Fact Friday

Courtesy of Fat in Suburbia I'm going to post some little fun facts about myself.

Since Drazil is away at BOOBs I thought I'd do my own BYOC-that's Bring Your Own Crazy where we answer questions about ourselves to get to know each other better. In keeping with the BYOC tradition I'm going to list a few Friday Facts about myself and hope that y'all care enough to read them  :)

• I am 30
• I have no children...yet...except for my little 85 lb four legged spoiled brat Wyatt. He's about 4.5 years old, a yellow lab, and quite possibly the best dog in the world. (No bias....at all.)
• I married Ryan 2 years ago Sept. 26th.  But we've been together for 7 years.  7 yeas. Wow. That's crazy.
• I have a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts from KSU, majoring in Photography. I know, shocker, right?  But I currently supervise the graphic design/print dept of an company in the aerospace industry. And do Photography on the side. Click HERE to see some stuff.
• I've lived in Kansas for around 20 years. First 10 were in Iowa and Nebraska.  And I've lived in the Wichita area for 4 years....I think.
• I love beer.  Any kind really, but mostly I drink Bud Light.  I also love reading and watching movies.  I'm a lazy ass.  I can admit it, and I'm fine with it.
• I do my photography as my hobby now. I did it 'professionally' with a studio and crap for a few years and got burned out. So now I just do it for family and friends, for fun.
• I am not banded. I have a lot, A LOT, of friends on here that do have a lap band or have had gastric bypass, and I just wanted to let you know that I'm not.  I started this because I was really unhealthy. Ate like shit and absolutely despised anything 'exercise'. I knew it wasn't what I wanted for my life, so I decided to try and change it. So far I am now kind of 'a runner', I hardly eat anything 'bad', but have not lost any weight.  Which, I'm kinda coming to terms with. It's probably all the beer I drink.
• I have 94 followers. Which just freaking blows my noggin that you all read this mumbo-jumbo. I think I shall have a jello shot party when I get 100 followers.  Yep, that sounds perfect.
• I am running my first 5K tomorrow. EEK. But I'm ready.  (Did you know that I could barely run more than 2 minutes at a time just 9 months ago, and now I can run over 3 miles!!) And I'm meeting a new running buddy tomorrow too. We're so alike it's kinda scary and I'm almost positive that once we meet we will be meeting more and more often to get into all sorts of shenanigans.

Have a fun and fabulous weekend y'all!!!!

Ten Things Thursday

Well, hello lovelies! Here's where I talk about 10 completely and ridiculously random subjects that have to deal with nothing remotely important, just about little ol'.....me! Try to contain the excitement.

1.  I have gotten up twice this week in the mornings to run.  Hey, I didn't make my goal of 5 days of running this week....but, two times is better than none, right?  And you know what? I have had the freaking best energy those days I ran. Like bouncing off the wall crazypants energy.  I plan on getting a run in tonight, then taking tomorrow off, because I want to rest up for my big 1st 5K on Saturday!!! I'm getting excited!!!  
And a little nervous.

2.  I've done pretty good on eating clean this week. I've stuck to a diet of an egg and oatmeal for breakfast, a salad and some sort of protein for lunch. Like this week I'm having a hamburger without the bun.  Snacks are sliced turkey, Chobani yogurt, and an apple. Then for supper I've had a salad or soup or something.  Last night I had the typical Wednesday night cousin drunkfest, so I had queso (YUMMMMM) and pizza. But I only had 1.5 pieces.....small pieces.....of pizza and just a few chips and queso.  Eh, I call it a win.

3.  I do really like the eating clean/healthy/not 18 donuts a day type of diet. It really makes me feel so much better. I've noticed that when I do eat a 'bad' choice of food that I get horribly bloated and have terrible stomach aches.  I just feel miserable.  So, that's been making me not want to eat as much crap as I do. Also, I've been listening a lot more to what my body's telling me, like when I'm full.  I never really paid attention to when I was really full until it was too late.  Now, at the first sign of full, I put the fork down and put a napkin over my plate.  The napkin trick is from a friend of mine who's a firefighter, if they didn't cover they're plate then people would keep serving them food, so he learned to put a napkin over it. It also helps that you can't 'see' the food and continue to pick at it.  Just a little trick for ya courtesy of Matt the Fort Worth firefighter.

