The Riverwalk ROCKS!!

LOVED it! By far the best part of the trip, however I think I left my liver there. A little hung over today. Despite what you may think, I don't actually drink that much, so when I decide to let loose, well, OUCH. So, the next time you are there, you can't miss "Dick's Last Resort". Holy crap that place is hilarious! It is "service with an attitude", and how true that is! The waiters are too much, they make hats for you with nice little sayings (pictured) and if you are a guy ordering a girly drink, you get a "pussy cat" drawn on your cup! LOL! I need to work there. The guy giving me the bird was the host. We took the little river boat tour, shopped, ate and drank. Great day!

San Marcos

Spent the day in San Marcos. My friend Mario graduated from Texas State, so he wanted to go visit his old stomping grounds. The campus is beautiful, and we had a huge lunch at "Grins", a college town restaurant. Home of the 99 cent margaritas! Really cool place; relaxing with trees and foliage all around. I ordered the "hottest burger in San Marcos". I could totally handle it, no problem! The H.E.B truck? Kind of an inside joke. It is a grocery store, but I call it "The HEB", and it is pronounced by each letter "H" "E" "B", so Mario laughs every time we see the sign. I can't help it. Spent the remainder of the day at the pool and jacuzzi. Today we are headed to San Antonio! Leaving now.

The Salt Lick, Baby!

So, after getting lost in the backwoods of Driftwood, Texas, we found "The Salt Lick" Texas BBQ Ranch! OMG, YUM! Great food and a little live country band. I had the 3-meat platter with beef brisket, ribs and sausage. I could seriously eat there every night considering my love of meat. It is freezing tonight, and Mario is crashing at my hotel. We are watching the CNN coverage of Osama's death and eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Jalapeño Pringles. Good times! Another funny thing, as we were driving back, Johnny Cash came on the radio singing "Walk the Line", to which Mario and I sang along. Classic. The toilet paper pic. I found it disturbing that this is how much T.P. was in my stall. I was thinking, Oh God, what the hell is in the food!?! I also bought a Salt Lick T-shirt. Had to.

Feeling My Age

OK, I've been going non-stop since I got here and am I TIRED. I slept a good portion of today because I experienced 6th Street last night and didn't get back to the hotel until dawn. They close the street, so there are 100's of people walking around bar-hopping and partying. There is live music and food, too. I lost track of all the bars we went to, but I remember a few: Coyote Ugly, The Dirty Dog, and Besos. It was fun, but LOUD. I even got to experience a strip club. LOL. The funniest part was every time I showed my ID to a doorman, they did a double take at my age, looked up at me and said, "No fucking way!" Hehe, I think I like Texas.

The night before we gorged on massive amounts of Italian food and yesterday before 6th Street, we went to the Hula Hut. LOVE that place! You can get a Mai Tai in a FISHBOWL. Tonight, is Texas BBQ, and tomorrow I'm not sure.

The weather is very strange here. It was 95 degrees at noon, and now it is 60 degrees. No shit. There could be thunderstorms tonight, oh please, oh please, oh please! I would love to see a Texas storm! Apparently, Dallas has a severe thunderstorm warning, but I don't know if we will see anything here or not.

A Late Night in Austin

OK, so I got back to the hotel around 4 am. Hey, what's wrong with having fun at 39? Here are some pics of the airplane, the Phoenix airport, Mario, Stacy, and Carlo. I just woke up and will probably go down to the pool and wait for my friends to wake up out of their comas. It was kind of a wild night.

What happens in Austin, stays in Austin.

Hello, Austin!

CrazyDogMama has arrived in Austin, Texas!  Yeehaw! I will have more pics soon hopefully. Well, I have to go, they are picking me up and we are going out. Let the fun begin!

Off to Texas on Thursday!

So I'm getting ready for my trip. Here are some of the places I'm going (or so I've been told I'm going):

The Oasis in Austin

The Hula Hut

The River Walk

University of Texas

Grins Restaurant

Lake Travis.

Anyone have any additional suggestions? I'm open! This will be my first visit to Texas, and I will be staying in downtown Austin. We will be traveling to San Antonio one day as far as I know. It feels great to have something to look forward to! I will be gone 8 days. Woohoo!

Happy Easter

It was a quiet Easter; a simple ham (the awesome one in the red foil from Costco), scalloped potatoes, asparagus and a glass of chardonnay. My mom and I played cards and listened to music. We talked about everything. I texted friends and family to tell them I love them.

