Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Endorphins and Christmas


I was feeling sort of sorry for myself last night so I tried to resort to 2 fool proof things that I knew would put me in a better mood. Endorphins and Christmas. It was somewhere around 7:30 and i just needed to get out of the house. Despite the ridiculous snow storm outside (only ridiculus becasue in my opinion it is way tooo early for the weather to be this crappy) I headed out dressed in my gym clothes. My first stop was Home Depot. The Garden center was packed with all kinds of fabulous/really cheesy/borderline tacky lawn ornaments. Despite the cheesy tacky factor, I know that i will one day be filling my yard with them making up stories to Pat about how "the kids" couldn't live without a projector deer light show flying across the house (when really it will be me) :)...but that can wait. The best part was definitely the smell of the fresh cut trees. I stood outside and got sort of excited for the first time realizing that i am going to get to have a white Christmas for the first time in my life.


I'm not sure if i am going to go with a real tree or a fake pre-lit tree, but i do know that i am going to go BIG!!! Luckily our apartment has really high ceilings so a 12 foot tree could totally work, but the part I am sort of struggling with is what if when we buy a new house the ceilings aren't quite as high? Then I will be stuck with this huge tree that will have to be set up in my driveway or something????That would suck. And now that i just wrote that, i think i just talked myself into a 9 foot Christmas tree....or a real 12 foot tree!!! Whatever, it just has to be taller than me - by at least a few inches. So anyways, back to last night, I also went to Sam's Club and Lowe's to check out trees. Lowe's was way expensive -Sam's club wasn't. Their trees were nice, but most of them were "slim" and I'm not sure i like that.


So with the christmas portion of my night down I was starting to feeling better. I headed to the gym and planned on working out big time to get my endorphins pumping. As soon as I got there though, i realized i didn't have my headphones in my purse like i thought i did. It always seems like my workout suffer when Kanye and 50 aren't blaring in my ears :).....Nonetheless I made the most of it. I ran on the indoor track. Instead of music I repeated the number of the lap I was on over and over and over and over again. Somewhere around 35-35-35-35-35 I decided it was time to move on to some abs. Eventhough it was freezing outside, I was really hot - and for some reason this made me feel 100 times better.


I am going to remember this mix of activities when winter makes me super depressed in the coming months. It totally helped. There are probably a few other combos that will do the trick too, like: Diamonds and vacation. Orrrrrr shopping and a tan. Orrrrr chocolate cake and a 25 inch waist. Yeah all of those things will be super good for my chi....it almost (almost) makes me excited for the yucky depressing weather and bad nights to come.


This year i am thankful for endorphins and Christmas...can we just skip Thanksgiving and get to it already???


Thursday, November 20, 2008

Girls Weekend / Bachelorette in Florida

A few weeks ago my sister Lauren and I planned a bachelorette party for our other sister Kristen at my parents house in Florida. They live on an island near Tampa Bay and the Gulf so there is a ton of really fun beachy stuff to do. We had 10 girls staying in our house and oddly enough we all (well almost all of us had double names)!! Here are a few highlights from the weekend with Lauren, Lauren, Kristen, Kristen, Jaime, Jaime, Katie, Katie, Madeleine and Theresa!
Katie, Kristen, and Lauren dancing at Billy's - the best little seafood restaurant/beach bar in florida :)
Some of the girls enjoying some Margaritas

We went on a sunset cruise...
All the girls who flew in from all over the place to celebrate
Lauren D, Kristen O, Katie O, Laren O, and Katie D

Madeleine and Lauren D looking for dolphins

Me & Madeleine (note my one sunburned arm - HOTT)

The gorgeous sunset on the Gulf of Mexico.
Beach Day
Group Kayaking
More Kayaking

Back to the house with Theresa Jaime and Jaime.....

....and one more awesome sunset.
This weekend was soooooo much fun.
I Can't wait to plan the next Girl's trip!!!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

It's Beginning to Look A lot Like Christmas!


I woke up this morning and saw snow! It was gorgeous and it instantly put me in a very christmas-y mood. Which isn't hard to do when the trees outside look like this. I am such a nerd, but i snapped this picture from my bedroom window just becasue it looked like a giant flocked christmas tree.... Wooo - for the first "sort of" big snow!!!

