Not So Secret World of Stephanie

Just Call Me Betty...

2011-05-13T16:27:00.000-05:00

Some of you may not know this, but I am not a chef. My idea of cooking usually entails me heating up something in the microwave or watching my more talented friends chop, mix and make magical goodness in an oven (what? It’s cooking if I am supervising, right?) Anyway a group at my job decided to set up a recipe sharing folder. So I was determined to bond with my fellow coworkers and try and whip up a meal in my very seldom used kitchen. And I vowed to only use the microwave as my timer!

So I told Mary Beth, that she would be my guinea pig for my kitchen experiment. I also used her since she is quite familiar in the kitchen and could answer all of my questions regarding the recipes. So after work, we headed to Whole Foods and Albertson’s to find all the necessary ingredients for the awesome dinner. Once at home we promptly located the fire extinguisher, number to Poison control and a back up microwavable meal, just in case anything went wrong. I also put on my brand new apron (bought especially for the occasion) and pearls because if I was going to be a Suzie Homemaker, I needed to dress for the occasion. So with a glass of wine in hand, I began the cooking process…

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White Sangria
All great meals must have a great drink to accompany them. Also, I figured everything tastes great after a few glasses of Sangria. I still considered the Sangria to be a part of my cooking experience since you actually have to chop things and mix. Lucky for me, I have made it before so I knew it was going to be hard for me to fail. Needless to say, it was a hit! You can now find my recipe for White Sangria uploaded to Dropbox. Great summer drink!

Beer Dip
All meals need an appetizer, so I chose a beer dip (once again thinking I could trick Mary Beth’s tastes buds into thinking everything tastes great). Not going to lie, I was a little nervous about adding mayonnaise, cream cheese and beer all into a dip and have it taste great. Thank goodness my fears were firmly washed away when I took my first bite! It was so good and quite easy to make. Even Mary Beth was having issues not eating too much before the main meal. We also decided to spice up half of it with some jalapeno juice, which if you like things a little spicy went quite well. That’s right, not even an hour into my cooking and I already think I can change up recipes. So everyone should definitely use this for munchies at any party!

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Turkey Burgers

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Time for the big boy recipe! First of all I had to consult with Mary Beth at the grocery store because I had no idea that coriander was a spice. I also discovered that I had a peeler in my utensil drawer… yes, I have been at my house for over year, but that doesn’t mean I have any idea what I own.

So with all ingredients and utensils ready, I went to work. The cucumber salad was so easy to make until I found out that there was mint I was supposed to add, unfortunately I didn’t see that at the store so I had to leave it out. Making the patties was simple as well. Then yes, for the first time at my house I personally used my grill. So many new adventures all in one night!

Can I just say the turkey burgers were AMAZING! And with the cucumbers, they were so refreshing and light. It is a perfect meal for the summer (yes, I consider it summer when we are already in 90 degree weather)! So big hit and even bigger hit was I didn’t burn down my house. :)

Mexican Corn

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Since I was only making corn for two people, I only bought two corns on the cob. Unfortunately for Mary Beth and me, I didn’t half the recipe of the rub though. So I mixed all of the spices together and started put the rub on the cooked corn. I didn’t know how much needed to be on there and also figured since both Mary Beth and I are from Texas we can handle some heat, I pretty much put all of the rub on both ears of corn. BIG MISTAKE! I let it cook again in my oven and when it was time to eat it, I am pretty sure I saw (out of tear filled eyes) smoke come out of Mary Beth’s mouth. The corn was like eating FIRE. So quickly we tried to rub as much of the spices off as possible and try again….yeah, that didn’t work either. Let me just say though had I been a little bit less excited about making the corn red with rub, this would have tasted amazing. It was so good, we actually stilled tried to eat as much of it as possible…but eventually we were ran out of Sangria to put out the fires in our mouths. So word of advice, don’t use all of the rub on the corn unless you are used to eating habanero peppers as a snack.

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Ooey Gooey Cake

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So to finish off the meal, I decided to make Ooey Gooey Cake. So I pulled out my brand new cake pan (yes, I had to buy one that day since I didn’t have one) and mixed away. Lucky for me, the recipe was so easy to make! All went well on the preparation and cooking portion, but when I pulled the cake out of the oven I accidently tipped it and spilled what felt like lava all over my foot and oven. Not all of the topping came off so I let it cool while Mary Beth and I finished our meal. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and I served us up some slices of the sugary decadence. Sure enough it was ooey and gooey and quite tasty. It was the perfect ending to the night.

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

Lessons Learned

Aprons and pearls make everything taste better…as does Sangria.
Just because someone lives in Chicago does not mean they don’t know what spicy is…

Be very careful pulling cakes out of the oven. The topping will somehow slip between the glass and the actual oven making it so you have unscrew the oven door just to clean up…

All Executive Chefs should hire a Sous Chef that helps with clean up. :)

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

What an adventure! Stay tuned for more!

Chicago Show Week - Part II

2011-05-04T21:01:00.000-05:00

Alright let’s see…

Cubs Opening weekend: It just so happened to be opening weekend for the Cubs while we were in town. Unfortunately we weren’t able to make it to the game since we all had to work that day. We finally got out of the hall around 5 and decided to meet up with some of Joe’s friends who happened to be partaking in the festivities since 11 AM.

Now I didn’t really know anything about the Cubs prior to this trip, but apparently their fans are insane. They are very pro Cubs and even more pro drink everything in sight. So we finally make it to Wrigleyville. It was like entering a college campus after a game. Everyone was decked in Cubs gear and everyone was drinking and having a great time. We finally found Joe’s friends at one of the bars. We wanted to be at the same level of fun as them, so we started taking shots and downing our drinks immediately. Well in true form, we all got there or at least a little close. We ended up hanging out in the area for a couple of hours and even had dance party! The night ended with us getting another round or two at the hotel bar and then room service.

Then of course the next day was filled with a little bit of work and then we actually got tickets to game the next day! So exciting. So Dave, Joe, our San Diego buddy Mark and I all got to leave work and go to the game. Now all of my experiences at baseball games usually involve drinking beer, eating hot dogs and sweating my ass off. That wasn’t the case in Chicago. Did I mention it was 30 degrees the entire time we were there!?! Yeah, so we had our beer and hot dogs but it all had to be consumed while wearing multiple layers of clothes, gloves, winter jacket and a scarf. Needless to say we had a great time. I have even became insta-friends with a girl in front of us. Later when we walked out of the ballpark we saw her and she gave me a random free drink she had in her coat. Badass! We then walked to some cigar store and bought cigars! That’s right, I am so one of the boys. And by that I took one puff and decided that I would pass on that fun.

My awesome coworkers/Baseball buddies…

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Me and ‘My Boys’

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Wrigley Field

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CUBS WIN!!!

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Me and a Cub

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We ended up going to the same bar we were at the night before and saw the craziest magic tricks and I even had a dance party…again. All I can say is at one point and I had a circle around me with people exclaiming what amazing moves I had and even taking pictures…or once again, it could have been them warning others to stay away so that they wouldn’t get hit and taking pictures of the girl having a seizure in the middle of the floor. I am still thinking it is the first option. ;)So after our fun we finally made it back to the hotel…

Keith Urban: …where we eventually made it to a Keith Urban concert. Even though I don’t know any of his music, it was actually a pretty good concert. I was pretty tired from the day’s events so we didn’t get too crazy at the concert. Later we went out to a random bar where I got nachos and then pretty much begged to go home so that I could sleep. So crazy day, but very slow evening.

Big Girl Shots: On Sunday we had a big day ahead of us. We had to be on the show floor around 7 AM. It was a looooong day. Since it was the last day of show and the first day of move out we had an extremely busy schedule. Finally around 9:30 PM, we got to leave. Of course, I just had to have Café Bionda again so me and the boys planned on getting some food there. Only problem was the kitchen closed at 10. Let’s just say we were able to leave the hall, get a cab, get everyone’s order and sit down and get our first drink all within 20 min. The boys, two other coworkers and I all sat down for a huge feast. There was so much food! The restaurant finally kicked us out around 11 PM, so we did the next logical thing. We went to the hotel bar. After ordering a round of drinks, my coworker Dan (another Chicagoan) decided to get us a round of shots. What I didn’t realize was this was going to be my true initiation into being ‘one of the boys’. That’s right. Dan ordered Jameson…straight. Seriously, if I can’t take tequila or any other straight liquor, how did they think I was going to take the manly Jameson? Not wanting to disappoint, I took it. Like a champ. And like a champ, I kept it down. WIN! After that round we got another round of drinks and another round of Jameson. And with that we closed down the bar. So rather than just go up to our rooms, we left the hotel and went to another bar! Yay good decisions! Once again, more drinks and more shots later we finally decided to call it a night. Yay me I can take Big Girl Shots and still last all night long. :)

Dance Party USA: Once again our day was filled with work on the show floor and our night was filled with partying. Monday night we tried to mix it up a bit and went to a nice steak dinner. The food was amazing, the drinks were great and of course the company (my boys!) was fantastic. After dinner we met up with some more of Joe’s friends (I love hanging out with a local) and went to a few different bars. Then it was time for dance party extravaganza. The boys and I left once low key bar and went to an awesome dance party location. Since it was kind of early there wasn’t weren’t that many people, but the ones that were there were awesome. I didn’t do hardly any dancing, but still had a great time. Since it was kind of slow, we decided to go to another dance party location! I was in heaven, multiple dance parties in one night. I felt like I was back home in Dallas…..and did I mention that they were gay bars! Oh glorious! So we get to the next location where within 5 minutes I make a new best gay friend. This where the nights gets fuzzy…I remember tons of dancing, drinks , more dancing, getting fresh air, dancing some more and most likely some more drinks. Needless to say, we didn’t end up getting home till 4 AM. Thank goodness I was going home the next day.

All in all Chicago was so much fun. Probably one of my most favorite work trips to date. I ate tons of great food, had MULTIPLE dance parties, worked with amazing people and even got to go to a Cubs game. I couldn’t have asked for a better 11 days. So thanks to a wonderful city and to the awesome hospitality of my coworkers. Can’t wait for the summer….

Chicago Show Week - Part I

2011-04-27T20:03:00.001-05:00

So it was a good thing I had a prequel to what Chicago was like for my work week, because what was in store for the actual show was definitely not anything I could have come into without training. And no I am not talking about work…imagine that.

So after a week in Dallas, I headed back to lovely Chicago. This time I left all of my really big sweaters behind since it was so nice the last time I was there. I also brought dance party outfits since I was assured I would be showcasing my fabulous moves in multiple locations. I was completely prepared for Chicago...or so I thought.
Rather than bore you with a day by day rundown of my trip, I’ll give you the highlights…

Check In: As soon as I arrived to my hotel I got in line for check in. Well, lucky me one of the employees suggested using the kiosks. Little did he realize that the kiosk wasn’t working. Somehow amongst me threatening to yell at him (in a joking manner, of course) and the growing line behind me, he decided to check me in himself. So after I berated him in front of his manager (all in good fun, I swear!), he decided to upgrade me for the week. This consisted of staying on the 33rd floor (Penthouse!), free breakfast and free internet for my entire stay…and of course the envy of all of my coworkers. What can I say? Some people just love me. :)

View from my Penthouse…

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Viagra Triangle: One night the Dallas Crew headed over to the Viagra Triangle as it is referred to in Chicago. Apparently it is where old guys hang out and hit on the nubile ladies. Woo hoo sugar daddies! So we went to a little Irish pub and had a fun dinner with drinks. We decided to keep the fun going by heading over to a piano bar. Sure enough that is where all the Viagra poppers were hanging out. Although I think our entourage of people deterred them from getting too close. So no sugar daddy for me, but our San Diego coworker had to fend off a very hungry cougar. The night ended with me 'serenading' the table with Frank Sinatra and probably embarrassing the hell out of them. Then it was back to hotel in the dance party cab...

Dance Party in the cab...

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The Beginning of Shots: So on Tuesday night we had a company dinner with client. With over 20 people in attendance and an open bar, you can only image how hefty the tab was… We all ate at Café Bionda (you HAVE to check this place out if you are ever in Chicago) and had some of the most amazing food. It was a great bonding experience for the team, but then me and my boys (Joe and Dave!) decided that we had not had enough fun for the night, so we headed to a little hole in the wall bar down the street. To get straight to the point of bad decisions, our wonderful leader Joe bought the first round of our favorite drinks and shot of Tequila. Oh. My. God. How did my nemesis Tequila find me!?! Rather than be a good girl and let one of the boys take the shot, I had to prove that I was just one of the boys and could handle anything that they were taking. So down the hatch it went.... and stayed! I win! The rest of the night continued with more bad decision making. Joe and I played pool against some locals. I am pretty sure he got all of the balls in while I tried to distract the other team with sexy moves....which I am sure consisted of me trying to give sexy looks and poses but probably just ended up scaring the other team instead. Then of course, there were the multiple Irish Car bomb shots...once again I am one of the boys. Finally we left only to run across the street to buy lotion at the grocery store. Apparently we had to have the lotion that night since all of our skin was completely dried out by the water in the hotel. So I apologize grocery store workers with having to put up with us that night. The lotion was great though! Needless to say 7 AM came very early the next day...

German Food: I also had my first German food while in Chicago. It was awesome. Me and the boys had dinner with my Chicago twin and her boyfriend as well as mini Pleepleus. Then MB made an appearance as well. It was a very relaxing night and I am pretty sure we were all in bed by 11 PM!

Me and my Twin...

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Pleepleus drinking!

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First Dance Party - Chicago Style: So Thursday night The Boys, the Dallas Girls and me (yes I am enough personality and fun that I don't get lumped up into a group :) ) all went out to eat Mexican food and then have dance party. The dinner was great until we started talking about dance moves and my unknown new nemesis chimed in. First of all her name is Stephanie. If you don't know me well, I hate sharing my name. I like to be the only Stephanie in the group. Anyway, right off the bat she was at a disadvantage with me and not because of her personality...but then her personality made her my new nemesis. So Stephanie brings up dance moves and asks me what I like to dance to. Techno baby! Then out of nowhere she says "Oh it's on!" Uh, what? Did she just challenge ME to a dance off? Um, does she not know about Santa Hat night? Is this bitch crazy? So rather than laugh it off and accept her challenge. I went into crazy mode and decided to hate her. Yay rational! Oh yeah because did I mention my other nemesis was at the table and in my system? Yep, tequila always sneaks in.
Anyway, so we end up leaving the restaurant and head to dance party. So we get through the door and into the bar. We have one round and decide this was not the right location for us. So we all cram into one taxi...there are 6 of us....all grown adults. Since I am one of the last ones in, I get to sit on Stephanie's lap. I kid you not, the minute I sit on her lap she screams in pain. WTF! That's right apparently my light as a feather body hurt her...or as she said, I was hitting her broken rib in some way. Too late...you are now my ultimate nemesis. Someone give me tequila so we can make it a brawl!
We finally made it to the next location where I was the least fun person to hang out with. In true form, my boys know the remedy. The liquor me up with anything but tequila. This brought back normal Stephanie and of course awesome dance moves. Then more liquor brought about loud, obnoxious Stephanie along with slippy, almost falling dance moves. Needless to say I left on a very happy note, along with everyone else. Oh yeah, 6 AM on the show floor the next day hurt. Oh the things we go through for some fun on the road.

The crew minus my nemesis...

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

Since this became longer than I thought....stay tuned for Part II of Chicago Show Week....or as some of us like to remember it as Chicago Drunkfest 2011.

Chicago Work Week - Day 3

2011-04-21T16:41:00.001-05:00

So I am finally going into Day 3 of my work week in Chicago and everything was looking good. I was well rested and ready to attack the day’s assignments. Thank goodness we didn’t go crazy the night before because we had a big day of meetings and work ticket writing. Finally around 7 PM we left the office… and did I mention that it was St. Patty’s day? Oh yeah…

So after leaving the office, I call up my Blonde Chicago Twin (me and this girl have tons in common and we heard from multiple people that we were the same person except for hair color. We met for the first time in person a day before this.) and make plans to meet up with her at a bar. Of course, in my mind we were going to go to the hotel, change out of our work clothes and then I was going to change into my perfect St. Patty’s outfit…but the boys had other plans. Rather than waste time going back to the hotel, we went straight to the bar…and straight to the drinks.

Earlier in the day, I found out that I had a 6:30 AM meeting the next morning. OK, no big deal. I will only have a few drinks with dinner and absolutely, under no circumstances was I to have any shots. As soon as I sat down I exclaimed that at no point would we be taking shots….yep, I did! As you may have already guessed, my plans were not to go as expected.

So I sit down next to my twin and we starting chatting up a storm and ignoring the boys, her boyfriend and his coworker. I am drinking my glorious cranberry vodka and we are checking out the menu. So we have our drinks, we are chatting, I am talking smack to the boys and overall having a great, low key St. Patty’s celebration. The next thing I know, a shot appears in front of my face. Ummm….apparently I wasn’t loud enough to be heard when I said no shots of the night. I know, shocking. So rather than being a responsible adult and refusing the drink (ok, I did at first) I took it. It was wonderful. The next thing I know, we are getting more drinks and somehow they are coming out doubles and more shots! I was in full on party mode!

We continued to drink and I decided to make the group new friends. We met a random chick outside on a smoke break (no, not me) and I yelled at/wrangled a Spanish guy over to our table minutes later. Then my twin and I decide to be matchmakers. There was more yelling, more declarations of undying friendship and then the realization that I went too far on socializing. Oh sweet dear Jesus, I was drunk. How does this always happen? So I go into “smartest person alive with the best ideas that always work” mode and I try to order bread from the bartender. Yeah, apparently the kitchen was closed and all he had to offer me were oyster crackers. So I took 5 packs. :)

Queue Time Travel trip #2…

*Apparently we got in the car to go home where I annihilated said oyster crackers (as they apparently were everywhere the next day)
*We made it to the hotel where somehow I was convinced to get another drink
*Since the bar was closing we got another shot and drink
*Once of my coworkers secured a cab for me for the next morning for breakfast
*Somehow made it to my room
*Somehow set my 13 alarms

Finally I find myself waking up at 5:15 AM. Oh what an early morning. While getting ready, I find out that breakfast is now at 7. I call and reschedule my cab, pack up all of my belongings, check out and head towards my early morning breakfast….all the while feeling like shit.

The rest of the day was filled with meetings, finding out about the $500 we spent the night before, waiting at the airport and finally coming home….still wondering how I managed to survive the last 3 days. What was I going to do when I had to go for 11 days in just one more week? At least I had a quick training session.

Chicago Work Week - Day 2...

2011-04-15T14:42:00.002-05:00

So I woke up after a couple of hours of sleep ready to attack the day. I was a bit nervous going into the office because I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know what any of my new job responsibilities were going to be....lucky for me, it was all things that I knew how to do. So workload wise I was good.

So to help me and boys with our hangovers, we went over to Portillo's and apparently this is cure all of all hangovers. Yeah, not so much for me. I had the beef sandwich and cheese fries. Now mind you it was good, I just think my body wanted to hurt me even more since I hadn't been eating fast food and greasy food for a while. So while it was amazing while I ate it, I felt even worse a couple hours later.

So after one of the longest days at work, we all finally made our way back to the hotel to rest. Yeah, I was at that point I was so tired that there was no way I could fall asleep. So after watching TV for about an hour, the boys and I all decided to head out for dinner. To one of Joe's friend's bar... oh no.

In shocking behaviour, we all were on our best behaviour. No shots. No drinking games. No crazy dance party moves. Just a nice relaxing dinner and drinks. And in true form we all headed home around 10 PM. I do was shocked that all 3 of us could walk in a bar and still have the ability to walk out...sober.

Chicago was looking up for me and being responsible. yay! :)

Chicago Work Week - Day 1....

2011-04-14T16:54:00.002-05:00

So how do you get back into the groove of things? I like blogging, I really do if I have something funny to say or the most random story that I don’t want to forget. Then again, I also almost want to use this as a mini journal. As you can see nothing funny or interesting is happening, but I have been busy…

So the one thing I wanted most in my career is finally happening. I am traveling. In February, I spent a total of 8 days in Dallas. I was in New Orleans for the first part and then beautiful San Diego for the rest. All for work. Although some crazy shit went down, it is isn’t interesting to talk about unless you know the Trade Show industry. So I won’t bore you with details how I literally almost froze my ass off in New Orleans (seriously, I think I was on the verge of frost bite when I got back to my hotel one night) or how I had cursed booth in San Diego which I was sure was going to destroy my career. If you are truly interested in either story, then get with me later.

As a result of the cursed booth, I actually was promoted on another show (I was just as shocked). This of course meant more travel! Yay! So lucky me, I spent most of March and some of April in Chicago. So my first trip up there was for only 3 days. I, of course, couldn’t think of how I was going to pack my electric blanket, 13 sweaters, tights, extra pants, hand warmers, gloves, snow boots and anything else to keep me warm in a small carry on piece of luggage. So I finally knocked down my packing list to a few sweaters and appropriate work clothes and my winter coat. And wouldn’t you know…the whole time I was there, we had like 50 – 60 degree weather. Really, Chicago? You call this cold. Please I can totally do this.

Anyway, being overdressed (as in too many layers) I started my new role in Chicago and it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. On the other hand, my social life had no idea what it was getting into. I didn’t realize that it was almost a city wide law that whenever you decide to have an adult beverage you must also have a shot to go along with it. Now I am fine with taking some girly shots , but since college I haven’t really trust myself to take big boy shots. Little did I know what was in store for me…

So my first night in Chicago, I called up my coworker Dave and told him to meet me in the hotel bar for dinner. Not wanting to get crazy, I decided to have a salad and nice little cranberry vodka. No plans to have a drink fest since I would be going to a new office the next day. So after 2 very nice sized drinks, I was ready to call it a night and make my way to my room for a good sleep. Little did I know a former Chicagoan/coworker would meet us at the table. Dave and I had already paid and were done. Not in the cards…

Once Joe sat down, he threw our paid tabs to the side and informed us that we weren’t done and in true Chicago form mentioned we should get shots. Well unfortunately for me, I was in a pliable mood and decided that shots was the best idea anyone had come up with in centuries! So off to the bartop I run to order some Flaming Dr. Peppers…wait, what? You can’t light things on fire!?!?! What kind of crap is that? At that point, I couldn’t think of anything easy and fun so I ordered jager bombs…ugh.

Needless to say at that point, my 11 o clock bedtime was soon changed and my time traveling commenced. Scenes from the night play out like so…

*Take shots! Laugh, make fun of each other
*Order another round. Apparently since it isn’t a double, we go back to the bar to ‘spice’ it up some more
*Almost done….oh wait what is this? A shot?
*Boys go on smoke break. Stephanie is about to die. So I decide to split my shot with theirs….and I think I poured some of my 6th round of cranberry vodka out underneath the table.
*Bar is closing. Let’s go to a room and drink there!
*Smoke break and drink break on the balcony
*Somewhere around 3 , I have made it to my room and have set all necessary 8 alarms….
*TIME TRAVEL!
*5:30 AM – Time to wake up, hid hangover and somehow make it to work….

Yeah, so this was night one of my first time in Chicago. Obviously all good decision making skills are thrown out the window when visiting. We all did make it to work the next day without any problem…except of course the feeling of wanting to die throughout the day. All I could think was, thank goodness this is only a 3 day trip…

Oh, What a Night...

2010-12-20T10:55:00.001-06:00

So a couple of weekends ago, I went out for Dance Party USA with my new Go To Girl, Hanna. Once again, it was an official girl’s night out which includes bar hopping and amazing dance moves by all girls. The night started out innocent enough with us racking our brains to figure out the perfect dance party outfit and then it was off to dinner at Gloria’s with her and her five friends. Unbelievably we didn’t have to wait for a table and there were plenty of people to judge while we ate and drank.

After dinner we lost two girls to a random party and the rest of us trotted back to Hanna apartment for some pre drinks. In shocking form, Hanna didn’t have any vodka, or mixers… just my mortal enemy Tequila. Now Tequila and I have not been on speaking terms since my sophomore year spring break. If you were there, you know why. If you have seen me drink tequila after that episode, then you know why. For those of you who are blessed to not have been at any of those events, let’s just say it ends with me projectile vomiting the minute the liquid touches my lips.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. So we got back to her apartment to drink and for Hanna to change outfits. Just like an after school program, I succumbed to peer pressure to shoot the vile Tequila. And in shocking form, it stayed in my stomach! Score! The night was off to a good start for me… That was until round two of tequila taking which I was smart enough to not partake in… because of a simple little comment from me, I had one girl spitting up her chaser onto another girl who then projectile vomited in the sink. Oooops.

With a quick clean up we were off to drink at the Loon. Known in Dallas for its extremely strong drinks it was a great pre party location for us. While at the Loon, we happened to run into a Santa Pub Crawl where all of the guys were dressed as Santa. Badass. So after some conversation with them, we were invited to join them at their next location. Since we had drinks to finish, we let them continue on and told them we would meet up. Sure enough when we were finally leaving the Loon, we went to their next bar and they were on their way out. That didn’t stop them from ushering us all on their party bus for the next location of fun.

After downing a Dos Equis (seriously who was I?) in the party bus we ended up at Teddy’s. This is one of Hanna and I most frequented dance party locations in Dallas and in true form, we got straight to business. After a couple of awesome moves around the floor, I noticed that Hanna got her hands on a Santa Hat. After some of her awesome moves, she then gave me the Santa Hat. Of course not wanting to wear it, I thought about twirling it around. Then in what I thought was my greatest idea ever, I grabbed a second Santa Hat. And started dancing… like a rave kid with glow sticks. With Santa Hats. The worst part about it, I thought I was awesome. Sure enough the dance floor cleared and I continued my hopping and Santa Hat swirling. Finally after becoming breathless form the exertion, I gave up the hats to their rightful owners and walked to the side. Once I went to the side, some random guy looked at me and said “That just happened.” Yeah, it did. And a smart girl would have retired her awesome moves for the night…but not me!

After a few Santa Hat free dance moves, I saw the most glorious thing out of the corner of my eye. The head Santa had pulled out a package of GLOW STICKS! Yessss! The club was in for a treat. Sure enough, I grabbed two sticks and started wielding them around like a crazed Star Wars fan. Once again, the floor clears. And what I learned later was not to watch my awesome moves, but rather to avoid getting whacked in the face by my glowing whips. Trust me it is not a great feeling, since I whacked myself multiple times in my dance routine. Ooops.

To avoid further embarrassment, the pack of girls and I left Teddy’s and went on to another club. Once again I tried to re-live my glow stick dancing ways. Except this time the club was extremely packed and I know I hit a lot of people. Next thing I know. I am getting a stern talking to by one of the bar workers. It went something like this…”It’s not that I care that you have glow sticks. It’s that I care that you are hitting people with them. So if you aren’t careful, I am going to have to ask you leave.” Yeah, let’s just say the night just went downhill from there for me. We finished the night with a few more dance moves and then hanging out in a hotel lobby with fabulous drunk gays. Oh what a night…

Wha? I have a Blog!?!

2010-12-16T12:13:00.000-06:00

Woah! What’s this? I forgot completely about this website. As you can probably tell since I haven’t posted in forever. Honestly, it’s not that I forgot about it, so much as I have never been so busy. Since the awesome trip to Cancun, I have been running around non stop for work it seems…

So here is a quick recap:

August: Went as saw the Toadies again. Fantastic as always. My little boy got his boys taken away. Went to my first Burlesque show. HOT!
September: Woohoo! A&M football game with a win! My Cancun friend Jessica came in town and we ran the Jailbreak. Pics on Facebook of course. Tore apart my house and had Ben build a new wall.

October: Haunted weekend in Jefferson, TX. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any ghosts, but we definitely drank plenty of wine and cocktails. So just imagine us running around a small town at 3 AM looking for ghosts. Good times. I also went to Vegas for work and play. Wore Extra Small and partied my ass off with old friends and new friends/coworkers. Then home for a week, and then off to Orlando for another show. Met the ‘I Love You’ guy. Ridiculous.

November: Month started off with one of the best concerts of all time: Mumford & Sons. Completely blew me away. One of the best shows I have ever been to. Thanks, Erych! Then it was off to New Orleans for another show! Awesome dance party and awesome drinking with more coworkers. Then back home for the Margarita Ball where I became the world’s greatest Craps player. Which I am not sure if that counts since the dealer was making all of my bets and giving me free money. :) Then Austin for Thanksgiving. Great time with family and the discovery of one of the greatest shows: Lie to Me.

Parts of December: Clap turned 29! We celebrated with drinks and bar hopping with a little drama added in. I also came up with the greatest work schedule ever….no working on Fridays. December has also been filled with tons of Dance Party USAs as well…

Stay tuned…

Road to 29: TWENTY-NINE THURSDAY

2010-07-30T10:04:00.000-05:00

It was here. I made it. I only had one more year to enjoy the fact that I was young and in my twenties. Mind you, I would have liked to have started it at little later than I did, but my Mom had to be the first person to wish me a Happy Birthday….by calling at 6:10 AM. Noooo! I still had 10 more minutes before my alarm went off. Oh well, this being my favorite day of the year I guess I could enjoy it for longer then I had anticipated.

After finally getting ready, I made my way to work where rather than just walk around and have everyone say Happy Birthday, I had to get straight to work. I put in a very productive 4 hours with no time wasted on reading stupid stuff on the internet or chatting about nothing with one of my coworkers. But you better believe when the clock hit 12 noon, I was out!

After my strenuous ‘day’ at the office, I went downtown to have lunch with Angel. Being the fantastic friend that she is, she took me out to lunch to a cute little diner/café. We gossiped, ate, made plans for future happy hours and Girls Nights Out. The next year was already looking up.

After lunch, it was time for Me time. I went to the nail place next to my house, got a pedicure (which as Angel so lovingly pointed out on Tuesday was much needed) and manicure. It was glorious, until the woman tried to cut my pinky toe off. Oh well, at least the nail polish remover didn’t hurt….oh wait. So after my kind of relaxing pedicure, it was time to shop. So I jetted around my housing area and but not so necessary clothes and shoes. Woo Hoo!

Finally after a couple hours of that, I made my way home. Where I was greeted with presents! Ben bought me some square bowls that I have been saying were needed for the kitchen. After that, I got ready and we headed off to Eno’s Pizza in the Bishop Arts District. Since we were super early for the reservations, we went to the soda shop across the street and had a Cherry Soda.

Then it was off to Eno’s where we waited at the bar for everyone else. We finally went up to our table for more wine, awesome appetizers, salad and pizza. It was soo good. I was so happy that Jessica, Brent, Randy, Erych, Jon and Mary Beth all joined me for the festivities. The food was great, the wine was great and the people were even better.

Later on Brigette met up with us and we made our way to a bakery for some milk and cake! Perfect birthday! Although it was a very non rowdy celebration, it is exactly what I wanted. I finally made my way home where I had to pack for the weekend… that I planned on spending in Cancun!

Road to 29: WINO WEDNESDAY

2010-07-30T10:02:00.000-05:00

I had one more day to relish in my 28 year old status. So I figured I would enjoy it like a grown up. After work on Wednesday, I headed off the best wine bar in Dallas, Veritas. When I arrived there happened to a party/happy hour in full swing. Lucky for me, I know the bartender and without even having to utter a word, he had my glass of Reisling for me within minutes. Thanks, Ben!

Since the standing space around the bar could only fit heroin-esque models, I scooted myself outside and made the obligatory phone calls while I waited for the rest of my friends. I spoke with my sister for a bit and got to her how she was jealous of my upcoming vacation to Cancun and caught up for a bit.

After a few minutes, my coworkers arrived. So we made our way back into the bar and posted up around the fireplace with the big chairs. We split wine and, of course, had to bitch about work. Then we bitched about everything and anything that came to mind. I also got some advice from Rachel and Finula about what I can expect when I actually turn 30. Some of it was promising and the rest of it just sucked. What do you mean I’m not going to look like Jennifer Aniston in 10 years? Hangovers get even worse than they are now?

So after our bitchfest and doom and gloom you are almost 30 talk, we headed across the street for some Mexican food and margaritas. At least the conversation became more hysterical and less PG-13. It just makes me happy that not EVERYONE could hear us. After dinner, we all parted ways and I went home to prepare for my last year of being in my 20s.

Road to 29: TOP GOLF TUESDAY

2010-07-28T10:59:00.001-05:00

Tuesday was Top Golf fun for my birthday week. After work, we headed over the driving range and prepared for awesomeness. If you have never been nor ever heard of Top Golf, here is the run down. It is a driving range with a bar and kitchen. What makes it special is that all of the balls have sensors in them. There are also huge holes out on the range and when said sensor ball actually goes into a hole, you get points! So for crappy golfers like me, it becomes more of a game rather than practice for hitting balls. :)

All the other times I have been to Top Golf, my game has been horrible. I would get excited when the ball fell off the tee, fell from the second story and then miraculously would go into a hole so I could get points. This time around, the ball hitting gods were with me.

So after we grabbed our free golf clubs, we met up with Angel and Andy in their golfing slot. Since they were in the middle of a game, Angel let me get in some practice swings. Unbeknownst to me, I had acquired professional golfing arms! At least in my head I did. The ball actually flew towards the middle of the range…in the air….and we weren’t even on the second floor!

After their game, we waited for Clap, Mary Beth and Sam. In the meantime, Angel being the fantastic person that she is, bought me 2 dozen cupcakes (don’t judge, I love cake)! She grabbed those and we annihilated about a half dozen in 2 minutes.

Strawberry goodness!

From Top Golf

Chocolate…yum…

From Top Golf

Once everyone arrived, the games began. Since Top Golf is stupid and only let’s five players go at once, the competition was amongst Andy, Mary Beth, Clap, Ben and I. Yep, apparently I lost all skill. I came in last place. Sometimes it looked like I knew what I was doing and other times, it was just embarrassment. Although the best play of the night came from MB, after 4 missed swings she finally made contact with the ball where it flew straight up, hit the ceiling and fell 10 ft in front of us. It was so close that not even golf ball collecting car came near.
On to round two, Sam, Angel, Andy, Clap/Ben and I competed. I am also happy to announce that I came in second place this time with a whopping score of 64! My all time before that was 40, so I am improving! I am thinking maybe Bar Golf helped out too! Watch out LPGA!

Me seeing my future as a professional golfer…

From Top Golf

Ben making a shot…

From Top Golf

Pretty sure this one got MB points!

From Top Golf

Angel this isn’t backwards golfing! She just looks evil.

From Top Golf

We had a lot of fun and I am thinking we should incorporate some Top Golf fun in every month. Let me know if you ever want to join!

Road to 29: MOVIE MONDAY!

2010-07-20T16:45:00.001-05:00

I thought I would give my liver a break so I planned a movie Monday for a birthday celebration. After work, I jetted off to the theater to buy tickets. There was no way I was going to let the city of Dallas buy all the tickets before I could. With tickets in hand, I met up with Whitey for some pre movie cocktails. Huh? What can I say? I was thirsty.

We went to Mi Cocina where I indulged in two margaritas and some not so awesome chips and salsa. That’s right, working hard on my Cancun body.  We stayed there for a bit until we walked over to the movie theater bar with Ben. Wait? Wasn’t I supposed to be letting my liver rest? Oh well, Ben and I bought a bottle of wine. By that time, it was time to get our seats.

So all day long I tried to avoid any talk about Inception. My coworker Courtney tried to talk to me about it and I had to banish her to her office and then reviews were popping up all over the interwebs. So beside one headline on CNN, I was able to go into the movie with an unbiased mind. Needless to say, I liked it… a lot. I actually don’t have any complaints whatsoever…which as we all know is quite strange. Leo was fantastic and I actually liked that kid from 3rd Rock too! So if you haven’t seen it yet, get to the theater and check it out! I recommend going in with a sharp mind though and not a hazy one from wine and margaritas. :D

Road to 29: SUNDAY FUNDAY!

2010-07-20T15:57:00.001-05:00

What better way to rest your aching bones from a Dance Party then to laze around all Sunday in a craptastic pool? Well, that is exactly what we did… besides , of course, having to rest our aching bones.

So I bought one of those huge blow up pools for my backyard. After weeks of trying to get the thing operational, we finally were able to hang out in it. Whitey, Ben and I all jumped in before anyone got there. It was like hanging out in a huge bath tub. So thinking we were geniuses, Ben went off and bought 10 bags of ice to throw in the pool to cool it off. Genius! Yeah, that worked for all of 30 seconds and it only cooled you off if you were clinging to the bag of melting ice for dear life. Oh well, it was still pool fun.

Ben also fired up the grill and made the rest of the fajitas that we have had at the house. Once the food was ready, we all gathered inside around my mini kitchen island (because the table had too much room), ate some awesome food and enjoy another installment of “Hilarity of Clap’s Life.” We got to relive his playa days, his most recent mugging at a bar the night before (the bum stole his drink and ran off) and other captivating stories.

So after plenty of drinks, food and entertainment, everyone went their separate ways. We picked up the house a bit and called it a night by renting Alice In Wonderland…

Road to 29: DANCE PARTY USA!

2010-07-20T15:39:00.000-05:00

My birthday celebration week began last Saturday. My first event was going to be a Dance Party USA. I figured what better way to get ready for Cancun, then busting out some awesome dance moves. Well, I guess in my old age and everyone else’s old age, Dance Party isn’t as exciting as it used to be.

So I opted for Roller Derby fun. There was a bout happening that night and figured a lot of people haven’t gone to one before and some people might consider girls body checking each other on a slick surface a dance party, right? So I go online Saturday to buy some tickets and lo and behold, everyone in Dallas must have heard I was thinking of going, so they bought all of the tickets before I had a chance. :(

So Plan C, hmmmm slick surfaces, awesome moves….let’s go bowling! Not as exciting as an actual dance party or girls skating around in circles, but it was a lot of fun. We started the night with some pre drinks at my house and then drove out to Main Event in Plano. Lucky for us, we got some lanes pretty quickly, not so lucky was our very slow waiter. We decided to bowl for two hours. Yay for me, I wasn’t the worst. That title actually was bestowed on Angel’s boyfriend Sam. It is good to know he isn’t good at one sport! With about 15 minutes left on the lanes, we all decided to end the night with trick bowling. I am pretty sure I tried the not so graceful split while hurling the ball down the lane (woo hoo dance move!) and I know I saw some soccer moves and backward throws. It was a lot of fun. I got to hang out with some great friends and even my Dad. :)

After bowling fun, everyone left but Ben, Whitey and I. So we decided to play the games. Whitey and I each ended winning a random stuffed animal in the grab machines, we all raced motorcycles and had basketball hoop shot fun (what! What! I won. Twice.) and pretty much wasted money on anything with a bright shiny light. Whitey and I also got a great workout playing the Japanese horse racing game. We even got some awesome picture fun.

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

After all of the playing around, we all combined our points and bought a crazy hamster to let Sylvester play with, flashing mouth guards and some random foam disc gun. Yay presents!

After that, we went home and gave Sylvester most of our winnings. Only to get ready for the next day…

Ryan Turns a Year Older, Bar Golf Edition

2010-07-19T15:03:00.001-05:00

The weekend after July 4th we all decided to celebrate Ryan’s 27 birthday with a little round of Bar Golf. Before the festivities could be begin, a couple of girls and I had a burlesque party where we let our inner sex kittens come out and play. So we all met up at the Burlesque studio, pulled out our slutty heels, put on some long gloves and prepared to learn the art of seduction….on a chair. Not going to lie, it reminded me of my very younger days and watching some Madonna video on MTV (I told it you I was young, there were still videos!) and trying to duplicate her dance with a chair while my sister and brother rolled around on the floor laughing at me after they caught me. So of course when we were asked if we had ever done a chair dance, I denied it! We learned an awesomely sexy dance to some blues music complete with pulling off the gloves, slowing hip rolls and even leg kicks while on the chair. It was soooo much fun. I really want to go back and learn some more moves.

Afterwards I went home, c hanged into my golf attire and headed to the ‘golf course’. So if you have never played here is a rundown: Just like golf you want to have the lowest score. At every bar you have to have one drink, each drink is a certain amount of points. So a shot of vodka counts as 1 point, a mixed drink is 2, a light beer is 4 and so forth. You can also get points by accidently breaking a glass (1 point), losing your putter (5 points) or not wearing the proper attire (10 points). Needless to say you need to have a good score keeper.

So our first stop was Primo’s in Uptown where we thought we would be smart and actually eat some food before the challenge. We also thought it would be smart to warm up our bodies to the idea of drinking by having pre drinks…yeah. I think I would have been better at the end had I just stuck with food.

Anyway, we hopped to 9 different bars. I started off strong walking in a straight line to the bars, having a vodka shot at 3 of the bars, speaking in coherent sentences and all in all having a good time. I obviously took a lot of pictures and managed to look sober…ish. As the night progessed, I got louder, broke a glass, stumbled around, broke my putter, lost my hat, gained a new one, yelled about losing the original and somehow agreeing with Ben and some point that we needed to go home. Oh yes, I also managed to send out text messages, forget I sent one out and then send the exact same one an hour later. And to make matters worse, it was “where you be?” …so we all know my grasp of the English language wasn’t very good either.

I hope Ryan had a great birthday, I know that for the celebration I had a great time. Now as for the passing out in my bathroom, not so sure if that means it was a successful night. :0 Feel free to check out Facebook for documentation and make your own judgements…

Happy Birthday USA!

2010-07-19T15:01:00.000-05:00

I broke from tradition this year and started a new one in regards to my July 4th plans. Instead of venturing out to the Simpson Lake house, I went down to Austin to spend time with my family. After work, Ben and I hopped in the car and made our way to my brother’s place and had dinner with the fam. It was quite uneventful, which is good, considering we were a little tired from the trip. We were supposed to stay at my sister’s for the weekend, but in a turn of events that even shocked me…we stayed at Jason’s. Why? Because we planned on working out with Jason and Theresa the next morning….at 6 AM. On Vacation. Huh?

