sleep? who, me?

tell me how it is...that i can be sitting here, at 3:35 pm on this tuesday afternoon, perfectly alert and upright, when I have missed an entire night of sleep?! if I think about this sensibly, I should be snoring in my own puddle of drool right now.

but I'm not really tired.

I think something is wrong with me.

I chose not to sleep last night, in hopes of breaking a vicious pattern. I've been sleeping late up here in ol' Connecticut, till like 10am (hides), and then I can't go to sleep at a decent hour. Usually not before 3am, at least, and when I am in the bed, I'm often laying there for a long time before ever drifting off. Staying up so late, I then cannot manage to drag my behind from the bed. Vicious.

so last night, I stayed up all night. reading mostly. I have been a reading machine! I have not been asleep since...sunday evening/monday morning. I'm hoping I'll be able to get to bed around 9-ish tonight or something.the bright side of not sleeping is that I've been doing lots of good reading in the odd hours I've been keeping. I have less than a hundred pages left on she's come undone.

in other news, my friend just suggested to me that I author a self-help book. what?! like I'd know where to begin...perhaps with

"i am such a nervous fruitcake that I lie in bed till the wee hours of the morning, thinking of and worrying about stupid, irrelevant little things no one cares about. help yourself break this cycle! just stay up ALL night, after which you'll be so groggy and bitchy you use sleep as escape!"

personally, I believe it would be a best seller. hahahah

just random stuff because i am bored

*i have recently discovered facebook. it is a sickness my friends.

*i have read 4 books in less than 2 weeks--marley & me, the secret life of bees, suburbanista, and confessions of a shopaholic. today i started the mermaid chair.

*i got a pink cell phone (razr) and my mom called me a biotch. she was dead serious.

*i am scheming.

*you know those phone date line commercials on tv? here in Connecticut they have one called interactive male. just thought you'd like to know that.

*I hate the way Connecticut is spelled. It is kind of like the word Wed-nes-day. Why not spell them like they sound? Conneticut (drop the C) and Whensday (or Wensday at least). Stupid.

*i have been missing college a lot lately.

*i had some terrible boone's farm last night. i bought the wrong flavor. strawberry hill is not to be confused with strawberry daquiri. drastic difference.

*i can't really believe i am admitting to buying boone's farm. but yunno. what can ya do?

*found a new quote today that i liked...it was at the top of my gmail in those lil snippets.

"love all, trust few, do wrong to none." -shakespeare

thats all :)

this probably won't get many comments, but i at least expect one from chriselda...probably in response to the boone's farm :p

picture time!

so I got back to connecticut on thursday afternoon...and was soooo exhausted. wednesday night I had not slept. plus, I had my flight time wrong and got to the airport earlier than necessary (my flight wasn't till 7:50, but I managed to get there at 5:30am, ick). oh well. better early than late. was glad to see TJ once I got back.

I had a nice visit at home...being there made me realize how much I missed kentucky. lexington. being so near to friends and family. when I'm there, I might not see them as much as I'd like or should, but it is nice to know they are just a quick trip away as opposed to 8 hours, 10 hours, or 14 hours. seeing my sweet lilly girl was naturally a highlight :)

weston took the picture below...once he figured out how to operate my camera, getting it away from him proved quite difficult! :) i think he did a nice job!

after he took this picture, he wanted me to take one of him. how could I resist two adorable, willing subjects?

and while I was at it...

and since he was hamming it up...i just kept on going! he has gotten so big! *cries*

on tuesday, I took Lilly to be groomed. um, yeah. something went wrong. she got an old man flat-top or something. she's still adorable in my eyes of course, but the picture below makes her look like a bobblehead. (if you look behind her...you can see the results of a trip to an lss hehe)

this next picture has a story that I need to "jot down" before I forget it...cause I do need to scrap it in the near future! :) we were trying to decide where we were going to go eat...

me: "where would you like to go eat tomorrow, weston?"

weston: "umm...how about applebees? do you like applebees?"

me: "remember? your mommy and me used to work at applebees. is there any other place you'd like to go?"

weston: "well...there's one place. it's in richmond where my daddy lives."

me: "yeah? what is it called?"

weston: "richmond."

me: "no, the name of the restaurant."

weston: "richmond? i don't know."

me: "well, what do they have to eat there?"

weston: "oh! they have sour cream! chips! and hot sauce!"

me: "ohhhh! mexican food! casa fiesta?"

weston: "yep! casa fiesta! let's eat there!"

and so it was solved :) we were having mexican...or in weston's words, sour cream, chips, and hot sauce!

for the love of dogs

picked this up yesterday in the detroit airport. i was picking up my connecting flight to louisville, and on the way to my gate there was a bookstore. popped in, and this was the featured title. i'd been wanting to read this book for awhile, and i'm so glad i bought it.

ironically enough, i was flying home to see my own dog--lilly--who (unlike marley) is a little princess. i began reading before the plane took off, and hardly stopped for the next hour and a half. i laughed out loud, and the man beside me probably thought i was a little looney, but oh well.

yesterday, i was laughing out loud. today, i cried. this book was wonderful. vivid, full of emotion, and real--the perfect mix. marley brought joy to the grogans, much like my own lilly has brought joy to tj and i. she has added to our family...no, wait...she has enriched our family. tj, who never had a dog before lilly and who never liked dogs period, adores lilly and misses her and has so much fun with her. she has changed his life for the better. she has shown him about dogs what i could only try to make him believe. she has been wonderful.

if you love dogs, if you even like dogs...read this book. it is awesome =)

in other news....i'm glad i got to louisville yesterday and not today. today has been all storms and there have been tornadoes in l-ville. eeps. 'home' has been ok so far. while i'm here i'm hoping i'll get to see vanessa, trista, and shanna. it can be hard keeping up friendships as an adult, so i'm really hoping to see em.

visited 2 scrapbook stores on the way 'home' yesterday, and am hoping to make it to a couple more ;) perhaps you are wondering why i keep typing 'home'...well...it is weird. this isn't really my home anymore, yet right now, we really don't have a home. we are not going to be buying a house, as we originally planned...the timing just hasn't worked for us and we kind of feel like it isn't meant to be at this time. but we're looking at some places to rent, one of which is brand new, backs up to a pond/lake, and is almost 1900 sq ft. so i'm excited about those "prospects."

anyway, thats all for now. have a great weekend and go read the book ;)

pictures from the big apple

yesterday we had a ton of fun in new york! by the end of the night, my feet were killing me though....ugh! we were so exhausted that we did not wake up till after noon today. but we had a blast so it was worth it.

it occurred to me yesterday on the train that i did not know why NYC was called the big apple. so i searched it on google, but i'm finding a variety of reasons...not sure which is correct, if any.

anyway, i promised to share some pictures...so here we go :)

me at fao schwarz

tj and i on the "BIG" piano


radio city music hall


yummy godiva stawberries and bananas on a stick!


a drain i thought looked cool


me with my tiffany's purchase :D
i probably won't be buying that lens for awhile that i mentioned in the last post, ha!


tj in central park (i really like this pic)


the New York Stock Exchange


ground zero...one of my fav pics from the entire day. i love how it looks, but i also shot this picture completely manually and it looks awesome.


tj and I in times square

i'm so bummed that erica and i were both in new york yesterday! but i a)totally forgot about reading that she was going, and b)decided at the last minute that we were going. argh!

anyway, thanks for looking at my pictures :) leave me some comments if you'd like.

ETA: inside my tiffany's bag...a sterling silver bracelet with a heart in the center of the bracelet (not the dangly heart). the heart says "tiffany & co." i feel all legally blonde :-P