Screw Cox!

Over the weekend AT&T came out and installed their new service offering called U-verse. What that means to me is I can quit writing checks to Cox every month. Victory!


Since I first started paying my own bills in college I have had a tumultuous relationship with Cox. Long story short they are assholes because they knew you had to use them. Not anymore, AT&T has arrived.

Plus, its better. My DVR now records 4 shows at a time instead of a measly 2. You can use one box for multiple TVs throughout your house. My high-speed internet is faster. AND...its cheaper. There are some other cool bonuses too, like free wi-fi at Starbucks, flikr on your TV and lots more. Even more, after all of that I got a $100 Visa gift card for signing up.

I highly recommend looking into AT&T U-Verse. It's new so its not available in every area yet, but when it reaches you sign up! See if its available here.

Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday and Lent

Last night Liz, Kathleen, Jeremy, Jenn and I went out to celebrate Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday with Hurricanes at Nova.


Hurricane: Bacardi 151, spiced rum, dark rum, light rum, pineapple juice, orange juice, grenadine. Whew! That was a very strong drink. Perfect for celebration.

After Fat Tuesday Lent starts.

Lent: the 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Easter observed by the Roman Catholic, Eastern, and some Protestant churches as a period of penitence and fasting

Every year, I choose to give at least one thing up for the 40 days. This year I have decided on two things to give up.

1. The snooze button- every morning I hit snooze 3 or 4 times before actually getting up. No more.



2. Red meat- I like red meat a lot but it is not very healthy and sometimes makes me sick.

What are you giving up?

Training Begins

Day one of 5K training begins today. The RedBud Classic and Memorial Runs are right around the corner and it is time to get back in shape.

I will be running 2 to 3 miles per day, 5 days a week until April 5th.

For those of you that are interested the RedBud Classic is a great weekend event and they have several activities at different levels.



The first run today was good, hopefully it is a sign of what is to come.

What a Lovely Evening

Chase and I celebrated our 5th Valentine's Day together this past weekend and what a Valentine's Day it was.

Our evening was planned around the annual Addy's Gala, black tie event. This is the pretty in pink outfit I planned for the evening.

Dress- Forever21, Necklace-Forever21, Shoes- Target, Purse-Coach (not shown)

We started off the evening by exchanging some gifts.



I picked out a new skinny black tie for Chase to wear with his suite. I thought it looked very nice.



Then Liz and Kathleen stopped by for some photos.





Then it was off to the show where a series of events would occur that I still can't quite explain. I will let the photos do the talking.

Buck the Norm video playing for one of its several golds

Pounding it because we are kicking ass

KingRoy

So hilarious

Aww, happy v-day baby

The ladies

Double fisting

3 Golds Bitches!

Best of Show!! Go Third Degree!

Buck it!

Celebratory dancing

Raining Golds

An Edna's stop for several celebratory lunchboxes also occurred but nobody wants to see any photographic evidence of that.

And that was my Valentine's Day.

Best of Show

The 43rd Annual Oklahoma City Addy Awards was held this past Saturday on Valentine's Day. The Addy Awards are awards that recognize the work of advertising agencies on a local level. It is always a really great time and a chance to get all gussied up and show off what a great place you work for. This year it was easy to feel proud of Third Degree. (where I work)



The Grand Daddy award of the night is the Best of Show category. It is the overall award for the best display of work for the entire awards show. This year WE WON!!



Buck the Norm (a project which has sort of been my baby for the last year) dominated in several categories and topped of the night by taking home Best of Show!



Check out this video which pretty much sums up what Buck the Norm is all about.

The best part was that this video won several other Gold Addy awards so we got to watch it over and over again. (And yell really loud over and over again.) You will also see a little cameo of me in there. : )

BucktheNorm.com also took Best Interactive and our :30 TV spot took Best of Broadcast. It was quite a night to say the least. I am so proud to say I work for Third Degree. It is a tremendous place to work and I am surrounded everyday by brilliant talented people. Go Team! And a special thanks to Tinker Federal Credit Union! (the client who lets us do crazy things like Buck the Norm everyday)



p.s. I will post more about the craziness of the gala later. Brace yourself.

Citizen Cope

Chase surprised me with tickets to Citizen Cope for Valentine's Day. For those that are not familiar his music is amazing. It is very powerful. You should check him out.

“If you look at the lyrics, I could be writing that about myself or about the government and hopefully that's the power of the song."
--Citizen Cope

The concert was in Tulsa so we took the short trip up north to see him live at the historic Cain's Ballroom.



