SoCo, book reports, and puke

I have been a negligent blogger! I was hoping to be posting everyday, or at least every other, but I have not been diligent in my blogging. That's okay though because there's only like 6 people who read this and I married one of them.

This weekend my daddio and my step momma came up to visit. We had a night on the town in Austin! We went over to South Congress (they call it SoCo, how cute is that?) where's there are a ton of shops, restaurants, and one of those food trailer parks, Lynne was excited about those. It was really neat! We went to Uncommon Objects which is a very well organized antique store. It is also very over priced. Denton's Antique Mall on the square probably had the same stuff for half the price, but it was a hot unorganized mess. I love antique stores!

I apologize for the terrible grainy quality, I iphoned it up. There was a time in my life when I used to keep an actual camera on me at all times. I should get back into that.

 At the food trailer park! You can see down town in the background, it was such a pretty night. And not too unbearably hot either. Check out those people hula hoopin' on the left, they were selling hula hoops for $4. I feel like that's a little steep for hula hoops covered in duct tape.

Lynne is the cupcake queen so of course we had to check out the cupcake truck. They were pretty good, but super rich and I was stuffed from dinner so I could barely get through half of mine.

I love seeing my family! Even though we're so much closer it doesn't happen as often as I'd like. Gas is killer!

I've been a reading machine recently. I've read Brave New World, 1984, Wuthering Heights, and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I'm just starting the Girl who Played with Fire. Book review time! 

Brave New World and 1984 were very similar, you guys know the premise. They were both depressing and a little creepy to see how accurate they ended up especially since they were written so long ago. 1984 was actually a bit of a tough read after all my usual easy reading (Harry Potter...). It felt good to exercise the old brain a bit. Wuthering Heights was legit, that's such a good story! And it has a happy ending which was very welcomed after the previous two. I took a break from classic literature and read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo next. Brendon's mom let us borrow the series, the movie is coming out this December (yay Daniel Craig!) so I figured I better read it before I saw the movie. It was good, nice and long, but a lot more background info than plot. But it was an enjoyable read and it sucked me in. How nerdy am I?! I love me some books.

Okay, so today. My boss called me at 6:20 this morning asking me if I could come in to work and I was pretty much like "hell yeah!" because mo' hours = mo' money. I get there, have a breakfast taco, make some drinks, and then I feel like death. Super nauseous. I end up puking at work twice (sorry if that's gross), and getting sick at work is the PITS man. So I spent the last half of my shift feeling like I was going to die but tried to save some face and keep my cool in front of customers. And coworkers. My sweet boss let me go home early, but that drive home was intense. I didn't know if I was going to make it! But I did, obviously, and crashed on the couch and ate some rice crispies dry out of the box. Dry cereal seems like my go-to for feeling pukey. I'm feeling better now, just a little weak. I guess maybe it was the taco? And I just needed to get it out of my system? Regardless it sucked and getting sick at work is super embarrassing. The end.

The Xterra

Sunday the Xterra and I hit a big milestone, 150,000 miles. Since this is kind of a big deal for a car, and driver, I thought we'd take a walk down memory lane and look back on some of the great times the Xterra and I have had.

Looking very pretty on our old property back in NB.

I had always wanted an xterra. I remember seeing them on TV when they first came out and saying, "I'm going to get one of those!". Little did I know. It was the third car I test drove, and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it. I got my xterra when I was 15, I turned 16 the next month so I had to continue to catch rides with my momma while my dream car was sitting in the garage begging to be driven. Once I was legal to drive, we drove EVERYWHERE. I jumped at any excuse to drive anywhere, and when you live out in the woods like we did these were not short drives. But back in the day it took me like $25 to fill my tank (now it takes somewhere around $65) so I wasn't worried.

I was obsessed with my car. It was and still is my baby. I didn't let anyone else drive it for the longest time. Brendon was one of the lucky few.

Us going to prom. I definitely put bows and ribbons on the front of the car, she had to be dressed up too.

Me and this baby have driven A LOT together. We've been all over Texas and COUNTLESS times back and forth from Denton to NB. The summer after we graduated high school Brendon, the Xterra, and I took a road trip to California. Probably the craziest and most unsafe thing I've ever done (I was a wild little teenager), but it was also one of the most fun. And the Xterra was a champ.

Relaxing by the grand canyon.

The Xterra has also kept me very safe. We've never gotten into an accident (knocking on wood!!!), although we did slide down a back road on an oil slick. We ended up in a little ditch with two wheels off the ground facing up the hill, but all without a scratch to me or the Xterra, our scariest moment together no doubt.

We've had tons of fun driving though rain, hail, and snow. The winter weather got the best of us though this year, after a serious ice storm and days of snow on top of that, my poor baby couldn't get out of the parking lot. It might look like it has 4-wheel drive, but it most definitely does not.

Poor frozen baby, stuck in our parking lot for a week.

The only work I've had done was replacing the brake pads, a tune up, and an ac line or something. Unfortunately, she's feeling her age these days. Something makes a terrible grinding noise when I make sharp turns, my ac is barely hanging in there, and the cruise control died. I wish we could afford to take her in to see what's wrong and get her all fixed up. And she's all dirty from parking under trees, bird poop and berries all over. But she starts and runs everyday. And although it may take a minute or two to get to 60mph, she gets me where I need to go and I hope so very much that she continues to do so for many years to come. Because not only can we definitely not afford a new car right now, she's my baby and I want to keep her for as long as possible. She's my dream car.

Recent life in the Hogan world

What a busy past few days it's been! This weekend my sweet sister-in-law Lisa and her daughter Gracelyn came up to visit. Sunday Brendon's mom and his little bro AJ came up as well to join the festivities. It was a fun weekend!

