American Idol Revisited

After watching American Idol results show last night, I am once again shaking my head in disbelief that Sanjaya was not in the bottom 3. I now suspect that there is a conspiracy at work here. Let's face it, Sanjaya is the least talented of all of the contestants, yet every week he avoids the bottom 3. While Sanjaya may not have talent going for him, he does have a few other things, and let's face it, American Idol is not purely based on talent. Looks, stage presence, and personality all go a long way in making a candidate popular with the public. And while Sanjaya may be low on the talent totem pole, he is undenyably cute, so he probably appeals to teenage girls. While his sexual orientation isn't up for debate here, there's no denying that the liklihood of him being gay, of all the other male contestants, is pretty high, therefore he probably has the gay vote, and thus the in-the-closet teenage boy vote. And given that he's soft spoken and mild mannered, he probably appeals to all of those teenegers' moms, too.

So ok, that's a lot of votes, but how can someone so clearly out of his league be so popular in a competition where a diverse population votes for their favourite Idol? At the risk of pissing off the whole population of India, I submit that the only logical conclusion lies in the fact that he's the first American Idol contestant who is an American of Indian descent. With so many Indian call centers having the ability to make calls to the USA for next to nothing, it doesn't seem like a coincidence that the least talented person in the competition is getting a very high number of votes. In fact, Sanjaya had the 4th highest vote tally of the 12 boys in the competition, according to Ryan Seacrest.

I could be completely off, and perhaps the better theory is that the demographic who take the time to actually vote is predominantly teenage girls, gay teenage boys, and soccer moms. I, myself, have never voted, and I know most of my friends have not. I suppose instead of complaining about the results I should contribute to swaying the balance by actually picking up the phone.

I heard a rumour that Simon Cowel has said he'll resign if Sanjaya wins. Come on, America! Simon is one of the biggest reasons we all watch this show. His rude comments and bluntness make an otherwise boring talent show highly entertaining. Do you really want to risk losing that? So now I'm launching my "Save Simon" campaign. Please, everybody who never votes, pick up the phone and vote for anybody other than Sanjaya.

SAVE SIMON!

Do it for me :-)

American Idiots!

I'm very disappointed in America. I don't normally get on my British high-horse, but a nation that would put Stephanie Edwards and Chris Richardson in the bottom two in American Idol has to be a nation of complete morons.
Sanjaya's performance on Tuesday was absolutely awful. He was off-key, out of tune, completely all over the place. It was absolutely horrific. Yet America voted and he got more votes than Steph and Chris???

WTF???

I'm absolutely disgusted. I'm embarassed to live here right now. I thought I was embarassed when America elected G. Dubya for the second time, but this just is the last straw. I'm moving to Canada.

New shoes and tight abs!

The weekend was good. I spent a majority of my day on Saturday shopping with Barbie. We even spent 45 minutes at the Clarins counter where Barbie tried on new make up and the nice lady gave us samples and put make up on us. We left looking all kinds of glam! Then we met Brian and his parents in the mall. They were shopping at Sears and we all headed back to Barbie's to hang out and play some Fusball with Scott. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I bought a rockin' new pair of sandals (since all of my shoes are too tight now). They're a leopard print thong with a kitten heel. Super cute!
Saturday night Brian, the in-laws, and I went to my favourite Tex-Mex place, Papasitos, and had Fajitas, then Nick and Kitty came over and celebrated St. Patty's day with Irish Car Bombs and a chick flick (yes, we're old!). An Irish Car Bomb consists of half a pint of Guinness into which you drop a shot of Bailey's and Whiskey (usually Jaimeson, but we only had Makers Mark). The result is actually VERY yummy.
On Sunday Barbie took us to show off our new house to the parents. Of course they loved it, and we were so happy to be in our new house again. I'm a very visual person and can see all of my furniture in there in my mind, and all the potential it has for hanging new paintings and making improvements. I fall in love with the place all over again every time I go there. Oh, and I took the trampoline in the back yard for a test drive. Yes, they're leaving it for us. I've always wanted one!
After the house viewing we stopped for a quick sandwich and then went to San Marcos for a day of outlet mall shopping! We spent a good 5 hours browsing the shops. I found the perfect purse in the Coach store. It was $90, though, and I've never spent that much on a purse (or anything else for that matter), so I didn't get it :-( . I did, however get a nursing bra (yea, I know! I broke down and got one because it was super comfy), and two cute tops which Brian's mum picked out for me that look fabulous!.

Yesterday (Monday), we had a routine doctor's appointment. Things are progressing well with The Kid, and his hearbeat is around 150bpm, which is normal. When the doc was measuring the size of my uterus she said "Wow, you have very tight abs". She was having a hard time getting a good measurement because of my rock hard abs! That will make my trainer happy. The good thing about that is that I'll have good core muscles for all that pushing and undignified grunting that's in the near future (too much information, Wassim?).
The doc did chastise me for my shoe choice. While she agreed that the animal print, thong, kitten heels were adorable, she told me I should not be wearing anything with a heel because it will give me back problems and because all my joints are loose right now (because of the appropriately named hormone, "relaxin") that I ran a very high risk of falling off of them and spraining my ankle. And of course, the last thing I need is a repeat of our wedding day during pregnancy! So I guess I'll retire my awesome new shoes and maybe borrow Brian's dad's nursing shoes (sorry, Keith, couldn't resist the dig! HAHA).

So that was our weekend in a nutshell. Quality time spent with the family and lots of shopping. I wish work were running as smoothly. Maybe it's because it's a Tuesday, and I have back to back meetings from 8am to 4:30 pm, but I'm a big grumpy. I need me some kitty lovin'. Nikkieeeee! come see mummy!

STOP KICKING ME!

The kid has become a total nightmare! I'm convinced he's in there partying like a rock star because it seems like he's constantly moving. The only time he's still is when either I'm moving, or someone puts their hand (invited) on my stomach to feel the moving. Then he turns into a statue!

It's particularly bad after I eat. About 5 minutes after my last bite I feel this flopping around in my stomach, and a periodical prod in an internal organ. It's SO GROSS! I can't even begin to describe the feeling. It's just unpleasant!

Another unpleasant symptom of pregnancy is the nose bleeds. Yea. They don't tell you about those, but apparently because of your increased blood volume the capilaries nearest the skin (like those in your nose) are more susceptible to breaking. Lovely!

I still have not had a zit free day since last October. Today's fresh crop is under my right eye and on the left side of my chin. Both look like I'm trying to sprout a new facial feature.

And let's talk about my hair for a second. It's become lifeless and weird. It looks fine right after I dry it, then 10 minutes later it looks like I just got out of bed! Oh, and let's not forget to mention the itchy scalp! Yea, it's only on the sides by my ears, but JEEZUS does it itch!

And finally, as if I didn't have enough to bitch about, my feet no longer fit comfortably into ANY of my super cute sandals! I hope it's due to a slight swelling, which will hopefully go down in the future, and not because my feet have grown and will never go back!

Thanks, kid! not only are you making your mother FAT, but you're also making her UGLY, and itchy, with giant feet. Love ya!

American Idol

I'll admit it. I have Idol fever. I sit glued to the TV and talk back when the judges give their crittique. I usually agree with Simon, and I waffle between annoyance and agreement with Paula because she's always trying to say something positive, and when she says things like "you look great", it's a thinly veiled insult. Now Simon, he tells it like it is. Sure he could use a little filtering so as not to be such an ass, but you gotta hand it to him, he usually has a good point. Randy used to be nice in past seasons, but this season he seems to have PMS or something. I like Randy, but he needs to tone down the "yo, you, check it out, yo dawg" after every song. Get a new hook, Randy. The Yo Factor is SO Vanilla Ice.

