Back from NYC!

Hi girls! So sorry for my little leave of absence there! Robert and I have been in NYC for the past several days and by the time we got back to the hotel I was waaay too tired to do anything but sleep! Bad blog-ette, I know... oops! I can't WAIT to tell you all about it, but for now I've got to catch up on some serious sleep. Night y'all!

Oh, and here's a picture of one of my absolute best friends (Loren) and I at the Museum of Natural History. We went to school together from 2nd grade all through college and she just happened to be in the city the same time we were! I hadn't talked to her in a couple months since we've both been so busy, so I had no idea she was even going to be up there. Crazy!

Time to celebrate!

Good morning y'all! Today is Robert's graduation day and I couldn't be more proud of him! I got up at 7am this morning JUST to give myself 2 hours to do my hair... don't judge. To this day I've YET to pull off a successful Carrie Underwood/Jessica Simpson big curl do, and I was 100% determined to get it right for today! Thanks to the wonderful Ms. Allie over at Confessions of a 20-Something and her super-simple how to video on creating this gorgeous do (by the way, I just love this video Allie!), I was FINALLY able to pull it off... or a least a somewhat-close version of it! :) I was so excited that I finally somewhat got it, I almost finished off my entire bottle of hairspray making sure that it wasn't going ANYWHERE! Okay girls, off to celebrate! Have a wonderful day!

So What Wednesday

Hello my loves! I hope you all are having a fabulous Wednesday! I'm lacking quite a bit in the creativity department today, so I'm thinking that a "So What Wednesday" might be in order...

[So what] if the pile of clothes sitting on the floor of my closet has grown into a 4 foot tall small mountain, under which a small community of clothes gnomes may or may not be living.

[So what] if there appears to be a moth in said closet (due to the increasing amount of random holes in both Robert and my t-shirts) that I've vowed to kill with my bare hands since I flat out REFUSE to put moth balls in my closet. I will NOT smell like an 85 year old woman all day.

[So what] if I spend absurd amounts of money on my hair and clothes and still buy store brand groceries because I'm "trying to save money."

[So what] if I will run half marathons but still complain about not being able to find a close parking spot.

[So what] if I make Charley more home cooked meals than I do myself. Crappy food (which is WAY more common than you'd think) is the #1 (preventable) cause of canine abdominal cancer (the #2 most common form of canine cancer).

[So what] if I sometimes forget that he's a dog... He listens far better than most people I know.

[So what] if my "secret" chocolate chip recipe involves unwrapping the dough and placing the pieces on the baking sheet for 13-17 minutes. They're still amazingly good.

[So what] if I get just as excited about ordering takeout and watching Netflix as I do about going out. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE girls night out and date night... but there's just something so refreshing about staying in.

[So what] if I'm a total science nerd. I love what I do, and I love seeing kids faces light up when they "get it."

[So what] if I'll turn back around after driving 8 miles away from my house because I can't remember if I shut the garage door or not. It totally freaks me out.

[So what] if I'd rather get one handwritten letter in the mail in place of 100 emails. There's just something about the lost art of letter writing.

[So what] if I could go on forever with this list... I want to hear your "so what's"!

Goodnight y'all!!

Craft o' the day!

Since I was feeling a bit arts & crafty today, I decided to seize the opportunity and get some Christmas decorating done. As of this morning, I literally had our 3 stockings up and a couple of Christmas-y candles out... that's it. I'm so slacking this year it's not even funny. So, here's what I made today! Sorry for the weird coloring (I took it with my iPhone), but the ribbon is actually a really pretty light gold. I'm hoping to get Robert to hang the lights tonight, but we'll see... I don't want to rush into anything. :)

Third time's a charm...

Last January I decided to make the switch from PC to Mac, and for the most part I have absolutely loved my computer. It's relatively idiot proof (which most days, I need), very intuitive when it comes to becoming comfortable with the differences between the two, and is absolutely amazing for photo editing (the screen resolution on this baby is crazy!). About a month ago, it froze for the first time. Okay, so yeah... I may or may not have had around 30 tabs opened in two different windows in Mozilla, but so what?! For as expensive as this thing was, it should totally be able my tab-happy moods and NOT cause the memory to crash every time I feel like keeping everything open at once. I know, it's kind of weird... But I literally know what each tab goes to, and you better believe it's all organized in a specific order. If I could color code them all, I totally would. So, yeah... it's just one of my little "things." The first time it happened, I called the Apple tech service  and took it into the Apple store and felt relatively comfortable that as long as I kept my tabs to a conservative minimum, I'd be ok... and for about a month, I was. This past week, it started doing this same thing again. Only this time, it was accompanied by insanely loud beeps and the occasional growl (totally not kidding) from the inside of my computer. A few days went by (hoping that the problem would maybe go away on its own... wishful thinking), and it just got worse. Yesterday morning, I called to make an appointment to bring it back it to get looked at. (A couple side notes... One of the best things about having a mac is that you have an actual place to take it in if you need to (i.e. Apple store instead of having to ship it to who knows where for who knows how long). Also, if you have a mac... buy the pro care membership! Especially if its still under warranty. You skip the entire line when you have a problem and are automatically put at the top of the list for repairs. When there's 57 people in front of you, you will be thanking God you spent the extra money on this.) I get my appointment time, drive across town (45 minutes), and explain what's going on. After 2.5 hours of working on it together, I leave it overnight and agree that it will be ready by the morning. At 10:30am today, I get a phone call that it's ready. I go pick it up (thankfully it's still under warranty so it didn't cost me anything) assured by the employee that it's fixed, take it home, and open it up. After literally 5 minutes of working on my computer... boom. It's frozen and shuts itself off. Are you kidding me!? During that 5 minutes I was able to use my computer, I managed to back up all my files onto the external hard drive I bought last time I was there. When I took it back again this afternoon, I spent another 3.5 hours sitting there waiting for my computer to get fixed with the 5,728 other people just standing around the Apple store. I mean, I know they're cool, but good. lord. Fire code has GOT to be broken on a daily basis at that place. About 3 hours in, I start to not even care about what it takes to fix my computer. I'm hungry, there's tons of screaming kids running around the store, and the heat MUST be at 97 degrees. I get up for 2 seconds to go look at the new Kate Spade computer covers (very cute, by the way!), and as soon as I come back the guy says "umm hey sooo... do you, like, back up your stuff?". Ignoring his very professional way of asking me if I backed up my documents, I said "yes, I do. Is there a particular reason you ask?" He replies "well yeah, your hard drive just crashed and everything is gone." Even though I knew everything was still on my external hard drive, my heart just sank. "Are you serious?" "Yeah, sorry." WHATEVER! At this point, I just want to go home. Forget email... I'll just send everyone letters from now on. They repaired the hard drive (or gave me a new one, I don't even know), and reinstalled the operating system. When I got home, I had to re-enter all my info as if the computer was brand new. The good news--- so far so good, now. I've been on my computer almost 2 hours (catching up on everything) and NO crashes. Le sigh... Moral of the story: "like, backup your stuff"

The original plan for today's post was supposed to be much more positive... so I apologize. My posts haven't exactly been the most uplifting lately. I promise, it will get better soon! As for now, I think I'll hit the gym for a bit and call it a night. This girl is one tired little belle. Goodnight y'all!

Update

Hi y'all... This will be a short and unfortunately sad post. Just a few moments ago I got off the phone with my close friend whose mother was in her last days of battling cancer. Around 10:30pm this evening, she passed away. As sad as this day has been, she is in a much, much better place now... As we get closer and closer to the holidays, I beg each of you to spend some extra time with your families this year. Life is so fragile and so uncertain. We never know how lucky we are until something is gone...

New Do!

Okay my loves... here it is! My fabulous new design by the amazing Lauren at Blue Lux! I am so excited for you all to see it I can barely stand it! A huge thank you to Lauren for all your hard work, and putting up with all of my emails into the crazy hours of the night! You totally get my vote for wonder woman of the year. :)

And now on to my fill my sappy-emotional quota for the day. As most of you know, I'm still fairly new to blogging. It all began when I saw a link on a friend's Facebook to her blog, so I clicked. After browsing around to different blogs (and almost instantly relating to so many of them), I thought I'd give it a shot. Had I not had that extra free hour that day to take the time and set it up, I probably would have just left it alone and never thought about it again. I can't tell you how thankful I am that I didn't! I can honestly say that this has been such a wonderful outlet for me and I am beyond glad that I entered into the world of blogging. You all are such a wonderful people! I've met some truly great women here that I never would have had the pleasure of knowing before without this network. Everyone has a story... from the newly married 20-something just moving into her first house, to the new mom with the world's best little "surprise," to the girl who just graduated and can't find a job. The best part is being able to share in each other's journey, because at one point or another we might just be in the same place. To know that no matter how much it feels like no one else gets it, there's someone out there who's been through it. Knowing you're not alone is much better than trying to push through all by yourself, and makes a world of difference. At the risk of sounding like a major creeper, I feel like I've gotten to know some of you as if we'd been friends for years and just happened to live far apart. I mean, come on... how cool is that?! To that end, I'd just like to say thanks to all the women who have given me such a positive blogging experience so far! You're amazing.

Lastly, I'd like to ask for your prayers... About 8 months ago one of my very close friends found out that her mother had cancer. The doctors all thought they had caught it early enough for her to recover just fine. Unfortunately, this past week they found out that her cancer had returned and had spread quicker than they ever imagined... as it was now in her spine. This morning I received a text from her saying that the doctors are only giving her a couple of days left to spend with her family, and they expect her to be called Home any day now. She (my friend) just got engaged a couple months ago and will now most likely be getting married without her mother by her side... on the most important day of her life. As I hold back the tears, I ask each of you to be reminded of how fragile our lives can be. Cherish the time you have with one another now... you never know when that time will be cut short.

I hope you all have a wonderful night! And turn up those heaters, girls! It's getting cold (ok, chilly...) even here in Florida!

Goodnight y'all!