last Friday. His session was about 3 hours long. The black shading has been completed! Still no actual color yet - red is just the irritation still.

He now needs to heal completely (about 4-6 weeks) before finishing it up. He has about 3 hours left to go. I haven't seen the drawing of what it will look like once it's done, but David's pretty excited.

Tats

David and I finally did something yesterday that we had been talking about doing for the last 5 years...we went and got tattoos!

David's is pretty crazy - his is going to take another 2 or 3 sessions to complete - he is basically doing a pretty big tattoo all along his spine. David's next session is in about two weeks - long enough for most of the outlining to heal. Here is how it looks with the first round done - basically just the outline and some black shading. I know it looks like there is red, but that is just the irritation - he only has black right now.

He's so bad ass. :)

I decided to have my tattoo added to - more vines and flowers, plus a hummingbird above it. My previous tattoo was about 6 years old and really weathered and faded. I didn't so much listen when I was told to make sure to put on sunscreen to protect. Years of tanning had taken it's toll, that's for sure. Here is my tattoo before:

And here is my tattoo after:

I absolutely love it. Our artist, Billy at Blue Lotus Tattoo in Madison, did a fabulous job. The hummingbird is adorable, and I am really digging the way he touched up (ie, completely recovered) my old tattoo.

So, hopefully now that I am older and wiser (ha!) maybe I will take better care of this one.

Halloween

I have been feeling too lazy to review the last few books I've read, so while I keep putting that off, here is a pic of some of the 105 jell-o shots I made, all neatly labeled and ready for consumption!

Fun at Culver's

Yesterday David was kind enough to take me to Culver's because I was having a craving for one of their Concrete Mixers. David and I also decided to each order a salad, since they have awesome salads. The following was the drive-thru exchange:

David: Yeah, can I get 2 Garden Fresco salads with no peas?
Girl: That's a Garden Fresco salad with no cheese?
David: No, I said 'no Peas'
Girl: Ok, no cheese
David: No, both are with no Peas. We want cheese.
[Long pause]
David: Also, a concrete mixer made with chocolate ice cream and oreos.
Girl: Ok, so that's a Garden Fresco salad with blue cheese, and a concrete mixer
David [face turning red]: No blue cheese. No dressing. Both are without Peas!
[At this point, David and I are both realizing that she only has 1 salad in the order]
Girl: You want a salad with no cheese?
[Steam starts coming out of David's ears. I am laughing my ass off]
David: What comes on the salad?
Girl: Lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, cheese, Asian peas, and croutons.
David: No Asian peas on BOTH salads!
Girl: Ok, so that's 1 Garden Fresco salad with no Asian peas, and a concrete mixer. Please pull ahead.

David finally just said fuck it, and pulled ahead. He was too worked up to eat a salad. I could barely stop laughing. David is usually a mumbler, but for once he was enunciating very well. I know it was probably just the connection that made it hard, but good grief. Getting up to the window wasn't the best, either. We paid, and they gave us the salad (it was correct!). While we were waiting for my mixer, they came back to the window to try to make us pay again. We told them we already did, and they left to find the mixer. Then they had to come back to find out what kind of mixer it was.

I spent the ride home giggling, and I think David finally saw the humor in it eventually. At least we know now to say "Asian peas" instead of regular ol' peas.