Party Hardy!

Yay for a long weekend!  The weekend started about midday Thursday when I went home early from work so I could put my sexiness on.  The VX-1 "Holiday" Party was Thursday night, and its always abound with drunken sailors and prizes and an open dance floor.  Another year went by with me NOT winning a prize, for the 3rd year in a row.  If you don't hear that bitterness, let me just tell you, it's there... it's DEFINITELY there.

There was food and dancing and general fun was had.



Hidden in this present was tequila.




I was a little less subtle with my liquor and just put it on the table for those on our level.
And apparently this isn't how you eat the cupcake.  I wasn't even drunk.




This was the dress that didn't win the Battle of Britain dress competition in September.
I loveeeee it.



Friday we were off work, which was great because the beasts needed baths and I needed to do housework to prepare for our shindig (yes, I called it that) on Sunday.  Friday I started the morning off with a youtube video session and some kitchen cleaning.  Once Teh Bear woke up, we watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  We're slowly making our way through the videos.  With them being so long and my inability to sit still for extended periods of time, we don't do marathons.  When Teh Bear left for work, Phil and Mary were given baths, which is always an adventure since Phil doesn't do slippery surfaces.  Although I think I found a work around by putting wash cloths and a rug gripper under his feet.  It wasn't perfect, but neither were his rubber booties.  And getting Phil in the bathtub is the most difficult part.  My heart just breaks when he slips and slides and falls.  Last time he just laid down for me to finish his bath, but this time he wanted to stand up, so I made sure to reposition the grippy items anytime he moved so he wasn't on the slippery parts, which helps minimize his freak outs.  Friday night, Olive came over for another slumber party, I had dinner and waited on traffic to die down and decided to make a field trip to Walmart to pick up some party items, items for stockings (Teh Bear traditionally does candy and small gift, while my family usually did hygiene products.  Together we will have candy and hygiene products), and etc items that were on the list. 

Of course there were interesting things at Walmart, like the 2 ladies, one of whom was wearing pink pjs with bedroom slippers, who managed to get in front of me several times who were meandering through the store like they needed to look at every item on every shelf with no regard to anyone being behind them.  Obnoxious to the max.  There was the older man driving one of the mart-carts who was cussing at a kid because the boy walked out in front of him, the boy was walking out of the aisle and didn't see the cart.  Really?  You're going to f-bomb the 12 year old?  Chill out old man.  And there was the ever-classy jewelry department give away going on while I was checking out, which only took 20 minutes in line and 10 minutes for my transaction... mostly because I was using coupons, $20 worth actually, woot!  I purposely didn't go in a hurry because I knew that would only serve to frustrate me, so it overall wasn't a bad trip.  The best part was coming home and nothing was destroyed and only the front door rugs had been peed on.  Knowing I wasn't going to be gone for too long, I left the dogs out, which is always a risk when you add a new one to the mix.

I ended up staying up late and finally finishing The First Phone Call from Heaven by Mitch Albom.  I was disappointed, honestly.  I just need to reread Tuesdays with Morrie and call it quits.  His last few books haven't really impressed me all that much.  It feels like another Nicholas Sparks situation for me, but without the obvious formula involving North Carolina.  I recently downloaded lots of books, like all the Nicholas Sparks books, because there are a few that I still like, and the Hunger Games series, and a few other random books that Goodreads had on their "top books of the year" lists.  I'm still in the middle of my first Jeff Shaara book, which I want to finish, even though my ADD has taken oven.

Originally on Saturday, there was an adoptathon schedule for the foster dog.  But since there was a threatening of winter weather, they decided on Friday to push it until Sunday.  With an open spot in my schedule, I decided to catch up on the remaining episodes of Grey's Anatomy that I was behind on.  I won't give away spoilers, but if you follow Teh Blog on FB, then you may have seen my post after I finished the most recent episode.  I miss Shonda writing for Grey's.  I know she's all bigger than Grey's now, but if she could just come back, that'd be great.  Sometimes, you just gotta stick with your roots.  I would almost bet that if she was writing for the show again, ratings would go back up.  I've seen several people talk about Scandal (her new show) and how awesome it is.  It's her people.  It's Shonda-freakin-Rhimes.  She's amazing at what she does, that's for certain.

