The Ten Commandments of Winter in Michigan

As countless cities in the U.S. are being slammed with snow, I thought it would be appropriate to take a moment to discuss the Ten Commandments of Winter in Michigan.

They're necessary for survival until Spring.

1. Thou shalt not trust thy weatherman. Nine times out of ten he doesn't know what the heck he's talking about.

2. Thou shalt invest in a good pair of boots and don them regularly. This is necessary to avoid the dreaded wet-pant-leg situation and other afflictions.

3. Thou shalt allow thirty extra minutes before work. Because Lord knows that with each new storm people forget how to operate motor vehicles and traffic is consistently horrendous.

4. Thou shalt not assume that the roads have been salted. I think we all remember The Great Salt Shortage of 2008.

5. Thou shalt not ride thy neighbor's ass on the highway. Please refer to commandments 3 and 4.

6. Thou shalt strongly consider wearing fleece-lined pants whenever stepping outside. Because not shaving your legs isn't enough insulation.

7. Thou shalt honor thy Red Wings and pray for a Stanley Cup victory. After all, ice hockey is one of the only things we have to look forward to this time of year.

8. Thou shalt vacation to warm places whenever possible. Caribbean, here I come!

9. Thou shalt befriend the guy across the street who owns a snow blower. Because those things are friggin' expensive.

10. Thou shalt not assume that Winter is over simply because the calendar says it's Spring. Chances are it's going to snow in April too.

That about does it. What commandments are on your Winter survival list?

Bailey girl.

This afternoon our family gathered on the floor of a tiny veterinary office and said goodbye to our sweet Bailey. There was no doubt in any of our minds that it was time to ease her suffering, but it was incredibly difficult to let her go.

I still can't believe that I'll never get to kiss her soft little nose or pet her velvety ears again. That I'll never hear her collar jingling as she makes her way to the door to greet us. She gave us her sweet companionship for almost 18 years, and I can only hope that she enjoyed that time as much as we did.


We love you so much Pookabee, and we already miss you more than words can say.

One year.

I still can't believe we've been together for a whole year. So much has happened in the last 12 months.

We went on a kick-ass first date. We've both changed locations at work, and I've changed positions three times. Jason bought his first house. We traveled to Toledo and Chicago. He's seen his fair share of musicals and I'm a rap convert. I had a pain in the neck, followed by surgery. We've celebrated every major holiday and gotten to know each other's family.

It's been a good year.

We were both working on our actual anniversary, but Jason brightened my day by having a pretty little bouquet sent to me at work. I was completely surprised.

Then last night we went shopping for some clothes for the cruise and then to dinner at Red Lobster. We usually work opposite schedules, so being able to go to the mall and a restaurant together is no easy feat. It's weird, but I love doing simple little things like that together. Probably because it's so rare.

And when we got back I made him pose for pictures, because even after a year I feel like there are hardly any pictures of us. And it drives me nuts.

Tough guy, sick of getting his picture taken.

We have so much to look forward to this year.

A month of awesomeness.

February 2010 is officially my favorite month ever, and I'd like to tell you why.

The month starts out with the anniversary of Jason and I dating. Our first real date wasn't until March, but I like to celebrate the anniversary of our courtship because I'm a weirdo like that. One year ago we got to know each other better, started spending more time together, and sent each other an obscene amount of text messages. I swear, the boy didn't even use his phone before he started seeing me.

We're celebrating this occasion with dinner tomorrow and coming home to watch the season premiere of Lost, which is also a huge part of the awesomeness that is February.



The beginning of February is Superbowl time which means that it's also time for Jason's annual Superbowl party, and this is his first time having everyone over to the new house. Is it bad that I'm more excited for the social aspect of this party than I am for the game itself? What can I say? I love to stuff my face with yummy food in the presence of friends and family. Plus, I can't wait to show off the decor we've added to the house lately!

Another reason February is exciting is that I'm changing positions at work. It's technically a lateral move, but there's a lot more potential with my new role and, most importantly, it's a change I've really needed lately. Sometimes change in and of itself is a good thing, am I right?

February also brings Valentine's Day, which is usually the most criticized holiday of the year. I'm happy, and I get to love a lot of people every day of the year. Valentine's Day, like most other holidays, is a day to reflect on that fact an to spread the love as much as possible.

This month is also bringing a new change for Jason and I, but I'll write more about that later...

For now, let's talk about how WE'RE GOING ON A CRUISE IN LESS THAN THREE WEEKS. Ahhh! I am so excited I can hardly stand it. Our flights are booked, our itinerary is set. All that's left is a bit of last-minute shopping and to pack my suitcase! I'm surprised that I haven't done that already.

So tell me! What sort of awesomeness are you looking forward to this month?

*Photos courtesy of Google Images

My Caribbean Camera Crisis

For my birthday last year I finally got a point-and-shoot camera. I got a great deal and it got the job done, but I was never terribly happy with it. Owning an SLR has really raised my standards for picture quality, what can I say? I was grateful to have it, but I've been wanting something different for quite some time now.