So here are my idols in order of preference:

1. I predict that Melinda Dolittle will be the next American Idol. If she doesn't win, then either America is deaf, or the competition is seriously rigged. Love her!
2. Next on my list is LaKisha. That girl's got some pipes. Though I find it hard to get past the fact that she kinda has a lisp when she sings.
3. My #3 (and top choice for the guys) is Blake Lewis. I like him because he's different than the other guys, but honestly, I don't see him winning. Those are my top 3. I 'll be surprised (and disgusted) if any of them get voted off any time soon.
4. Stephanie Edwards is pretty good, and probably the sexiest idol, but by far overshadowed by Melinda and LaKisha when it comes to singing. I don't think she's gonna go all the way.
5. Chris Sligh reminds me of Meat Loaf for some reason. I think it might just be because his chin wobbles when he sings. I like his voice, and forgive me for this observation, but he's too fat to be an American Idol when we, as a country, are so wrapped up in looks. I do think he'll be in it for a while, though.
   
6. Jordin Sparks is talented, but again, overshadowed by Melinda and LaKisa. I like her, but I don't think she's going to win.
7. Brandon Rogers is super cute, but he forgot his words last night! I felt so bad for him. But that was not a good performance.
8. I have an on again/off again relationship wtih Gina Glocksen. Last night I thought she did ok, but last week when she sand Evanescence I almost cried because it was SO BAD. But the judges loved it! What??? you people are TONE DEAF! she was way off key and completely murdered the song. I was embarassed for her.
9. Haley Scarnato - I bet she can paint with all the colours of the wind! sounds like she should be singing for Disney, not on the American Idol stage. She's got absolutely no stage presence.
10. Chris Richardson is way too boy-bandy for me. I hate how he constantly slides notes. He's like a female version of Mariah Carey. Completely overdone! I do think he has talent, but for some reason I don't like his face. He looks like a date-rapist to me.
11. Phil stacey can sing nicely, but nothing to write home about, but there's something uber creepy about him when he sings. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I just can't look at the TV when he's on. It's not like he's ugly, either. I just get a weird serial killer vibe.
12. Sanjaya Malakar. Bitch, go home. I agree with Randy here. His hair is awesome, and that's about the only nice thing I can say about him.
    

Perfect day!

Well, almost! The only thing that could make it better would perhaps be winning a large sum of money. It started off like an ordinary Saturday. We hung around the house and ate breakfast. Then as I was telling Brian that we are now in our 7th month!!! (can you believe it??) and that if the baby were born prematurely now he would more than likely survive (which is really cool), he told me the best news ever. And I really wasn't prepared for how it made me feel, either. In fact, when he told me, I totally burst into tears. What was the news??? I guess you'll have to just keep reading ;-)

Then I talked to Barbie, who had just received an offer on our house. This one was good! We've had multiple offers over the weekend and this one was the most solid, so once again our house is under contract. And after only being back on the market for 5 days. I met Barbie at Starbucks to sign the counter offer.
Meanwhile Brian spent some quality time with Onyx laying on the hammock in the back yard.
After signing the papers, Barbie and I went to the Tattoo shop up the street to see if they could help me with my belly ring. It's getting to the point where I might need to think about taking it out, but I'm kinda stuck in it. I can't get the ball off. So we talked to the heavily pierced guy at the tattoo place who assured me that he could get it out without hurting me, and advised me to buy a flexible pregnancy ring to put in it so that it wouldn't close up and I could put my usual silver ring back in after the pregnancy. They didn't sell those so I had to order one from the Web. But the good thing is he will take this one out and put the new one in for me.
Meanwhile Barbie is ogling the tattoos. She's wanted one forever so she picked out one she liked, took a pic of it with her camera phone and we went on our way.
When I got home Brian and I made the house ready for the slew of showings we had scheduled that day, then vacated and headed to the library in Cedar Park where we copied some info from a back issue of Consumer Reports about refrigerators. I've never actually been to a library in the US. Of course, they're very similar to the ones in England, but it's just funny that I've been here for almost 15 years and hadn't set foot in a library.
Afterwards we had lunch at Whataburger, then went to Barbie and Scotts to play some fusbal and hang out while our house showed.
As the boys played fusbal, barbie and I went back to the tattoo shop with a picture of what Barbie really wanted, and the guy at the shop sketched it out for her. It looked awesome, so she decided to go with it, and fortunately he did not have an appoitment until 8pm so he could fit her in.
Barbie took the pain like a woman! ( would say man, but we all know that men are complete pussies when it comes to pain). Her tattoo is awesome, and very ballsy for a first tattoo. It's a butterly at the bottom of her back, then a series of smaller butterflies of varying sizes going up her back. It looks awesome! During the tattooing the boys showed up briefly to take a peek, then headed back to the house for more fusbal.
When we got back to the house they were still playing, and continued to play for several more hours!
We ordered pizza and a small impromptu party broke out. Mike and Tara showed up, Michelle and Ginger, and even Sifu Paul, my old kung fu instructor. And of course, our favourite out of town guests, Chad and Kim were staying at Barbie's this weekend.
While the boys watched basketball and played fusbal, we girls hung out, waxed off some unwanted hair, and Barbie painted my toes for me, which I'm now having a hard time reaching.

