I’m so sorry I haven’t updated in forever; life has been a bit of a doozie (or is it doozy?) lately. But after approximately 22 hours of sleep this weekend, I think I’m back from the brink. How about a few updates?

My sweet nephew was born! I’ve been an auntie for about two weeks now. Not a very good one, seeing as I am here (DC) and he is there (Colorado). But on Friday I’m getting on a plane and I should be snuggling him by 8:30pm. His name is Nolan and I hope he stays this tiny and precious forever. (Photo taken by the new grandma over at kdalyphoto.com.)

I’m taking a digital photography class this summer that begins on Wednesday! This will be the first time I’ve been a student in more than seven years…yikes. I promise to show some of my work here, hopefully we will all be able to notice an improvement by August.

I’ve become increasingly concerned about chemicals in everyday life. Have you read this article? Quite frightening, isn’t it? Can anyone out there personally recommend a phthalate-free, paraben-free product line they love? I’m ready to invest in new hair, body, and cosmetic products if I can find something I like. (I bought Aveda shampoo and conditioner only to learn they aren’t nasty-chemical free….Le Sigh)

Sorry to end on a downer note. I’m counting on you to leave some happy comments to whisk me through the week and into Friday-night-with-my-nephew-squeeeeeeeeeeee!

OMGZ #2: I have somehow signed myself up for going camping this weekend. Like the sleep-on-the-ground, poop-in-the-woods variety. Oh, and it’s supposed to rain. I’m really only going for the s’mores.

OMGZ #3: My 29th birthday is in five weeks. Not that I actually care about my birthday at all. But I enjoy online window shopping in honor of my birthday. I need to start thinking about ways to make the final year of my 20s awesome. Is it possible to lose 20 pounds and have a baby at the same time, I wonder?

This is my 500th blog post, and in honor of such an awesome occasion, I bequeath to you…..bullet points!

(But just you wait, because I was inspired by Lesli to do a big giveaway for my 500th blog post. And I have acquired items to give away, just not time to pull it all together. So I will do something fun to celebrate maybe my 503rd post or something.)

• Where was I? Oh right, BULLET POINTS.
• Getting back to my Colorado roots, I spent one day last week skiing and one day snowboarding. I was merely adequate at both. It became pretty obvious that I left my home state over a decade ago when the blue runs were too steep.

• My skis looked like they belonged on a seven-year-old. It was like riding the short bus of the slopes.
• The snowboard is mine, circa 1993, with a vintage early ’90s “girls kick ass!” sticker. I had one of those stickers on my lacrosse stick, too. I was terribly badass back then.
• You know you’re in Colorado when Elk Enchiladas are on the menu. I dare the Pioneer Woman to cook those!

• As a kid, my dad would hunt elk, and then we’d eat it for the rest of the year. Elk steaks, elk burgers, elk spaghetti sauce. I thought this was perfectly normal until I moved to Louisiana, where they eat even weirder food but then look at you funny for calling soda “pop.”
• This has nothing to do with anything, but will you please look at my sister’s cat? I want nothing more in life than to sedate this cat and then use it as a pillow.

• My parents are arriving this weekend for the Great House Fixer Upper Extravaganza of 2010. Somehow in between working 12 hours a day I am supposed to be buying a whole bunch of crap from Home Depot. Speaking of which, does anyone have a pickup truck I can borrow?
• We are going to attempt to install crown molding. I’m currently taking bets on the outcome of that project: 1. Parents disown daughter; 2. Daughter disowns parents; 3. Husband and I kill each other; 4. Value of home increases so rapidly we are forced to sell and retire at age 30 in a Costa Rican villa.

I think it’s time to wrap up the bullets. What is new with you, lovely readers? Please come back for more fun for my 501st post and beyond. I have big plans for us! Giveaways, house renovations, ruffled curtains (don’t ask), things I want to buy if mint.com wasn’t so damn honest with me about my spending, and more!

Where am I going? Next weekend we’ll be celebrating my sister-in-law’s upcoming wedding with a 80s-themed bachelorette party sleepover in suburban northern Virginia. The following weekend the husband and I are visiting friends in Charlottesville, and then it’s off to Seattle for Thanksgiving and to celebrate my grandpa’s 90th birthday. But we won’t let cross-country travel wear us out! Just four days later we fly to Charleston, SC for the big family wedding. The weekend after that I’m heading up to New York City to see my sister, who will be there for a conference. Finally just before Christmas I’ll have one weekend at home before we leave once again for Delaware for the Christmas holiday.

Plus I was just in New England a few weekends ago, so I feel that I’ve got about half of the United States covered with my travel plans. A pit stop in Tulsa would get me to the midwest – OH WAIT, I did that already once this year when our giant jet had an engine go out midflight and forced an emergency landing. Oh Tulsa, those were some fun times.

