I mentioned awhile back that I was moving and I have been super busy with getting my old house in order so it can be rented out. My parents, Dave and my friend Julie all came over to help me clean and paint on Sunday. We worked all day and got a lot done… painting the living room, cleaning, organizing, and getting rid of things. I hope to have most of my furniture gone by the end of this week, so I won’t have to worry about that anymore. In all honesty, this entire experience has been a bit of a nightmare. There’s been a lot of fighting, lying, and drama between my family for the past few weeks. Last week was the worst. I was on edge, stressed out and on the verge of tears almost the entire week. I had trouble focusing on anything and just dwelled on all of the problems going on at home. Luckily, seems to be moving in the right direction though and I’ll be so glad when all of this is over. 

On top of me getting all of my crap out of my house, my work is moving into another location. So there’s that. And then there’s this site, and the theme that I’ve been trying to work on for months now. It’s just that when I get home after doing this kind of thing for 8 hours, I don’t feel like working on it. I told myself that I’d work on it when I had time on weekends, but I haven’t really had any time. We’re always running around non-stop.

Since I’ve been so busy lately, there’s no chance of me working Christmas season at the portrait studio, which I was kind of looking forward to. I need the weekends to get my house in order so it can be rented. Sorry Christy.

Halloween is this weekend and we’ll be heading up to Gainesville for The Fest, a weekend concert event. We’re only going up on Saturday because we’re going to the USF vs. WVU game Friday night and Sunday we’ll be working on the house. I haven’t really checked the line up for Saturday, but I know Less Than Jake is playing so I’m excited. Dave wants to see Snuff because apparently they are from England and they are awesome and they never go on tour and OMG we have to go see Snuff. 

I don’t have any costume plans. It will be the first time in awhile I didn’t dress up on Halloween. I was thinking about being Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood, but that would require me wearing a blonde wig and blonde wigs make me hot. I don’t think the weather is going to go below 80 and we’ll be in a crowded venue, so I’m thinking that’s a recipe for disaster. If I do anything, it will be last minute, like usual.

Big changes, big events, big things going on lately.

Tags: events, family, Halloween, life, move

Before the trip to Vegas, I went to Barnes and Noble and picked up “Chocolate Please” by Lisa Lampenelli, one of my favorite comedians. I think the world needs more Lisa Lampenelli’s; people that aren’t afraid to say exactly what they are thinking. Some people think that these people are just assholes and the people that follow them and support them are assholes with less talent. Well, those people can suck it.

So I’m sitting in the seat on the plane  (The one that’s no bigger than a seat on a roller coaster at Busch Gardens. Seriously, when are they going to change that?)  heading to Dallas reading this book with a hot pink and yellow cover and pictures of a half naked black guy holding a birthday cake by his crotch and I get to the part where she talks about Sears Portrait Studio…

Taking a trip to the Sears Portrait Studio is equal in stress to going to the cemetary to bury the family pet-only with Sears you get to bring home reminders that last generations.

First of all, it is impossible for anyone being photographed at a Sears Portrait Studio to look his best. Because the Sears photographer is only a Sears photographer because it pays more than being a Sears cashier. Simply put, he has the artistic eye of Helen Keller.

I actually feel sorry for those kids that work at the Sears Portrait Studio. They spend all day dealing with crying and whining and people shitting their pants-and that’s just the mothers who are unhappy with how the photos look. If I ever met one of these entitled soccer twats, I’d sat, “Hey lady, don’t bitch at the nineteen-year-old photographer because your baby looks ugly. You should have married better.”

And with that said, there’s a very good chance I’ll be working weekend at the Sears Portrait Studio again this year for the remainder of the season. Nothing is finalized yet, but I had a half hour conversation with my old boss the other day and she’d love to have me back since all her old staff moved (Probably due to the screaming and whining.).I’ll probably be starting in November. Get ready Christy. It’s gonna be one hell of a ride. Bring it bitches.

Tags: Christmas season, life, Lisa Lampenelli, Sears Portrait Studio, work

I finally have a chance to sit down and write this. I’ve tried about 5 different times and had to stop to do something else.  It’s been a very busy week playing catch up…always expected when you take a week vacation. Between work and all the things I had to do at home, I’ve barely had time to do anything.