Exactly. Needless to say, Ben and I woke up early, changed into work out clothes (not too sure how those bad boys jumped into my suitcase) and headed out into the neighborhood for some interval training. We walked 45 seconds and then ran 15 seconds for 2.5 miles. Surprisingly it was a really good work out. Directly after our jaunt around the neighborhood, we changed into our swimsuits and jumped in the pool. All before 8 in the morning. The rest of the day consisted of going to some garage sales, buying fireworks, eating, blowing up fireworks, buying some more to replenish our stock and begin the creative process for the Greatest Movie Ever Made. Oh, and then we blew up some more fireworks. :)

That night after gorging ourselves on lasagna, we went out to a random little bar and watched the UFC fight. Then back home, all before Midnight. Seriously, this was turning out to be the strangest vacation ever.

That next morning, we woke up early again….and guess what we did? You are right! We worked out again. This time we went on a 5 mile jog/run. What kind of vacation am I on? Then back in the pool and probably blowing up more fireworks. We did some last minute shopping for the party for that day and began drinking around 1. Jason and Theresa’s friends started coming over around 3 and by 6 the party was in full force. Also around this time, we started filming on GMEM.

It all started when I bought a firework that shoots out 10 parachutes at the same time. Joking around, I said when it went off I would dance around while all of my little soldiers flew around me….which then started Jason and Ben’s minds working. They decided it would be funny to film a 4th of July version of the 50 ft woman. We would have some of the tanks attack me and missiles go off.

So after eating tons of food and drinking copious amounts of liquid fun, my movie career began along with Morgan and Augie. It was a glorious fight of the US led by Augie against the 500 ft Woman (what? I’m a big girl!) and Mothra (Morgan with a towel wing.) Lucky for Augie, the US won and we were defeated. Needless to say, good times! Once my brother is done editing, I will post so you can make fun.
The rest of the night was spent in the pool, across the street at the neighbors’ huge blow up water slide and in the front yard watching about an hour of fireworks being blown up, both by the neighbors and our party. It was a great night. Needless to say, I will be coming back next year for more fun.

The weekend ended with brunch and Ben and I heading back to the Big D. And this time, we managed to make it home without a flat tire. So all in all, a very fun weekend.

Brought to you by Googalender...

2010-06-01T15:16:00.000-05:00

So another busy month has passed and I have once again neglected to update my blog. And to think I was doing so well the last couple of months. So here goes nothing.

Warrior Dash – Wow, probably one of the most fun days of May. If you hadn’t heard about Warrior Dash, you missed out. It was a 3.8 mile obstacle course out in Forney, TX. The obstacles consisted of mud pits, jumping over fire, swimming through a pond and other ridiculous things to make you get dirty. A big group of us ran it… or if you decided to keep pace with me, you ran, walked and photographed almost every step of it. Afterwards, we drank free beer and sported our muddy outfits. After washing off the mud, my skin was super soft. It felt like I went to the spa.

Quote of the ‘race’: “F*ck you, mud!” then .3 seconds later the mud took it’s revenge and I slipped and landed on my butt…once again getting my white tutu even dirtier.

Veiwing pleasure:

From Warrior Dash

Party Boat - Some of Ryan’s friend decided to rent a party boat for a collective birthday celebration. It was decent weather that day, but by no means was it hot. That didn’t stop us from getting in the water. Mostly because we were warming our bodies with Riot Punch and beer. We also played beer pong, flip cup and ‘nourished’ ourselves with cake and pizza. So much fun! Angel and I even escaped for a bit on a speed boat and got in on some random gossip/drama. Funzies!

Viewing pleasure:

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

After the boat, Clap, Ben and I all headed over to Garland to help Katy celebrate turning 29. She picked an awesome place where they serve you mini pitchers of Sangria with a straw. Don’t mind if I do! We hung out there for a while and then all went our separate ways. Which consisted of Ben, Clap and I passing out the minute we walked in the door.

More boat fun and Roller Derby - This is definitely a contender for best day in May. Early in the afternoon, Ben and I headed over to Ryan’s house so we could go back out to Lake Lewisville and enjoy some lake fun. Of course the weather was crap for most of the day. It was overcast, but still warm enough to hang out and get in the water a little bit. Then we decided to try some wakeboarding fun…and lucky us the sun came out! So after a long day of boat fun, we all decided to check out the local Roller Derby bout that just so happens to be 5 minutes away from the house! It was bring your own beer and chair. We set up shop on one of the turns where proceeded to form the rules to the drinking game… Everytime the announcer said Lead Jammer, you had to drink. Every time he announced one of our favorite players, you had to drink. Did he just say Strategery? Yep, drink! Since we aren’t the slyest, nor quietest groups of all the announcer soon caught on to our plan. Needless to say, they repeated Lead Jammer everytime. It was fantastic! It also helped with us making the largest beeraymid at the bout! Afterwards, we hung out at the after party and planned to go again in the near future. So much fun!

River - Another week of work and we were off to New Braunfels/Austin for some river floating fun. We celebrated Whitey finishing finals and the beginning to summer. The river was freezing, but we had some pretty decent weather. We also had the worst dinner ever while we were there at Daisy Dukes… but then again, that place never seems to bring me luck. The rest of the weekend, I hung out at my sister’s house. It was surprisingly a relaxing weekend. Good times, nonetheless.

Memorial Weekend - The weekend started off wonderfully! Ben took me to go see Avenue Q at the new Opera house. It was gorgeous and their drinks are awesome which you can have in the auditorium! If you have never seen Avenue Q and you get the chance, you have to go. It was hilarious! Ben and I are still laughing about it. We then ended the night at Veritas for a bottle of Reisling and then back home. Fantastic date night.

On Saturday, we attended Adult Field Day. Yep, it is exactly what it sounds like… we reverted back to our elementary school selves and played games all of course while drinking. :D Some of the events were: Three Legged Race (Mary Beth and I kicked ass!), Egg Relay, Egg Toss, Tug of War, Tricycle Race and more. After all of the games, everyone played a round of kickball. It was a lot of fun. Then we went to the pool and grilled out. I am hoping we do it again!

Sunday I barely left the house. I went a got a pedicure and that was the most of my exposure to the outside world that day. Great day of relaxing.

Monday Ben and I went with my Mom and her friends to the new Choctaw Casino in Oklahoma. I lost all of my money, but we had a great time. The rest of the day was hanging out on the couch with Whitey and Ben making fun of the awesome acting in Pearl Harbor.

Kickball – And last but not least, I have revived the Balls and Snatchers for another season. We have actually won games this summer! We even got our act together and got shirts. Here is hoping with can continue to kick ass and win another championship!

Viewing pleasure:

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

Housewarming Fun

2010-05-11T16:35:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, Ben and I threw our housewarming party. Miraculously, everything came together at the last minute. Even the guest bedroom that I decided had to be painted 2 nights prior. Not much really to tell except that I had so much fun and enjoyed seeing all of our friends a family. I did get multiple requests for the recipes so here they are:

Black Bean Dip

--1/2 onion finely chopped
--Cumin
--Paprika
--Cayenne
--Garlic Powder

--Pureed Beans in blender w/onions w/ liquid
--two tblsp of oil in pan
--pour beans in pan, add seasoning to taste
--reduce on low heat, stir occasionally

Avocado Sour Cream

--2 pints of sour cream
--1 bunch of cilantro
--2 fresh jalapenoes
--juice of 6 limes
--2 avocados
--puree all i blender
--Seaon garlic powder and salt to taste

We blended everything in the blender. Serve with Santitas!

Salsa

--8 Core tomatoes
--1/2 onion medium chop
--4 de-stem jalapenoes
--drizzle with olive oil
--roast in oven at 375, until tomatoes are charred
--let cool for 15 minutes
--peel tomatoes and jalapenos
--1 bunch of cilantro chopped
--Dice and mix everything
--Add leftover juice to mixture
--Season with salt/pepper

White Sangria

-- White Box wine
-- 2/3 Cup Sugar
-- Peach canned drink from Mexican Supermarket
-- 2 Gala Apples Chopped
-- 2 Granny Smith Apples Chopped
-- Couple of Drops of Vanilla
-- 3 cans of Sprite/7 Up
-- Strawberries for Garnish

Chop up all of the apples and add to white wine. Also, add sugar, peach drink, vanilla. Let sit overnight. When ready to serve, add Sprite and serve over ice.

Let me know if you guys need any other recipes! I am sure I can get some more out of Fernando.

Fort Worth Zoo Run

2010-04-29T16:39:00.005-05:00

In two days I will be partaking in the fun known as Warrior Dash. If you know nothing about it, look it up. To prepare for said fun, a group of us decided we would participate in the Fort Worth Zoo Run. It is a 5K that takes you through the Zoo and the surrounding neighborhoods. I have participated in one other 5K before this. That was the Susan G Komen 5K about 3 years ago. I wanted to run it, but I wasn’t in the right area and walked for most of it.

This time I decided I was going to run and not stop. Mind you, the farthest I have ever run nonstop has been 2 miles and that was for boot camp. Did I mention I haven’t really worked out or even ran since I stopped in November? So yeah, the 5K was going to be fun.

I asked Ben about a week before how long a 5K was. He told me it was 2.5 miles. Awesome! I could totally do that. So I met up with my team the morning of…we were called the WolfPack and had all planned on getting fantastic wolf shirts to run in. Since my team was also made up of slackers, we never got the shirts. So I decided to make my own, at 10 o clock the night before...true slacker style. Yeah, apparently Michael’s does not sell Wolf patches or anything of the such! So I was stuck with a shirt that said Wolf Pack with two painted paw prints (I thought they were glittery patches, but ended up being stencils). Me so SMRT!

Needless to say, I got out there early with my perfectly made Running Fun playlist and stood around in the rain while we waited for out turn. It is always so exciting right before a run. There really is a weird energy of anticipation, fear (at least for me) and all around good spirits. There were also a crap load of kids...some parents are geniuses. Little Susie, this will be so much fun...here eat all of this sugar and go run to your hearts content. Make sure you annoy all of the other people here and not me though. Damn, those parents.

Finally, we lined up and started the ‘fun.’ I put my playlist on shuffle and was pleasantly surprised by the perfect first song: Animal by Miike Snow. That’s right, people! I am an animal running through the zoo! Watch out…

That was until I got to the first hill. Sweet Jesus! Where did that thing come from? I used to work at the zoo and I didn’t remember a hill. I magically got over it without stopping my run and continued. I passed all of the water areas, mostly because I figured I would never run again if I stopped. I even came to another awful hill, even bigger than the first. Once again, I made it over and didn’t stop.

I weaved through the neighborhoods and honestly thought I wasn’t going to make it. I kept my pace the entire time. Now mind you, an old man on a walker could have passed me but I still didn’t stop ‘running.’ Finally, I got to the best thing of all. The downward hill. I seriously almost started crying. I saw one of the volunteers shouting something so I took out my headphone and heard that I only had ½ mile left. Once again, tears almost came. Now I know this is nothing like a marathon, but it really is a big thing for me. I am not a runner and my body does not want me to be a runner, but somehow we both got through it.

Finally, I am almost to the end and I can see the finish line and that is when my iPod changed to the most perfect song ever….. Wolf Like Me by TV on the Radio. At this moment, I thought of my awesome friend Tara who finished her second marathon recently and had the most perfect song for her play at the end. This was mine. Without even knowing where the energy came from, I increased my speed to Old Man on Scooter and finished my first running 5K. And it only took me about 40 min! Haha, I told you I was slow. Later on that day is when I actually learned that I ran 3.1 miles. Had I known that going in, I probably would have walked.

So in true Warrior Dash training mode, I soon sped off to Dallas for the Pub Crawl for Cancer…

Ugh, Why Me?

2010-04-22T12:44:00.001-05:00

When I was in high school, I worked at the Zoo for a bit. While there I formed a crush on one of my coworkers. Nothing ever came of it and I went off to the glorious world of College. While in college, my Zoo Crush got in contact with me and we ended up going on a date and in true Stephanie style I never talked to him again.

Fast forward to after college… with the beauty of Myspace and putting all of your information out the web, my crush found me when I was working at Neimans. We emailed back and forth for like 2 days. He wanted to go out but I was already in a relationship…so it wasn’t going to happen.

Then I don’t hear from him for another year… then the same story. Out of the blue he emails me and I try to have nice innocent conversations with him and he wants to meet up. Once again, not gonna happen.

So almost every year, I randomly hear from him. The last time, I think he hit me up on Myspace through his friends account. I asked him what he was up to and he said he had gone into the world of dancing at private parties. Oooook. I , of course, laughed it off. He then proceeded to say he was serious and asked if I wanted to see pictures. At that point, I stopped responding.

Tuesday while I was taking a break from working, I checked my personal email. I saw that I had my random, yearly email from my ‘friend.’ That is when I did the worst thing you could ever do….I opened the email. Only to have my eyes accosted by a man standing at his bathroom mirror……BUTT NAKED!!!! AGH! How is it possible that now I have a cyber flasher!?! I mean really…who does that?

Needless to say, I immediately starting hyper-ventilating that I just accidently looked at porn at work. Then I told my coworker, called another coworker and told her….then we called another coworker and told her. I then got on the phone to Mary Beth (didn’t want to have an HR violation) and told her. Then, of course, I called Ben.

In conclusion, my inbox is now clean from said flashing incident. Everyone I know now knows about it, including my poor Mom.

Although, it makes me wonder….could this have been my flasher from the downtown parking garage? Thank God, I moved. :D

And you are very welcome that this post did not include pictures!

Laura's Married - Wedding Day!

2010-04-21T14:11:00.000-05:00

The day of the wedding, we woke up early. We had a few things that needed to be accomplished but it was actually a very smooth day. I had breakfast at the hotel with my Mom, brother, sister and Auntie Bea. We sat around for a bit and talked. We even saw them setting up for the wedding below.

Afterwards, my brother, mother and I all set out for some last minute errands. We picked up a cake topper for my sister, a card box and a pineapple. Now why in the world would you need a pineapple for the wedding? Well, my cousin got married a couple of months ago. At her wedding, she reserved a seat for my grandmother who passed away. My mom was chosen to set some lilies on the seat for her. It was a very emotional time. My mom was crying, I was crying while trying to take pictures… Anyway, for my sister we decided to pick up a pineapple (my grandmother loved them and collected them) for her seat. So while we are talking about it, my mom starts crying while we are trying to check out at the grocery store. That makes me start crying…and of course, believe it or not, my brother starts crying too! All while trying to buy a pineapple.

After that fiasco, I ran the rest of the errands with Ben and my mom and brother went to shuttle people around for hair appointments. I then went to buy decorations to make the pineapple pretty. Soon enough, the day was becoming more about the pineapple than my poor sister.

Finally I got my hair done, went back to the hotel, got ready, set up arrangements for the pineapple (my uncle got to drop it off this year) and helped my sister get ready. We pretty much hung out in the room and a glass of champagne. Finally it was time for the big event…

It was such a pretty ceremony and everything went perfect. I even almost started crying when my sister walked down the aisle…

The pineapple!

From Laura's Wedding

Waiting to walk out…

From Laura's Wedding

They’re married!

From Laura's Wedding

Then it was off to cocktail hour and the reception!

My Dad and I at the cocktail hour

From Laura's Wedding

Drinkie!

From Laura's Wedding

At the reception, I definitely showed off some of my awesome dance moves. Morgan and I even brought back the signature dance move from the bachelorette party. I even gave an AWESOME Maid of Honor speech. Maybe I will even post the video one day…

Awesome dance moves?

From Laura's Wedding

The pineapple is on the dance floor!

From Laura's Wedding

My sister’s dance moves!

From Laura's Wedding

When the reception was over, we decided to end the night in the hotel lobby bar. I showed up with a practically empty bottle of champagne and finished off at the bar. In true Stephanie style, I also decided to let the entire hotel know how loud I can get. Which eventually led to me being cut off by the bartender… Yeah, I wasn’t even drunk. Thanks to my brother though, he talked to the bar manager and got me put back on! It was awesome wedding and night. Can’t wait for the next wedding! Although I can’t promise to control the volume of my voice…

Last drink of the night after getting back on the drinking list

From Laura's Wedding

Laura's Married - Rehearsal Day

2010-04-21T13:44:00.002-05:00

About two weeks ago, my sister got married in Austin. It was an amazing wedding and more amazing to see how happy her and Jimmy are. I got to spend a lot of quality time with her and my family and it was fantastic.

On Friday night, we had the rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner. If you didn’t know any of the family members from either side, there was clear divide at the table we had. That divide was volume…..as you can guess my family is WAY louder than my sister’s new in-laws.

It was such a great dinner. We ‘hated’ on my Dad while he gave his emotional speech to the couple, we drank, ate and drank some more all the while trying to be funnier than the next person. I pretty sure Jimmy's family wanted to take him and run. Although after awhile, I think they finally got used to us.

I, of course, was looking at the painting the entire time and commenting on how freaky they were just looking at me and judging me while I ate. So I decided to join the painting…which of course Jimmy, Laura and Theresa all joined me.

From Laura's Wedding

Afterwards, we went to Sixth street. We stopped at Pete’s Piano bar. If you don’t’ know, this is my least favorite place of all time. I was super excited to be there…

From Laura's Wedding

Finally we left and made it two doors down to Touche. Oh man, does my family love shots. Especially when they are 1 dollar! Ugh, soooo much drinking.

Flaming Dr. Pepper’s…and they were more than a dollar

From Laura's Wedding

Awful dollar shots…

From Laura's Wedding

After another bar, I set off for home so that I could wake up at 7 AM for the big day. :D

Move Over, Martha!

2010-04-12T15:04:00.002-05:00

A couple of years ago, I decided to make a scrapbook for my parents’ anniversary. Having never delved into the uber crafty world of scrapbooking, I immediately took lessons from my good friend Tara…a master of the art. She taught me the tricks of the trade, let me borrow her supplies and even took many trips with me to Michael’s to get fun material.

The book seriously took me months and it was a great hit. Since then I haven’t scrapbooked but I have used scrapbooking materials to personalize gifts and cards. All thanks to Tara, I am an even more amazing gift giver!

For one of my gifts to my sister, I decided I wanted to make her a personalized guestbook for her wedding. Since her colors were blue, black and white, I made sure that was the only theme I went with…the hardest part about making the book was having my sister take pictures of her and Jimmy. It is amazing how different we are…

Anyway, here are some shots from the finished product!

Cover (FYI – The bridesmaids held bouquets of hydrangea)…

From Guestbook

First page. Her and Jimmy met on an online game…here are their avatars sitting by the fire…

From Guestbook

First time using fun stamps!

From Guestbook

I love the flowers that they have come out with…

From Guestbook

Heart Cut Outs…these sucked to glue…

From Guestbook

More game pics…

From Guestbook

Fun paisley thingies… yes, that is the technical term for the blue things

From Guestbook

To see all the pages, feel free to click on a picture.

It was so much fun to make…and I finished it all in two nights! Yay me. :D

Viva la Whitey!

2010-04-06T16:26:00.000-05:00

Not two days after I got home from New Orleans, Ben and I hopped on a plane to Las Vegas to help my friend Whitey bring in his 30s with a bang. Our Vegas fun started at 8 AM in Vegas. So Ben and I got some breakfast and walked around until everyone else showed up. That is when the gambling began…as many times as I have been to Vegas, I don’t think I have gambled this much.

Our first night we gambled and we let Adam make the worst decision for us. He convinced us all that we needed to drink those awful frozen drinks out of the yard glasses. NEVER AGAIN. He then redeemed himself by introducing us to Slots A Fun. Awesome and cheap gambling. And I won! Only to then walk across the street to Riviera and give them my winnings. So first night… gambling and awful drinks.

Ugh, worst drink container ever…

From Vegas - Whitey's Bday

The next day we gambled some more. I think I took a much needed nap in the afternoon, just to wake up and gamble some more. Ooh, I also rode the roller coaster with Whitey at New York, New York. So much fun! Then it was off to the Whitey’s birthday celebration at the Spearmint Rhino. Yeah, not much to report on there. A couple of us, left early and passed out.

Limo fun on the way to the Rhino:

From Vegas - Whitey's Bday

Then it was gambling AGAIN. Walking more, eating some and of course more gambling. On the last night we decided to hit up Studio 54 at the MGM. FUN!!! I showed awesome dance moves and made random friends for the boys. Mostly though, I danced. Then after getting all liquored up…we gambled some more! Finally passing out around 3ish.

Pre party before Studio 54:

From Vegas - Whitey's Bday

Maybe it is an angry dance move?

From Vegas - Whitey's Bday

Still at Studio 54..

From Vegas - Whitey's Bday

Finally leaving the dance floor…

From Vegas - Whitey's Bday

The next day we took it easy. I gambled a little bit more (what? Vegas is struggling…I am just trying to help.) We screened a new show – Inside Nascar. Worst 90 minutes of television watching ever. Walked around some more and finally went to the airport. All in all it was a great trip. I love that people are going all out of their 30th birthdays….and just so you know, mine will be in Aruba. Start saving now….

