Mooj

Not done yet

2011-09-26T21:54:00.001-05:00

The shelf above the washer and dryer fell and now the today the water heater went out.

But all is okay because we have a precious bundle of joy in our arms:D

All At Once

2011-09-21T20:48:00.002-05:00

Why does everything happen at one time?

Currently, I trying to wrap up work before going out on maternity leave starting Friday. Oh yes, and he is still breech. We are having trouble with the heaters in the apartment. A gas leak was just discovered yesterday in the yard. And now our kitchen sink is clogged.

I hope this means that we have a big break coming our way. The first few weeks of parenting are easy, right?

Moldova

2011-07-27T21:44:00.006-05:00

I have been home for several days now and have been avoiding sitting down to write this post. It is a daunting task to try to put into words what I experienced while keeping it to a decent length. Here goes nothing.

Moldova was amazing! I had doubts about going 6 1/2 months pregnant, but I listened to my heart and am so blessed to have a husband that supported me in listening to my heart. I am so glad that I went.

First off, I was a part of an amazing team. One of the best mission teams I have ever been a part of. Everyone who went was an wonderful person who taught and challenged me throughout the week. In addition, the team was the perfect size for everyone to be together. We all fit at the table and in the van. We could all play games together. Etc, etc.

The children were of course another HUGE piece to the puzzle. There were just under 30 children at camp this year which meant that I got to know them. Not just their names, but their personalities. In years past, there were a handful of children that I connected with, but this year I got to make a connection with almost all of the children. They are such amazing people. They are so strong and beautiful. We taught them about Ruth, sang with them, painted their nails, played games, did crafts, etc. I hope that they felt as much love from me as I felt from them.

And the best part of the entire trip was getting to the child I sponsor. I know her as Alina, but she now goes by Ana. I was taken to her foster home by a translator. I got to see her siblings which I knew from previous trips. I got to catch up with them which I do not usually get to do through my letter writing. I also got to meet Ana's foster parents. They are such an answer to prayers. I had thanked God many times for providing parents that would take 4 orphans into their home, but meeting them makes me even more thankful. I really believe that these children are a part of family that loves them and wants the best for them. Amazing!!!

Overall, an amazing trip! Sure, my ankles swelled some. I had to go to the bathroom frequently in a hole in the ground. Sleep was not great. But, 100% worth it!

Pregnant and Stranded

2011-07-12T11:07:00.003-05:00

The past couple of months have been so hectic. I have been spending all my free time trying to prepare for this little one coming. I am either reading books or doing something in the nursery. I have so much that I could tell you about, but right now I want to tell you a story that has to be written down.

On June 29th, I headed up to Peoria, IL to stay with the in laws and meet up with the band. I brought Mia along. Mia spent at least 6 hours in my lap on the drive, but we made it safe and sound. I got to hear the boys play twice. Zach's family through me a baby shower on Saturday while the boys headed to Michigan. My visit was great!

Zach and I decided that on Sunday July 3rd, I would drive home via Indianapolis in order to meet up with the band and Zach would be able to drive me the rest of the way home. This sounded great. We coordinated what time we needed to leave in order to time things well. I hit the road and everything was looking good.

About 2 hours outside of Peoria, my radio turned off. Hmmm...that is odd. I tried to turn it back on, but it flashed low battery. I thought that did not sound good, so I called Zach to see if he could look up a good exit for me to stop at. While on the phone with him, all the dashboard went out. This meant I had no idea how fast I was going or how much gas I had left. The car was still driving fine and so I kept going, hoping to make it to the next exit. Not a minute later, the car stopped accelerating and I had to pull over on the side of the road.

I called AAA which after telling them all the information, told me they were having difficulty finding a tow truck and that there were no shops open (Sunday and 4th of July weekend). On top of that, the closet closed shop was 16 miles away. We just a couple of weeks before went down in our membership since we had never used the 100 miles of towing allotted which meant that only 5 miles would be paid for. At this point, Mia hid under the car seat as she was freaked out by all the cars zooming past us. I opened the passenger car door and sat on the side of the highway waiting to hear back from AAA. About 30 minutes later, AAA let me know they had found a tow truck but that it would be at least another 30 minutes before he got to me.

There I was pregnant on the side of the interstate in the middle of nowhere in the hot July sun with a cat that I had forgotten to bring a carrier for. Thankfully I have an amazing husband who is part of an amazing family and band. The band was willing to reroute to meet me at an auto parts store while Zach's family drove 2 hours from Peoria to meet us. After 1 hour, the tow truck showed up. I spent 30 minutes with the tow truck guy who I could write a whole blog post about getting the car towed to an auto parts store as Jake, Zach's brother, was pretty sure he could fix the car.

Once at the auto parts store, I was signing paperwork and paying the tow truck when Mia escaped from the car. I don't blame her as the car was extremely hot, but not good news for me. I thought she went under the car, but once the tow truck man left, I could not find her. A side note that I forgot to mention was that I was in need of a restroom break before I even broke down. At this point I was about to bust. I had to leave Mia lost for quick bathroom break before heading out to search for Mia.

Thankfully after about 20 minutes of searching, I found Mia. She was totally freaking out. I tried to hold her and she wouldn't have it. I tried putting her down in a little patch of grass, but she would run. So, there I was with a cat that was loosing her mind and no carrier waiting for help to arrive. I put Mia in reusable grocery bag and began pacing. If I stopped walking, she would try to get out of the bag. By this point, Mia has begun to pant. I have never seen a cat pant and it was really scary. I knew she was loosing her mind and that she was super hot in the bag, but she refused to drink any water. I kept putting water in my hand and trying to force it in her mouth. She would lick her nose, but that was it. I was really worried about her.

When Zach showed up an hour and a half after me getting to the shop, I was so relieved. At least I had someone else to hold the bag and worry about Mia. We waited about 3o more minutes outside for Zach's family to show up. Thankfully they had a cat carrier which at least meant I could go inside to get water or use the restroom and sit down. It did not seem to calm Mia any as she continued to pant and refuse water.

Zach's dad, Jake and Zach got to work on the car. The battery was taken out and was recharged inside while Jake started taking about my engine. It was quite scary to watch. I headed over to the shade with Mia and Lyn (my mother in law) so that I couldn't see all the parts being taken off. The boys (mostly Jake) worked on trying to get the alternator out for 5 1/2 hours. Bob and Zach were ready to give up, but Jake kept at it. After 5 1/2 hours of pure determination and undoing an engine mount in order to lift the engine, the alternator finally came out. The alternator was checked and was bad (thank goodness!). A new one was bought and the work of putting the car back together began. At about 9pm (13 hours after I had left Peoria), the car was put back together (mostly, I still have a several screws and some heat shields in the garage that didn't make it back in the engine). At 9:30pm, Zach and I headed out to Nashville.

What an incredibly long day! I am so blessed to have such amazing in laws and husband that were willing to help me!

For anyone who is curious, I am pretty sure that Mia lost a couple of years off her life, but she is doing fine and I will be sure to bring a carrier just in case in the future.

Sold

2011-05-16T16:47:00.004-05:00

We just sold our Blazer. I didn't realize the attachment I had to it until the guy handed us money for it. It was a great car that served me well through the years. There have been many memories made in the Blazer, specifically many road trips made. I will miss you Blazer!

Our Yard/Jungle

2011-05-07T22:06:00.002-05:00

I have been wanting to post this for a while, but keep forgetting or just don't have time.

We have had a lot of rain here in Nashville and a good amount of sunshine as well which means the grass has been growing FAST! It was getting pretty long when Zach started up the lawnmower for the first cut of the year. Not a week later, it was already getting long again. Only this time, the mower would not start. So began the drama of trying to get the mower fixed. One thing would get fixed and then something else would go wrong. As the mower was being fixed over and over again, our grass was getting embarrassingly long. The mower was finally fixed last Friday morning which happens to be the same day that Zach left to go out of town for some gigs. I came home that afternoon and our yard looked amazing! One of our neighbors came and cut our grass for us. He does yard work for a living and did an amazing job. Just another example of what an amazing neighborhood we live in.

Hopefully we will not require those services again anytime soon.

What a Day and What a Neighborhood

2011-05-07T21:48:00.003-05:00

I am exhausted from this day. So much happened today. Zach was in town and we spent most of the day working on the house. We cleaned out the workroom in the garage. Zach power washed the siding on the house. We hung tools on the wall in the workroom. Zach took a load to the Goodwill while I started cleaning out the guest bedroom to turn it into a nursery. Zach then loaded up a load to take to the dump while I continued to work through everything in the guest bedroom. He came home and we worked on the guest bedroom until it was time for a neighborhood meeting followed by a flood party.

Our neighbors are so incredible. It has now been a little over a year since most of our street was flooded. Our neighbors wanted to throw a party for everyone who came to help a year ago and to celebrate how far they have come in repairing their homes. While we were there, I was given a stroller that had inflatable tubes, a snorkel, goggles, and flippers attached to it as a gift for the help I provided last year. Very stupidly, I came home and undid everything before taking a picture. I think I was just in work mode from going all day. It was so hilarious and so sweet of them to do.

Once home, Zach and I started working more on the nursery. It was tough emptying the room as it had all my stuff in it. My family pictures, my photo albums, my knickknacks, my desk, etc. It was difficult to sort through these things and try to find other places to put things that I still want to keep out around the house. We have moved my desk into our bedroom to see if that will work. It was pretty stressful for me, but I am now excited about starting to transform the room into a nursery. It has been a difficult and great day all at the same time.

Someone Finally Noticed

2011-04-30T22:10:00.003-05:00

I have told many people now that I am pregnant. In response, I often get some kind of response indicating that I don't look pregnant. Really people!? I really don't like to hear that. I understand that I am not huge and I think they feel like it is a compliment, but it is not. I used to have a small waistline. I no longer have a small waistline. I completely understand how a stranger might not be able to tell that I am pregnant, but people I see on a regular basis I really feel should be able to tell a difference. Of course, those closest to me are the ones I told first so they have seen me grow.

Anyways, that soap box was all to say that someone finally noticed that I was pregnant!!! It was an aide in a classroom and she looked at me when I was walking out of the classroom with one of my kids and said "Is that a baby bump?" I was so excited. I said, "Yes it is! Thank you for noticing." Then she proceeded to tell me that she knew it had to be since I normally have such a small waist. Thank you! She sure knows how to make a pregnant woman feel good:D

For anyone interested, I attempted to take a picture of myself today since I was wearing clothes that I felt showed my belly. I apologize for the quality. Here you go...

Know the Weather

2011-04-19T21:43:00.003-05:00

In April, I have traveled to OH and WV. Zach and I headed to OH to see Guster for his birthday present. Then 2 weekend later, I hopped in the van with The Farewell Drifters to head to WV for the first time. I could go into all kinds of details about each of these trips, but instead I want to share how horrible I am at dressing correctly for weather. For OH, I looked up the weather and packed accordingly...or so I thought. We made it to OH and I was freezing!

You would think I would learn my lesson and I packed a little warmer than I thought I needed to for WV, but once again, I was freezing. I definitely did not predict that it would be snowing the next morning when we woke up to leave. I don't think that my flip flops were anywhere close to appropriate for the weather.

I must admit that my lack of ability to know what to wear also happens here in Nashville though not as big of a deal. I do a little better here because at least I have the day before to go by. So, if yesterday was 65 and cloudy and today is 70 and sunny then I attempt to adjust accordingly.

I need to make myself a chart that tells me what to wear when it is 50 and partly cloudy vs 65 and cloudy vs 45 and sunny. Anyone want to help me with that?

Losing My Mind

2011-03-13T20:47:00.002-05:00

I have a history of locking my keys in my car. As a teenager, I locked my keys in my car with the car running too many times to admit. I think I have only done this one time since graduating from high school. But, I still have locked my keys in my car many other times without the car running. In fact, in the last 10 days, I have locked my keys in my car twice. I hope it is out of my system as Zach will soon be on the road and unable to save me.

Purse Snatching

2011-02-21T19:41:00.003-06:00

Last week on my way home from work, I went by the grocery store to check out the on sale Valentine's Day candy. When I was getting out of the car, I heard screaming that sounded like something bad was happening to someone. I got out of the car and rounded the corner to see a small collection of people around an older lady. When I walked up to the situation, there was one man on the phone with the police, another ran down the hill, a lady was jumping in her car taking off down the road, and another talking with the older lady. Lots of things were happening at once and quickly, but now I am able to piece it all together. As the older lady (81 years old) was walking out of the grocery store, a man ran by and snatched her purse. One man had run down the hill after him, another called the police, the lady got in her car to see if she could catch him crossing the next street, and the last man was comforting the lady. Once I had a grasp of things, I ran over to a high spot so that I could see if I could see anyone running. I could see the man who ran down after the purse snatcher and I could see the lady in the car, but no purse snatcher. I watched for a few minutes until the police showed up and then I headed into the store. I was thankful that people had jumped in to help this lady, but so mad at the purse snatcher. I was praying for justice. The next morning I was very excited to receive an email (I receive emails of local happenings from the police department) letting me know that the man was caught and the lady's purse was returned to her. Whew!

Sick Day

2011-02-14T11:30:00.003-06:00

Today I called in sick to work. This will be my first time to ever have to miss a day of work for being sick. I actually woke up feeling much better than I had gone to sleep feeling, but that is only saying so much. I am so thankful that my high temps only lasted a day! And I am so glad that I don't get sick very often. I think I am a real wimp when it comes to sickness now. All I was able to do was sleep in my bed or sit on the couch, neither of which was comfortable. I am so glad yesterday is over! Now I need to decide whether to go get the flu shot or not since that is what I think I just had.

More Snow

2011-02-10T11:54:00.002-06:00

I cannot believe it...another snow day. That is right folks, Nashville has snow once again. I have lost count as to how many snow days we have had this year, but too many. I really love the snow, but I don't like the idea of going to school in June. I must say that I do love working for the school system though because it means that I don't have to get out on the roads. I was reading friends updates last night about it taking 2-3 hours to get home from work. Yikes, I am glad I wasn't out in that.

Being from AL means that I still marvel at the snow and love to get out in it. Unfortunately, Zach does not share my wonder for snow. So, I was alone in my sledding adventures last night. He was worried about the 9* wind chill factor while I was not worried at all. After all, I had all his snow gear to wear. Aren't there parts of the world where 9* would be a warm winter day. And sure enough, I was on the verge of sweating as I conquered our neighborhood hills. I absolutely love sledding at night as it is so incredibly peaceful out.

Now to continue to enjoy my snow day...

Opposites Weekend

2011-02-06T21:58:00.002-06:00

My Saturday and Sunday this week were polar opposites. Saturday I woke up and headed out to a photography class (Thanks Mom!). I learned a lot and feel excited about playing around in manual mode on my camera. I went to church following the class and then it was off to a friends house. I hung out for a couple of hours before going home to pick up Zach to head to a house concert. I got home around 1am. What a day!

And then there was Sunday. I woke up around 10, made some breakfast, checked my email and then took a nap. Yep, that's right, took a nap around 1pm. Woke up a couple of hours later to do a few things around the house. Then time for dinner and TV. What an opposite day from Saturday.

Overall, a good weekend.

Water Heater Week

2011-02-04T21:17:00.004-06:00

Water heater week began on Monday when we found out that our rental apartment's water heater was leaking. Thankfully our tenant is out of town right now, but a friend noticed when she was picking up her mail. Anyways, we were up pretty late attempting to stop the leaking and to drain the water heater. We were not successful with either since I could not get the hose to connect tightly enough to drain it and the cut off valve was not working. So, Zach continued to replace the towels until a plumber was able to come on Wednesday to replace it.

Since the plumber was already here, Zach asked him to come look at our water heater. Zach and I have been taking about 7 minute showers for months now because we would run out of hot water. We had gotten pretty accustomed to this, but knew that at some point it would have to be addressed. The plumber was very kind to come take a look at ours and let us know that it appeared that one of the elements was out even though it was reading fine. He had to get to another job, but told Zach that he could replace it himself. He also suggested going ahead and replacing both elements and thermostats while he was at it.

Well, I came home to lots of water on the floor, no electricity* (no heat on a cold day with the door open to drain the water heater and working by lanterns), and still not working water heater. Zach got the elements and thermostats changed and we started filling back up the tank. And then the leaking began. It did not take us long to find the leaking was coming from the new elements. We shut everything back down and Zach tightened the elements. At this point we were already late to a get together with some friends, so we headed out the door. When we got home, we turned on the electricity and filled the tank.

*you might wonder why we turned out the electricity to the whole house...our breaker box is not labeled, so we have no idea which breaker goes to what...next on the to do list*

Thursday morning, all I had was cold water:( Mr. Plumber came back out to tell us that we had burnt out the element we had just put in by turning on the electricity before fully filling the tank. So, finally we had hot water!

But then water began pouring out of the pressure release valve. We turned back off the water heater and called the plumber. He told us we sure did have bad luck and that we would need to replace the pressure valve. Once again, we were late for a commitment, so out the door we went. We did pick up some needed items from Home Depot on the way.

When we returned home, we turned back on the water and the pressure valve did not leak. And so far things have been good which includes me taking a longer than 7 minute shower this morning!

Even though this week has been full of mishaps and frustration over 2 water heaters, I believe that Zach knows more than most about water heaters and how to fix them. Hopefully next time around we will have better luck with our new knowledge.

Fiddling Around

2011-01-18T21:49:00.005-06:00

For Christmas, my grandfather Buckie bought me a violin at my request. Some of you may be shocked. I was too as I began this adventure. Sarah, one of my good friends, convinced me that she could teach me how to play. I was very wary, but I thought "why not?" My first lesson was less than 2 weeks ago. I have now had 2 lessons and less than 2 weeks of practice. I apologize ahead of time, but this is where I am currently....

A New Constant: Snow

2011-01-13T09:46:00.009-06:00

I am not really sure where I am living anymore. I am now experiencing my 6th snow day of the school year. I have seen more days of snow this winter than I think I ever have in the past. The interesting thing is that I really like it. Most people here in Nashville are cursing it, but I think it is beautiful. I especially like it when the roads are mostly safe and I can get out and do things. That does cut down on the sledding though since we pretty much only sled on the roads here.

In addition, Zach and I also saw snow in Birmingham on Christmas Day and then lots more on our drive from Birmingham to Peoria. It has been a wonderful winter wonderland everywhere we have been this winter. Here are some pictures of the fun we have had.

Zach sledding in the neighborhood in our new sled "The Beast". Thank you Barkley and Matt.

Christmas Day in Birmingham. Standing in the snow on a White Christmas!

Sledding with the Peoria gang. Thank you mom for the 2 new bottom sleds!

The snowman that Jake, Bradley, Zach and I built.

The Bathroom

2011-01-10T18:34:00.005-06:00

I can't believe that I have not updated about the bathroom. Between the bathroom and holidays, I just didn't have time. I had intended on keeping you updated throughout the process, but that just did not happen. I would come home and attempt to clean up the mess from the day and then distract myself from the mess that I could not do anything about.

Here is the before:

Here is Zach's handiwork in taking apart the entire bathroom besides for the tub. We ended up having to do a lot more plumbing work than we thought.

One day while showing the progress to friends, sewage backed up into the newly laid sub floors. That caused a stop to progress for a couple of days, but finally this is our finished product:D

About Time

2011-01-07T22:28:00.003-06:00

A blog post has been long over due. Lately I have been wanting to write blogs but feel overwhelmed by the backlog of blogs that I need to catch up on. I don't know if I will ever write another blog if I try to catch up, so I am just going to write a current blog...

Our precious little kitty is currently wearing the "cone of shame" as coined by my friend Erin. This seems way more appropriate a term than Elizabethan collar as the vet calls it. That is like pretending there is some dignity in wearing the thing.

Mia went in to get spayed on Wednesday morning. It was so sad having to take her that morning. I woke up and she was asking for food just as usual besides for I couldn't give her any food. Not only could I not give her food, but she was going under and didn't even know it.

When I came home that afternoon, there was Mia half drugged staggering around the house with the "cone of shame". At that point, I felt half bad for her while also getting a kick out of her running into walls, etc. Since then, the funny parts are when she is attempting to clean her self, but really just licking the cone. Or when she is "scratching" her ears through the cone.

For your enjoyment, here are some pictures of Mia in her Elizabethan collar.

Attempting to clean herself:D

Busy, Busy

2010-11-06T13:34:00.003-05:00

Several weeks ago now, Zach and I took the leisurely path to New Orleans by driving the Natchez Trace. This is a beautiful road! It was made to drive. It has soft curves and up and downs. It is just enough to keep you interested, but not enough to make it hard to drive. The leaves were changing. We camped out the first night and stayed with my Mississippi cousins the second night and then we were in New Orleans.

Zach had only been to New Orleans one time previously and that was on a mission trip to help clean up many months after Hurricane Katrina. We were there to go to one of my friends weddings, but we also got to hang out with one of Zach's really good friends. We had a great time eating, hanging out in the French Quarter, going to a Jazz Club (which also had people doing the jitter bug to the music), hanging out in the City Park and thrift store shopping. It was all a blast and the wedding was beautiful. This is a picture of us at the wedding reception.

Following this trip, Zach demolished our bathroom in just 3 days. It is stripped to the studs! Then the Farewell Drifters took off on tour again. I caught up with them in Birmingham for the weekend. Zach will come home tomorrow and the bathroom will begin to be rebuilt starting Monday.

What is Happening In and Around the House?

2010-10-15T20:52:00.005-05:00

A Lot!

Fall has come and then left for a week and now is back. The cool weather came in and inspired me to get out my Halloween decorations. Unfortunately I was not able to get it up before the hot weather came back, but I got it up just the same.

During these changes in weather, our mums have bloomed! They are so beautiful and welcome me home everyday:D

Mia has taken a lot of changes. I have never been in charge of an inside kitten. She is either wanting to play, sleeping (on Zach or me) or pottying. All of these involve Zach or me. She takes a lot more than I thought she would. It seems that Zach is falling in love with her.

Take a look at those eyes!

The biggest thing that is happening is....we have decided to redo our guest bathroom. We have been spending any free time talking and looking at tile, toilets, mirrors, sinks, etc. Tonight I just began the destruction. I took the medicine cabinet out and made my first hole in the wall. So much more to go...

A Visit from a Friend

2010-10-05T20:36:00.004-05:00

My friend Andrea, one of my bridesmaids, came to visit after living in India for 2 years. I was so excited to see her and catch up on her life abroad. She arrived Friday night and we stayed up until around 1am looking through photos and chatting. We talked a few times while she was there, but it was not nearly the same as having her right here in my living room. I cannot describe how great it was to just be with her.

On Saturday, we headed out to experience Nashville. Andrea has been here 2 times before (once to surprise me for my birthday and for the wedding), so she had seen the classic Nashville tourist scene. So Saturday was filled with more unique sights and sounds and in PERFECT weather (mid 70s and sunny).

First we headed to Celebration of Cultures in Centennial Park. There were several areas. There was an area where there were different tables for different countries. Andrea was able to assist me through these areas, as she is much more cultural aware than I am. It was almost like traveling around the world in just 30 minutes;) The picture below is of me trying on a Vikings hat at the Norway table. You can see a ship in the background that the kids were able to play in. The other areas were goods from around the world, food from around the world (even though Andrea got a BBQ sandwich), and some dancing/music at different stages. All in all, a fun time and free.

Then it was off to Cheekwood to see the Chihuly exhibit. I have been wanting to see the Chihuly exhibit at Cheekwood for a while. A friend informed me about a week ago that I could get in free with a Bank of America card, which Andrea, Lisa, and I happened to have. I really enjoyed walking the grounds and seeing Chihuly's pieces intermixed with Cheekwood's well known landscapes. I am pretty sure I loved it most because it was free and PERFECT weather to be outside.

An amazing weekend had by all (or at least by me:D)

If You...

2010-09-30T17:30:00.003-05:00

You know those books If You Give a Mouse a Cookie..., etc. Well, I feel that is currently my life. My title is If You Help Your New Neighbors...

And the story goes...If you help your neighbors, they will bring you a lost dog. Once you find the dog's owner, they will bring your a stray kitten. That is right folks. I know have a very pretty kitten in my house. That is not the end of the story.

If you take in a stray kitten, you will find out it has fleas. You decide that giving a kitten a bath is a good idea. Two hours later, there are still fleas on the kitten. If you are going to find a home for the kitten, you have to get rid of all the fleas. When you take the kitten to the vet for fleas, you find out the kitten also has mites in her ears and heart worms. Once you spend over $100 on the kitten, you feel like you are now the owner of a kitten whether that was your plan or not.

That is my story.

And here is our kitten (maybe temporary, maybe permanent)....

Why Not?

2010-09-18T19:20:00.003-05:00

On Wednesday nights, I go to a Zumba class at the YMCA that I LOVE. After class this last week, there was a lady who made an announcement that there was going to be a casting call for a new Curves commercial dealing with Zumba. She said they did not want actresses and/or models. I thought, why not?

