Surprise!!

Joey's surprise party/congratulations party went really well. Lots of family and friends there to cheer him on as it should be. :) Kendall made ribs and I got a Oreo ice cream cake so life was good. Lol, the hard part is that there is a ton of leftovers and our little fridge is packed to the max. I did not get any pictures but that is okay. We will suffice it to say that it was a success and Joey felt lots of love. He will be very missed when he moves but we are all still incredibly proud of him for what he has accomplished. We have two more months to enjoy his company and so enjoy it we shall. :)

I had some pictures that I meant to post on here awhile back but that I never had the chance to so the rest of today's Blog will consist of a couple pictures. Enjoy!

My pumpkin carving madness, which was later eaten by a squirrel on our balcony. Yes, I know it is blurry but the night function on my camera is not very good. You can still tell what it is though so I am satisfied.









Satisfying Joey's tattoo urges with sharpies. The Lion of Flanders is pretty cool. :)










The grandparents came to town. :) Pretty cute family aren't they?









Bob's birthday dinner. I was hanging half way off the balcony to get this picture, but it was worth it.










Joey and I playing the Mexican Train Game. I was introduced to it not that long ago. I think this was taken shortly after we both realized that we were going to lose. We took it like champs. :)





And that is all kids, I think you are pretty much caught up. I hope you all have a great day and I will talk to myself again soon.

Murphy the Magnet

This has been a fun week. On Tuesday I had a job interview and then I headed up to FoCo to visit my friend Al. We had a great time catching up and playing with her dogs. The above picture is of Murphy. When I headed home I had him in the back seat. I am puppy sitting for Al for awhile. I can help train Murphy and then I have someone to go on walks with. Granted our time is nearly over. I am taking him back tonight probably. It has been a lot of fun though. A puppy is a great way to pick up chicks. :) If I were trying to pick them up. I've got a wimpy upper body though so I leave them on the ground most of the time. However, all you muscled guys out there, get a puppy. Experimental studies show that you will attract women ages 5-95. I had another puppy related adventure yesterday. Murphy found a Blackberry/palm pilot thing. I called the first person on the list and got a very irritated Italian who is apparently pretty mad at his brother in-law. However after I explained that I had found the phone and just wanted to give it back he became a lot more friendly. I returned the phone and made a friend across the street. Good karma, come get me! Other than that life goes on. I am looking forward to tomorrow and the Soapbox Derby! It should be a blast watching artistic kinetic creations crash into curbside crowds.

Preggo??? Quoi?

This has been a very busy/strange/wonderful weekend. Full of family stuff both on Joey's end and mine. On my end... BIG NEWS!!!!! Whew, take a breath, find a chair, get a glass of something strong.... And GO--- BOTH OF MY SISTERS ARE PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, that is right... two of the Blackman girls are testing out their bun in the oven skills. Being the only un-pregnant Blackman girl, I feel left out. Really... Okay so I am joking. I am more than fine with giving my sisters the ENTIRE spotlight on this one. :) I might get a pillow and shove it under my shirt for pictures during the holidays so there is some symmetry but other than that I'm good. WOW! What a shocker.. and they both told me within an hour of one another. In a way, that is almost mean. Bad sisters... You are supposed to give me at least 24 hours to recover my emotions before the other one hits. Right now I am trying to pry my jaw off the floor. :) This is real right??? My family reunions suddenly just got a lot bigger. Go Sisters! So here is the back story:

This will be Mrs. Cora Shubert's third child. She is the one who is responsible for bringing my two handsome little nephews into the world. You know, the ones that I talk about all of the time and post their pretty little faces all over this blog. :) I kinda hope this one is a girl just to rattle her testosterone cage. Plus she would have no idea what to do with a girl. Humorous, no? I am sure it will go as smoothly as all of her other pregnancies have. She is a natural at this. If and when I ever have kids I hope I am half as good at it as she is.

Mrs. Nikkichelle Melin and Mr. Jeff Melin will be having their first and long awaited for bundle of joy. I have to admit I got pretty emotional when she told me the news. Lol, she was dropping hints so I asked if it had anything to do with a type of spaghetti sauce. (Yeah, I know you don't get it.) She and Jeff didn't either. So I'll explain. When Cora was about to have her first Nikki kept calling her Prego short for pregnant.. which makes me think of Preggo.. as in the spaghetti sauce... Still no takers?? I thought it was funny. Anyways, I laughed, I cried and I OMG-ed like a valley girl from the 80's more times then I can count. Then I told Nikki I had exciting news too... I have bangs now. :) Really not comparable but I was kind of babbling at that point. Thankfully she did not point out that it was a completely retarded thing to say in response to her giving life to another human being. My sister is very thoughtful like that. She finally shut me up by telling me she loved me too. Sometimes sisters just understand these things. The babbling stopped, the crying re-started: "I'm...(SOB)...so...(SOB)...happy....(SOB)...for... (Sob, Snort)...you both!!! (Hiccup)." Not really being a crier this was kind of surprising for me. Who knew that Nikki having kids would be one of my tear duct buttons?

