I tried to post this last night but of course my blog was down…
(counting to 10…)
he has no shame
And he was cute and adorable last night. At 5am this morning he woke me up smacking his lips for like an hour. Why? Because at 5:45am I heard him puking in the living room. He threw up a shoe lace. A whole motherfucking shoelace.
Sick.
…still be upset I got overlooked for the 20sb blog swap for the SECOND time in a row
…think about the basement flooding because our power is out and the sump pump isn’t working
…let C’s crabbiness get to me
…feel self conscious because my hair is a little scary b/c I coudn’t use my straightener or my hair dryer
…think about MA leaving our office to go work at GOOGLE in California (psshhhh)
I will give you some more pictures from our up north vaca (which we will be going on again in a week!!)
Liko found a "suite" in the bow of the boat
Scooby looking out on lake huron in Oscoda
chillin with 'dad'
relaxin on the boat
Nani's driving with C (he's her favorite)
It was a little chilly
—————————————————————————————————–I had the most tranquil weekend I think I’ve had in my life.
Amazing because there were some hiccups. But nothing seemed to get to me. I literally was at 100% peace. Even though,
Tawas Bay
I still can’t believe how easy everything seemed, even when things went bad. I wondered for a second if these things were bad karma for me, because you know I deserve some bad karma, but I don’t really think so. I kind of just coasted this weekend, let things come as they might and dealt with them.
waiting at the Chevy dealer for the van
I didn’t even feel a bit of irritation when we got on the freeway and promptly had to pull over when C knew we should have gotten it fixed in Tawas.
Liko’s insistent whining couldn’t even break the calm. I’m not sure who that person was up there but I hope she sticks around.
I have a secret too. Every single time I’m up there I don’t want to leave. I just want to be. I want a simple life. One that allows me to take Nani out to the water on a whim to watch her eyes become excited when she sees the water. It feels like home up there. I don’t feel rushed and I don’t feel pulled in 100 different directions. I just am.
I didn’t have internet withdrawals like I thought I might and we didn’t have a tv but I was perfectly content with reading a book and just relaxing.
Of all the places I’ve been this might have been the most relaxing vacation I’ve ever had.
I’m still in my zen-like state today, but I also don’t feel like talking with anyone.
*more pictures to come
Here a few more pictures from the long weekend. It was one of those weekends that felt really long but the moment you were back to work on Monday it’s was obviously WAY, WAY too short. We did get a lot done so I guess we were at least accomplished!
always time to chill with dogs in the back of the van
When Sarah asked me about a favorite restaurant my response was that I really wanted to try Slow’s BBQ in Corktown. Her and Supergirl both said it was delicious and I needed to go ASAP. So last Friday, we did. It was perfect because they weren’t busy since it we went in the middle of the afternoon. And yes, the food was delicious. I was so hungry I didn’t take any pictures of the actual mouthwatering food, but I did take some to pass the time before it arrived.
Holy crap.
I really like my job most of the time. I get to learn new things break websites and then teach myself how to fix what I just broke. Maintaining and updating other people’s code makes for good learning. There is this one designer who had her head up her ass and since she left and I’ve been maintaining, updating, FIXING her code I’ve definitely learned what not to do EVER. (ex. hard coding the navigation on EVERY page in a 5,000 page website…ok not 5,000 pages but it seems like that many. virtual includes people) Anyhow…
So I have a project list, not quite as extensive as the developers, cuz you know that’s not my job. But I have this list and it’s keeps growing. Then I have all this crap sitting in folders that needs to be done. I’m waiting for content or a file (ahem…Keith). Then I have to answer phones for another department while they are on lunch and the calls are interrupting my train of thought. And I think that my head might explode because all I wanted to do was knock out some work so it was more ankle deep, than you know, shoulder deep. Are you following me? No. I don’t blame you cuz I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about either. (Get to the point)
I was stupid busy yesterday & I didn’t have any time for my blog (boo!). That is all.
OMG moving on…
So you know I’m leaving to go up north this weekend…SO EXCITED…especially because we are taking the doggies. Gosh I can’t wait to see them in the water. They know when they get to go on vacation. Last week I knew I needed to get them pet tags (I know we are bad canine parents, they don’t have any). According to The Dog Whisper’s newsletter, the statistics of a dog being returned to an owner is only about 10-12%. Isn’t that sad? I’ve been wanting to get them id tags for a long time now and our trip made me realize I had to get them NOW.
I found the perfect ones on etsy, of course. Unique Tags to be exact.
their names are engraved on one side with our phone numbers on the other
In other catch up news. Besides the lameness I talked about, the 4th was pretty fun. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the night. My camera battery was about to die so I didn’t take as many pictures as I usually would have.
AH! I’m so frustrated. So my eyes feel like they are even worse now 
I’m going back to the doctor’s this afternoon.
I’m so tired of wearing my glasses.
Like a lot of other people I have tomorrow off for the July 4th holiday. I always stop when I type July 4th because I think maybe I should say Fourth of July. Meh does it really matter?