Since I see and play with cameras all day at work I quickly found the little camera of my dreams. Well, the camera of my under-$200 dreams. While I own and love Nikon SLRs, I've learned that, when it comes to point-and-shoots, Canon just does it better. I ended up buying the Canon 1200is in blue, and I love it!
What really motivated me to make this purchase is that I'm considering only bringing a point-and-shoot on the cruise with us next month. We'll be doing a lot of walking, going on excursions, swimming, etc. If I bring my SLR there's a much greater risk of it getting lost, stolen, or damaged. Plus, it's not exactly something I can stick in my pocket so that extra bulk wouldn't be ideal.


This is where I want your feedback. I know that many of you own SLRs and I'm pretty sure that all of you have taken a vacation at some point or another. Do you think I'll regret not having my awesome camera with me to document the occasion? Or is it smart to leave the big guy at home and just stick to the little point-and-shoot? Obviously there would be extra hassle involved, but I want to capture the experience.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Have you been happy traveling with a point-and-shoot, or would you never leave home without your SLR?

The Case of the Vanishing Cocktail Dress

My apologies to any men who are reading this blog, but I'm going to talk about dresses again. Bare with me.

So remember last week when I bought that wonderful black dress for the wedding? I told you that it was perfect and beautiful, but what I didn't tell you was how my size 6 rear end miraculously squeezed itself into a size ZERO. I might have a small waist, but the lower half of this situation continues to blow my mind.

It was the only size the store had and I was in love. The fabric was very forgiving, so although it was a wee bit tight in the hip area I bought it anyway. In the back of my mind I was thinking it would be ideal to find just one size bigger, especially if I was going to be making the investment.

Yes, a little black dress is an investment.

Unfortunately, none of the stores in our area had a size 2. I spoke to a nice woman on the phone at our local White House/Black Market and she assured me that they would find one somewhere else in the country and ship it to me. For free! Wahoo!

When I went in a few days later to make the exchange, the girl behind the counter informed me that since my purchase the dress had become a sale item. The price dropped a whopping $80. Win?

Yes and no.

I got the difference back, which was a wonderful surprise, but since the dress was now on clearance they had no way of tracking which stores still had it in stock. Knowing I had seen it on the website a few days before, I headed home with my original dress (just in case) and planned to order it that way.

Apparently this was a popular dress, because when I went online later that day the dress had vanished from the website. Every single size had been available just days before and now it was like it had never even existed. I even called corporate and had one of the customer service representatives helping me track it down at stores throughout the midwest. No luck. Bound and determined, this morning I decided to start calling every store in the country (I have a lot of rollover minutes) until I found that darned size 2.

Miraculously, the very first store I called had the exact dress I was looking for and they're shipping it out to me as we speak. I've officially cracked the case of the vanishing cocktail dress, thanks to the sweet salesperson at the White House/Black Market in Anaheim, California.

All of that effort and determination probably could have been directed towards something a bit more productive like cleaning or studying or finding a cure for Cancer, but nothing was getting in the way of me and my little black dress.

The Michigan Blogger Meet-Up

This weekend we had the first ever (that we know of) Michigan Blogger Meet-Up! The weather held up and Jenni, Ria, Sarah, Maeko, Super Girl, Mandy and I all made our way to the Majestic Cafe in Detroit for dinner, drinks and bowling. Some of their blogs I already knew and others were new to me, but they're all awesome ladies!

I was super excited to meet Ria, since we've been commenting back and forth for a while now! I love meeting bloggers in real life!

And of course it was fun to be able to hang with Jenni again!

We had so much fun!

And, most importantly, we learned that we're all incredibly mediocre bowlers.

Scared to tears.

Jason prides himself on being very quiet, and he proves his skill by scaring the crap out of me whenever he gets the chance. He'll walk ahead of me to go upstairs and as I pass by in the dark he'll yell "HEY BABE!" or "WHADDYA doin'!?". Other times he'll just plain hide out in another room and wait until the element of surprise is at its best.

He laughs. I smack him. It's our thing.

Surprisingly, the time he scared me the most was completely unintentional on his part. I was waiting for him to get home from work one night and I was bumming around the house getting things done. It was well after dark, and while his neighborhood is definitely a safe one I still always have my guard up when I'm home alone.

I went down into the basement to throw in some laundry and when I turned around to head back upstairs I stopped dead in my tracks because there was a face in the window directly in front of me. Of course it was Jason's face, and of course I recognized him immediately, but that didn't stop my from flailing my arms in the air and screaming at the top of my lungs. What's worse is that my gut reaction was to run to him, so I darted up the steps and ripped open the door and threw myself at him. And then I proceeded to bawl my eyes out. For a good 30 minutes.

Now personally, I've never had that reaction to fear before. Screaming? Yes. Shaking? Sure. Heart racing? Absolutely. But crying? Even after I knew there was nothing to be afraid of? Never heard of that one before. I like to attribute it to the fact that I was under a lot of stress that week and that I had a lot of pent up emotions. Humor me on this one.

Apparently as he was pulling into the driveway that night he saw me through the window and had decided that it would be a good idea to wave hello. While I appreciate that sentiment, I think from now on we can leave our greetings until everyone is safely indoors and aware of each others presence.