4.  Don't you just hate it when people lie to you? I ABSOLUTELY hate people that lie. Hate them. Why do it? Why not tell the truth?  Now, I'm not talking about a little white lie or an embellishment of the truth. I'm talking about a straight to the face naughty pants lie.  I had someone lie to me yesterday. Actually, he told so many lies I can't even count them.  And I know they're lies because I went and talked to the people that were mentioned in his lies.  What do you do when you know someone lied to you??? I would confront him, but that's what I was doing when he told me even more lies.  UGHHHH! Stupid liars.

5.  Anyway, that was kind of a downer. On to more fun things! Our bedroom furniture came in last week!!! It's sooo pretty. And sooo adult.  We had a mismatched set of crap for bedroom furniture before. An old nightstand from the 70s, a dresser that was bought at a garage sale in college, etc. Not pretty. By the way, I will totally give you all that old furniture, if you want. Swear. Take it. You know you want to.
This is pretty though:

Yes, our tv is like on the ceiling now.  That dresser is soooo tall. And heavy. Oh it's a heavy sombitch. Now all I need to do is get something on the walls.

6.  I do NOT want to work today. At all. But I have to. Because my little co-worker had to up and have foot surgery and leave my ass here. Alone. Rude. For 3 days. Well, not completely alone, I have my other co-worker and she's fun, but she can't do my job for me like Rebecca can. Is it Friday yet?

7.  Looky looky what my hubby got for me for our anniversary:

I just love flowers. Love them. And him. I love him.

8.  Did I mention I do not want to work today? Because I really really really really don't wanna.

9.  I'm going to my mom's this weekend.  Y'all know there's gonna to be good stories on Monday because my mom is just hilarious. Her whole life is one big comedy show. Three humongous dogs, a boyfriend that has a revolving gun rack....in the DINNING ROOM, and her completely lovable but completely ditzy self just cracks me up. Wanna know the latest thing that's going on with her life? Well, I'm going to tell you.  Hardy, her bf, was having a hard time getting his gun and his self out the dinning room sliding door and onto the deck without spooking the deer that he wanted to shoot with said gun. So he put up one of those tents with just a roof and hung camo army stuff on the sides for 'cover'. So now he can walk out to the deck with ease and not scare the deersies and blast them to kingdom come. Normal every day things.
Here is my mom all done up in camo, on the 'covered' deck.

I'm such a proud daughter.

But isn't she so cute?!

10.  Lastly, to all my little BOOBs that are traveling to Ch-town this weekend for the little girls getaway: A) I'm so jealous of y'all that I could just hate you. But I love you all too much. B) Travel safe. C) Don't do anything I wouldn't do. But there's not a lot I wouldn't do, so you're safe. D) Have the BEST time!! And take tons of pics because I need to see all the fun and what I missed out on!! Next year I'm THERE!!

Tootles y'all!

Jordan has found my heaven!

Q: Do you know what this is?

 A: It's not a futuristic downtown skyscraper with a blackberry on top.

Q: How 'bout this one?

 A: It is not an alien spaceship from Planet Usuckatrunning.

Q: And what about this one?

A: Nope, it is not sushi.

They are jello shots people! FREAKING JELLO SHOTS!!!


The first one is: The Bramble (Lemon, gin, flavored gelatin, blackberry liqueur)
The second is:Cosmopolitan, Blackberry (Vodka, white cranberry juice, blackberry brandy, lime, Cointreau)
The third is:Cosmopolitan (Cranberry juice, Orange flavored vodka, Grand Marnier or Cointreau, Roses Lime) 


Thank you to Miss Jordan....the freaking COOLEST chick around....for bringing this VERY IMPORTANT BLOG to my attention.

It's a full blog that dedicates itself to different types of jello shots! And they give you the freaking recipes!!!!

I have straight up died and gone to shot Heaven.  Seriously.

Now who wants to come to our jello shot party?????
(Who thinks we'll be anywhere near sober after making all these jello shots? No one? Yep, my thoughts exactly.)

Anniversary weekend at Big Cedar Lodge.

Ok, so the vacation to Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri was Amazeballs!!! To put it lightly. The place is rustic....but oh so elegant. That Bass Pro Shop founder really knows his stuff. (He's the guy that owns Big Cedar.)

