Little Trip to Knoxville

model the beard i made for the beard pageant we're going to tonight.

check out my new car! i think it looks very classy. i was sad when my other car broke now but it's fun to have one that works well again. it's a 2004 hayundai sonata.




crazy gps takes us a weird way, over roads really covered in ice. i was really scared we would wreck my new car.we were almost to dana's house when i saw this cute house and made travis stop so i could take a picture. but it turns out every single house in her neighborhood is that freaking cute. and this was on elanor street! and she lives on deery! cute!

dana's house! she is at an interview at the botanical gardens so her boyfriend nick shows us around.

i love it. so adorable.


just a perfect little house.

nick took us to a junk shop called friends. i LOVED it.

it was piled high!


"real fur cat"
sat around catching up and dana finished beading her beard. i was feeling really shy about taking pictures in front of nick for some reason so i didn't take any for the rest of the night. we went to a bar for the beard pageant and all you can eat soup. the soup room was so crowded it was hard to get back in to get more, but the few kinds i tried were really good. i chickened out and didn't enter the beard pageant, but the girls who won were wearing unitards and hot pants so i wouldn't have won anyway. travis was the only guy in the homemade beard category and he got made fun of so much. poor thing.

we came back to their house and nick put on his play station karaoke game. i tried it and sang "time of my life" and got 100%! i loved it because if you do karaoke by yourself at home you feel like a loser (i've tried it) but if it's a game it doesn't seem so weird.


in the morning we went to brunch at tomato head. the cinnamon rolls were AMAZING.

i had egg rolls. which were eggs rolled up in pizza dough with delicious soysage. mmm i want more right now.

went to yee haw of course.


got two cute cards.

drove past the wig shop.

FINALLY went here. it's an antique mall, but it is mostly retro/vintage stuff! so instead of the 10 booths out of 100 that have stuff i like, almost every booth inside had something i liked!

owl hallway. cute.

kitty in the store! always love that.


PUG IN THE STORE!! this baby was probably 4 times as big as phyllis! (she is tiny) so cute. i was baby talking so much. that pug was not impressed with me. haha.

got a new dutch hex sign.

and this cute little thing for our jesus hall.

happy hour!

one more stop! can you tell our favorite thing to do? no wonder my house is so full of stuff.

this place seemed to go on forever!

great find by dana. costume party! i got some great dog pictures this weekend. i'll have to scan my collection to post soon.

i'm regretting not buying this set. i love the pop corn lady especially.

we left right as the sun was going down. we wanted to get back in time to get phyllis from my parents house since we missed her. we have a lovely trip, and hopefully it won't be six months before i talk to dana again.

Spring Road Trip Planning

so, even though we have to postpone our big california odyssey, we still wanted to go on a little trip to celebrate our anniversary. even though we have to go two months early because of some big events at work. so, we've decided on a short trip to...

i've only been with my 8th grade class and don't remember much aside from gossiping and swimming in the hotel pool. and i bought a monkeys lunchbox. and travis when with his family when he was small. so we're really excited. plus, it won't be that expensive since most of the attractions are free!

so tell us some things we can do! stuff we don't want to miss, places to eat, and if anyone has a good hotel idea. i think we're going to be there for 3 full days. and the national zoo will probably only take one.

i finally have something to post about! i think january is always a quiet blogging month for me. i can't wait for it to warm up so we can have some good adventures. we are going to knoxville tomorrow to visit dana and participate in a beard pageant. i'm really excited about it!
i've been trying to take my lunch in my bento box to work. nothing too fancy, i don't have many supplies yet, but here is the cutest one i've made so far i think:
polka dot sandwich. vegan japanese style potato salad with animal pics, hummus in a puppy cup and carrots. so cute and fun. even if i got made fun of sooo much at work.
this may be really dumb, but for some reason i assumed that the library didn't have anything new and interesting to me. which is crazy, i know. so i gave travis part of my "to read list" that i've been keeping for years and most of it is at our downtown library! and i can get anything transfered to the little library down the street from our house so i can avoid all the homeless men looking at pictures of girls in bikinis at the downtown library! i'm so excited!
it's snowing right now, our 5th snow of the winter! which is really really unusual for tennessee. the snow actually stuck around for 5 days in a row about a week ago. that hasn't ever happened that i can remember.

we ended up with a little path through our yard. phyllis won't potty in the snow. so we had to take her back to a bare patch of ground under our cedar tree. i might try getting her some little doggie booties to see if that helps her. (i saw dog bunny slippers that i want real bad.)
DEER TRACKS! in my backyard! i don't know how that could possibly happen because i wouldn't expect any deer to be anywhere near where we live. it was so cute. there were lots of prints from porch kitty franklin. i felt bad for him out in the snow. oh phyllis! she is so freaking cute. she is at my parents house tonight because they are watching her while we're out of town. i miss her!

the other night crystal's husband asked me to spend the night with her because he wasn't going to be home. i said yes of course and we decided to finally go to PLAY. we always want to, but the drag show isn't until 11 and we're old and boring now. but we got dressed and put on false eye lashes and went alone. it was so fun! we kept calling it "independence day" haha. because we've never been downtown without our husbands.
here is a cell phone picture of us sitting front row. which was also brave because that's where you get picked on. but we didn't. oh man the costumes were so good! the last few times we went were amateur nights and this was so much better. we also went into the big dance room between shows and once the lights were down and the fog was on we got brave and danced in public and had such a great time. we didn't get home until 3 am. it was awesome. we're going to do it more often.
did i post about my glasses yet? i just got them. i've worn contacts for years and years and i decided to give my eye balls a break. we have really good insurance through work so i want all out and got real wayfares. i love them so much!

New Years Eve 2010

here finally, are my pictures from the best new years eve i ever had!

so a few weeks before new years crystal and i started talking about plans, we had been saying we would go to PLAY and dance all night. but we are both really shy and awkward and knew if the club was packed we probably would just stand around and not have fun. so crystal said "let's make my basement into a club!" and we'll have a party monster theme!

marissa was in charge of hair/makeup.

i wish i had a more fun outfit. maybe next year i'll branch out and get a glittery party dress. but i loved my hair! i should be brave and tease it up more often!

thomas came and put together this hilarious outfit. afro wig/pirate shirt/king pants/gold bowling shoes. haha. he also bought TONS of snacks for the six of us. probably enough food for 20 people.


so in the basement, marc had hung up sheets so you could't see any of the storage stuff. then we had a disco ball, a strobe like, and one of those rainbow spinning balls. and black light bulbs in the regular lamps. we put on pandora's "RuPaul Radio" and just danced for about 5 hours. it was so freaking fun!

it was also fun to take pictures in front of the strobe light. i will try not to post a thousand of them.







we took a dance break and played blokus.

then went back downstairs and danced til almost midnight.

then we watched the ball drop and screamed. i love new years.