Of course I’m sad that I’ll miss Christmas in Denver with my family this year, but I’ll go in January instead. That is, if I don’t die of H1N1, which I will surely catch while breathing recycled, germy airplane air. Perhaps I should invest in one of these:

It’s not that I want to do completely nothing. I would love nothing more than three months free to:

• Go to the gym every day for 2 hours and get really hot.
• Make dinner for my husband every night, or meet him out to eat.
• Spend at least fifteen hours a week scrubbing, decluttering, decorating, or otherwise spiffing up my house and garden.
• Read the 6 or so back issues of the New Yorker currently piled up in the magazine queue, and once I’m caught up, start reading them the week they arrive.
• Run normal weekend errands on the weekdays, when everything is easier and Target is not crammed full of bodies.
• After my two hour workout, lay around at the pool, or go to yoga, or other things that make me hot and tan (can you sense that I am feeling the opposite of hot and tan lately?)
• Blog! Every! Day!
• That last one is unlikely to happen, sorry.
• Revisit my crafty skills by unpacking my sewing machine that has been tucked away in a box for 2+ years.

I think the reason I’m dreaming about some kind of sabbatical is because there is a chance my job will end in December, and I would have a few months off to find something new. But that will only happen if I totally fail at what I am doing. So on one hand, I am trying my hardest to succeed at this job, but on the other hand, maybe failure wouldn’t be so bad.

Got any lovely things to share going on in your life?

1. Quit my job.
2. Accepted a new job.
3. Attended meetings with senior White House staff (albeit as a lowly nameless peon).
4. Shattered the glass on my iPhone.
5. Paid $100 to get my car back after it got towed from what I thought was a legal spot.
6. ALL OF THE ABOVE

All you have to do is follow my twitter feed (@loveisblonde) to know the answer is #6 ALL OF THE ABOVE. I haven’t had much time to brief you lovely readers on all the craziness that is going on so let me just summarize by footnoting that:

1. My last day is Friday; this is a good thing (but I will miss my work friends).
2. New job: Wow – it’s going to be awesome. I am going to try to kick some butt and take some names and help pass health care reform, a new energy bill, and other progressive policies for America. I am super excited about the opportunity to do good work that will improve people’s lives.
3. I’m fairly convinced White House staffers never sleep. I hope that I will not have to work that hard, because honestly, {quiet voice} I kind of like my free time.
4. Did you know a totally shattered iPhone still works? It’s kind of neat, although probably a slight hazard due to shards of glass. I will be replacing it with a new-used one as soon as I can get myself to an AT&T store.
5. Regarding my car, the city of Falls Church, Virginia is ON NOTICE because I simply should not have to spend my weeknights in a sketchy tow lot in the suburbs. It’s also possible I have a “haunted car” because some crazy shizz has happened to that car since we bought it two years ago.
6. Life is a bit crazy right now. I hope to be back soon to tell mundane tales such as, How to Clean and Restain Your Wood Deck, with photos!

Which is why the husband and I celebrated my faux birthday on Saturday, possibly the most divine day of the year (weather-wise) in DC.

We started the day by sleeping in, a Saturday necessity. Then we hit the golf course for my very first time ever playing nine holes of golf. Me learning golf is more like a gift to my husband, because he loves it a lot, but it’s also a gift for me because it means we can spend more time together on the weekends. (It’s not like he was ever going to pick up a hobby like sewing or baking; if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em; etc.)

He found me a nice set of (cheap!) used clubs on craigslist, and I managed to shoot somewhere around double par. Also known as, the maximum score allowed by the rules. But out of nine holes I think there were one or two double bogeys in there, so perhaps there is still hope for my future LPGA career?

We followed up four hours in the golfing sun with….three hours laying at the pool with my DC-BFF. She and I have a good arrangement going where she comes over for Sunday dinner and I go over for Saturday pool time. At least, this is my plan for the rest of the summer because it was so fabulous.

Once we were sufficiently toasted, we came home to get prettied up and the husband and I went to our favorite restaurant for celebrating semi-special occasions (like faux-birthdays), Montmartre. Absolutely delicious French food – I almost felt like I was back in Paris, except that the waiter came to the table more than 1.5 times! This particular restaurant doesn’t post their often-changing menu online, so I wasn’t sure what the night’s offerings would be, but on the way there I told Andrew, “Tonight I would like nothing more to eat than fresh gazpacho, scallops, and something chocolate for dessert.” And whaddyaknow, that is exactly what I had! I was so happy to see those items on the menu; it was as if they read my mind.

All in all, I feel pretty darn spoiled (as always), and, as much as I shun birthday attention, it always feels nice to be loved and cared for on your birthday.

Next task: Thank you notes!

Yes, photos from Sardinia and Paris are here!

