This is fun!

So, my friend showed me this website that allows you to create really low-grade animated "movies"... and it can be HILARIOUS. Here's the one I made of a typical conversation en la casa de Willi... :)

Spring?! Could it be?

Well, we've had some funky weather since mid-February... it was warm and springy in the winter and wintery and cold in the early spring months. So what does the rest of April and May hold in the cards for us? I'll be happy to get a bit of moisture here and there, but hopefully in the form of April Showers, not Winter Storm Warnings! Ha! I'm ready for spring, that's for sure... longer days, more warm sunshine, BBQ'ing on the back deck, yard work, flowers, even mowing the lawn! Yep. So here's to hoping we're really entering Spring now.

So I haven't updated my blog in a while, but I haven't really had much to say. Not too much of interest going on. The biggest excitement in my life recently was going to Valley Forge, PA for work last week and turning it into a boondoggle to see my old college roomie, one of my bestests, and her hubby (who we drove just as bonkers at St. Mary's as we do now). She's nearly 8 months pregnant and looks freaking fabulous. They're having a baby girl so we spent some time pow-wowing Irish girl names, which was a blast. It was SO good to see them. I always get really sad when I have to leave, even when I only see them for a day or two. Even though at this point I know how to get on I-95 from their house, it's a bit confusing and when they first moved to their house she started leading me to the highway and then pulling over and would wave as I passed and honked in my rental car, which is usually a giant monstrosity... so it's fun to watch her laugh as I blow the horn on my boat and pass by onto the highway, but you can see the same pain in her face that I feel in my gut as we start laughing hysterically about my car. I spend the rest of my drive north to PHL with a smile on my face, but tears in my eyes. It's just hard to live so far away! But alas, we always have a truly good laugh together.

Here's a picture of my rental car this time... Avis did not let me down, I was able to give my girl a good laugh as sailing past her onto 95 North on Friday morning...



Upon arriving home on Friday, the hubs and I had a double-header softball game and our team won both! Yahoo! Then Saturday we helped a friend move some 3 1/2 tons of river rock in her back yard, and then Sunday was Easter, which we spent at Coors Field cheering on the Rockies in the cold rain! And though they lost to the stupid Phillies (which, by the way, Phillies' fans SUCK... BOOOO!!! ;)), it was still a WONDERFUL way to spend the holiday.

Oh, and my mum sent me these gorgeous candles to spruce up our kitchen table for the Spring! Aren't they fabulous?! Love them!!!



Well, I really do lead a boring life and don't have much else to share... I'll post if my brain musters up some good stuff. :)

Uncalled for...

I just read another person's blog and the "comments" associated with her latest post, and was appalled that someone would be so mean and hateful towards someone they don't know at all. Now, I'm not going to pretend that this blog is full of meaningful heavy information, no, it's not, it's fluff about the day-in-day-out life of a stay at home mom... but she's not pretending either... she's just putting some fun posts out there for those of us who have reached the end of the internet to read on occasion.

If you don't like it... don't read it!

I said my piece and don't want to get caught up in the swirl of the nasty comments now going back and forth on that page, but I will say this... my initial comment was this:

"My mother always taught me that if I don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all."

To which this anonymous commenter stated "Your mom is wrong."

If I WERE to respond, this is what I would say to that...

"Is my mom really all that wrong? I agree that when you have something that’s not-nice to say, but that adds value, I can see the need to share it, but usually that’s to someone who you are close with, to offer guidance, support, or a bit of constructive criticism… but I don’t see what value a spout-off like this could add to anyone’s life, and it appears to simply be hurtful."

So I maintain, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"... particularly in the blogging world. There are SO many blogs out there. Some are for politics, some are for helpful hints on how to do x, y, and z, and some are like mine, and this other gal's, and are just for fun... a way to journal our lives and our thoughts and really aren't up for criticism. Please don't criticize my blog. I'm just a goofball with some thoughts.

Blog on, people. :)

I never was any good at diaries...

Okay, so as stated above, I never said I was any good at journaling or blogging, so for those of you who actually check this and hope for updates and continue to see that annoying bobble-head of me walking the March for Babies... sorry... :) But anyways, I'm going to try to get all caught up in one quick blog-attack!