Huh? I live in Texas?

2010-04-05T16:38:00.002-05:00

Ooh man, it has been a crazy last two weeks. Rather than bore you with details, I will bore you with highlights and a few pictures.

I went to New Orleans again for work. I went for an entire week, Sunday to Sunday. It was a much busier, more painful (3 inch blister on the side of my foot), a lot more educational and interesting trip. I worked hard (one 13 hour shift walking constantly) and played hard (Oh Bourbon, I judged you the entire trip til I was forced to participate in your drinks.)

A few highlights:

We took a Ghost Tour through the French Quarter….tons of fun!

From NOLA...again

My first official Hurricane:

From NOLA...again

My coworkers and I unwinding after a long day on Show Floor…

From NOLA...again

Firemen! Yum!

From NOLA...again

The THREE phones I HAD to sport on the floor. All for work…

From NOLA...again

One of many…

From NOLA...again

I was home for TWO days until I headed off to Vegas…stay tuned! Just let me say, two huge party cities in two weeks…I think my liver is non existent at this point.

The Day After..

2010-04-05T15:50:00.001-05:00

So I threw my sister and Jimmy a Couples shower the day after the bachelorette party. It was fun, laid back and a perfect remedy to a night of drinking. I didn’t get any pictures, but I do have one of the cake that I had made. Once again, my friend Jon made the perfect chocolate/raspberry cake.

If you couldn’t guess, Laura and Jimmy met online…..

From Blogger Pictures

Laura's Getting Married!

2010-03-16T12:50:00.000-05:00

Two weekends ago, I threw my sister’s bachelorette party. We had soooo much fun. First we started the night off with a Lingerie/Dirty Bird Fun Shower and drinks. We then all piled in some cars and made our way to Highball in Austin. Miraculously and without a reservation, we were able to bowl in one of the lanes for an hour. It was a lot of fun and I definitely want to go back for some karaoke fun.

Then we had a limo (thanks, Mom!) pick us up and parade us all around downtown Austin. We drank, we danced, we were obnoxious and we danced some more. I am hoping everyone had as much fun as me.

Here are some fun pics:

The Girls!

From Laura's Bachelorette

Jessica and Laura

From Laura's Bachelorette

Morgan and I are obsessed with the star glasses. As you can see, we make sure we are wearing them when no one else is…

From Laura's Bachelorette

Yay, we took them off our face! Morgan, my sister and me!

From Laura's Bachelorette

Theresa in full on dance mode…

From Laura's Bachelorette

She hates the paparazzi.

From Laura's Bachelorette

I kept forgetting the night wasn’t about me…

From Laura's Bachelorette

Someone is getting drunky…

From Laura's Bachelorette

5 minutes later the camera died…which is probably good for all of us.

Random drunk tale from the night:

At the end of the night we were at some club and while we were making our way out, I heard a salsa/samba/fantastic Spanish beat start playing. It just so happen that I was walking across the open dance floor at this point. So I looked around the crowd and grabbed the first (what I believed to be) hot Latino man and started to show off my awesome (I am always the best dancer when I have been drinking) dance skills. While dancing I couldn’t help but notice I was the far more superior dancer and almost felt as if I was teaching… Oh well, I rocked.

At the end of the song, I leaned over to my partner and told him thank you for the dance and something else….all in Spanish (Yes, yes….we all know I have been drinking quite a bit if the first language I choose to speak in is Spanish.) At which point, my buddy said to me “I’m sorry. I don’t speak Spanish…”

All I could think was… “Man, my Spanish is so good right now! I totally understood what he just said!” To which I respond, in Spanish, “Thank you again. You are a great dancer.” To which he says, “I don’t understand Spanish.” FINALLY it clicks in my vodka drowned brain. I then ask him what he does speak (in English this time!) and he says English (really? Is that why I understood you?) and Arabic (I think.) So I said thanks in English and pushed him away.

So my lesson of the night was just because he looks tan does not mean that he is Hispanic.

Worst. Lunch. Ever.

2010-03-15T12:11:00.003-05:00

So I go into the kitchen to grab my carefully measured out 8 oz of milk from one of Ben's shake container things. Upon grabbing said container, I notice it didn't look quite as full as when I put it in the fridge this morning. Upon further inspections, I see some asshole decided that he needed to use 3 fucking ounces of my milk! Really? You did't see the coffee creamer on the side or some other shit you could put in your coffee. You had to use MY LUNCH! WTF!!!

After cursing this unknown milk stealer, I added my shake mix and began to violently shake my drink (I was imagining the person's neck.) Little did I know that you have to keep your finger over that damn spout/sippy thing on the top. Sooooo yes, my not-enough-milk-shake exploded all over the kitchen. It is in my hair, on my clothes, on the coffee maker, microwave and even on the fucking floor. Now I just want to find the milk stealer and pour the rest of the 3 oz all over their face. Needless to say, I am having the worst lunch ever.

Juror # 461

2010-02-25T15:51:00.002-06:00

So three weeks ago, I received my first jury summons since college. I’m not going to lie… I was excited. I have always wanted to sit on a jury. Maybe it is my obsession with Law and Order, CSI, Criminal Minds or any other crime drama out there…but I wanted to see the action in real life.

So I woke up this morning and picked out my respectable jury outfit with a little cleave showing (how else was I going to win the position of Jury Foreperson!). I caked on less whore makeup and grabbed my jury sheet. Only then did I realize I was supposed to fill something out online prior to arrival. The day was not going as planned…

Having no time to spare, I zoomed out to the waiting traffic on the highway. Really? Shouldn’t these people be at work? It was 8 o clock! I was barely going to have enough time to get there and make friends will all of my new jury buddies. So I weaved in and out and took some side roads, dropped my car off at the Court Valet parking lot (man, I love Dallas. We valet EVERYWHERE!) and ran into the building at 8:23. I had to be there at 8:30.

I went through the metal detector (exciting…criminals!) and found the area of the building. Lucky for me, there were quite a few people that forgot to send in their info online. I joined the crowd and entered everything in. I had my badge scanned and walked into what looked like a Texas A&M classroom and waited to be called to duty.

Lucky me, I was just in time for the informational video that was probably filmed 20 years ago. I chuckled at the awesome outfits everyone was wearing, giggled at the even better haircuts and laughed every time jur-OR was said…I also realized I was the only one even watching it.

While waiting for the real action to happen, I took out my book and began to read. Then out of nowhere I heard “ALL RISE.’ Oh man, this is it! The judge was here!!! Yippeee! I was finally going to sit on a jury! We swore to something (I am all about the details) and then the judge began to give his speech. He asked the group, “Who all was excited when they received their jury summons in the mail about 3 weeks ago?” Right away, I raised my hand. Better believe it, Mr. Judge Sir! In mid raise, I also realized I was the only one so my hand kind of hovered near my face…and quickly disappeared when I thought I heard a camera zooming in on me. The judge then told the crowd how inconvenient it is for him to be summoned and all the juggling he has to do just to show up and sit around, but how it is a wonderful thing and that juries are always right. Ha! Anyway, he spoke some more about it, I tuned out and once he left I went back to reading.

About an hour, they called a group of jurors to go to the courts. Yes! Except my number wasn’t a part of the cool crowd. So I go to sit some more…

The lady finally came back after about 30 minutes. At this point I am squirming with excitement. That is when she announces that none of the courts will need any more jurors for the day and that we are all dismissed. Ummm… excuse me? No, no, no NO! This was my jury day. A day away from work so that I could be a Law and Order Girl! How am I not needed!?! Did you not notice my perfect jury outfit?

Oh well, so I packed up my bag and headed out to lunch and then work. I think next time, I will go for the aggravated-to-be-here approach and maybe I will get chosen. I still better get my $6 for showing up, though…

Why I love him....

2010-02-25T13:41:00.003-06:00

At work today, I learned about an outbreak of parasites among my coworkers. Upon telling Ben about the TMI and some details of the parasites, this is what he responds with...

Ben: parasites? what kind? Was she visiting a African slum? How does that happen? but if it is a tape worm, let me know, I will get on that.

Gotta love him...

It only took 6 months...

2010-02-12T11:08:00.002-06:00

...but I finally got my DREAM FIRST HOUSE! Rather than get into the details of the process, I'll just show some pictures of it. :)

Me unlocking the gate for the first time...

From HOUSE

The view from the backyard...

From HOUSE

Living room with the dirty fireplace...

From HOUSE

The smaller set up "wall windows" is the master bedroom. View from outside...obviously...

From HOUSE

Upgraded kitchen...

From HOUSE

Toasting in the new house...

From HOUSE

Look forward to me HGTVing up the house...

:)

I'm a Call Girl

2010-02-04T20:32:00.004-06:00

Little known fact about me....calling people I don't know....scares me. And by scares....makes me extrememly uncomfortable. My hands shake, I get sick to my stomach and for some crazy reason when I make that phone call to the unknown person...my voice reaches the highest, most unnatural octave. Not to mention, I become the sweetest, caring and fake person on the phone. I hate Call Girl Stephanie.

In my first internship, I had to make phone calls to embassies in Canada and ask for email addresses and mailing addresses. It was awful. I almost wanted to cry every day. Ever since then, I decided I wouldn't take a job cold calling, luke warm calling or warm calling.

In my department at Freeman we have our sales people that make the calls to the Exhibitors, get the information and I quote them a booth with said info. Life is great, they call Unknown people...I make a few calls to some other Freeman employees and I don't ever speak in a voice that only dogs can hear.

Well...all was great until last week...

Freeman picked up a new show which required a dedicated team. Lucky for me, I was asked to be a part of the team. Little did I know that would mean I would have to make over 100 phone calls to people I DON'T KNOW. I stressed about it for weeks and finally last Tuesday the day came.

I sat with one of my coworkers and listened to her make some calls. Then it was my turn, I locked myself in an office, made sure no one was listening and calmed my shaking hands. I dialed the number, asked for my contact in my high pitched voice and gave my little speech. Not too bad.... I then called some more people, left messages, chatted with others and realized....I am an idiot. This isn't bad at all. By the end of the week, I was dialing the phone, kicking up my feet and only spoke in the fake sweet voice for the first 5 seconds. So in less than a week my life has changed....I am an official Call Girl. Not to mention I make sales too!

My dog is definitely Mexican...

2010-01-16T14:08:00.001-06:00

This morning Ben and I were standing in the kitchen when I tried to jump on him. Unfortunately I didn’t realize that I kneed our makeshift liquor cabinet. Ben’s most expensive bottle of tequila fell to the ground and splattered.

From out of nowhere Sylvester comes to survey the damage. As I am apologizing and picking up the glass, Sylvester is sniffing around.

Next thing you know he is rolling around on the carpet where the tequila spilled. We try to push him away but he keeps coming back for more. The tequila was like cat nip! He even found the towel that we soaked it up with and was in heaven. I guess the Chihuahua in him smelled home…

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

Let New Year begin...

2010-01-11T15:21:00.000-06:00

7:30 AM….that is the time that Ben and I rolled out of bed on New Year’s Day. After our night of fun, it was a STRUGGLE. Why did we torture ourselves and get out of bed that early? For the our traditional (we have done it twice now, official tradition) trip to the Winstar Casino in Oklahoma!

This year, Ben and I invited Jon and Erych to join us. Miraculously, they were ready to go before us! So we picked them up and headed to Winstar. The ride up wasn’t too bad. We were all tired from the night before and I think Jon and Erych both took a little nap. In tradition fashion, we stopped at IHOP in Gainesville to have breakfast with my mom and her friend. This year, they were running late so what did we do to pass the time….. CATCH PHRASE! We probably looked like crazies hanging out in my car yelling inaudible words at each other.

My mom finally got to IHOP and I finally convinced the boys that Catch Phrase in IHOP was a very bad idea. So we all ate breakfast and headed to the Casino…..of course with a 10 min game of Catch Phrase along the way. (See the addiction, yet)

Once we got there, the four of use headed to slot machines. Of course, we lost my mom and her friend so we had to figure out how to lose money on our own. We played tons of penny machines with loud noises and bright lights. Is it bad that I pick out my machines by the pretty colors and lights? I think not. Ben played some Black Jack too. We played for about 3 or hours so. I don’t think anyone won anything although Ben pretty much broke even.

Also while we were there, we had a free Caricature made. Jon and Erych made mugshot ones and Ben and I had one with me punching him (Love!). When we finally got ours back, I was a little confused though. Somehow some Mexican girl took my place. The only way you could recognize it was supposed to be me was because of the huge boobs the artist drew in. Oh well! Maybe next time, I can get in the picture and not my boobs. :D

After lunch of greasy pizza, we all got in the car and headed back to Dallas. I had a huge headache…..but it didn’t stop us from playing Catch Phrase again and screaming for the hour long drive. After the drive, I was finally able to get some excedrin and ice cream. Needless to say, it was a great day to start off the New Year.

NYE 2009!!!

2010-01-06T15:03:00.002-06:00

I have always enjoyed bringing in the New Year, but is even better when it leads into a long weekend. For New Year’s Eve, I invited a couple of friends to come over to the apartment, have some drinks and food and then walk over to Dallas’ outside gathering/celebration.

As soon as I got off of work, I rushed home to meet Ben. We picked up the free wristbands (most pointless thing ever) for the Downtown Celebration Party, ran to Target so Ben could buy a beanie, to the store to pick up food and drinks and then back home to get ready.

I made cupcakes and awesome Jalapeno/Artichoke dip. Ben on the other hand went really gourmet. He heated up some quesadilla rolls and bagel bites. We popped open some champagne and waited for our friends.

My Gay Husband Casey was the first to show up. Since Casey showed up, we decided we could start eating the snackies. Who would have thought that Ben’s food would be gone in less than 30 seconds? Man, those bad boys were good. At least my dip and cupcakes lasted for our other guests.

Soon after the ‘Stuff your face and hide the evidence of other food’ event ended, Jon and Erych showed up. We all had more drinks. I added “Bling String” (as seen on TV!) to mine and Jon’s hair and then… we broke out Catch Phrase. Oh Sweet Jesus! This game is awesome. Especially after everyone has been drinking. Needless to say, we played this for awhile and then Angel and her man showed up and joined the festivities. More Bling String, more Catch Phrase, more inappropriate comments and guesses and of course more drinks.

Finally someone realized we all weren’t just hanging out to play the little electronic nugget of fun known as Catch Phrase. So we all bundled up, took mini bottles of champagne and hid them in our coats, grabbed our noise makers and pop bottle thingys and headed to the Big D NYE Celebration.

Since we left so late for fun, we decided to leave the wristbands and just stand wherever we could. After the extremely noisy walk (Tipsy Jon and Stephanie should never be given noise makers of any kind), we made it to the celebration. Victory Park was nowhere near full, so we got new wristbands and walked into the fun. Jon and I also decided we weren’t impressed by the live band so we made our own music with our noise makers (once again, never let us have these). So while some people were enjoying their drinks and the music, my group decided to have their own fireworks as well…..and by fireworks, 5 million camera flashes for the last paparazzi photo session of the year.

As 2010 got closer, we all pulled out our contraband champagne and made a toast. When the New Year came in, we all mugged down (no, not together), screamed, cheered, made more awful noise with the noise makers and watched the Fireworks. It was so much fun. I am so glad we went and brought in the New Year with some friends.

Finally, we made it back to apartment, had more cupcakes and of course started playing with our new addiction…..Catch Phrase. Needless to say, I had a great night with everyone. And with great nights, come not so great mornings...

Noise maker fun:

From NYE 2009

Victory Park:

From NYE 2009

Champagne Toast:

From NYE 2009

Some Fireworks:

From NYE 2009

Me and My Man:

From NYE 2009

The Group:

From NYE 2009

HAPPY 2010!!!! Stayed tuned for the rest of the weekend...

Coolest Collars Ever!

2010-01-04T14:51:00.000-06:00

So I found out that my coworker makes dog collars as a hobby/side business. For Christmas, I decided to hook up all the dogs in my family with some collars. Having no idea what the collars would be like or look like, I left it up to Finula (my coworker) to create whatever she thought would look good. I sent her a list of the dogs (8 of them!), their names, and a little bit about their personalities.

Needless to say, I was shocked by the outcome! She is amazing at her craft. Here are a few pictures:

This was for my brother’s dog Olive….can you guess what kind of dog she is?

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

This one was for my brother’s dog Martini!

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

And of course, many of you may know that my boy also goes by Murderface. He LOVES his collar.

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

As for the other collars…..

Kramer - He seriously has a licking problem and never stops. Finula made a collar that says: Kramer – Official Air Taste Tester

Roxy – She got the cutest collar with blue fabric and little birds and flowers….danty, just like her! Ha!

Scully – Hers was tons of dog pictures and her name. It was really colorful and cool.

Tag – A picture of a Schnauzer (that looked exactly like him) and his name

JJ – She made him a Boston Bichon collar with Boston Red Sox logo and a bichon playing baseball. Too cute. JJ just came to the family from Boston so it is perfect for him.

I will try and update with some pictures later on…

So if you are interested in a collar, check out www.mydogisspoton.com. They are only $15 and some of the proceeds go to charity. She can do anything you want….I already have 3 more orders for her.

Best Team EVER!

2009-12-29T15:05:00.000-06:00

Last summer, some of the girls at my office decided to put together a kickball team. I, of course, joined and came up with the awesome name Balls & Snatchers. We played for about 7 or 8 weeks and lost every game except for one….that was the day half our team couldn’t make it and we brought in replacements. I actually enjoyed the kickball fun, but not so much my team.

The following season I decided to revive Balls & Snatchers and replace all the crappy people with good players. I was sure we would win every game and have a great time playing. Oh how I was wrong... Every week there was some new problem. Our games were either rained out or I was struggling to find enough people to play on the field. We lost every game but one. As the longest season on earth went on, the core players were finally coming together as a team.

Lucky for us, everyone makes it to the playoffs….

In true fashion, we had a rocky start. The playoffs were pushed back a week, therefore, we lost three of our main players. This left me with five original players to put on the field. Mind you, you have to have a minimum of eight. Oh joy.

Thank goodness for Angel. She found two extra players for me and even better they have played kickball. So now with a whopping seven players, we made our way to the field. Did I also mention that I was battling the bubonic plague and could barely take in one breath without hacking up a lung on the field? So pretty much, we had six good players.

Luck was on us again when the first team we were to play showed up and only had five players. They asked us if they could play since they only had one girl. They would do some crazy fandangly line up. I ‘let’ them play…because really, if my team of seven can’t beat five people, then we shouldn’t make it any further in the playoffs. That was almost my biggest mistake. They came close to beating us, but we somehow pulled it off.

On to the next game…..one of our arch nemesises (nemesi?). The Other Team. Let’s just say, that every time the played us, we got our asses handed to us. Total kickball annihilation. Did I mention that everyone from their team showed up too? Yeah, well they did. The Other Team came into the game as undefeated and left with a 12-1 LOSS under their belt! My team of seven killed them. They even had to end the game early since we were winning by so much. Sorry bout ya, suckers!

This meant we were in the CHAMPIONSHIP game! That’s right. On one of the coldest nights, my team of seven players made it to the big ‘ship. There was supposed to be a game to decide who we would play. As we waited to see if everyone for the next game would show up, we all secretly wished they wouldn’t. We would gladly take the title by default. Unfortunately that wasn’t in the cards….. one team showed up for the game and that team was our other arch nemesis. Without a break in between, my poor battered team went into the championship game…

What was one of the most emotional, crazy games ever…my team walked away with THE BIG WIN!!!!! That’s right, somehow my team, the last team in the league, somehow beat everyone the night of the playoffs and WON!

Needless to say, I forgot about all about the troubles, issues and losing games of the season and have decided to bring the Balls and Snatchers back for another season in the Spring. So if you think you have what it takes, come join us for some fun at our Victory Party!

CONGRATULATIONS, BALLS & SNATCHERS!!!

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

That went by fast...

2009-12-09T13:08:00.002-06:00

Oh man, November flew by and we are already in December! What happened? I guess that means it is time for a November update blog….

Boot Camp: Remember when Mary Beth and I decide to sign up for some boot camp fun? What was supposed to be only one month of ass kicking turned into my standard work out for six months! I finally had to stop going in the mornings because it was too cold to work out. No really, I looked like a fool trying to run two miles all wrapped up in my comforter (not really, but you can imagine.) I seriously recommend Boot Camp to anyone. Not only did I get in shape, gain the ability to run more than 5 feet ahead of me (and not towards cake) but I also lost about 20 lbs and made a new friend as well. It still weirds me out that I have friends from working out…..

Mexico: Since the economy is crap and trade show industry on a whole is declining, my job made everyone take a week of work without pay. Most people would look at this and get upset and whine about missing out on money…. Are you kidding? I just got 5 extra days of vacation! Woo hoo. So rather than waste those days in Dallas, Ben and I decided to go to Mexico. We stayed at the Valentin Imperial Maya in the Riviera Maya. Our hotel was right in middle of Playa del Carmen and Cancun. The best part about the hotel was that it was all inclusive and….ADULTS ONLY! YES!

