So Many Questions......

Here we go again - I love these!

1. What time did you get up this morning? 6:45am

2. How do you like your steak? Well done - no pink!

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? The Time-Traveler's Wife

4. What is your favorite TV show? CSI, 24, Deadliest Catch, Dateline, The Office, Golden Girls, Kathy Griffin's My Life On The D-List

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Here in Texas! But I would love to be able to go somewhere cooler in the summers....

6. What did you have for breakfast? 2 eggs & yogurt

7. What is your favorite cuisine? American, Italian, Chinese

8. What foods do you dislike? tomatoes, olives, beans, mushrooms, horseradish...the list goes on and on!

9. Favorite Place to Eat? Cheddar's or Sweet Tomatoes

10. Favorite dressing? right now it's Kraft Lite Asiago Parmesan - only 1g of fat per serving and SO GOOD.

11.What kind of vehicle do you drive? 2008 Mercury Milan

12. What are your favorite clothes? jeans, pajama pants, long-sleeved t-shirts

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Ireland/Scotland/Norway, Sweden - the whole northern Europe area!

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? It really depends on the situation and my mood.

15. Where would you want to retire? I have no idea, but I would definitely not live in MN during winter or TX during summer - maybe I'll move around like my Mom does.....

16. Favorite time of day? evening/night

17. Where were you born? Methodist Hospital - St. Louis Park (Minneapolis), Minnesota

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? FOOTBALL!!!!!!

19. Who do you think will not tag you back? Most people

20. Person you expect to tag you back first? Some people

21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this? Chris

22. Bird watcher? Not so much - they kind of creep me out!

23. Are you a morning person or a night person? very, very much a night person

24. Do you have any pets? a wiener dog named Maggie

25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? Just that I finally found a wonderful man to share my life with!

26. What did you want to be when you were little? a teacher (probably a math teacher)

27. What is your best childhood memory? Summers - camping all over the place, playing in the lakes of Minnesota

28. Are you a cat or dog person? DOGS - for sure.

29. Are you married? Nope.

30. Always wear your seat belt? every time

31. Been in a car accident? Just a couple little fender benders, but not a full-fledged accident.

32. Any pet peeves? LOTS and LOTS!

33. Favorite Pizza Toppings? pepperoni or sausage

34. Favorite Flower? red gerbera daisies

35. Favorite ice cream? mint chocolate chip or blueberry

36. Favorite fast food restaurant? Taco Bell

37. How many times did you fail your driver's test? None - passed on the first try

38. From whom did you get your last email? Erin

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? WOW - ummmm......Hobby Lobby, World Market, Target, or a decorating store.

40. Do anything spontaneous lately? I don't do that many spontaneous things....I need to get better about that.....

41. BF's name: Chris

42. Favorite school subject? MATH!

43. Favorite snack food? chips and dip

44. Favorite vacation spot? Europe or somewhere historical and interesting

45. Middle name: Renee

46. Favorite decor style? semi-modern, kind of asian, very 'square' - lots of square things

47. Favorite alcoholic drink? Frozen strawberry margarita

48. A secret you can tell: If I could tell it, then it wouldn't be a secret! Dumb question!

49. Favorite comedian? Kathy Griffin, Mike Birbiglia, Jim Gaffigan

50. MTV or VH1? They are both trashy and lame now. I used to like VH1 when they had Rock n Roll Jeopardy - it was SO AWESOME.

Running On Empty

So recently I have started going to the gym and I'm trying to get in a regular routine so that it just becomes part of my life. I am a very ritualistic person and so once a habit sets in and is part of my schedule, it will be very easy to keep up.

I am starting out with 3 days a week - MWF or MTTh. Then I will move it up to 4 or 5 days a week. So far, so good.....but I have found a few things to be pet peeves at the gym and I need to vent. (Thanks for indulging me......)


1. When I started going a few times in the evening, they just asked for my membership card and scanned the barcode. Great. Then I started going in the mornings and all of a sudden it was like I needed to be fingerprinted, give a blood sample and get a background check! They made me go out to my car to get my drivers license to prove it was me - along with my membership card. UGH. REALLY?? If you are THAT concerned about it, I have a suggestion - PUT THE PERSON'S PICTURE ON THE MEMBERSHIP CARD and stop hassling them at the door! I leave my purse in the trunk of my car because I don't want to lug it in with my other stuff. Now they compromised with photocopying my drivers license and then putting the photocopy in a plastic envelope thing along with my membership card so I could just bring that in. My gosh - what a dog and pony show!

2. I go to 24Hour Fitness (the gym that is used on The Biggest Loser), so it's not some tiny little place.....and they have NO towels AT ALL. What happened to gyms providing towels?? Maybe I'm way off base on this one, but I think it's annoying. And NO paper towels in the bathroom/shower/locker room either. Normally that would be fine, but it's so freaking hot in there that once you're out of the shower and trying to put on make-up, your face is sweating again and there's NOTHING to wipe it off with! There ARE paper towels out by the exercise machines so that you can wipe your nasty sweat off of the machines after each use (see #3), so now I grab some of those when I'm heading in to the shower area so that when I'm putting on make-up afterwards, I have my scarse paper products with me.

3. Even though there are signs all over the place and "Cleaning Stations" strategically placed all over the gym, there are still annoying exercisers that think that you want to touch their nasty drippy sweat on the machine that they finish up on. If you go to my gym in the evening, you most likely will be waiting for a treadmill, so when one opens up, you are running over to it to get on it. Well as I approached the treadmill, a VERY VERY sweaty man was finishing and just jumped off and walked away. I'm telling you, the whole freaking machine was wet - YUCK! And he didn't clean it up AT ALL. The cleaning station was RIGHT NEXT to this treadmill. HOW RUDE!!!

