50 cents? Oh fine...take it all.

Name that movie.




My sister and mom will chime in any minute to tell you FIRST WIVES CLUB. We watched it 300,000 times, and that's all I can think of when I think of the robber who broke in my car yesterday and stole my purse.



He was probably thinking, this is the greatest day of my life...


and then he opened my wallet up to find somewhere between 40 and 75 cents (on a good day).


I say "he" because you know no girl is going to steal your purse knowing your favorite lip gloss, camera with your family pictures and all forms of identification are about to vanish. Us women don't do things like that to each other, right?!




Sheesh...


MEN.




Anywho...my point of this story is not to complain.




I did enough of that when we came home from the gym and realized that my purse was in fact stolen. Blake walked into the house, searched everywhere and came out to assure me that it had in fact been stolen. I reacted with grace and dignity...



I threw that water bottle so hard across the parking lot and yelled, "DAMNIT!!!!!!"


I like to pride myself on my ability to hold my composure when I'm pissed :)


I will say the worst part about this whole experience was that they took my most priceless possesion. You may wonder what that might be? Well, it's this...



I had $9 FREAKING DOLLARS IN REWARDS POINTS!!!!

Do you know how hard that is to do?! Well, I'll tell you...YOU HAVE TO EAT $90 WORTH OF YOGURT!!! All that work just down the tube. And you know the worst part?!

I forgot to add that to my claim on my homeowner's insurance today!!!!!

Anywho...my point of this story has completely gotten side-tracked.

(Apparently I'm seeing that I have anger issues by the "AAKHDIHEH" and the "!!!!!!!!!!!!!")

Where's my nutra calm vitamin when I need one?!

That's another post for another day...(my holistic doctor told me my nerves are shot these days...I could have saved the $90 and diagnosed myself with that)

Anywho...

My point is that all of this may have been the biggest blessing in disguise...

I don't think I've ever wished so badly that I could have shared a day with someone so bad as I did today.

It was glorious.

Magnificent.

Quite possible the best day I've had in years...and let me tell you why...

I LAUGHED MY A** OFF (not quite sure why I feel the need to *** on certain words and not others, but just go with it...)

My first experience was at the DMV.

Are you still reading? Probably not. but I have to remember this day so I'll keep writing...

I spotted the cutest little baby I've ever seen in my life...and then I looked up to see it's 19 year old mother (maybe I should clarify and say that none of this is actually funny...more just mind-boggling-well, this part anyway).

The baby was 10 months old, didn't have any of it's little teeth yet and was WALKING (smart baby!) barefoot through the DMV. I started talking to her and telling her how freaking adorable her baby was...I even asked if I could have him!


You can't take me out in public. I apologize.


Anywho...when he started crying she handed him a bottle filled with pink lemonade. A 10 MONTH OLD BABY PINK LEMONADE! She said, "He won't drink any a dat infamil or nothin'...he be eatin like a real man even though he ain't got no teeth."

Fair enough...

and then she pulled out a family size bag of salt and vinegar chips and handed the baby (WITHOUT TEETH) a handful of rippled chips.

Instantly I regretted all those times I passed up learning CPR.

Much to my surprise...after he made a sour face, he ate them!

Who says I know anything?!


Then came the social security office. Luckily I had the joy of sitting by the 70 year old versions of Lucy and Ethel. The first thing out of their mouths to the security guard keeping watch over all 300 of us was, "Sir...SIR!! Turn this channel to dem' soap opera's...this Andy Griffith shit be whack."

"Ma'am we've been informed that we're not allowed to do that...they say it's not appropriate for the chitlins"

The other one yelled out, "Well, I can't read a damn thing back here on dem' subtitles"

I loved them already.

They talked to me about how much they hated Judge Judy...I mean they HATE HER. They critiqued each woman's hairstyle that walked through the doors, they made stink faces and this man sitting in front of us with a bandage on his arm saying behind is back, "man, das jus nasty. You don't even do that in public."

And then by far my favorite part of the whole day was when a 16 year old boy came and sat down next to us telling us about his cruise he just went on with his family. The one farthest from me sat straight up and got all but 9 inches from that child's face asking where he had been.

"Well, Belize, Honduras, the Grand Cayman Islands..."

"THAT GRAND CADEMAN'S ISLAND!!!!....Damn, you know I'd been wantin' to go ever since dat movie The Firm came out with dat Tom Cruise and they had that swim-up bar...Lord, I could have some GOOD times at dat swim up bar now!!'

"Ohhhh yeah...some GOOD times!" said her friend

"You know how much dat was?! I wus driving down Lauren's Road da otha' day and I saw they had a special for $499 to the Grand Cademan's Islands..."

"Well, no ma'am my dad took us on that trip"

"oh yeah of course he did...damn, I need a daddy."

NUMBER E7888 please come to Hall A room 15

And just like that my time was up with my new favorite friends.

But not before I stood up and got a, "Damn, that dress you be wearin's pretty."