I think the photos pretty much tell the story. In Sardinia we were in the middle of nowhere. We had a little villa up in the hills, and almost every day we would wake up late, make a big breakfast, hop in the car to go explore a beach, lay out til we were fried, then come home and make a big dinner. We only went out for two meals all week! (Oh, but we ate a lot of gelato. At least once per day.) It was fun to make pizza and pasta, and indulge on local cheeses and wine.

The beaches were stunning. The landscape was dry and rugged, and the ocean met up with either cliffs or white sandy beaches. There must have been dozens of beaches and we only saw a fraction of them, but we were pretty sure we found the best one on the southern coast.

There was no cell service, no television, no Americans, no computers, and only an intermittent Blackberry data signal. It was so nice to just shut off.

We left Italy very well rested and a few notches more tan (freckled) and made our way to Paris for just two nights and a day. We picnicked under the Eiffel tower, took a tour down the river Seine, walked around the Notre Dame cathedral….and went to the military history museum? Yes, I am the Best Wife Ever. We also ate croissants and croque monsieurs and wished vacation would never end!

But alas, we are home, where the cats shed and the laundry piles and alarm clock buzzes. Life moves on, and soon I will begin plotting our next vacation…

**********

I feel a bit odd announcing this, but I always hate it when people keep their birthdays a secret, so when you find out at the very end of the day or when the day has already passed, you feel terribly guilty for not knowing and therefore not wishing them a happy birthday the first 17 times you saw them that day, so I will just tell you now that my birthday is tomorrow (Wednesday)! I anticipate getting lots of Facebook wall posts, having lunch with my sister-in-law, and prying my husband away from his office to hang out with me in the evening. Oh, and instead of cake at my obligatory office celebration, I requested vodka. Nope, not even kidding. I’ll let you know if they indulge me! Happy very boring 28th birthday to meeeeee!

When we first moved here, I wanted to be on a “five year plan” to be gone again. I’ve always wanted to move back to Denver. Now I seem both more solidly here (own a house) and yet even more ready to move away. Maybe in a few more years.

Amazing how much can change in five years. Officially moved in together. Got a kitten. First real adult job. Andrew had several jobs (the joys of campaign life) and finally found a “career.” We got engaged, then married. Bought a house. Wrecked our new car. I got a new job. I’ve been there almost a year now.

So yes, I’m being cheesy and nostalgic. It makes me realize that we can accomplish A LOT in another five years. Maybe babies, maybe moving to Colorado. Maybe FIVE trips to Italy. (Okay, maybe not. Likely not.) All I can ask is to be happy and healthy, in love with my husband, and close to family and friends.

How much has your life changed since May 27, 2004?

Homemade iced coffee. Despite my insistence that I will not get addicted to caffeine, I, ummmm, well, I’m addicted to caffeine. Honestly, I work so much better with some iced coffee in the mornings. However, I’m too cheap to spend $2 a day on the stuff. For the last few weeks I’ve been drinking half of a Starbucks grande per day, which makes it only a dollar a day habit, but still…too much. Here’s my new system: cheapy french press from IKEA, cheapy ground coffee beans from the grocery, lukewarm tap water. I mix them together before bed, let it brew overnight, and in the morning room-temp coffee is ready. Add milk and ice cubes and it’s just as good as the expensive stuff for about thirty cents.

Homemade chimichurri sauce. Oh yeah, I’m kicking it up a notch from 3-ingredient iced coffee. For Andrew’s birthday this year my mom bought him some nice steaks. We finally grilled them this weekend and dipped them in a homemade chimichurri sauce. There are dozens of recipes online, but it’s basically a combo of parsley, cilantro, garlic, red pepper flakes, pepper, red/white wine vinegar, and olive oil, all blended up until it has the consistency of pesto. Lovely for a very flavorful dipping sauce for steak, or, as I made for the husband last night, a steak/caremelized onion/goat cheese quessadilla.

Babies! I got to spend quality time with my favorite 9-month old on Sunday, and then my friend Jessica’s cute cute baby K today. Talking with their parents about how babies make you wake up at 7 am even on the weekends makes me appreciate not having them even more!

Gingko Gardens. This morning when I woke up my front yard (I use that word loosely, it’s 45 square feet) was full of: weeds, weeds, more weeds, a few snapdragons, dead daffodils, and two hydrangea bushes. We spent about 25 minutes and $80 at Gingko Gardens, a great little neighborhood plant and flower store, and about 2 hours weeding and planting at home, and our yard is now full of lovely perennials that should bloom and grow all year long. We got several kind of phlox, lamb’s ear, something else I can’t remember, and herbs like thyme, lavender, basil, and rosemary. The best part was that we got completely awesome customized expert help in picking out each plant and where to place it.

$5 sunglasses. I never, ever wear sunglasses unless I’m at the beach. (I’m just finicky like that.) But this weekend I bought two pairs because they were only $5 at NY & Company. I also picked up some tank tops, a beachy skirt, and new sandals. Vacation begins in less than ten days…

It was a lovely weekend, fun, productive, and restful. How was yours?