Love is in the Air!

Here is a post I started before Christmas, but never had the pictures!

Christmas came early this year with two engagements! My brother and brother-in-law are both getting married this coming summer to two wonderful girls. Merry Christmas to me!

John & Laura:

I still don't have a picture of Thomas & Kelly, but they are also precious! When I figure out how to work the new camera I will be able to add much more current pictures.

Last week I went to New York with Tyler to see friends and check out the old neighborhood.

We saw Jersey Boys, which we have been trying to see since 2006, and loved it!

Here are some happy thoughts to fight today's bitter cold:

1. LOST Returned! Hurrah. For any fans of this show, I highly recommend the commentary on www.ew.com to help unravel the mysteries.

2. I stumbled across some old tapes from jr. high/high school and then had the awesome realization that... I have a tape player in my car! Mariah Carey's Musicbox and I have recently become reacquainted. Amazing.

3. The Olympics! Ha. Is anyone excited about the Vancouver games? NBC is really forcing it on the Today Show right now. Maybe once they get started... I do usually like the figure skating.

4. All of this cold may lead to snow on Friday -- so that would be nice. If it's going to be this cold, I like to have something exciting happen weather-wise to justify it.

Happy early Valentine's Day!

Good Things

Here is a list of good things that have happened since the last post, May 8th -- oops!
(in no particular order)

1. The Return of the Web.
Our internet connection is back up at home which means more frequent posts to follow.

2. HANK.
In October we welcomed a precious German shorthaired pointer into our home! Today Hank is about 10 weeks old and a little more than 15 lbs. He is crazy and we love him. Even though he sleeps at my feet as I type, just an hour ago I thought he would never settle down.

3. Nan.
My grandmother moved to Birmingham in August. Having her around more often is the best. We are fortunate to have both of our grandmothers here now. Very happy about that!

4. Castle.
Woo! I love this show with Nathan Fillion (the dr. from the movie Waitress with Keri Russell). In the show he is a murder mystery writer who bases a character around a female who he has to hang around constantly to "research." It is highly entertaining to me. They drop a lot of one line quips and multiple literary, grammatical, and writing jokes. Silly.

5. Christmas music.
It is delightful to get in the car and hear "songs of the season." If you have XM or sirius radio you can listen to the Holly or Holiday Traditions channel... plus, Magic 96 on the regular radio. Perfect!

I am sleepy so this is the last thing for now:
6. Cooler weather brings fires to our den and hot chocolate after work! Coming home and fixing a warm mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream on the top makes a perfect segway from the workday into the nighttime.

There are many more good things that have happened and this exercise was perfect for this pre-Thanksgiving week. We have had a lot of not so great things from Auburn football to illness, but how encouraging it is to think that I could make this list go on and on of all the blessings, big & small, that we have had since May.

Good night!

Surprise!

I posted!

Ha!

True story: I cut off my internet at home... very sad day. So, as much as I didn't update this blog before, now I will probably be even worse! However, I do love this little web world for keeping up with everyone else and for a quick outlet to share pictures/info. with my out-of-town family! So I am keeping the blog, but don't harass me for not posting because I can't post at home now and I should not post while I am at work - yikes.

Since the last blog... I had a birthday (27!) - loads of fun surrounded by much celebration, by me.
Tyler went out of town on several fun trips and I worked on finishing up my last grad school class! I have many book recommendations if anyone is interested in reading "Young Adult" Literature. I loved my class, but really wanted to do well, so I had to work hard and that was not so much fun.

Spent one weekend writing 14 pages and taking a standardized test. YUCK.

Afterwards, I let Tyler proofread the paper while I took a breather outside. Suddenly, a flush from the bushes behind me released a throng of little birds flying for their lives and followed by the shadow of a huge hawk. Two poor birds crashed right into our den windows - BAM! BAM!
It was terrible!

THEN, the hawk came back to take his prey. Very sad, but at least nature ran it's course and I did not have to pick up the dead little birdies. Discovery channel in my own backyard.

That hawk was intense and I recommend that you take cover if you ever see one because he will hunt you down and find you with his beady supersonic sight eyeballs.



The week after that the O'Connors came back in town! We had a fun and busy weekend running around and catching up. They left, I took my final - got my paper back (yeah!) and finished class!

Here are some pop culture shout outs for any of you readers of this not-so-frequently updated blog:

1. Did you cry over Allison being kicked off of American Idol this week? Surprisingly, yes, I did. I don't know what it was - that final performance just got to me... Cr-ri-iiii -y Baaaaaaaaby.
That is me, I guess.

