Life Update

I think I'm going to go ahead and commit to not blogging on the weekends in the fall because weekends are so dang busy. And then I'll make it my Monday routine to catch up on what happened during the weekend. I know it's Tuesday now, but yesterday was basically a part of the weekend. It's hard to tell what's week and what's weekend anymore. I wish I had one week where I could just stay in Birmingham, but that's not going to happen for a while. Lots people to see and places to go! This week I'm going to Oxford (either tomorrow or Thursday) and Grayson and I are going to Orlando for his brother's engagement party. Should be fun! I'm just tired from all the travel. The whole rest of April is going to be a doosey.

Here are some pictures from the last few days!

1. watching Coachella livestream. I don't think I would have fun at a festival that big, but maybe I'll go one day

2. sorting through and giving away buckets and buckets of old toys.

3. another picture of the toys. 

4. bacon mac n cheese favorite I made for Easter.

5. Breakfast date with Ashley! I hadn't seen her in way too long! 

6. everything is making me miss Vermont! I'm so ready for summer to kickoff

7. little guy next to me in traffic! The puppy fever is so real

8. got to spend some time with Thomas and Kim yesterday! Always good to catch up with them and eat pizza 

grown-up holidays.

I'm getting to a point where holidays feel very different than they did when I was younger. I blame this mostly on my keen awareness of time versus when I was a kid. When you're a kid, you don't really know what day it is, how long an hour is, or how much time has passed. And it makes holidays feel so long and exciting and special. I hate to say this but I feel like I've gotten to a point where holidays come and go just like the other days. That's not a bad thing - for the most part I like my days, but I do miss the magic of it a little bit. Some holidays are even really good, but they still come and go like any other day. Easter is soon, though, and for the first time in a while - neither Parrish or myself have to sing at the sunrise service - so that is really exciting! I miss going to Winder for Easter, though, which is what we used to do when P and I were little.

Today's pictures (more than 5 today!)

1. one of my room walls. I'm going to be taking everything down soon I think. Sad, but probably time.

2. steeple after Good Friday service

3. P and I went to lunch after one of her classes downtown. yummy restaurant called The Place - I had never been before

4. my first cleaning project this year was the guest room. I love how the light hits the bed now!

5. I have become one of those people with a million products

6. tonight I had the house to myself so I took a bath, watched Grey's Anatomy, and had some Lavender Ice cream from Jeni's

7. I ended up going to Publix and getting everything to make calzones. Second time making them and they were very delicious!

always packing.

I used to think when people said this they meant always packing a suitcase because they are just on the go people. It is what I mean by my title because holy cow I am never in Birmingham for more than three days anymore. Heading home tomorrow for Easter and root canal finale (hopefully). I'm super tired so here are today's five.

1. I admit that this a picture from Monday, but I accidentally only took four today - so here is one I never shared.

2. sunbathing on my porch today trying to get a base tan and this was my view :)

3. I've started opening my window and it's actually made a huge difference. Just makes me feel better.

4. I made dinner tonight! An old favorite from my Molly on the Range cookbook. I stuffed myself with as many as I could and will more than likely eat the rest tomorrow

5. room all ready for sleep and go early tomorrow morning.

a rambling of thoughts.

I've been really bad about my 5 pictures a day. Basically because I don't do a whole lot and there is not a lot to take pictures of.

Today GB and I woke up and went to Big Bad Breakfast in Oxford which is really delicious. We met Jonathan and Jake there for Jake's birthday and then GB took me back to my car.

Drive home was fine and I somehow got through this to do list.

I always get antsy this time of year. I am such a summer person I get impatient for summer really bad. I am going to try harder to take pictures though because I really love to look back and remember the "filler days."

Luckily I leave for Athens on Thursday to get my final root canal installment and Easter! And, I get to cook tomorrow from my Molly on the Range cookbook. It is absolutely my favorite cookbook and I have loved every recipe I've tried in there :)

NOLA formal 2017

so yes, I am graduated, but my boyfriend is not. He goes to Ole Miss and this weekend was his fraternity's formal. We went to New Orleans and it was a lot of fun! We had so much yummy food (Grayson's goal) and we went to Anthropologie and went to the hotel pool (my goals.) There was a festival going on by the river that was free and it was so much fun! I wish I had taken more pictures! But here are the few that I got!

1. Saturday was so beautiful. It was the perfect temp all day. 

2. Grayson's best friend Philip at Philip street

3. me and GB at the sign (not a huge deal, just trying to take more pictures)

4. walking back to the hotel we got Pina Coladas and took them to the pool at the hotel

5. luckily for us, the hotel had a really great pool on the roof :) 

6. GB and I at the pool before formal

7. GB and I at the hotel getting ready to walk over to formal

8. and one more! 

Thanks for a fun weekend GB! I love you! 

Oh how I miss my brother.

Last night we were under tornado watch/warning (whichever one is less severe - I can't ever keep those straight) here in Birmingham. It was raining some when I went to sleep, but I sort of half-woke up when an extremely loud roll of thunder came around. I personally love storms and I love that something so loud can't really touch me or harm me. I get to just be in it. I like storms.

But our family dog Charlie, who passed away in June, did not.

My immediate thought when I heard that thunder was that I wanted to comfort Charlie. I remembered then in my still mostly asleep that Charlie was gone, but I was still yearning to comfort a pup. My pup. I have been saving up for a Mini-Sheepadoodle puppy for quite some time now. And, all this saving up and not having Charlie has made me puppy sick like I didn't know was possible.

Strangely enough, my mom texted me this morning saying what a relief that Charlie didn't have to experience any of that storm. It is I guess one way we make peace with something difficult, but it was just another way for me to miss Charlie and for me to miss my future pup who I plan to name Friday.