Lol, later that night I called my mom. "Hey, mom, guess what? I'm pregnant!!!!" (I thought I might as well see if I could get my April Fools out of the way early.) I was expecting to hear the sound of a body hitting the floor as my mom passed out at the thought of all three of us having kids at the same time but she knows me too well. She just laughed and I could almost hear her rolling her eyes over the phone. Darn, next time I'll get her. Here's an idea... If I get a dog, I can put it under my shirt for holiday pictures.. "Can you feel him kicking and squirming? This one is a soccer player for sure!" Okay, okay.. all of my bad humor aside, I am thrilled for my sisters. My time will come some day I'm sure and then they can get me back but in the mean time, I get to be the person who gives their kids lots of candy and loud toys and then hand them back to dear old mom and dad. Being Tia is a pretty sweet gig. I love you my beautiful sisters and the little peanuts in your bellies! :)

Right now I am going to head off to bed with my book and Sampson the bear. Wow, life comes at you so fast some days. Just blink and everything is different. Wow... This has been a hell of a day! :) My face hurts from smiling and I think I might need to take a hit or two of my dad's O2. WOW! Can I get an Amen???

Extra, Extra Read all about it!!

Joey comes home today from a week long business trip to Miami. That means I get to drive to the airport and do the potty dance from excitement while I wait for him. He is all dressed up in business clothes which means I should probably get out of my old dingy track shirt and the blue boxers with fish on them . Maybe... we'll see... I like my track shirt. It is an extra large and it is red. I have had it for almost ten years so it is that special kind of soft that only comes with lots and lots of multi-time wearing and a million and one trips through the wash. The boxers are just funny.

I had a job interview today and it went really well. (No I did not wear my track shirt.) I was professional, didn't stutter and smiled when needed. They showed me around the office and I sat with one of the employees so she could give me a "tour" of their computer program. It looked like it would be interesting. The down side are the hours, 7am start time. Ouch... however all of those years of going into work at the bakery with my mom at 4 in the morning and then later in life getting up at 5 am to go run prepared me for this. I am a sick, sick person who actually kind of likes getting up that early as long as I have reason. Plus finding parking would be no problem, and I wouldn't have to drive in rush hour. Less traffic? Sign me up! Hopefully I'll get it, if not then it's not the end of the world. It was good practice for honing my interviewing skills.

Other than that Halloween costumes have come in. I am going to be Sherlock Holmes and Joey is going to be Jack Skellington from Nightmare before Christmas. We were planning on being Jack and Jill (you know the one that went up the hill) as a funny combo of the two, but I decided I didn't really feel like carrying around a pail all night. Plus this removes any possible chance of someone shoving me down a hill and laughing from the top while reciting the nursery rhyme. Maybe not the biggest deal to some but a pretty decent motivator for me.

I also went out to dinner with my friend Neven last night. We had a blast as we always do when we see each other. She is great whenever I need to just relax and be me. Plus she keeps me young. :) Meaning, of course, that she has a way cooler life than I do and I live vicariously through her adventures. This is a picture from a couple of Halloweens ago. I was Super Pipi-Longstocking, I really wanted to wear a cape so I improvised. Nev has a love of wing-ed things. That year she was a devil, with wings of course. Most years she has wings though. :) It's one of the weird things I like about her. Anyways, it was great seeing her and I here by state that I refuse to go for long periods of time without hanging out her ever again. (We have had really crazy lives lately, but that is no excuse!!!)

Enough from me, the red-haired peanut. I've things to do, places to be, and Joeys to hug.

SIDENOTE: Can you imagine if there was more than one Joey??? YIKES!!! The world would never be the same!

A musical weekend, and the Fall Crawl!

Another weekend come and gone, or mostly gone. We still have the rest of today to enjoy. Friday night Joey and I decided to stay in and be our typical dorky romantic selves. We made a nice steak dinner together, had a great bottle of wine with brownies for dessert. The whole time we cooked we listened to some Blues and then we ate out on the porch. It was wonderful. Before we went to bed I had the opportunity to hear one Mr. Pink play violin. :) The man never ceases to find new ways to make me fall in love with him.