2. LOST fans... How is Sawyer going to get off of that sub?! Serious tension going on in there... Here are some guesses - not even theories: a) White time travel shriek occurs and pops the 3 of them 5 min. into the future where Jack and Sayiid await, b) Squabble in the sub - Kate busts Sawyer out of hand cuffs - Leaves Juliet to return to US circa 1977 (yikes), or c) Sub starts to leave, but gets called back because "LaFleur" is the only one who can fix something with the security system ... and so they are all there and that is why Alpert claims to have seen them all die. Probably none of these are right.

3. Twilight people: Have you seen the new journals they are coming out with? Seriously. I enjoyed the adventure into vampire world in these books, but I think it's overkill now. What girl needs to be doodling in her vampire journal? I don't know. Too much for me. Each one represents a different book of the series and boasts "famous" quotes from the particular installment. Cheese central.

4. I know I had some other thoughts, but I am not able to recall them at the present time.

5. Oh! I remembered one: I took a gamble on a Snuggie purchase as a thank you gift and it seems to be a hit! I recommend and I think Marg. and A would agree! Random, yes. But I do think that we will all look back at 2009 one day and call it the "Year of the Snuggie (invasion)"


Back to work! Until we meet again...

Since I just told Liles about my blog, I promised I would showcase him in a post -- I know he is thrilled. Liles, if you are reading this.... Hi! This pic is actually from last August on his 20th Birthday with friends and family. That Happy Birthday sign is actually a table runner my mother likes to use as a banner. I have a feeling I will be seeing it again soon... 15 days until I turn 27. Yikes!

March brings a smile to my heart. It is the greatest month -- goodbye, February!!! Dreary days are behind us. Even if it gets cold again the promise of spring is lurking close behind. In memory of the cold, I uploaded some of the customary Alabama snow day pics. I woke up at 8:30 and saw the snow, but my front yard had already been sled-upon by the neighborhood. I had not noticed that we had the biggest hill until then! So, no pretty snow yard pics...

But these will do! If I only had a picture of John Carter when he walked in our door that morning in full ski gear including goggles. Priceless.

We spent some time in the snow earlier in February with Marg & A who took us out to Deer Valley for a long weekend. Gray and Sarah joined us as well and we had an awesome time! It snowed hard most of the time we were there too, but you can see how beautiful the view was!

February equals craziness at work and I had a Fri/Sat. class every weekend in January -which was awesome - so I am just glad to be settling in to 2009 these days. Now I'm in a Young Adult Lit class and we read wonderful books -- books you read from 7th-12th grade or maybe earlier for some of you advanced readers - The Outsiders, The Whale Rider, Number the Stars- and more current releases, most of which are being/have been made into movies -- Inkheart, Artemis Fowl, Coraline... I love having a reading list to give me some direction with what to read -- this list could take me years to finish. I will probably need to take a breather from YAL for a while after this class is over though.

I picked up Alabama Moon, written by Alabama native, Watt Key, when I went to buy my books for class. Last year I heard Key speak at a conference for English teachers and had been meaning to read this. Listening to him describe the long path to Moon's publishing was enthralling and inspiring. If you are working on having your work published -- hang in there! I think your day will come.

This book would be a perfect fit for young boys who love the outdoors, but I think girls would like it too -- I did! It tells the story of Moon Blake and his life growing up in the forests of West Alabama. If you are familiar with West Alabama at all, you will immensely enjoy the characters and settings found in the novel. Also, I am happy to report that this book, like so many others listed above, will be coming to a theater near you allegedly in 2009. I don't believe most of the release dates!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1300155/

Football, hair dryers, and sea lions: A random post

Hello! I am not sure what I have been doing, so no lame excuses for no posts! Two pics from our fall are attached. We have been in Savannah visiting, doing our best to help pack, and, most importantly, watching Tate play football (much more fun than watching our choice college football team play at the moment!). The last game we went to was more like a mud bath for the players, but it was great to watch even in the rain!

A few weeks ago my hair dryer gave out on me mid-session. Unfortunately, I was running late. I drove quickly to my parents, grabbed my old dryer, finished the process and took her with me for good. For the next few days, something was different about my hair -- better different! For months I had been thinking my hair looked funny and what do you know, it did!

My stupid hair dryer was burning my head and my hair! I cannot believe that it took me until the thing just overheated and burned out to realize this issue.