Needless to say, Ben and I had a great time. We took a snorkeling excursion. We snorkeled in a cenote, a cave and where the fresh water river meets the ocean. It was so much fun but freaked me out…..I have a strange fear of water and the things that live in it. :)

The cenote that we snorkeled in:

From Mexico

Us in the scary cave:

From Mexico

We also took a trip to the ruins in Tulum, also known as Zamma. I have seen plenty of Mayan and Aztec ruins in my life, but these were gorgeous. The ruins were built on a cliff looking down into the ocean. Our guide was incredible as well and told us a lot of interesting details about the ruins and the Mayan people. We also got to swim in the crystal blue water while we were there.

The ruins:

From Mexico

View of the beach from the ruins:

From Mexico

While in Mexico we also shopped, drank, slept, relaxed, got massages, drank, hung out on the beach, drank and ATE everything in sight. Needless to say, it was a fantastic vacation.

One of many….

From Mexico

Thanksgiving: A week and half after we got back from Mexico, Ben and I were on another trip back to Mexico. Ok, not really but we did go to McAllen for Thanksgiving. For those of you who don’t know, McAllen is on the border of Mexico and Texas. Some of Ben’s family is still there so we spent time with his Dad and his brothers. We also ate as much Tex Mex food that we could fit in our mouths. I seriously wanted to throw up at least once every day. While we were down there, I also got to brush up on some of my Spanish. Believe it or not….I heard more Spanish in McAllen than I have ever heard any time I have ever gone to Mexico.

As you can see, November was a busy month. Now it is time for me to focus on Christmas presents and trying to figure out a way to sell my kidney on the black market so I can afford all the work that needs to be done on my f*cking car…… Just in case you are wondering, I wasn’t in a wreck….I just bought the worst car on earth.

Till next time….

Tour of Dallas - History

2009-10-28T22:27:00.001-05:00

The stop on our Tour of Dallas was History. One of the most important pieces of history that is associated with Dallas is “The Day Stephanie Moved To Dallas.” Just kidding. Actually it is the day that JFK was assassinated.

So at 9:50 AM, Ben and I walked down to the Sixth Floor Museum. I was sure we would be the first ones in there if not the only ones for a while. I was wrong. Did I mention that our Tour of Dallas happen to coincide with the TX/OU weekend festivities? No? Yeah, that is because I am trying to forget about it.

Anyway, sure enough we walk in and I see a cluster of Burnt Orange. Ugh… We hurriedly buy our tickets, grab our headset and take the elevator to the Sixth floor. Lucky for me, there was more Burnt Orange. :-/ Oh goodie.

Aside from trying to see around some people, it was a good time. If you have never been to the museum, I highly recommend it. It takes you through the early days of JFK’s administration, through the few days before, obviously day of the assassination and also goes into some of the theories surrounding his death. You see videos, pictures and even some memorabilia from the day.

We ended up spending about an hour and half walking through. I have been before I took Ben, but I assure you I learn something new each time I go. Once again, this is a really great museum and only $14. Completely worth it!

And that concludes our Tour, Ladies and Gentleman…

Tour of Dallas - Entertainment

2009-10-26T17:52:00.002-05:00

We woke up Saturday to perfect weather for the Entertainment portion of our Tour. Since Ben was nursing a mini hangover from his fun on Friday night, we decided to grab some lunch before we headed off to my tour stop.

If you live in Dallas and you have never been to Jimmy’s Food Store you are missing out on the best Italian sandwiches in DFW. They are amazing. Since they are super filling and you can pick up some other awesome stuff in the store, Ben and I headed there for lunch. I ordered their amazing meatball sub and Ben got something crazy and Italian. While at the register, I told Ben that I would pay since he was the ‘Birthday Boy’ and when the man at the register heard this he decided to give us our meal and drinks for a whopping $1! Plus Ben got to pick out a free hat….lucky boys. So the real message of this paragraph is Eat at Jimmy’s!

My meatball sandwich

From Bens Birthday

Ben’s Italian sandwich

From Bens Birthday

His free hat!

From Bens Birthday

After lunch it was off to the Entertainment portion of our trip. Since Dallas has quite a few locations for entertainment, Ben was stumped. Unfortunately for him we weren’t going to any sport games, or any movies or any live performances….we were off to the Entertainment that made Dallas famous! That’s right, we went to Southfork Ranch where they filmed the TV show Dallas.

From Bens Birthday

Neither of us have ever seen an entire episode so most of the outing was lost on us. We did check out the Museum, got a horrible picture taken with Cowboy hats on, we went on tractor ride over to the ‘Mansion’ and then took our own tour of the ‘Mansion.’ All I can say is the mansion is TINY! As is the pool and everthing else (besides of course for the conference center that they built). It is amazing what camera angles can do! Oh yeah, and the fact that they hardly ever filmed inside the house. Maybe two episodes/scenes?

The “Mansion” from the street…I zoomed in

From Bens Birthday

So we learned a little Dallas TV Show history, we pet some horses and also saw the famous car that one of the characters drove…..I think it is a 1970ish something car with only 27,000 miles on it…..oh yeah and it was also 19’ long. It was a beast.

From Bens Birthday

After the Ranch we met up with Ben’s brother again at Hard Rock Café. We had some crazy drinks and overpriced nachos. It was good, but I don’t need to go back.

Needless to say we had a fun, random Saturday with plenty of Dallas entertainment…..

Tour of Dallas - Live Music

2009-10-23T15:30:00.002-05:00

Ben’s third stop on the tour was to see some live music. I tried to throw him off by mentioning awesome venues like the House of Blues, American Airlines Center, Deep Ellum…so all day he was trying to figure out where we were going and who we were going to see….

Lone Star Café & Club was the winner for the night! Wha? Never heard of the rockin’ venue? Neither had I, until I found out a Led Zeppelin tribute band would be playing there. Since Led Zeppelin is Ben’s favorite band, we had to go there.

On the way there, through the country Ben was completely stumped. Even when we pulled into the strip mall where the ‘Club’ was I think he still thought I was kidding. Finally we walked in and he saw the ‘stage’ and band’s equipment with all of the LZ symbols on it. Needless to say he was excited.

Little did he know that earlier in the month, I sent out an evite inviting our friends to join us for the surprise birthday stop. He was ready to have an evening out with me, when Jessica and Brent walked in. That’s when he figured out the plan. Not only did Jessica and Brent make it out for the random fun, so did Ryan, Clap, Jon and Erych. It also worked out that his brother happened to be in town and made a surprise visit as well.

Ben and his brother Lucho

From Bens Birthday

I think they had too many mini pitchers of Beer

From Bens Birthday

The Gang

From Bens Birthday

The Rockin’ Band

From Bens Birthday

Needless to say the band was very loud and played forever. Ben had a good time and enjoyed the music. He even stripped down a bit to show the lead singer is LZ tattoos. Not only did he get pictures but so did I (unfortunately Ben has banned me from posting them). I was just happy the club was still open and the band was still scheduled to play.

Afterwards Clap, Ben and I made our way to the Regal Beagle for so more drinking. It was a lot of fun and I even ‘attempted’ to play Ring on a Hook. In case you are wondering, you try to get a ring on a hook. Easy concept, hard (for me) to play. Clap, of course, did it in two tries. I had to physically walk the hook to the ring so I could ‘win.’

All in all it was a great night, I got to hang out with friends, listen to random music and even discovered that Clap and Ben have a college ‘friend’ in common. What a small world….

Tour of Dallas - Shopping & The Arts

2009-10-22T18:42:00.001-05:00

There is one thing that people in Dallas love to do and that is shop. We have so many different shopping areas: North Park, West Village, The Shops at Legacy, The Galleria. I mean we are home to Neiman Marcus, JCPenney and Fossil. So needless to say we aren’t hurting for places to shop.

Since Ben loves ties, I figured I would take him to this tie shop that I saw in some random email. It was called Tiecoon. So while at work, I googled the place and tried to get some more info. That is when I found out it was closed. Yep, that was the whole reason we were going shopping. So then I found a place called The Tie Shop. That was to be our new destination….

So off we went after work to find The Tie Shop. Apparently it was in the Galleria, so once we walked in, I searched for it…only to find out that it too had been closed. So our shopping consisted of walking around the Galleria and looking at expensive clothing and TIES! So at least he saw some…

After the Galleria we headed on over to the Dallas Museum of Art. The best part about going on Thursday is that they have jazz in their atrium, are open till 9 PM and it is free! We had a great time and saw some super old art (as can be expected) and some newer stuff that I am still trying to figure out. All in all it was a good night and I didn’t feel robbed like I did when we went to go see King Tut (in case you didn’t go…he wasn’t even there nor was his mask nor anything really cool worth seeing for $38).

So even though there were a few bumps, Shopping & The Arts was a success and fun.

Tour of Dallas – Fine Dining

2009-10-20T22:02:00.002-05:00

The first stop on Ben’s tour was Fine Dining. Believe it or not but Dallas has the most restaurants per capita, even more than New York City….so I had a plethora of restaurants to choose from. To whittle down the competition, I had to figure out what Ben would like to eat.

One of Ben’s favorite meals was in Vegas where he had Veal Porterhouse. So I googled the dish in Dallas and came across Del Frisco’s. I had been to Del Frisco’s in Ft Worth and highly enjoyed my steak and they also own Ben’s favorite steak restaurant so I figured this would be the winner. I checked the menu at the restaurant to see if the Veal Porterhouse was listed. It wasn’t, so I emailed. Sure enough, I got an email back and it was confirmed they had it. Score for me.

So I took Ben to the restaurant and he didn’t really get why I picked Del Frisco’s. So we sit down, look at the menu and I don’t see the Veal Porterhouse. No problem. I tell Ben we came for the Veal Porterhouse which is obviously not on the menu, but the waiter will know about it. So I ask the waiter…..he has never known Del Frisco’s to have Veal Porterhouse, but he’ll ask the Chef. Yeah, well I guess he never knew they had it either… It was official, my carefully planned dinner was not going to work out.

So Ben orders the Lamb Porterhouse and I order the Filet Mignon and two sides. Our waiter still feels bad about the Veal fiasco and asks if I still have the email. I do, so I show him on my phone. Right at that moment, the Manager is over the table and he sees the email as well…

Now commences one of the best dinners we have ever had. To make up for the misinformation, the Manager orders us another round of drinks on the house and 2 more side dishes. Oh man, the food was amazing. We were stuffed but saving room for the dessert I had at home. Too bad for us that the manager wasn’t in on this plan…..next he sends out a special dessert dish by the Chef. It consisted of the Butterscotch Cheesecake, Chocolate Mousse and the Lemon Tart Cake. Everything was so good.

From Bens Birthday

Then when we figured we couldn’t ingest any more, the Manager sent out a flight of Grand Marnier. Ben was in heaven. His favorite was a part of the flight.

So after the drinks, food and dessert we decided to have another after dinner drink in their lounge. It was nice romantic and they also had great live piano music. We finally left before they could offer anything else for us to eat or drink. Great experience!

From Bens Birthday

Of course, when we got home we had to eat some of the awesome cake that Jon made and Ben opened his presents. I don’t think we have ever been so full in our lives. We didn’t even have the energy to have any Wii fun. :D

So here’s to Fine Dining in Dallas!

Ben's Birthday!

2009-10-19T19:02:00.003-05:00

As many of you know, birthdays are my favorite events, even if it isn’t my own. So lucky me (and Ben too, I suppose), we celebrated Ben turning the big 3-2 last week. I got him a few gifts and planned a fun celebration for him. Here is what the lucky boy got:

1. Star Wars Lego set from Sylvester. Ben’s favorite movie is Star Wars so I decided to run with it…..

2. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Wii. This was from my Mom. We have yet to play it, but even I am looking forward to it…and you’ll see why.

3. Two Light Saber Wii/Remote thingys that actually light up! From me. :D That’s right so now Ben and I can duel! I am also thinking they might work for some techno dancing fun. Stay tuned for pictures when we actually bust those bad boys out.

4. Amazing Chocolate cake with Banana frosting from Cakes by Jon. Jon is one of my good friends here and makes the most amazing cakes I have ever had. Trust me, I have had a lot of cakes and his are my favorite. So if you ever need a cake for a special occasion, contact him: www.cakesbyjon.com

From Bens Birthday

5. Tour of Dallas. Since Ben and I couldn’t go anywhere for his birthday, I decided to take him on a Tour of Dallas. We were tourists in our City. The tour included: Fine Dining, Shopping & The Arts, Live Music, Entertainment and History. I’ll blog about each stop later.

From Bens Birthday

I hope he had a great birthday because I know I had fun celebrating with him. Can’t wait for the next one….

Da Fair

2009-10-12T20:52:00.001-05:00

Last Saturday Ben and I went to State Fair of Texas. There is only one rule when you go to the fair: Stuff yourself silly with tons of crap so that you never want to eat again. Trust me, Ben and I adhered by the rule. Here is a list of what we ate in the 10 hours we were at the fair:

1) Corn Dogs – Regular and Cheesy Jalapeno
2) Fried Peanut Butter, Jelly and Banana Sandwich
3) Curly Fries
4) Fried Peaches and Cream
5) Funnel Cake with Cherry Topping
6) Slice of Pizza
7) Nachos
8) Banana pudding
9) Ice Cream
10) Fried Texas Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Fried Peaches and Cream:

From Fair

I know, disgusting. That is why the fair is only once a year and I only go once a year.

Besides eat we also saw the Dog Stunt show and walked around and shopped. We also spent hours in the Midway section (Carnie Land). We played games where you squirt water in hole to win some race, a cork shooting game, fishing, horse racing, chicken toss, the huge hammer thing, ring toss, Color Gambling and best of all the token game. You know the game where you put one token in the slot and hope the bulldozer pushes 20 more off the ledge. Yeah, we played that bad boy for at least 2 hours. We were addicted. We ended up with tons of toys for Sylvester! It was our gift to him since he had to be locked up all day.

Sylvester and His New Toys:

From Fair

We also played some Texas Lottery fun at the very end of the night. We ended up winning $24 dollars and who knows how much in the TX lotto ( I am keeping my fingers crossed).

Needless to say it was a great day (except for the weather) and I wanted to puke for the next 3 hours after we got home. Can’t wait for next year!

New Orleans - Work and more work

2009-10-12T20:46:00.001-05:00

After being in 4 states and 3 planes, I finally made it to New Orleans, LA. One of coworkers was kind enough to pick me up at the airport and bring me to my hotel. After driving around for an hour or so (he had lived there all of his life) and finding out very little history, I finally made it to the hotel. I checked in and made my way to Luke’s restaurant….apparently some famous guy from some cooking show runs the place. I ate at the bar with my two new friends and we judged people in the bar ….especially the people from New York. Oh man, that was fun. Anyway, I had a burger (I know, I know….New Orleans food is lost on my because I don’t like seafood). It was good…but the cocktails were better. Especially since the bartender let us try a few that he was making.

The next day I walked over to the Convention Center so I could supervise the booth we were building for my client. Little did I know that the minute I stepped outside my glasses would fog up and I would be covered in water (not sweat) from the humidity. Man, that 15 min walk took forever. Then lucky me, I spent the whole day watching the booth go up. The clients finally made it for the last bit of the day. We worked some more and then made our way to dinner. I had Cajun Injected Chicken. I don’t really want to know how they can legally take a Cajun and mush him down to a green goo and inject him in Chicken….all I know is it tasted pretty good. Oh yeah, I also had the “World Famous Onion Rings” and an oyster (I was forced!). I finally made it back to my hotel where I am pretty sure I passed out within seconds of hitting the bed.

The next day it was back to the Convention Center. The booth I never thought would be finished finally was. What a relief. I was done working around 3:30 so I walked the “Riverwalk” and did some shopping AKA bought flip flops for my throbbing feet, looked at the boats on the Mississippi and finally made my way back to the hotel. That night, I walked to Bourbon Street and decided it wasn’t the place for to have dinner by myself because we all know that my dinner would have consisted of hurricanes, margaritas and cocktails and I would have been out until around 2 AM if not longer. So I had a nice dinner on the corner somewhere, did some shopping afterwards and was home in bed by 9. I am such a crazy girl. 

Finally my last day in the city, I checked on the booth and the show. Everything was great, the clients were happy and I was officially done with time to spare. So I checked out of my hotel and walked around the French Market. I had a Mufalleta (ok, really only 1 and half bites….definitely not for me) and beignets at Café Du Monde. I also did more shopping and site seeing. I finished my trip off with more work and then the best taxi ride ever. Lucky for me I had an old tour guide as a driver. He gave me a history lesson of the city and told me all the restaurants I need to come back to when I return. Needless to say, I will be coming back but definitely not for work…

I finally made it back to Dallas around 7 PM at night. I never thought I would ever be ‘traveled out’ in my life, but I was. Thank goodness I didn’t have any where to go for the next couple of days…

Some pics from NOLA:

From New Orleans

New Hampshire and Boston

2009-10-12T20:38:00.003-05:00

It all started with Ben, my mother and I hopping a plane to New Hampshire for my cousin Renee’s wedding. We landed in New Hampshire around 10:30 at night to 40 degree weather. That was a nice slap in the face to the 80 degree weather we left in Dallas. There wasn’t much fun the first night. We met up with my sister (she exists, Veronica) and Jimmy and unpacked and slept.

Then the next morning we all packed into the rental car and made our way to Boston/Weymouth. We visited my grandmother’s old place, played in the park next to it and then visited my grandfather. Then it was back to New Hampshire for Friendly’s and Renee’s rehearsal dinner. It was a very good night especially since Ben and I took advantage of the open bar. Yum!

My Grammie Gram’s place:

From Weymouth and Boston

Park Fun:

From Weymouth and Boston

Friendly’s!

From New Hampshire - Wedding and Fun

Then the next day my Auntie Bea came to NH and we went shopping, ate more and drove around more….. After a short day at the mall, we got ready for the wedding. It was absolutely beautiful and Renee was gorgeous. Tim is a lucky man. I had a great time hanging out with my family and taking advantage of the bar…..again. 

Fun with Auntie Bea and Fam:

From New Hampshire - Wedding and Fun

Wedding Fun:

From New Hampshire - Wedding and Fun

The next morning my sister and her man left and Ben, my mom, Roland and my uncle all made our way back to Boston for some sight seeing and culture. Unfortunately it was raining and we couldn’t do the things we had planned, but it worked out in the end. We went on the Duck Tour (you hop in a WWII DUKW and tour guide takes you around the city and into the Charles River). Ben even got to drive the thing! Then we walked over to Faneiul Hall and Quincy Market for some culture and shopping. We then let my mom and my uncle go back to New Hampshire and Ben, Roland and I continued our tour. We ate at the Oldest Tavern in America, saw the only wood building (Paul Revere’s house) in Boston, ate cannoli’s and other pastries at Mike’s Pastries, had pizza on the North End along with a few cocktails, went back to Quincy Market for some more cocktails. We then decided it would be a good idea to go to the original Cheers. Along our extremely long walk, we stopped at some historical places, the Make Way For Ducklings statues and finally ended at Cheers for …that’s right…another cocktail. Then we finally headed back to NH.

Boston Fun:

From Weymouth and Boston

Finally we woke up the next day at 4 am so we could make our way back to Texas…and I could make my way to New Orleans….

Paranormal Activity

2009-10-12T20:15:00.001-05:00

Oh man, if you want to see a great movie this Halloween season, you have got to check out Paranormal Activity. Seriously, I was afraid to go to sleep last night after watching it. I even made Ben get up with me at 3 in the morning to take the dog out. It was a horrible night of sleep but worth the good scary movie. See it!

Travelin'

2009-09-04T13:33:00.000-05:00

Since graduating with my degree in International Studies, or as my brother says “My Secretaria degree”, I have always wanted a job where I get to travel or live in an awesome country. I was convinced it was going to happen….but it never has.

When I was an International Logistics Coordinator (yes, my brother called me a Secretaria here), I just knew that my company would be sending me off to China, Spain and Italy….all the places where we bought products for the company. Since I was writing their Customs handbook, I would HAVE to travel! How else was I going to make sure we weren’t dealing with companies with sweat shops? Needless to say, the farthest I ever traveled was to Grapevine, TX to go meet the companies that shipped all of our products. Whoopee.

Then it was off to Neiman’s where I was a Purchasing Coordinator (yep, glorified Secretaria.) In my interviews, they talked about sourcing out to new companies in Latin America (yay, I have ‘experience’) for their furniture and other items they put in the store. Obviously they would NEED me to go and help pick some things out. Hell, some of my bosses even traveled to Turkey, Germany and other places to source. Well, the closest I ever got to Latin America was in the VP’s office where I listened in on a conference call with some guy speaking Spanish and the farthest I ever got out of the office was to Longview, TX. Yay me…

Finally, I am in my third job and my Secretaria skills are a little more complex. I manage booths for Trade Shows. In my interview, I was under the impression that I would have to travel to these shows to make sure everything runs smoothly. Well, I have been here for a year and FINALLY I get to travel! As in hop on a plane and make my way to some city, by myself, and pretend I know what I am doing on the Show floor. So here I come NEW ORLEANS! Even though you aren’t too far away, I can’t drive to you from my office for the day. I will get a hotel room and have to eat some of your great food. Oh yeah, and I guess I will actually make sure everything runs smoothly for my client as well.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!!!