Upon arriving we had some time to spare before our cabin was ready so we drove about 20 minutes away to a nature/animal reserve...also owned by the Bass Pro guy.

Me by one of the many waterfalls.

Ryan and I by another waterfall.

 After seeing most of the canyon floor of this 1500 acres, we ventured into the animal reserve where there were elk, bison, Texan longhorn, deer and turkeys. Pretty much Ryan's dreamland.

Here come some cow (female elk) and a baby elk.

This is how close they got....like within licking distance. Not that that happened.

This would be the biggest horns I've ever seen. Ever.

A teenage bison (dark brown) and a baby bison (light brown). And I'm talking BABY, I bet he was only a month old.

A bull elk (boy elk). Very large and in charge.

This is another bull, you can see the 'velvet' on his antlers starting to dry and hang off.

More water falls.

Once we finished there, we headed back to check in to our little cabin. It's so darn cute you'll die! But first is a few other pictures.

The Worman House, where we ate dinner one night.

View from one of the pools to Table Rock Lake.

This is Devil's Pool. There's a restaurant, bar, pool, arcade and fitness center all in there.

This is from the balcony of the Devil's Pool Restaurant, where we ate lunch when we got there. Not a bad view. At all.

OUR CABIN!!

The view from our cabin deck.

Ryan and I on a suspended bridge before we went out to dinner.

here's the bridge from the water.

View of Big Cedar from the water. Our cabin is just on the right of this picture. you can't see it, but just to give you an idea.

More waterfalls.

View from the Lodge itself, where the 'hotel rooms' are.

Again, on the balcony of the Lodge.

That's the Lodge in the background with all the waterfalls.

Oh, someone parked our 'boat' right in front of our cabin for us. So nice. Thank you boat parker person, you will get a hefty tip.

One of my outfits. Hellooooo hips.

Remember the Worman House picture earlier? Well, this is the inside. Fancy. Very Fancy

This is Buzzard's Bar, last pic of the weekend. *Sadface*

 

Best anniversary ever! But since this is only our second, I'm sure we'll have so many more to come!

Check me out....

Hey y'all!

Just wanted you to know that i'm on Facebook, so if you'd like to be friends....even though most of us are already....but friends on FB, give me a shout!

http://www.facebook.com/laurawiksten

And if you could put in your message that you're from blogger that'll save me the trouble of wondering if your some psycho daisy may or 25 year old steroided freak lookin' for a hook up.  not that i've had that happen to me before or anything.

Peace out on the shortest blog post evah!

I did it!!!

I freaking got up this morning at 4:40 in the AM baby!!! And went outside and RAN!!! Shitlebits, it was tough. Really tough. I slammed my palm into the alarm then threw it across the room to shut it the hell up, dragged my tired pooper out of bed, then just stood in the hallway.....contemplating.

Now, first I got to tell you, I am NOT a morning person. AT. ALL. (Obviously if I've been 'talking' about getting up at 4:30am for 2 months now, but only just got up this morning, it signals 'not a morning person'.) You should just stay away from me in the mornings. Stay far far away. Until I have at least a bathtub of coffee, there could be violence and definitely there is NO clear thinking. (Although for some reason my adorable husband does not follow the 'do not bother, its too early in the morning' rules. He loves to pick on me. Like a ornery 10 year old mischievous stupid boy type of picking on me. Like gives me a wet willy while I'm still dreaming of frosty beverages and sandy beaches.  Someone remind me why I married that man.)
Anyway.

So for me to actually be up, then to be up contemplating anything, straight off puts me in a.....mood.  Who freaking contemplates at 4:40 in the morning?!  No one! Especially not a non-morning person.

Wanna know what I was contemplating?  Ya, I bet you do.

Just normal everyday things.  Like:

Ummm, it's dark outside. Like really dark outside.  Scary crazed boogeymen prey on stupid 'I think I can run' females in the dark. Outside.  What if I'm just jogging along and I don't see that broken up pavement, then faceplate on the concrete....2 miles from my house? What if I'm running and some rabid Cujo comes running out of a back yard and bites my ass?  What if aliens decide to 'study' the livelihood Park Shity this morning, then see me hocking loogies and coughing up a lung and think 'Well, that looks like an interesting specimen to bring back to Planet Usuckatrunning, lets beam it up shall we'? I could avoid the scary and just go to work super early....now that I'm up....and run after work.  But I know I won't. Because I'm a loser after work.  I should run now.  If I get sucked up by aliens, then lets just hope they have booze and shoe stores.