I'll start with the CRAZY weather that Colorado is experiencing these last few weeks... we had a really mild winter, February crept up into the 60s and even 70s a few times, which is absurd, and then in March when all our baby tulips and other various flowers started to poke their way up into the world, BAM, snow storm... that's right, last Thursday we got nearly TWO FEET of snow... ??!!! Um, excuse me? So first of all, I did as I was told and covered up my flowers and made our front yard look like the only thing it was missing was a beater car on blocks...



Then the snow hit, as promised, and it was CRAZY... here's a snapshot of the front of our house AFTER the hubs and I had already shoveled the drive and walkway once! Doh! That'll teach you to wait till Mother Nature is DONE. Though, we did have some fun romping in the snow, well, I was shoveling, and he came up from behind and shoved me and then buried me... bbbrrrrrr... I got him back though. :) So front of the house and shot of the snow on and around the hot-tub out back.




So, that was Thursday and Friday, then over the weekend things warmed up and we actually had a couple of 50-60 degree days!?! Craziness. But it was nice because it meant that the roads were driveable all weekend. Phew!

Last week I won tickets from my awesome Realtor, Ben, for this charity event raising money for the Junior League of Denver, that was called Chocolate Afternoon Delight, and boy was it! Ryan opted out, and he was glad he did, all the favors were really girlie, so I took my gal pal Carmine with me. She's about 4 months pregnant and was all for anything with Chocolate in the title. HA! Anyways, it was fabulous. It was held at the Builders’ Appliance Center, which had amazing kitchens on display so we both had to just keep shielding our eyes lest we bring home ideas to our husbands. For the first hour or so we all just mingled around drooling over the amazing kitchens, and they had endless free wine and champagne for sipping as we browsed around. They eventually got started and Chef Keegan Gerhard did a cooking demo of 4 courses and we got to taste each as he made them… Here's Chef Keegan doin' his thang...



So the first course was just a simple avocado and mixed green salad with a very simple “dressing” that was just EVOO, lime juice, fresh grinded pepper and salt, apparently he’s VERY big on the quality of ingredients, that’s what he kept stating over and over…



Then the 2nd course was a seared sea scallop, the biggest scallop I’ve ever seen and it was cooked SO tenderly it just melted in our mouths… and that was over a green apple coleslaw (like, instead of the cabbage/lettuce mixture, he used the usual coleslaw dressing but on very thinly sliced (like match-sticks) granny smith apples) with a raspberry/vanilla sauce drizzled on the side… omg…



Then the 3rd course was a vanilla rum roasted pineapple granita over coconut ice-cream, I think… I mean, it doesn’t matter, it was SO fricken good, I licked the martini glass it was served in… heh…



And then the final course was what he’s famous for, his pastries/desserts… and this was what he calls the D=MC3 “D = MC-cubed”… or Dessert = Milk Chocolate Three Ways (and then some)… and it was basically tart crust made to look like a rectangular cookie, topped with chocolate ganache that was HUGE, it was like a SLAB of ganache… and then on top of that there were like 3 scoops of white, milk, and dark chocolate… and then there was a side of raspberry compote/granita? And a raspberry reduction drizzled on the side. OMGGGG. Retardulous.



Oh, and I forgot… between the pineapple deliciousness and the D=MC3 deliciousness, he served us a ridiculous pomegranate martini… OMG. So that was AMAZING. Carmine and I had a really nice time, and even though it was good rich food, it was served in teeny tiny portions, so that was perfect (except the D=MC3, that felt GIANT to me). So here we are very happy, and apparently a bit stunned, from the deliciousness that had just occurred... :)



So that's about all the EXCITEMENT I have to offer... I'll try to be better so these blog entries aren't MILES long!

Happy April!
xo
alliwilli

March of Dimes!!

Click here to help me reach my goal!

Spring is Coming!

