50 Completely Honest Things About Me - Part 11 of 50

Since my camera card reader took a dump, the Vacation to Central America posts are currently on hold until I can get to the store and get a new one. However, I was in a totally bloggy mood and figured, lets visit this old project!



Part 11 of 50: I'm Part Sailor

In the verbal sense! Unfortunately, I am a swear word junky. I look at swear words as the most versatile words you can use in a sentence, they can be used as nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, whatever. You can use swear words to show sadness, madness, pleasure, stress and excitement. If you use a swear word while yelling at someone- they know you are particularly upset. The same goes for any emotion you are trying to perceive, swear words just enhance.

My word of choice is unfortunately F*** (sorry, Grandma) and/or Shit. I know my grandma's word of choice is bullshit, though!

The favorite F-word only tends to flow openly when there is A.) a lot of alcohol involved or B.) a lot of stress involved. So if you don't like F-bombs bombing and you see me in one of the above mentioned situations- run like the wind!

Addition- My Trip to Central America-Part Tres.1

I worked all night on uploading ALL of the pictures that Missy and I took on our trip. Although I stated in my earlier post that I would not bore you with all of the pictures I took while on the history tour our second day in New Orleans, after looking at all of the pictures again there are a few more that I want to share with you as well as some pictures that relate to the previous posting.

Our tour guide- Leon

Washing the streets of New Orleans

This building is drab and run down but strangely it's very appealing to me.

I love all of the flowers & plants that adorn all of the balconies. I could easily retire tomorrow with library of books and one of these balconies and be set for life!

My Trip to Central America- Part Tres.1

Day 2 of New Orleans started out beautiful and sunny as expected. We were allowed to board the boat at any time between 10am and 5pm. We opted to spend as much time in New Orleans as we could and wanted to actually see the city as opposed to just Bourbon St and the bars. We had gathered a ton of information on city tours the day before from our hotel Concierge and decided on the walking History tour. The tour departed at 10am, a block from our hotel so we got up early and had breakfast in the restaurant. We were able to see the morning routine for the City of New Orleans workers- which includes washing the streets with a huge spray truck. The solution smells like a mixture of bleach and toothpaste (and you all know to me that "clean and disinfected" smells like heaven to me) and foams up on the streets and sidewalks. They clean the streets like this every morning. The city looks- and smells- like a completely different place than the night before!

We reached our tour group and met our tour guide- Leon. He has been retired for 12 years and is an actually certified tour guide from the State of Louisiana. He was AMAZING. His knowledge on not only the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans but history in general and his funny jokes throughout the 2.5 hour tour made it fun and interesting all at the same time. He really new his stuff and Missy and I both agreed that we were happy we chose that tour. Below are a few pictures from our tour.

This was our hotel- The Inn on Bourbon. Once the Opera House that burnt down in the early 1900's.

Street Performer & The Cabildo- Site of the Louisiana Purchase transfer in 1803

The Moonwalk (not Michael Jackson's) along the Mississippi River and the corn fence

Private residence courtyard- that made me wish it was mine and I was retired!

The Ursuline Convent- the oldest building in New Orleans and still functioning.

I could go on for pages and pages with pictures that I took during the tour, but won't bore you. I was in a constant state of euphoria on this tour since I have such an obsession with architecture. I have LOTS of pictures of random New Orleans houses and buildings.

One place that we did stop along our tour that was absolutely amazing was the Art Studio of Craig Tracy. His canvas is actually the human body and you must see his work to believe and appreciate. View his website here.
Here is a sneak peek at some of his work.

My favorite piece is not on his website but if and when I ever become wealthy- I will own a piece of his work!

Stay tuned for My Trip to Central America- Part Tres.2- Getting on the boat

Cinco de Mayo feliz!

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!

I will be enjoying some wonderful Mexican food
and a few of these babies tonight!

