GA/FL weekend

A few weeks ago I flew to Jacksonville to see the Sharps and the Gators!

I flew in Thursday so I could have all day Friday to spend with the girls, Morgan and Addison. Erika let them stay home from school so we had a girls day.

First we went to target where I let them run crazy up and down the isles, hey there was no one there, so don't judge. They were so funny running to each circle sticker that was on the floor. Next we went to the Mall. I had bought Addison some Twinkle Toe shoes that were a bit big, so we went to exchange them. First we played in the play ground for about an hour. I thought I would try and wear them out first thing! Then we did some shopping at Kid's Foot Locker. They were really good all day, so I took them to Chick-fil-A for lunch. Secretly it was a treat for me too. They don't have them up here, and they call the south slow, shoot! Then because Addison ate her lunch so good I took her to Build a Bear. Yes I got suckered, but she wanted Hello Kitty so how could I say no. Thank goodness Morgan didn't quite understand Build a Bear or I would of left there broke! Those sales associates now how to add sale!

After the mall we came home and took naps. Well sort of. Morgan fell asleep in the car on the way home and when I went to put her in bed she wasn't even having it. I put Addison down, read her a couple of books and she was out! Morgan just wasn't having it. We were all going to Boo at the Zoo later, so I knew Erika would not be happy if Morgan didn't nap. So I rocked her and she finally fell asleep on me. I didn't want to wake her again, so we just cuddled in Erika's bed and napped. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I love snuggling with the babies especially cuties like my niece Morgan.

Later that night we all went to the Jacksonville Zoo for Boo at the Zoo. It was fun, but lots of people, and the candy wasn't all that. I mean I know it was donated, but can we get something other than laffy taffy! The kids had fun, so that is all that matters.

Saturday was the big day. Gator Football!!! Thanks to my Aunt, we got North End Zone tickets to the game. We went down a little early to do some tail gating.

It wouldn't be GA/FL without tail gating and a walk thru RV City!

The game was FANTASTIC. All my SEC fans know the final out come. Sorry my GA peeps, add another loss to the record.

Chaz Henry, our HERO!

After the game we decided to go for a couple of beers at the Landing. Um..yeah I can never have a couple of beers! It was entertaining as always. We met our friend Magaly down there and the party continued.

Tinkerbell, Peter Pan and Captain Hook were one of the high lights. The photo isn't that good, but yes they ALL had on tights!

And God Bless Batman!

It is hard for me up here not really having a lot of friends, so when I can go home and visit those I love it means the world to me. Erika girl I can't tell you how much I love you and am glad you are in my life.

GO GATORS!!!!!

Mom's Visit

Now that my Mom is unemployed I had a weak moment and booked her a flight to visit me for 2 1/2 weeks. Not sure what I was thinking :)

She flew in the Thursday before my birthday. I didn't really take anytime off. I thought us spending 24 hours together should be kept to a minimum. The first weekend we just bumbed around and hit the mall. Then made some snacks and watched the Gators. The next day we were suppose to go to Bear Mountain for Oktoberfest, but the festival got canceled due to flooding. Since we were already up we decided to just hang around the city and see what trouble we could get into. Here is a picture from the M&M store. The only reason we went in was to look at the Christmas ornaments. I am my mother's daughter.

Next I thought we would take a stab at the discount ticket office in Time Square. Mom decided she really wanted to see West Side Story, so we got orchestra tickets for half off. I had never gotten tickets this way before, but I think I found my new weekend past time. The show didn't start until 3:00 so we had some time to kill. We ended up going to Madame Tussaud's wax museum. I've never been, but what the hell. It was interesting. Some of the statues looked so real it was freaky! Me and B :)

For my Birthday I bought us tickets to go see Wicked on Broadway. I wanted to go on Wednesday which was my actual birthday, so that meant my Mom had to meet me after work. She made it into the city all by herself. Once I told her to take the only train that had a number on it, she was good to go. We had a non-fancy dinner of Chinese food and went to the show. It was AMAZING!

The next weekend we made it to Bear Mountain for the Oktoberfest. There is a cruise up the harbor that takes you to the mountain so I thought it would be fun for me and Mom to do. Who new it would turn into a booze cruise full of 20 somethings getting wasted at 9 in the morning. Damn I'm old. The festivities were OK. We waited way to long in lines. I most likely won't do it again, but the drunk kids made for good entertaining on the cruise back.

Mom was tipsy off of one beer, so I had to cut her off!

Our final adventure was to the Bronx Zoo. It is so crazy how such a beautiful zoo is smack dab in the middle of the Bronx. You literally could see the expressway from the monorail.