Seriously. These are my thoughts.

So I quit contemplating, got ready and tip toed out into the night....I mean morning.  And you know what, it wasn't that bad. It was actually kind of nice.  It was quiet, no bastard farmer in his Dodge dually trying to run me off the road, no kids walking their dog straight into my legs, no white trash no teethed mullet screaming at me from their low-rider 1983 S10 pickup. It was super nice.  And Cujo did make an appearance, by the way, but it didn't bite my ass off, just followed all sweetly behind me for about a block and then turned around.  Pretty sure I had to stop and check my pants after I realized he was behind me. Damn dogs that don't make a peep when they trot up to a person! In the freaking DARK! Leash your dogs people! Or get a damn fence. Jeesh.

And you know what else happened this early morning, on my run?  I got another PR!!! New record for a 5K is 31:29!!! Woop woop!  How is that even possible when last week I ate 4 sticks of butter, 9 cases of beer, and didn't run at all?  How, I ask you, how?  But I really don't care, because I did it! And I'm so proud of myself!

One little itty bitty tiny thing is I set a 'challenge' this week to run Monday thru Friday (totally inspired by my twinkie Angela) and didn't get up yesterday. So right off, my little challenge is an epic fail. But!!! I'm still going to keep trucking even though I didn't get all my days.....my new pair of TOMS will just have to wait. (That was my 'reward' for getting up 5 days this week.)  There's always next week to try it again!

Now I will leave you with a new purchase on my little vacation last weekend. Yes, yes, I will get pics up soon....hopefully tonight....of the vacay, just keep your granny panties on.  Anywhoozle, here's the new super pretty scarf I bought:

Wow, that picture doesn't even look like me.  Well hi there flat hair. And abnormally large schnoz. Lovely. Just lovely.

The scarf is tan with turquoise, purple, white, and brown. Then it has gold sparkly thread in it too.  Sooo pretty!! 50% off too. Oh yeah.

I am now a scarf person.  Does this make me more cool? Lord I hope so.

Ten Things Thursday

1.  Yesterday was all around a shittastic eating day.  Monster of all burritos for lunch....might have snuck in 2 donuts (yup that's right) also...then I went for Mexican again last night and had 2 cheesy delicious enchiladas, a bathtub of salsa, and seriously, I think I ate the restaurant out of chips.  No really.  The waiter guy, who was super peppy in an extremely annoying way, didn't give me another basket, after I'd already finished with my 34th basket, for like 10 minutes. Rude. I've felt like Sugar Turd Ferguson, with a serious digestive problem, for two days and trust me when I tell you that it's not fun. But today's another day and I will move on with my Clean Eating. Again.

2.  AAAaaahhhhaaaa, well now I know why I could have killed a midget yesterday for sweets and salt.......a little monthly crampage action.  I freaking love being a woman. Every. Single. Day.

3.  Who doesn't like the new facebook newsfeed bullshit???? Mmmm???  Oh, all of you? Yep, me too. Mark, please stop trying to screw around with a mostly perfect thing.  Please.  Because your constant changes are more annoying than a one woman pooper stall in the busiest drinking establishment on St. Patti's Day with 324 woman waiting in line to use it.

4.  Which reminds me, at the football game last weekend there was a 6-Man Urinal porta-potty. 

I love it that the first picture I put on this post is about urinals, so in your Dashboard you get to wonder what the hell I'm going to write about. It's just so me.

 Why do the dudes always get the better bathrooms?! I mean how many times have you seen a line to the men's restroom??!!! NEVER!  And I'm convinced that it's not because stupid frilly stuck up Barbies need to fluff their boobs and paint their ducklips, it's because they only put one....or a miracle TWO....stalls per restroom for the girls.  What kind of shit is that?!  In my extremely genius state of mind...while standing in line to my ONE stall porta-potty at the game, I determined that I'm going to invent a 6-Woman Potty. And I will be a kazillionaire.  You're welcome.