So, yesterday, I stopped by for the casting. What did I find? Actresses/models! I thought, "What am I doing?" It was pretty stinking hilarious. They wanted to know my agency, sizes, etc. They also wanted a portfolio. I don't know what that lady was talking about. But, I was there, so why not. I went into the casting room. We were told to introduce ourselves to a video camera and then they turned on Latin music and I was supposed to dance. Lets just say that if I were the one watching the video, I would be on the floor laughing.

Oh well, it was a fun experience.

Role Reversal

2010-09-09T15:23:00.003-05:00

Usually when we travel, I am tagging along with the band. When we get wherever we are going, I have no obligations until show time. My choice is usually to wander around the town while the boys do whatever they need to do. Well, this past weekend, Zach and I took a trip to DC to see my friend Ashley get married.

Well, this weekend, I was the one with obligations and Zach was free to explore. I was a bridesmaid. My duties included, rehearsals, hair, makeup, help with decor, etc. Zach on the other hand was able to explore DC including the Smithsonian, a sculpture garden, and Mount Vernon. I believe he really enjoyed himself. I really enjoyed myself as well. The wedding was beautiful! I unfortunately did not take any pictures of Zach or myself or even of the bride. Oops. I can't wait to see the photographers pictures.

After the wedding, we drove the long way home by taking the Blue Ridge Parkway. Here is a picture from that part of our trip...

Too Long

2010-08-27T23:16:00.003-05:00

It has been so long since I posted, I have been procrastinating starting again because of how much I have to catch up on. Some things that come to mind are Colorado, a man climbing our trees, the woman on the downtown sidewalk, beginning of a new school year, creating a photo book, etc. But, what I am going to start with telling you about is my impulse buy today.

So, about a month ago now, my sister got me to sign up for Groupon (a daily coupon for something in your area). I get an email everyday with the coupon of the day. I have been slightly interested in one or two of them, but for the most part just immediately delete them. Well, today the coupon was for one of my secret desires....laser hair removal. I have told Zach several times that if we had money to spend, I would get lasik and laser hair removal. Today's coupon was for 85% off laser hair removal. I hardly ever make an impulsive buy. And when I do, it is for something that is 50 cents, not for larger ticket items. But, today I broke out of my mold. I am both excited and nervous about this adventure. What have I done?

Epic Fail x2

2010-06-13T21:58:00.003-05:00

This weekend was full of failures and one semi success.

The Failures:
#1-I had put together a girls night out with 2 friends. One band wife and another stay at home mom who needed a night out. I thought going to hear the Nashville Symphony play outdoors would be a great way to spend the evening. We packed up our picnic dinner and headed out. We arrived at the destination to find no concert occurring. I started to wonder if I had gone crazy. I had read that the concert was tonight, right? One of the other girls had read it as well. We would look on our phones, but only our husbands have internet on their phones. So we started calling friends to look it up for us. One friend sent us to another location downtown. I dropped the other two off and off I went to find a parking spot during CMA week. I found one! only to get a call that this was not the right location. A phone call to another friend, to find out the series was rescheduled for another night. We headed back to the first location for a nice picnic dinner together. It actually was a great night, just not as intended.

#2-Today was the neighborhoods annual ice cream social. I thought all week about what kind of ice cream to make. I finally decided on brownie batter ice cream. I whipped it all up last night and put it in the refrigerator to make today. Nothing better than just finished homemade ice cream. I went to church, helped with kids church, went to the store to get ice (no room in the freezer), and started the ice cream maker. I followed the directions to a tee. After 45 minutes, I opened it up to find liquid. Hmmm....3 hours later, still liquid. Needless to say, it was not ready for the social:( I still have no idea what went wrong.

Now for the success:
I mowed a (our) lawn for the first time in my entire life!!!

Bang Progress

2010-06-05T23:25:00.001-05:00

Today is the first day that I was able to pull my hair back wet after a shower and my "bangs" not fall into my face as they dried. Now that I am finally reaching the point of my bangs growing out, I kinda miss them:D

The Nashville Flood

2010-05-24T16:56:00.003-05:00

I have been putting off writing this blog, because it is one of those moments in life that is impossible to put into words. I am going to try my best to summarize what happened in Nashville 3 weeks ago.

I drove to Birmingham on Saturday May 1st. When I was leaving Nashville, I had to drive through some of the heaviest rains I have ever been in. I (along with everyone else) was going about 30 mph on the interstate. The rain stopped about 45 miles out of Nashville and the rest of the drive was smooth.

In Birmingham, I spent the day with my mom, visited with my grandmother, had dinner with my grandfather. The usual. That night I got on Facebook and saw crazy posts about flooding in Nashville. I was mesmerized by what I was seeing. Then began my search of when to get home the next day. I decided my only chance of making it home would be by leaving early in the morning.

Sunday morning I woke up and headed out. The skies were cloudy, but no ran until I hit Nashville and then the skies opened up. The same rain I had driven through the morning before besides for this time, many sections of interstates were flooded and I meandered my way around the city to finally make it home. As I was pulling into my neighborhood, a neighbor informed me that the house at the end of the street needed to be emptied of contents because the water was rising. So, I dumped my bags in the house and headed out. We unloaded the house with every passing the water getting deeper and deeper. Then it was on the the basement of the next home. Then there was a little bit of a break. The rain even stopped around 6pm, but we were only beginning.

My neighborhood has people who lived in during the great flood of 1975 and so they knew where the water might come up to. We slowly began getting word that this was going to surpass that. We continued to move cars further and further up the street. By night fall, we came to realize that it was going to enter many more homes and so by canoe we got to the homes and began to move furniture to the second floors (of the homes that had second floors). Then there was an emergency rescue of the people in the house one street behind us where the water was now entering their second floor. And then some neighbors walked waist deep through water with a canoe to get some neighbors (2 sisters and their mother), who just moved here about a month ago, out of their house. The mother was recovering from a hip replacement and required a walker. They only had one floor and so there was no where to move their furniture. Around 3am, we decided we had done all we could and it was time to try to sleep.

I got a couple of hours of sleep and woke to find the water creeping into our yard. Neighbors headed back out to move more furniture to second floors of homes further up the street. I continued to go out and help and then return home to see where the water was at my home. At this point, we hear that there is a possibility of the river rising 5 more feet. This would mean our home. We decided to move our tenant out completely. Trucks and trailers pulled up and her place was unloaded. I got the instruments and important papers in the car in case I needed to evacuate. Then it was back out to helping others. The water finally peaked Monday afternoon, coming within 10 horizontal feet (1 vertical foot) of our home.

During all of this, I had not turned on the tv and so I had no idea what was happening around the rest of Nashville. Come to find out, we are only one tiny piece of what was happening all around Nashville and Middle TN.

We have since been trying to recover. It will be a long road ahead. Here are a few photos of our street.

A home close to the end of the street as it normally looks.

The house close to peak.

The water coming up into our yard.

Update on the Birdies

2010-05-17T22:07:00.003-05:00

So, the robin sometimes has been in her nest, but it seemed like mostly not. The only time she really seemed to be there was at night and she must have been sleeping at night because she would not fly off until we were unlocking the door. This was quite startling every time, even knowing that it was coming. I have not been turning on the back light because I don't want to disturb her which only made it more startling.

This is how every night goes...We come home and pull into the garage. As I am walking towards the door, I call out (not quietly I might add) to the robin to let her know that we are home and that she should leave her nest for a little bit. I creep up the stairs hunched over in case she flies out she won't fly right into me. At this point, I begin to convince myself that she is not on the nest tonight. I put the key in the door and then she is off. It gets me every time.

On the other hand, during the day, I hardly see her. Until today when I came home and she was perched on the edge of the nest with a worm in her mouth. I am sure she was aware that I was there, but I just watched. Once the worm disappeared, she flew off to a nearby branch to watch me enter. I immediately grabbed a chair to look up in the nest and this is what I found...

3 little birdies!!! I have been listening for them for days, but had not heard anything. I wish I had been checking everyday because I wish I knew how old they are. I will be checking in frequently now:D

A Feathered Friend

2010-04-30T16:00:00.004-05:00

We have a robin that decided to build its nest in our light fixture right outside our back door (the door we use to enter and exit the house). This is a bit of a controversy in our home because Zach tried to take apart the nest while the robin was building it to discourage it from building there. Despite Zach's efforts, the robin pushed on and completed its nest. The controversy is that Zach wanted me to move the nest, but my thoughts are if the robin was so insistent on building there, then let it stay.

So, now we disturb the robin a lot. My hope was that it would just huddle down in its nest and watch us, but it doesn't. Every single time we come through the door, it flies off and watches us from a nearby tree.

Today, Zach disturbed her and somehow an egg was broken in the process. I am not sure whether he is completely innocent, but he claims he is. Anyways, I checked out the nest to see what was in there and this is what I found...

So, we are one down, but there are still three little robin eggs left that I hope will make it to flight.

Blooms

2010-03-30T22:20:00.001-05:00

Here are some pictures of all our daffodils (on one side of the driveway)...

Spring is Blooming!!!

2010-03-26T22:15:00.004-05:00

My first three daffodils have bloomed. I am so excited that all that hard work of planting all those bulbs in the fall is paying off. I would say that about 80% of the bulbs are about to bloom. Here is a picture of one of the current blooms.

Hopefully I will have a photo of all of them blooming along the driveway in just a couple of days:D

Cruisin'

2010-03-21T17:03:00.004-05:00

Zach and I had a wonderful time on our cruise. We drove to Orlando, spending 2 nights and 1 full day with my grandmother Marna and her husband Dan in a retirement community. We experienced the retired life of riding our bikes to the pool, playing on the putting green, and shuffle board court. It was a nice way to start our vacation.

On Monday morning, we headed to the ship. Once on board, we began eating and didn't stop until we got off the ship on Friday. There was always food around. A typical day included about 4 meals. The best thing I ate on the ship was strawberry pavlova (meringue, whipped cream, and a reduced sugary strawberry sauce with fresh strawberries on top). It was heavenly. I also had french fries and bacon every day which made me a happy sailor.

Our first stop was Coco Cay which is a little island owned by Royal Caribbean. The day was partly cloudy which made the day perfect when the sun was out and okay when the clouds were covering. We rented snorkeling gear and wet suits and spent a lot of time out in the water. We saw starfish, coral, and lots of fish. Some fish were so close we were able to touch them. Towards the end of the day, we attempted geocaching and failed:( Our GPS was only accurate up to 15 feet which was just not accurate enough.

The next stop was at Nassau. The day was packed with activity. We started out very early on Segways. Our tour guide was incredible and we had a lot of fun. I will post a very funny video in the next week of Zach on a Segway. Here is a photo that will have to do for now.

Following the Segway tour, we very quickly went through a few rows of the straw market. It was a bit crazy and we didn't really see anything of interest to us. We quickly headed to the ship for lunch and then it was off to go snorkeling. We went out on a catamaran to a coral reef. This water was much clearer than at Coco Cay, but also much colder. We were only able to last about 45 minutes in the water. We got to see a lot of beautiful coral, fish, starfish, and even a lobster (pictures on stuck on my camera right now). Zach was shivering the whole time. Even though it was cold, it was well worth it.

The last day was spent on the cruise ship all day. We had a sit down leisurely breakfast, participated/watched several game shows, Zach did a wine tasting, I watched a demonstration on towel folding, etc. We kept ourselves entertained.

A dog that our stateroom attendent made.

My creation after watching the demonstration.

We returned to Orlando the next day and spent a little more time retired before heading home on Saturday.

My Addiction

2010-03-01T21:35:00.003-06:00

I am here to admit that I am addicted to reality TV. At this moment, I have spent 2.5 hours watching The Bachelor. And I still have 30 minutes left. Craziness I tell you, craziness. ABC has had me hooked for quite a while now. It started with The Bachelor and then the Bachelorette. Then they added Dancing with the Stars by bringing in Melissa. Now, I am watching The Bachelor.

The scary part is that it is not just ABC. I am embarrassed to admit that it goes much further than that. There is TLC that really sucked me in with John and Kate Plus 8. That still is my number one favorite reality show EVER. TLC has a million other shows along with Style, E, HGTV, etc. They all got me. I am not sure that I watch anything but reality TV.

So, with this being the last night of The Bachelor, I thought, next week I can have my life back. Then I found out about Jason and Molly's (The Bachelor) wedding next week. Then, in the end of March, Dancing with the Stars begins which which is combining my reality TV worlds by having Kate (John and Kate Plus 8) and Jake (The Bachelor) dancing. Will they ever give me a break?

