Friday, May 17, 2013

B-Day Tribute

Attention:  This is Hubby Jack!

I did a Holly birthday tribute over at my blog.

Come on by and wish Holly happy birf-day!

click HERE


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Thursday, May 16, 2013

The Surprise

Thank you to all of the ladies who participated in the Share Your Favorite Birthday linkup. Chrissy, Lindsey and I went through them and it came down to three girls.... but we decided the winner was....

Rachel from Rachel Runs Her Mouth! 

Yay for Rachel! You have been emailed your $50 Kiki La 'Rue gift certificate. Rachel is hilarious... and definitely a Stanfield favorite. Please check her out HERE.

But I didn't want the two runner-ups to leave empty handed.... So Kira from She Can't Shut Up and Jen from Capitol Tales each won free ad space on my blog next month. :)

Thanks for playing, ladies!

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Yesterday at work, we celebrated my birthday. Like I mentioned before, my best friend is my co-worker Joan, who happens to be 50 and completely coo-coo for cocoa puffs. There are some days when we are in love with each other... and other days where we know better than saying a word.

Anyway, I have shared what I did for Joan's 50th birthday HERE... and she has been scheming since. So yesterday, we're all out for Mexican and she hands me a wrapped box and a card. I open the card first and everyone from work had signed the card and wrote little messages. Then on the side of the card was a list of names. Like a really random list of names. People from college, my best friends, a girl from high school that I haven't talked to in at least 10 years, and even some blog friends.

I asked Joan, "How do you know these people?" And she said, "Just open up your gift."

So I get the box open and from the outside it looks like a photo album. I am sitting across from my boss and I am thinking he doesn't need to see The Big Holly Hot Mess Express pictures from college. But what was actually inside was a cookbook (that I opened while eating the homemade ice cream she made me too).



Joan had gotten on her facebook, which that in itself could be a whole post. Joan doesn't know anything about anything on facebook or even my blog for that matter. Her logging in, when she can remember her password, is an accomplishment.

Well come to find out, she went to my page and clicked on my friends list. You know the friends list that is over populated with people that you met one time at a party 7 years ago? People from high school.... Frienemies.... Everyone.

Instead of clicking on people that wrote on my wall, she just pulled up the whole friend list and then started sending them private messages, at random, asking for recipes. But she had no idea what she was doing, then got paranoid that her messages to these people would show up on my wall, so she stopped after only sending a few. :)

I'm sure people from high school that she messaged probably thought, oh that poor Holly has no friends if this looney toon is emailing me.

But a lot of people responded to her... some even saying they don't know how to cook (cough, Nancy Clue)... and even blog friends that I haven't met in real life, but are facebook/text buddies like Meredith from Is This Thing On?.

I wish I knew everyone that submitted a recipe... But Joan lost track and kept deleting the messages so that I wouldn't see them. LOL. So if you are someone who sent one in for my cookbook.... THANK YOU. It really made my whole week.

Tonight, I am kicking off the birthday weekend with a bang. My best friend Betsy is flying me out to Charleston, South Carolina. I leave tonight after work. and come home on Sunday morning to celebrate my actual birthday-birthday with the kids. I think I am packed and ready to go. Chris is probably ready for a break too.... aka Taco Bell for the next three days.

I have to say that I have it made in the shade when it comes to husbands. He really runs the show around here. He went somewhere one time and was giving me the breakdown of how to do bath and bedtime on my own. "And Olive likes to have the cup with the rubber top, but only give it to her after she is in her crib." I was like, I am her mother. I birthed her out of my vagina. I promise she will live in my care alone. So a big THANK YOU to old Tina the Diva.

This has already been the best birthday, ever.

Happy Thursday!


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Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Boozin' and Ho'in

Thank you everyone who joined the birthday linkup. It's open through noon today. Tonight we'll go through and pick a winner. That person will be announced in the morning.

The Finish the Sentence winners were : Bold Butter Baby, Molly Mo, and TimBob (who left his answers in the comments). Email Jake to get your gift cards: jake[dot]gerrad[at]gmail[dot]com

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Last night, Melanie invited me over to her Real Housewives of St. Louis house for margaritas and spray tans for my birthday. Our friend Laura-who-doesn't-have-a-blog was also there for drinky-drinks.

