procrastination

So since I have 7 articles to write by tomorrow night, I think I'll just waste some time by blogging about the weekend! Let me start by saying that X-Men III was awesome, I totally loved it. We saw it at Downtown Disney on Friday afternoon. It was a 3:45 showing and when the movie was over, it was pouring (finally!) so we ducked over to the Virgin Megastore and wasted some time. I bought "Love Actually" on DVD for $8. I LOVE that movie.

Meg was supposed to get into Tampa on Friday night, but her flight was cancelled, so needless to say, she wasn't happy about that. As we were getting ready for the beach on Saturday morning, she called again - this time, she was stuck in D.C. and wouldn't make it to Tampa till around noon or so. We actually got to the beach before her, and we didn't leave till like 11:30 AND we stopped for lunch!

But the beach was wonderful. It was a perfect day, complete with a cloudless sky, soft sand, and good company. Even though I have a great tan already and had slathered on sunscreen, I got slightly burned around the straps of my bathing suit - I guess the straps moved around and rubbed the sunscreen off.

Our reservations at the steakhouse were for 7:30, so Brian and I left the beach around 4:30 and checked into the hotel. This took awhile, since there was a wedding party checking in at the same time as us. When we finally got to our room, we had just enough time to shower and get to the restaurant. We were at the restaurant until about 12:30! 7:30 to 12:30!! Can you believe dinner took that long? I couldn't believe it, but it sure was delicious! After dinner we took a tour of the kitchen and the wine cellar, which was unbelieveable. Then we went upstairs to the dessert room and had dessert. It was a great night. (Here's a picture of Meg and I in the Dessert Room:)

Sunday, Brian and I went around to a few malls and I bought some things, the most significant of which was a new blender. I make smoothies every day, and it takes forever because we have a crappy blender and I have to stop and stir everything up like 13 times. So I bought a Waring 60th Anniversary blender from Williams-Sonoma. It looks very retro, but most importantly, I won't have to stop and stir!

After our shopping spree, we saw The DaVinci Code, which I thought was great, even though I had already read the book. I can't see why it got any bad reviews! Of course, I had forgotten half of what had happened in the book, so as something would occur, I would think, "Oh, yeah!" It was an excellent movie and I was glad we saw it.

On our trip, we listened to "The Fifth Horseman" by James Patterson. It was a fabulous book! We LOVED it - and we weren't finished with it when we got home, so we sat in the office and listened to the rest of it. Then yesterday, we slept in and did a whole lot of NOTHING! I played the New Super Mario on Nintendo DS for most of the day, and Brian fooled around with the laptops. At some point, I felt guilty about wasting the whole day, so we cleaned up the house a little - for about 30 minutes, then we went back to playing with our toys. We did walk, though. I wouldn't skip that!

And I've just returned from my walk today, so I'm gonna go try out my new blender and then hop in the shower. After that, I've gotta write, write, write and get these articles done!

Oh, I've been meaning to put up a recipe for my new favorite smoothie. Here it is:

1 cup (8 oz.) juice - I use Diet V8 Splash, Berry Blend flavor
8 frozen whole strawberries
Dash of pineapple juice (optional)
1 medium banana
Handful of frozen blueberries
2 ice cubes

I'm sure you could use fresh fruit instead of frozen, but I like it extra cold since I always have my smoothie after my walk. Also, this makes a pretty big smoothie. I personally drink the whole thing myself! But you could also split it. And if it's too tart, you could add a scoop of sherbet or a packet of Splenda. Enjoy!