Pictures From Hiking

2010-02-15T15:36:00.004-06:00

Crossing the stream with bags over shoes

Our campsite

Zach crossing back over stream on Day 2 without shoes on

Our beautiful surroundings

Cold Feet

2010-02-08T21:47:00.002-06:00

Cold feet pretty much sums up my weekend. Zach and I went backpacking with our friends Tyler, Greg and Morgan. The date was set a while back and we were committed no matter came our way. Snow is what happened to come our way.

It was lightly snowing as we packed the car Saturday morning. By the time we parked at the trail head, there was snow on the ground and snow was still coming down. As we headed down the trail, we encountered many stream/river crossings (double the normal amount on this trail), most likely due to snow melt from last week's big snow. I lost out on the first stream crossing and got wet feet. This is when my feet got cold and stayed cold.

There was point in which we had to cross through rushing water. The guy before us warned us that his dogs nearly washed away when crossing. We tied trash bags over our shoes and attempted to cross. I believe that 3/5 of us made it through without getting wet shoes. Which really means only 2 did not have wet feet since my shoes were still wet from the very first crossing.

We made it to camp and started gathering firewood. As you can imagine, all the wood was soaking wet from the previous snow melt and the current snow...yes, it is still snowing on us. Tyler was brilliant in searching the bowels of the cave for dry wood. We were able to get a fire started (we found out the next morning that we were most likely the only ones able to start a fire according to reports from other backpackers). I was able to get feeling back into my toes by the fire, but they never really got warm. Then it was off to bed to wake up to even colder temperatures outside.

Once out of the sleeping bag, my feet froze solid. It was not until an hour or more into our hike that I began to gain feeling back in my toes. Thankfully I was able to keep my feet dry when crossing the much lower, calmer streams. Zach actually opted to take his shoes off and walk across the biggest crossing in the probably low 30* weather. But, all of us made it out with our toes still attached and working.

It was a cold trip, but a really good one. I am glad that Zach and I stuck with our commitment even if it meant having cold feet:)

...pictures to come

Snow Days

2010-01-30T21:26:00.005-06:00

So, this year we have already gotten 3 days off school for snow. All of you who live in North, don't even say anything. It is different here as many northerners are experiencing right now. Last time it snowed, a slick little layer of ice formed on the roads, no biggie, but dangerous just the same for those of us who have never been trained in driving on ice. But this time around, we really got some snow. About 36 hours after it began snowing, all the streets have probably at least 1 inch of compacted snow/slush/ice with up to 4 inches of snow surrounding those areas. And, there are no snow plows in sight and there will not be. This would be why people stock up when we hear snow might be coming. When snow does come like this, it stays and keeps a lot of us in.

All that to say, we have had a lot of fun enjoying our 2 days in. Last night, our friends who are in walking distance (4 in total) walked to our house for some dessert and games. We played some Mad Gab. Hilarious. The best card said "Disco Pierre Knead Stoner". Any guesses? At midnight, I decided that I just had to get out there in the snow. What if the sun came out early and it all disappeared? You never know what might happen in the South. So, I suited up and eventually got everyone else on board. I grabbed a cookie sheet, foam board, plastic storage container, and a 3 ring binder. We had a lot of fun "sledding" and "snow boarding" down the hilly streets with our makeshift sleds. The winner by far was the foam board!

Little did I know that this morning we would wake up to every bit of the snow from the night before plus more. Zach and I took it slow with a good hearty breakfast, randomness around the house, and then we were out. We made some things out of snow....

And then went for a walk. On our walk, we ran into some of the neighborhood families that has young children. We joined into the snow ball fight and the sledding (they had a plastic sled). After they went inside to warm up, we finished our walk. Today has been a really GREAT day!

On the Radio

2010-01-25T19:44:00.003-06:00

Every morning I listen to a country station because of the dj person (I don't know what you call it). This guy is so funny and always has people call in for random reasons. He also has a tendency to make fun of people when they call.

Well, this morning he was talking about double names. I just had to call in. I was extremely nervous, but I did it. It was a really short conversation, but I think it went well. One more new thing done.

Cruising

2010-01-24T11:39:00.002-06:00

Zach and I have officially decided to go on a cruise in March. It is a rarity that Zach is able to commit to a vacation weeks ahead of time, so we decided to take advantage of it. We are going to go on a short cruise to the Bahamas! I can't wait...more to come.

My Japanese Experience

2010-01-11T21:15:00.002-06:00

Zach and I were invited to celebrate the ending of a rough year and the beginning of a new year with a close friend. She picked to go to a Japanese Sushi Bar for this celebration. I was a little nervous but I read reviews that talked about menu items other than sushi. I know that I LOVE Hibachi grills which is Japanese right? Anyways, we accepted the invite.

Zach and I decided to split what is called a bento box. Along with the bento box, came soup, salad, a crispy shrimp roll, 2 entrees, rice, and veggies. Out came the soup and salad. They resembled what I have previously received at Hibachi grills. No surprises there. Then out come our crispy shrimp roll. As the waitress was bringing it to us, I said, "I thought we were just getting one roll." She said, "This is one roll." I replied, "I would call that 8 rolls." Everyone laughed. I saw eight little pieces of sushi (8 rolls) on the plate. So, I learned my first lesson of the night. What I was seeing was one roll cut into 8 pieces.

Next surprise was when our entree came out in a cute little box. Once again, I said out loud, "What a cute little box!" I was given some looks that indicated I should have been expecting this box. Next lesson learned was that our meal was called bento box because that is the name of the little box/plate/compartmentalized little thing that our food came in. I thought the name was something specific to this restaurant.

I gained a little culture (out loud) that night.

I'm Back

2010-01-07T11:11:00.005-06:00

I know that I have been gone for a while. I know my mom missed me, so I am starting this thing back up. I needed a break over the holidays. I gave up a lot more than just the blog over the holidays. I gave up exercise and cooking. I pretty much gave up anything that I didn't want to do. It was rather nice, but selfish at the same time. I must admit that is was a great break though. For anyone who does not know, Zach quit his job at the bank to become a full time musician. This meant that we had 2 weeks off together to see our families over the holiday.

We spent a week in Peoria with Zach's side of the family. During that time, we did some cookie baking, skiing, hanging out, playing games, shopping, playing in the snow, eating, etc. It was such a great time with his family. One of my favorite parts was the playing in the 10 inches of snow! I shoveled snow for the first time in my life. I also got to drive in the snow for the first time. Overall, just a great trip spent with family.

Then, it was a drive through Nashville straight on to Birmingham. It was a great visit with my family, the ones still in town, for a shorter amount of time. We had a great Christmas celebration with those of us in town. Lilly Bea, my little cousin, was so much fun to watch and be around. She is 4 years old and is quite girly right now. She did some amazing posing for the camera. Here is my favorite shot!

A Big Night

2009-11-24T18:05:00.002-06:00

Last night was a full night. I hosted a freedom party at my house with a friend. A freedom party is a party where the guests learn about human trafficking and then are given the opportunity to purchase things (jewelry, pajamas, bags, scarves, books, etc) made by former slaves from around the world. I was a great night and I am so excited about how it all went.

Last night was also the last night of John and Kate Plus 8. This is the one show that I truly watch. I will work to be able to see it. Last night, I said up way late past my party to be able to record it (I was using the TV during the party so I couldn't record then). I can't believe it is over. I know there are a lot of opinions about this family, but I loved watching the kids. I am very sad to see it go. I hope to hear updates down the road as to how they are doing.

101 Bulbs in the Ground

2009-11-15T18:49:00.006-06:00

I am so happy to announce that we now have 101 daffodil bulbs lining our driveway. Zach gave me 100 (ended up being 101) daffodil bulbs for my birthday/anniversary. Over the last 2 weeks, Zach and I have put 101 bulbs in the ground. Right now, I have a broken trowel and very sore hands to show for it. Hopefully in the Spring, we will have a yard of flowers (my favorite flowers) to show for it.

This is not all that has happened in our yard over the past 2 weeks. Zach has been very busy saving multiple trees and destroying one small tree. As you see in the picture below, he has pulled endless vines off of trees. Notice the tree on the right vs the tree on the left. The pile on the ground is from the tree on the right only. The tree he took out of the ground was one that was growing out of another tree and looked a little ugly. The 60-70 degree weather has made this work a little easier to do.

Quelf

2009-11-09T21:41:00.010-06:00

For my birthday, I got the game Quelf. I had heard from a friend how fun of a game it was. It is a difficult game to describe, but I will try. Imagine Cranium on crack. There are 6 different types of cards you draw from. You might have to act, answer a trivia question, be given a strange action you will have to continue to do through out the game, etc. None of these are what you think they would be though. You might have to sing "I'm a Little Tea Pot". No one else has to guess anything, you just have to act it out. Other times, you might need people to guess what you are doing but you can't tell them that. On some cards, other players get to move ahead if they assist you in your act. Once again, you don't know when that will be. The trivia questions are more like brain teasers than trivia. Such as, "what was the tallest mountain before Mt. Everest was discovered?" After much guessing, the answer is Mt. Everest. Are you getting the idea. It was really fun and really crazy. What a game!

Zach had to put the game box under his shirt for the rest of the game.

Lisa let everyone play with her hair to move forward on the game board.

Grocery Game

2009-11-09T21:41:00.008-06:00

I have become a value grocery shopper. I have always loved grocery shopping until I had a budget to hit every month. Then I became a half excited and half frustrated grocery shopping. That is until I discovered how to use coupons. Now it has become a game or a challenge for me.

I now stock pile a lot of foods and only buy certain foods when I can get them on a good sale. Currently, all our kitchen cabinets are full and this is our extra pantry.

I dream of having an extra freezer out in the garage one day to be able to stock pile more refrigerated/frozen items.

An example of my current ability to save is that I paid $8.95 for $39.62 worth of food. That is a 78% savings! Here is what I got.

You can't really see, but that is 4 boxes of graham crackers (a regular in my lunch), 7 boxes of potatoes (2 servings each), OJ, cookie dough, and 3 things of Dr. Pepper (a major rarity but for 55 cents each, I thought Zach would be so excited...he was:D). That makes 16 items for $9.

For those who are worried, that is just what was on sale this week. This week I will be stocking up on frozen veggies (mostly for Zach).

Four Eyes

2009-11-07T18:51:00.007-06:00

So, for 6 weeks or so, I have been four eyed. I have done everything in glasses. This was hard to begin with, but then I became more used to it. There were some negatives and some positives.

The times that I really missed my contacts were when driving in the sun, which I coped with by wearing sunglasses over my glasses, and exercising. The sunglasses was difficult because I would forget that I had both on and end up with sunglasses on my head and glasses on as well. Not really a big deal, more just funny. But exercising on the other hand, was little more difficult to tolerate. I would end up taking them on and off throughout my exercises. Another little annoyance was wearing glasses in the rain. If you have done this, you understand what I am talking about.

The major positive is that my eyes did not hurt every day. I have quickly been reminded of the regular pain that contacts cause me. Another positive of wearing glasses is simply not having the take the time to put them in, take them out, clean them, etc.

The Halloween Mess Up

2009-11-07T18:37:00.004-06:00

So, I saw this picture on the front of a magazine in my grandmother's room when I was visiting her and decided I could do it.

Side Note: There is a Halloween party at our house every year. We were told when buying the house that our yard (fire pit) is used for the Halloween party. It is pretty fun. We just provide the space and the party shows up. We are talking food, table, chairs, candy, etc. Perfect occasion for the cake.

Because of my crazy life, I did not begin to attempt this cake until Halloween day. I went on a shopping spree to try to find the perfect bowl to make the cake in, candy, sprinkles (because I didn't think I had time for that many Reese's Pieces), and who knows what else.

I got home and started baking. Things were going fairly well. I had two nice half globes come out of the oven. And then everything quickly went down hill. I wanted to have plenty of icing on the cake since that is the best part of the cake. I didn't see the point in having a pretty cake that didn't taste amazing. Little did I know this was a bad mistake. The cake quickly began crumble before my eyes. I later figured out that all the icing and many layers weakened the structure of the cake. It ended up looking like this.

I decided that I could rescue it and I turned it into this. Definitely not what I had in mind, but it did taste amazing thankfully.

Attempt to Fix Up the House

2009-10-31T13:36:00.003-05:00

The guest bathroom in our home is a mess. I am not sure who designed it and/or added some special details, but I am pretty sure they did not know what they were doing. First off, the bathroom is VERY small. There is just enough room for a bathtub, toilet and sink. When you sit on the toilet, your knees touch the tub. In addition, someone decided to come back and add plastic tile to the walls and ceiling that did not really match the existing tile. Another nice quirky thing about the bathroom is that the light switch is inside the cabinet. I could keep going but I am going to stop.

