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1. Blates! – My favorite FAVORITE thing about the blogging community hands down? All the connections I make with all you wonderful people each and every day. What’s even better? When two awesome bloggers work within the same block as you and share in  your enthusiasm for girl chatter and happy hour!

I had the pleasure to meet up with Meighan and Meegan on Wednesday night. We hung out on the patio at Side Bar and chatted it up. I hope that this was the first of many blates for us! It was Meegan’s first blate!!!!

 A blurry reverse camera iPhone picture is always a blate must. Duh!

I enjoyed a UFO Big Squeeze Shandy while I was there. It is a seasonal brew. An unfiltered wheat beer with all natural grapefruit juice in it. It was freakin’ delicious!!!!!

2. Motivation, Inspiration and Advice – While I am on the topic of great blogging friends…can I just say how awesome it is when you share a passion for something with another blogger? Liz from Fitness Blondie always emails me the most awesome responses and I know if I ever ask her anything she will answer with honesty and be very helpful! And Jessi, who somehow manages two blogs?! is always a great nutrition/health person to talk to!!! Her passion is truly contagious. And of course, everyone knows fitness badass Kathy for whom I can thank for the beast body that I am creating right now.  And Lauren, who has given me more kitten advice than I could have possibly asked for! She also keeps it real, and it makes me so sad that she lives so far away!!!!!

3. Favorite Song – Awol Nation – Sail. I can listen to this song over and over again!!!! It reminds me of our beach trips last summer because we played it at the pool EVERY day. I need the beach in my life ASAP.

It is already time to confess everything again!!!!! I am not quite sure how I come up with new things to confess every week, but man it feels great!

–Sephora sent me an email with awesome items that I can redeem my points for. I sort of want to place an order just to get awesome free shit. And samples. I love samples.

–When items have the “lift and peel” contraption on them….I simply can not lift and peel. It doesn’t work. Then I just get pissed and take a knife to that bitch. Lift and peel my ass!

–On days that I don’t wash my hair (usually Tuesdays and Sundays) I wear a grandma shower cap. Yes, it has stupid looking flowers on it. No, I don’t care. I mean, how else do you not get your hair wet? Whatever, you know you wear one too.

–The struggle is real! With warmer weather comes out of control hair!

–Yesterday my sister in law called me with a new, faster way to get home. I put my address into google maps just in case I got lost in the ghetto or something. Google maps showed that it would take me 34 minutes to get home from where I was. Challenge accepted. Have. to. beat. google. maps. home. I did. By five minutes. Holllllaaaaaa!

–Ummm up until last night my nails looked like this. Oops. Went nine days without painting them. Whatever.

–Also, the only reason why I took off the polish was because I knew I was going to be blating it up this evening and I didn’t want anyone to be judgy.

–I am off the charts excited about my blate tonight with Meegan and Meighan!!!! Yay for internet friends. It is totally not weird….

And now for some ecard confessions!

Now go link up with Kathy and confess with all the interwebz! I have some waiting around to 5:30pm to be doing. Why do the work days go SO SLOW but the weekends are gone in a blink of an eye?!?!

Remember that one time when we all jumped on Stephanie’s Wallet Watch bandwagon? Yeah, I remembered that one time the whole damn month of April. A spending freeze was one of my winter goals that I never accomplished. I wanted to go a month without purchasing stuff that was not budgeted. Well, this was a wallet watch challenge, not a spending freeze. In theory, it sounded better to me.

My parameters:

1. Eat out only once a week for lunch.

2. Stay in more on the weekends, going out to eat minimally.

3. Do not spend any extra money on items that were not planned purchases.

How did I do?

We did pretty good on staying in more on the weekends. We didn’t really go crazy at all as a matter of fact.

I did eat lunch out on Fridays with my girls group as planned, however, I did have one extra lunch out with my friend Amanda whom I have been trying to meet up with for a long time. While it was an infraction, it was well worth it.

Oh, and I had a blate with Meighan that was unplanned, but I a mean really? It was totally worth it!

Where else did I have an infraction you ask?

Well, because I am such a beast, I out grew my light weights and had to go purchase some new ones. I don’t really see this as an unnecessary spend as it was for my health….but it was not planned.

Also, I needed a new stability ball as mine is from college and has seen better days. I mean, it was like $9.87 at Walmart and again…something I needed for my health.