I don't think my first trip to The Bronx Zoo would of been the same without my mother. As we visit with the deer she says, "Why do some of them not have antlers? They must of fallen off" "Um Mom those would be the female deers. You know doe a deer a female deer."

The Tiger Cubs were putting on a show playing for us. I look over and there is my Mom telling this lady all about the cubs how there are 2 and the momma tiger is over on the left. She seriously is giving this woman the play by play tour. I walk over and see the woman has on a red vest and a Bronx Zoo badge. I told my mom we needed to move on to the next animal and she needed to stop telling the Zoo Employee about her job. Yup, my mother was telling the animal expert all about the tigers she probably trains. Gotta love it. The lady was really nice to have pretended to be interested.

Me: Oh my God look at the white Giraffe.

Mom: Shannon quick take a picture.

Me: I have never seen anything like that.

Mom: I think its dead its not moving.

Me: We are so dumb, it is a wooden Giraffe.

Enough said!

And yes even The Bronx Zoo had the rarely seen bump it! She was probably from Jersey. REPRESENT!

Some things just ain't the same

Usually I stay home to partake in my Saturday football, but this past weekend I decided to venture out to the village to watch the Gator game. There are several "Gator" bars around town, but I wanted to be able to actually sit and watch the game. The Gator bars are usually pretty packed.

I headed to "Down the Hatch" with my new friend Meredith. (For those of you who don't have facebook, I met him recently but he is only 5'-5" so needless to say I only want to be friends. I just couldn't do it. I thought he was cool with being friends, but long story short I ended up watching the last quarter of the game by myself because I turned down his invite back to his place).

Down the Hatch is a typical NYU college bar, but there was a good mix of people. Some old folks like me and a lot of youngin's. Of coarse I sit next to the group of 6 stereotypical Frat boys chugging beer and acting like idiots. I didn't care though I was there to drink my beer, eat my wings, and watch my Gators.

I must admit it was pretty strange being the only one in the bar with a Gator shirt on and actually watching the game. I am not use to folks not wanting to watch College football. What is wrong with this Northerners? All in all it was fun times though. I can't say I'll go back to that particular bar again, but the Gators won and that is all that mattered!

Annual Rafting Trip

Last month I headed back to Atlanta to see friends and of coarse go on our annual white water rafting trip. Even though some of us are unemployed and I have moved away we still manage to keep the tradition going.

After we go down the river it is basically a big drunk fest back at the cabins. Why else would we make this an annual tradition! We cook out, and partake in the yearly game of flip cup. Which every year my team seems to win. I'm just sayin'!

This year I took Monday off of work so I could spend a little more time with friends that don't go on the trip. Plus flying back the day after flip cup is not a good thing anyway! It was so good seeing all the friends I miss so much. Can't wait until next year!

I met him at the grocery store

Yesterday I took my usual Sunday morning trip to the grocery store. When I got off the train this guy approached me in the parking lot. He politely asked me my name and if he could have my number. Now mind you I was in my normal grocery store attire and beauty. Hair in a ponytail, no make up, gym pants and a t-shirt. I though shoot if this guy is interested with me looking like this, then why the hell not. So I gave him my number and told him I would call him a little later.

We met up about 3pm by my house. It was such a beautiful day I decided to just go to the outdoor bar down stairs and have a beer and chit chat. Now this is where the typical Shannon date starts.

So we go to the bar and I order a beer, he orders the same. The bartender tells us our total and this fool doesn't even try to pull out his wallet. I said OK lets see how this goes, so I give the bartender my card to open a tab. I figured I could get a round then he could get a round. So we sit drink our beer and talk. He is a nice guy but is a little immature for me, but I figure I still need to give him the benefit of the doubt. I mean I am almost 32 and still single so there must be a reason for that! So he tells me about a new job he just started, blah blah blah and then the fool shows me his pay check stub! Seriously I told him "are you that insecure that you need to carry your pay stub around to show chics you have job." Needless to say that was a little weird. PS I make more money than he does for sure, so he shouldn't be so proud to show that stub off :)!

After the first beer, which I drank in about an hour and he downed in about 10 min, we went to leave. He didn't want another, big surprise. So I go to close out the tab and damn if he didn't go to pull out his wallet again! So being the chic I am I went ahead and paid the tab, but you know I am keeping score and this dude just went to negative points.

