I Have Real-life Friends

Stepping Out Saturday

14 May posted by heirtoblair

So hi, these are my legs in my incredibly short white lace dress that everyone swears isn’t that short…until I sit down. Which means it’s not really appropriate for anything excpet date night but I thought I could swing it for a late afternoon baby shower for a good friend of mine.

& then Instagram was all “WHERE DID YOU GET THAT DRESS?” so I thought I’d let you in on a dirty little secret:

dress: JC Penney’s, $45 (& that was full price!)
necklace: Banana Republic outlet
shoes: mint green pumps, J. Crew

These heels might be some of my favorites & they were a steal for $20 at a J. Crew warehouse sale back in 2010 & it was pretty Shining-worthy of me to predict how trendy mint would become. The unfortunate part is that they are a) hella uncomfortable for long periods of time & b) likely to get stuck in the slats of a wood deck during a baby shower while I’m holding a mimosa.

Total wear-with-caution label needed.

HeirtoBlair500x150 v41 Stepping Out Saturday

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Filed Under: BA's a nerd, FAIL, I have real-life friends, Life in General, Random

Let’s talk about Diana.

2 May posted by heirtoblair

Dear Diana,

Don’t be mad, but I honestly don’t remember how we met. I don’t remember whether it was a comment on a blog or Twitter or a message board, but I do know it was friendship-at-first-site. (Get it? Site!)

I have sat down to your words & life for the past two years, feeling like we might as well be sharing a cup of coffee together over the kitchen table. That’s what your writing does & why you are so talented - you take the joyful & the ugly in life & turn it into something we all feel & relate to as a friend. Remember that first morning of Blissdom where we sat cross-legged on the beds & talked so long that we almost missed breakfast & the opening speaker? It was like reading your blog, but in real life with real words. Funny. Honest. Self-depracating in the most humble way.

What’s happening isn’t something you dreamed or asked for, but you are handling it with such a strong grace that I am honored to be your friend.

You are reminding mommas of our love & devotion to our babies.

You are reminding us of our job as protectors, as champions, & the momma bear we all have within.

You are facing the war on women head-on, whether you realize it or not, by challenging our ideas on the right to choose, the right to life, the right to receive compassionate care.

mediana Lets talk about Diana.

& you’re doing it the most unassuming, graceful way…like always.

Thanks for being you, friend.

follow diana’s journey here

Filed Under: I have real-life friends, Things I didn't understand until I birthed a child

Starbucks Tribute

15 Mar posted by heirtoblair

It was a hard morning, saying goodbye to our pup of sixteen years with a final scratch of the ears, knowing she was peaceful.

The Momma & I stood together outside the vet’s office, tears flowing freely in our sadness, & we wondered how to go on with our day & walk away from her. How we could pretend everything was normal, knowing that final goodbyes had just been said as an act of human selflessness, to let Missy go out of love?

It seemed natural to make a right out of the vet office towards our neighborhood Starbucks, where we ducked out of the drizzling rain & ordered our favorite blend.

Sitting at a small cafe table near the back, The Momma & I clicked our coffee cups to Missy & laughed about our sweetest memories of that little dog. Like the time we had to hose her out from under the deck with water or when she carried her pups in on Christmas morning by the scruff of their necks or how the vet thanked us that morning for giving her such a wonderful life.

The tears fell over our coffee cups, but they were tears of happiness, knowing we did the best we could over sixteen years.

So rather than a card with a scribbled note or a batch of brownies for the mourning, we shared our hearts over steaming cups & gave thanks for the little life that made such a big difference.

To our Missy & our family & the love we shared for sixteen years.

So that you may honor someone you love & pay tribute to joy in your life, I’m giving away one $100 gift card to Starbucks. That purchases roughly 25 grande lattes, which should make for a great girl’s morning out or keep you properly caffeinated for several months unless you have a serious addiction.

To be entered for a chance to win, simply tell me this: How do you pay tribute to those you love & the memories you share?

Sweepstakes Rules:
No duplicate comments.You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This sweepstakes is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from March 15th to April 1st 2012.

Be sure to visit the Promotions & Prizes page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ stories and find more chances to win!

You loved Tribute Blend so much, Starbucks brought it back. But, only for a limited time. Tribute Blend is a spicy, full-bodied blend with dark cherry notes, featuring four of our highest quality beans aged Sumatra, sun-dried Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea and Colombia beans.

Raise a cup once more to the limited-time return of Starbucks Tribute Blend. It’s still just for you, and still because of you. Available for a limited time in whole bean and Starbucks VIA.

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Filed Under: Give Aways!, I have real-life friends, I share DNA with these folks, Life in General, Stuff I Love

Tall Girl Problems

13 Mar posted by heirtoblair

I could write an entire blog called “Tall Girl Problems.” I bet there’s already a blog out there about it, but I’m too lazy to check.

That goes under the blog “Lazy Girl Problems.”

bathroom3 Tall Girl Problems

That’s Morgan in one of the thousands of bathrooms at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. She’s not paying attention to me because a) she’s known me for 3 years & expects weird behavior or b) she’s also a blogger & understands weird behavior.

Huge bathroom, right? Plenty o’ stalls but I still had beef with them. See, Morgan is a short gal by tall girl standards & her head hits the top of the stall door. This was my view:

Nope, I’m not standing on my toes.

It created an awkward moment or five after I used the facilities & had to scoot my shapewear back up over my rear. & by “scoot,” I mean wiggled back & forth in a chicken dance until I was out of breath & my underwear was shoved up my ass, but my shapewear was on & up under my boobs so I just called it a success. A panting, sweaty success.

That everyone got to witness as the top of my head bobbed around over the door & I looked like a drunk fish on the line.

Trout, anyone?

34 Comments
Filed Under: All about BA, BA is effing crazy, BA's a nerd, blog conferences, FAIL, Fatass, I have real-life friends, Life in General, Random, Who's body is this?

Book or movie is like asking whether you want Mayo or Miracle Whip.

11 Dec posted by heirtoblair

One makes a nice, moist sandwich & the other is goblin baby batter, according to my friend Speed.

I agree with her.

I am absolutely a fan of books being made into movies, which may sound traitorous coming from a book nerd like myself. But I’ve always had this wild imagination & love seeing the scenes I play over in my head come to life, breathing words into the screen.

Sometimes? It is done beautifully. Like Gone With the Wind & Vivienne Leigh, who epitomizes Scarlet O’Hara down to her pinky toes. Or a few of the Harry Potter movies, where you almost stand up & yell “Expelliamus!” with him. But then, there’s the Twilight movies.

Oh, dear God, the Twilight movies. I refuse to be ashamed for my love of Edward Cullen & how I want to have R. Patz’s vampire babies, or that time I might have asked Doug to pretend to be a vampire while we were having maritals. But they are done just…horribly. Kristen Stewart kinda sucks at being awkward, which is weird because she is so innately awkward. It’s like this awkward girl trying to awkwardly pretend to be awkward & it just fails all over the place. & then there are the telepathic wherewolves, which are already a stretch when you’re devouring the books like any normal twelve-year-old girl, but to see them on screen?

Let’s just say I burst out laughing. All out, gut-busting hooted until Laura & I were burrying our faces in our handbags.

So let’s just hope that The Hunger Games appeases my wild imagination.