One question that has plagued me for a while is women that don’t take their husbands last name when they get married.  Why?  I just don’t get it.  Why bother getting married and going through *that* tradition if you’re not going to go all the way with it and take his last name?  If you’re so afraid of losing your independence or whatever reason you have, why get married?  And if you’re getting married so you can have kids, wouldn’t you want to have the same last name as your husband and kids?  It just doesn’t make sense to me.  I guess I just don’t see a good reason for it.  If you want to keep your last name, why bother getting married?  Tax break? Hardly, getting married screws you in taxes (unless you have kid) Wedding Presents? Unless you’re getting your wedding paid for 100% by someone other than you, or you do the courthouse gig like we did, the ROI on presents is null.  I can kind of understand not doing it for professional reasons, say if you’re a doctor or teacher.  But really? Can’t you just slowly do it instead of just flat out not?

I guess with the divorce rate being at 50% it’ll save you time and effort of having to change it back, ‘eh?

So ladies, what gives?

It’s been a crazy-busy few weeks.. Lets see if I can recap

A few weekends ago on the 15th Michelle and I had a “girls day” which consisted of yummy lunch at Ruby Tuesday, a 90 minute time-share schpiel to get a free trip to Vegas (Airfare included baby!) and of course a trip to Target.. We can’t have a girls day out without a trip to Target!

On the 22nd Mike had to work all day, so I ventured out and bought a lawn mower.. That was an interesting ordeal, getting the lawn mower into the trunk of my civic.  But I managed to get it home, put it together, turned it on and mowed the yard! Twice! It needed it so bad.. The grass was out of control, it needed 2 mowings in 1 day.  I also sprayed moss killer on the lawn and hosed off the driveway.. I felt so.. handy That night we met up with Michelle and Nate at McMenamins for beers before heading to Sunset Lanes for a few games of bowling.  Fun times

On Easter, my sister, Michelle and Nate came over for food, games and hanging out.  I made a HUGE ham, potatoes and green beans.  We also had snacks, dip, crackers, fruit, bloody mary’s, etc..  Good times were had.. We played some games and just hung out

This last weekend was a pretty busy one.  Josh came down to visit from Spokane.  Friday night a bunch of us went to Buffalo Wild Wings after happy hour for dinner and ate far too much food for our own good.  Saturday we got up and went to Startupalooza which was actually pretty cool.  It was fun hearing about the different success (and sometimes not so much) stories of Portland entrepreneurs.  Matt and Bill 2 of Jive’s founders also spoke, which was pretty cool.  Got a lot of great insight and ideas for if/when we ever start our own business

After Startupalooza we had our house warming party which in my opinion was a success.  We had a full house of friends over to hang out, drink some wine and beer, play games and eat chili and cornbread that I made!  It was a very funtime and I’m pretty sure we all had a great time

Sunday we spent recooperating from the last couple of months of go-go-go before going back to work for Month/Quarter end, where I worked 2 15 hour days in a row. Ugh.

This coming weekend is looking to be nice so far.  I’m off of work on Friday so I’m going to get a massage and then head down to Dosha for a manicure and pedicure.

So I went to the eye doctors on Saturday for my annual exam.. My eyes are getting worse :( .. Not TOO much worse.. The prescription has only gone down -.25 in each eye from last year.. But it’s gone down quite a bit from the last time I bought glasses 3 years ago.  But then again, I rarely wear glasses… I think I’ve only worn them twice in the last year (to work) .. But I still need something that works.. And I figured now, while we have pretty decent vision insurance (the rest of our health insurance sucks ass though) I’d get some new glasses.. So off to Lencrafters we went.. And man, thank god we do have insurance.. If we didn’t then they’d have been $534! That’s just ridiculous.  How do people with no insurance afford decent glasses?  I feel pretty confident that these frames will last me quite a while (for the price, they freaking better) and hopefully my prescription will stop changing and I won’t have to fork out $$ for new lenses next year either.  Our insurance is weird and that it covers Frame and Lenses ($100 and 20% towards frames and $90 towards lenses) or Frame and Contact Lens fitting (So, 100 and 20% towards frame and $90 toward lenses) .. well, since I knew I had to have a contact fitting, and the fitting for astigmatism’d (I know, I just made that word up) eyes is $99, I figured it best to use my benefit for that.. just in case I opted not to get glasses.. Well, now I got glasses too.. I think we would’ve paid the same out of pocket either way.. so, oh well… that lesson in insurance coverage was pointless ‘eh?

Now I’m going to take my 3 year old glasses to bed and read before sleepy time.. oh yeah, I’m reading the funniest book I’ve read in years.. you all should read it. Every single one of you!

It’s called “Bitter is the new black” and holy crap is it funny.  I got it for Christmas but just now picked it up.. I can barely put it down.. The author has another book out called “Bright Lights Big Ass” that I need to go buy ASAP so I can start reading it when I’m done with this one… and another called “Such a Pretty Fat” coming out May 6th.  I can’t wait to get that either..

Anyways, I highly recommend this book.. very funny…

The full title is actually “Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office” And the back says “This is the story of how a haughty former sorority gal went from having a household income of almost a quarter-million dollars to being evicted from a ghetto apartment in less than two years.  It’s a modern Greek tragedy, as defined by Roger Dunkle in The Classical Origins of Western Culture: a story in which “the central character, called a tragic protagonist or hero, suffers some serious misfortune which is not accidental and therefore meaninglesss, but is significant in that the misfortune is logically connected.”

The bitch had it coming.”

so, go buy it. now