My friend Maggie & I on New Year's 2015 with Charlie in a bad storm 

This waiting for a dog thing is not easy, but it does give me a lot of time to think and reflect on my eleven wonderful years with Charlie. Charlie is basically the standard to which I hold every dog. Charlie was peaceful, but alert. In tune with what his family was doing, yet always napping. And so soft and curly. My original intent was to have Friday while we still had Charlie so that hopefully Friday would pick up on Charlie's perfect temperament.

Though I don't have a clear idea of where we are before we are born, it is a nice thought that Charlie and Friday might be together out there somewhere - not dealing with storms or fireworks or anything spooky.

Here is a mini sheepadoodle if you don't know what one is :) 

& today's five of course.

1. planning out watching the Independent World Prelims on Flomarching. I hate that I'm missing the show and a little sad that I'm not performing in it. 

2. gorgeous view out of our back porch after some of the rain stopped.

3. I was able to get in a small run between rains. It was so pretty and there are all sorts of little creeks and things on my route. 

4. it hailed for about one minute. and during my conference call. I've never seen hail that hard. there were also four huge cracks of lightening that sounded like gunshots. so scary. 

5. packing for NOLA. I'm so excited and may have overpacked for the first time ever.

My five favorite blogs.

First of all, today was lovely. I got so much done and at such a nice pace. I had time to site outside and get some sun before my final two interviews for our intern candidates. Tomorrow there is supposed to be a huge weather situation (tornado?) so I went ahead and got everything for Grayson's formal cooler. (it's styrofoam this year because I actually painted one last year). Then I finished last night's episode of DWTS (Narmani is really growing on me) and just finished alterations on my dress!

I wasn't planning to write any of that, I was planning to write that I actually only like 5 blogs. I have seen a bunch and there are only five on the whole internet that I absolutely love. here they are!

1. Cup of Jo - I've been reading this one since high school. It has changed a lot, but I still love the posts and usually find a good read here.

2. Love Taza - I can't get enough of these guys. The Davis family makes living in NYC look like a complete dream and I always envy their little Upper West Side Apartment. Plus, her kids are precious and so so sweet.

3. Gal Meets Glam - I love the feminine outfits and makeup and travel that Julia Engel has all over the content. Everything is beautiful on this page. Definitely the winner of the graphic design and web development award. I love finding new outfits and pieces here. Also where 90% of my beauty routine comes from.

4. Classy Girls Wear Pearls - I like to pretend I live this kind of life. Sarah Vickers and Kiel James Patrick have a fairytale world. I love the prep style, but I'm a little bit too much of a mess to have my whole life look like this. Still, I love to see her gorgeous pictures that look like source material of J Crew. Seriously. I wish my pictures looked like that.

5. My Name is Yeh - Probably the person I'd want to hang out with the most. Since I've just gotten into cooking, I love Molly Yeh. Her writing is fresh and genuine and funny and her recipes are so awesome. I'm sure I'll be posting about something I've made from her cookbook later this month because every time I have money to get ingredients, I spring straight for her cookbook to try something out.

I check these 5 blogs every Monday and add things to my wishlist, copy down recipes, or tag articles I want to read. I look forward to and it always gives me a little sunny to-do on Mondays.

Here are today's five.

1. this has basically become my view every day. I just get so much done with the TV on. I'm on season 4 of friends and I watch it on DVD since nothing else is hooked up.

2. lovely lovely light.

3. my closet and wonderful shoes. nothing really to take pictures of today. tomorrow will be worse.

4. COOLER! I'm so excited to give this to him!

5. so many goodies and so many things underneath :) I love my boy!

SAPA 2017

As I've written before,  I work at Hoover High School for the color guard. I write and clean dance work as well as movement work in general. This past weekend was our championships which take place each year in Chattanooga, TN. Chattanooga is positively the perfect place for this. We compete in the McKenzie Arena which is close to downtown. Chattanooga is a dream. So cute, walkable, and not too crowded even on busy event weekends.

I didn't take nearly enough pictures as usual, but here are a few...

We drove up Saturday carpool style after a short rehearsal. We checked into the Hampton Inn downtown which was perfectly located. Everything was walkable. We went to Mellow Mushroom for dinner and Cold Stone for dessert. I loved hanging out with Adrian and Ethan this weekend who are two other staff for Hoover.

We got up earrrllly Sunday morning and checked out of the hotel. We rehearsed for an hour in a practice gym right across the street from the arena and the girls performed a no drop performance as their final run through. It was so so awesome.

Then we all got ready and went into warm up. Pictured you see equipment warm up which happens every year in this weird wrestling room. Whatever. Kind of a tradition. I love the familiarity of it.

The girls had a great last show! And they came off the floor feeling pretty good which made me happy! After the performance the girls changed out of uniform and we all went to lunch. My group went to Sticky Fingers which was delicious.

We returned to the McKenzie Arena for the final groups to perform and then awards. Hoover got 4th and a score of 78.41 which is really good! Here are the girls after awards.

One of the other things I loved about SAPA was getting to see some of my lovely Paramount friends :)

Anyway - here are today's five! 

1. got approximately seven million things done on Moses today. this car is quite the money suck. still it feels good to get everything checked out especially as much as I drive. 

2. some of the loot from today's grocery shopping fun. 

3. lunch on these new cute plates that I assume Samantha bought. 

4. trying on clothes for this weekend in NOLA. I've got some alterations to do on the dress I decided to wear. 

5. had nothing else to take a picture of and I just really love my RPC print above the toilet.