Sick Days

Ok, so I'm at home sick, and no one is surprised because I work at a daycare, so I get sick all the time. Usually I fight through it, or better yet, the colds, etc,  happen on the weekend so I am good to go come Monday, but this one hit me like a ton of bricks on Monday night and by Tuesday night I knew I there was no way I'd get through another day at work. To make matters worse, a lot of staff have been out sick lately, so I'm basically making life that much more stressful for the woman at work who schedules our shifts. Yuck.

So yesterday I spent the whole day lying on our couch watching Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Green Gables the Sequel whilst blowing my nose, taking a delectable variety of cold medication and eating all the fruit in our house. I also drank a ton of tea, so thanks, Mags, for the wreath-o-tea. (As seen in this blog entry towards the end) My head is pounding, my sinuses are more congested than downtown Boston, and i have a Kleenex stuffed up my nose so I don't have to blow my nose as often. The entire time, I'm thinking, how many more colds/illnesses do I have to endure before my immune system gets itself together?

So now it's today and I had to be out of my apartment for an hour  in the morning because they wanted to show it to someone who wants to maybe rent it (resisted the urge to write "you get what you pay for" on the chalkboard I have in the living room and instead used it to apologize for being messy). I spent that hour dropping James off at school, getting some more fruits/veggies at Sam's Club, and then aimlessly walking through Old Navy because I had $20 off there. Don't worry, I got a tin bank that looks like R2D2, It's all good.

The rest of the day was just a blur, a stuffy in the head blur. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I spent some time on Pinterest, but besides that and making banana-blueberry muffins, I have no idea how I spent my entire afternoon. I think I sat playing with Lady for a good 45 minutes, but I have no idea the actual time frame. Alright, that's random thoughts on being sick and how it makes your mind feel all kinds of spacey. Here's a picture of our dog to make all that reading worth your while:

"Oh good. Another picture of your dog! Thanks Al." Yeah, well, it's all I've got. Sorry.
I hope this finds you all in good health. I hope you find me in good health again, too.

The Blue Twig Wreath: Part 2

So since it's well after Christmas, I decided to update my twig wreath. Here's the design I went with for the months of January and February:

the snowflakes are glittery Christmas ornaments from Target several years back, and the hearts are 2 layers of felt hot-glued together (because I'm not going to hand sew it for this project, quite frankly) and the back side has 2 slits where a the ribbon holding them to the wreath enters and exits. So far I'm still staying with the "all the designy stuff on one side" look, we'll see what happens come spring.

Days 3 and 4 of Myrtle Beach

So here's the story of the last 2 days of our trip:

 

 

 So there are TONS of these souvenir shops all over Myrtle beach, and most of them look like the first 2 pics; huge windows, lots of merchandise, same shaped building, but there's a couple that are smaller and less grandiose. And they repeat themselves over and over again. There's really only 5 main stores (Eagles, Waves, Whales, Pacific, and Bargain Beachwear), but there will be 3 Eagles on one block. What's even stranger is that while these are basically mega stores, each chain has almost completely different merchandise. It's all very odd. 

 Ok, so it was nice out again on Monday, so we decided to mini-golf again. This time we went to Jurassic Golf and got the "all day" package so we could play through more than once. This place also had two 18 hole courses, and it was pretty cheap to get an all-day pass, so we went for it.

 Here's some cave drawings on the inside of a cave on the "Ice Age" course. The other course was called "Predator".

 Here's James golfing. This course is run by the same people who run the Peter Pan themed course we golfed the day before, so it had a lot of the same features. Really interesting set-up, lots of water features and interesting areas to walk around, and different challenge levels.

 Here's some dinos in a water feature.

 And here's our golf balls and clubs. Green clubs are the tallest clubs. Yay.

 Each dinosaur has a fact sheet about it on a plaque somewhere in front of it, so it's an educational experience, too. Did you know that the triceratops lived in North America?

 This was a cool hole. I managed to cross the bridge both times, but it was so close.

 Here's the triceratops. The great lizard rhino itself.

 James' ball got caught under the bridge. Ok, enough about golf.

 These are disgusting fish. for 25 cents you can feed them at this outdoor mall area that has tons of tourist/entertainment options a little inland in Myrtle Beach. We went there for dinner because they had buy one steak dinner, get one free. Let me once again state that these fish are my nightmare.

 Here's a nice sea gull that was sitting still enough for me to get a good shot of it.

 We went into the "pampered pooch" store and found (but did not buy) these. Sorry to our friends who cheer for these teams. Let me be clear, we're sorry that you root for these teams. We still love you, we just really want you to make better life decisions in the future. We're worried about you. Please seek help.

 James and this tasty lobster.

Super Bowl XLVII! We couldn't find any that were the same size AND the right team. Anyway, this was a cool toy store, similar to one we found in Blouder, CO on Pearl St and, of course, MN's own Creative Kidstuff. I wanted the Green Bay football head-thing, but alas, that would be werid...apparently...sigh...

 Here's some micro-brewed beer from the place we had dinner. James had Rocket's Red Ale and I had American Lager. Also, we got to keep the glasses. Yay. They're still in our trunk.

Here's me at the entrance of the restaurant. America.

 Here's the last shot of Day 3. James' hands look weird. So do mine, actually. I'm trying to point at him as if to say "this guy", but it's awkward because of the angle.