Sunday we all went to Build-a-Bear workshop. Gracelyn is a pro at building those babies and AJ had never been, it was good fun all around. Brendon and I even made one.

 Bevo the longhorn, Violet the cat, and Boo-Boo Jr. the weenie dog. AJ's weenie dog was too cute, he's a chef! I think he may have been my fav.

 Brendon and Bevo the jedi longhorn (we're so weird). I like to call him Bevo-Wan Kenobi. How cute are those horns sticking out of the hood!? Also, I want to mention that more than once I've caught Brendon cuddling with Bevo on the couch.

Gracelyn was pretty sneaky with those bunny ears. Also, I am super jealous of G's tan.

 Can you tell they're all related? They look so much alike!

 Such a cute picture. They love him to death.

There are about 5 versions of this photo and in each one of us is making a weird face. This was the best of the group.

 Greg may or may not be in love with Bevo.

 
AND I FINISHED THE BLANKET! This project turned out to be a little more expensive than I would have liked (never pay full price for anything at Joann's), but I love it all the same. I have no idea if this is how you're really supposed to make a blanket/quilt/whatever, but I just used what I knew about sewing and how I thought blankets worked. And it turned out pretty good if I say so myself!

 And it's super comfy! We'll see how it survives the first encounter with the washing machine.

 Please don't mind the fact that it matches absolutely nothing in our bedroom. I don't think that blanket matches anything in existance actually.

And of course I had to date this bad boy so when Brendon and I are 94 we can look back on our younger days and laugh about how weird I was for making a blanket. Oh yeah and we got married this year.

AAANNNDDD remember when I said our oven was ridiculous? Well we had maintenance come look at it a week or so ago and this is what we came home to today:

A BRAND NEW OVEN!!!!!!!! BRAND NEW OVEN Y'ALL. AHHHHHHH IT'S LIKE FREAKING CHRISTMAS! Two big burners! And a window to look into the oven! And it's white and not 70's cream color! And a towel bar! And I'm sure it doesn't burn everything! I'm beyond excited if you can't tell. Our apartment just redeemed itself quite a bit.

All in all it's been a pretty good few days. I also found out some good news yesterday. I'm too nervous about jinxing my luck so I wont spill until things are finalized. But I am excited! Sorry this was such a long post! Not blogging for 5 days = a lot to summarize.

Book worms

Yesterday we ventured to Half Price Books to get a couple movies (Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2) and some books. I'd been hankering for some Wuthering Heights, and on that note we decided to walk down memory lane and purchase some required reading from high school. Since I hated life in high school and did absolutely as little work as I could get away with, which wasn't hard, I didn't really "read" these books (except for Wuthering Heights, even my angsty teen self enjoyed it), I just skimmed them for what I needed for quizzes etc. So Brendon and I decided to re-read these classics, I feel like we owe it to them now that we're older and less stupid.  And we got them all for just a few dollars, Huckleberry Finn was 25 cents! Obviously Sophie is planning on reading them as well.

I thought I'd leave you with some photos of little Gregory. I tried to snap some of Sophie (aside from just her feet) but she is so hard to photograph. Not only does she turn her head JUST as you take the photo, her fur is ridiculously soft and weird and catches light in the strangest way. It's more like feathers than fur. Photos never do her justice.

Is Greg not the most photogenic cat ever? He is adorable and he knows it, look at him work it for the camera. He's lucky he's cute too because sometimes (a lot of times) he's a little asshole, like when he screams in the bathroom at 6am. But he's the sweetest cat I've ever met and certainly one of the prettiest. LOOK AT THOSE BLUE EYES! GAHHH.

Making stuff

First and foremost, I am effing sleepy. Getting off work before noon is lovely but getting up at 4 something in the AM is intense. Naps are a vital part of my life these days, I plan on taking one after this.

Moving on. I've been on a cooking spree lately. I really enjoy cooking, especially new recipes. Bread has been my latest endeavor.

Oatmeal bread, yum! This was my first and only successful attempt at bread. It came out pretty dang good. Now let me lay down some info for you. Our oven is ridiculous. It sucks so bad. I guess the temperature is super off or something because it cooks things way too fast and way too hot. I've tried setting the temp lower than recipes call for and it still cooks things fast and hot. I have to watch things bake like a hawk and just pray they don't burn. On my second attempt at bread I made white sandwich bread, which took 4.5 HOURS (!!!) to rise. After a third of the cook time the outside was almost burnt and the inside was still all doughy. SWEET. So I guess we're going to have to get a thermometer and figure out what's really going on in there. It's gotta be like 100 degrees off. Add this to the list of things I love about this apartment.

As well as liking to cook, I like to sew (how female of me). Actually I think I just like making things in general. Anything. But I have always enjoyed sewing and am so glad I learned how at an early age, thank you Mom! So I've got a new project going. IT'S A SECRET.

Jk y'all, it's a blanket. Or as Brendon calls it, a blankie. It's actually kind of a quilt-blanket combo. I have no idea what inspired me to make a blanket, but once I get an idea into my head I become a 5 year old and have to make it happen or someone (usually Brendon) gets it. So I went to Joann's yesterday and picked out 8 of the most random colors (Brendon and I both agree the colors remind us of Harry Potter, we're such weirdos) I could find, as seen above, to make this bad boy. And I spent a good 5 hours yesterday on it. I cut out 64 squares of fabric and sewed them all together. Now all I need to do is line it with some batting and sew a back onto it and we'll be in blanket business.

Can you tell I have a lot of time on my hands? I should sell these things.