Well, thank you, Lucy.


You made my damn day a damn good day.

Brent and Nikki's Engagement Weekend!

Oh man...did I wait a loooong time for this weekend to come!! Brent made the mistake of telling me A WHOLE MONTH before it was going to happen, and I seriously thought I was going to lose it and burst the big secret out every single day of the month of June!

The entire month I "tested" Nikki to see if she had any idea what was up ahead.

For instance...

The day Brent told me he was having her ring made we had dinner with the two of them that night. While the boys were outside grilling I non-chalontly asked her if they had talked about marriage recently or had any sort of plans. Her exact words were, "Oh heavens no...we're not getting married for the next 5 years!"

I laughed so hard inside thinking oh man are you about to be surprised!!

So here is how it all happened...

We had about a million different lies going on. It was 4th of July weekend, and we were all originally supposed to head up to the lake, but then at the last minute we all pretended we were either tied up with work, waiting on someone or going to the grocery store and had to cook, and that we would either come late Friday night or early Saturday morning.

Lie #1,289...we were all meeting up at the Keowee Local Market and would all drive up together.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of everyone, but here was Blake, Derek, Kayla and Nikki's mom...



The entire way up Sharon and I were freaking out! Nikki called the two of us about 10 times seeing where we were, telling me she felt so bad I had to work so late (haha! SO sweet!!) and asking when we would be there.

My favorite part, and the time I almost lost it was when I said, "Nikki hold on...TEDDY GET BACK HERE!!!"...I acted like I was taking Teddy out to go to the bathroom at our house when really I was about 2 mins away from seeing her. I literally had to pull the phone away so she wouldn't hear me laugh.

Sharon finally decided she couldn't lie one more time and started refusing to answer her phone calls. Here was one of those times...



We finally got word from Brent (who was out on the lake with Nikki) that we could go in the house (IN THE DARK!) and set up everything.

All of us ran around so excited and tried to set up everything quickly. We planned to have a little party when they got back in...



FINALLY we were all ready to take our positions. This is such a horrible picture (seeing as I had just gotten a spray tan and I look like a CARROT), but it makes me laugh everytime because we were hiding in the bushes, and we were all yelling at each other to be quiet. None of us could contain our excitement!!



Finally we got the signal to turn on the spotlight and all you could hear was...

"SHUT. YOUR. MOUTH!!!!"

We took that as a yes! :)

and then all you could hear was, "GET ME TO LAND!!"

And here came the beautiful blushing bride-to be...


and the moment that made me cry...seeing her and her mom hug as soon as she got off the boat! So sweet and so happy!!!



and I think it is obvious how happy and relieved Brent was that she said "YES!" :)



and then we all celebrated and had the best night together!



I was dying to see how it looked from the water so we all took a little boat ride to see what Nikki saw-Brent did an AMAZING job with the sign!



We are so happy to report that SON will finally have a real MUDDER!



I'm pretty sure Nikki didn't sleep a wink that night, but we had so much fun the next day talking about everything and apologizing for every little lie I had told for a month straight...there were a lot to tell!

It was a VERY happy morning!



I love how close Brent and Blake are, and I can't tell you how THRILLED I am that Brent is giving me such a perfect, precious and amazing sister!! I could not have hand-picked a more perfect person for him or for me! :) I cannot wait for all the fun times to come, and to share them with two of the most special people!!



It was one of the most fun and memorable weekends we've ever had, and I cannot WAIT until September 1st, 2012!!!!!

No really, I can't wait.

Nikki, are you sure you don't want to move that date up?!!?!

LOVE YOU BOTH!!!

I'm Back.

WOW!! It's been almost 3 months since my last blog...is anyone even out there?!

It feels so good to be back after my long hiatus!!

I've missed you all so very much, but I've been creeping on YOUR blogs during this time...don't worry! :)

So where have I been?!



Well...we MOVED!



I will say that it was quite sad to leave our very first house we shared together.

I was sweeping all the dog hair before we left and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I burst into tears thinking about all the fun times we had together, all the memories we made, all the times I threw something at Blake when he made me mad...

I kid. I kid!

Anywho, we did it!

But I swear that blind in the background was broken before we moved in...



And we did it (thankfully!) with the help of our sweet brother, Brent!!



So while we're back-tracking let me take you back to the beginning of summer...

I got an awesome new job that I LOVE...



We went to the lake multiple times.



We took family hike days...



We hung out with our favorite people...



We visited waterfalls...



and we were dared to go down some of those waterfalls...



and we actually MADE IT down the smaller ones...



and we got a few bruises from a certain dad landing on a certain daughter...

AHEM.

It's ok, Dad...I forgive you.

Moving on...

We shopped and found cute little dessert plates!



we dreamed of sprinkles and ice cream because of said dessert plates...



And FINALLY we moved into a little apartment until we find a little home to move into :)



Don't you like how I left only one lamp on...



the "dining room table"...



The Kitchen...



and last, but not least...our bedroom!



