I won't say much about it besides that I'm going through some serious, hard, shit right now.

Courage doesn't always roar.  Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.  ~Mary Anne Radmacher

Whoa wait what?

I'm going to have to step it up on the blogging front because the impossible has happened. My husband started a blog. 

Let that sink in for a minute. It's the last thing I ever thought he would do. 

The only people that know about it so far are a few of his friends. Stop by and leave him a comment: it would absolutely make his day!

Don't mess with Texas or sinus infections

I'm back in cold, rainy Pittsburgh and recovering from a massive sinus infection that also spread to my throat. That was the diagnosis I received at the urgent care clinic I visited the morning after I wrote my last post. (Side note: There was also a guy named Kirk there waiting to get stitches. Apparently one of his friends threw a full bottle of Gatorade at his face and basically cracked his face in half. You wouldn't think a Riptide Rush to the grill could do that much damage, but you'd be surprised.) Luckily the combo of antibiotics, Mucinex, Vitamin C, and Advil kicked in quickly and I was feeling noticeably better by that afternoon. We drove around Galveston checking out some of the historical district. I was still feeling like crap so most of the photos were taken from the passenger window of a moving car, so they're not very good. That night I finally felt well enough to actually leave the hotel and eat dinner, so I got a steak (in Texas!) with a gulf view. Then I went to bed by 8.

On Thursday morning, I woke up ready to rock Galveston. I still didn't feel awesome, but I could stay awake for longer than 20 minutes and it was our last day there so I wanted to make the most of it. When Frank got back from his morning class, I convinced him to ditch the rest of the day. We drove around town, did some shopping and got an awesome lunch of crab stuffed shrimp (for me. He got something lame with chicken). The rest of the afternoon was spent laying at the pool and drinking Grey Goose and vodka (which is my new favorite). We also went for a long walk on the beach and I found the biggest seashell I've ever captured! Yes, I captured it. Honestly, looking for seashells is my favorite part of the beach and you can bet I brought this bad boy home with me. 

Frank brought this back for me when I didn't feel well enough to go to one of the fancy dinners:

The Hotel Galvez:

These are some of the houses/buildings we saw on our drive around the historic part of town:

The pool area was amazing, so was my view wink wink:

I could do this every day.

My boyfriend:

Me, back from the dead

My giant seashell:

I liked the sun flare

Pointing out grammatical errors on the beach

The view from my deathbed

(I started this post last week, but the shoddy hotel internet was cooperating, so I'm finishing it now.)

Here's the view from my death bed:

Amazing view, but it would be nice if I could go out and walk on that beach, not just stare at it from my bleached hotel sheets. I tagged along with Frank to a work conference in Galveston, which is actually an island off of Texas. Of course I started feeling weird after I stepped off the plane, and by last night I was feverish and had to call it a night before everyone else. Today has been miserable. I've been able to stay awake for an hour or two, do a little bit of work (even though I'm not at home, I'm technically still working because I didn't tell any of my clients I would be gone). Then I pass out and wake up in a pool of sweat a few hours later. Fever, chills, aches, and a little bit of a sore throat. I've missed a Mexican buffet and a gourmet dinner of seared salmon and who knows what else in favor of a 1/2 gallon of orange juice, some pizza flavored Combos and some gummy worms. I'm praying that today was the worst of it and I'll feel miraculously fine tomorrow. 

Galveston is a weird place. We're right on the ocean but there's not much of a beach. The hotel is gorgeous, but when you take a walk down the street there are boarded up houses, pawn shops, and fried chicken joints. We passed through a cute historic houses with gorgeous houses that look like they're right out of a magazine, but if you take a wrong turn, you're in the ghetto. 

Anyway, our hotel is pretty impressive. We're staying at the Hotel Galvez, 

One way to freak yourself out is to Google your hotel on a whim to find out if it's haunted, and then find out that it is indeed very haunted and has been the subject of many paranormal investigations. The story is that a woman's husband was away at sea and she was staying at the Hotel Galvez. She got word that his ship had wrecked and no one had survived. She was so distraught that she hung herself from one of the turrets. But it turned out that his ship had not wrecked and he returned a few weeks later. Apparently she haunts the hotel now. 

I will update later with more Galveston photos and any ghost sighting. 

