come on over!

7043 bucknell, dallas, texas 75214

kevin and i took casey to the playground- one of his favorite places on earth. kevin was in true 5 year-old fashion, playing on a rocking horse and casey decided to attack!

if one more person makes 'the face' when we answer the question "where are you moving to?" and they hear "dallas".... i swear i'm going to scream.

you know...'the face'. its a mixture of disappointment/ disgust/ nausea/ disbelief/ confusion. it breaks your heart, thats what it does. it makes it feel like you are letting everyone down- its almost as if they thought you were cool, good people... but not if you're choosing to live in dallas!

i even got 'the face' yesterday morning at church. our sweet pastor even prayed for us by asking "Lord, when you are done with these two up in Dallas, please send them home to us right away."

i don't know when its going to hit me that i'm leaving. even my afternoon alone at barton springs yesterday didn't feel like a 'goodbye'. probably on sunday night this weekend when we don't pack up the car and head back to austin...

last night we had our going-away party and it was so much fun. its always interesting to be surrounded by a group of people that all hold the memories of a different part of my experience here - triathlon friends, team in training friends, work friends... it was great.

this afternoon my sweet husband is cleaning and packing our house while i am going swimming at barton springs- it is a gorgeous day and i am so happy i get to spend it there. i know i will make it a point to visit anytime i am in town- so its definitely not the last!

we have a LOT of packing to do still and its going to be a busy week!

let's hope his sense of balance is better than hers....

kevin and i are headed up to dallas tonight for a meeting first thing tomorrow at our title company. we are signing our lives away... i mean buying a house!

i keep looking at the pictures of the house that i have on my computer because i can't really believe that its going to be ours tomorrow! i am so excited!!

its weird, i'm exactly where i thought i would always be at 28... happily married, healthy, parenting a sweet dog, buying a house. its all so predictable. maybe i'll dye my hair pink or something...

eh, probably not.

dallas people suck at evites.

i have personally made this judgement call based on the fact that not one single friend of mine that katy invited to our "welcome to dallas" party has accepted the invite (other than family). there are a couple of yes's on there, but those are kevin's friends or people i've met through katy.

so, as you can see, its easier to tell myself that "dallas people suck at evites", than really think about the fact that so far my college friends aren't exactly wow-ing me with their warm welcome.

as much as it sucks, maybe its good to be reminded that a lot has changed in the past 6 years while i was enjoying life down here in austin. i know i have always had this utopian idea that everyone in dallas is still best friends and hangs out together all of the time... but its just not true. life happens, things change... i get that.

is it too much to ask for people to stop by and welcome us to town? i wish it wasn't... but in this case, it looks like it just might be.

i did something for the first time this weekend... i joined a group ride from a local bike shop all by my lonesome.

i have always been either too lazy or too insecure to join group rides because, well frankly they scare me a little bit! you just never know who is going to show up or if you are going to be the slowest person in the group.

i pulled up to jack & adam's on sunday morning and to my surprise- i held my own on the 35 mile ride! i actually hung with the lead group of all guys through the whole ride! now, these weren't hard-core cyclists, but they were cyclists! and they were guys!!

i have really enjoyed doing more cycling lately- i am really going to miss that in dallas. but at least now i know, i can join a group ride every once in a while : )

as an update on the knee situation... i am having an mri on thursday and it looks like i'll be holding out on surgery until i'm up in dallas in may. until then.... i'll be out on my bike!

kudos to two members of my tri team for making the news!!

check it out!

any takers?

its next door - you could come borrow sugar anytime! well, not THAT kind of sugar...

you'd think that having visitors calls for quite the party. kevin and i both had friends in town this weekend. my sister was here friday night and kevin's friend jake was here for a couple of days.

sadly, despite the guests, i was in bed friday night by 10 and on saturday night i was struggling to stay up until midnight in a bar on 6th street. i'm not sure how it is possible to be tired when sitting 15 feet from a live band... but i sure was.

i swear i don't know when i got so old. i haven't been out until closing time in years -these days i can barely keep my eyes open long enough to have any late night fun. getting up early for triathlon practice sure does put a kink in my social schedule... but for some reason, its worth it!

i've been a toot lately. really, i've been a pain in the butt to deal with. (i'd say 'ass', but i gave up swearing for lent)

i was humbled and slightly amused this morning when my bible study told me to look up proverbs 21:19. "better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife."

you know its not good when someone would be better off living in the desert than living with you...

in other news, we got the house!! the keys are ours on april 5th and on april 13th we will pull into town in a giant u-haul. get excited!