Beautiful Resting Place

Last weekend, I received a handmade, special gift. Not long after Chris and I started dating, I received the box in the mail from my Mom that contained 1/3 of my Dad's ashes and I didn't have a plan as to how I was going to store them. He asked me if he could make something for the ashes. I suppose that was unusual since we had only known each other for a month or so, but I found it incredibly thoughtful.

Chris asked me for dates, my Dad's full name and any images that I wanted carved on the wood box. And last weekend, the project was finished! I wanted to help, even if it was a little bit, so Chris let me help him stain the box. It turned out absolutely beautiful...Chris did a wonderful job and I think it's such a nice 'final resting place' for Dad.

I knew that I wanted to have the ashes in order to have Dad close to me in a weird sort of way, but I also did NOT want some big traditional urn to freak people out that there were human remains laying around. I think this carved box was the perfect solution. When you take the cover off, the top part is a storage area for keepsakes and little items, pictures, etc. Under that is the section for the ashes. The inside of the box is lined with red velvet (we picked that out together) and it's gorgeous.

I think Dad would be proud that we wanted to honor him in this way and now when I walk past the memory box, I can not only think of Dad, but also what a meaningful gift that Chris gave to me. What a great guy!

Here are a million pictures of the memory box:


"Richard Robert Larsen"

He carved the picture that I love of my Dad and I when I was a baby.....

1939 - 2003

Here's Maggie, being curious and checking out the box:


This is the top section for mometos, pictures, etc. If you pull up on that string, then it opens up to the bottom section where the ashes are kept.

He even carved the inside of the lid!

The dark color matches my living room wood furniture perfectly.

Coastal Oddities

As with a lot of my trips, I like to take pictures of 'oddities' that I find. Here are some of them from this trip to the coast...

Because of the oil rigs being near, there is sometimes tar in the water, so they give you a certain kind of 'wet wipe' to wash it off your skin. It's kind of weird - I never would've associated the beach with tar! Here's the sign reminding you to check for tar:

And in Texas, the wildlife is pretty hardcore - RATTLESNAKES?!

And this cool tree looks like a big huge bonsai tree!

On Saturday, after it was done raining, we went outside on our balcony and saw the coolest rainbow across the sky!

If you look closely at this picture, you can see the full, complete rainbow! No pot of gold, though...

And as Mayce and I were sitting on our plane waiting to leave Corpus Christi, I looked out the plane window and saw this - a Columbian Air Force plane with a Corpus police car next to it. Was it another secret mission? A drug smuggle drama? My imagination was going wild!!

FERRY Tale

On our way back to the airport and home on Sunday, we stopped at the actual 'port' of Port Aransas. We fed the birds, saw turtle and mini-jellyfish in the water and walked out on the jetty.

Here's Cody and Chauncey looking at the jellyfish in the cracks between the rocks....

Here is Mayce with a 'tipped-over' palm tree - I've never seen one do that!

There were tons of super cool boats there...

And I call this 'lazy-man fishing' - fishing poles stuck in PVC pipe!

Here's the group, just hanging out by the water.

As we were hanging out and talking, a government/military helicopter flew over us a few times - maybe a secret mission!

And one of the highlights of the whole trip for me was the car ferry that we got to ride on! It takes you from Mustang Island (where we stayed) back to the mainland of Port Aransas. We didn't use it last year because we drove a different way across a bridge, but this time we had a few hours to waste before Mayce and I needed to be at the airport, so we took the 'scenic route' which included the car ferry! I was so excited!

Here we are driving onto the ferry:

We were the last car on that trip - here's a pic of the back of the ferry - that ledge will keep us from falling off the back - HA!

Here's Mayce and Cody - enjoying the view. Man, it was weird to open the car door and step out when you are in the ocean! A very strange feeling...

Here's a view of another one of the ferries that was going in the opposite direction...

I loved my first car ferry experience! It was so fun!

The Salty Dog

After The Crazy Cajun in Port Aransas, we went to The Salty Dog for some drinks and some of the group did karoake.

The unique thing about this bar was that the owner had their dog in the bar and he just ran around and played with the patrons! I was more interested in the dog than the karoake....

He had his own 'perch' next to the bar. Love it!

And like any good Texas bar, there was a saddle right above our table!

Here's Mayce and the group, planning their next karoake songs...

The Crazy Cajun

Just like last year (and probably every other year the group has made the trip to the coast), the Saturday night tradition was to go eat at The Crazy Cajun. As most of you know, I do not eat fish, seafood, and I'm not all that crazy about super spicy food - so this wasn't my first choice of restaurants....but I just needed to take one for the team. Here's Mayce and I at the table....

The seafood eaters (everyone but Elvia and I) get this "Hungry Cajun" dinner where they just bring your dinner in a big metal bowl and dump it on the table in front of you and you just eat it on the table - no plates! The Hungry Cajun consists of potatoes, corn-on-the-cob, shrimp, spicy sausage and sometimes crawfish.

Here are some pics of their dinner:

And here is the nasty carnage in mid-dinner.....

And here's the pile of shrimp carcases after they were done - ICK!!

Last year, they had a chicken dinner that I eagerly ordered, but this year it wasn't on the menu - I panicked!! The only other non-fish-or-seafood option was ribs, so Elvia and I got that. Here was my dinner: (also served in a metal bowl that they just dump on the table - no graceful way to eat at this joint!)