Looking for a New Best Friend!

2009-06-08T17:45:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Annual Notice of what Stephanie is doing for her birthday. This year I won’t be hopping on a plane and heading to any crazy wild place like Vegas or Mexico. I am keeping it a little closer to home, as long as you think 4 hours is close. The theme for this year’s birthday is “Looking For My New Best Friend” except I am not going to go all Paris Hilton on you and make you express your adoration for me on camera (although if you would like to make a tape as my present, I will gladly accept it) or make you do stupid stunts (once again, if you would like to humiliate yourself for my entertainment, I will let you). This year I hope my best friend will be in the form of a shiny new diamond! No, not that kind of Diamond... One I find myself in the mines of Arkansas! Here is the linkey to the mines:

http://www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com/

I want to stay at the Swaha Cabins. This place is located on a lake, they are pet friendly and have boat rentals! There are cabins, cottages and condos at this place. So it seems like it would a great place for relaxing, grilling and lake fun….all with puppies!

http://www.swahacabins.com/index.htm

So here is the tentative schedule:

Thursday, July 23, 2009: Leave Dallas and drive up to the Swaha Cabins. Make it up there, unpack and drink and play some games.

Friday, July 24, 2009: Start the search for the perfect best friend at the Diamond Mines. The mines are open from 8 AM – 8 PM. Yay, plenty of time. Obviously we will get breakfast, lunch and dinner some where in the day. Also, it might be fun to find a local bar at the end of the night. I figure this day is up for grabs on what you want to do.

Saturday, July 25, 2009: Let’s go to the Diamond Mines again! You can never have too many friends! I figure we could do a half day this day and then the other half we could rent a party boat and hang out on the lake near our Cabins. The have some BBQ/Grill fun at night.

Sunday, July 26, 2009: This is all up to you but eventually I will be making my way back to Dallas.

If any of this sounds like fun to you, let me know. I think I will probably book something at the Cabin place next week.

In summary, the plans are diamond hunting, lake fun, puppy fun and more diamond hunting.

Feel free to invite anyone you want. Let me know if you are in.

Updated...with a Soundtrack

2009-06-01T18:02:00.002-05:00

Once again, it has been awhile since I have updated my blog. So here I go again….and to mix it up a little bit, I will let you know what I am listening to on my iPod while I write (I am at work writing this…)...yeah…I know it won’t make it any more interesting. So here goes.

First Song: Waste It On – Silversun Pickups – I have this song because I bought the CD for Lazy Eye. Since I don’t like this song…I shall skip…

Cover Me – Candlebox – Who doesn’t like this song? I downloaded it (illegally of course) in college. No good story to continue with it.

So back to the updates… a couple of days after my last entry I got in a car accident. First of all and shockingly enough, it wasn’t my fault and no worries I wasn’t damaged at all….just hit my head on my side window. As I was driving to have dinner with one of my friends, I was hit by crazy Dallas driver. She decided to ignore all the road signs and go the wrong way on a one way street thus insuring that she would collide into the beautiful, kind of scratched up (ok, beat up) paid off Jetta. Needless to say, she killed it. She killed my sweet, sweet paid off Jetta. So update number 1, my Jetta died.

Oooh, new song….Lose Yourself – Eminem – Yeah, loved 8 Mile, love the song and most of all I love Eminem. Yum.

Since my car was killed, I had to go car shopping. If anyone knows anything about my first two cars, you will know that I am stubborn. Once I decide I want a car, I refuse to look at anything else. Even if it is a good deal, cheaper or better car for me overall…I won’t even consider it. Since I don’t like the new body styles of the Jettas and I wanted to upgrade, I set my sites on an Audi A4. So I scoured the Dallas area for an Audi A4 in black or gray. I drove a lot, Ben drove some and even my friend Ama tried to kill me while driving a few. Needless to say, I finally got one. So now I am in the Audi club, which isn’t as popular as the BMW and Lexus club in Dallas. It did how ever make me d-bag. I am becoming waaaaay too Dallas now….I live downtown, I have a designer dog, I carry a Prada purse and now I have an Audi. Don’t worry I hate myself too….

And on to Inacceptable by Rinocerose. I bought this album because of the iPod commercial with the song Cubicle. I don’t like this song. Time to skip….

Hardhouse Anthems 3 CD1 by ??? Yeah, I remember when I got into techno, I downloaded anything and everything with techno or House in the title. Needless to say, this was not a good choice.

I Do – Toya …..umm I guess it was good in College…..NEXT

Read My Mind – The Killers. Oh man, I love the Killers and I love this song.

So as I am sure you are all wondering…. the Naked Man is still out there. Oh yes, and he came back to his favorite garage about a week or two ago. Once again, I was on the phone with Mom and taking the dog out for a walk when all of a sudden I hear “Excuse Me…” Thinking it was someone needing directions, I turned around. BIG MISTAKE. There was no car behind me, there was no lost tourist….there was just one completely Naked Man in the parking garage waving his hands…..and junk. He got me. I didn’t think it would happen but he did….he got me. Third times a charm, I guess. Needless to say, I screamed in my mom’s ear. Hung up the phone and called Ben to come help me find him. Mind you my mom is now freaking out as she thinks I am being killed. Good thing I didn’t get killed and also, we never found him…..but I am sure he will be back. I will keep you updated.

Hero – Enrique Iglesias. He is hot, he is Latin and he can sing. Why wouldn’t I download this song? We had a brief love affair for awhile until I couldn’t stand the whining in his songs any longer. :)

Final update: Mary Beth and I finally did it. We started boot camp. Oh man, 5:30 AM is early. Or first week we were pretty pitiful. I am not sure if it was sweat or tears running down our face but man there was a lot of liquid. We figured as the days would go on the workouts wouldn’t be so hard. What were we thinking? We are in week three, I can run farther and for longer but I get my butt kicked every day. I am amazed at all the different exercises these guys can come up with. The craziest thing about the whole thing is we both signed up for another session, for another month. Hopefully this next session will help me get skinny. I guess I should stop eating ice cream, fries and queso…..and not all at once either…

Final Song: Oceans – The Fray. When I discovered Pandora.com and I made my own Fray channel, I was introduced to this song. Love it. Pretty sure I downloaded (legally this time) the day I heard it.

It's a Crazy World We Live In....

2009-04-23T21:17:00.002-05:00

....especially when you live in Downtown Dallas.

So last Sunday when I was taking Sylvester outside to do his 'bidness' I was across the street at a big patch of grass. While I was outside waiting for him to finish, I heard some whistling. So ignored it, like I usually do...but it wouldn't stop. So I start looking around for who was whistling and couldn't find anyone. Well, Thank God I had my sunglasses on because there is a parking garage across the street from the grass. I happen to look up towards the garage without moving my head and I saw.......a NAKED MAN.

That's right, NAKED. Well, I guess not completely naked. He had a blue and white tank top on that he had pulled up to his chin. With his other hand, he was holding on to his junk. Since he didn't see that I saw, he kept his stuff covered. Then a big group of people came by and he disappeared.

Fast forward to tonight....

So I get home after having a drink with two of my coworkers and I take Sylvester out again to the patch of grass. I am on the phone with Julie chatting when all of a sudden I look towards the garage and I see my favorite NAKED MAN. Except this time, he left the shirt at home and was completely naked. Well, I guess he was wearing shoes and a ball cap but there was a lot skin to be seen.

So I ask Julie to send me the non emergency number to the Police. When I am about to call, two women walk up to me and start petting my dog. So I dial, the number doesn't work and the women are going gaga over the dog with the crazy naked man behind them in the parking garage. I, of course, want to protect their diginity and tell them in a calm voice that their is a naked man behind them trying to show his junk, so don't turn around. At that time, I call 911. While I am on the phone, my buddy figures out what I am doing and disappears into the garage again.

At this point the ladies are 'safe' and they leave. I call Julie to give her an update when I see a cop across the street in front of my apartment complex. So I grab the dog and run over to the cop. I start talking to the cop and telling him about my NM situation. He tells me, "Well, I would go look for him but someone in this apartment complex tried to commit suicide, so I guess I need to stay here. I mean she is alright but I need to stay here." So my new cop friend calls 4 of his bike cop friends over. They get my story and investigate the parking garage. All while my original cop friends and I watch as the girl who ate too many pills is being taken away in an ambulance.

So yeah, that was my night when I got home today. Naked Guy and crazy girl all in 20 minutes. Needless to say, I guess I will be investing in some Mace to either spray at NM or in my own eyes so I don't have to see his junk.

INVEST!!!!

2009-04-15T18:00:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wanted to invest in a bar/restaurant and didn’t really have enough money to be considered? Well, now is your chance…if you want. Ben and Zymology are in some dire need of investors and since I don’t have a big wad of cash to give him, I figured I could form my own investment group…as in we all chip in any amount of money to the group and we will invest from there. Then once it comes time to actually earn some money back we can divvy up our earnings amongst the group by how much you invested.

I really don’t know if this will work but I figured it was worth a shot. If you are interested or know anyone else who is interested, let me know.

Also, if you are big money bags and want to be your own investor, I can contact Ben and have him send the actual business plan rather than my email. 

I also hear investments are a good Tax write off for next year….

On a more serious note, I appreciate everyone’s support of Zymology over these past couple of weeks. I am hoping that he will come up with the funds that he needs to keep open…at least until the summer months where he has a fighting chance. Please do not feel obligated to give any money if you can’t, I just figured I would try my hardest to help him out.

Thanks again!

Happenings...

2009-04-13T21:46:00.003-05:00

Ok so I figure I should let you in on some updates....

First, remember when I posted that Mary Beth and I were going to work our butts off before Darrah's wedding? Ha! Didn't happen. We did really well for a couple of weeks and then the holidays came, and then the awesome food and vacation punched our Work Out dreams in the face. We did talk about working out, we just never did it.

Then of course there was the article I read about how you can change your life in 30 days. I was gung ho to do sit ups, push ups, paint my nails and wash my face. What I learned...I hate painting my nails. It was a waste of time. I would pick at the paint all day long and curse my nails. Nail painting...lasted one week. I figured I would be awesome with the sit ups, push ups and face washing...but after trying to do drunk push ups at 2 AM quite a few times. I gave up. I lasted two weeks. So, I never changed my life because I didn't give it time.

Now we come to the Lent contract. Mary Beth and I gave up candy, fast food and fried food (all with loop holes mind you) and shockingly enough....We did it! We went the entire 40 days without any of the things we gave up. So you can rest assured the first thing I ate Easter morning was some chocolate my mom brought. Then it was off to brunch where I had some fried food. Then to celebrate, Mary Beth and I went to lunch today and celebrated with more fried food. So yay for us, we finally stuck to something. :)

Best Moment of Today: You would think my best moment of today would have been Mary Beth and I's awesome lunch or pint night at Ben's...but it wasn't. It happened at work. On one of the rare moments that I didn't have my headphones in, I picked up on a conversation next to me. My coworkers were talking about something and somehow it came up that a psuedo invoice was needed. Except I didn't hear psuedo.....I heard PAH SWADE O. Oh yes! It was great....if that wasn't funny enough, when my other coworker corrected the girl for her incorrect pronunciation, she said "Well, it is Spanish so...." Really? Is it because it ends in O? Now I know I haven't been in a Spanish class in a while, but I am pretty sure Pah Swade O wasn't a word I learned. I guess I will have to ask V.

Sylvester: He is pretty much the devil. A cute devil, but the devil nonetheless. His favorite game is to bite your toes as you walk or make the most pitiful whimper while you sleep. Good times. He is lucky he is cute. I just wish his needle teeth weren't so sharp.

Up and coming: Since Mary Beth and I can't be motivated on our own to work out, we have decided to join a boot camp. So starting in May we will be waking up super early and working out at 5:30 AM. So if you live near Victory Park, I apologize beforehand for the high pitched bawling, uncontrolable cussing and neverending complaining you will hear so early in morning. Wish us good luck. We will be torturing ourselves for an entire month, 3 times a week.....at 5:30 AM. Ugh, what have I done....

Meet Sylvester!!!

2009-04-06T22:43:00.000-05:00

Say Hello to our new puppy...

From Sylvester

Up All Night at Zymology!!!

2009-03-18T17:52:00.001-05:00

Wanna help me and Ben out? Do us a little favor? Then read on...

Apparently CW33 is coming to Zymology to film their segment Up All Night. Here is a link to the segment:

http://www.the33tv.com/pages/up_all_night

Here is where my favor comes in, we need to make Ben's place look like the new happening spot in Dallas, so if you could invite all of your friends for some fun at Zymology between 8-10 tomorrow I would really appreciate it. Apparently they will film for those two hours and then have it air on TV sometime. Let me know if you can help out...

In summary:

Event: Party for 'Up All Night'
Where: Zymology
2010A Greenville Ave.
When: Tomorrow, Thursday March 19, 2009
Time: 8 PM - 10 PM

www.zymologydallas.com

Bring whomever you know and get ready for a good time! Let me know if you think you can make it! I will definitley be there....don't forget the cameras will be rolling so look hot stylin' and profilin!

Plus it will be great weather to hang out on his awesome ROOF DECK!!!!

Thanks everyone!

St. Patty's Celebration

2009-03-17T18:41:00.003-05:00

Well my favorite Dallas celebration has come and gone and I once again have survived. On Saturday, it was the St. Patty's Celebration Parade on Greenville Ave. If you have never been to the parade, you are missing out. They block off the street and everyone comes out with their coolers and crazy attitudes and parties till they drop.

This year started with my 9 AM champage and cranberry. Yum! Ben and I relaxed a little before some of the boys from Ft. Worth came in. Once they got to our apartment, I 'made' breakfast, served beers and waited for more people. Once everyone arrived and I had drank through the entire bottle of champagne, we walked downstairs to CVS to get our official parade gear. I bought shamrock glasses and a shamrock headband, Whitey got his own shamrock glasses and shot glass for his neck while others got snacks and other green gear.

After CVS we walked over to the train and took the ride to Lover's Lane where all the fun begins. This is when we cracked open the coolers and started the drinking. I started the day off with Dave Stach's famous Disco Lemonade and other went for the beers. On the way to the parade, we ran into a little tent that proclaimed that it was a makeshift port o potty. While looking at it in disgust and of course taking many pictures, I ran into Julie from work and her friend and guess what they were looking for? That's right...a bathroom. Had I not been there I would not have believed it, but her friend went into the 3 ft high tent and peed into a bucket. Yep, we even got in on tape.

After the bathroom incident, the group really just decided to focus on drinks. We had beer, we had jello shots, we had maragaritas and more disco lemonade...all while watching the floats come by and try and catch the stupid plastic beads. So after consuming almost all of our drinks in 2 hours, we decided to take an extremely long walk.

We walked probably about 5 miles all the way down to Zymology. Unfortunately for me and not the many cameras around, this is when the 'night' gets fuzzy for me. Here I decided to consume some Ace Pear, Miller Light and split a bottle of Chardonnay with Whitey. Oh dear goodness, Ben should have stopped me. I think Mary Beth also bought me a pizza. Thanks! I am sure it was really amazing as they always are too. Zymology was the best part of the day. I got to hang out with Daryl, MB, Clap, Nick, Mike and Kristen and all the Ft Worth boys...drink more alcohol and even hang out with Ben for a bit.

Then everyone started to leave and somehow Ben got me a ride back to the apartment (which I am not really sure why...I must have been on my best behavior). I had every intention of making it back out for the fun, but I guess my couch wanted to tell me a secret. So I put my ear down on it and the next thing I know....I was waking up at 2:30 AM. I missed the rest of the fun that was being had. :( So although I survived the celebration, I am pretty sure it won.

Stephanie: 0
After Parade Celebration: 1

So next year if you want to hang out again, I promise I will make it past 5 o clock. Next year, 6 o clock!

Dominican Republic

2009-03-05T21:21:00.007-06:00

We finally got back from our Vacation/Attendance of Darrah and Jared's Wedding in the Dominican Republic. We had a great time with tons of fun in the sun, ocean, casino and variety of bars our resort offered. Rather than bore you with details and a day by day account of our trip, I will give you the highlights:

* Dominican Republic, The Country: As we traveled the extremely torn up and bumpy roads on our way to the resort, we could tell this wasn't the safest and cleanest of countries. Although the countryside was beautiful and the people extremely friendly, we didn't feel comfortable leaving the resort and experiencing the country on our own.

* Magestic Elegance, Our Resort: At first glance, the resort was absolutely beautiful. The lobby was huge and open to the elements and you could smell the ocean air. The pools were nice on first glance. The room was great. We had a huge king bed, marble floor, shower with 4 different spouts shooting water at you and a jacuzzi in our room. Once you have stayed for more than an hour, you start noticing the smaller things. Tile was missing in the pools, tile was missing in the shower, you could see the ceiling and wire from our vent and all around shoddy construction. The craziest thing about it is the fact the place just opened 5 months ago. Oh well, the bed was comfortable and we could shower in crazy tornado of water. Overall, I like it. :)

*Buffets, Steakhouses and Snack Bar, The Food: Apparently the Dominicans have not been introduced to spice, flavor and all around taste at the resort. The food was not very good. Although when it was late into the night and I had visited a few bars around the resort, I could have sworn I found the best hot dog on earth. The next day though it didn't taste as good when I went back. I can say that the food we had at the Hibachi Restaurant and Wedding Reception was very good. Oh and the omelettes you could make yourself were fantastic. Let's just say, I didn't starve for the 6 days I was there.

*Pedro, Norman and Manuel, The Bartenders: These guys made the trip. They served great drinks, had even greater personalities and pretty much ensured that we had a wonderful time the entire time on the resort. My only advice to anyone who does go the D.R. is stay away from the Toucan drinks and definitely try a shot of Mama Juana. Yum!

*A Trip Around D.R. with a CRAZY Tour Guide, The Excursion: Ben and I decided to take a truck safari around our part of the island and check out what the Dominican Republic was all about. Little did we know that we would be stuck for 9 hours with one of the craziest, maybe partially retarded tour guides in the country. He made the weirdest noises (that means a lot coming from me) and the craziest gestures and was pretty much fascinated with bathroom jokes. He also lacked the idea of personal space has he tried to shove a sprig of Oregano up Ben and my nostrils.

Needless to say, I was scared of him....anyway, on the excursion we visited a sugar 'plantation.' This consisted of pulling off the road, the driver hopping out and cutting down some sugar cane from the side of the road. Crazy Tour Guide gave us a 30 second lesson on sugar cane and then we ate some. Nice plantation.

Then it was off to the cigar museum where we learned about cigars for 15 minutes and then shopped for 30.

Then they took us on the most uncomfortable ride up the mountain to a typical Dominican house where we tried all kinds of fresh fruit, freshly ground cocoa that tasted like ground and had oregano shoved up our noses. On the way out, we saw a crazy snake man, took pictures and then went on to the Ranch where we would have lunch. At the Ranch we found that 'typical' Dominicans discovered flavor and spice. We ate a lot and then hopped onto some horses for our horse backriding adventure through the countryside. My horse decided to play bumper horses and tried to crush my leg between it's body and any other horse it decided it didn't like. Ben's horse on the other hand was racing some imaginary race and wanted to be the leader of the pack, even if that meant trying to throw Ben over the fence. After the horseback riding we saw some crocodiles, iguanas and even a mini cockfight (I walked away in protest...Ben took pictures >:o.....)

Then it was off to the beach for a 30 minute dip, which was much needed after the dust, horses and bumpy rides. After all of that, we finally made it back. Final conclusion, would go again.

*The Reason We Went, The Wedding: Darrah and Jared got married on the beach. The location was beautiful, the weather was beautiful and of course the couple was gorgeous. Everything was wonderful except all of the half naked people walking the beach stopping to watch or just walking behind all the picture perfect moments. It was quite distracting. It didn't take too much away from the ceremony, though. Then the reception had great food, great drinks and great conversations. She threw the bouquet and apparently it landed right in front of my feet while I was distracted...so she threw it again and her new cousin caught it. Whew! They had their first dance at the outside jazz bar and all of the dances there as well. It was a great time. Congratulations, Darrah and Jared and thanks for letting us be a part of it!

So that is pretty much it...if you see me about I might bore you with over 400 pictures Ben and I took of the trip. So this is your warning to stay clear of me!