We also got to have dinner with one of my best friends Patti and her bf Nick. Good times.

The concert was amazing.



His music was incredible in person. The great thing about a show at Cain's is the tickets are pretty reasonable and you can get very close to the stage.



One of my favorite songs is "Sideways" and it was pretty remarkable to watch the passion he puts into every song as he sings it.



I would definitely recommend giving his music a listen. He has some free downloads at this website. Check them out.

Lights Out!

After arriving home yesterday from a crazy weather watching afternoon I was pleased to find my house lit up like a Christmas tree. That didn't last long.

After being home for about 15 minutes a large flash of lightning lit up the sky and then all my lights went out. Complete darkness. Paisley even had to eat dinner in the dark!

I read by flashlight, took a nap, and played solitaire on my computer before being consumed with boredam. My solution...a trip to Walmart! (I needed candles)

After returning home and fighting an intense fear of a robber waiting for me in the darkness I lit about 10 candles to light up my house. As I was lighting the last candle the lights came flickering back on.

The thing I learned most from this experience...I am terrified of the dark and the things that hide in it!

Buck The Norm

Listology

I love to make lists, especially to-do lists but any list is very gratifying. And there is nothing better than that feeling of pure accomplishment you get when crossing something off a list. Sometimes I even write "new to-do list" on my current to-do list. Shh. Don't tell anybody.

Recently, while drooling over the stationary section at Barnes and Noble, I came across an interesting journal called Listology.



They are journals with fill in the blank list topics, a book of pre-determined list categories. Ahh, HEAVEN! The topics are varied from the cliche "Things to do before you die" to more quirky things like "list the ways you have changed since your teens."

I thought a new running post could be lists from my book that I share with you guys. So, to start things off enjoy the first Listology list topic, "Bad things you did when you were a kid," one of my favorites out of the entire book.


1. Punched my lil bro in the stomach so I could console him
2. Called 911 and told them there were 2 robbers in my house (4 yrs old)
3. Stole the neighbors mail and dumped it in the street drains (6 yrs old)
4. Broke into my next door neighbors house while they were out of town (best fort ever, 10 yrs old)
5. Slapped my best friend in the face at recess (8 yrs old)
6. Egged a bunch of houses (got busted and had to clean up, 10 yrs old)
7. Called my mom a bitch! (bad idea, 15 yrs old)
8. Got drunk in a limo the last day of 8th grade (only took 1/2 a beer, light-weight)
9. Stole a lighter from Walgreens (see # 10 for reason)
10. Stole my dads cigarettes and smoked (13 yrs old)
11. Watched "Fully Monty" at a 6th grade sleep over
12. Smoked some illegal substance in the neighborhood park (13 yrs old)


There is an entire series of these Listology books so when I finish filling out this one I can look forward to new fresh lists to populate.

Silly Hallie, Games are for kids!

I love games. Whether it be sports, a rousing game of charades, or an all out brawl on the Clue board. I think they are great, wholesome (sometimes) entertainment for everyone.

One of my favorite games is Kimbo, the game of fences. Kimbo was invented by Parker Brothers in 1960. It is a game of strategic thinking where you try to decide between using fences to create a path for your game pieces or to block others from making their way to the winners circle.



My dad played this with his father when he was a kid and now he plays it with my brother and I. A few years back my dad found an original game on eBay and bought it. Even though the box has browned and some of the fences have to be wedged in sideways its the best game I have ever seen.



Hopefully I can snatch another game board on eBay and play it with my kids. Good quality time around a game board should never be ignored.

The Manly Beard

For those of you that actually read this thing, I have yet to introduce my pseudo single other half, Chase. I am not going to fully introduce him in this blog but I couldn't resist posting about his beard.

In November Chase decided to start a beard growing contest amongst his friends. (All of them bailed out early, not real men) The contest was basically that you couldn't shave from Nov 1st to Feb 1st. Check out some sweet beard pics.





After being called everything from Santa Clause to Jesus he was ready to shave it off. He even scared some people in the mall when he tried on aviators and looked like the unabomber. Last night, er this morning, we shaved it off!



This is halfway through with the short beard and full gotee. Pretty nasty. A little too redneck biker for me.



After all the shaving was done I convinced him to keep the 70's stache. I don't know if I was inspired by the onslaught of 70's movie trailers I watched last night but this is damn sexy!



I am glad to have my boyfriends face back! Check out this awesome before and after shot.


Congrats on your superb beard growing abilities babe!