Saturday brought a morning of sleeping in together and then off to join the crew for the Fall Crawl!!! :) It was a great time. We all got old beater bikes and met up with a huge group that was dressed to kill. We spent about an hour at each bar and then rode on to the next one. As the day/night progressed more and more people found our little group and we grew from 5 to about 8 or 9. It was a great time.



Joey even decided to get up and show off his Karaoke skills. And skills he does have... He brought down the house!



















Finally he decided that a piano solo would make the evening complete. Look at him go..... :)












And now today we are going to spend the day relaxing, spending time together and catching up on chores. We will probably end up folding laundry together on the living room floor while watching the game. Aren't we cute???

A wee bit -o-news

After years and years of careful consideration I have decided on a breed of dog, and have consented to allowing myself to actually get said dog. I grew up around Airedale Terriers and since my mom was a breeder I generally had about 8 puppies to play with in addition to the parents and a small little miscellaneous dog named Sassy. (This is not counting the cats, horses, goldfish and pet skunks we had hanging around too. ) Aka, lots of animals. Anyways, back to the original point of this entry. I have been tossing around various breed ideas for about 5 or 6 years now but I kept putting it off because I was so busy with school, work and moving all of the time. Well now that the majority of that is over I have decided that I should let myself have the furry companion I have been missing. So...dramatic music...I will be getting an Irish Terrier. This way I will have the personality of a terrier which I love, it will not be a huge dog so it can handle the apartment until I have a house to live in, and Joey will not be able to complain about shedding hair because they do not shed. That last part was not a very big deciding factor, just a perk. I'm pretty excited and I have started contacting breeders. Sadly it seems like no one in Colorado has ever heard of this type of dog so I will be going out of state to get it. It will probably be a couple of months before I actually get the pup due both to being able to afford one and wanting to know what is going with Joey/work/ San Fransisco. But.. at some point in the next year I will be bringing home a little red headed male to keep me company on my runs and brighten my happy little home. I promise to keep everyone up to date as I find out more, because I am sure you are all dying to know. Really, I know how important my blog is to keeping your daily lives flowing smoothly. :) Alright alright, I am off to go do those things that I do... meaning I am going to go put away laundry and hang out with the maintenance men until they finish fixing the never ending problems with our apartment. Maybe I'll throw a picture or two up of the scary things that have been growing in our apartment. Yikes..

Congrats for Joey and Rabbit Feet for Sara

Congrats are in order for Mr. Joey Pinkerton. He has once again made it through to the next round of interviews! On the 12th of Oct he will flying out to CA for the face to face portion. I'm sure he'll do a bang up job and make a great impression. Everyone keep fingers and toes crossed for him. It will make walking difficult but I'm sure every little bit helps when it comes to the superstitious good luck gods. :)

Other than that, I have nothing really going on. My life is in complete stand still. Sorry I am fresh out of humorous antidotes and stories to entertain you. Ummm... the country girl in me is coming out more and more lately. Apparently when I am stressed I revert back to my unrefined roots. Aka: I have been listening to lots of Patsy Cline and Faith Hill. Yes, you can laugh, I'm okay with that. Country music makes sense to me right now and makes me feel better. I was looking up stats the other day in an attempt to entertain myself. It made me smile a little. I grew up in a town with a population of 1,583 people and now I am living in a city with 588,349 people. No wonder I'm going through culture shock. Derf a derf derf. Blah, I am not nearly as much fun when I am sad. Is it bad when you start to annoy even yourself? It's comforting to know that nothing ever stays the same. I never would have guessed I would be here this time last year and who knows that will happen within the next month. Life seems to surprise you so much of the time. Alright, I'm going to go for my millionth walk along the creek path. Maybe a traveling circus will pass by and invite me to join them. I would be a fantastic bearded lady. See, I've already managed to grow a mustache. Just a few more years and the hair on my chin will fill in nicely. Ah, good days with good friends of years gone by and theme parties gone astray. Lol, here is my comical portion of the entry. Kirby, the guy next to me, had me draw on his mustache with a dry erase marker but it stained his skin so the next day he had to go to class with red eyebrows and a fake red goatee. It was awesome. Some times I miss the old house with all the guys. It was never dull, even when they bugged me I still had fun. Ah, well. Cheers to the future and the unknown. Maybe cross a finger or two for me too. I think I could use a little help because that four leaf clover and lucky horseshoe in my pocket don't seem to be getting the job done. I guess I could invest in a rabbit, then I would have four lucky feet too. Oh oh oh.. I know.. I could cross the rabbit's toes and make it oober lucky. Thoughts?