About an hour after my last entry, the vet called and said they had Louie's remains. I went to pick them up, and it was a bittersweet surprise. The box is just lovely, and there was a surprise in the package, an imprint of Lou's paw. When I saw that I broke down and cried and cried and cried. I was so impressed with the presentation, and again I had the people at the vet tearing up. I can't help it, I'm very emotional when it comes to the ones I love. I don't think I will ever be over it. Also in the package was a beautiful memoir called "The Rainbow Bridge". I will post it later. I'm going to frame it along with a picture of Boo-bear for my shrine to him.

A day to myself.

My mom is out today and I elected to stay home and spend time with myself. I enjoy my alone time. I am missing Louie today. I should be receiving his ashes any day now, and I know it will be a hard day when I do. I am making a necklace with part of it so I can carry him with me always. That may seem weird, but there is a place that can turn ashes into a gem, and that is what I am doing, because he was a gem.

I still talk to Joe every day, and he is a great guy, but I cannot wait any longer as I want to spend time with the one I care about. There is another nice gentleman who has been expressing interest in me, so I may explore that. It is difficult to find decent men my age who have values, and with whom I share mutual attraction with, so I don't want to miss out on a possible good opportunity. In other words, I am really picky. :-)

Lips, Lounging and Lack

Lounging. This would be the view from my floating chaise lounge. I baked in the 90-degree weather on Saturday floating around in the pool. It was rough. Well, actually, me trying to get ON the damn thing without flipping it was the difficult part. There may have been laughter about that.

Lips. This would be my lips after using my new lip plumper. Fabulous!

Lack. Don't know about Joe and I, he is sweet and funny, but not there very often. I swear to God I am the unluckiest person in the WORLD when it comes to dating. He hasn't done anything "wrong", but I hardly ever see him. He emails me quite a bit, but I don't want an email relationship. I guess I will just see where it goes and keep my options open. Frustrating!

Hooters, Thank You's, Demolition, and Life without Lou.

I needed a few days to collect myself, not that I'm collected now, but at least I can see out of my eyeballs again. I want to do a BIG thank you to all the people that cried with me, were concerned about me and were there for me when I needed them most: My two moms, Bill, Jenny, Joe, Mario, Brandi and my blog buddies. My moms were there to (literally) pick me up off the floor, Bill (my stepson) called and texted me from school very concerned about me and sad himself, Jenny (my BFF) who talked hours on end with me, Joe (the guy I'm dating) who was incredibly sweet and didn't think I was crazy for loving a dog so much, Mario (best California friend and coworker) who kept trying to make me laugh and calling me to make sure I was still going to Texas with him, Brandi (friend and coworker) who texted me in the middle of the night so I wouldn't be alone and all my beloved blog readers who sent me sweet comments and heartfelt emails. It means A LOT to me that you all care so much. I have had everyone in tears lately, the people at the vet, my mom, my coworkers and even Joe. I think you all are so used to me being the comic relief, that you don't know what to do with snot bubble face.

Okay, moving on. The downstairs is in chaos. The kitchen and family room are torn apart for remodel right now, so all routine is gone for the moment. No DVR or HD, no cooking and no couch or recliner to sit in. AAHH! My mom and I have been curling up and watching TV in the master bedroom together, kind of a pajama party. And get this, we have to go out for dinner every night right now and when I came home from work yesterday and asked my mom where she wanted to go, she said "Hooters". I said "Hooters? Really?" She said "Yup. Got a coupon!" LOL! So yes, we went to Hooters for dinner. When we got there, she exclaimed "Well good God, I've got bigger hooters than her!" OMG! It's going to be gorgeous and in the 80's this weekend so I'm going to catch up on my poolside lounging, I wanna be tan for Texas.

Shattered Heart

My boo-bear is gone. So is my soul. This is the single worst day of my entire life. That dog meant more to me than most people. I will never be the same. No dog will ever be Louie. I took off work to spend the last few days with him so I could hug him and kiss him and tell him how much better he made my life. I would not have made it through the last few years without him by my side. I don't know if I can be CrazyDogMama anymore.

I love you my sweet, sweet bear, and you will be missed forever.

The New Car I'm Getting

Now that I'm in California and don't need an SUV anymore, it is time to get THIS. A 2011 Dodge Challenger. I need to think about this, because if I think too much about Louie, I'm going to start bawling my eyes out again. I have to put him down and it will be the hardest thing I will ever have to do. Lou is the reason I became "CrazyDogMama". Okay that's enough, can't talk about that anymore.

 

Officially Texas-bound!

Got my plane ticket today and booked a hotel. Got awesome deals, only 200 bucks round trip and 60 percent off a luxury hotel in downtown Austin. Yes! I'm going with friends for 8 days at the end of April / first part of May. Should be great fun! Oh how I need a vacation, and it's a wild crowd too, so who knows what I'm in for. LOL. Now I just have to survive between now and then.