Monday, November 17, 2008

My Weekend

This was a pretty low key weekend for the O'Brien's. Friday night we went out to dinner for some surprisingly delicious Mexican food. Saturday Pat played poker and I stayed home slaving in the kitchen making some fabulous vegetable soup. I included all of my favorites - potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, tomatoes, squash, zuchinni, corn, peas, grated cabbage.....pretty much everything yummy that you could possibly chop up and make soup with.


I was so excited to have some since this was the first really cold weekend in a while where soup just sounded so good. It is definitely one of Pat's favorites - and i'm not going to lie, I like making it becasue I always get a lot of satisfaction with making something that requires a lot of work. Not that soup is hard to make, but it is sort of high maintenance - (i was chopping and seasoning for like an hour).


Anywayyyyyys, Pat didn't come home until way late (which I have learned is a good thing if you are playing poker) so we ended up just meeting out with some friends when he was done....I figured my wonderful soup could just wait until sunday to be eaten when it would probably taste even better. Ummm except that I remembered later that we had already made plans with Pat's family to hang out and then the girls were going to see a matinee of Legally Blonde the Musical. So at about 10:30 Pat's little brother called us and invited us over for lunch before the show......guess what was on the menu???? Yup Vegetable soup. eff. NO Katie soup for us!

Mrs. O'B had no idea that I had also already made the same soup and technically we had already made plans with them for that day sooo we just went to their house and thoroughly enjoyed the soup she had made. Soooo after 2 bowls (lunch and dinner later) for me and 3 bowls of mom soup for Pat we left completely stuffed.


I am reallllly hoping that Pat didn't have his fill on Sunday though because there is still 300lbs of untasted vegetable-delight (compliments of moi) that we have to polish off at home :(


By the way, I did briefly mention that we went to see Legally Blonde The Musical yesterday. Well it deserves way more than a brief mention. It was AWESOME. I seriously loved it. You have never seen more adorable little girls (and homosexual men) all wearing pink holding little "Bruiser Woods' " stuffed animales in their purses!!!! The whole crowd laughed out loud through basically the whole thing and Elle was fabulous. I loved that she didn't try to be anything but the Reese Witherspoon version of Elle that everybody loves. If it comes in to your town - def go see it.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

I am back from a really awesome weekend in Florida for my sister's bachelorette and I am now trying to play catch-up at work. It is amazing how many more emails I get when i am out of the office vs. a normal work day.

I will post some pictures soon...and hopefully come up with something more interesting to write :)

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

A few things I am thinking about today....

1. I am praying that John McCain is our next president....and if he isn't, I hope that I am happily surprised by what "the other guy" is capable of. 2. I am afraid that there might be scary riots or crazy violent outbursts if the election doesn't go in someones favor (on both sides). 3. I am genuinely hoping that I miraculously drop 10 pounds before my sisters bachelorette party this weekend because most of the festivities will take place on a boat or at the beach.
4. I am also thinking that if I don't happen to lose 10 pounds in the next 24 hours ( or minutes - whatever) that my planned spray tan will somehow miraculously turn me into a Heidi Klum look alike.
5. I am counting on the fact that I am capable of getting all of my work done before I leave work tonight. 6. I am skeptical that I will remember to pack all of the stuff I need to bring to Florida becasue I am the WORST packer of all times and I never have what I need.
7. I am wishing that Thanksgiving will come quickly becasue I can't wait to decorate my house for Christmas. 8. I am praying that someone comes to visit me in Ohio - becasue it has been almost a year and I still haven't had any visitors.
9. I am hoping that my hair (more specifically my roots) turns blonde again because I can't get an appointment before i go out of town and it looks awful.10. I am hoping that this day goes by quickly so I can go VOTE, go fake tanning, go grocery shopping, pack a few things i am supposed to remember for my trip, grow some new blonde hair, hang out with Pat, and hopefully celebrate a republican victory for President....everything that is important in my life today :)

Monday, November 3, 2008

WhY sO SERiouS?


I realized that i have written about my mom, my dad, Lauren, and Kristen recently and I have hardly mentioned my little bro Marty (which is weird becasue i always talk about him... usually because his life is about 100 times more interesting than mine - and probably yours too).

Anyways little Marty just turned 21 this week!!!! This picture is from his latest halloween costume and it was too funny/creepy not to put on here. He did his own makeup (wow) and his hair is pretty much a more green version of what it always looks like (ummm...wow/hmmm?).

I, on the other hand, did not dress up (sad), but i did go out - so as soon as i have a few free minutes i will post highlights from my Halloween weekend in South Bend.