You know I'll be back because I have yet to highlight the most exciting thing that's happened all summer...Nikki and Brent's engagement weekend!! :)

I bit the bullet...blame it on the rain

After years of wanting these, I finally bit the bullet and got them thanks to the "friends and family" coupon from Shopbop...



When I woke up this morning it was pouring rain, and like every time it rains, I started to wonder what in the world I was going to wear!

Well...I have a new solution :)



(I bought mine in this color-dark olive)

And now I feel sick.

Not because I spent too much money on them, but because I just inhaled way too many of these...



Happy Wednesday!

Trying to catch my breath...and on second thought...

Whewwwww...

That's all I can say. This has been the craziest two weeks I've had in who knows how long. We've made decisions, and then un-made those decisions, dreamed big, then dreamed smaller, and in the midst of a million things going on I'm trying to hang on for dear life :)

That's life, right?

I feel like I've gotten a crash course in how to "go with the flow and become a real adult" lately...all good things to learn, that's for sure!

So to stop rambling and tell you what I'm talking about here we go...

I started my new job.
Blake has been traveling back and forth working so hard-I'm so proud of him!
We put a contract on a house
Then we had second thoughts...
Then we said yes, let's get it!
Then we said wait, we're not ready...

And then we decided because we're young and want to enjoy these "young" years and have as much fun as we can before we REALLY settle down...we decided we weren't quite ready to be tied down to a house...and for that matter...a bigger house payment :)

So...I'm happy to say that I am so very thankful that we actually did have second thoughts, and were forced to take a good hard look at what we really wanted.

We're leaning towards just renting an apartment for the next year so we can both let our hearts settle down to a normal beat, and re-evaluate what we want at that point :)

So sorry to leave you hanging for so long, and even more sorry for this boring post! Don't worry...I have a bit more exciting one swimming around in my head...

Stay tuned :)

XOXO!!

Our fun news!

Apparently I should have clarified yesterday before my phone/email/facebook blew up asking me, "ARE YOU PREGNANT?!?!!"

That would be a...

NO.

I don't think that will be happening for a few years so any "fun news" I have will most likely be regarding paint colors, fixtures, carpets, ect. :)

And that would be because yesterday we signed a contract to buy this little thing...

I am SO excited about it! Blake and I have completely different tastes in houses...I wanted the newer house, smaller yard, close knit neighborhood...he wanted the old soul house with the big yard, and I think we came to a perfect compromise.

I do have to give the credit to Brittney's mom, Tracy for finding this for us though...she was amazing!

Once we started looking into buying/building/leasing we just couldn't come to a decision about it, but the more I looked at "Blake's kind of houses" I completely agreed with him...I love the older houses!

So here is one of my favorite things about the house...where we will hopefully be having lots of parties!

And thankfully, the dogs will have lots of room to move!

As soon as we walked in I felt like I was home...

The kitchen!

The Master bedroom...

And my first order of business as long as everything goes smoothly...

DE-TOILE!!

I can't wait to trasform the space because in person it has so many great characteristics!



So...there you have it! As long as the whole process goes as planned we should be closing on June 3rd. I'll keep you updated!

Happy Wednesday!

Off to work for me...

Easter!

Hello all!

Once again I've missed you these last few days, but I am so loving my new job in Greenville and just being here in general! I have some very exciting news, but you'll have to wait for my next blog to find out what I'm talking about ;)

Sunday we had a wonderful Easter, and because my Mother-in-law has an amazing camera, we took advantage...

I realize Blake looks miserable in this picture, but don't let him fool you...he was happy!



I love holidays because Blake's two cousins, Jennifer and Natalie both have sets of twins so there were precious little angels everywhere!



And whenever I see Blake with little babies it melts my heart...



of course the boys were drawn to this little beauty...



and my favorite picture of the whole day!



And my other favorite...



I'll be back soon with my fun news!! And hopefully some more updates :)

I'm Coming Home...

I went into hiding.

Forgive me?!

Thank you "Anonymous" for asking "uh are you alive?" in my last post...

I'm happy to report that I am in fact alive, and even more happy to report that...

WE'RE MOVING TO THIS PLACE (left hand side...)



(hence the long hiatus of posts considering my head was completely overtaken with life)

That would be GREENVILLE!!!!!!

You have no idea how happy I am!

I've recently had dreams of going to the farmers market, going to my favorite restaurants, turning the radio to stations I actually know, going to my "home" church, hanging out with my best friends, taking in the view of the mountains...breathing a big sigh of relief again that I am in fact...

Coming Home.

Is that P Diddy song playing in your ear yet?

Mine too.

So you may be asking why we're moving?

I GOT A J-O-B.

And I am so stinking excited about starting it! I'll be working at an advertising agency, and I feel like I instantly connected with the people I'll be working for...they were amazing!

The next few weeks my posts may be a bit scarce, but I'll do my absolute best to keep you updated...

Right now we're on the house hunt so I'll let you know if we have any luck...

I've missed you all!!