Every time I think about the things I want to do in there, I get overwhelmed and just really want to gut the thing and start over. Until that day comes, I decided that it was time to fix the light fixture. The light in there was a fluorescent light hung over the mirror over the sink. It looked horrible, it buzzed, and it gave off ugly light.

I bought a very cheap light fixture at the Habitat for Humanity home store that I felt was vintage enough to fit the bathroom. I got home and just went for it. I took down the light to find discolored and missing tiles behind the old light fixture. Oh well, I had gotten this far. I got the new light fixture set up and actually working.

In the end, I am not really sure it would be considered an improvement. The light fixture is better looking (I think), the light is better, and it does not buzz. But, there are now discolored and missing tiles surrounding it and it is located a little higher than it should be. Oh well, I tried.

Celebrating 2 Years

2009-10-22T17:11:00.004-05:00

That is right folks, Zach and I have been married for 2 incredible years as of yesterday. We celebrated with a dinner at an amazing find of a steak house for dinner and cake to follow. The steak house was definitely a find by Zach. It is located on the edge of Madison and has been around for like 60 years. We had no idea what to expect, but it was a great dinner. There were many regulars, 2 for 1 delicious filet mignon (hence the regulars), a piano bar, white linens and candlelight at the tables, and Halloween lights. Are you getting the vibe? We do plan on going back.

After dinner, we came home to enjoy our yearly cake. I am attempting to start a tradition. We did not save any of our wedding cake and said that we would just buy a cake last year to enjoy. Now, I plan on having a cake from a different bakery every year. Our wedding cake was from Darlene's, last year was from Sweet n' Sassy, and this year the cake was from A Piece of Cake. I think this one has been my favorite so far. Still many more to go:D

A Tree Growing in Our Living Room

2009-10-18T21:11:00.005-05:00

I reveal to you our dining room finished (at least for now:D)

The above 2 pictures are the two walls that have been finished since my last post on the progress of this room. If you would like to see the rest of the room, you can go here and here to previous posts.

To see the before, go here.

The In-Laws Visit

2009-10-18T20:32:00.005-05:00

Zach's parents came to visit us this weekend. It was a lot of fun to have a weekend with them. We did a lot and had a lot of fun. There was a lot of food involved, which you have to love. On Saturday we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. It was good, but I must say that my attention span ran out about half way through, but still good. We also had a good time playing Scattergories, listening to live music, and eating together.

On the fixing end of things...Zach and Dr. Bob fixed the curtain rod, toilet, and began fixing our front lights to be on a light sensor. In addition, they gifted us with a pole that extends out with a saw and clippers on the end to cut dead branches of tress. Zach had fun with that today. What a weekend!

Zach fixing the toilet. Might I mention that it was a timely break since we had experience in the form of Dr. Bob to help.

Zach using the new tool to cut down dead limbs.

Halloween is Taking Over

2009-10-12T21:00:00.004-05:00

I LOVE fall. For me, Halloween is the ultimate celebration of fall. I love Halloween so much. I love little kids dressed up coming to my door to get free candy with a chill in the air. I love the jack-o-lanterns. This is all to Zach's chagrin. He does not love fall like I do and he definitely doesn't love Halloween like I do. So, he is somewhat appalled by the decor that I have put up, mostly outside of the house. Take a look...

The look at night.

The large pumpkins to the left is what is Zach's least favorite.

My favorite part.

Today, Zach was cleaning spiderwebs off the windows, etc. When I came home, he said, "I am not sure why I am cleaning spider webs off the windows so that you can replace them with fake ones." Thank you honey for making room for my spider web:D

No Need to Cry Over Spilled Paint

2009-10-10T21:15:00.002-05:00

I have been painting in the dining room over the past week or so. I have spent hours in there painting. Well, today something new happened. I dropped the quart of paint. Yep, that is right. There was now about 1/2 a quart of very red paint all over our dining room floor. I grabbed a spoon and spatula to try to get up as much as I could. Then it was paper towels and a putty knife to try to get paint out of the spaces in our hardwoods. I am sure I missed some, but I did my best. There was definitely no time to take a picture or to cry over it.

Just Who Do You Think You Are?

2009-10-06T19:51:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I went to the Y to exercise after work. I went and "ran" on the elliptical. After that, I headed to the weight room to do some ab and glut work. I was in there for about 5-10 minutes doing some different things. Then I was out.

As I was walking out the front doors, a guy walking out behind me said, "That was quick."

I gave him a confused look and said "What?"

Guy: "Oh, I must have the wrong person."

He continued to look at me as we went different directions in the parking lot.

Guy: "Weren't you just in the weight room?"

Me: "yes"

Guy: "You weren't in there for very long"

Me: "No, I wasn't. I did cardio first and was just doing some things in the weight room before leaving."

Guy: "You might not want to make a habit of that."

Well, thank you Mr. As a matter of fact, I didn't make a habit of it. Today, I didn't exercise at all. That means zero time in the weight room. I am sure that is what he would have wanted.

There has to be an Explanation

2009-10-06T19:40:00.004-05:00

So, not a week after my story of locking myself out of my house, I have another story for you.

This past Friday night, The Farewell Drifters were asked to play the Full Moon Pickin Party at Percy Warner Park. Later that night, they had their last showcase of the week at IBMA. We piled into the van and headed to the park. Because of crazy traffic, we got to the park a little after 7pm which is when they were supposed to begin playing. To say the least, things were hectic.

The boys piled out of the band and threw things together on stage. I was trying to figure out merch stuff when Zach asked me to get his water bottle out of the band. When I bringing it back to him, a lady stopped me to tell me about merch stuff. I dropped off the water bottle and then got working on setting up merch. After I finished this, I sat down to watch the show. I few songs in, I put my hands in my pocket to realize I didn't feel the keys. I started retracing everything I did. I was pretty sure that I didn't lock them in the car. I was pretty sure, but not at all positive that I didn't hand them to Zach with his water bottle. But where could they be? I had to have given them to Zach. When the boys finished, Zach came back to the merch tent and asked me for the keys. Uh oh.

So the search began. I forgot to mention that we parked behind the stage, so I was trying not to cause a scene as I searched. After 15 minutes of searching, I found them under someone's camping chair cover.

The sad part is that it is not shocking that I lost the keys. As noted by to incidents in the past week, this is not uncommon for me. Since I have been driving, I have had this problem. The house ordeal is a newer one. I must have some genetic defect that involves keys. Anyone know of anything like that?

What a Night!

2009-09-27T20:38:00.005-05:00

So, yesterday was one crazy day. I woke up early to go on a walk with the women's ministry from my church. Come to find out it was cancelled because of rain (not too much a surprise since it has rained for 2 weeks straight and all the night before). Back to bed for a bit. Then it was on to borrowing a projector to do a home project (more to come on that). Little did I know that would be a little harder than anticipated, but I got it done. Then to several hours of grocery shopping at 4 different stores (price shopping requires a lot of stores sometimes). Home again to clean, paint a mirror, and bake cookies. Then friends came over to hang out. This is where it gets interesting...

After a few hours of hanging out, we decided to take some cookies to another friend who does not currently have a car and was stuck at home on a Saturday night (no fun at all). So out the door. We climbed into the Blazer. This is when I decided to get the map out of Focus since I had never been to this friend's house before. At that moment, I realized I had locked my keys in the house. This meant, no map and no way to get back into the house (our friends lost their spare key and Zach was out of town). Oops. After returning from the cookie drop off, we attempted to break into the house. We tried the credit card deal, we tried popping the cover off the kitty door. No luck at all. Then my friend realized that we could completely take the kitty door off by undoing some screws. It worked!!!

I have now put the head of the screws on the inside of the door, so no luck in the future. I need to get someone a spare key. I go to put up some tools in the garage to find 3 cats in the garage. I try to chase them out, but I can't figure out if they are out or not. I would think they were out and then after a few minutes I would see them lurking around again. Eventually I gave up and just closed the garage door. I put some treats on the inside, so that I would know if they were in there.

This morning when I woke up and opened the door, the treats were gone. I looked around and found no cats. So, off to church. When I returned, I opened my car door to meows. I found the cat, which ran off and out of the garage. There are still possibly more cats in the garage. We shall see.

What didn't I do this week?

2009-09-21T18:27:00.003-05:00

What a crazy life I have created for myself. This past week included:

Work, exercise, making of 3 desserts, Not For Sale TN meeting, Zumba, home group potluck, dinner party for 6 (I had difficulty figuring out amts for 6 people so we are still eating that dinner), midnight Farewell Drifters show, up next morning at 9am to KY for street festival, movie, church, Settlers of Catan with friends, and neighborhood board meeting. Whew.

Somewhere in there, we went to pull up our tomato cages from the garden and Zach decided to check out the carrots just for fun. And what do you know, we had some carrots. Perhaps a bit deformed, but carrots just the same:D

Oh, my eyes

2009-09-13T17:16:00.008-05:00

For a few weeks, I have been cursing my eyes. I have had days where I had to come home and lay down because they hurt so bad. It is not unusual for me to only be able to wear my contacts until dusk and then they start bothering. I guess I asked for it...

On Friday morning, I woke up and my left eye hurt a little. Not alarming to me because of the above mentioned. I put in my contacts and went about my day. After an hour of work, I knew that I needed to take my contacts out that something was uncomfortable, but once again, not too unusual. I didn't have time to go home, so I just dealt with the discomfort. When I got home, I immediately took out my contacts and put on my glasses. I tried rinsing my eyes out with eye solution and tried resting them for a bit. Then it was off to the state fair. As the evening progressed, my eye began to get very pink and began to hurt. By 9pm, I was in a lot of pain and knew something was up. I called Dr. Bob, my father in law, to get his opinion. He instructed me to cover my eye with a patch to keep the eye closed. His prediction was a corneal abrasion.

The next morning, things were even worse. I was not able to open my left eye at all and barely could open my right eye. Any light really made my left eye hurt. I consulted back with Dr. Bob and he told me to go see someone that it sounded like I had iritis. Through series of phone calls, I was able to find an on call eye doctor willing to come in to look at my eye. Thankfully I had a friend willing to drive me since I still had one eye at best. He confirmed that I had a corneal abrasion AND iritis. He gave me some drops and sent me home.

After a few hours, I was finally able to watch TV (that light prevented me from doing so earlier). This was huge since I had spent about 16 hours unable to do anything. That night I decided that I really wanted to go to Shakespeare in the Park since it was my last chance this year to go. So, I sat through the show with a hoodie draped over my left eye. Thankfully people weren't looking at me, or else they would probably think I was nuts. I am really glad I went, but the lights and wind definitely bothered my eye.

Today, everything was so much better. I have been able to use the computer and watch TV. I still wasn't able to drive or go outside without the light bothering my eye. I am hopeful that I will be able to drive tomorrow and work! I don't really have a choice.

Busy as a Bee

2009-09-08T20:16:00.003-05:00

Sorry updates have been lacking...

For the past two weeks, I don't believe that Zach and I have had a single day without something planned. From house warming parties to music videos. That's right, music videos. Josh and Dean from The Farewell Drifters were playing with one of our friends and he wanted them in the music video. The band needed an audience and so Zach and I went along to be a part of the audience. At the last minute, The Farewell Drifters ended up recording a music video as well since everything was already set up. I am a little worried about being in both videos. In general, I don't like video cameras capturing me. At the same time, I am really excited to see what it looks like. Hopefully it won't be too long. I will be sure to post it when it comes out.

We also had the pleasure of going home to see my family. We do not go home enough. I got to see a lot of my family. I got to spend some time with my grandparents which is such precious moments to me. They mean more than they will ever know to me. I consider my grandparents a part of my immediate family (mom, dad, sister, brother and grandparents). I saw them every week growing up and they went with us on most vacations. My grandfather is the most humble, gentle, wise, loving, etc man I know. I look up to him beyond words can describe.

In addition to my grandparents, I also got to spend time with my aunt, cousin, and second cousin. They all are so much fun to be around and I wish that I could see them more often than I. I have such an amazing family.

Life has come to a sudden halt for me over the past 2 days, as I am sick. Zach is out listening to a band and I am semi-babysitting (I am just here while she is sleeping as I sick and should not really be around her much). I hope I get well soon though because I would like to go the state fair and the Shakespeare in the Park this weekend. We shall see.

The Boys

2009-08-24T21:50:00.006-05:00

We had a packed full weekend.

We began the weekend with a game night at some friends' house. It was a lot of fun.

On Saturday, I spoke at a school (John School) for first time offenders of soliciting prostitutes. I spoke about how their actions cause the demand for human trafficking. I educated them in general on human trafficking. It was a really interesting experience that I am glad I did. I had not spoken in public in quite a while and I was visibly nervous. I am hoping my nerves will be a little calmer next time.