Next he needed to get his phone charger from his friends house, so we took a trip to Hoboken where he was the night before and where he grew up. You have to remember that all I know of Hoboken is that it is a nice affluent area where all the yuppies live. Well technically I live with the yuppies too, but you can imagine where I was thinking we were going. So we jumped on the train and headed to Hoboken. How about this fool takes me to the HOOD! Now those of you who know me know I can hang anywhere, but shoot if I new we were going to the hood I would of stayed in my work out pants and t-shirt from earlier. Honestly though it was a nice walk through hood. He introduced me to everyone we stopped to holla at :) and they were all very nice. I got offered a beer from Mike on the stoop, it was natty ice but I didn't want to be rude. And everyone was cooking out. I wish we would of invited our selves to some of those parties. The smell of burgers and ribs were killing me! So after my tour of the hood, one natty ice, and NO FOOD, we headed back to my house. By now it is 6pm, close to my feeding time, so I mentioned that I was hungry. You know this fool didn't even offer to take me to dinner! He keeps loosing more and more points. So I gave him a hug goodbye and he did apologize for not having any money to take me out. Um, then don't ask a girl out until you have a couple of bucks. Or shoot have a game plan and ask a girl to just walk in the park or something. I could of figured out a bunch of free shit we could of done, shoot. So long story short I don't think I'll be seeing grocery boy too much in the future.

Back by Popular demand

Yeah Yeah Yeah I suck, nuff said!


Here are a few things that happened last month.

Vacation!! My mom turned 60 this year so I asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday. I was hoping she would say cruise but instead she wanted to rent a beach house out at Folly Beach in Charleston. We use to do this every year when I was young so I thought it was a good idea. First let me say that beach houses ain't as cheap as they use to be! We rented a cute 4 bedroom house. It was older but good enough for us, plus it had charm.

I invited all my besties. The ones who showed up are still my besties! The first few days we had a jam packed house. Erika, Michael, Addison, Morgan, Grandma, Aunt Kim, Mom and me. And no, none of us killed each other. I had fun with the girls and got to show Erika and the fam around my hood :) The highlight has to be sitting at the dinner table Monday night and asking Addison when the last time she went potty was. "I went potty in the pineapple pool." Earlier that day we took the girls to Water Front park and she swam in the Pineapple fountain. Needless to say she did a little more than swim!

The big group all left on Tuesday and Melanie and Malachi came on Thursday. I had seen this hot dog joint on the food network so we had to try it because Malachi loves him some hot dogs. He was impressed with his hot dog with ketchup, but if you ask me, my fancy dog wasn't all that! At least I can say I went.

I got to see a few other friends while I was in town so all in all it was a great vacation!

The weekend I came back from Vacay, my friend of a friend who is now my friend, Jessica was in town for work. We spent the weekend doing the NYC made dash tour and went to see Rock of Ages Sunday night. LOVED IT! I'm sure the bottle of wine at dinner and the fact that you could take your adult beverages to your seat didn't hurt, but we both were singing along the entire show! And yes Constantine was playing the lead.

Our softball team made it to the playoffs, but lost the first game. Oh well, that is how it goes. We will wash away our sorrows at the end of the season party next weekend. If memory serves me correct Rick will be bringing a bottle of Henesey for striking out! Why the only brother on the team got to bring Henesey. Damn stereotypes. Shoot I'll drink to that though :)

Thanks to my new friend Mike at work I've been getting out a little more than usual. The bad thing is I have to work out a little more to cancel out the beer calories. But hey you do what you gotta do right!

I am headed to ATL this weekend for our annual rafting trip, so I will be sure to make that the next post.

Oh yeah and I saw a man pucking between the subway cars today. Thought I'd end on a good note. I heart NY!

Keep Austin Weird

Yes this is what the T-Shirts say and boy did I figure out why.

We were finishing up construction on our 4th CCS store out in Austin, TX and I went to do the punch. (for those of y'all none design folks that is basically when we go and make a list of items the GC or fixture vendors need to fix prior to the store opening) Any hoo, because I work for the best company ever, and the ticket price was the same, they let me fly back on Sunday so I could spend a long weekend in Austin. As usual my timing sucks and my friend Laura had plans for the weekend but we did get together and meet up for Tex Mex and entertainment. More on that a little later.

The only goal I had while in Austin was to fill up on BBQ, Tex Mex, Margarita's and Sweet Tea. Well I soon learned that Austin is more South West and everywhere does not have sweet tea. WTF the word south is still in SW so dang it y'all need a come to Jesus meeting and get some Sweet Tea!