Lunch time win

Sometimes I go a while without eating a salad because it just sounds blah and boring. And then I start feeling fat and decide to eat one and I'm like "oh yeah. . . that's good".

In the mix:

Romaine

Tomatoes

Garbanzo beans

Artichokes

Goat cheese

Bacon bits (no one's perfect)

Flax seed

Almonds

Light Greek vinagrette

I could live off of chick peas and artichokes alone.

Yeah, I just blogged about salad, and I don't even think it's the first time. 

Ahoy Mateys

So I was sitting out on my deck working this morning, Macbook on lap, coffee to my side, sun in the sky (yes, insert jealousy here). I was writing an article about "wardrobe necessities" and the major pieces every woman must have in their wardrobe in order to be fashionable. Then I looked down and realized, I'm an effin' hypocrite.

I apologize for the quality of these photos, which were taken in Photo Booth, but I have no desire to take high quality pictures of me looking like a junkie. So here's the rundown, which i'll do in the style of a fashion blogger:

         On Emily:

         Pants: Target, possibly the maternity section judging by the wide waist band

         Frank the Tank t-shirt: from brother in law, meant to be for husband but too small for him, I       think it's from Steve and Barry's, which I'm pretty sure no longer exists.

         Shoes: UGGs, those are fancy.

Yeah, so the next time you're reading a fashion article, take it with a grain of salt. Because it could be written by someone like me, and there's a good chance the author hasn't brushed her teeth yet.

Anyway, later on I had to go to Nordstrom's to spend a gift card that I had from returning some TOMS's. (According to Google, I'm the only person in the world that gets crippling sciatic nerve pain from TOM's. Hopefully the needy children don't.) So I had to put on some fancy clothes, because Nordstrom's is fancy, yo. Here was the awesome outfit I put together:

I look like Pilgrims of the Caribbean. Seriously, wtf? But I went with it, because it looks weird and that's sort of what I was going for. Oh and also? This shirt is appropriate for temperatures ranging from 72 to 72.4 degrees. It's like sheer, yet long sleeved. 

On Emily:

BLOUSE: (yes I used that word) Old Navy, steeply discounted

Jeans: Gap (outlet)

Shoes: DSW

I even wore my hair up, which is a big step. I don't do that very often because I generally hate the look of my face and the surrounding head areas. My hair is generally the moneymaker.

So see, sometimes I wear real clothes.

Also, there were turkeys.

I touched a lot of goat this weekend.

This weekend was kind of awesome. Frank had Friday off and it was gorgeous, so I agreed to go golfing. I actually have a good set of golf clubs but have never used them. I golfed better than I thought I would AND I got to drive the golf cart, bonus.

Frank took some lame pictures of me, and I took an awesome one of him:

I spent the rest of the afternoon staining and painting the front porch and steps while Frank napped (can you sense my frustration?). He's not one for manual labor, or at least manual labor involving paintbrushes. We sat around until 9, when we suddenly both got the urge to go to the gym, mainly because nothing else was going on. He made me do some ridiculous cross-fit stuff until I felt like I was going to throw up. Then we went home and watched Something Borrowed which almost made me dry heave due to the cheesiness. Frank said he liked it though, he's more into the cheesiness than I am. I wanted to strangle both Ginnifer Goodwin and Kate Hudson, mainly due to their respective obnoxious laughs. The only redeeming part of the movie was John Krasinski and he didn't even get the girl in the end. Jim, you're better off without that cackling sloot.

On Saturday morning I went to the gym again and did some cardio and then took a yoga class. I'm really getting into yoga because all that downward dog is really strengthening my shoulders, yo. And did you see what I did right there? I told you that I went to the gym two days in a row!

Then we went over to Frank's sister's house to steal her kids for a few hours and take them to a fall festival. See, I love to do fall kind of stuff like festivals and pumpkin patches but Frank's not really into it. So if I use the kids as an excuse to go, he thinks I'm just being a good aunt. 

Izzy really wanted to ride a pink pony but she settled for this white one.

Zach said about the Carnie-zombie enthusiast petting zoo owner: "That lady was really nice for letting us feed her goats and ride her ponies."

And we waited forty. five. minutes. to get our faces painted because it was important. We were really impressed with the kids' patience and dedication for waiting in line for so long. You could tell it was really important to them. We, on the other hand, were not patient. Frank disappeared and came back with a beer a few times. He also almost had to throw down on some line cutters. (PS $5 for face painting? $10 if you wanted the whole face painted? I'm in the wrong industry.)