Once I got home, it was off to TPAC for Say You! Say You! is a NPR show that I would describe as an improv word game show. The Farewell Drifters were the house band for the show. It was a lot of fun to be there for the taping. I had no idea anything about the show, but I was laughing a lot. If you want to listen out for it, it should be airing in early October. Exact dates depend on your area.

Sunday was church and then off to Bowling Green for the Newgrass Music Festival. The boys did a great job! And the weather was beautiful.

We ended the weekend with a neighborhood board meeting for which we are both now board members of. Zach is treasurer and I am secretary.

Updates Around the Home

2009-08-22T15:21:00.003-05:00

The other day when I closed my cell phone, I heard an interesting noise. I opened and closed it several times to try to figure out what was going on. While doing this, a piece of plastic popped off and now I have to use a rubberband to keep my phone closed:D

Now, take a look at what our garden looks like....

After several trips out of town, I came home to find the garden overtaken by weeds. That was a few weeks ago now. Needless to say, I think I am done with the garden for this year.

One last update is on our dining room. Here are our newly covered chair cushions and new curtains. We are getting there, but not quite done yet.

Forgotten Tale

2009-08-19T22:20:00.004-05:00

I forgot one story from Boyd's that I would like to share...

Zach and I slept in the corner of the main living room on a futon. At some point during the first night, I heard a familiar sound that I wanted to ignore. I tried to ignore it, hoping I was wrong. After some amount of time, Zach confirmed my fear when he grumbled "I think Smokey (the Bevill's cat) is chasing something". He turned on the light and sure enough, Smokey was chasing a mouse. Zach asked me what to do. I told him to get a towel to catch the mouse with (I had seen this done many times in my own house growing up with chipmunks our cats brought in). As he got up to get the towel, I got out of bed to check out the situation. As Zach was coming back with the towel, I mentioned, "Aww, he is kinda cute (referring to the mouse)". At this, Zach threw me the towel. Later he said it was because he thought I should be in charge of catching it if I thought it was cute. I think he just didn't want to do it. Smokey had the mouse under her paws and I made my first attempt and failed. I don't think I captured the little guy until my third attempt. I wanted Zach to take a picture of me with the mouse, but he was not amused by that idea. I took the mouse outside and released him. It took me awhile to get to sleep because I was laughing so hard at Zach throwing the towel at me without any explanation. Good memories:D

Out of Town

2009-08-17T18:45:00.002-05:00

I keep thinking we are back for good when we decide to go out of town again. This past weekend, Zach and I ended up visiting some friends in KY. Zach played in Frankfurt, KY at an amazing little cafe. They did great job and I had some delicious dessert there.

Since we were up that way, we stayed with our friends. It was a very nice, relaxing weekend. I did a horrible job documenting the weekend. I only took 2 photos of Zach on our friend's motorcycle. Other than sitting on their motorcycle, we went out the country to some of their family's land. They have this beautiful log cabin that family members built. I loved just sitting out on the front porch. There was also some time spent playing (for me, listening to) bluegrass. We also ate good food, listened to some live music, went to the local farmer's market, etc.

What another great weekend to add to the summer:D

End of Summer

2009-08-12T22:18:00.004-05:00

Summer is officially over for me. I began work back in the schools at the beginning of this week. It is fun to have an end and beginning of the school year. The end is always getting closer, but the beginning causes a lot of confusion and requires a lot of organization. The last hooray before starting back with school was traveling with my in-laws to WI.

Every year (I think for the past 18 years), my in-laws go up to the Northwoods of WI to spend a week in a cabin. There are many cabins in the resort area that are filled with families who have been coming as long as my in-laws, some longer. There is no TV or wireless in the cabins leaving time to spend time together. This magical place is called Boyd's.

The days revolve around family style meals served in the main lodge. In between meals, time is passed by napping, fishing, reading, puzzling, bike riding, washers, etc.

This year was as amazing as any with a few special memories...

Giving my father-in-law stitches after a muskie tried to bite off his thumb. He is a doctor and I attempted to follow his directions in how to use the sterile materials he always has on hand just in case someone needs stitches. It is not surprising that with 4 boys, this was not the first case of stitches at Boyd's and probably won't be the last. You might be asking, how were you chosen for such a task? Honestly, I was the only who was excited by the thought and so I was kinda self-elected:D

I got to know my grandparents-in-law much better. There is a lot more to them than what I had gotten to know at family gatherings. Much of this time together was spent on attempting to put together puzzles. I helped work on 3 different puzzles over the week (they kept seeming to get harder). One thing I learned about my grandfather-in-law is that he really likes to sing. He was always singing a new tune, most of which I had never heard before. One that I helped him remember the words to was "If You're Happy and You Know It".

I also had a great time participating in boot camp and the kid's relay races. I legitimately lost the sack race to a group of young boys:( Thankfully Zach was on my team in the blind row boat race, so that we could beat Mark, his brother, and Mark's girlfriend. No worries, we didn't race any children in that relay.

As with every year, I got to spend some great time with my in-laws. They are amazing and I feel so blessed to have in-laws that I look forward to spending a week with.

Guatemala

2009-07-28T11:21:00.010-05:00

I am going to attempt to sum up the week for you.

First let me start with saying that this mission trip was like none that I have been on before. For one, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I was just along for the ride. Another difference is that I felt we were there to support a church that is doing great work there. We went to be servants however that happened to be. The days were very loose with many different things going on and it was up to you to find a place to be. We didn't have an agenda of things that had to be completed. We really had the opportunity to take in their culture and just love each other throughout the week.

We were involved with a construction project for which we laid rebar and then tied it together, transferred cement blocks to the second floor by heaving them up to someone on the second level, mixed concrete on the street and then shoveled it into small pales to be passed to the roof assembly line style. Construction was very different from anything I have done in the past.

We also had the opportunity to help in the kitchen preparing our meals. This included peeling vegetables (including gigantic carrots) with butcher knives, attempting to hand make tortillas, washing dishes, sweeping and mopping (mops were brooms with towels over them).

There was also playing with the children in the street. And taking care packages to the children that are sponsored by individuals in our church. This is probably what impacted me the most. The sponsored children live for notes from their sponsored families. We went into many homes where photos of their sponsored families were hanging on their cement block walls with the most recent letter. I had the privilege of being a face to represent their sponsor and to let them know how much their sponsor loves them. Some sponsors were there with us and got to meet their families for the first time. There were a lot of tears.

One of the biggest thanks about the trip was the team. The team worked great together. There was pretty much no complaining. People were sick, people got hurt or had a hard time, but just kept going without complaint and a lot of time with good spirits. Everyone found where they felt they wanted to be (kitchen, construction, playing with kids, taking a break, etc) and no one complained that someone wasn't where they were supposed to be or that too many people were in one place. Overall, a great atmosphere to work in.

The last two days, we got to participate in some adventures. One day we went to Lake Atitlan to go ziplining and on a boat ride. The boat ride was my favorite. Lake Atitlan is a lake surrounded by volcanoes and is actually a volcano that blew it's top. The water was so clear and the surroundings were amazing. I could have stayed in the middle of that lake forever. The other adventure we took was climbing a volcano to see hot lava flowing. I had no idea how hard it would be to climb a volcano. Think of trying to climb a mile high gravel pile. And, I happened to be very sick that day, so overall a rough climb, but well worth the trip to stand about 2 feet from flowing lava! For those who were not sick, they toasted sandwiches over cracks in the rocks and roasted marshmallows. An unforgettable experience.

PS Some of my favorite ways I got to experience the culture was by carrying a sack of potatoes on my head from the market and jumping onto the back of a chicken bus. Feel free to ask me more about these next time you see me:D

So Much, So Little Time

2009-07-26T18:42:00.016-05:00

I am sorry that I have not written in a very long time. I was in Guatemala for over a week and then when I returned, I worked full days and my computer broke. There are several keys on my keyboard that are not functioning which makes it very hard to type. I want to write a post about Guatemala, but first I want to catch up on a few other things.

First, the night before I left for Guatemala, Zach and I dressed up like cows in order to get a free meal at Chick-fil-a.

That same night, we attempted to begin to recover our dining room chairs. We only got one completed...and they haven't been touched since. Pictures to come when we finish. I better start working on it.

In addition, we hung my painting up in our bedroom.

This last week, "Birmingham" reached #1 on the XM/Sirius Bluegrass Song Charts. Way to go Farewell Drifters!

Last night, Zach put the finishing touches to the pot that was burnt many weeks ago. He did a great job!

And we have harvested all of this since returning:D

Free Farewell Drifters Music

2009-07-10T22:59:00.002-05:00

Here's your chance to get free Farewell Drifters music. All you have to do is recommend them to 5 friends, or you can just pay whatever amount you want. The link is below. Enjoy!

Guatemala

2009-07-10T09:58:00.003-05:00

I will be leaving for Guatemala tomorrow morning. The team will have a blog while we are there. I don't know who will be blogging and how often, but you can check it out if you want.

http://guatemala.thevillagechapel.com/

First Harvest

2009-07-10T09:49:00.005-05:00

We picked our first harvest of 4-5 cherry tomatoes the other day.

We also thinned out the lettuce and ate some of it the other night. We have some very large cucumbers, but they are not dark green yet. No green beans yet:(

PS I pulled this buggy guy off our tomato plant. Yuck!

House on Fire

2009-07-06T20:55:00.002-05:00

Well, just about. Zach called me today to let me know that he almost caught the house on fire. Hopefully this is one of those live and learn things and nothing like it will happen again. I had left oil out and fish ready for him to fry. I had told him to set the stove between 4 and 5 because I have already learned the hard way not to let the oil get too hot (he was there, but doesn't remember it). Well, Zach set the stove between 5 and 6 and walked away. I didn't realize that I needed to give more detail, specifically about not walking away. He smelled smoke and then saw smoke and came into a kitchen with a pot on fire. He has way more detail, but overall, Zach had caused a grease fire in our kitchen. Thankfully the fire was contained to the pot and he was able to get it outside. But this is what we are left with...

And a VERY smelly house.

Fireflies

2009-07-05T00:46:00.001-05:00

The painting is for the bedroom. I forgot to mention that in the last blog. Assuming Zach likes it when he gets home, the plan is to hang it over the bed.

Update on Construction

2009-07-04T12:23:00.004-05:00

Sorry I have not been able to show you this sooner, but we have been very busy and then without Internet for a while.

Wednesday I was able to finish up the dining room by putting on coat #5 of paint and patching the whole in the wall where random cords ran out of the wall and then through the floor (they were not really random, they were for surround sound which I don't care about). Oh yes, on Tuesday the electrician came out and fixed the electricity issue and he was very nice to answer all the thousands of questions I threw at him. He is the one responsible for okaying the taking out of the surround sound wires and cables:D Back to Wednesday, I spent the rest of the day (literally 6 hours) cleaning the house. I finished just in time to make cookies, cook dinner and take a shower in order to get down the the Station Inn to hear Cadillac Sky. Our house guests spent the night in a very clean house that night.

Then on Thursday, I was up and working on less than 4 hours of sleep at Vandy inpatient. Right after work, Zach and I went putt-putt golfing with a great group of friends and had a blast. And that needed to be followed up by ice cream, so it was another late night.

Needless to say, I slept in really late on Friday which is when we lost our Internet for whatever reason. So, that brings us to my photo updates.

The dining room now has a new light fixture and new paint on the walls. We are still looking for curtains, fabric for the chairs, and few more details in the room, but here it is at this point.

Last night, I was able to finish the painting (since there was no Internet to get other stuff done). It is my interpretation of fireflies in tall grass. I am still working on the frame, but you get the idea.

Under Construction

2009-06-30T00:27:00.004-05:00

I feel that our house is a war zone right now and we are only really working on one room. I don't want to give away to much, but I will tell you some frustrations. The contents of that room are in many other rooms of the house right now. We changed paint colors after one gallon of paint. We are now through two gallons, 3-4 coats on each wall, and we still need more paint. We definitely should have primed, but I thought starting with such a neutral color we would have been fine. Somehow, we have wound up with no electricity in the guest bedroom (we are having guests on Wednesday). We tried all the circuit breakers, including the main, and that room is still dark? We are having to return the lighting that we chose and both loved due to a club like feeling in the room. Needless to say, we have gotten to know the people at Lowe's and Home Depot (yes, both) quite well. More to come, hopefully really soon.

In addition to working on the room, I am also working on a masterpiece ;) Here is a peak at it.

Wedding Weekend

2009-06-22T16:12:00.003-05:00

This past weekend, Zach and I drove to Fort Worth, TX to experience Jessica's wedding. The wedding was beautiful. The bride was beautiful, the colors were awesome, the ceremony was very meaningful.

In addition to the wedding, Zach got to see TCU and the house I stayed in my senior year. He got to eat some TexMex and Braum's. I really enjoyed showing him a little bit of my past.

We stayed with Heidi and her puppy, who we named Oliver because we didn't know his name when we first got to the house. I didn't think I was going to like him, but he was a really funny dog.

Overall, a great weekend!

I Survived

2009-06-17T10:06:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was an interesting day.

I started out the day working at Vandy for the first time in a year. It took a lot of work to actually start working. I was a little nervous about doing things correctly, but I survived.

Then I was off to run some errands. I got a phone call from Zach (from work) while I was at the gas pump at Sams Club telling me I needed to seek shelter that a storm producing tornadoes was headed my way. I headed back into Sams just in time to be ushered into the break room to wait out the storm. This is the second time I have had to seek shelter in a store this year because tornadoes were headed toward me.

Next on the list was a haircut. This was no small haircut. People, I now have true bangs for the first time in my life and my hair is much shorter. I am very unsure about my decision at this point, so I can't say I have survived my bangs yet.

Mission Accomplished

2009-06-12T21:07:00.003-05:00

We had great weather for the rest of our time in KS. The sun only came out for short periods. Just enough to remind us that we did not want the sun to be out. I believe that the cooler weather was one of the main reasons we were able to finish the whole roof by breakfast this morning. We completed an entire church in less then 3 1/2 days. The captain of the roof is Pete, who is a professional roofer. He reported to my mom yesterday that we laid down more shingle in one hour than guys on his professional team can do. and I might add that I think we had way more fun than they do as well. Not surprisingly, I am tired, bruised, and my hand is slightly swollen with a lot of small cuts. It has been a wonderful week, but I am ready to head home:D

This is a picture at the end of the day on Thursday. You can't really see, but we still had a few little places to work on this morning.

Update on the Trip

2009-06-09T14:36:00.004-05:00

What a day today, but I am going to start with yesterday.

Yesterday, things started out slow as they usually do. Our shingles did not arrive until around lunch time. Despite only having the afternoon to get shingles down, we were able to put down more than half of one upper level of the roof. The weather was great, overcast and temperature in the 70s. There was even a nice breeze. I think the breeze is the reason that I didn't realize I was burning. Oops, I am feeling that mistake today. The only downside yesterday is that my fingers stopped working. I was hammering and using the nail gun and my hand would not open up to release the objects. I would have to physically open it and work my fingers out.

Today we got started out great. We worked hard up until breakfast. We took a break for some good grub and then it was back up on the roof. This is when we took notice that some storms were coming in. We tried to stay on the roof as long as we could. 3 of us stayed until the lightening got too close for comfort. We got down just in time for the downpour. And I mean downpour. There was about 2-3 inches of water in the floor of the building by the end of the storm. We all were wearing garbage bags as raincoats. Oh, and there was even hail. When the storm finally passed over, over half of the group left to return to hotels to get dry. Our church and parts of other churches stayed behind to try to sweep water out of the church, put more felt on the roof because another storm was coming, and a few other odds and ends. This only lasted about an hour before the sky opened again. This is when the rest of us headed back to the hotel.

I decided to go to the hot tub upon my return. You will never believe what happened next...the power went out at the hotel. Thankfully the lights eventually came back on, but what a day!

Made It

2009-06-07T21:39:00.004-05:00

We (mom and I) are safely in Kansas City to help build a church starting tomorrow.

Yesterday, we got into town stopped by the mall for lunch and then it was on to the hotel for rest time since we were all up by 4am. I managed to convince myself to go workout for a while before my much needed nap. We woke up to go to dinner at a barbecue restaurant and then back to the hotel for bedtime. (extra note that meals take hours when there are 19 of you to be waited on).

Today, we woke up and went to church at the current church which has no room left in it. They had 2 extra rooms in the church where people were able to watch the service on a screen. Then off to lunch at a great chicken place with unbelievable cinnamon rolls:D Next, some went out to drive around Kansas City while a couple of us headed to the building site to get ready for dinner. I spent my afternoon making some good sweet tea and some other odd and end jobs. Dinner and then back to the hotel to wake up tomorrow and get started building at 6:30am.

Out and About

2009-06-04T12:40:00.005-05:00

Currently I am in Birmingham visiting my family. I have been fed very well over the last few days as always when I am home. It has been great to spend time with everyone and catch up. I love my family so much!!!

I have 2 more days at home before I fly out to KS with my mom for a mission trip. I will have my computer with me, so I am hoping to update you but I might not have the energy needed to blog (or do anything but sleep for that matter).

Pray for Zach as he is left at home without me for 2 weeks:(

Growing Something

2009-05-30T18:08:00.003-05:00

Zach and I live in a wonderful neighborhood that has a park in which this year some neighbors decided to start a garden. We had 9 neighbors interested and so we tilled some land and marked out 9 plots. Zach and I spent hours in our mud hole trying to make hills for our plants to grow on. It took us several days over several weeks to finally get things planted. Some plants, but mostly seeds. I am happy to say that we are actually growing things. I am not saying that they will last, but they have popped up and that is pretty exciting. No surprise to me, I have already forgotten what seeds I put where, so I am not sure what I am growing, but I am growing.

This is a picture of all the plots...ours is the one of the far left.

I do happen to know that these are the green bean plants!!!

Update on the House

2009-05-26T19:41:00.003-05:00

After 5 months, we finally put up our American flag from Buckie and Janey on Memorial Day. Perfect timing!

This flower randomly popped up in the garden among many many weeds and some trees.

A Trip Down the River

2009-05-26T19:20:00.003-05:00

Zach and I decided to take a canoe trip down the Big South Fork River this past weekend. We took off on Friday after work and after loading the car and canoe. We arrived at the river access around midnight. We decided to sleep in the back of the car because it was so late. Maybe I should say attempt to sleep because I didn't do much sleeping, but that was beneficial in that I was already awake at 6am to unpack and get ready for our trip.

We unloaded everything into the canoe right by the river. Zach then drove the car to the take out point to be picked up by a canoe rental company to be brought back to me. I waited for 5 hours before Zach finally returned to me and we immediately put in the water to get going down the river.

We are guessing that we paddled about 10-11 miles the first day before finding our campground. I think I improved in choosing the right path down rapids, but that quick of a decision was difficulty for me. We set up camp, made a fire, and made dinner. After dinner, we hung all our food in a bag between two trees to keep the bears from finding us:D Because of the lack of sleep, we both slept late the next morning which is impressive to do in a tent.

The next day, we went through a lot more rapids. We had been told that the last rapid before the take out point was a class IV rapid, Devil's Jump, and that we needed to portage around. We knew we were getting close when we came upon a rapid that looked very large to us. We stopped to scope it out and see if it was Devil's Jump. There were some other canoers around and they let us know that it was not Devil's Jump and helped us make a plan how to get through the large (guessing class III) rapids. It was very exhilarating. Then it was time to portage around Devil's Jump and then take out. It was a great trip!!!

Unfortunately, Zach's digital camera is broken and so I only have a few photos to share right now. Hopefully I will be able to share more later.

Adventures

2009-05-19T21:15:00.004-05:00

I have had quite a great week and it has only been two days.

On Monday I went to the zoo with one of my special education classes. I love the zoo and I especially love going with children. This was a unique opportunity because I have so many children in that class I see, I was able to go and work on PT related activities while I was there. I am pretty sure they were glad to have me as a extra set of hands as well. I had a great time, but there was one little incident. When we were ready to leave, we went out to find out that our bus was broken down and that we had to wait for another bus to come pick us up. So there we were with many special education preschoolers worn out from a day at the zoo, stuck on the curb waiting on a bus for quite a while. What a (half) day! I would love to share photos, but due to HIPAA, that would not be a good idea. Sorry.

And then today, one of my coworkers invited us to go out on her boat to go eat at a restaurant on Old Hickory Lake as a celebration of the end of the school year. It was so much fun to take a mini vacation tonight to go cruising on the lake eating right on the water.

The sunset over Old Hickory Lake.

My Spanish Needs Refreshing

2009-05-17T13:13:00.003-05:00

Today I went to a meeting for the mission trip I am going on to Guatemala in July. We had a short Spanish class after the meeting. I knew that I was not good at Spanish especially considering the years of Spanish classes and being surrounded by Hispanic families in my daily life. Today I realized not only am I horrible at speaking and understanding Spanish, but I have also lost my vocabulary. I need a refresher on vocab so that at least I have some single words to use even if I don't have any sentences. Wish me luck.

Rain, Rain, Rain

2009-05-16T16:45:00.005-05:00

Our neighborhood planned on having a yard sale a couple of weeks ago, but it rained (or rather poured) that morning, so we called it off and rescheduled it for this weekend. I woke up this morning at 5 am to a thunderstorm. By 5:30 the weather had calmed to a drizzle and I tried to prepare myself for a rainy and hot (if the sun came out) day. I decided to wear a knee length dress with rian boots and a rain jacket. I probably looked a little silly, but the rain boots were a very good idea. The sun did peak through for about 1 hour of the 9 hours we were out there. The rest of the time it was either raining or threatening to rain. Despite the weather, we sold a decent amount of stuff. Probably about half of the sales were internal (bought by people within the neighborhood). I was able to walk away only buying one piece of furniture, an old wooden bar stool with arms, and was able to sell several large pieces. Overall, not a bad deal.

Hanging out with neighbors under the gazebo waiting for the rain to pass over.

A Couple of New Things

2009-05-15T21:27:00.006-05:00

Over the past few days, I have experienced a few new things.

The first was cooking my own pancakes at a restaurant. Due to the current economic situation, many places are having some real deals. Pfunky Griddle is one of the places offering a great deal...unlimited pancakes for $3. As I mentioned, we were in charge of cooking our own. It was a very fun experience.

My other new experience was today. I was asked to be in a photo shoot for a Bible Study and today was the shoot. It was very interesting and hard. It is hard to take directions when you don't know what you look like through the lens. I hope that they got what they needed. I don't think you will actually see my full face in any photos, but my smile might be on the cover. Pretty crazy stuff.

A Forgotten Post

2009-05-15T21:23:00.002-05:00

I made a chocolate chip cookie cake for a friend for her birthday. I was pretty happy with the results.

A Somewhat Productive Weekend

2009-05-10T17:25:00.002-05:00

On Saturday morning, I helped a friend learn how to make cookies. This friend had never (I really mean never) baked anything. I made sure that he did everything himself including deciding on how fine to chop nuts, nut and chip ration, etc. He did an amazing job!

Once Zach got home from work, we had to go on a shopping spree for some pants to wear to a wedding Saturday night. Our shopping spree ended at Josh's house and Zach borrowed some of his pants for the wedding. Next up was getting some plants so that we will be ready to plant in the next few days. Then it was off to the wedding.

Today, I helped in children's ministry at church and then went shopping. I got home and was ready for a nap. While taking a nap, Zach installed a ceiling fan. Way to go Zach!!!

I Told You So

2009-05-10T17:24:00.001-05:00

Surprise!

2009-05-08T18:26:00.004-05:00

Here is a picture of the peony plant we have in our front "garden".

This plant is amazing to me. We had no idea what was in our garden. Zach cut back some stems, but we had no idea was to expect. Then out comes these leaves. The plant starts to grow and grow and GROW. It is huge! and it started as nothing. What a crazy plant. Just in the past week, the flowers began blooming. Once again, HUGE! The picture below is of a bloom that is the size of my face.

I have not decided if I like this plant yet or not. Mainly due to the fact that it attracts ants. Who wants a flower that has ants ALL over it? I definitely don't want that plant welcoming my guests into my home. I do like the flowers and I am planning on moving it in the fall to a place much further away from the front door. If I do this, maybe the irises will grow since they won't be devoured by ants.

Lights Out

2009-05-04T21:20:00.002-05:00

Saturday was anything but predictable. I woke up at 5:15 to get ready to be at the neighborhood garage sale by 6. I was putting last minute things in the car at 5:55 when I got a phone call informing me that the yard sale was cancelled due to rain. (In case you don't live in Nashville, it down poured on Friday and was stilling lightly raining on Saturday morning. Rain is actually predicted everyday but Tuesday this week.) This is the point at which I realized that Saturday was May 2nd which meant that I completely forgot to wish my mom a happy birthday. What a crummy start to the day. I decided to try starting the day again by going back to sleep:)

I woke up again and didn't really know how to make use of the day since I had planned on being at the yard sale pretty much all day. I worked on cleaning up things around the house and just took it slow. Then there was a phone call and a knock on the door. Oops, I had invited a friend to come hang out at the yard sale and forgot to let her know that it was cancelled. It was really great seeing her and hanging out since we had not seen each other in a while. This led me right into the other planned activity of the day...Moograss.