my heart swells with pride when i watch the one and only- john rosacker - in his winning performance at the semi-finals of the austin air guitar championships.


if you have a moment - check out his performance. its pure genius. i always knew i loved john... and now i understand that love just a little bit more.

my spring break experiences really peaked in highschool. isnt that sad? my senior year i went to mexico with all of my friends. it was the quintessential mexico trip complete with drunk girls, wet t-shirt contests, and lots of free shots.

since then, it has all been downhill. college spring breaks consisted of a ski trip, a missions trip, and my "aren't i so different" outward bound trip. what was i thinking? outward bound was amazing, but my friends were all drinking frozen margaritas by the yard while i was drinking water from a stream that was treated with iodine to kill off bacteria.

these days spring break is great for one reason- less traffic. living in a college town like austin is awesome, but when 40,000 college students all leave town its GREAT. my usual 20 minute drive to work suddenly only takes 10 minutes.

when did this happen? when did a shorter commute take the place of a sombrero and sunscreen? who knows, with any luck maybe i'll make it big on a video called "young professionals gone wild"

getting old sucks.

i had the distinct pleasure of babysitting my sweet niece, lucy, this weekend. i was really looking forward to it! i hardly ever see little luce because she lives up in dallas.

despite lots of threats of taking lucy around austin in a tie-dye onesie introducing her to travelling homeless musicians smoking pot, her dad and mom still let me take her off their hands.

we had a lot of fun! casey is a huge fan of babies- and probably anything in general that smells like a mixture of poo and baby powder. he loved licking her face and thankfully she thought it was pretty funny. note to self: teach casey boundaries before strangers bring children to my house.

the best part of the experience? besides really clinching my title as "coolest aunt ever"... on sunday for the first time in months i actually remembered to pick up my birthcontrol on time at the pharmacy. no matter how much i love that little bundle of spit up and giggles, it was a nice little reminder of how much i like my simple, uncomplicated life where my biggest responsibility is a needy dog.

anyone want to buy a house on nimrod trail?

seriously. who names these streets? please tell me that is the result of a lost bet.

i really don't know if i could buy a house on nimrod trail - even if i liked it! can you imagine? the burpos living on nimrod trail? how much worse could it get?!

as an addendum to my candy complaints, i would like to add another grocery store inspired post...

i was walking through the store yesterday and i saw a new velveeta package that reads "now easier to melt!". um... i'm sorry, but when was velveeta ever hard to melt? velveeta is a gooey brick of processed cheese whose one goal in life is to melt. so much so, that even in its solid form, it jiggles.

also, i noticed that whenever kevin is out of town i purchase all kinds of random things to "try" that i would usually never purchase. i had cap'n crunch for dinner. how out of character is that!?

austin is my adopted hometown. it was a slow and complicated process, but thankfully i didn't have to go with a small town in china, i hear thats popular with adoption these days : )

its interesting, the more i come to grips with leaving, the more i love about austin. its similar to the "you don't know what you've got till its gone" theory, but more of a preemptive approach.

i'm so sentimental these days for my sweet town, i just about get weepy thinking about something as crappy as 6th street. ah, the drunken days of dancing at 311 on friday nights after too many cheap drinks at saba... : )

i have started making a list of everything i want to do and see before i leave. anyone want to join me? lets grab dinner at whole foods and wander around book people. how about dinner at z tejas, walking down to amy's ice cream, and thumbing through records at waterloo?

i want to float in barton springs until i am chilled to the bone and then drink an even colder margarita at baby a's. i am going to jog around town lake and end up at maria's for migas so i can say goodbye to the best tacos on earth. i will ride my bike out to the lake and not let the dam hill get the best of me and then i will fly down 2222 at 45 miles per hour without cringing. i am going to enjoy sxsw this one last time and stay out much past my bedtime.

so much to do... let me know if you want in on some of this fun. its going to be good stuff.

this weekend i introduced casey to his version of heaven. we were invited out for a visit at the peavy ranch in blanco and we all had such a great time!

casey's mouth covered in mud from digging for rocks

it was really nice to have lots of down time to hang out with the peavy family. jill and gardner are raising the most precious 2 year old boy, kyle. he is such a doll! he has something to say about everything and he made the weekend really fun for all of us.

kyle and tucker playing with trucks

katy and jay drove all the way down from dallas and brought their two canine children with them. it was just really awesome to hang out with no distractions and enjoy being away from being busy.

the girls sometime after midnight...

