Joey | Joey Hodges Writes

How does that even happen?

by Joey | Feb 13, 2014 | Throwback

In honor of our snow day-

I thought I’d share with you a story from our LAST snow day–

which was about 3 weeks ago.

In good old husband fashion–he was getting stir crazy. He just can’t handle laying around the house. At all. He always has to be doing something. So despite the inches of snow piling up outside the house–he wanted to venture out to the basketball game.

I spend too much time cooped up in this house. So I was down. But I don’t do cold. At all.

So on went the fleece-lined leggings. On went a pair of jeans. On went layer upon layer of shirts and sweaters. I was all prepared. Except I had to pee. Why is it that once I get all layered up–I always have to pee–even happened on my wedding day.

So I went to the bathroom. I pull down ALL of my layers and just go…huh.

I was wearing two pairs of underwear.

HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN?

But do you even have any idea how hard it is to remove skinny jeans especially with a pair of leggings underneath? No? Well it’s pretty freaking hard. It’s a workout. I’m not kidding you. I break a sweat.

So I just left both pairs on.

You would have, too. Right?

I will say that last night we ventured out to another basketball game despite the inches of ICE piling up outside. And I managed to only put on one pair of underwear. Apparently this is called growth. Or something like that.

From last night.

Yeah. The picture is blurry.

My husband was practically running and I was trying my best not to fall on my ass.

Because who are we kidding? If anyone was going down

it would totally be me.

The One With The Big Mistake

by Joey | Feb 12, 2014 | Throwback

I made a mistake on Monday night.

A big mistake.

My evenings usually consist of catching up with Myra. She’s just waking up for the day–and I’m winding down. We have a brief window to exchange as much information as possible. Monday was no exception.

I was waiting on the husband to get home so I could give him some dinner then settle in to watch the Bachelor. Yes, I’m one of those girls. I make no apologies.

Around 8:40 he still wasn’t home, so I figured whatever–I’ll start The Bachelor then just pause it when he gets home. I turn the TV on, and my heart stops. Yes, I’m that dramatic. He’d set some car show to record which knocked the bachelor out of the queue. I. Was. Fuming.

So I grabbed my phone and started venting to Myra.

I ended up venting….to my husband.

Knowing J, he would probably find this humorous, but either way–I felt so bad. Serves me right for talking crap, right?

Soon after I sent the messages, I heard his truck pull into the driveway. So I slipped on a pair of his loafers and met him outside.

“You haven’t checked your phone yet, have you?” Guilt is painted ALL over my face, and I’m giggling uncontrollably. He climbs from the truck and his face breaks into a smile.

“I felt about 30 messages come through while I was driving.”

“But you haven’t seen them yet? Give me your phone. I need your phone.”

He holds it out of my reach, smiling. “Not a chance.” I’m giggling and panicking. “Please, I need your phone! I was mad. I was mad at you because you bumped the bachelor out of the DVR queue. And I was venting about it to Myra–except I accidentally sent the messages to you. So if you could just give me your phone I could delete the messages. That way you’ll never see them and we could pretend this never happened.”

He walks into the dinning room to dodge me and dramatically reads the messages outloud. Luckily, he found the situation hilarious–but I was dying! DYING! Serves me right, I know.

Have you ever accidentally sent messages to the VERY WRONG person? Oh, man. I am the WORST texter ever!

I sucked up my anger (and guilt) and watched the remaining episode of The Bachelor with a glass of wine and a massive brownie. Someone was pouting because I was in a recliner and she couldn’t sit with me.

Oh, never mind. She does what she wants.

And that, friends, was Monday.

Disconnecting.

by Joey | Feb 11, 2014 | Throwback

Remember when I admitted in the things that make me crazy how much I suck at sleeping?

Well, I do.

And I also really suck at forcing myself to relax.

I’m a high strung person. I admit it. It also doesn’t help that I can always find something that needs to get done around the house. Sometimes I find myself doing chores right up until the moment I get in bed. At which point, I stare up at the ceiling and think… omg I’m never going to fall asleep.