My fun plans for the weekend include but are not limited to:
Did you notice there are no Fireworks or Fun Parties listed above? That makes for a kind of crabby Ria. I made C promise he’d buy me sparklers so I can see what Scooby’s reaction will be to them. Hold the phone don’t be calling PETA on me. He is a scaredy cat just like the real Scooby Doo and he’ll bark at anything he doesn’t recognize. He barks though instead of jumping into my arms.
Also, Scooby’s tail is getting better. He can hold it half way up. I think he just likes being pathetic looking. “Mama, I haz a hurtz”
I’m both crabby and excited today. It’s really hard to be both but somehow I’m managing.
An eye infection in each eye will make a person crabby. I went to the doctor yesterday for some antibiotics and those little bastard eye drops sting
Moving on because who wants to focus on the bad. Chuck and I have been searching for a place to take the dogs for a weekend so they can enjoy the Lake and we can take out boat out. I found the perfect place in East Tawas that had a fenced backyard. Do you know how exciting the idea of renting a house with a fenced backyard? That means that if Scooby has to puke at 2am you can just throw him outside. You don’t have to find your shoes and put his leash on in a hurry. Alas, some things are too good to be true. The lady said the dates were fine and she was going to email us a form. Well it’s now 4 days and 3 phone calls later we haven’t heard anything from her. So we went back to the drawing board. I called multiple places that were either booked or didn’t look appealing to a couple hauling 3 dogs and a boat.
I hit the jackpot today though. We found another house in East Tawas (minus the fenced yard) that is a couple blocks from Tawas State Park where we can put the boat in. I’m truly excited.
In other news I took Scooby for a jog yesterday and noticed he wasn’t really into it. He kept lagging behind. He hurt his tail sometime between Sunday night and Monday afternoon. I’m not real worried about it because 6 years ago Nani hurt her tail and I took her to the vet. They couldn’t do anything but take an x-ray and charge me $100. I’m hoping he’ll feel better soon because he is acting really pathetic.
If you are interested in guest posting for me on July 13th or 14th let me know
First, thank you for all the comments for our anniversary. It was very lowkey. We ordered Thai food and watched the hockey game. C got me a pair of Billabong boardshorts for wakeboarding and a tank top. He did a good job picking it out even if he went the day of, lol.
If you follow me on twitter I mentioned I was going to do aproduct review of a few items I recently tried. Just so you know I wasn’t asked to do this review they are just things I picked up at the store that I thought you guys might like to try.
from top: Alba papaya enzyme face mask; Neutrogena Triple Moisture hair mask; Alba Hawaiian Sea Salt body scrub.
I’m not going to lie I try not to spend excessively on beauty products. We all know that I love anything Hawaiian. I’m a sucker for tropical smells. While at Meijer a couple months ago I spotted Alba products but I wasn’t ready to commit to buying any. It was $12 for the body scrub. But last week on a whim I decided to JUST BUY IT ALREADY! I opened it when I got home and the smell is heavenly. It’s citrusy. I have really dry skin and this left me feeling smooth and hydrated. It’s not something I use every day, just once or twice a week.
Again, I’ve been wanting an exfoliating face mask because my cheeks can get flaky from dry skin. And since I loved the body scrub so much I decided to give the Alba face mask a try. When I put it on I was surprised that it tingled my skin. I think it did a decent job of exfoliating my face. I might try a different Alba kind like the pineapple one when I’m finished with this jar.
Alba also has shampoos and body washes I might try out soon. You know when I’m finally in a ‘dude, just buy it already’ kind of mood.
Just a sidenote, the Alba products are Hypo-allergenic, pH balanced, 100% vegetarian ingredients and are not tested on animals
Being the hair virgin I was I didn’t realize that the highlights I got would make my hair feel so dry. I did what anyone would do, I tweeted asking for suggestions. Rachel suggested the Neutrogena Triple Moisture Deep Recovery hair mask. OMG, it made such a difference. I use it once a week and my hair feels almost like it did before I got highlights. If your hair is feeling dry instead of silky try this.
If you try any of these products let me know what you think And if you start using something new think about reviewing it, I like getting new ideas for beauty products. There are so many to choose from it’s nice to have a starting point!
I’m sure you have been anxiously awaiting this post, sitting on the edge of your seat. Um yeah… 
So a couple weekends ago C and I bought a new grill. Ohhhh, Ahhhh. We also bought a fire pit to burn all the millions and billons of sticks and branches in our yard. You know because raking up 15 bags of leaves and not being even close to finished means you have WAY too many trees. Wait, can you ever have too many trees?
using the new grill that took us 3 hours to put together LOL
Easter Sunday we got up, had coffee and made brunch, which included Mimosas. YUM! And I bought orange juice with mango in it. *drool
french toast, eggs and hashbrows and of course the best part mimosa!
It was also Nani’s 8th birthday!
I thought this was a cute one, believe me I took more!
C got the minibike up and running!
Nani, Scooby, Liko
"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection."
~ Anais Nin
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