I'm glad I got a date out of it instead of a ticket

This morning, on my way to an appointment I got into my very first car accident. Well, my first car accident that actually did damage and I had to call the old Po-Po to come and write it all up.

The story goes like this....

I was entering I-215 West near 6200 South. I was behind a white truck that was inching forward at 15 mph. No lie. So, of course I was driving close to her. Because if I had been driving any slower I would have been going backwards. Anyway, so there I am about to merge onto the freeway going so slow that I fear I was going to be killed and so I looked over my shoulder to merge. When I looked forward, the truck in front of me had come to a complete stop and I slammed right into her. Then, the car behind me slammed into me. Wow, didn't see that coming.

I pull over - as did the car that hit me. But the lady that I hit continued to keep driving. She eventually pulled over about 20 yards down the road. She got out of her car, looked at her bumper, started screaming profanities my direction, then got back in her car and drove away. Wow, didn't see that coming.

The guy that hit me was very nice and asked if I was ok. I apologized for stopping and making him hit me. Really, I wish the lady that I hit had stuck around so I could have given her a piece of my mind. Don't stop on a freeway entrance you moron! Whew, glad I got that out.

The police came and we gave them all of our information. I luckily was not cited because the white truck lady drove away. Yippee!

Car Accident Boy, or CAB as he will now be known, and I exchanged numbers and as I was about to get in my car he goes, "Um, so I know this is going to sound a little odd, but would you like to have dinner with me sometime?" Wow, didn't see that coming.

I told him that sure, I would like to have dinner with him. So, not all is lost. I got a date out of it. Merry Christmas to me.

My poor little car didn't come away so lucky. The front of my car is not too bad, but the back has definitely seen better days.

If they actually came to home teach us, they would know we are smarter than them

Tonight I came home to this lovely surprise on my counter:

How sweet of my home-teachers to think of me and Kenz at this festive time of year.

I'm 99% sure this nicely packaged cornbread was a re-gift. I know both my home-teachers and neither of them bake - let alone have red ribbon and a fake poinsettia bow lying around. Upon further investigation of the card, we noticed the back side also had a message. Ironically, in a different color pen AND different handwriting.

First, I'll thank them for thinking of us. Second, I'll mock them endlessly for giving us cornbread that had been given to them by someone else. And third, they will admit to the re-gift because I know neither of them is going to admit to spelling "Holidays" wrong.

Merry Christmas boys. And thank you for giving me a white elephant present to bring to my work party tomorrow.

If it had been a bill, I probably would have ignored it

Last week, I received letter in the mail from Jinny. I can always tell when I get mail from her because she has very specific handwriting. It's all in cursive and I don't know anyone that has written in cursive since the 4th grade. I was excited about this letter for two reasons. #1 I love getting mail when it isn't a bill or junk mail. It always makes my day. #2 It's from Jinny and so I knew it must be good.


And she did not disappoint. She read an article in the paper that she thought I would like. AND, she probably realized that the only form of news I get is from my People.com feed on my home page and that I needed a little educating. So she clipped it out, wrote me a little note, put it all in an envelope and mailed it off to me.

I cherish these small things that Jinny does for me. Friends that have met her all say the same thing to me... "oh, she is so tiny and sweet. You can just put her in your pocket." And so, since I can't actually squish my grandma up and put her in my pocket, I'll keep these little gems that she sends me and call it good.

Yep, we're adding another Ute to the family

I am pleased to announce that my little brother Austin got engaged tonight.




We are all very happy he has found such a sweet girl to marry. Enter, Sarah Thomas. She fits in fabulous with my family and I am excited to call her my sister-in-law. I am mostly excited to see what stinking cute kids these two pop out. Two brown-eyed, brown-haired people must make some seriously cute offspring.

I am now preparing myself for all the questions that I expect to be asked over the next 4 months. If you have any good responses to the following questions, please let me know.

Question #1: How do you feel about your YOUNGER brother getting married?
Question #2: I thought it would be you next...what happened?
Question #3: Is it hard for you to have your younger brother get married before you?
Question #4: How old are you? When they heard the answer to this their face usually drops just for a second and then they say, "You have plenty of time!"
Question #5: Are you dating anyone? This one is asked with a hopeful look on their face as if saying "if you are dating someone you must be close to marriage!"
Question #6: So when are you getting married?

With all that said, I will proudly join the Younger Sibling Having Sex Before You Club. About 85% of my friends are in it. I figured it was my time to join.

Congrats Austin! I couldn't be happier for you!

I'm not puking anymore...that's the first good sign things are turning around

Dear Blog,
Do you feel neglected? Do you feel like I have let you down? Do you feel like I have forgotten about you? Well, you should. Because I have done all of the above. And no, I feel no regret.

I forgot to mention to you that I puked at a client lunch last week. Yes, that was an awesome experience. And no, I didn't puke in front of my client. Thank goodness. I did manage to excuse myself from the table, run to the bathroom and puke up my entire PF Changs lunch. I quickly returned to the table with a smile on my face and continued business like normal. Wow, I'm amazing. Don't mind my clammy hands or my stark white face, dear client. I'm totally fine. Not stressing about your projects at all. AT ALL!

I did return from lunch to tell my boss what happened and she proceeded to ask me if I was pregnant. To which I replied, "I wish! That would mean I had sex!" Ok, I didn't answer like that. I thought it, but didn't verbalize it.

The point of this whole story is to tell you that I have just been entirely too busy to think about you. I'm sorry. I'll try to be better.

Love,
Natalie

No Jinny, I still don't think I should have had ice cream

Grandma Jinny throws a girl Christmas lunch every year for my mom's side of the family. Now, this lunch is quite odd because technically the woman at the lunch are all of Jinny's ex-husbands family. My mom's side of the family is quite the dysfunctional mess that is better left for another day and a better blog post.

So, to make this story make sense, I will call my 2nd cousins my "aunts" and my 2nd cousins children my "cousins". Because really, I don't know technically what to call them.

During lunch my aunts start asking me about who I am dating. When I tell them I am on dating sabbatical, Jinny pipes in and says that I wouldn't be if I had just had ice cream for Berry Boy when he came over. Please read this post if you need further explanation. And Jinny was serious. Because throughout the 2 hour lunch, Jinny mentioned that I was in the wrong about the ice cream situation about 5 times. No lie. I had to remind Jinny that I would rather be single than be with a man that expected me to read his mind and do all the work. I still think she feels sorry for me.

The best part of the day was his conversation:

Aunt Liz: Oh, so much great stuff is going on. We have weddings and babies and new brides!
Cousin Annie (she's single): Yes, and then there is the rest of us
Aunt Leslie: Yes, and then there is the riff raft.

blank stare.

Don't you just LOVE family and the holidays?

Not drinking coke must be a lot like not having sex.

This past Friday my friend Brooke got married in Sacramento. I love that she got married there - mainly because it gave me an excuse to go to San Francisco to go shopping. But really, the wedding was the best part of the trip. Since she got married the day after Thanksgiving, it didn't give us much time to get there. So, we had to travel in our wedding attire:



Pretty sure I went through the the metal detector at security 3 times before I realized that it was the massive amounts of bobby-pins I had in my hair that was causing the sensor to beep. And did you realize that when you get frisked at the airport they ACTUALLY feel between your boobs? Well, it was awkward.

And since we didn't want to wear our heels all day, our lovely boots were in order. Best decision I could have made.

Some pictures of the day:









And, I give you the ginormous wedding party. This is just bridesmaids and groomsman:



Brooke's cute little nugget of a niece:



My first coca cola classic in 3 months. It was well worth the wait. Brooke and I were the only ones to make it three months. I would get mad at Kenzi and Abby every time they drank a Diet Coke during our supposed 3 month fast. I compared not drinking coke to us "saving ourselves" for marriage. It must be so much better to wait. At least that is what I tell myself.






And then we went shopping in San Fransisco on Saturday. We took one picture. We couldn't be bothered to take pictures when we had shopping to do. We had our priorities.