Our construction manager, Bryan, who is based out of Austin, was in charge of showing me around town. Lucky man! He picked me up from the airport and we went straight to the "County Line" for some good ole Texas BBQ! We did family style and even though cole slaw and potato salad were on the table, I filled up on nothing but Sweet Tea, Ribs, Chicken and Brisket. I did have a tiny bit of potato salad, but didn't want to fill up on carbs you know, watching my figure and all! OMG I was in heaven. That was the best BBQ I have had in a long time! I was so full I had to skip on the pecan pie though. But it sure looked good! After dinner I checked into the hotel and got settled in.

I stayed at a hotel right in Downtown Austin. I was told that was the hot spot, and they didn't disappoint. I mean people from all walks of life live in Austin, except black people I don't know where they were. I think I saw like 3 my whole trip and they were all leaving PF Chang's across from the hotel. Yum, expensive chicken wings to go. Ya'll know you ain't paying for parking! Shout out to my sistas :) I can't really blame y'all for being a little dispersed though. I mean Austin has weird people, redneck people and just plain crazy looking people. Plus they have the right to carry a concealed weapon. Shoot, I am even too black for some of the areas I walked through.

Friday was a day full of work and the GC wasn't nearly as finished as he was suppose to be, so I knew I would be working Saturday too. But hey I can't really complain when Foot Locker if footing the bill. So this leads me to meal number 2. A late lunch at the Hula Hut. This spot has been around for ever and is right off the Austin River. I really would of loved to have some Margaritas by the lake, but the GC was taking us out to lunch so I thought I should keep the drinking to off the clock hours. The food was very interesting I must say. I had a pablano, mango taco and your standard Chicken taco. The mango was a little to weird for my tastes but the Chicken was off the hook. Oh and don't even get me started on the chips and salsa. I swear I could eat chips and salsa all day. Just and fyi, this restaurant did not serve Sweet Tea and looked at me crazy when I asked for it. They suggested Snapple. Damn it, am I still in NY, WTF.

View out to lake Austin. I felt like I was on the islands man!

After lunch we did a little more work and then I was meeting Laura that night for dinner and drinks. This brings us to meal number 3 at "Maudies." Laura and her boyfriend live right around the corner, so we just walked from their house.

First I got to tell y'all about the walk. A lot of folks in Austin are, as I call them, "Organic." You say tree hugger, I say organic. Lets be politically correct people. Well along the way to the restaurant we passed a tomato garden in the front yard but not just any tomato garden, one with a big ass golden Jesus head in it. Next past the lesbian's house, was a house with a dog and chickens chillin in the front yard (they are in the background of the picture). Yup farm fresh eggs served in the morning. I'm sure if it was a little brighter outside I would of seen a lot more, but this was just enough to make me smile.

As we come up on the shopping center where Maudies' is I notice this roof drain down the side of the building is crocheted. Yes you heard me. Evidently they commissioned some artist chic to go around town and make these crocheted sleeves to put over things. Laura termed it "Knitfitti" and I think that is all too perfect. This isn't the actual knittfitti I reference, but you can get the gest of it.

We finally reach Maudie's and I am still full from lunch, so I decide to just eat chips and queso and drink my dinner. Hey Margaritas have to have some type of nutritional value. By the way I didn't even ask if they had Sweet Tea, all I wanted was that Rita! After dinner we walked across the street to the air streams. Ok take a step back.

The big thing now in Austin is to get an Air Stream, park it somewhere, and sell food out of it. There was one selling organic salads and shit and then there was one selling hot homemade doughnuts. You can only guess which one we ate at. Hell to the yeah! I had a doughnut with bananas, caramel, pecans and graham crackers. Thank God I didn't eat dinner or I would of missed out on this delectable treat from a home on wheels. There was also a band out in the parking lot. I swear the entire Austin experience in one night, Tex Mex, air stream dining, and live music. As if that wasn't enough we even had our own private dancer. Let's call him Jarome. He had a gold chain, no teeth and kept taking his jacket off to show us his dirty wife beater. Love Austin!

me and Laura and My fabulous doughnut!!!! nuff said

Saturday morning was spent back a the mall. I did have some time to walk around Downtown a little and take in the sights a bit. It was kind of like NY. Cars still try to run you over and I even passed a crack head screaming at himself. Ah it felt like home.

Later that night Byran and I went over to a former Foot Locker employee's, Wes, house for a get together. Now Wes is almost exactly like me so you can only imagine how much fun we had. Those fools had me doing flamin Dr. Pepper shots at the house. Right next to Wes's parents and kids. Now that is and example they should follow.

Needless to say I slept in on Sunday and left for the airport. Back to my bed, so I thought. US Airways over booked the flight so I ended up spending the night in Charlotte and heading back to NYC Monday morning. All in all though it was a great trip to Austin.