casey barked to his heart's content at everything from llamas to donkeys. he dug around their fresh water springs in search of the perfect rock. he flopped around in mud and got as dirty as possible. he tested the limits of his new knee- and surprised us all with how much he can run and play so soon after surgery!

casey attacks a log

kevin was crazy enough to ride his bike back from the ranch- about a 75 mile trip down farm roads that is so beautiful, i couldn't help but be jealous! i drove home to the sounds of an exhuasted snoring dog, thinking about how thankful i was for the beauiful weather and for the friends i got to share it with.

whenever i hear a newscaster quote the total cost of the war in iraq, it's such a high number that it is somewhat impossible for me to even have a frame of reference for it. $243,930,497,980 is so unbelieveable that i don't really know what it means.

today i was watching jon stewart, who i am frequently secretly (fond of), and he gave me a number i could finally relate to.

$2300.

that is the amount of money that each individual tax payer has spent on the war so far. its almost 20% of the taxes that i paid in 2005. now THAT is unbelieveable.

i am not here to make a case against (or for) the war- it is just interesting to me how much more personal that number makes it seem. its not some crazy war that some crazy president started that i roll my eyes at- its something i am paying for. something i'm paying quite a lot for.

kudos also goes out to the one person out there that caught my willie nelson reference. at least something about this post is remotely amusing : )

casey is a working dog! he is our new part-time office assistant. he helped us out with a little light filing and organizing.

he was also helpful enough to sniff out everyone's trashcans just to make sure there wasn't anything fishy going on.




too bad he isnt full time. we could really use the health insurance.

i just ran across this side by side comparison of mega m&m's versus the standard size. i think you can see the source of my disappointment illustrated clearly here:

i had a blind date today. it was more of a set-up really. i was in the checkout aisle of the grocery store and the cashier asked if i would like to try the new reeses peanut butter cups with caramel.

would i?! yes i would!

the thoughts going through my mind - could you possibly combine better ingredients? chocolate and peanut butter are already heaven together - but throw caramel in the mix?! count me in!!

i barely made it to the car when i ripped open that little orange bag of treats. my initial reacton was "hmmm... i think i like where this is going, but i'm really not sure yet." so of course i had to eat the second cup just to be sure i liked it. in the end, i think this new snack answers the question, 'is too much of a good thing a bad thing?'

the caramel kinda just gets in the way of the peanutbuttery goodness. it takes away from that thick p.b. texture... its kind of an unwanted third-wheel on a great date.

i'm chalking this up to another in a series of recent candy disappointments. don't even ask about my "mega m&ms" experiement. mega, my ass. more like "slightly larger than usual m&ms" i guess the marketing department didn't think that was a compelling enough slogan.

i had a great weekend! despite the freezing cold temperatures, it was a whole lot of fun. saturday morning i had breakfast with friends and we went to visit murff and ryan. their new baby, taylor michelle, is such a cutie!

sunday i got to stand up with tim & michelle as they had lucy victoria baptised. her cuteness was confirmed by the loud "AWWW" that we heard from the congregation when the minister held her up for everyone to see.






i also got some rare quality time with my mom, dad, and sister! erin and i were without husbands this weekend, so we had a slumber party at mom & dad's complete with ice cream, chocolate, & popcorn. we also had a little too much fun with the silly settings on my cell phone...

interesting and/or somewhat noteworthy things that have happened today:

my outfit doesnt really match. i have to start turning on the light in the morning instead of catering to my sleeping late husband.

i actually witnessed someone giving an elevator pitch on an actual elevator.

i have spent at least 6 full hours working productively - thats big for me right now.

i had two co-workers astounded by the fact that i am the youngest sibling in my family. apparently to them i come off as more of a "oldest."

murff and r.perry had a tiny perry! hooray for baby taylor michelle!

i'm quickly learning the difference between a 'haircut' and a 'hairstyle'.

i would say that 99% of the time, i just get a haircut. of course, i get the requisite layers just to make sure my hair doesn't look like a giant mushroom cap on top of my head, but really its still a 'haircut'.

i finally caved and got a 'hairstyle' complete with bangs and lots of choppy layers. it doesn't look ALL that different, but its definitely a lot more work!

so truly, the difference between a 'haircut' and a 'hairstyle'? about 10 minutes a day.

i didn't get much of a workout this morning at the tri team practice, so i headed to the gym for the hour & 1/2 spin class. class was nearly full and the last available bike left was front row center- i jumped right in.