Little history tip for those who are interested. Cinco de Mayo is actually not the Mexican Independence Day like most people think and it is also not a Mexican Federal Holiday. Their Independence day is actually September 16th.

The reason Cinco de Mayo is celebrated is because on May 5, 1862 the Mexican battled the French at the Battle of Puebla and they won. The outnumbered, ill equipped Mexican army defeated the French army who was said to have not been defeated in a battle in 50 years.

I am so sorry :(

I have been terrible about keeping up with this blog lately. I haven't been able to even sit and check my emails let alone download pictures of my cruise and blog. Work has been crazy and I'm helping a friend with the purchase of a house, so once I'm home from work- I'm still working. I promise to try to post Day 2 of New Orleans before next Monday. And in before next Monday, I mean probably Sunday!
Thanks for your continued interst and I promise to be a better blogger... soon!

Might as well face it, I'm addicted to........

Yes, it's true, I am an addict. I have been for quite some time, but there's a new addiction to add to my list along with purses, shoes and of course smoking. I know I'm weak but I just can't help it. I. Have. To. Have. It. Every day. My afternoon at work just isn't the same without it.

My name is Nikki... and I'm addicted to... Diet Dr. Pepper.

I know most of you are probably shocked because I am not a soda drinker. And if I do drink a soda it certainly doesn't have caffeine in it. Well I am and it does! And yes, I do suffer from the dreaded heartburn after drinking just one of these little babies. But I have to have it!
I haven't hit rock bottom with my addiction yet- I refuse to buy it for the house. That's all I would need. I'd be all hopped up on caffeine, groaning in heartburn pain, organizing and re-organizing everything, eyes bugging out of my head.

I won't let it break me. I will not bring this stuff into my home. I will not be out in some dark alley grocery store in the middle of the night looking for my next fix. I can handle this- I will get through. Pray for me...

My trip to Central America: Part Dos

We left the Madison airport at 7 am on Saturday March 28th and landed in St. Louis at 8:10am. After a 3 hour layover, some food and way too many bloody mary's and Brutus beers we almost missed our connecting flight to New Orleans- but made it on just in time and a little tipsy!


We arrived in New Orleans to 65 degree weather at 1pm and grabbed a cab to our hotel- The Inn on Bourbon St. We quickly freshened up, changed our clothes and hit the streets grabbing a much popular Hurricane drink to go. I'm sure most of you know that drinking on the streets is permitted in New Orleans as long as you do not have glass. We did a lot of exploring... and shopping... and drinking! We watched a small parade on horses as well as a wedding parade dancing through the streets.

We hit Jackson Square which is a popular place for street vendors, psychic readers and street performers.

This was a watercolor painting that I feel in love with in Jackson Square. It's a picture of the corner of Bourbon St and Toulouse St with our hotel in the background. I would have loved to purchase it but being our first day of vacation I didn't want to shell out the $90 dollars!



We walked around the park in Jackson square and went to the St. Louis Cathedral- one of the oldest cathedrals still in service. The church was beginning to fill up for 5 o'clock mass.


I was absolutely amazed at how busy the town was since Mardi Gras was only 2 weeks prior to us being there. I can't even imagine what the town is like during Mardi Gras and actually don't think I'd like to be there for it!




We started to head back to our hotel around 5pm as we had made reservations at the popular and very fancy Comannders Palace Restaurant for an 8pm dinner. On the way we got sucked into a little jazz bar where the trumpet player fell in love with Missy!



We changed into our dinner dresses and grabbed a cab to the restaurant. Our dinner was amazing and the restaurant was really neat with some of the best service I've ever had. After dinner we hit a liquor store to buy vodka to put in our water bottles to smuggle onto the cruise boat, had a few more drinks (a few too many) and actually hit the hay before midnight!


I purchased a very appropriate t-shirt while we were shopping and the below picture pretty much sums it up. The t-shirt says " I got Bourbon faced on Shit Street"!

Stay tuned for Part Tres- Day 2 of New Orleans and getting on the boat!