So, the lesson here is: if you need a good cry, go have your boyfriend pretend to break into your house. Works like a charm.

The little black dress.

As most of you know by now, my good friend Lindsey is getting married in June. Whoa, as I typed that sentence I had one of those moments that I'm sure she has everyday. That holy crap, the wedding is only four months away moments. Moving on...

When she got engaged Lindsey decided to let all of us bridesmaids pick our own black cocktail dresses to wear in the wedding. This way we'd all be able to choose a style that suited our own unique taste, and we'd also have the opportunity to wear the dresses again. The only requirements are that the dresses have to be satin and knee-length. Genius, am I right?

This weekend all five of us crammed into one car and hit the mall on a mission: to each find the perfect little black dress. And guess what?

Mission accomplished.

Surprisingly enough we all found our dresses right away. One of the girls was able to find a dress she loved at Macy's, but the rest of us actually found ours at White House Black Market. The last time I'd gone there I had only seen one satin cocktail dress, but this time we found several. It's almost scary how easy it all was.

I'm pretty much in love with mine. I don't get to dress up very often, and this little number makes me feel like hot stuff. I didn't get any great pictures of me in it, so the beautiful exotic model from their website will have to do for now.

Surprisingly, picking out earrings was the most difficult part of the day.

But finding four different-but-similar black satin dresses for four different body types? Piece of cake.

In Real Life

Ever since I started LauReality I've always envied other bloggers who lived close enough to their online friends to get together and even begin to form "real life" friendships. Back then I struggled to find many bloggers from Michigan, let alone any I had something in common with.

The blog universe must have caught on to the lack of Michiganders in my Google Reader, because about a year ago it sent me Jenni! I was so excited when I first saw her blog. She works in marketing? She loves photography? She's close to my age? She points to her hand when she tells people where she's from? Okay, I don't know about that last part, but I do know that she and I have a heckuva lot in common and that she's absolutely adorable!

Jenni and I have been trying to make plans to get together for months but it never seemed to work out. We had hoped to venture into the city to take some stellar photos, but given our current weather conditions we settled on meeting halfway for some delicious Thai food. That's right, on Tuesday I met my very first blog friend - in real life!

As I was driving to the restaurant a million thoughts were flying through my head...Will she like me? Will I like her? Will she really turn out to be a 300 lb. dude named Butch who's been plotting to kidnap me all this time? Will we have enough to talk about?

Turns out I was wrong to worry about any of those things. She was as sweet as could be, and we had more than enough to talk about. In fact, we were there for over three hours chatting about anything and everything.

See! She's definitely not a crazy kidnapper.

I'm so, so glad that Jenni and I finally got together! It's nice to have a person to bounce blog ideas off of and to discuss all of the little ins and outs of putting our lives on the internet. Our personalities are so much alike, and over dinner we found out even more that we have in common. Best of all, she's only an hour away!

Here's to blogging and the wonderful adventures it brings! I'm looking forward to many more get-togethers with my "real life" friend!

The Real To-Do List

Since my actual to-do list seems to be endless, I decided to blog about my favorite little knick-knack. A few years ago I was working at Hallmark and I saw this on display. It was too cute to pass up.

Cute, no?

I've been known to have a case or two of the grumpies (or several), but overall I try to be a very positive person. At the end of the day, it's the little things that count. I thought this matched my personal "to-do list" pretty well.

In the spirit of positivity I've also decided to make a list of things I have to look forward to right now. I think it will help me forget about the foot of snow on the ground and the frigid temperatures, at least until I have to go clean off my car. The list is growing all the time, and I swear it's what's getting me through this Winter right now.

*Planning details for our cruise in February. We're starting to finalize where we're staying, when we're flying out, etc. I'm even dreaming about it. In fact, last week I had a nightmare that we boarded the ship and I'd forgotten my camera. It was awful.

*Finally getting to meet a fellow blogger! Jenni and I are getting together for some delicious Thai food tomorrow evening. I'm really looking forward to it!

*Bridesmaids dress shopping with Lindsey and the girls this weekend. Lindsey is having us each pick out a black satin cocktail dress, and this Sunday we're all going out together to see what we can find. Shopping, lunch, and girl time. Sounds like a fun day to me!

*My new point-and-shoot camera, which will have a post of its own very soon.

*Applying for a new position at work. I'm completely happy with what I'm doing now, but a new opportunity has presented itself and I'm very excited to see what could become of it.

See, now that I've gone over all of those wonderful things I'm in a much better mood and I've almost forgotten all about that pesky snow.

I'm keeping the blinds closed until I leave for work.

Salon Photos

My aunt owns her own salon, and recently she asked me to take some "candid-ish" photos of the stylists to use on their website. One of my first jobs was as a receptionist at this salon and I've known many of the women who work there for most of my life, so it was nice to come into a comfortable environment and play around with the camera.

Of course, taking photos under fluorescent lighting always presents a challenge. So does taking photos of hair stylists. They hated the pictures of themselves, which is absolutely crazy since they're all gorgeous. Either way, I think we had some fun!

Here's a little peak at what I came up with that night: