memorial music monday

thank you soldiers, for all that you do and have done.

and thank you to the families of soldiers for your

bravery and support of the people defending our country.

thinking of you today and always.....

Friday Fun

This is awesome. 

Thanks for sharing, Jessica Ashley.

{I miss you. A lot.}

heidi and spencer

After a frozen yogurt date, roomie and I decided it was time to add to our family.

So we went to Petco for some goldfish.

We bought a HUGE glass vase

and a Buddha head and told the person helping us we thought it would 

be really cool to have tons of goldfish swimming around. 

Like, 10-15? 

She, not so tactfully, informed us that we knew nothing about fish

and that we could only buy two.

That's right, two. 

Goldfish.

The ten cent kind. 

After glancing at each other and enduring her judgmental glares 

we decided on TWO goldfish for our ginormous glass vase.

She also talked us into a thing that makes bubbles in the water.

When I tried to get out of purchasing the bubbler I seriously thought

she was going to call PETA or get the authorities involved in some way.

{side note: never pay more for the pet accessories than for the actual pet.

it's a good rule to live by}  

After we purchased the fish 

we made a trip next door to Target. 

With the goldfish safely strapped in the cart we purchased 

our household essentials

{plus 7 things from the dollar bin that I'll never use}.

I found these cute skinny vases and told roomie that we should 

go back to Petco, pretend to return the huge vase we bought 

for them and show the militant employee our new home for the 

fish. Just to see what she would do. 

but thankfully, roomie talked me out of it. 

Otherwise, I might be in goldfish-abuser jail right now.

 We headed home and decided to name the fish 

Heidi and Spencer. 

Spencer is on the left.

The name seemed appropriate. 

They're slimy, scaly and cold blooded. 

Just like the real Heidi and Spencer! 

It was perfect. 

We made sure they had games to play

Things to read

A candle for some ambient lighting

A globe so that they could reminisce about the days when they swam the 

open seas (ok, I know they never swam the open seas)

An inspirational quote to remind them to love each other

And a bird watching over them to keep them in line

They were so happy.

Until they died four days later. 

Oh well. 

**don't forget to enter the giveaway!

insomnia

I can't sleep.

Again.

I think this makes it official that I am the worst sleeper ever.

I'm going to California again this weekend and I really should be sleeping because I'm not leaving until after work, and there will probably be lots 'o Memorial Day traffic and I will be exhausted when I arrive on Brentwell Circle because I'll have been up for 20 hours.

Boo!

Anyway, when I can't sleep I just stare at my sparkle fleur de lis and think angry thoughts about not sleeping.

I feel like I might be developing bad feelings toward my lovely closet door accent which is sad because I love the shape in general, and the fact that it is all glittery just makes it schloads better.

Do we think I should move the fleur de lis somewhere else, blog friends?

But then my closet door would be so boring, no?

Perhaps I should replace it with something that I dislike (say, a photo of Bill O'Reilly?) so that when I channel my 'I'm angry I'm not asleep' feelings it will already be going toward something I loathe? But do I really want Bill O'Reilly to be the first thing I see when I wake up? I think that could turn me into a very angry person. So I guess I will stick with the glitter fleur de lis.

Good thing we figured that one out.

Good talk, guys.

I hope you're all sleeping well.

Summer Survival Giveaway!

OK kids, it's time for my first giveaway! 

I've decided to do a sort of care package

of my summer essentials. 

This is the coolest item;

generously donated by my 

in-real-life friend 

Emy Lewis. 

Aren't they cute? 

I love the color.

Wearing flowers in your

 hair is one of the best parts of summer,

don't you think? 

In fact, I'm wearing a hair flower

from Emy in my hair as I type.

It has greatly improved my outlook on the day.

Please be sure to visit Emy's Etsy shop to check out her

other very cool hand made items. 

I bought my grandmother a bee pendant for her

birthday last year and she LOVES it.

Also included in the giveaway are

some random things

that help me get through the summers here in 

hot hot Phoenix. 

First up.....

you may choose two candles 

made by my mom. 

{mom, may I please give away two

of your Jesus candles for 

my blog giveaway? Thanks.}

Nothing says summer like Jesus in bling.

I love lighting these on my deck. They glow oh so nicely.

Next.....

a set of four lovely wine glasses to sip your

summer viognier, sangria or a light pinot noir. 

I will also include some of my favorite books 

{already loved/used/read because I'm all about 

sharing books I've loved.}, some sunscreen, some

sidewalk chalk and 

perhaps a few other items I come across in the 

next ten days that just scream SUMMER to me.

RULES: 

1) Become a follower of the blog

{because blog followers raise my self esteem.

It's true.} and leave a comment letting
me know you would like to be entered.

2) You may blog, tweet or facebook about it for extra entries

{one for each shout out. Be sure to email me ltkalander@gmail.com if you 

share on any social media sites so I get your name in again!}

3) If you gave birth to me OR if you gave birth to the person 

who gave birth to me you are NOT eligible.

4)  Get your entries in by midnight on June 3rd.
I'll announce the winner next Friday, June 4th. 

Enjoy!

hello

{la piscina del juez. 

esto es donde quiero nadar.}

Hi friends.

How are you?

I am fine.

What did you do this past weekend?

I worked a little on Saturday, then spent some time in the pool, searched for some baby shower invitations (if you have ANY suggestions for where I can find some cute ones, please let me know. Think polka dots.), had dinner and a movie with Julie (we watched Nine. The movie itself wasn't outstanding but it was SO worth watching for the fantastic cinematography and super cool fergie-ferg dance scene), tutored, had family dinner, and watched the Lost season finale.

Phew.

I spent my bonus weekend day (I have every Monday off and it is my bonus weekend day) having coffee with a Poondingo, lunching with Nina and doing laundry. I also bought knitting needles and yarn. I figure that because of my abnormal love of crosswords, the fact that I never go out anymore and that my favorite show is Jeopardy, knitting is the next logical step toward my elderly life???

It was a good weekend.

I am feeling very good about this week and the coming weekend as well.

I am feeling good and well in general.

AND.....

I am having a super fun summer survival kit giveaway tomorrow!

Are you excited?!?!

I am.

I feel this is an important milestone for a blog.

Kind of like your baby's first steps?

But not really.

Music Monday Round 2

It is really bothering me 

that the song I posted is from 

Twilight;

Quite possibly the worst book I have ever

wasted my time on. 

And don't even get me started on the movies. 

Yes, I've had to watch them because 

I will do almost anything for

the kiddos. 

This includes watching really bad tween movies.


I don't want to delete the post, because it's a
good song. So I've decided to do 
an additional MM post 
so that you don't leave my blog 
thinking of teenaged vampire-y angst. 

So, I'm giving you a round two so that

 I can start speaking to myself again

{It's been a long, quiet 36 minutes}.

I'm pretty sure this one is not from the Twilight soundtrack. 

If it is, please let me know 

so that I can stop speaking to myself again. 

Music Monday

**So, I found this version of the song on Pandora.
After looking it up on youtube I realize
that it is from the Twilight soundtrack?
This kind of ruins it for me, but
I'm going to try to get over it.
Team Twilight is Silly.

photo phriday

          foto friday??

anyway, here is last weekend in photos...

 

no mr. officer. 

I wasn't texting while driving. 

I was shake-it photo-ing. 

Totally legal, right?

It's Official

guess what? 

there are freckles on my knees. 

do you know what that means?

it means that snow cone season 

has BEGUN!!!!! 

did you notice that in the photo of last night's 

snow cone (above) 

there is light from the baby jesus

coming down from heaven, 

pointing at my snow cone?

while inhaling eating my snow cone last 

night i could almost hear a voice from heaven

saying, 'this is good.'

happy birthday

happy birthday to my mom. 

:)

I love you more than 

butter and 

babies. 

I hope you feel like this

all year long.
**photo courtesy ME! 

random facts

While on our road trip, 

Carol Yanders Dougherty and I 

{Carol is my aunt. She is peeved

that she has never had a blog post

dedicated to her and says I only call 

her 'my aunt' instead of using her 

real name. So there.}

discussed {at length} some interesting topics. 

If we were homeless we would live in California because 

of the great weather. We would hang out in Emergency Room

waiting rooms at night because people wouldn't know if you were

a patient waiting to be seen or just a random homeless person

so you could hopefully get some sleep for a couple of hours

before security kicked you out for loitering. 

{fact- when I was a kid I thought signs that said 

NO LOITERING

were misspelled signs that were supposed to say

NO LITTERING}

If we had to choose one type of food to eat for the rest of our lives

we would choose Mexican food. 