I have only had one spray tan in my life. I got it 5 years ago, the week of my wedding. At the end of my wedding night, the inside of the dress was brown and had to be tossed. Being a pregnant bride, that was the least of my problems, but I have always wanted to try it again.



Melanie's step sister came over and sprayed us. I'm hooked. I never want to be anything but bronze for the rest of my life. And the icing on the cake was that Laura got Big Holly some Busch Light. I scream class. I seriously love this little blogging world and all of the people that I have met. Mel and Laura made Tuesday night of my birthday week AWESOME. :)



Anyway, tonight I plan to have a lazy night on the couch, watching all of my shows that are ending this week. We are also having the toilet fixed tonight... which means that Buzz Lightyear and 12 of Olive's binkies are about to be discovered.

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Now for some inspiration on a Wednesday morning...

Lori from Fat to Fit is one of my new favorites to follow on instagram (@fattofit41). She has lost over 115 pounds! Lori posts the most motivating pictures... and is such a good reminder of what some hard work can do to your body (look at her stomach!). Please check out Lori's blog HERE.

And next up is Taylor from Mama Tay LeMay. Her and I have been blog friends for months now and I have seen her get smaller and smaller. She works out, food preps, and documents it all on her blog. Taylor is going to be at her goal weight in no time. Check out her progress on her blog HERE or on her instagram (@mamataylemay).


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Happy Wednesday! It's my birthday lunch at work today. Big girl fun will be had by all. :)

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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The Most Memorable Birthday

Today I am hosting a link up with my Taurus ladies, Chrissy and Lindsey. We're asking everyone to join in on our birthday fun and share your favorite/most memorable birthday.

We will be going through these tonight and tomorrow and picking a winner. The one person with the best birthday story will win a $50 gift certificate to my favorite boutique, Kiki La 'Rue! And before I forget, hop over to Jake's page HERE to see if you were one of the three winners from Finish the Sentence. :)




Growing up, birthdays were not a big deal in our house. Usually, we would have our grotesque cousins over and play the poor kids version of Bozo's Grand Prize Game. Whatever money we got in our birthday cards, our parents  snatched up as our way of paying them back for the party. There were no cute invitations, fun party favors, or homemade cake. As we got older and my mom married someone normal, birthdays turned into DQ cakes and $100. There isn't one particular party that stands out to me more than another, but I will never forget the day I turned 12.

So, let me give you some background.... It was 7th grade, towards the end of a long, rough year. I had moved out of my dad's and in with my older sister,but would spend time with my mom in the morning. She would pick me up, make me breakfast, and then take me to my bus stop. My bus stop was on the way to my siblings intermediate school, which was convenient. 

The only thing not convenient? A girl named Amy Fisher, no joke, who would bully the hell out of me as soon as my mom dropped me off. 

She would talk about my weight (I'm the same weight now that I was when I was 12 years old), my arms, my teeth, the car my mom dropped me off in (trap shooting/kidnapper van)... and that was just getting her warmed up. Then, she would just start tearing my mom apart by telling the other kids that my mom was a "hooker" and that she always sees her standing on corners. 

I never had the guts to say anything back. After all, her friend, Toni Clark, pushed me one time and when I went to kick her, I missed. Freaking. Missed

So back to my story... It was my birthday and I was in the car with my brother, sister, and mom. We had just dropped Butkus and Noel off at Wilson School... and my mom was making her way back to Derby Street to take me to my bus stop. 

On the way, I was begging my mom to just drive me to junior high that day, since it was my birthday, and I didn't want Amy Fisher being mean to me in front of everyone. I had never told my mom about her, so she started asking more and more questions. I told her how she makes fun of me, my arms, teeth, and how she thinks that my mom is a hooker. My mom goes, "a what??" I said, "She calls you a hooker and says she always sees you standing on corners.

So what does my mom do? She goes to the bus stop, rolls down the window, and says, "Hey you." And Amy Fisher says, "Me?" And my mom goes, "Yes, you. Get off my corner." And then she drove away.

And I died. 

The end.

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And while you're clicking around today, please check out Ash and Theresa!

Ash Z from A Step in the Right Direction has lost over twenty pounds by just walking. Seriously. It's crazy what moving a little bit more does for your body. Ash is such a good example to her little boy, Mason. She is also a 911 dispatcher, which I think would be a rad job for a day until I would have an anxiety attack for the person on the other end of the phone. Please check out Ash on instagram (@ashz131) and her blog HERE.