Umm just so you know, her abs do not come in the box. I was disappointed too.

About mid month I realized that I had not a thing to wear to my friend’s wedding that I would be attending. My usual dress that I wear happened to be the color of her bridesmaid dresses and mother dresses and while I would have loved to just pretended I was in the bridal party…I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. Soooo basically this unplanned purchase was a necessity as well.

I mean….the dress was on sale AND I had a coupon. It ended up being $31.99. I was loosing money by not purchasing it. Or something like that.

So, how do I feel about wallet watch?

I don’t like to restrict myself. I am glad I participated at least once to say I did it…but I am not a huge fan. I don’t really think that I spend a lot of unnecessary money to start with. I work hard….I like to enjoy myself a little bit. Plus, retail therapy is real my friends. And it is great.

What did I learn?

As you saw above, I can justify just about anything. Ha!

In other budget news, one of my goals for spring was for Chris and I to create a budget to sort of follow. Chris actually did it on his own before we even talked about it…so yay for goals accomplished that I didn’t even have to do! He built in money for going out, fun money and the necessities…as well as money to transfer to savings and such. I would much rather have that then a wallet watch or spending freeze. It sounds less constricting in my head.

We also found ways to cut down on some of our bills like our cell phone bill, satellite, an error on our home owners insurance, and a few other things. So yay!!!! Pay close attention to those things, they are not error proof, and you might be paying for services you aren’t using.

Did you participate in wallet watch? How did you do? What do you do to save money? Have you ever created a budget to follow?

Another weekend has come and gone. I am not going to lie, I struggled a little to get out of bed this morning and be excited about my work out, as it was leg day. Leg day on a Monday = a rough time! I did it it though, so that is all that really matters. Right?!?! Let’s get on with my weekend shenanigans, shall we? Warning : food porn ahead. Yum yum yum.

Friday for lunch I met the girls at O’Carrs in Homewood. It was my first time going there and I ordered the chicken salad and fruit plate. The chicken salad was great and came with like 6 different types of crackers. And the fruit? Best fruit plate ever!!! There were grapes, oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, cinnamon bananas, banana chips, raisins, plums, peaches, kiwi, mango, cantaloupe, honeydew and maybe even some other stuff. Amazing.

Friday evening Chris and I stopped by an event at the cigar lounge, then ordered some Chinese food to take home. I got the egg drop soup and a side of fried rice.

Saturday morning I cleaned the house, then we headed to some pawn shops. I ordered Chris’s birthday present online and it came Friday afternoon. I got him a new DJ controller with lots of fancy crap that he was super excited about. He decided that he needed a new amp because our set up downstairs doesn’t fully support it. Nothing like some pawn shopping in the ghetto to get your afternoon started right, ya know!

We didn’t really have much luck, and by 4:00 pm I was starving…so we headed to Moe’s BBQ in Lakeview to grab some food and drinks. We found a spot on the patio and it was perfect!!!

I was drinking Abita Strawberry and Chris had Good People Snakehandler.

While we were sitting there, we found out that our friends from Huntsville were in town and they met up with us. Yay for impromptu visits!

Smoked turkey with baked beans, potato salad and corn bread. Best corn bread EVER!

After Moe’s we headed over to World of Beer for a little while. I ordered a Lindeman’s Raspberry Framboise and a Well’s Banana Bread beer. Both were delish! 

After World of Beer, we headed over to Jim n Nicks for a later dinner. I enjoyed a turkey baked potato. Yummmm!

Sunday – Sunday morning we caught up on Grimm and then I meal planned and headed to the grocery store to get our shopping done for the week. I came home and prepped all the fruits and made Mediterranean Couscous salad for lunches.

And that was the weekend folks. I hope everyone had a great one! Does anyone know where I can exchange my Monday for another day? Just wondering….

1. Favorite purchase: This pug statue I found last night at TJ Maxx! I have had my eye on these for awhile, but they never had anything that resembled either of my dogs. The cashier who rang me up was like awe do you have a bulldog? I was like ummm I thought that was a pug. She was like well I guess it is sort of close to either. I was like lets go with pug…it makes me feel better! This morning I asked Chris if he noticed our new addition. He said “How did we ever live without it?” I ask myself that same question!

2. Favorite Song – Lil Wayne Bow Chicka Wow Wow. I just freaking love this song. Your welcome.