Moograss is an outdoor festival here in Nashville to raise money for Radnor Lake. All day I was waiting to get a call that is was cancelled, but that call never came, so we headed out. The show went well and the rain held off for the most part. There was some misting, but not very many true raindrops. On the way home, the carpool decided to watch a movie.

8 of us watched Seven Pounds in our living room. The movie evoked a lot of conversation. In the midst of this conversation, we heard the cat door open. Zach and I looked at each other to confirm that it was the cat door. Zach and 3 other boys snuck to the door to see what was joining our party. Whatever it was did not let us see it. Not long after this occurrence, the lights went out. (Oh yea, it was raining again.) This began some kinda scary talk about ghosts, etc. This was not purposeful, but fitting. Eventually the lights came back on and by that time it was about 2:30am and time to go to bed. And that was our Saturday.

Merlefest Update

2009-05-01T18:51:00.019-05:00

Sorry for taking so long to finally let everyone know about Merlefest. For those of you who didn't know, this past weekend I (and the rest of the wives) went with The Farewell Drifters to Merlefest in Wilkesboro, NC. It was an amazing weekend packed full of activities. It was wonderful to spend time with family and friends who came (Deb, Lyn, Bob, Adam, Scottie P, Kasey and Melissa). I am going to try to hit the highlights or else this might be a novel.

Because all of the girls were planning on going, there was some transportation issues that needed to be ironed out. Two couples wanted to drive themselves, which left 6 of us to fit into the 6 seats that are in the van (one seat is taken out for the bass). We weren't sure if we could do it, but it seemed ridiculous to take another car. I am proud to say that we made it there and back without any problems arising. It helped that I am the largest person that was in the van.

Once we got to Merlefest, it was go, go, go. It seemed like the boys were either playing, eating, or getting ready to play again. And it was extremely hot!!! It was all sun and around 89 every day. There was a lot of sweating and me trying to avoid the sun which is not easy when there is a limited amount of shade for everyone (estimated around 80,000) there.

There was one rain storm on Friday afternoon which everyone said had to happen at some point during Merlefest. It just happens that the rain came when we were trying to leave one day. Because of the equipment, there were golf carts that would pick us up and take us to our car, etc. We happened to need to leave at a very busy time and so 9 of us had to get on a golf cart in the rain with instruments. As you can imagine, the golf cart had a little bit of trouble getting up the hill to the parking lot (there were really big hills on the college campus). I jumped off in hopes of it helping the golf cart to get up the hill. I was able to run and keep up the golf cart as it went up the hill.

The reason we had to head out was to get to a hotel where they were doing live feeds to a radio show in TN. This was fun to watch, but hard for me to be silent while we listened to the boys talk and sing and were only able to hear one side of the radio conversation.

Saturday was a packed day which resulted in us being at Merlefest for about 18 hours. The boys played several shows and we had a break around dinner where we were able to catch some other bands. The night ended at the midnight jam which was so much fun. The boys opened for other bands and then were able to jam with some of those bands as well. They really rocked (or bluegrassed) it. We finally headed to the hotel around 3 am.

And, very importantly, I picked up an amazing piece of artwork.

A Lesson Learned

2009-04-20T22:15:00.003-05:00

So Sunday night I decided it would be a great idea to make homemade pesto chicken pizza on whole wheat crust. I began making the dough and decided after kneading it in the mixer that it was way too sticky and that I had done something wrong. I added a little more flour and then a little more, and so on until I decided it looked the right consistency to me. This is a little dangerous since I am by no means a dough expert (I have only made like 2 loaves of bread in my entire life). Moving on with dinner, I completed other steps in the pizza making process while the dough rose. I made a very sticky pizza crust and put it on a borrowed pizza stone to prebake for a few minutes. I prebaked for a little too long I believe since it was very brown when I took it out to add the toppings. I added all my toppings and back in the oven for 10 minutes. After about 4 minutes in the oven, smoke began escaping out the stove top. We don't have any kind of over the stove vent, so all the windows were opened. The pizza didn't look too bad, so we sat down for dinner. Slicing the pizza was VERY difficult and it took the two of us working together to chip it off the pizza stone. Zach reported that it tasted good, but my taste buds were tainted by all the happenings up to that point and I can't say I enjoyed it too much. After we chipped off all the slices, I got to cleaning the pizza stone when I heard a call from the dining room. It was Zach informing me that the dining room table was ruined where the pizza had been sitting (on a pizza rack, on a dish clothe, on a place mat). Zach and I have officially caused more damage to our dining room table than had been caused over decades of us by my grandparents and my mom and aunt.

So, you might be asking what the lesson is....Never cook anything that you have not seen someone else successfully cook.

Mr. Fix-It

2009-04-18T21:56:00.004-05:00

I wanted to take a moment to give a shout out to my husband for being a Mr. Fix-It this week. He got to go pick out a grill with his birthday money and then he had to assemble it. Well, technically he chose to assemble it because to buy one put together for you cost $10 extra. It was in many, many pieces and he did it in no time.

On that same day, he received some parts he ordered for our lawnmower that broke. He used these pieces to attempt to fix the lawnmower. Some pieces were not quite the right fix, so he went to the store to find better fits and he fixed the lawnmower.

You Rock Zach!!!

Lonely

2009-04-14T20:29:00.002-05:00

As many of you know, Sheba has disappeared. More of this in a minute.

This weekend was made of crazy highs and lows. Zach's birthday was on Saturday. He woke up with a headache, but headed out to record with The Farewell Drifters right away. When he came home, he was feeling really poorly. Horrible, possible migraine. He slept for an hour and still felt horrible. We ended up calling Dr. Bob to see what we could do. While I was putting a cold pack on his head, closing blinds, etc., I was thinking he better get better well since people were coming over for his party in just a few hours. Thankfully after some more rest, he was ready to open his birthday gifts (still afraid to move, he opened them in bed). After gifts, he felt that he could get up and so then dinner and a party. The party went really well. And the cake was delicious.

I woke up early on Saturday to help with the children during the first two church services. Then Zach came for the third service to lead the welcome/call to worship and I joined him to attend that service. The church service was amazing. Our church did cardboard testimonies, which were so powerful. If it ends up being posted somewhere, I will be sure to let you know. As the services was ending, Zach asked me if I had seen Sheba that morning. I had not and neither had he. We spent the rest of the day searching for Sheba. She is still missing and we had tried everything we know to do to find her. We have been really sad the past few days. We are praying that she will come home soon.

Where Have I Been?

2009-04-10T22:56:00.009-05:00

I am not sure the answer to that question, but I think I have been busy. I think Zach and I had something to do every day this week. The week flew by and so did today even though once again, I am not really sure everything I did, but I will give you some hints.

This morning I had just started running some errands, when the tornado sirens went off and I headed home to check on what was going on. Sure enough there was a band of really bad weather heading towards Nashville. The tornadoes were predicted to go north and south of Nashville and thankfully they did. Unfortunately, south of us, they caused A LOT of damage and took several lives. I am glad that I decided to stay in the house while the weather passed over instead of getting things done that I really wanted to be getting done. While I was at the house, I decided to make Zach's birthday cake (Zach's mom's recipe of course) for tomorrow.

After the weather passed, I headed out the grocery to get some things for the party tomorrow and I made it all the way to the grocery before realizing I forgot my list. So back home I went and then back to the grocery. After the grocery, I got my brakes checked. I had gotten a coupon in the mail for a free brake check. I thought it being free and all that it would be really quick. Boy was I wrong. An hour and a half later, I was finally leaving with a clean bill on the brakes, but told that there is another nail in a tire. With how many nails I have run over, you would think that I work at a construction site. Oh well.

Home I went to make a very quick Shepard's pie that actually turned out decent. I ran a few more errands and then off to church for Good Friday service which I am so glad I did. I came home and decided to test the shark (steam mop thing). I vacuumed and then went through 2 clothes on the shark. I really enjoy seeing how much dirt I clean up. The process to get that dirt up, I don't quick as much enjoy.

And that was my day.

Bad Weather Alert

2009-04-02T23:22:00.002-05:00

I tend to not pay much attention to the weather. This really doesn't make much sense since I am out in the weather every day. If the news happens to be on while I am exercises and I catch the weather, I will try to take in the week as a whole. I did happen to catch that they were predicting storms for today earlier this week. I took mental note and all day today I was prepared for bad weather. All through the school day, in and out of my car, the weather was great. I even took my umbrella into a few schools just in case. Nothing. While I was at my last school for the day, the emergency weather radio went off warning of tornado type weather coming towards Nashville. Hmmm tornadoes, I had no idea. It had just begun raining when I was leaving the school. On my way home weather alerts were interrupting the regular programming talking several counties under tornado warnings/watches including Davidson County. When I got home, I turned on the news and took note of the predicted paths of the storms. I needed to be at a continuing education course about 30-40 minutes away by 5pm and I knew that if I waited for this series of storms to pass through that I would not make it, so I hit the road hoping that I could beat the bad stuff and no tornadoes were actually predicted to cross my path. About half way to my destination, there was a weather update informing me that more tornadoes had been spotted and were heading towards my route. I decided that it would be best for me to pull off the road. I took the next exit and took refuge in a Barnes and Noble. I am quite happy I did, because not long after I got into the Barnes and Noble was I informed that a tornado had touched down close enough that we needed to head to the bathrooms of the store for safety. Thankfully, the tornado did not stay down and we just had to stay in that "safe" area for about 10 minutes before we were given the clear. I headed out and continued to my destination. What a night.

GhettoGround Atlanta

2009-04-02T23:10:00.005-05:00

We took our sweet time getting up on Sunday morning, which was a wonderful treat. I treated myself to an amazing waffle at the breakfast bar and we headed out to Underground Atlanta. Zach had seen some stuff written about Underground and I had memories of being there as a child so I was ready to go. I specifically remember my siblings and I having our caricatures down in Underground when we were younger and I was really looking forward to having one done with Zach. We head into downtown on the MARTA and walk into Underground Atlanta and immediately realized we were not in our element. Underground has turned ghetto. It was not how I remembered it. There was even a place where you could have your photo made with a backdrop that had a spray painted ghetto Sponge Bob Square Pants on it. This was not how I remembered it. I checked with my mom and she confirmed that this was not what it was like when we were there as children. Even more disappointing was that we could not find anyone doing caricatures. So Sunday was for the most part was a failure. For anyone looking to spend a weekend in Atlanta, I would recommend going to the aquarium on Saturday and then CNN on Sunday. Just a suggestion.

A Long Walk, Etc

2009-04-01T22:48:00.007-05:00

Back to the MARTA to find a gallery selling art student's work. We got off and started walking. And we kept walking. The building was not exactly where we thought it was going to be. It felt like a really long walk to get there, but there were some neat buildings on the way there to occupy me for a little bit. We finally made it to walk in and find the gate down and the store closed. The security guard informed us that the students running the store decided to take a "break" until official closing time which was only about 30 minutes away. Bummer! The walk back to the MARTA didn't seem as long as the walk there for whatever reason.

We took the MARTA to our car and we began our search for IKEA. We found it without any troubles and were amazed by the size. I didn't really expect a building the size of at least 3 WalMarts. We began our tour of IKEA. The top floor is all showrooms and the bottom floor is where merch is set out to buy. In one of the showrooms, there was a TV on showing tornadoes heading for Nashville. After exiting IKEA with only a curtain rod, I called Lisa to make sure the tornadoes did not actually hit home. Tornadoes hit not too far out of Nashville, but I was informed our home would be fine.

We hurried back to the hotel to enjoy my #1 amenity in choosing a hotel: the hot tub. I loved winding down and relaxing after walking all day in rain/cold. We were only able to stay a short time because we needed to go eat dinner before places closed. We made reservations at a restaurant called Canoe that was said to be shaped like a canoe. The description sounded nice, but I was not prepared for what we walked into. We were greeted by name and seated a very nice table where we were offered a choice of 3 different types of water. We chose filtered tap. I knew I was out of my league. We began looking through the menu which was one page of food and 3 pages of wine choices. Our waitress asked if we would like tea or a soft drink, indicating she did not take us for 21. How funny! Zach chose the rabbit with ravioli, while I had some kind of salmon/goat cheese appetizer. Zach's meal was unbelievable and mine was really rich. We were given dessert menus and Zach wanted to know what I wanted off the menu. My response..."I really just want my cheerios and M&Ms." And that is just what I ate when I returned to the hotel to end our first day in Atlanta.

Day 2 will only be one blog, I promise.