We did a lot and I took a ton of pictures. I won’t go into every detail of all the stuff we did last week because this blog entry would go on forever, but here are all the main details of our awesome trip.

We arrived in Vegas Sunday night to perfect weather. It didn’t get over 85 the entire week and having no humidity was a welcomed change for us since we’re used to hot, sticky weather all the time. Our hotel was in a perfect location…dead center of the Las Vegas strip. It was clean and had an old, western feel. The beds were really comfortable, the room was super clean, and it even had a plasma TV! For the price, you couldn’t beat it. I would recommend Bill’s to anyone wanting to stay in Vegas.

Sunday night we walked around for a bit and played a few slots, but went to sleep pretty early. We were tired from the flight and jet lag. The next day we didn’t have much planned and decided to walk around the hotels. I had my first Fatburger experience…

After we ate we walked around the Miracle Mile Shops in Planet Hollywood. We got stopped by this guy saying he’d give us tickets to the Madame Tussuad’s wax museum if we spent an hour rating his TV show pilot. We had nothing to do and wanted to go to that museum sometime during the week, so we agreed.

We ate at a restaurant in The Venetian hotel and went to the wax museum after.

The next day we walked around the different hotels. In fact, the entire week we did a lot of walking…

We also ate at a lot of buffets. If it wasn’t for all the walking I did, I’m pretty sure I would’ve gained at least 10 lbs.

We went to a lot of shows. Tuesday we saw a show called Freaks, your average freak show with glass eaters, human suspensions, contortionists, and sword swallowers. It was alright until they started sticking each other with needles. For the most part, I have a strong stomach, but certain things really bother me, needles being one. I couldn’t wait for that part to be over.

Wednesday we went to play Price is Right at Bally’s. We had front row seats and had so much fun. Unfortunately, we didn’t get called to the stage. We also saw the Cirque du Soleil show Ka. It was amazing! Those people are so unbelievably talented. I’m so glad we got the opportunity to see one of these shows. There’s I think 6 that play in the various hotels in Vegas, and they all sell out almost every night. It was such an awesome show and I’m so glad we went!

After Ka, Dave wanted to try to find this bar that he went to the last time he was in Vegas. It was a punk bar called the Double Down. All he remembered was that it was somewhere near the Hard Rock Casino. We decided to walk from MGM towards Hard Rock, not realizing how FAR Hard Rock was. It felt like we were walking forever. We finally made it to the Hard Rock to take a little break. We still didn’t know where the Double Down was or if we were even close. After playing a slot machine for a like 20 minutes, we decided to head out again and try to find this place. All I kept thinking was, “This place better be worth it!”

We finally found Double Down and it was definitely worth the walk. We had a great time playing Punk Rock Bingo and hanging out with some locals. We met a girl named Jamie, who was so surprised to hear that we were from Florida and we knew about this place AND we walked all the way there from the MGM. So surprised, that she went up to the girl calling Bingo numbers and told her all about it. The bingo girl gets on the mic and shouts out to us saying how hardcore and awesome we were that we walked all the way from the strip to here.

We listened to an awesome Rockabilly band and I drank “Ass Juice” (good) and a Bacon Martini (BAD, so so bad!)

After the band finished their set we made the long walk back to our hotel, which didn’t seem nearly as long as the walk there. Maybe because I had a few shots of Ass Juice and a Bacon Martini in my system.

The next day we looked at classic cars…

Dave won $250 in a slot machine, so we used some of that money to go see Howie Mandel. The show would have been better if there wasn’t a really drunk lady in the audience shouting out random things and interrupting the show! She was so annoying and was ruining it for everyone. I wanted to punch her!

After the show we walked around New York, New York, Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay…

Our last day we spent on the other side of the strip to visit some of the older hotels…

…then went back to the center of the strip and walked around some of those hotels…

The last show we saw was Terry Fator. He was the winner of America’s Got Talent a few years ago and put on an amaing show! He was funny, super talented, and seemed like a genuinely nice person. He allowed everyone in the audience to take pictures, a first for the shows we saw, so I got to snap a few photos…

His show was my favorite. We saved the best for last!

Our trip was amazing all in all. A much needed break from our busy, everyday lives. Now it’s back to our regular, busy lives. And things have been incredibly busy…work, going to the gym, running here, running there…but I’m happy to be home and back to my daily life.