If we had to choose one meal for the rest of our livese 

Carol Yanders Dougherty, my beloved aunt, 

would choose fried chicken and mashed potatoes. 

I would choose chicken d'van. 

If we escaped prison

{we were driving past the prison and listening to Johnny Cash

when this conversation arose}

we would first hop on a train to a big city 

so that we could establish new identities and get new 

drivers licenses

{we feel there are more resources for 

criminals looking to commit identity theft in big cities}

and stuff, then we would move to a small city

to spend the rest of our days. 

Like Flagstaff, for example. 

And if I ever had a mug shot taken

it would look like the one above

because that is me.

But it's not a real mug shot. 

Don't worry.

gasp!

Someone called me a mother f*&#$% 

today at work. 

Not someone I worked with, but an 

angry person who called my desk.

Shocking, I know.

I don't f*&^ mothers. 

I usually just hug them 

and ask to hold their babies.

**photo courtesy we heart it. 

puppy love

while in CA 

I was smothered in puppy love. 

Here are a few of my favorite CAK9 friends. 

**these photos are from last weekend's CA trip. 

I had no puppy love this time. 

Just brother love and Miss Chocolate love. 

:)

Music Monday

**because it's the best road trip song ever. 

**because I'm feeling LOADS better, thanks for asking. 

nothing cures my Arizona blues like a semi-secret-surprise-

last-minute-bonus trip back to Belmont Shore. :) 

Blah.

I’m not feeling witty or funny or creative or pretty or together or happy or hopeful.

I’ve been feeling blah.

Desk doodling didn’t even help. 

I just wrote what I was feeling and now I will have to look at that for the rest of the month.

I feel like sticking my tongue out at life.

I stumbled across Naomi’s post about improving your mood and it put me in a WORSE mood because my favorite persons are in Oakhurst, Panama, Southern California and Hawaii. I can’t even hang out with them because I chose to live in silly Phoenix. And the food she (Naomi) ate would probably make me itchy because I’m allergic to everything and everything has been giving me tummy aches. I just want to crawl in bed for the entire weekend.

 BOO! HOO!

And I am tired of dealing with ugly people at work. Not the people I work with, they are LOVELY and make working here very nice, but the people we have to speak to are sometimes not so pleasant.

Reading blogs usually takes me OUT of my funks because it forces me to focus on the little things that are positive and beautiful but lately it has just been making me look at my life and wonder why I don’t have a baby/husband/cuter clothes/awesome vacations/bigger house/better body/better job.

Then I decided I should have a snack. Sometimes I forget to eat and then I get really anxious and blue and then I realize it is because I haven’t fed myself in 30 hours. Adult fail. So I grabbed a bunch of grapes, ate a few, then saw one that had mold on it and had to throw the rest away. Why do I do that? Why can’t I just pick off the one moldy grape and eat the rest? I am fairly certain this is what normal people do with grapes, yes?

And I want a new blog layout but messing with code is more than I can bear at the moment.

I am sure I will snap out of it soon, I have a Katie Sokoler inspired plan to cheer myself up. But for now, all I have to say is 

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.   

BLAAAAAAAAAAHHHH.  

RARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

ps. thanks to summer and steph for missing my posts.  :) 

Road Trip

I am driving HOME today for a long weekend

to see my mommy and I am 

so very excited. I haven't been home since

Christmas. Isn't that awful? 

I only live 6 hours away and I haven't 

been home in five months. 

Crazy. 

I'm leaving tonight with my aunt and

we are so looking forward to our road trip. 

We have snacks and games and music to 

look forward to.

I hope that you all have a lovely mother's day, 

especially this mom to be 

and this mom to be. 

:) 

**photo credit www.weheartit.com

the process

Remember the other day when I 

was having a hard time writing

for work?

I thought I could solve my writer's block

by eating some delicious apples. 

but that didn't work. 

then I thought maybe it would help if 

I had some M&Ms. 

but that didn't help. 

then I thought perhaps sorting the M&Ms

would pull me out of my writing funk...

but it didn't.

then I thought maybe some 

great music would help.

but it didn't.

i did, however, discover that Nina 

likes a lot of the same artists I do. 

 then I thought,

'it's kind of weird that pandora is so smart.'

then i decided that writing on command and writing about topics i'm not really interested in is not for me. 

writing about random things like axolotls,

former secretaries and martinis is for me.