My bucket’s getting bigger…

Since I’m fixated on my bucket list lately (what did you think bucket meant? get your mind out of the gutter!

… anyway, decided to add a few things to my list of things to do before I kick the bucket. You can see these on my bucket page… but thought I’d take a little time to further define a few…

• Visit all of the continents… much shorter than listing all of the countries I hope to visit! Yeah I kinda have the travel bug. Not really content to rot and die in Georgia. I just know there’s this HUGE old world out there that’s just dying to show itself off to me… so pretty intent on seeing some of it! And I know ya’ll will be surprised to know that I have a completely separate travel bucket list! I’m sooo anal it’s ridiculous. Anyway… moving on
• Go to the ballet – just convinced Daniel to take me sometime!
• See JourneyPointe AND FUSION knock the hell out of a bunch of people! – yeah I know it’s probably an inappropriate use of words, but technically that’s what we really want to do… so
• Skydive!! – Yeap I’m an idiot… it’s okay!
• Build a Habitat house – or two or three or four, etc.
• See the Northern lights – just always thought that would be incredible to see!
• Be a stay-at-home mom – or at least work from home so I can be more available… kinda have a desire to be the annoying classroom mom who lives at her kids school!
• Take a vacation with my husband alone every year! – yeap… this is one of our goals for our marriage. Kids might come and go, but we’re stuck with each other FOREVER so want to make sure we don’t forget who each other are… figured it was wise to begin this practice BEFORE we have kids
• Ride in a hot air balloon
• Go white-water rafting
• Watch the entire Lord of the Rings series
• Pay off our house and all our debt so we can use our income to help people!! – heard about a couple who did this and I just can’t imagine the impact you could make on other’s lives if you were able to do this!
• Convince Daniel to take Salsa lessons! – haha not too sure if this is a realistic goal!
• Take a helicopter ride over Hawaiian islands
• Go back to NYC to see a Broadway play
• Become fluent in a foreign language
• Do the breast cancer 2 or 3 day walk

Alright, that’s enough for right now!

Does slow and study really win the race?

As most of you know, I along with two other girls in my department joined HMC’s Biggest Loser contest. We had a seriously depressing conversation the other day and thought I’d share it with you so you could be depressed with us

How come those of us who already eat relatively healthy, drink 400 gallons of water a day, try to work up a sweat a few times a week, don’t melt into our sofa for 19 hours a day, and only fall off the wagon occasionally can’t seem to drop a pound?

While people who eat nothing but cheeseburgers, bon-bons, ribs, and mexican, who drink 13 sodas a day, and never leave their sofa’s can manage to cut back to only 12 sodas a day and lose 14 pounds?!? I just DON’T get it!

Just doesn’t seem right!!  There’s a lot of people in our little competition who are taking drastic measures to lose weight because they had a lot of bad habits to correct… but what about those of us who aren’t really that bad! Kinda makes me want to adopt some nasty habits so I’ll lose weight easier… aaghghghg

Stupid Procrastination

I must know deep down inside that I work better when the pressure’s on just a little! Because I CONSTANTLY wait until the last minute to do stuff… why is that?

Anyways, I’m down to the wire with yet another one of my classes… I have 3 tests and a final to get through all before 8/17 which is exactly 20 days away!! WOW… yeah should be fun!

So if you don’t see too much of me for a while…

Waste of Time

Okay so how is it that once I start a scary movie, I HAVE to finish it, otherwise I won’t get closure and I’ll be up for weeks thinking about it?!?

Yeah… that happened to me Sunday. Started watching Cabin Fever Sunday afternoon… I’ve seen the movie before (actually watched it with several single friends a few years ago and remember quite a few awkward moments) but STILL got sucked into watching. It’s just absolutely, ridiculously STUPID… there’s still scenes from that movie that absolutely crack me up because they are so retarded (can anyone say “PANCAKES!!!!” – still don’t get that part AT ALL). Anyway, I had to finish watching that one for some unknown reason.

Then The Descent came on. Kinda got interested in that one because it’s about a group of thrill-seeking women who decide to explore a cave in the Appalachian mountains.  Kinda turns into them being trapped in a cave, can’t find the way out, and oh yea there’s a ton of naked, blind, very white disfigured human/non-human-like creatures that eat people in there!

Yeah I laughed out loud watching that movie. A lot of blood and actually had to tell Daniel not to watch one part where one of the girls has a bone protruding out of her leg… he surely would have thrown up.

But why oh why did I HAVE to finish watching those stupid movies… things I’ll never know!!

Weekend Update

I’m pretty sure I need another weekend! Definitely wasn’t ready to come back to work this morning… Oh well… here’s a little tidbit of what we did this weekend.

Friday night – we literally have been down at the JourneyPointe property every Friday night for like 9 years so Daniel kinda surprised me by politely getting us out of the movie night. I was glad to hear that some visitors actually showed up this time… maybe we should sit out more often! haha jk

Anyway, we had planned on grabbing some Starbucks and heading to Books A Million for a little caffeine and relaxation but we kinda got addicted to LA Ink and next thing we knew it was kinda too late to head out. Oh well… it was nice just to hang out at home with Daniel and Apollo. Did I mention Daniel made spagetti? DANG boy can do some spagetti!! YUM

Saturday – I worked on one of my classes literally ALL DAY! I started around 9 and didn’t break until about 3 something. Daniel hung out on the boat all day with Brian and Crystal. He had fun and I was focused since he wasn’t around Managed to get 2 lessons done and take a test.

By the time Daniel got home I was just about to lose my mind after thinking so hard all day! haha So decided to finally do the Starbucks/Books a Million thing… poor Daniel, ya’ll know how I would be content to hang out there for about 4 1/2 days, but Daniel’s ADD kicks in after about 20 minutes and since he loves me SOO much, he usually won’t complain until after about an hour or so. Saturday – no complaints… mostly because he was all cuddled up in the comfy chair snoozing like a baby! haha Hey whatever works!!

Sunday – did the whole church thing. First Sunday in awhile we haven’t had to do the whole video thing, so a LOT less pressure. I didn’t feel like throwing up once! haha Went and ate Mexican with everyone after church [YAY Anthony's HOME!!!] then wasted an afternoon watching two of the stupidest scary movies of all time! Then hung out with our small group for a couple of hours!

Not too bad of a weekend!!

Best Date Night Ever!!

Can I just first say that Daniel ROCKS??!!

I feel like living so close to Atlanta we don’t take advantage of all the city has to offer. Not a lot of people can say that they have the theater, art galleries, museums, ballet, and a bazillion other things literally at their fingertips!

[Which by the way... I'm just going to go on record now. Daniel said last night that he WOULD take me to the ballet sometime in my lifetime! haha I'm putting that one on my bucket list!]

So anyway, I’m always on the lookout for fun, cheap, and different things to do… A few weeks ago I came across a little film festival the Fox Theater was sponsoring. They were showing a lot of current films, but last night they were playing Breakfast at Tiffany’s…

For those of you who don’t know… Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of my MOST favorite movies of ALL TIME!! One thing I hope to copy my parents on is to share my love for old movies with my children too… they just don’t make great movies anymore. I can remember watching movies like Easter Parade, Singing in the Rain, My Fair Lady, and all of the Rodgers & Hammerstein’s movies a MILLION times and singing along at the top of our lungs from an early age on… So there’s a very sweet little spot in my heart for old movies. Conjures up all kinds of yummy childhood memories! I was CRUSHED when we weren’t able to go inside Tiffany and Co. in New York City (they were closed). I was secretly hoping Daniel would try to find something to buy me for under $10 You gotta watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s to understand that…

Anyway, my adorably unselfish husband decided he’d play along and be dragged to see an old movie… not really his genre, but he loves me I guess! haha

I’m SOO SOOO glad we went. It was one of the most fun things we’ve ever done together. There were probably about 4,000 other people there but it was still incredibly romantic to snuggle up to a GREAT old movie, in front of a HUGE screen, in one of the most beautiful theaters in the whole world. I cried, of course! The end of the movie always gets me!!

And I’m pretty sure Daniel enjoyed himself too and has now decided he likes Breakfast at Tiffany’s too… The man’s come a long way, he even whispered to me last night during the movie “Isn’t that the My Fair Lady girl?” !!! YAY… So impressed that he knew that!! Probably how he feels when I know something about a Yankees player or something! haha

My Mom’s Got Talent TOO!!!

Yeap I’m surrounded by creative talent!!! Not only is my mom an expert scrapbooker she’s a great quilter (is that a word?)… Anyways, check out this quilt she just finished! Kinda disappointed she said this would be her last one! Was hoping she’d love quilting so much that she’d start making me one! hehe just kidding…

She even made the dust ruffle… especially love that Teddy jumped in the shot! Ahhh Teddy Bear!!

My Dad has taken over my living room!!

AND I’m THRILLED!!! My Dad is SUCH a gifted painter… don’t know how I didn’t manage to get a creative bone in my body with all that talent floating around my family… but oh well. He’s really kicked it up a few notches over the past years and has worked on a lot of different paintings. Thought I’d share the paintings that he’s done for me and Daniel so ya’ll can be jealous! haha just kidding…

[pardon the picture quality... took with my blackberry because so much easier than dragging out the camera]

This first one is from a photo he took in my home state of Virginia. Reminds me of my roots and is just absolutely beautiful. Perfectly matches the fall colors of my house… it’s hanging over my piano as you can kind of see below.

Next is one that he did for Daniel since he’s obsessed with all things Yankees. He has an office at the church with all of his Yankees memoribilia HOWEVER I couldn’t let the painting go all the way to his office… too special so it found a home in my living room over a bookcase.

Now… this one is incredibly special to me. Dad did this painting based on a picture of him and me at my wedding. Absolutely just makes me tear up. He officially gave me custody of the painting for my birthday this year. He keeps teasing me that we’re going to share custody, but I’d like to see him pry it out of my fingers just kidding Dad! I hung this painting next to one of my bridal portraits my parents had framed as a wedding gift…

Keep your magnets away!

So yeah Daniel has what looks like a staple in his large intestine! He started complaining of pain in his stomach Sunday which really kicked his tail Sunday night… made an appointment and saw the doctor Monday. They worked him up for appendicitis. Good news – no appendicitis. Bad news – you have a staple in your intestine!

Not sure exactly what to do with that information. Makes you wonder what’s really in our food, huh? We’re kinda in a holding pattern right now to see if the staple does anything or causes him any more pain… if so, he’ll get the pleasure of having a colonoscopy! Poor Daniel…

Oh well there’s always something exciting going on with us, huh?

Weekend Update

Friday – yeap last day of Kids Camp so down to the JP property for setup and to hang out with the kids for the last night. Also had the families come for a cookout.

Then we had the Thr3e – yeah because we’re apparently idiots, we planned a teen hangout thing for directly after Kids Camp Friday night. Yeah… so that was interesting trying to get the barn cleaned up from Kids Camp and switched over for Thr3e… but the students were great and pitched in and we got it all switched out in about 30 minutes! Think we all forgot to eat in all the shuffle! Woops… But think everyone had fun… hooked up the Xbox 360 to the projector and had it on the big screen… looked pretty cool!

Saturday – we slept in until 10:30!!!! Woo hoo!!! After the exhausting week we had, figured it was okay to waste a couple of hours catching up on the zzz’s. And can I just tell ya’ll how amazingly awesome Daniel is?!? He helped me clean the whole house from top to bottom (except the garage… that will take a whole weekend by itself). We got all the laundry done and the house looks great! Things go SOOO much faster when we tackle it together!

Then went to hang out with Blake and Katie up in Lawrenceville. Ate on the patio of a cute little pub in Suwanee… weather was AMAZING and it was a lot of fun catching up with them! Although I’m pretty sure our leftovers are somewhere on I-85 from where Blake left them on top of our car! Then went to see Transformers in Imax which was INCREDIBLE!!! I really LOVED seeing it in Imax. The screen was HUGE but didn’t feel like I had to move my head around too much to see what was going on. Definitely will be going back to see the action-packed movies there again!!

Sunday – well had another nightmareish Sunday morning again! Sooo glad this video series thing is over. Our laptop’s hanging on by a thread. We spent countless HOURS working on downloading the message for this week (including last minute 3 am checks Sunday morning agghghg)… took three tries to get a download that actually played through the whole message without messing up. Had some audio problems during practice with the message which we thought we had resolved… only to decide to break again when we brought it up to watch in front of the whole church! Yeah so Daniel handled it like a pro, Jay stalled, and we managed to get through the whole message without it freezing up… I wanted to throw up the whole 33 minutes because I just thought for sure it would die in the middle or something like it did last week! So proud of Daniel for only letting it ruin about 2 hours of his day! I told him I was so glad that he could get frustrated without taking it out on anyone

Rachel spoiled us by taking us to O’Charley’s for lunch Then went home, took a nap and enjoyed the dark! Literally… we played parcheesi in the dark because our power went out (of course I won parcheesi by the way). Kinda funny… our whole end of the block’s power was out, but our neighbors right up the street with a different power company were fine! Oh well… it finally came back on about 10 pm just in time for us to be able to sleep with the comfort of our noisy fan to drown out Daniel and Apollo’s snoring hehe