Also, this happened:

Every time we have the kids, we follow up by asking each other, "So did that make you want to have kids now or not want to have kids now?" We both decided we were neutral. We love those kids and have so much fun with them, but it's e.x.h.a.u.s.t.i.n.g.

After a quick nap (and a pizza to the face) I got ready and we went out downtown to celebrate two of our friends' birthdays. We got bored of downtown and ended up at the casino, mainly because of the cheap beer and priceless people-watching opportunities. When I started falling asleep at the casino bar (I can't hang anymore) we all went back to our house, made grilled cheese sandwiches and chili for everyone and passed out. It was a fun night.

Now it's Sunday night and I really have to buckle down and get a ton of work done this week. Why? Because next week we're heading to a beach resort in Galveston (a work conference for frank) and I would like to do as little work as possible.

Fall Feeling

I get majorly sad when the weather starts to turn and the days get shorter. Last week was much colder than average and it rained every. single. day. But this weekend? Highs in the mid 70's and clear skies. So I've been trying to stay outdoors as much as possible. We took Wilbur to a trail near our house and I went a little crazy with the camera.

One of my favorite things to do when I was a kid was dig around in the creek by our house to find salamanders, toads, etc. My sister and I found a toad in our yard and kept it in an aquarium. My mom thought we would have it for a few days or weeks. It lived for ten years.

My dudes.

There's a big stone quarry near the trail and all these great cliff walls.

This water is completely clear but the surface is covered with leaves and lily pads. You can see little fish and any time you make a move, you can see ten or more frogs jump from the edges of the pond into the water to hide. 

Wilbur loves water. No he doesn't.

I tried to do the braid thing with my hair and obviously failed.

I can't handle the cute.

So sometime in the middle of winter, while I'm clutching a bottle of antidepressants and soaking in the rays from my artificial light therapy, I can look back at these pictures and remember that it does get better.

The Cost of a Hangover

I don't really drink that much at all anymore. If I do, its just a beer or two. But there have been an obscene amount of bachelorette parties this year that I've been subjected to and they require alcohol to cope. I love getting the opportunity to hang out with my group of girl friends, don't get me wrong. It's just the fact that we always end up at the most crowded, skankiest bars in town and that's just not my thing anymore. I like being able to freely move my arms without accidentally groping some dude's jewel encrusted Affliction t-shirt. Plus, it seems like everyone there is in college, and I'm just too old for this. So I drink. In order to have some fun. And I always regret it. I'm particularly regretful this time because I've been trying to lose some weight again and this weekend just totally threw me off. So here's the breakdown of the cost of my hangover:

1. The beginning, the Yinzerrita. The specialty drink of choice at the restaurant we ate at was the Yinzer'rita. A giant margartia with a bottle of IC Lite mango stuck in upside down. A feat of physics and alcohol tolerance. 

I literally drank about 20% of this drink and was  d-r-u-n-k. I knew it was all over from there. But for the sake of this blog post we'll just take the calories from the entire thing. According to an article on Forbes.com, an average 10 oz margarita is 740 calories. Let's ignore the fact that this was more like 20 oz. IC Lite Mango = 95 calories.

= 835

2. Then you have to take into account the approximately 5 other beers I had that night. 

= 480 calories

3. Then there was the "Papa Smurf" which capped off the night. It was shared amount 8 of us, so i'm sure I'm probably going to catch a cold somewhere in there too. I have no idea how many calories were in this. I'm going to guess 10,000. So 10,000/8 = 1,250

= 1,250

4. Then there was the obligatory Taco Bell stop on the way home. Something that I typically wouldn't eat sober, but with all that alcohol in me, all bets were off. I had 1 crunchy taco supreme (200 cal), 1 side order of nachos (280 cal) , and 1/2 Frank's chicken quesadilla (265 cal).  (We looked like this only less blonde)

= 745 calories

5. The next day, I felt like death. And apparently, death is best served with a Steak and Shake burger (330 cal) and fries (240 cal). Which is weird because I have never even eaten at Steak and Shake before, but at that moment, I NEEDED it. 

=570 calories

Total cost of hangover: 3880. Excellent. That is like 3 days worth of calories.