How do I know? Well, there's the lovely weather we had this weekend, and then... softball is starting this week! Yup! We were invited to play by the guy who's in charge of Ryan's flag-football and basketball leagues, so we accepted! I think he plays in some unGodly number of leagues, so we told him that I would be willing to do 2 per week and Ryan would max out at 3... so we're both currently signed up for 2 co-ed leagues that start this week... Mondays and Fridays. Hooray! Oh, but here's the catch, both leagues are up in Westminster. Oops. We did NOT know that when we signed up. We thought we were playing at Redstone Park here in Highlands Ranch. Alas, nope. Instead of a 5 minute drive down the road, it'll be 45 minutes on a good day! Yikes. Oh well, hopefully it'll be a fun team.

Yesterday we dusted off the cleats, gloves, bats, and balls, and spent a good chunk of the afternoon enjoying the gorgeous weather over at Redstone Park hitting grounders and pop-flies to one another, then threw the ball for a bit and topped it all off with a few tokens worth of balls at the batting cages (which truly is my favorite part)... whewee, good stuff! It was good fun, way better than in California. We kept talking about how not fun it had become out there and we can't figure it out... we think that the fields were so poorly cared for that we just both hated the constant unknown of where the grounders were going to take their bad-hops and when we'd get one where it counted... (ie, face for me, and "junk" for the hubs... heh heh). So even though we're both a bit rusty, we truly are looking forward to getting back in the swing of things (heh heh, pun intended...).

So our first game is tonight at 8:15pm... followed by Friday at 6:15pm... wish us luck!!! I'll report back in with scores and details :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day EVE! :)

** UPDATE **
We won our first game on Monday, and our Friday-night-game has been moved from 6:15 to 8:15pm, which is a blessing because I was not looking forward to driving through Denver on a Friday night right in the midst of rush-hour! Phew!

If I were independently wealthy...

... I would have a full VERT membership, a full TaeBo membership, and a full Corepower Yoga membership, and I'd bop around from one fabulous gym to the next. I always feel SO fabulous when I am at these places working out, I'm so centered and focused, and then I feel great when I leave. It's so invigorating and amazing. It's painful and it hurts, but it's just good stuff. I wish I could afford to keep them all up! However, the decision is going to have to be made here in April... to whom do I pay the big bucks? I'm thinking I'll pay for the TaeBo, and then maybe get my teaching certification and hope that she'll give me a free membership as my pay. THAT would be wonderful. Then I could afford the occasional drop-in yoga class or VERT session.

What brings this on, you may ask? Well, this weekend I felt gross... so frumpy, ew... and then sure enough, Monday I "weighed-in" at a number I haven't seen in like 2 years. Not SO horrible, but not what I want to see. So Monday I dragged myself back to an amazing kick-butt TaeBo class at 5:45pm, then this morning I went and let Jeremy kick my bum with a ridiculous VERT session, and then I joined Jamie for a Hot Yoga class at CPY. What a day. I could seriously be happy as a clam if I could go to a TaeBo or VERT session in the morning, and then hit yoga in the evening, not always hot yoga, but just yoga. It'd be awesome! And of course I was tortured by fantastic Lululemon clothing in the yoga studio... if only it were my job to wear those all day. Maybe being an instructor is my calling. :)

Lately I've really been struggling a bit with depression. I feel sad for Ryan that he has to deal with me in such a stuper. I don't know what it is. I think I'm just dissatisfied with work and then overwhelmed by my to-do list otherwise. Plus, it's really hard to work at a job I don't particularly like from home when surrounded by all the things on my to-do list. By the end of the day I'm just grumpy! Not good. So that's why I'm really trying to work from 7am-4pm and then skidaddle to an evening workout so I can "reboot" between work and home. It's tough. I can tell when I let the two merge and don't get enough "me time". It's bad. So I really need to ensure that I stay focused, that I take some time to myself, and that I figure out a schedule for my life that keeps me motivated and happy, and also that allows me to have a neat and tidy home, because I find that I eat poorly, make bad decisions, lounge more and am more depressed when my house is a mess. So that needs to be a priority.

Anyways, so there you have my state of mind and my goals and wishes... hopefully I can stay on target and stay happy. :)

~Love always~

Links to my favorite workout spots...
www.corepoweryoga.com
www.5280fit.com