The Lent Contract

2009-02-19T17:33:00.000-06:00

Over Happy Hour last night at Zymology, Mary Beth and I started to discuss Lent and what we would try to give up this year. Right now, I am sure you are scratching your head thinking…when did Stephanie become Catholic? Wait, when did Stephanie become religious? Wait….why wasn’t I invited to Happy Hour? Well, to answer the questions. I did not convert to Catholicism and I am not all that religious, but I do like to give up something for Lent. As for Happy Hour, you can come any time you want…

So after a half a bottle of wine each, Mary Beth came up with a contract for us….on receipt paper. We wanted to make sure it was formal, hence the wording. Here is the original:

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

For those of you who can’t read what it says, I am pretty sure I agreed to the following:

FOR LENT

This contract heretofore within states & legally documents the binding agreement between the Mary Beth and the Stephanie in Bethanie to the following:

1. No candy;
2. No fast food; (anything with a drive thru)
3. No fried foods;

Under penalty of no shopping for shoes or clothes or accessories for 40 days. (muahahahahaha!!)

Scribble known as MB’s signature
Signed, & agreed & understood

More legible Stephanie signature
Signed, & agreed & understood

And of course along the side is the bartender (Ben’s) signature as our witness.

So make sure you keep me in line for Lent because I don’t want to lose my shopping privileges!

Bet You Wish You Had These Dance Moves...

2009-02-18T21:56:00.005-06:00

Last night two of my friends from work, Julie and Courtney, and I decided to up our work out routines and take a dance class for fitness. Nope, it wasn't hip hop, ballet nor a typical dance class. We all signed up and took Pole Dancing Exotic Fusion at the Girls Room on Lower Greenville.

As soon as work was over, we all changed into our slut gear...tight pants and shirts...and ran off to Lower Greenville. We stopped into Ben's bar beforehand and contemplated downing a couple of beers to help our confindence level. Lucky for us, we walked into the class stone sober.

Of course, we all lined up next to each other at our own poles in the back of the class. Then of course, the dreaded question came..."Who all has never been here before?" All three of our hands rose...therefore all three of us were split up. I was paired up with one of the workers of the Girls Room, Courtney was paired up with the instructor and Julie miraculously was by herself.

On to the pole playing...

We started stretching and loosening up for our awesome exotic dance moves. We all followed along with instructor all the while hoping her 'teasers' wouldn't pop out of her top. After stretching she went over the basics...setting our tables.

We all moved up to the pole and learned the finishing move of all dancers. You pretty much lean into the pole, bring your 'teasers' close, roll your tummy in and then you know what comes next...the 'pleaser.' After your roll your pleaser near the pole, you then stick out your butt and set the table....and as the instructor told us...take your time because this is when you get your money. Let's just say, my table setting was not very sexy and may have looked as though I was having a seizure while trying to hold onto a stripper pole.

After our table setting lesson, it was onto the pole twirling. We learned the dragon, the chair and even the warrior. We swung around and landed 'gracefully' at the bottom of the spin and finished our move with a couple of table sets. My partner was impressed by my 'newbie' skills and maybe even my table setting....not so much Courtney and Julie. Apparently I got really into my moves that I didn't know my inner stripper was trying to come out....through my backside. My pants apparently came down a bit and showed the world my polka dotted thong. Not just a little bit as Julie put it, but I had the 'Golden Arches' on display. Nice.

After our pole spins and crazy table setting with lunges and leg kicks, it was on to the floor work. Sweet Dear Jesus...I am not sure how I made it through the last 30 minutes of class. We did crazy leg lifts and an ab work out that was all stripified. Right when we thought we couldn't crunch any more, we had to do the move in Stripper time....which meant 10 times slower than normal.

Needless to say, Julie, Courtney and I all made it through the hour class a little more sweaty, a lot more sore and weak and hopefully with an extra sex appeal. I was inspired by the work out so much, I signed up for a month's membership. Now I can look forward to learning more pole moves, sexy yoga and maybe even Burlesque if I save up enough money for specialty classes.

So as we hobbled down the stairs on extremely shakey legs, the other girls decided to join me for some more classes during my membership. There was also some talk of getting some poles to perfect our moves.

So if you are female and want to try a crazy new work out, come join me....I'll be the girl with the Blue Whale Tail hanging out of my pants. ;)

Valentine's Day

2009-02-16T20:27:00.003-06:00

For Valentine's Day this year, Ben and I decided to forego the expensive gifts and go for the cheesiest gifts we could find for $30. Best idea ever.

I went to the most expensive store to find my gifts for him. Big Lots had a great selection of cheesy gifts. I picked out a huge card, a fuzzy box in the shape of lips, candy for inside the box and picture frame. Then on Saturday morning, before Ben got out of bed, I went to Albertson's and picked up some stuff for breakfast and bought a huge balloon that 'sings' when you tap it. It was pure greatness.

Over banana pancakes and juice, Ben I exchanged our gifts. He got me a huge card (he copied me), an awesome cheap heart necklace, heart stamps and a box of chocolates. It was nice, simple and cheesy. It was an awesome start to Valentine's day.

I also met Ben's dad, step-mother and two younger brothers as well. We had an awesome lunch at Ben's restaurant/bar. Unfortunately for me, I did not get to drown my nerves with a bottle of wine. I had to be on my best behavior.....yeah, had any of my friends walked in at that time they would not recognize me.

Then my Valentine's day really took off...

Richard, Sid and Nehal all came into town to party it up Dallas style. We all met at my apartment, drank a little bit of Ben's good alcohol (one of the many benefits to living with him) and then headed of to Zymology. That's right, twice in one day, baby. After dinner and a few drinks we need to test out our dance moves.

We took the advice of Tyre and headed off to Madison Ave. Just as Tyre predicted it was packed with the lovely ladies and had loud music. After many trips to the bar, I began to highly enjoy myself. I demonstrated my cool new dance moves, tried to help my boys hit on the ladies and even went ninja style and stole a 'sip' of someone's fresh drink.

When 1:45 AM rolled around, it was definitely time for me to go. I closed my tab and all of us headed for the recap at the apartment. Ben finally go home....we enjoyed more of his good alcohol and finally passed out. Needless to say, it was the Best Valentine's Day I have ever had.

Except when I went to lunch today and tried to use my credit card. I found out that one of the bartenders gave me Ms. Limket card. She apparently got my card today and went to eat at Dickey's BBQ..... So once again, another canceled debit card and another 'fraud' ding on my report. Yay credit fun!

Here are some pics from Valentine's morning. If Nehal ever sends me some pics, I will upload dance party ones.

The pancakes I made (I know, crazy...I cooked!):

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

Ben's Card:

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

His presents:

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

His Balloon:

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

My gifts and card:

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

Paintball Fun

2009-02-10T12:21:00.005-06:00

For his birthday, Richard decided he wanted to get a big group of people together for some Paintball action. So when I was given the opportunity to run around and shoot some of my close friends, I jumped on it immediately.

Before last Saturday I have only been paintballing one other time. It was in high school and the only thing I remember from it was getting dirty and having an awesome bruise somewhere on my body. Oh yeah, and there were some pictures as well. Now it was time for some more memories.

Usually, I would prepare for the big event by hitting up the Army Surplus stores and buying the perfect camo outfit. Unfortunately the move into the new place has depleted my bank account….plus I figured Ben might have some camo pants. Nope, I was wrong he just had the camo shorts he bought for another theme event.

So morning of the big event, I get up, shower, put on my make up (just because I will be getting gross and muddy is no excuse to not to have pretty face. ;) ), and put on some work out clothes in all black. That’s right, Ninja Stephanie was going to be on the field.

I picked up Ryan, Ben’s roommate, and headed out to Fort Worth for the festivities. We got to the place and kind of stood around for 30 minutes and watched all the professionals walking around in their top of the line paintball clothes, extra weaponry and kick ass guns all the while praying that we would not be playing against these guys. Did I mention they were also about 10 years old? Uh huh. They were that scary.

The official refs of the game give us the low down on the rules and divide us into teams. Thank God Whitey and Ryan were both on my team because they were trying to scheme how many shots they were going to take on me.

The first two rounds we played I was super sniper girl. I mean who can see me when I am dressed all in black in the daylight. That’s right….everyone. I still managed to not ever get hit and took out a couple of trees, grass and I think some of my splatter got an actual girl out.

After the first couple of games, Whitey and I decided it wasn’t fun to not get shot so we planned our first suicide missions. Oh yeah, we were going to run out back to back, scream at the top of our lungs and shoot the crap out of the opposite team. On our third game, we were hiding out behind some huge spool ready to go when Whitey goes to take one shot and someone takes out his hand. 5 seconds into the game and he loses due to a lucky shot. No suicide mission for Whitey. So it is left to me. I run out, try to scream and realize I can’t because I am completely out of breath and make my way up the hill. Within 2 seconds, I take a shot to the leg. Now, I am out. Oh well, I got hit. It didn’t hurt too badly and I will probably have a nice bruise to prove I played.

Now on to the final game. At this point we are all pretty low on ammo, except Whitey because he didn’t get one shot out from the last game, so we decide that we will play till we run out of paint. Pretty much, if you get shot and you still want to play…continue until you can’t shoot anyone any more. So I make the speech to alert everyone of the new rules. Here is an excerpt: “Rule #1: If you get shot, suck it up. Shoot until you run out of ammo and then you can surrender.”

Once again, Whitey and I decide to employ some Rambo moves and rolls and other tactical exercises for the last game. My blood is pumping, I am pratically already out of breath from the thought of running again and finally hear the whistle blow. I go to run out and shoot everyone in site when all of a sudden I find myself flat on my stomach and my face in the mud. That’s right….I tripped on a root right in front of me. By the time I get myself back up, it sounds like everyone traded in their guns for semi automatics. Sure enough, my run to cover was painful. The whole left side of my body was covered in paint by the time I slid in next to Whitey. Not only were my leg and arm throbbing but so was my left ear. Yep, I took a bullet to the head. One shot versus 10 shots hurt a helluva lot more. The worst part about the whole thing was the safety on my gun was ON the entire time.

I laid down and recovered for a couple of minutes before I started taking shots on the opposing team. Any time a bit of my body was exposed, it was shot. At this time, I wanted to give up…as did Whitey. We continued on until we ran out of paint. I finally got to surrender. Yay for me! As I was walking to safety, I felt someone shoot me on my leg. From behind. Yep, that’s right. Apparently my little speech before the game pissed one of my team members off so he shot me. Note to self, not everyone knows you and understands your humor…..make sure jokes are made away from paintball guns. :)

Needless to say, I left the game with about 8 big bruises on my body and clear understanding that I really need to get into shape. I had a great time though and am kind of looking forward to the next time.

ZYMOLOGY

2009-02-02T23:32:00.001-06:00

As most of you know my boyfriend Ben has been working very hard to open his first Bar/Restaurant. Well, the day has finally come that the doors of Zymology are OPEN. TODAY!

So here is a little background, Ben wanted to take a beer bar, like the Flying Saucer,and a wine bar, like Veritas, and combine the two in one bar. So when you go to Zymology you can expect, 20 bottle beers and 20 different beers on tap as well 40 different bottles of wine, from an extremely smooth Pinot Noir to Ports to a fancy Riesling made from hand picked grapes.

To top off the great beer and wine list, Zymology also offers a full menu. Don't expect your everyday bar food. You will find pizza made in a wood burning stove, a Pablano Artichoke Dip, yummy pork chops and a lot more.

In summary, everything is great so you should check it out and tell all of your friends about it. Also, whenever you can make it out to Dallas come hang out with me. I will be the lonely girl at the end of bar drinking a glass of Riesling. :)

Here are some important info you may need:
Zymology
2010A Greenville Ave.
Dallas, TX 75206
214-954-7171
http://www.zymologydallas.com/ (under construction-ish)

See ya there!

31 Days

2009-01-28T19:30:00.001-06:00

So the other day when I miraculously had some down time at work, I read this article on MSN:

http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/bigger-picture/staticslideshowglamour.aspx?cp-documentid=15188306&GT1=32001

I thought it was pretty interesting. I am all about some short time goals and figured I would give it a try. So here are my easy goals for 31 days.

Do 10 sit ups every day for 31 Days.
Do 10 push ups every day for 31 Days.
Wash my face every night for 31 Days.
Make sure my nails are painted every day for 31 Days.

I know they are simple goals but that is the whole point. I will let you know if there are any dramatic changes in my life. Want to join in my 31 Day fun? Let me know what you plan on doing.

Where Have I Been?

2009-01-27T16:24:00.002-06:00

So once again, I procrastinated writing a blog and didn’t update all of my fellow readers (that’s right, only 2 of you.) If it makes it any better, I did write a few blogs in my head….I just never got them on the computer. :)

So here is a quick update of the last couple of weeks:

Yay Christmas! Had a great Christmas and great gifts. Here are few: A roomba! (Yeah, you know you are old when you are excited about a vacuum cleaner), a huge hard drive for my computer, shiny new boots, 2 new pairs of Aldo Heels, Black and White diamond skull necklace, picture frame, Partini and other fun stuff. Oh yeah, my mom also booked a room for Ben and I at a Haunted Hotel where they hold a Murder Mystery!

For Christmas I bought my mother tickets to see Annie at the Bass Hall. It was a good production but I had a major complaint. Annie had STRAIGHT hair! What kind of crap is that? Finally at the end when she got all ‘dolled up’ did they curled her hair. Sorry buddy, straight haired Annie sucks.

NYE: We had so much fun on New Years. We had a couple of people come over to my apartment for drinks and games. Then we headed over to Victory Park in Downtown and joined the huge crowd and watched the fireworks. Then it was fighting the 10,000 drunks back to the DART. Good times.

Murder Mystery in Oklahoma: Ben and I had to get dressed up in 40s outfits and had to play characters. Ben was a mobster named Michael Morelli and I was…..Easy Windgate. Believe it or not, but I was not a Porn Star. Needless to say it was held in a haunted hotel. I am pretty sure we had some ghostly experiences. Guess we will just have to go back sometime…

Casey Turns 30: Ben and I also celebrated my Gay Husband’s 30th birthday. We had a fantastic time at Cyclones Anayas where the margaritas are the size of your head and then we were off the Strip. So a night of Drag Queens, drinks and other dirty things was the only way Casey would roll into his 30s.

Hip Hop with Julie: When I was younger, I did ballet. It is very technical and your hands, feet, hips and butt all have a place to be at a certain beat. I loved it. So Julie and I checked out the Hip Hop class here in Dallas given by the Dallas Maverick Cheerleaders. It pretty much just solidified that I will never be a hip hop dancer. Let’s just say the steps don’t have fancy names and you aren’t taught on beats or counts. You are actually told to do a ‘What’s Up’ on the certain word in the song. Julie was awesome and really got into the ‘Pops’ and ‘Head Rolls.’ Needless to say one of the longest hours of my life. The experience did however entertain our office for an entire week. I even witnessed the infamous Jay James doing a ‘What’s Up’ in his office.

Ben and I also finally went and saw the King Tut exhibit. ROBBERY!!!! We didn’t really read up on what the exhibit was about and went expecting to see a dead body and some fancy face masks. Nope! No King Tut. Just some very random stuff that was in his tomb. Interesting, but I could have lived without seeing it. Good thing we went on the Cheap Night. The saving grace of the night was the awesome art/light show they have by Elliason. Worth going to and seeing, but if you don’t want to pay…go on Thurdsay. It is free. :)

Weird Experience of the Month: I went to a going away party for some of Ben’s friends. They all used to work or work at Freebirds so most of them are Aggies. At the party, I saw some guy that I knew from A&M. I couldn’t place him and finally we had a discussion of how we knew each other. He proceeded to tell me that we had actually made out once in College at that he was friends with my old roommate’s friends. I then asked why we never hung out afterwards….His reply “Well, you kind of ignored me..” Ooops. Yeah, that would be a typical response of mine in college. Sorry!

Darrah’s Bridal Shower: Darrah is one of my good friends from college. So when she had one of her Bridal Showers I showed up expecting some of her other friends and my coworkers to be there. Little did I know I would be the only friend that showed up. The shower consisted of her future in laws friends and family, Darrah and her mom….oh yeah, and me. Only friend there. Needless to say, most awkward TWO hours of my life. Can’t wait for the wedding though!

One Year: Ben and I also celebrated our One year anniversary of Dating. I still can’t believe he is able to put up with me for so long. He is the most patient and understanding person I have ever met. So for our celebration, he had me meet him at his Bar/Restaurant. As we were walking up to the rooftop patio, he let me open my present: The Fifth Season of Nip/Tuck. Then as we walk further on to the patio, I see that he has set up a projector and screen, two chairs with two blankets and champagne. So we watched people get cut up and have dirty ‘relations’ under the stars. Aw, romance! Then he had one of his new employees bring us some of our favorite things from two restaurants: Twice baked potato from Sambuca and Macaroni and cheese from Morton’s. Yum! We followed the night up with some wine at Veritas. Wonderful celebration. :)

Moving In: I guess to even continue with the celebration, Ben and I moved in together this past weekend. Let’s just say I own a lot of crap and amazed at the fact that it all multiplied in the 2 years I was at my last apartment. So as soon as the new place is presentable, expect some pictures and get togethers. Also, if you are ever Downtown Dallas, swing on by and say hello!

That’s it for now! Once again, I will try and be better at the whole writing a blog thing.

*This blog is dedicated to Google Calendars. Thank you for organizing my life and helping me remember what I have done for the past 6 weeks so I can update everyone. :)

The search for the Perfect Apartment...

2008-12-11T21:08:00.003-06:00

My clothes don't fit. No, not my body but my apartment. I have fought with the same closest for the last couple of years and I still can not find, see nor put away all of my clothes. So there is only one solution for my problem. A new apartment. :)

Since my lease is up this coming February, I have started looking for the perfect closet and living quarters. First I decided I would scale down in my rent and look for the perfect steal, pay less rent and get a bigger space but not live quite so close to downtown or all the cool places around Dallas. Then the elitist in me decided to shine on through. I had to live downtown or as close to it as possible without having to take out a loan for rent.

So I looked at a gorgeous loft in Deep Ellum. It was beautiful. The closet was a small room. Mary Beth looked with me and decided it would be her room. No problem with me as long as she wanted to live with all of my clothes. Of course, being a good home 'buyer' we looked at more lofts around town. Nothing lived up to the gorgeous closet in Deep Ellum.

Two weekends after falling in love, I decided to show Ben what would probably be my new digs. Yes, it would cost me an arm and leg in rent. Yes, it was freezing in the Texas 'winter' and yes, I heard that the walls were really thin and you could hear your neighbors TV.....but, it had the closet. I loved it. I dreamed about it at night. So I showed Ben. He hated it. He pointed out the old appliances, the lack of parking and the high rent, again. So, I decided to keep looking...

That same day Ben and I went to the Camden Apartments in Downtwon Dallas. We went into the leasing office and met Kevin. I told him I was interested in a 1 bedroom apartment and didn't want to spend more than $900. So he showed me the floor plans with some beautiful closets. And as you all know me, when I get excited I get animated. I started saying I loved closets and starting making little circles around them on the floor plan. Apparently Kevin thought this was weird and called me out on it, asking Ben if I always did this. Which of course was an affirmative answer from Ben. Needless to say, I got excited about something else....and that is when it happened. Kevin started mocking me and making small circles with his finger in front of my face and then leaned across his desk and scratch behind my ear. Wha!?! Did he really just do that? Yeah! He did. So, I played it off like no biggie and I think Ben was too taken aback to say anything.

The Camden Apartments have a great deal going on. So I decided to ask about their two bedrooms just in case Ben and I decide we ever wanted to live there. Kevin wanted to have none of that. He actually said, "Let's just focus on you right now." Even though, I was the one who wanted to know. Hell, he even would have made a bigger sale! Ben even tried to get a price range for him and his roommate to look at. Kevin spat out a number and then brushed him off.

Speaking of brushes.....when we finally hopped in the golf cart to check out the property. Somebody's elbow happened to accidently brush my chest...and that somebody's elbow wasn't Ben's.

More things happened...Kevin showed me pictures of his dog and him on his phone. When Ben tried to look, he quickly shut his phone. Then he told me how we would be neighbors and where his apartment was. How if I rented this one apartment he would be right below me....

Finally, when we looked at another apartment we reached a gate. Kevin politely opened the gate for me and let me walk through. Then when Ben tried to walk in after me, Kevin tried to cut him off and walk in. So there they are walking through the gate shoulder to shoulder trailing behind me. Needless to say, the creepy factor of Kevin was enough for me never to want to rent an apartment there. I am not of big fan of being killed in my sleep by the apartment leasing guy.

Lucky for me I found the perfect place. It is in the heart of Downtown Dallas; it has a huge walk in closet and great rent price. Even better it comes with the perfect roommate.....Ben.

Personally bringing down the Credit Card Industry....

2008-11-04T21:52:00.003-06:00

So about two years ago, I found out that there was another Stephanie Lemke running around the DFW area. That's not cool...I should be the ONLY Stephanie Lemke in DFW. It wouldn't be so bad if her parents decided that Stephanie Lemke is a kick ass name and named her that....but they didn't. They called her something else. She just happen to fall upon MY personal information.