5.  I am now convinced that everyone at my lovely place of employment thinks I'm an 8 armed Goddess and I for sure am Wonder Woman because they think I can do 356,564,897,678,234.02 things every minute of the work day.  If it's not bad enough that I've already been on overtime for at least 6 weeks, my boss now wants to know if I can work over-overtime.  Exsqueeze me? Um, no. I have a life outside of work, and as pathetic as it is, I don't want to give it up. Sorry Charlie.

6.  My first 5K race is 9 days away. 9 FREAKING DAYS. I'm so having anxiety attacks like every day about it.  I am prepared. Kinda.  But, I'll be able to finish. At least I hope so.  It's just so hard to get up and out the door to go running at 4:30am. I know I'm beating a dead mongoose with this topic, but I'm just going to keep talking about it till I can finally convince my lazy body to get up.  And I'd work out after work but I'm so stinkin' tired that it's all I can do to fix supper and put on PJs.  I told Angela that if she can get up and get to the gym by 4:56am, then I can sure as shit get my pooper outta bed. But this morning, 4:30 came and went.....again.  But, I'm GOING to get up next week.  I can do this!  I'm going to look it as a challenge. Get up at 4:30am M-F next week, and if I do, then I get......ummmmm.....new TOMS. Yes, yes. That will work.
I really am looney tunes about the topics I write about. Jeesh.

7.  I have zero time to read blogs today.  And I didn't get to read very many yesterday. Because my work life is a steaming pile of buffalo shittlebits.  So, I'm sorry. And I'll probably not be able to read them for the next 4 days because........

8.  We are going here for our 2nd Anniversary:

Source

9.  And we will be staying in our own private cabin. Bowchickabowwow!!! (Cue sexy Marvin Gaye music now).

Source

10. And this is how romantic we will be:

Yes, Ryan, hand holding IS mandatory.  And so are the compliments.

Have a fantastic weekend my turtledoves!!! I will miss you.
(Don't do anything I wouldn't do while I'm gone!)

Burritos=Fat Beef

I just ate this:

Only, it was about 3 times bigger than that. Packed full of all sorts of goodies like 18 cups of the most flavorful cilantro WHITE rice, marinated chicken, super full fat sour cream and cheese, oh, and 2 buckets of salsa.  Only freaking clean thing in the tortilla roll-up of lard was some measly little shredded lettuce.

Now I feel like this:

Bad Laura. Oh so bad.
I do believe I shall refrain from eating for 3 days.  Or I'll puke in the next 2 minutes and feel all sorts of better.

Just shoot me now.

Eat this designers!

Gallery wall...what up bitches!! Take that Pinterest!

Oh, yeah, that's right, I have finished a needless project.  But it looks fabulous, so that's all that matters.

To get a good idea of where pictures hang, nail a pin-nail threw an old paint stick.

 Then hold the handle of the paint stick with the nail head on the 'hangin' spot' of the picture.  Place on the wall, where you want the picture to hang, and press. The sharp end of the nail will mark where the picture should hang.

I love my man hands.

 Lay out your design on the floor or whatever.

 Make cut outs of wax paper or newspaper and tape on the wall, where you want the pictures to hang. Then, basically wing it to get your pictures to look right.

Finished product:

Well, hello there gallery wall. Aren't you looking fab. And there's room to grow. Bonus.

Close up.

Starting from the top left is a wedding pic with the bridal and groom's party in front of a large green door, then the clock (with Dream on top), then a pic i took of the Flint Hills with a windmill, then a pic of Wyatt, (next row) then our fabulous wedding pic, a small gold framed pic of my dad in 3rd grad, a large rusted key underneath, a pic I took of wild wheat, then an old red metal lunch box with a wedding pic of Ryan's parents and us on top with an angel ornament hanging on the bottom (I'm obsessed with angel everything...FYI), then a gold framed picture of the original farm of Ryan's grandmother's family, a 'W' on top, then a black and white of my grandpa and a Navy buddy and picture of another grandpa reading my wedding program. The last tri-picture at the bottom is of our wedding also.

Side-ish view.

Amazingly I got all pictures hung with out slamming my thumb with the hammer....and I might have had a few beers in the process. Amazing.

Project #3286 complete.