mental health day

Decided to take a "Mental Health Day" today and it was the best decision! Except for the thirty mintues I had to spend at the doctor's office waiting for and then having them draw some blood so they can do some routine blood tests the day was awesome! I have very small, hard to find veins. The one and only time I have even given blood willingly was not so fun and when I was 16 and having my appendix removed the anethesiologist tried every vein in my body--literally, ask me and I'll tell you the whole story--until finally inserting his needle into my ankle. My ankle! Needless to say, it has been a LONG time since I have let anyone near me with a needle and I found out today that I might have a slight case of needle-phobia....

After I was done at the doctor's office (which by the way, she tried my arm and failed and had to resort to drawing blood from my hand so I walked out of the office with two cotton balls taped to me...now that's hot!) met my mom and dad and sisters back at my place. We grabbed my two and a half year old niece, Barbara and headed for "the Mountians."

The Bashas' grocery store up in Payson (which is about an hour and a half north of where I live in Mesa) is the only store in the entire state of Arizona that sells Caffeine Free Dr. Pepper. The purpose of this trip was so my dad could re-stock. Also, Barbara loves the mountians and wanted to play in the snow. When we were driving up there she excitedly exclaimed, "Papa helped me go to the mountains!" It was the cutest thing ever!!

Oh yeah, side note: I semi-mutilated my thumb last night and wanted to document it for posterity. Moving on...

After we stocked up on pop for Papa, we decided to go check out the Shoofly Indian Ruins that were north of town. It was literally out in the middle of nowhere and there wasn't a whole lot to see except a few places were rocks were still stacked together showing where the foundation of the houses and other buildings used to be. We decided that on a scale from Lame to Very Cool, this place was inbetween Kinda Cool and Cool.

What made it better than just Kinda Cool was the fact that I found a baby horny toad! He was so little and cute. My dad was surprised, stating that "he shouldn't even be out of hibernation yet!" (Do lizards really hibernate??) We took a few pictures of him and then let him go again.

We stopped in at a few antique stores in town which was fun (except for the fact that we had a very wiggly 2 year old with us that refused to hold our hands and wanted to "pet" every stuffed animal and doll that she saw...).

Working on my sexy, come-hither look. Obviously....I still need to work on it! LOL...

I'm not exactly sure why this picture is upside down, but it kind of fits the tone of the photo, don't you think? Moral of the story? I had a great day. And I don't feel the least bit guilty about calling in "sick."

the new man in my life

I have recently been introduced to the new man in my life: Nathan Fillion. Hello, gorgeous!

If you are thinking he looks familiar, you may know him as Rick Castle from "Castle" on ABC (thank you Katy and Kristen for making me watch this show! I'm just sad I've missed the first season...thank goodness for DVD's!!) where he plays a best-selling mystery writer who is shadowing a police detective as "research" for his new character. I love this show for the humor and the fact that he's a writer.

Or, you may know him as Mal from "Firefly" (again, thank you Katy for the introdcution...yet another show to add to my ever increasing list of favorites...) and the subsequent movie, "Serenity."

He is my current guilty obsession.......