She was AMAZING with numbers. She got my Social Security Number, my birthdate...even my TX driver's license number. Like I said, good with numbers. She was so good with numbers that she managed to rack thousands of dollars of charges under my name and information. Lucky for me, my credit didn't suffer. I didn't just pay off the charges that were coming through and I filed a police report. Take that Biatch! Well, lucky me some officer in Haltom City happened to pull over Stephanie Lemke and found a copy of my driver's license and other information. I promptly pressed charges and haven't had a problem since.....

.....Oh, wait.... yes, I did.

I didn't have a problem with the infamous Stephanie Lemke, but someone who loves Apple decided that they were going to hack into my Apple account and steal my debit card information. Yep, they ordered two 50 gift cards for themselves. Well, little did they know that I watch my account like a hawk. It's not my fault I have to check every day if I have enough money for the vending machine..... Needless to say, I fought the charge, Apple gave me my money back and my little unknown friend never got their gift cards....

Think it's over....not quite....

So when I got my new job at Freeman, I applied for my Corporate Credit Card with American Express. I received my "Welcome to American Express" letter at the office but no card. Well, with a new job, that was the last thing on my mind was to find the credit card. I assure you it was the first thing on my mind this morning when I checked my voicemail at work.

I received a phone call from American Express this morning wondering about some charges on my card. Oh wait, the card that I am still waiting for? You know the one that is directly related to my personal credit? Yeah, that one. Sorry, to break it to you Amex but those charges aren't mine.

Stephanie, are you sure you didn't rack up some $4500 worth of charges in Malaysia? Home theater? No? Uh oh....

So there it is. My card was intercepted somewhere between my desk and American Express. Now someone isn't going to be receiving their new Home Theater from Malaysia. All charges have been marked fraudulent and I am getting a new card tomorrow. God, I am lucky.

So if you are worried about identity theft or stolen credit cards, try to stay at least 50 ft away from me. I think my presence is dangerous to the Credit Card industry. Sorry, America.

Ghoulish Weekend

2008-11-03T21:10:00.002-06:00

Well, we just finished the 'scariest' weekend of the year. This year Ben, Mary Beth and I celebrated in the only way it should be done. In full costume in the Gayberhood. Where else can you see the best costumes and get great drink prices? We hopped in and out of the bars with Jon and Erych and some of the their friends and had a great time. As always, Jon and Erych put a lot of effort into their costumes and they were flawless.

Nothing completes a scary weekend without telling a few ghost stories and maybe even looking for a few ghosts of your own. As I have found out, Dallas has a few ghost legends of its own. One being the Lady of the Water at White Rock lake. She is one of those ghost who comes up to young lovers cars, drenched and asks for a ride. When they give her a ride, she disappears and there is nothing but a wet seat. She can also be seen walking around the lake. Sounds like a great idea for a Saturday night, huh?

So sure enough after Jon's birthday celebration dinner, Jon, Erych, Ben and I all hop into Ben's car and make our way out to White Rock lake. We are there with the essentials....digital camera, candles for a possible seance, sage stick and a lighter.... After driving around the lake for 30 min (at times too scared to even roll down the windows), we finally convince ourselves that we are going to step out of the car. Baby steps. Ben insists on leaving the car running with all of the doors open for a quick escape from the White Rock Ghost. Who knows what she is going to do....slime us with water perhaps?

Finally after a couple of minutes we decide to shut off the car, shut the doors and maybe light the candles. Ben and I are still at the edge of our feet ready to flee if we see anything. After a couple of trys with the candles and Jon and Erych pleading for Ben and I to stay in one place and not run to the car any more.....we start our seance......and......nothing. The candles go out a couple of times and we hear some lapping of the water which we decided could have been watery foot steps? Needless to say....we didn't conjure up any ghost nor see anything crazy.

But wait.....

Remember the digital camera? I took random pictures the entire time we were outside and we all looked at them on the way back home. We finally got our ghost (at least that is what we are calling it). So here is what we found:

In a series of pictures, I took two pictures, one directly after the other. The first shows our apparition and next shows it leaving maybe? You decide. I have even provided a close up of our friend:

1st Pic - notice the Orb

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

2nd pic directly after - Orb leaving? Gone?

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

Close up of the Orb:

From Not So Secret World of Stephanie

So that was our fun. Once again, I was scared to go to my once haunted apartment. I was even too scared to sleep. All was well though, I slept fine and my overhead light never turned on in the night....

In Shape Stephanie, here I come....

2008-10-29T20:56:00.002-05:00

As you may know, I am going to the Dominican Republic for Darrah's wedding here in a couple of months. All people have different ways of preparing for a trip to a new country....making sure they have a passport, brushing up on their Spanish, looking for excursions to experience.... Not Mary Beth and I. We are on a mission to get SKINNY! And by skinny, we all know that my bones would never fit into a size 6, but I would love to be able to tone up my saddlebags and wings.

So starting last Monday, Mary Beth and I have been going to the gym at our Corporate office. We started the first day with some fun on the eliptical and then some free weights. 6 months ago, I was a hoss. Free weights for 15 min...No problem. Eliptical? Please, I will run. Now I just want to cry at how out of shape I am. I was sore from the 5 min of lifting up my own fat butt from the ground, let alone a 5 lb dumbell.

You have to start somewhere though. So we have walked for the past two days and are really focused on getting back into shape. We are even planning on working out on Fridays after work. That is dedication. So feel free to send encouraging words for my Get In Shape plan for the next couple of months and hopefully beyond that. If all else fails, I will go to the tanning bed, because everyone knows tan fat looks better than white fat......

I am getting old....

2008-10-26T20:33:00.002-05:00

The weekend started off with the most awkward fashion show on Thursday night. Let's just say me and my 4 girl friends weren't very well received at the show, but I wouldn't have given up going up for the world. We saw Dallas' up and coming couture models who really focused on their awesome poses and moves down the 6 foot runway. I would try to explain it but you really had to be there.....but the problem is I am getting old. I had one drink at the bar because I knew I had to be at work the next day. We also left at 9:30 and I am pretty sure I was in bed by 11.

Fast forward to Friday... I really wanted to take a nap as soon as I got home from work because MB and I were going to see MSTRKRFT at House of Blues. The show started at 11. Oh dear god, on a Friday? After work? Well, no nap for me but we were cool enough to hang out until 2:45. So I kind of got "not so old" points but here is the thing...my friend Randy had met the DJs a year ago and they recognized him. I knew he was going to be able to hang out with them back stage, but I decided to peace out of HOB as soon as possible so I could sleep. I would have punched myself in the face for that 2 years ago.

And now Saturday....this was bad. I actually was hoping to stay in. All I wanted to do was hang out on the couch and play on line Texas Hold Em! Agh, not only OLD but now a NERD!!! Thank God it wasn't a possiblity because we helped celebrate John's birthday. So we went dancing and drinking. Funzies....but honestly I wanted to go home because my "long" weekend of partying caught up with me and I was sick....and not the cool drunk sick, but the ""Oh Dear God, somebody punch me in the face so that my head and sinuses will hurt for a reason." Trust me when I say 2 AM couldn't come fast enough....

Needless to say, I have spent the entire day inside on Sunday. Coughing, sneezing and wishing for Death all day long. Now I have to hope my body is ready for a work week because I am still waiting for those benefits to kick in......

What!?! When did October get here......

2008-10-19T17:14:00.004-05:00

Well as you can see I have been slacking off on writing my blog. Mostly it is because I got a new job and that new job actually requires work out of me. What is that all about? Even if they weren't actually utilizing my awesome skills, they blocked blogspot so it forces me to be a productive member of the team.

So as you can see I left Neiman's and am now at Freeman. It is a crazy thing working in an office where I am not the youngest one by 15 years. So now rather than talk about mortgages and going to bed at nine, the office is filled with conversations about the really important things in life: lip gloss and shoes. Yeah, needless to say I fit in REAL well.

What else has been going on? I have booked another fantastic vacation because my dear friend Darrah got engaged and decided Texas wasn't good enough to get married in....so we are off to the Dominican Republic for fun in the sun, drinking....and oh yeah, true love. So pretty much what that means is I have given up all food and will think about exercising in my apartment's gym. Excerise in my mind is the same thing, right?

Ben also turned 31 this month. And in true fashion I decided to party really hard for him. We went to Austin, hung out with my family and his friends and tried to drink all of the liquor in Austin before it ran out. I think I was the most worried about the lack of liquid greatness, so I was drinking it up real fast. Little did I know that it wasn't really necessary.... so the next morning/afternoon was fantastic when my first activity out in public was throwing up in the handicap stall in TGI Fridays. I am sure Ben was real proud of his girlfriend at that moment. So I made it up to him on his actual birthday and thanks to my friends I was able to pull off his best birthday ever....

Just to make sure that my liver didn't have enough fun in October, Mary Beth also had a birthday. We went to the winery in Downtown Dallas and we got to make our own batch of Pinot Noir and also got to taste other wines as well. Awesome times of course, so then we headed over to dinner and without my knowledge we ended up eating in the middle of a club/dance floor at Manny's Uptown Tex Mex. It turned into who had the loudest birthday crowd, lucky (or unlucky...youwill have to ask her) for MB she had Daryl and I at her table. Needless to say we were the loudest and most willing to dance our butts off for fun. So I hope she had a great time because I know I did.

Otherwise the only thing coming up is my 2nd favorite holiday...Halloween. So that means tons of costumes, a trip to some haunted houses and making sure that I partake in any alcohol shortage scare in Dallas. So if you wanna join in some fun times, let me know.

That's it for now. I promise it won't take multiple people to remind me that I haven't blogged in a while to write again.

Thank you for making it easier....

2008-08-29T10:27:00.002-05:00

I thought it was going to be tough to give my notice especially since our industry and company aren't doing so well. I thought I would bust my ass just to make sure it would be an easy transition for whomever sits at my desk next. And most of all, I thought you guys just might care. So thank you for making it easier for me to walk out the door.

Thanks for coming by my desk and asking how my life was and pretend to genuinely care. I told you all about my boyfriend and how wonderful he is...and I am pretty sure you were gunning for a proposal? Thanks for really getting to know who I am, since that would be the last thing I wanted on my birthday. Thanks for making me believe that you wanted to know all about the trips I planned throughout the 2 and half years I was here and even wanting to see some pictures. You sure did fool me. Because I kept waiting for you to come by yesterday or today and find out what my next steps in life are. So when you gave 1.3 seconds of your day today just to say good morning, I realized that I won't be missed by you. So thanks for making it easier to walk out the door.

As for you my good buddy, I can't wait to get out here because of you. I love the fact that you HATE my enthusiam for things in my life like trips to Vegas and hot pink shoes. I am happy that you never have to hear me laugh at lunch outside of the office ever again. Now you don't have to point out how loud I am, when I am sure that was the first time you ever heard my voice raise over the volume of a controlled whisper. I am glad that I don't have to walk around like the shell of a person you wanted me to be because it just didn't fit how everyone is supposed to act here at work. I will miss how you made me and some of my other coworkers feel as if we just didn't matter. In your eyes, we mean nothing to this department and we are only here to do the bidding of your golden agents. So I really mean it when I say THANK YOU for making it the easiest on me.

I will not miss either of you.

Thanks again. This is going to be a great two weeks. :)

Not enough room in the Trailer Park

2008-08-19T09:18:00.003-05:00

Over the weekend was the long anticipated return of GayBingo and what a glorious return it was. We started off the night with Trash Can punch and trailer trash snacks (easy cheese and crackers, spam and even Twinkies!) at my apartment and went into the first of many photo shoots. Best part about it was we had practically 100% participation in the costume fun! Congrats to the big winners. My mom who won a whopping $61 because she had to share with the other winners. Erych who won 2 tickets to something and Roland for winning $30 or something like that. And an honorary mention to Ben, who probably would have won over $200 but was too distracted by shiny things. At least he didn't go to Jail. :)

And now for your viewing pleasure, I present the Classiest Folks in all of Dallas:

Snackies:

Original Gay Bingo-ers:

My mom and Me:

Ben and I:

My Midgets and Me:

Click on any of the pics to see more!

What a weekend....

2008-08-11T10:24:00.004-05:00

So after YT's send off party, Ben was great enough to drive the 3 hours to Katy's lake house....at 11:30 at night. I tried to do my best to stay awake to entertain him, but apparently dreaming about talking to someone while they are driving and actually doing it are two different things. Clap even tried add to the conversation and by that just repeat the last sentence he heard and then pass back out.

So we finally get to the Lake around 2 am and by now I am wide awake. So while Ben scavenges for a bed to sleep in, I try to wake up everyone in the house for an after party. That didn't go over so well, so I too went to sleep again.

Of course we are up early and little did I know, but Clap decided it was going to be Spring Break 08 on the dock. As he enjoyed his Drink of the Future and I enjoyed my Summertime at 9 AM, it wasn't long until we were reminiscing of the good ol' days at A&M. In between, we even made it out on the boat. I am surprised the Olympics did not recruit both Clap and I to be on some Water Skiing team (is that even an Olympic event?) because we were AWESOME! Clap showed us a 10 on the Holding-On-To-The-Rope-For-Dear-Life-Even-After-You-Have-Lost-Your-Skiis event. I of course won for the Best Impersonation of a Drunk Person on Skiis (even though I was sober). That's right, I skiied for all of 5 seconds this year. Much better than the 2 seconds I sported Memorial Day.

We then gorged ourselves silly on Hamburgers, hot dogs and even more Drink of the Future and Summertime...where I learned that my sense of humor does not translate well if you have never met me. So I apologize to the ladies for calling them Lesbians. I didn't realize this would make you not want to hang around me for the rest of the day.

So what is the best thing to do after eating and drinking a lot? That's right go Tubing. Ben and I then tied for 1st on Most Time to Get on a Tube. Then of course Ben had to upstage me by having the best Skipping on the water by the seat of your pants/Wipeout. I couldn't compete. I just tumbled a lot and almost lost my bathing suit bottoms. Leave it up to Brent though to have the Shortest Time on the Tube even though he was going for best Wipeout.

This of course is when we all realized we weren't in College anymore. After eating Frozen pizza, most of us either watched the pre season football game or retired to our rooms and read. Oh dear! My 21 yr old self would have punched me in the face.

It was a great weekend though. And to top off the Lake fun. We saw a little gem of Garden decorating on the way home. Move over pink flamingos......

We now have Mannequins!

Come Back, YT....come back.

2008-08-11T10:04:00.005-05:00

YT has had a lot of titles in life. Funniest guy I know, One of My Most Favorite People and also Smartest Guy I Know. One day YT decided that he no longer wanted to be an Engineer. You may think working on airplanes and hellicopters wasn't challenging enough for him, or maybe it was just not the right job, but we all know YT wanted to get back to the ladies and the good ol' days of College.

Now he could have gone down the same path as his friends and gotten a Master's in Business, but that's not challenging enough for the Smartest Guy I Know. So YT decided to go to Law School. So off he goes to his Arch Rival school, Texas, and should be starting classes this week.

Of course in Fort Worth Boy style, YT had a his send off party this weekend. There was tons alcohol, great fajitas by the world famous Louie and papparazzi style photos by me. The night started off reminiscent of college with a game of Presidents and @$$holes and I am sure ended with some Keg stands. We also had a wonderful slide show of YT through the years and ending the with Greatest Padre Video Ever. It was a great end to his days in Fort Worth and hopefully a good beginning to his days as a student. We are going to miss you, YT. Try not to delete my number again...so we can hang out when I go down to Austin.

Thank God they didn't dance like this when I was in Ballet....

2008-08-07T16:19:00.000-05:00

Endorsement: Theresa, the kick ass hairstylist!

2008-08-05T08:50:00.004-05:00

About 5 months ago, I took the plunge. I let Theresa, my brother's girlfriend of forever, cut off my hair. It went from boring, super long hair to fun stylish awesome bob that was a sure fire compliment getter...and everyone knows I love a compliment. Needless to say, I only let her touch my hair. That is saying a lot since I used to let my Dad cut my hair in the backyard.

Her awesome work:

Before:

After:

Being the great hairstylist that she is, with tons of talent, Theresa entered into the American Idol competition of hair styling. So she is asking for a bit of help and I am happy to oblige. Here is her request:

Dear family and friends,

I need your participation please!!!!!!!!! I am entering the Shu Uemura style design challenge. It works a bit like american idol. I am asking you to please go on the site and check out my style and vote for me. The winner with the most votes wins a trip to Tokyo Japan!!! Plus other exciting opportunites. You are welcome to vote once a day. You are also welcome to forward the link to anyone you know and have them vote. I really would appeciate you helping a sista out. I cant do it without you.

So the object was to create a style showcasing their product called Iron Design. Its best used to curl and straighten hair. Basically, any hot tool. I created a look that was ispired by the fashion runway.........something I wouldnt do in the salon. They want you to be creative and fun! Thats what I did. Enjoy!

Thank you again

xoxoxoxoTheresa

To register and vote by Monday August 4thCHALLENGE - SHU UEMURA contest.To connect with me, just click below:

http://stylechallenge.votigo.com/users/register?sk=fhv%3AlsdP38%3Fu0pl

TheresaPrzybyla

So if you could take a few seconds out of your day (until the 18th...I don't ask for much :D ) to help her out, that would be great. Also, if you are in the Austin area and you want an awesome hair cut, color or style. Look her up at the Jose Luis Salon in downtown. It will be worth it, unless you hate compliments. :)

GayBingo - Not just for the Gays anymore...

2008-08-01T09:34:00.000-05:00

It is almost that time again, ladies and gentleman. What time is that? That's right! It is GayBingo Dallas time!!!!

As some of you may know, I am a huge fan of GayBingo. I love the perfomances by the Drag Queens (which may I add, Dallas has some talent!), the crazy energy of the crowd and don't forget half naked boys in Jail. There are drinks galore, awesome costumes and millions of picture opportunties and since I am a self proclaimed member of the paparazzi (I can still be the paparazzi if I only stalk my friends and myself, right?), GayBingo has become one of my personal paradises. It is pratically impossible for anyone not to have a good time.

Mary Beth and I started going to GayBingo last October for one of her birthday celebrations and actually try to make it back every time we are not out of town or already booked for something. Although I haven't won anything yet, except a hangover the next day, I always want to go back for more fun.

Believe it or not but Gaybingo has helped in the Boys Department as well. It helped solidify my marriage to my Gay Husband Casey. :) Let me tell you this is the best marriage I have ever been in (and the only, THANK GOD.) He cooks for me, tells me I am fabulous and also let's me have my own boyfriends. Speaking of boyfriends, I actually met my boyfriend there as well (I will explain later why he was there at a later date. Let's just say it took him 30 min to convince me he really liked girls). That's right Ben and I met because of GayBingo. Nothing screams relationship like meeting a boy while dressed up as a Moulin Rouge dancer, but here we are 6 months later....

Anyway, back to the point of my story. GayBingo is back on August 16th. The theme is Double Wide a.k.a White Trash and we are going with a huge group of people. Casey and I will be hosting a pre white trash bash at our aparments and everyone is invited. So if you wanna go to GayBingo, let me know. The more the merrier. ;)

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Update: 5 days into my Ghost Banishment and no supernatural experiences. I do not recommend reading anything by Steven King 10 minutes before you go to bed though. Especially if you are home alone. I woke up every hour last night thinking a ghost was trying to get me. I am just happy that my covers were there to protect me.

Do you have more room on that Bandwagon?

2008-07-30T12:08:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is. I got my ticket for the bandwagon and am on my way to the world of blogging. After religiously following Mary Beth's blog, Veronica's and others, I decided I wanted to be part of the cool group. So here it is: I am a blogger.

I assure you it won't be nearly as funny as MB (oh yeah, I stole your old blog format. Thanks!), although some of our stories will probably interlap. It won't be filled with as much culture or accidents as Veronica, because I am just not willing to hurt myself for the amusement of other. ;) Hopefully, it will be random and help me figure out what I did last week. So here goes for my first story/blog entry:

I have or had a Ghost living in my apartment last Sunday night. That's right, I am so much fun to hang with that even dead people want to be a part of it. So why exactly is my ghost coming at night? You got me.

So Sunday night, Ben and I decide to go to sleep and are just about to enter the wonderful world of sweet, sweet slumber when I hear crashing in my bathroom. We instantly wake up and Ben being the brave protector that he is turns on all of the lights and searches my 600 and something square foot apartment to find nothing. Alright that's a little weird, nobody was there to kill us....so we turn off lights and try to sleep again.

And that's when I knew it was a ghost. So a couple of hours later, all I know is I am waking up to my bedroom light on. I know for a fact that it was turned off when we went back to sleep but I guess it just didn't want to stay off. There it was glaring at us with its big ol' bright face, waking us up again. Not cool. Although it didn't scare me enough to keep me awake for the rest of the night, I was thinking about it all day Monday at work.

Thank God, I work with Dierdra. She told me to go home and tell the ghost that it wasn't welcome in my aparment and to leave. Followed by the advice of my mom: Please don't hurt me.

As for right now, it is 3 days into my ghost banishment and I have not been awoken by the energy wasting ghost. Good thing too, because I hate paying my electric bill.