First Ju-lye Weekend

Woo! It's July! We're in the meat of summer, the season of Cancer and Leo, house of my least favorite holiday, and last but not least, we're 38 days closer to my birthday (zomg).
Why is Independence Day my least favorite? Mostly because when I was a kid, I hated hanging out with a bunch of sweaty, drunk temporary patriots who confuse the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with Memorial Day and Veteran's Day. I grew up in the South and on the East coast, and that means July is a veritable suck-fest of mugginess, bugginess, and thunderstormy-ness. Bleh. And fireworks don't really do anything for me. And Addie's on the same page. /soul-less

The past few years I've headed up to my testicular-sister Scott and his wife Cindy's house in Baltimore, where her parents have a huge blow out bbq and fireworks show. Now, I might hate 4th of July, but I love natty boh and unlimited burgers. MmmmMmmm.

From the Land of Pleasant Living

hell yes

This year, however, I spent the 3rd reading And Then There Were None, watching the original trilogy Star Wars, baking a cobbler, drinking a bottle of wine, marinating meat, eating cobbler, passing out, waking up 3 hours later with a terrible hangover, and staying up til 8 AM watching Family Matters with Addie.

That freed up my 4th to sleep in and then lay around all day recovering, and then participating in Super Awesome Cookout with Addie and Shelby. I ate so much. Chili dogs, marinated grilled pork, charred spicy sausage, big ass drumsticks, and more cobbler. So much nom.

Win for America? Yes.

I also contracted poison ivy by reading Mandy's entry about poison ivy. THANKS! It's on my chest in the shape of Virginia, and damn... I forgot how annoyingly horrible poison ivy can be. I made a midnight trip out to sketchy, rape town convenience store for calamine lotion because I didn't have any benadryl and the itch was unbearable (btw, I'm an itchy wuss--the slightest scratch is unbearable to me). So that's been fun.

I'm ridiculously allergic to poison ivy. But not so much as when I was younger. When I was 9 and we had first moved to Maryland, I got my first patch on my ribs, and didn't know what it was, so I scratched it. And it spread. ALL THE WAY TO MY FOREHEAD, CROSSING MY SHOULDER AND CHEST. I was swollen and puffy and carried the general mannerisms and attitude of a severe burn victim. To make matters worse, that was the week we camped on Assateague, and Josh had brought his cute friend and I was all embarrassed because I did nothing but gross out everyone in a 3 foot radius of me.

And then there was that spring in 8th grade when I got it on my chin, an it spread all over my face. I  swelled so bad, my lips lost their shape and turned orange for a little bit. I got steroids and a week off of school (VICTORY), but I had to go back in one day for horrible, useless State Administered Testing. I sat next to one girl who took one look at my blotchy, oozy, calamine covered face and my nasty cracked lips asked me if I had cancer. Idiot.

Anywho, I took lots of fun pictures this weekend, but my Droid is being all Droid-y (i.e. not functioning), so I can't get my pictures off of it. Eeeeesh, I need a real camera. :/

So without further ado, my limited illustrated guide to this past weekend!

Cobbler time! I make huge messes, but it's ok, because the cobbler is damn delicious.

I got to use the fantastic Le Creuset pie pan my mom gave me. It's fantastic. And normally, I hate 99% of all fruit, and I definitely hate all fruit pies, but The Pioneer Woman has a cobbler recipe that makes me crave mixed berry cobbler. Crave it. The difference lies in dropping the fruit into the batter, as opposed to pouring the batter over the fruit. When you drop the fruit in, the batter bakes up more fluffy, and gets crispier along the edges, and the fruit don't explode and get super runny. And that's delicious. (Look at me, it sounds like I know what I'm talking about!) Also, I'd marry Rhee Drummond if she wasn't married. And if she was gay. And if I were gay. And if we were allowed to gay marry. Yeah.

Bart always lies right behind me, not begging for scraps. Definitely not begging.

finished cobbler! it was a little too crispy, which was kind of a let down.

Addie and Dog enjoying the great cloudy and 68* weather we had on the 4th

me in my GO AMERICA shirt, which is a plain T that has Obama's face stenciled on the back. win.

oh and HEY! some real pictures!

We spent a good hour or so trying to see how many gummy bears we could stick to Dog's nose before he noticed and pawed them off (answer: 4). For some insane reason, we laughed so hard we were crying. It was glorious.

we are terrible people.

And, as you can see from the TV in the background, Star Trek: TNG is now on instant netflix. Take that, Paramount Studios and your $200 series DVD box set. :P And since I watched Buffy and Angel, Addie's watching TNG. Win/Win.

what else has been going on...

No updates on mood elevation, as there has been none, and no updates on the job front because I refuse to jinx it! But I'm getting more and more nervous, because people I know with like, important jobs are getting laid off. Eugh. And I'm not a teacher, but I just watched Waiting for Superman and it really bummed me out.  

The battle of Addie the minimalist vs. Audrey the non-minimalist, currently at a stale-mate.

Oh, and Teen Mom started again last night. And there was a marathon of Nail Files. And reading and editing during the commercials. And my futon cushion was extra supportive for Bart and me through all of it. It was a good night to be alive.

All right. Time to get actual work done, after 3 weeks of mope. YEAHHHH.