as i leaned over to adjust my seat height, i noticed an ex-flame in the back row. as awkward as seeing ex's already is... it totally sucks to see them when you are not looking your best. i spent 2 hours this morning standing in the wind and cold, so needless to say i was not looking so cute.

after class, i did the awkward "wow, i am in a such a hurry to leave class that i cannot even pause to look at anyone around me" act. who really cares if it worked or not, i just wanted to high tail it to the car!

i showed up at the rental car desk in california and to my dismay was told that due to a golf tournament in town, there was only one car left on the lot. now, my company doesn't exactly spring for the fancy cars, but they get me from point 'a' to point 'b' without a problem.

the last car left in the lot? a jeep wrangler. thats like showing up for a night's stay at a hotel, not expecting the four seasons, but perhaps a decent hampton or even a borderline la quinta and instead they offer to let you set up a tent in the backyard.

jeep wranglers are best suited for high schoolers or those in mid-life crisis. since i qualify for neither, i felt like a total dork driving it around. it is seriously the least practical vehicle ever made for normal urban transport. anything valuable must be locked up in a tiny breadbox of a trunk because it would only take a swiss army knife to break into the car. it threatens to tip over on any turn taken above 25 miles per hour and when on the highway anything below a shout is hard to decipher.

i was happy to turn in the keys for my return flight - now if only i'd flown back into the sunny austin that i was expecting. the misty gray winter day made me grumpy, but thankfully today is back to our usual sunny goodness!

i just saw the best SNL commercial. steve martin was the host this weekend and all of his skits crack me up.

its for a "unique new program for managing debt", a book called "don't buy stuff you can't afford."

the chapters were titled "if you dont have any money, you shouldnt buy anything" and "how to buy expensive things using money you saved."

heehee.

i went to 'le garage sale' today. as i walked past one of the booths, i heard a store owner say to a customer, "you should come shop at my store sometime. you know, i carry women's clothes up to size 6."

i swear i'm not making that up. it was right before i passed by a table of jeans that retailed for $275, on sale for the fantastic price of $90.

sheesh. it just goes to show, if you're looking for it, you can find a little taste of dallas in austin!

in other fantabulous news, our sweet mary martin is headed back to texas! i could hardly contain myself when i heard the rumor, but i called katy for verification, and its TRUE!

my first summer in big D just got a whole lot better : )

i'd never be the big winner on "the price is right". i just unsucessfully bid $4,000 on a showcase showdown package whose actual retail price is apparently $17,877.

i think the problem is, i was going off what i'd pay for the items in the showcase, not what the retaillers think they are worth.

i mean, really. who wants a full size jukebox and nasty looking giant bedroom set of furniture?

oh well- the hour wasn't a total loss. at least i've been reminded to help control the pet population and get my pet spayed or neutered.

another great busted tees shirt.

because "blow me and then wedge another cartridge on top of me once i'm in the nintendo" wouldn't fit on a t-shirt.

that's the last time i buy casey a toy on sale at target. i just gave him this toy 5 minutes ago and this is what i saw when i turned around....

yes, thats the stuffing everywhere. and don't even bother with the guilty look on your face. you knew exactly what you were doing.
stupid $4 toy.

this morning i read an interview with willie nelson. this was my favorite part:

question: a lot of guys a whole lot younger than you have said to themselves "i've had a good career. i'm going to sit in a lawn chair and drink some beer."

willie's answer: well i don't much like lawn chairs and i don't drink beer.

casey scared the &#$% out of a fedex delivery guy today.

on beautiful days like today, i leave the front door open and put up a baby gate on the porch so casey can walk in and out and roam around but he is still under tight supervision. kevin and i like to refer to this setup as "zoo dog" because if you see it from the front yard, he looks like a dog in the zoo just watching people walk by from behind bars. he generally terrorizes cats and old people out on walks. he loves it.

i was expecting a package from work today and from inside i hear someone talking and looked toward the front door. casey was crouched down with his non-existant stub of a tail wagging like crazy.

i suppose if you hadn't met casey before it could have looked like he was about to pounce.

the fedex guy was moving in slow motion, scared out of his wits. i heard him saying in a soothing voice "its okay, big guy. i'm not going to come any closer, i'm just going to leave the package here. easy big boy."

he left the package in the middle of our sidewalk and turned and ran back to his truck. i started laughing so hard! casey wouldnt hurt a fly- he was just excited because he thought someone was coming to play with him!

poor fedex guy. he had quite the scare. and poor casey, he was looking forward to making a new friend!

happy birthday to you! happy birthday to you!

