Weekend Wrap-up

Hello again happy people- both to those of you still on a happy high after a weekend of love and hearts and candy, and those of you happy it's all over ;P

I would definitely fall into the first category. So anyone that's avoiding Valentine's tales feel free to move on now (though, I promise not to get too gushy. I'm expecting this post will be mostly pictures.)

But yes, I had a wonderful weekend with John. I managed to leave work early on Friday. The plan was for John to leave even earlier and get to the yurts early to check in and get his truck unpacked and everything set up by the time I got there. The traffic god had other plans though, and John didn't get there til about an hour after me. So I checked us in, unloaded my car, got the interior all cozy (turns out everything John was bringing was mostly outdoorsy grilling type stuff anyways) and once John got there we hit up the grocery store and settled in the for night!

It was a weekend of hot dogs and burgers for dinner, scrambled eggs and maple flavored bacon (mmmmmMMMMM) for breakfast. Not too shabby :) Over the course of dinner Friday and Saturday night we watched How to Train Your Dragon. Very cute movie. The main dragon reminded us both very much of our cat Coco. If you've ever met this cat, go watch the movie. It's a bit redic. But anyways, Saturday we took a long walk with our cameras to see what we could see. Then came back for an afternoon nap, followed up with another sunset walk to grab a few more shots. Sunday after packing up we went and played a round (my first ever) of disc golf. I sucked. But by the end I had gotten a little better at throwing my disc underhanded and hoping it rolled farther than if I threw it frisbee style :) (My right upper arm was pretty sore all day Monday as a result. I'm so weak.) After all that we called it quits and headed back to John's place. His sis is spending a week down in Tampa with his parents so he's watching her dog for her. So sweet. So he was there when we got home. Took it easy for the evening- John and I played his game and caught up on our DVR'd shows, respectively, and had one more hamburger each for dinner.

Monday morning I had to get up for work. Blah blah blah. But I got to come back to John's place afterwards, which was nice! I don't think I've left for work in the morning from there and come back after work to his place both on the same day in a loooooooooong time, if ever. I almost felt like I lived there too! I stopped by Publix on my way and grabbed everything I needed for a carpet picnic spread. I must say, I think it turned out pretty well. Even if we had way more food than was necessary for 2 people, it was a nice spread and gave both of us left overs for lunch today. We had Publix chicken fingers (yum!!!!), pinwheel sandwiches, fruit, crackers with cheese and deli meat, shrimp cocktail (that was just for John. I don't like shrimp), and a few hard boiled eggs. For dessert: chocolate covered strawberries and bananas and some banana pudding. And I'm even more excited about the fact that I've stumbled across a dynamite spread for next time I throw a party! It was all served cold and had minimal prep- all I did was make the pinwheel sandwiches, dip the fruit in the chocolate, and set everything else out on plates. But once I laid out a blanket on the floor and let a bunch of candles, I think it turned out pretty nice :) After dinner and conversation, we played a few rounds of Rummy and called it a night. Overall, a pretty good Valentine's Day, if I say so myself. :)

So that's it. That was my weekend. Today after work I went and visited my Aunt Elaine, who had a stroke last weekend while watching the Super Bowl. Thank God (literally- there were a LOT of people praying for her) she is fine now and does not seem to have suffered any permanent damage. She's just taking it easy. So that was nice. They live so close to my new place but that's the first time I've stopped by to see them since I moved in, so I must get better about that. They really are wonderful, good Christian people that anyone would be lucky to have in their lives as mentors and have praying for them.

Now, an easy evening and early to bed perhaps. Until next time, here are some of my fave shots from this weekend :) Enjoy!!!

And lastly, last night's carpet picnic:

Another attempt

So here I am again. Umm..... about 3 months after my last blog? Anyways, this will consist of whatever brief update I have time for in the 10 minutes before dinner is ready. Prepare for a random list, but hopefully I'll expand on several items in later posts.

~I finished P90X- kind of wimped out at the end, but then I did a month-long boot camp: an hour workout at 5:45am 5 days a week. It kicked my butt in a good way. I'm currently on an exercise hiatus, lol. Hoping to start running either during lunch (I found a shower at work I can use) or after work sometime soon.

~John and I got all dressed up and went to the fabulous Fox theater to see the Phantom of the Opera's farewell tour. One of my favorites!!! It was wonderful. I cried at the end like always!


~I've signed the non-renewal form at my current apartment complex and am looking forward to moving into a new place- I've figured out the complex, I just have to decide on the unit, but I think after today I'm much closer to a decision.

~I have actually baked ONE item since going on and on about how excited I was to get into that! It wasn't anything out of any of my new cookbooks, however. It was a German Chocolate Cake for John's birthday :) We celebrated with his family one weekend during a family reunion at Brosnan Forest in SC, and then the next weekend he and I celebrated with a trip to the Stone Mountain Laser show, a behinds the scene tour at the Ga Aquarium, lunch at the Sundial restaurant down town, and then with a surprise party at my place! I think it all went over very well :)



Mom- I still owe you a banana cake. Don't worry- you'll get it soon!

~I have also started a couple paintings. There's not much there yet, but there are 2 fewer blank canvases sitting in my apartment at this moment, so that's a start!

~I recently co-founded a book club with some of my friends. Our first meeting is scheduled for middle of next month. For our first meeting we'll be reading The Wildwater Walking Club. I've also started reading a book my friend lent me, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. So far I'm loving it!

~I'm currently trying to figure out whether I want to continue down the path I had laid out for myself school/career wise, or if I want to try a different yellow-brick-road. I'm leaning toward the latter, I just have to figure out the details. Definitely more on that to come later.

~John's family unfortunately saw each other again not too long after that same family reunion mentioned above. His grandfather passed away unexpectedly and I went with him and his siblings down to the funeral in Savannah. The ceremony was a beautiful celebration of Ryan Garner's life. I'm sad I didn't get a chance to know him better or play that game of one-on-one Scrabble, but I can testify that he was a man that believed in hard work and loved his wife and his family and the Lord above all else. He will be missed but remembered fondly for a very long time.

~I'm still enjoying my church small group. I also recently attended a 4 week leadership program through the church. We heard different speakers on what it means to be a spiritual leader, got to find out what kind of leader we are and were given the opportunity to sign up for various leadership roles within the volunteer community at the church. I haven't signed up for anything yet, but I'm doing a little soul searching and am looking forward to picking a role. I have been to church the last 3 weeks in a row- very proud of myself for that. Missed today as I was home with family all weekend, but perhaps I can watch today's message online and get back on track next week.

~My brother left today for a year long placement teaching English in South Korea to elementary- to middle-school aged children. My fam saw him off at the airport and I cried. I'll miss him a ton, but I'm so proud of him for doing this. He's really an inspiration to me sometimes. As you might expect, I spent this whole weekend with my family hanging out and saying goodbye to my brother. We were unsure when he was leaving at first, so we spent last weekend having a goodbye party for him and spending a day/night at Calloway Gardens. When we found out his flight was today, we got to spend another weekend together. The siblings (plus John) headed to the Andretti Karting facility in Alpharetta for a day of fun, followed by Davey's last Mexican meal for quite a while.

This morning he got his last Waffle House breakfast before we saw him off.



And for now, I'm going to finish watching Inkheart with my dad and sister before heading back to my place for the night. Hopefully you'll hear more from me before 3 months next time :)

PS- Davey, wherever you are over the Pacific right now, I hope you're loving it!!!

Weekend in Review: Tennessee

What a wonderful weekend! It was a time to be proud of my loved ones and realize just how happy and lucky I am to have them all in my life.

My brother graduated on Saturday from undergrad with a degree in Mass Communications from MTSU. He is currently working towards spending a year in South Korea teaching English as a second language. And I believe the plan is still to apply to law schools after that. We didn't have the best relationship growing up, but as we've both matured, we've grown closer. He has grown into such an amazing guy. Smart and caring, and the funniest guy I know. I am so proud of him, and so happy that I can call him a friend as well at this point in my life.

My boyfriend, as reported earlier, made the snare line with the Atlanta Falcons Drumline for the 2010 season, something that he has been working so hard at for the past few weeks. I couldn't be prouder of him. (Though, to be honest, I had absolutely no doubt in my mind he could make it. Without sounding like I have a bias as his girlfriend, he truly does have this will power and determination that just allows him to achieve pretty much anything he puts his mind to.) I am so happy to see him achieving something that I know he will truly enjoy.

And the rest of my family- I am just so lucky to have them. To have a family that has the ability to send their children to school, to visit them and celebrate their accomplishments with them. Not everyone has that, and I am just so happy that I do. I can't imagine how proud my parents were of my brother to see him walk across that stage. Even though I am proud of him, he's not my son, and I know it means much more to them than it ever could for me. It makes me wonder about when I have kids of my own and all the things they will go on to accomplish. I just can't imagine what it must feel like to see someone you brought into this world going out and making something of them self.

The ceremony itself was long and pretty much like every other graduation ceremony people go to. It wasn't a HUGE graduating crowd, because they had multiple ceremonies that day, so everyone got to walk. I did think the president plugged the school a little more than necessary. I understand the need to talk about the school to some degree, but he talked about the school more than he did the actual graduates really. Oh well. The speaker wasn't bad, and I did make a note of at least one quote he used in his speech- "All that lies behind you and all that lies before you is inconsequential to what lies within you." (A rewording of a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, I believe.)

After the 3 hour ceremony, we grabbed a bite at a burrito place, Blue Coast, ran back to the hotel to change and then headed out to Nashville for the evening. Davey took us and his girlfriend, Claire, by the place he worked on Music Square. We walked around a bit, took pictures and contributed to the Geocache that was located under the back stairs leading up to his office. Very cool! Then after that we headed off to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner, dessert and celebratory drinks. I think we ended up leaving with about 10 to-go boxes between everyone!

Sunday morning we got to sleep in (past when they stopped serving free breakfast down in the hotel lobby) which was nice, since we were all EXHAUSTED by the time we fell into bed Saturday night. Davey and Dad ran off to get food for a picnic lunch while Mom, Sunny and I packed up and got ready for the day. Davey picked out this absolutely perfect place to spend Mother's Day. When they got back with the food we drove out to Arington Vineyards for a wine tasting and a picnic! The drive out there was gorgeous (though I didn't get to appreciate it on the way out due to a combination of cramps and the medicine I took that did more harm than good.) But the vineyard itself was just gorgeous! The pictures on the website don't even BEGIN to capture how beautiful this place is. The weather on Sunday definitely didn't hurt. The sky was blue, the grass was green, and the lawns were filled will families just out having a good time. There were dads and sons throwing balls, kids chasing each other, mothers pushing strollers. Not a single screaming child. They had live music and carts that could drive you up if you had to park down at the bottom of the hill (by the time we left the place was packed and people were just parking on the side of the road.) It really was kind of ridiculously idyllic. Whoever does the marketing for Tennessee's tourist industry really needs to get out there and get some footage. I was ready to move up there by the time the day was through.

The wine tasting went well. Mom and Dad have a more mature palate for wine, but we managed to agree on a few and ended up selecting a bottle of the Gewurztraminer to have with lunch. They purchased several more bottles to take home, and both Davey and I got a bottle of the Raspberry dessert wine to take home with us. Then we headed up to the top of a hill overlooking the vineyard and the surrounding area to have our picnic. We exchanged Mother's Day and graduation cards and gifts and had some awesome McAlister's for lunch.

After strolling around a bit and taking in the day, it was time to hit the road. We dropped Davey back off and were on the road by 5, home by a little after 9. I grabbed my bags and Gus and we were back home at my little apartment and in bed by about 10:30! Talk about a busy weekend!

Cats and Grads

I'm in a hotel room in Murfreesboro, TN currently. My lil' bro graduates from MTSU tomorrow. So proud of him! :)

I'm actually really tired, so this won't be long. Just checking in.

I got to see my new kitty again today. I don't think I mentioned that in my catch up post. I came home one day from work and there was a VERY sad looking kitty sniffing at people's garbage bags on the second level in my building. So I coaxed him upstairs and gave him some food. And I just didn't have the heart to leave him out there so I put him on my back porch and kept him out there for about a week with fresh food and water and litter. I didn't know what kind of diseases he may have so I didn't want him actually IN my apartment as my boyfriend and I have 2 other cats that I didn't want to risk catching anything. But he was very sweet and obviously used to being around people.

I got him into the vet and turns out he's an oooold man. They're guess-timating about 15. (So, more a "cat" than a "kitty" really, but whatev...) It took them like 4 tries just to even determine he was a he actually. His fur was so matted they couldn't get through to his "parts" to see what kind of parts they were. We ran all sorts of blood work to make sure he was healthy and such. He was free of the super bad stuff- feline leukemia and feline AIDS, worm-free, etc. Turns out he does have hyperthyroidism which causes all sorts of symptoms like increased heart rate and high metabolism which in turn lead to an inability to put on weight, increased bowel movements and urination, etc, etc, etc. But the vet said it's fairly easy to treat so we've got some pills. He'll take those for a month then we'll check his levels again and adjust as necessary. Once we get that leveled out again it'll just be a matter of a couple annual check ups.

And my parents did me the huge favor of taking him to get shaved (the matted fur really was just ridiculous) and I got to see him for the first time after that today. And Oh. My. Goodness. This is one skinny cat. When I get my camera fixed I'll post pics (hopefully soon, before he fattens up too much, otherwise I'll just use John's camera.) But the point is that he is now on his way to becoming a much-loved, fat, content indoor cat. :) He is very laid back (my parent's 3 dogs don't phase him a bit) so we'll probably introduce him to our other 2 cats within the next week or so. Oh yeah- I named him Gus!

(And don't worry, the house sitter this weekend knows to give Gus his medicine while we're away!)

Anyways, it was a long, if tolerable, day at work today. Followed by a 3 1/2 hour car ride, so I'm going to head to bed now. Luckily this ceremony is NOT a morning gig. We don't have to get there til 12ish. My only worry is getting up in time to catch free breakfast downstairs :) Sweet dreams!

Foooooooooooooood!!!!!!

Ok, this is kind of a random post, but I'm bored and I've got food on the brain, so I thought I'd turn it into something constructive.

I am totally psyched about this new cookbook I got the other day. It's called Frame-by-Frame Baking and it's AMAZING!!! Not only does it help you make sure you're doing everything right with pictures of each step (rather than just one picture of the finished product) but all those extra pictures actually make your mouth water that much more when reading through the recipes!!! This same line of books has at least one other(Frame-by-Frame Quick and Easy) but as I'm more of a baker than anything else, I got this one. I cannot wait to bake my way through it.

At the same time as I got this new book, I also purchased a tart pan. "Why?" you may ask. Not really so I could bake tarts. That is one added bonus, as I don't currently have a tart pan. But no, I bought this particular pan because it had what looked to be an amazing peanut-butter-banana tart recipe on the packaging. Yes, I'm that kind of person.

I have also come across (or been sent) numerous recipes online, or simply pictures of items which I plan on attempting to divine the recipe for.

Bottom line? I have A LOT of baking to do!!! So I think I'm going to attempt, among everything else I have going on in my crazy life, to start baking one new thing each week. I figure that's not too lofty a goal, and should be easy enough to work into my budget. No budget-breaking, career-interrupting craziness here like in Julie and Julia (Though that was an awesome movie! And one more thing that inspired me to start my own blog!)

So in order to keep track of my baking endeavors, I'm going to keep a running list (see new sidebar gadget) of every new recipe I attempt in the coming days. If I can ever find the battery charger for my camera, I'll post pictures as well.

Feel free to send suggestions my way :)

Day 10- Small Accomplishments

Wow have I been busy this week! Back to work on Tuesday with a more-than-normal workload to cram into a shorter- than-normal work week. But there's just one more day and I'm hanging in there. I saw 2012 with my boyfriend on Tuesday after my workout, and really enjoyed that. Another movie with great visual effects. Had small group last night and per usual didn't get out until 10 after chatting away.

My workouts are going well. Kenpo X on Tuesday kicked my butt! I never knew martial arts were such a cardio workout! I had to press pause several times in order to catch my breathe, mop my brow and grab some water! But I definitely knew I was going to benefit from that afternoon! I'm still feeling the burn in my calves and triceps. Yesterday was my rest day, and this evening starts Week 2 back with Core Synergistics (eek!) I'm hoping I'll be able to make it through a few more of the push up moves this time around!

I also finally got the workouts to the girls in my small group. Sounds like 3 or 4 of them are going to be joining in the fun! I've already heard from 2 of them that did today's workout together this morning. It's so nice to have people in your life following such a tough program right along with you. They're exactly a week behind me, so for the most part we'll still be doing the same workouts on the same days. We're already joking around and looking forward to the "beachbody"s that we're going to have in a few months!

Heading out of town tomorrow after work for a birthday celebration for my boyfriend's grandfather. Should be lots of fun, but I'm not sure what kind of workout opportunities I'll have. So I'm planning on getting up super early tomorrow AM in order to get in Cardio X before work. I'll try to get in a run on Saturday somehow since I'm missing the 10K group, and then hopefully I'll be back in town on Sunday early enough to pop in Yoga X.

I'm also not sure how closely I'll be able to follow my meal plan while I'm on retreat with the whole fam, so I'm just planning on making the healthiest choices available to me, and doing the best I can. I'm staying away from the all-or-nothing approach I've taken in previous attempts where I've given up on the whole program as soon a I slip up one tiny time. I'm focusing instead on doing the best I can and making as many little accomplishments along the way as I can. For example- I said "no thank you" to popcorn during Tuesday's movie. Last night's snack at small group was cupcakes. I didn't have one! And at today's staff meeting our boss provided various flavored popcorn. And once again, I didn't have any! So I'm holding tight to these little steps and hoping they snowball eventually!

A friend showed me a really inspiring article today and I just cannot wait until I start seeing results in my own life! I'm determined to see this through. A group at my work is also focusing on Health and Wellness and they've asked me to give an informal testimony during our next staff meeting about a bootcamp I went through a while back, so I'm sure I'll be talking about the programs I'm in now as well. Who knows-- maybe I can inspire some of them to step it up with their goals too!

Blech!

The yogurt I'm allowed currently is only Non-fat Plain. Which is not the same as vanilla. And it does NOT taste good. I'm trying to mix in my strawberries to make it more palatable but it's not really working. I'll finish it this morning, but not sure it's going to make it into any more meals until I hit the next phase in the nutrition meal (I'm allowed fruit flavors then.)