Theresa from A Change of Pace is what I want to look like when I grow up. Girlfriend looks good. She has lost over 65 pounds and has went from a size 14 to a 4. She runs half marathons like it's going to brunch. She is also a nurse and now a new blogger. I'd like to welcome her to Blog Land with arms wide open. Like the Creed song. Check out Theresa's instagram (@tunruh67) and her blog HERE.


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Now linkup... and find good blogs to read. If there is a funny birthday story that you find in the linkup, let me know. It's Tuesday... and Melanie is making margaritas tonight and having someone come spray tan us. This marshmallow is about to get toasted! :)





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Monday, May 13, 2013

Karma

First things first... The Finish the Sentence linkup winners are on Jake's blog today HERE. We said we would only pick two, but we ended up choosing three. Check out his page to see if you won. :)

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Karma or what I like to refer to as Humble Pie... that is how I would like to summarize this weekend. Remember when I wrote about the Shitcapades at my house last week? Well Friday night I started feeling a little off. But I was in denial. I went to bed early with Haven to rest up for the 5k Saturday with Chris and Melanie.

Now I'll back up for a moment... Chris was horribly sick all last week. And I made fun of him for five days. What is it about a guy throwing up that sounds like someone punching the wind out of them? At one time, around 3am, I yelled from the bedroom, "Wait for it to come to you." I am really great at bed side manner. or matter. I don't know how the saying goes.

So Saturday morning we wake up and head down to grab Mel. Chris was feeling better, but I still felt off. I blamed it on the whole morning being a mess-- getting the kids situated, grabbing headphones last minute at the drug store, then noticing our gas light was on when we were supposed to be meeting Mel. Then Mel jumped in the car and I forgot all of my problems because blondie had consumed coffee and a can of Redbull before jumping in the car. We laughed the whole way to the race.

Yes, Melanie shows up at races like she is going to prom, then smokes everyone on the course.


As soon as we got out of the car, Mel and Chris had to use the porto potties. I know I am spelling this wrong, but that is how I pronounce them. Porto potties make me dry heave. I have a K9 since of smell regardless and I immediately felt clammy, again.

But it's just three miles. 4 weeks ago, these Teletubby legs killed 13 miles on the same course. This ain't no thang. So at take off, I was coaching Chris to just stick with Melanie. He had 100+ blog womens making bets on his time. He has made fun of us racing for 6 months, so he has to go big or get boo'd home.

The race starts and I see Mel and Chris dart away. I planned a nice 30 minute 5k for myself. Had my jams. Had a babysitter for an hour after the race to grab some brunchy-brunch. Then after mile one, I felt the my stomach drop. I was lightly sweating but got the chills. And I said, "Please Jesus, just let me lose my shit afterwards." But he didn't hear me.

I was the one sounding like someone was punching the wind out of me, while 1000+ elementary school kids watched on as they ran the race with their parents. A half mile later, I see Chris on the side of the road puking. I jog up to him and he is whiter than Joe Biden's teeth. So we grab some water and walk it off.

Then it hit me again. And rookie mistake number 1 was trying to cough it down and instead, it came up through my nose with a vengeance. But no worries, because my husband was documenting the entire race for his blog post, so he got an action shot.

Sexy and I know it.


We finished at 35 minutes. Walking the last mile. Cussing. Repenting. And wishing we had a babysitter all day so we could lay up in bed like some sloths.

Good news is that mine only last 24 hours.... which helped the ol weight loss this week. I really want to hit my 10 pound goal next week. Even with it being my birthday week, I am going to scale back on the cake and booze. Overall, I'd like to lose 7 more pounds, which is doable by the 4th of July. If there is anyone out there reading this, in a fat-rut, start today. I haven't been eating very clean, but I have definitely been moving more. I don't want my thighs to stick together this summer. :)




Also.. big news... is tomorrow...

My friends Chrissy, Lindsey and I are hosting a birthday linkup. We are asking everyone to share their favorite/most memorable birthday. Whoever has the best birthday story will win a $50 gift card to Kiki La 'Rue!!



Happy Monday... while you're jumping around today... go wish Chrissy a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Big Holly loves you long time.


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