happy birthday to mom!
happy birthday to you!

vicki turns 59 today, thus marking the final birthday she will ever agree to celebrate in public. no matter how many years pass by... the woman can still cut a rug with the best of em. happy birthday, mom!

i don't really understand the point of myspace. anyone out there agree with me on this one? what is the point?

in my estimation its just a way for people to find dates, spy on ex-girlfriends or high school crushes, and accumulate "friends." i'm giving it a test run for now, so the verdict is still out.

though, it was recently brought to my attention that there is a girl with the profile name "girls gone wild for jesus" so i guess it does make for a good laugh every once in a while!

i've been neglecting the blog this week because life has been entirely un funny lately. not just "not funny" more like the opposite of funny.

consider this my attempt to lighten the mood...

has anyone heard the new nelly song "grillz"? not that i sit at home and watch mtv... but IF i did and happened to see the video... i might think it was pretty darn funny. its a song all about teeth jewelry. and not just one gold tooth like leader of the muppet band.

these are teeth made entirely of diamonds. it looks like they made braces out of a diamond tennis bracelet. for reals. is this attractive? am i missing something?

update on the supposedly "indestructible" toy:

this morning was a mix of good and bad. i went on one of the worst bike rides on record, but that was quickly followed up by a fantabulous team in training info session.

first things first- the bike ride from hell. to start things off on a crummy foot, i had to wake up at 6:15 in order to get riding by 7am. clearly jenny and i both need a lesson on winter riding and the proper gear to avoid having your fingers so numb from riding in cold wind at high speeds that you can't physically move or bend them.

after about 2 1/2 hours of riding, it took 30 minutes in a warm shower to thaw myself and stop shivering. i'm glad that is over!

the team in training meeting was for people interested in possibly signing up for one of our races. it was awesome- everyone there was so pumped for the season and i could tell they were all really energetic and dedicated people. its going to be a great season.

of course the funniest thing that happened- i saw a guy there who introduced himself to me at the beginning of the meeting and i kept thinking he looked so familiar to me. finally when he was leaving, i yelled over to him, "hey! where did you go to high school?" and he responded that he went to highland park in dallas. small world! we figured out that he graduated the year after me, but of course he did not remember me, but remembered my older brother.

i guess thats what you get for being the editor of the newspaper. clearly i should have tried out for the football team.

i just can't get enough of this darn baby! tim and michelle had lucy's first photo shoot this week and of course the pictures turned out adorable!

i have a niece news flash too! kevin and i have another munchkin to add to our niece & nephew list! pictures soon to come.

could this be home sweet home?

our option period starts tomorrow...

dammit! travis, travis, travis! don't you know that there were kappa girls everywhere holding their breath tonight hoping you would make this season of the bachelor interesting enough to watch?! we wanted you to pick cortney!!

and seriously, WHO tells a stranger that they are ready to move into the "reproductive" phase of their lives and refers to their eggs as "rotting" because they are the ripe old age of 33? that allie girl was craaaazy!

my mom bought casey a toy for christmas that was touted as "indestructible."

casey laughs in the face of marketing people who use words like "indestructible."

casey removed the squeaker from his mouth long enough to say
"ha HA!"

aww, isn't she adorable?!


and the baby's pretty cute too.

as an addendum to the previous post- someone found my site today from googling "hot drunk spicy women blog"

i really should think about changing my title...

a post on erin's wedding is soon to come- when i have some fun pictures to share!

having the words "spicy" and "hot" in your title combined with other random words in your posts can really confuse search engines. sometimes when i see the search terms that people used that come to my site, it makes complete sense. for example "mollie donovan burpo" is clearly someone looking for me.

but i can only imagine the disappointment of the sad people who found my site from searching...
"hot sorority girls"
"sexy hot girl pic"
"hot after dark"
"spicy kiss girl"

my favorite is that someone who works for the united states government came to my site after they googled "sexy girls kissing." ahhh, tax dollars hard at work.

happy new year!! i drove back to austin this morning exhausted from my sister's fabulous new years wedding, just in time to celebrate my new year tradition.

i love spending january first at barton springs. yesterday was a gorgeous day to be there- it was 84 degrees! usually this time of year its just me and some crazy old man with floaties, but yesterday it was packed!

just before i jumped in the cold spring water i prayed that i will feel the sense of renewal of new years in everyday- that the clean slate we have in Christ would renew me each morning. i prayed that i would be invigorated spiritually by the greatness of God each day in the same way that the cold cold water invigorates and awakens me physically.

it was a beautiful day.