Around 10:30 the munchies hit and the girls piled into the car to pick up cheesecake. mmmmmm. Cheesecake. I'm ashamed to admit that I ate three slices. In my defense, though, they were tiny slices and all three pieces wouldn't make up one piece of the cake from the Cheesecake Factory. Although I am afraid to get on the scale this morning.

After everyone started to pass out from carbs we hung out on the patio and enjoyed the beautiful Texas weather before heading home. I love the weekends. Especially when they start out unplanned and end up being such a randomly awesome day.

The guy who put in the strong offer on our house agreed to the counter offer and we now have a contract! Barbie and I are both relieved that the deal with the other people didn't work out because we're getting what we want for the house, and the buyer seems a lot less high maintenance. I have a really good feeling about this one. Oh, and best of all, our move in/out dates line up so perfectly, that we won't need to cancel our trip to Chicago, and will have plenty of time to move out, without incurring another mortgage payment.

So what was it that Brian said to me this morning? let's just say we now have a first name picked out for our baby, and it means SO much to me that our child will have this name. I didn't quite realize how much it meant to me until he told me we could use it. It surprised him too, that I reacted that way and he said if he had realized just how important it was he'd have decided a lot sooner! I think I always knew he'd come around but I didn't want to pressure him into something he wasn't comfortable with, so I just let it sit for a while. Meanwhile our friends didn't (you know who you are!). But Brian's never been one to bend under peer pressure so it had little to no effect anyway.

So that was my pefect day.

Happy Birthday Brian!

Today is my sweet hubby's birthday. Which makes me 26 years young because as my dad would say "you're only as old as the man you feel".

He's heading back from California as I write this, and I can't wait to see him. I love spending time alone, but I REALLY miss him when he's not around.

Tonight we're going to dinner with a bunch of close friends to celebrate, and possibly will be going camping this weekend if we can get our act together in time to reserve a site and pack up the equipment :-). The weather in Austin has been amazing these last few days. Bright sunshine and 80 degree days. Perfect for spending a night under the stars.

Allergic to dogs???

I'm not allergic to anything. So I thought. But over the past 2 nights I have been to 2 friends houses and gotten very congested. These friends share 2 things in common with regards to their living arrangements.
Both live in Cedar Park. Both have a dog.

I've never been allergic to cedar, and though Barbie has 2 huge cedars in her back yard, I don't recall Mike and Tara having any in close proximity to their house. And both times I was indoors the whole time. I've spent time at Barbie's house before she had the dog and didn't notice the congestion.

So that leaves the dogs.

Could I have suddenly developed dog allergies?
Could it be pregnancy related?
If so, will it go away afterwards?

As soon as I got home, the congestion went away. Maybe sweet kitties are the antidote?

This big ol' house...