 Day 4. We got up early to get a fresh start on the road home, but we had to go to the beach one last time.

 This hotel has the name "Roxanne" in it somewhere, but I don't remember it exactly. Either way, I love the color combination, and somehow on the drive home, James agreed to letting me paint our house that color (when we one day own a home, that is)

 Lady's puppy paw prints in the freshly raked sand.

 This is Lady mid-flight. Amazingly enough, this is the first picture of her jumping that has ever turned out. we always just get the back-top of her head in those pics.

 This is the most pitiful thing. Both hands out on the bars of her kennel, she doesn't make a sound. She just stares at you.

 Eventually she gives up, but she keeps staring. What a cute little creep-o.

 Here's the Blue Ridge Mountains.

 Here's James driving. He is not expressive.

 Here am I, sitting. I am too expressive.

 Here's the Smokey Mountains.

 Here they are again.

 Alright, I was bored and all I had to do was play with our camera. You should see all the pics of stuff out the window I'm not including.

 MOUNTAINS. They're very brown due to the severe lack of trees.

And this is the inside of a tunnel out of focus. Write "synergy" across the bottom and it's a business inspirational poster.

Myrtle Beach: Day Two

Hi. Sunday was a lot warmer, which I truly appreciated. The first thing we did in the morning is go across the street to a $2.99 breakfast special.  No lie. such a good deal. You chose between unlimited pancakes or eggs, toast, and grits. James thought grits were potatoes. He now knows the truth. Anyway, then we went to mass, and the priest there was hysterical. I've never laughed so much in church. The guy sitting next to us was a charmer, too. Mid to late 70s, he made a couple well timed jokes, wished us a happy marriage (which i think is way better than congrats, personally), and suggested some restaurants, one of which we're going to hit up tonight (Monday).

After church we headed north to Bass Pro Shops. We got a gift certificate to there at my bridal shower back in March or April, neither of us at any point lived near one, so it's been sitting in our apartment, waiting for us to decide what to do with it (and yes, online shopping is an option, but i like to see the store first before I buy online, call me old fashioned). Anyway, there's a Bass Pro Shops in North Myrtle Beach, so we headed that way.

 This is what it says over the doorway. Odd. Anyway, we bought a cot for when we have more than 2 visitors (namely when all three McShane siblings are in town), so that's very exciting.

 We took a walk down on the beach afterward with Lady. There's a canal that breaks up two large areas of sand. It happens during low tide, and it's very fun to run across with a dog.

 Here's us on the beach. The sunlight is obviously directly behind us.

 This is where we went miniature golfing. It's a themed course with 2 18 hole courses. The first is called "Lost Boys" and the second "Captain Hook". We golfed through both courses.

 This is a skull-head-type walkway that you walk through if you're on the "Lost Boys" course. It has mist constantly pouring out of all it's facial orifices. Very spooky.

 This is the creepiest, most chipmunk-like Peter Pan I've ever witnessed. He's constantly saying things from the story, and children seem to think he's the bees knees, so it's tolerable.

 Tiger Lily in the boat, looking terrified. What's cool about this course is they tell the story of Peter Pan through both courses. There's the Lost Boys tree-cave thing they live in, the bay with the mermaids, the crocodile, the ship, the whole nine yards.

 Here's James putting. There are a ton of cool water features that run through the courses. It's a full experience.

 In this one, the water flows over the green in two stone river beds, coming down from two separate waterfalls.

 After mini golf, we walked up the beach to the boardwalk. Here's the pier's majestic underbelly.

 And this is the Sky Wheel. A smaller version of the London Eye, it's set right on the beach and up to 6 people can fit in each capsule. On the way to Myrtle Beach, James and I listened to a book-on-tape called The London Eye Mystery and it was delightful, so we had to ride MB's version.

 We stopped right at the very top to let other capsules load. My reaction was not great, as I am terrified of heights, but I always manage to forget such fears when I'm considering things like ferris wheels and looking down in glass elevators.

Here's our view from the terrifying top of the ride; see our shadow over the pier. We are very very high up.

 Here's our view of the ocean from part way up.

 Later, we went back to the arcade, because we both love old school-style carnival games. Here's James playing a game that combines skee-ball and basketball. We both did rather well at it.

 James made 17 runs at baseball. That's an impressive number, in case you're wondering.

 Here's him playing. I was really bad at it.

 Here's me playing a game that combines skee-ball and the knocking over of wooden bugs. It was very gratifying. I'm trying to pose in a really threatening way. Fail.

 We ended up with exactly 225 tickets when all was said and done, which was great. We were really only in it for the fun times, so yay.

 Here's James playing old school Donkey Kong.

 Here's the fabulous prizes we got for our tickets. A little blue shot glass and something described in the window as "Small Glass Dolphin". Indeed, we have truly won it all.

 We went to the greatest Mexican restaurant of all time. It's called "Benditos" and from 4-7 everyday, the PBRs are $1. Oh yeah, baby. Oh yeah.

 This is a terrible picture, but they also have the world's greatest salsa. I know what I'm talking about here. I've had the salsa at dozens and dozens of these types of places. This is one of the bartender's family recipes, and our waiter gave us some "to-go" because we loved it so much. Seriously, get in your car right now and drive to this location. It's on Oceans Blvd. It is worth it.

This is the Sky Wheel all lit up. Pretty end to a pretty great day.