So, ladies, check your hairdryers because if you are able to turn her loose and have your hair dry in under two minutes, you could be falling prey to the same hair dryer terror as I was. Crazy how they sneak up on you like that.

Also, in the news here, I am in love with Arbonne 5-step facial cleanser. I will never relinquish my Dove soap bar and Aveeno daily scrub, but this 5 step deal is amazing. The process takes a day or two to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, you are in and out clean as a whistle in no time. I have had it since last Christmas and refused to use it until I got desperate... Why did I not try this before?

And, I decided to read the Twilight books. I last set it down with about 70 pages to go in the first book, and am fairly engrossed in it. Everyone loves it so much and I want to go to the movie next week having finished the book -- so I dove in -- even though I have too much reading for school to be exerting leisure reading time. More thoughts on this read after I finish!

Speaking of school... I finally sat down to blog again since I am supposed to be finishing two papers before the weekend. Worst. Procrastinator. Ever. It is sad.

Anybody been watching Kath & Kim on NBC? Tyler thinks it is a spoof on the Gilmore Girls, which it is not. It is funny though. Love some Thursday night TV. The Office seems to be getting better each week. I thought they might crash when they lost Holly, but this week's trip to Canada and drunk dial to Angela made me cry. That Andy Bernard... remember when he was the big jerk in the other office? His character has been much more entertaining since he & Angela were engaged.

Alright... I really have to go write these papers. Bottom picture is of Tyler on Election Day 2K8. Someone please tell me is it ironic or just plain funny that he was hanging out with sea lions on 11/4 after the past 2 years of focusing on that one very day? At least we have a picture to remember it with. There is, however, no picture of me, at home, a slave to my TV and radio waiting to hear the state-by-state results. Silly me. Here he is:

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Our New Alarm & Updated Pictures

Every morning by 6:30 this bright red cardinal comes a'knocking at our den window! I hope you can see him in this picture. He is in the bottom right corner of the window pane. His tapping wakes me up everyday. It is too funny, but also kind of pitiful. He really wants to get into our den and will stay at the window all day. He will be around when we come back for lunch and when we get home in the evenings. I am not sure if he wants to build a nest in the rafters or if he wants food, but this weekend we put up a little bird feeder that Tyler and I picked out at Lowes. I have seen one bird eating out of it, but not him -- I hope he finds it! This afternoon he was back rattatattapping on my window! He smashes red berries up there and it looks gross. Sweet Tyler climbed up to clean the windows last weekend, but now we realize there is not much good to that since he just messes them up immediately afterwards. So now, here are the long awaited pictures of the house (with furniture!) for Carol, the most patient mother in law in the world. Tyler and I love working in the house, but he has tackled the yard like crazy! Pictures of the house and the yard are below - she is still a work in progress, but looking much better & definitely feeling like home -- Enjoy!

Cozy Den

Living room -- hung some sconces & the curtains to the right - behind the sofa is our work station for hanging pictures and such.

Guest room got a bedside table and some wall decor.

This officially became our bathroom the other day. Today I cleaned the shelves, so all of the toiletries are in the cabinets now - a miracle!

The backyard looks amazing. Tyler's work literally makes the yard double in size. We are going to move these boxwoods to the front and re-sod back here, eventually. Also, we are trying to nurse some baby crape myrtles to plant. Will keep you updated on their progress! I promise to not wait another month before I post again -- oops!

New and Improved!

Almost everything is moved in now, but yet to be unpacked!

Here are a few pictures to compare and contrast the new digs... Nothing new to the kitchen except a thorough deep cleaning by me and Kelly.

For those who may be wondering, the banquette is still in place and still red. I am trying to work that color in with the butter yellow, sky blue and light green.... we'll see how convincing I can make it.

I didn't have a very good "before" picture of the dining room (which is now brown), but you can probably imagine its baby blue walls, carpet, and draperies. Go figure.

We conquered the dining room table Sunday night. She was a bear, but we finally got her inside. Basically it is an octagonal table base with a 300 lb. slab of glass for the top. Tyler pushed it up through the yard. Then we slid it across the living room floor on a blanket.

Here are some before and after pictures. The first set is of the living room. We used this same
color in the den and front bedroom too.

Next is our room which is set up for real life now.
Still need to do something with that light fixture
though...

And here is the den. The ceilings look amazing, crisp, and smooth! The room lit up once we painted over the yellow and trimmed the windows and doors in a brighter white. We are really looking forward to this room!

Here is the team that made it all happen! A huge thanks to the O'Connor's for making the trek over to help us on the holiday weekend and to my family for helping us situate things here!