So I’ll pull out my phone or my ipad and see what all you night owls are up to. And then I realize I’ve refreshed twitter ten times and there’s nothing new because you all have gone to sleep. It’s become a sickness.

I also used to be that girl who habitually took a bath every single night. I’d fill the tub, grab my kindle and iphone, and settle in. I’d have these grand plans to read read read–and the next thing I know, the waters cold and all I’ve done is text my friends. What’s so relaxing about that?

I don’t know when I decided to try the whole shower at night thing, but I’m here to tell you that it’s changed my life.

Yes. Simply taking a shower at night

has changed my life.

It’s a moment of zen and quiet. There’s no way to text, tweet, or talk in the shower. I’m washing the day away. I wait until everything I need to do is done, and then I hop in the shower. And it’s amazing.

It signifies the end of my day.

Which is important for me since I don’t leave an office.

After my shower, I slather on the coconut oil and slip into my huge fluffy robe. And I lounge. I read. I catch up on a show or two. I talk to my husband. Sometimes I’ll browse the internets or blog. But a couple nights a week, I POWER DOWN my phone and ipad.

Did you even know those things turn off?

I kid, I kid, but only because I don’t think I’d ever turned my phone off.

Turning off my phone, or the idea of it, used to give me so much anxiety. What if something happens? What if I miss something? Can you blame me? We live in a digital world where all our friends live behind a screen. Disconnecting is scary.

But just a couple nights a week, I sign off of the digital world. I turn everything off. I read a book. I talk to my husband. I play with the dog.

It’s so relieving.

It’s strange to me how much taking a shower at night helps me relax. But it was equally strange for me to realize how much turning off my technology would feel like a relief. I’d feel that pang to want to check twitter so see if someone texted me, and then I’d remember my my device is off. And suddenly it would feel like a huge pain in the butt to turn it back on just to check.

I don’t commit to that nightly. Are you kidding? Half the fun of watching The Bachelor is reading Jennifer Weiner’s snarky tweets. But just a couple nights a week, it’s really nice to take a night off from technology.

linked: totallypostedtuesday

Old School & A Frozen Dog.

by Joey | Feb 10, 2014 | Throwback

Thought I’d share another untraditional Valentine’s Day mani with you all today–except these poor hearts look a lot more like Mickey Mouses than hearts–but hey, I tried. And you get the idea, right?

POLISHES USED

Revlon: Minted

Finger Paints: Paper Mache’

Nina UltraPro: Star Bright

TOOLS USED

dotting tool

Our weekend around here was pretty quiet. I spent a lot of time reading and finally doing all of the laundry. We were supposed to head down to SC to visit my (I guess our) best friend, but ~~lovely~~ football duty called again.

Poor Bailey has a cold. She’s been coughing and sneezing like crazy the last couple days. And I hate to admit this, but it’s my fault. I have a really bad habit of letting her out and kind of…forgetting. Luckily, J is usually in the same room and sees her pitiful little face by the screen door. But this time I forgot and went to take a shower while J watched TV in the other room. Post shower, and all the after shower stuff, I wandered back into the living room and saw my poor frozen dog in the door. I’m the worst mother in the world.

My Netflix show of choice these days is old school Grey’s Anatomy. We’re talking the days of Callie O’Malley and Meredith Grey drowning and almost dying. These episodes put me RIGHT back in college (when I binge watched for the first time)–and makes me miss it so much. This show is full of those gem kind of quotes that we all used to put as our cryptic away messages on AIM. But this one seemed especially fitting right now. Especially considering how many scars I’m sporting on my abdomen.

People have scars in all sorts of unexpected places like secret road maps of their personal histories, diagrams of all their old wounds. Most of our old wounds heal leaving nothing behind but a scar. But some of them don’t. Some wounds we carry with us everywhere and though the cut’s long gone, the pain still lingers.

Oh, and this weekend I tried Cherry Sours for the first time. Add them to the list of weird food things Joey hadn’t ever tried (or heard of in this case). Verdict: super yummy.