Ok, it's not technically that big. In fact as houses in Texas go, and specifically this neighbourhood, it's actually quite small. But right now it feels big because my sweet honey bunny is not here. He's living the high-life on IBM's dollar in Santa Clara, California. Ok, maybe not the high-life, but he did report that he was having fun. Probably thanks to Wassim, who had better be taking good care of him as promised.
Meanwhile, the cats and I are filling up our time with friends, chores, and lounging about. Last night I spent time over at the Masterson house. Today I mowed the back yard. It was in dire need. It took me over an hour to mow because the weeds were SO BAD that I had to mow over all of them twice just to get them. It was a nice break from work, though. I did it during lunch. The sun was shining, it's a barmy 75 degrees! The back yard now looks consistent. Hopefully the weeds will not grow back until AFTER we move out :-)
Today I'm working out twice. I went this morning with Barbie and spent 45 mins on the cross trainer, and I'm going to meet Jen this evening. Maybe I'll do weights and just a wee bit of cardio.
The house is being shown this evening so hopefully the potential buyer will fall in love with the place and offer me a million dollars for it! a girl can dream, can't she?

The cats must be missing their daddy. Onyx has not left my side all day, and while he's been gone, Nikki has slept on my head at night, waking me up with her LOUD snoring. Serioiusly, they need to make those breathe rite strips for cats!

Fun weekend had by all

Well, for the most part anyway, and I'll get to the un-fun part later. Brian went to San Antonio on Friday night for a soccer tournament that he played in on Saturday. He spent the night with his team hanging out, drinking beer, and spent the night in a hotel. On Saturday morning the team played two games. In the second game Brian scored an awesome goal that was one of the highlights of his adult soccer career. He dribbled the ball past over half of the opposing team and nailed it into the goal. Sweet!
Meanwhile I spent some time talking to some roofers. Apparently our roof has some minor wind damage so we're going to get it fixed. Then I spent the day shopping with Barbie. I didn't buy much because my ever changing shape is depressing to buy for, and impossible to predict. I can't even buy shoes because, apparently, my feet *might grow. Barbie had a pretty good retail day, though.
We received the list of repairs on our house that the buyers had requested, and agreed to fix all issues. They also asked for a $$ amount, which I countered at what I felt was a good compromise for all.
After Brian got home he spent a few hours on his hands and knees in the front yard as a result of us recieving a nastygram from the HOA about the weeds in our lawn. If our neighbours ratted us out, we don't really blame them... The weeds were big and I'm sure they were spreading to their lawn, too.
We then headed over to Jay and Erin's and met up with Mike and Tara and Erin fed us with yummy tacos before we headed downtown to celebrate Kitty's birthday, all stuffed into Jay's big ass truck.
We met Nick and Kitty and others, including Brett and Tiff, at the Key bar on 6th, then headed to 219 West where we were met by others. There's great people watching at that bar. Several bachelorette parties came in, along with a wedding party and two cougars that were dressed like hookers. I should make an honourable mention of Tiffeni's hair at this point. I cut it for her last week and added layers, which she's never had before. It looks SOOO great!
Around 1:30am we thought it was time to get some Ropolo's pizza. The outside temperature had dropped drastically so we found ourselves huddled up next to a gas heater outside the pizza wagon as we scoffed down late night pizza, then I got to drive everyone home in Jay's big-ass truck! Fun times!

On to the not so great stuff. Brian's now out of town for a week. I'm gonna miss him terribly. This will be the longest we've been apart in a couple of years. He's in California for a conference. We ran out to the outlet mall this afternoon to buy him some business-casual clothes to wear at the conference, then I dropped him off at the airport. I actually do like to spend time alone, in fact I often NEED to spend time alone, so I'll enjoy it, but at the same time I'll be very happy when my man returns.

And one final not so great thing, depending on your point of view. The house sale fell through. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say we're relieved to not be working with these buyers and are happy that they are now out of our lives. Our house is back on the market and hopefully we can get the right buyer for it this time around. A big fat thank you goes out to Barbie for being supportive and working so hard to almost close this deal. I feel confident that the next one will work out.

In the mean time, I'll work on making it perfect for the next lucky buyer by addressing a few very minor issues that the previous buyers had requested as a result of the inspection.