I didn't forget to blog. I've been busy, yo.

Oh, hi there.

I didn't forget to blog.  I just didn't want to for the past week.  Well, actually I got super busy at work for a couple of days.  I spent 12 hours working on a single document one day and I was feeling kind of stabb-y by the time I left work at 8:30 p.m.  Then I turned it over to our night assistants and they worked on it for several hours and it was so jacked up they got permission from someone to pay our outside help desk company to fix the entire stupid 80 page document.  They sent it to me at almost 3:00 a.m. saying it was fixed.

It wasn't fixed.

So I dealt with that stupid mess all day again Friday before last and then I had to rush to the grocery store after work and try to get home so I could be there when my mom got to my house after driving from Texas (I got home at 7:40 and my mom arrived at 7:45).  And I was having a little party the next day that some of y'all may have heard about.  And I had to pick Laurie up at the airport Saturday morning.  And I was a little bit stressed I wouldn't get everything done.  So I didn't blog.

Then I had the party.  Then I was on vacation last week and I took a vacation from everything:  work, blogging, checking emails, I mostly avoided Facebook, etc.  And it was awesome, y'all.  Until I opened up my email this morning and I had approximately 150 emails at work to get through and as of right now I still have well over FIVE HUNDRED emails in my personal account to get through.  650+ emails in a week is a little bit ridiculous, right?  I know there are people who get tons more than that, but I am feeling crazy right now about it.  It was nice to be semi unplugged for a week though.  But if one more person nudges me in a game I'm playing with them I will scream.  It's a game people!  I will play when I have time or want to play.  Stop nudging me because it really makes me want to punch you in the junk.

Anyway, almost 150 work emails and that's why I'm just now getting around to blogging and it's already after 5:00.

I wish all of you could have come to the Pie party last weekend.  We had so much fun!  Tee brought her famous hot chicken salad and we ate that up.  Tee also brought some dates with cream cheese and pecans and we ate that up.  Fay brought her family recipe salad and we ate that up.  Sadie brought rum cake, a spinach/cheese casserole, Texas caviar (I think that's what she called it - it was delicious that's all I know) and OMG it was over a week ago and I think she brought something else but I'm drawing a blank, and we ate all of that up.  I provided cheese and crackers, caprese salad, some chocolate chip bars with Reese's on top and OMG it was over a week ago and I think I provided something else but I'm drawing a blank, and we ate all that up.  What I'm trying to say is, we ate a lot.

And I remembered to offer wine this time so I call that at least one success.

My fake daughter was there for most of the party, two of my neighbors came by for a while, my mom was there for a bit of it, my brother and my niece were there for a bit, and so it was just a revolving door at my house of various people.

Tee brought me a gorgeous little plant.  Sadie is thoughtful unlike me, and she brought us all a gift.  (Okay, I guess that means Fay, fake daughter, my neighbors, and my family are also unthoughtful because none of the rest of us had gifts for anyone.)

Sadie brought us all a Bye Bye Pie "I drink from my everyday mug every day" coffee cups and Laurie is holding up my very filthy looking tea kettle as a prop in this photo.  Seriously, I do wash that thing but it's all burned up by my fake kids - it looked almost brand new before they came even though I've used it a crap ton of times over the past few years:

l to r - Sadie, yours truly, Tee, Laurie, Fay (who came straight from the salon and had fabulous looking hair and the cutest shoes I've ever seen).  (Not that the rest of you don't look cute/fabulous too.)

We took several photos and I chose this one because I am holding my mug so that it covers up my eleventy billion chins.  There is not a coffee mug in the world big enough to cover up all of the stuff going on below that.  Or my graying, flat, awful looking hair.

We ate and talked.  And talked and ate.  My neighbor and I told the whole story about the hillbilly couple I told y'all about who were celebrating their honeymoon at the L5P Halloween parade the weekend before (the bride who had me put polka dots all over her face in the middle of a bar in case you've forgotten).  Well, mostly I told that story because my neighbor had been kind of drinking that day and didn't remember as many details as sober me managed to remember.  And then I was trying to talk the way one of my relatives in Mississippi talks later that night and I was talking like a hillbilly instead.  Trust me, there is a huge difference between southern and hillbilly mountain accents.

After everyone left, my mom and I roped poor Laurie into playing cards with us.  Do any of you play Hand and Foot?  That's what we played.  We use 5 decks of cards and do y'all know what is fun?  Shuffling 5 decks of cards after each round.  We kept eating leftovers from the party and I didn't even feed a proper meal to them.

The next morning one of my aunts came by because Laurie said she wanted to meet all of my family while she was in town staying with me, and then my mom and aunt drove up almost to South Carolina to meet another aunt.  Because the 12 hours my mom drove from Texas two days earlier had not made her hip that needs replaced hurt enough.

Laurie and I went to eat.  Because we didn't eat enough the day before apparently.

This is Laurie's yummy breakfast.  Mine was kind of boring so I didn't take a photo:

Then I drove Laurie to several different areas of Atlanta she had never seen.  And guess what Karen in VB?  I didn't get lost.

At some point we were driving through Cabbagetown and some artists were working on a mural on the side of a building.  So we got out and chatted with them a bit and they let us take some pictures.  Isn't it beautiful?

Later, we were in Buckhead and Laurie wanted to stop in the Halloween store.  My brother and I were planning to go to my neighbor's house to hand out candy to the trick or treaters and I had decided I didn't want to spend over an hour doing my pop art makeup again.  So I bought a mask for $3.99 while Laurie put together a nerdy nurse costume.

Sadly, I eventually had to take Laurie back home to pack and go to the airport since her flight was leaving at 5:00.

My mom and aunt got back from visiting my other aunt and we decided to play cards for a while (we played cards every night for the past week).

I sat down at the table across from my mom looking like this:

And my mom cracked up after she yelped in surprise.

Tomorrow I will tell y'all about the road trip my mom and I took to the mountains last week.  Someone told us what junk food to pair with a red wine.  And we almost punched a poor innocent girl in the nose our first night there.  Because we had ourselves a little adventure of pain.  We met an odd pie maker, and we ate cupcakes for an appetizer before breakfast.  Just because we could.  We met the world's most talkative (AND ANNOYING) sales clerk in a general store.  And I took pictures of some very interesting sodas.  And we played cards.  And shuffled those 5 damn decks over and over and over and over.