After I finished up on my episodes I realized that I had a scheduling conflict originally on my schedule and that I could have went to a training thing at church, but I completely forgot about it in my upsettedness that the adoptathon was cancelled.  Additionally, it barely even rained here.  I got ZERO snow.  I got ZERO winter precipitation.  Argggh.  I'm not sure what it did on the rest of the east coast, because I try not to follow the weather predictions since I know I'm just going to be disappointed no matter what.  It's me, I'm sure of it, but seriously, don't expect snow if you're within a 25 mile radius of me.  That's just how it works, Gentle Readers.

When Teh Bear woke up, he informed me that ShopKick was doing 200 points for our local stores, so we went out for kicks and a few items at Target Despicable Me 2 and came home.  Upon getting home, I realized why my Target total was so high, they had charged me twice for the movie.  Ugggh, so I had to turn around and go back to Target.  Teh Bear was pretty much done with his party prep when I arrived home, at which point it was time for him to go to work.

After he left, I turned on the iTunes radio to my Walk off the Earth station, because it rocks, it does, try it.  Equipped with background jams, I found the motivation to make Teh Bear's birthday cake.  A made-from-scratch chocolate cake and icing.

Olive got picked up while I was cake making, which always makes the energy level of the house go down significantly.  I love my Teefs-girl though.  Her smiles and nips at my fingers just make her so adorable.  Then she roaches and she melts my wine-chilling heart.  After finishing the cake, I did a few more cleaning tasks and cleaned off the table before finally calling it a night.

Sunday morning, Teh Greyhound Neighbors - Wife came and picked up Mary to deliver her to the adoptathon for me since I was unable to bring her due to church commitments.  I told the little girl to find her furever family (which sadly didn't happen, but maybe next time) and ran back upstairs since I was already late getting to church.  We had musical week this Sunday, which meant no sermon, and a bit of extra work in the sound booth, which was a challenge, but fun.  I think the Catholic in me requires a sermon for my Sunday to feel complete though.  I looooove singing.  It's one of my most favoritest things about church, but no sermon really throws me off.  In the same way that not taking Communion every Sunday threw me off for a while.  I've finally gotten used to the once a month schedule of LPUMC, but it was difficult at first.

After a quick trip to the commissary, I came home and Teh Bear ran out to get more food supplies for the party.  We're obviously really good communicators.  He finished up his prep for his food items, meatballs and bacon covered water chestnuts, and we rearranged the dining room. 



Yeah, that's a countertop table, not a standard dining room table.
I love my Philbo.


Phil enjoyed the lack of chairs in the dining room since he loooooves the rug that is under the table.  Probably because the rug was his main place when we lived at the apartment.  Guests started arriving to our Ugly Christmas Sweater Birthday Party around 2:30 equipped with delicious noms.  We all socialized and some of us played Apples to Apples (who doesn't love this game??), where Teh Coast Guardian went off on a pretty classic tirade about an incident in Waco, Texas from 1993 that I didn't know about..  Because I was in the 1st grade and yeah.. didn't care.  Then was birthday cake, and I did really good at making and cutting the cake because there was only one slice of cake left after everyone was served.  Everyone said it was great, but I wasn't the biggest fan, which could be because I'm not really a chocolate cake fan.  I know, I know.  I love all other things chocolate though (except for plain chocolate ice cream).  After the 13 year old left (she was definitely good competition for Apples to Apples), we pulled out Cards Against Humanity and had a few cheek hurting laughter spurts. 



We definitely sang the world's worst Happy Birthday song..
it was kind of hysterical.


As the evening wound down, people started leaving and I gave Teh Bear the option to open his present on Sunday or on his actual birthday (Wednesday).  He chose to open it on Sunday, so yay for his new electric kettle and all my hot chocolate his tea its going to be used to make! 



PRESENT!
Phil-bombed.



After all the people left, we internetted for a little bit and headed up to bed.  It was a great party.  We were glad that so many people came to hang out and celebrate Teh Bear's bday.  Also, we rocked the Netflix yule log, which meant that our party was epic... because yeah, TV fireplace = rockin.




Linking up with all these ladies: