Away

We are on a tiny little weekend getaway with my parents...see ya'll next week! :)

Uh oh, oh no!

Well ladies, we've been hit with a case of the pneumonies. My poor hubby who was initially diagnosed with strep, (don't EVEN get me started on THAT!) has now officially been diagnosed as having pneumonia in his left lung, as of Thursday night. He initially went to the instant care center on Sunday evening because he had started feeling bad...they LOOKED into his through and said, "Oh, you must have strep."

By Thursday, he had been in bed all week, progressively getting worse. I rushed home after school (the babe was with her Nana all day) and took him to a different Instant Care. THESE good, kind, INTELLIGENT doctors did the appropriate bloodwork, chest x-ray, etc, and properly diagnosed him. A shot, new antibiotics and two days later, he is feeling somewhat better.

These have been my new best friends all week:

I'm off to continue playing nurse...hope everyone has a great weekend!


PS-I'll be watching this tomorrow evening! I'm a sucker for made-for-TV Hallmark movies! Hey-it's got Betty White in it! It's GOT to be good! ;)



XOXO

Two Years...

First off, let me reiterate: I'm a self-professed horrible blogger! I have all of these fun and cute ideas for this little 'ol blog, and then...well, life happens. I'm Type A and have all of these to-do lists and things I want to do, but I'm a Gemini and get easily distracted! Ha! Sorry for such a long absence, if I have any readers out there! If not, well, it's fun for me, anyway! :)

Little life update: I'm no longer employed! Well, I'm working, but for free! I'm finishing my Masters degree for Elementary Education. My Bachelor of Arts degree is in Communication Studies. After working in a corporate setting, I just wasn't satisfied. About 8 months after Ava was born, I was so unhappy and frustrated. I decided to go back to school to be a teacher. My mother has taught for almost 30 years, so I've kind of been raised in it! It's one of those life things where you think, "Why didn't I do this 7 years ago in undergrad!?" But sometimes it takes living a little to really decide what you want to be when you grow up! So, I've been working a full-time job, taken on a full load of classes, and have tried to balance both of those with being a wife to my husband and a mommy to our little girl. I hope I haven't let either of them down.

I'm now almost finished with my Master of Arts in Teaching degree. In January, I started my student teaching requirement! I am having a BALL, let me tell you! I'm currently in a 3rd grade classroom in a public school in KY. The kids are sweet as pie, and I have the best supervising teacher I could be working under. With all of the snow days and holidays we've had this month, I've only been in the classroom for about 9 days...but I already feel like I've learned so much! She's just amazing! I'll graduate in May and hopefully find a full-time position in the fall.

Now, that little baby girl that convinced her Mommy to completely change her career will be turning TWO in just a couple of short weeks! Here's a little recap from her first birthday party! I LOVE planning her birthday parties, and have a little stash of ideas to pull from in these next few years when she's still young enough to let ME plan it all! Ha!

Her first party was a little ladybug theme. I made almost all of her decorations, and with the help of my cousin, and her nifty Cricut, even made the invitations!

Take a little looksie:

Homemade banner...Found a LOT of cute banners on Etsy, but thought I could make just as cute of one as I could buy!

Banner for her highchair:

Ladybug cake & cupcakes! :) Made by a dear friend.

My little lady at her first birthday party...Bib was ordered from Etsy.

For this year's party, I really wanted a cute Candyland theme...however, in this house, it's ALL about Dora the Explorer! So Dora it is!

I've been a little busy here lately with all of my lesson planning for school! So this year, I skipped the homemade invitations! I actually went with (gasp!) store-bought invitations. I know, bad DIY Mommy. Oh well. She won't even notice! Ha!

I do still want to make a banner for her highchair, and I've got several other cute ideas for the decor...more of that to come later!

I'm home today on another SNOW day, so I'm catching up with my blogging and the Real Housewives of Atlanta on another Bravo marathon! LOL

I really can't wait for the RHOBH reunion. Kim and Kyle's fight broke my heart. It really was like watching a train wreck. I couldn't tear my eyes from the screen. I really felt that they were genuine, and that the whole scene wasn't just for reality TV. Camille on the other hand, dirves me up the wall! Her voice alone is like nails on a chalkboard...ugh. That I could do without! But I love Kyle, Lisa, and Adrienne! Thursday will be a big night for sure!

That's all for now, ya'll! Have a wonderful Monday!

PS-Can someone please help a girl out with my blog header? I have tried several templates, made my own in Photoshop, and finally just ended up with this plain 'ol thing...and it's still fuzzy and out of proportion...I want a CUTE header! Not a happy girl right now!

One Step Closer

I know I just blogged about this, but it's pretty much dominating a huge chunk of my life right now...but-I'm one step closer to fulfilling *one* of my dreams! Tonight is the first night of my last semester of classes for my Masters! Next semester will be spent doing my student teaching. I have officially turned in my letter of resignation to my supervisor! whoo hoo! That was a big relief! I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Also-I've submitted my application for graduation. I belive this was the real "WOW" moment. I remember printing it off, looking at it, and reading "APPLICATION FOR GRADUATION." I still almost can't believe it. I'm so close!

Anyway-I love love love reading new blogs...I'm really into photography as *some* of you may know...and two blogs I'm loving right now are Jasmine Star and Ashley Ann. They are two completely different bloggers and photographers, but I'm so drawn to them. They are both beautiful, energetic, light, happy, and fun gals. I would love to have even an iota of their talent...they are amazing and for lack of better words, so inspirational. I highly recommend both if you are interested in photography or pretty things as well!

So glad it's finally Wednesday. Looking forward to the weekend. I think my little tiny sweet family will be taking a drive, searching out antique shops. I of course, will have my camera in tow. Maybe I'll get around to posting some pics!

Teacher, Teacher

My countdown has begun:

Actually, I've been counting down since about May, when I realized I only had a few classes/semesters left in working toward my Master of Arts in Teaching Degree.

So now that it's October, I feel like I can actually really begin looking forward to the end. My classes will be complete in December! I'm finishing this "term" next week, and then my final two classes will begin! In January, I will begin my final term as a student teacher. And i.cannot.wait.

Can I get an Amen!?

My supervisor at work is aware that I will more than likely be leaving soon...I just have to discuss with her the final days....dun.dun.dun. I really will truly miss *some* of the people I work with. Many I consider to be some of my greatest friends...but I am ready to move on, sister!

I don't consider working in a cube the rest of my life a high priority, so I literally can't wait to bust out of the corporate office setting and leave my cube sweet cube behind in the dust! I can't wait to have my own classroom, with 24 small chairs, and 24 small desks, and 24 (hopefully) smiling little faces. I've sepnt some time in different elementary school classrooms and I truly feel like I belong there!

I am SO looking forward to these new chapters in my life!

My random stream of consciousness

Soo...I'm sitting here bored in class...

I should mention that I'm almost to the end of my Master of Arts in Teaching (ELEMENTARY) degree...and all of my classes are online...

But this Seminar class is just killing me...soooo boring! And someone even said to the professor: "You should be a night radio DJ...you're voice is so soothing."

Um no. It puts me to sleep. I completely zone out.

Anyway, I've at least gotten to watch The Vampire Diaries' and Grey's tonight...which reminds me, I had totally fallen off the Grey's bandwagon last season...UNTIL THE FINALE! Wow! I was totally disturbed after seeing that, but the writers did their job! I was roped back into the madness...and have been pretty pleased so far this season...

Moving along in my stream of consciousness thought process...I remembered that I STILL have not posted pictures of the office re-do...I will really try to get to that this weekend...

I really want to attempt to get back into blogging...so here goes!

Fresh Season, Fresh Layout :)

Enjoy.

Totally ready for Fall weather!

And I've been in a shopping frenzy lately. It's all I want to do! We'll not discuss the weight that I need to lose first. But I have a wishlist a mile long for fresh cool-weather shoes/boots, sweaters, tops, and heavier pants. I'll post some of these wish-list items later! :)

My high school alma-mater is having Homecoming festivities this week. I won't be participating, but I did download Kenny Chesney's "Boys of Fall" to my iPhone. That counts doesn't it?

I <3 football weather.

6 Months

Our sweet baby girl is 6 months as of yesterday! I can't believe how big she's gotten!

PS-Sorry I've been such a bad blogger...it's been crazy lately! Hope you all are having a great August so far!

Green Guilt...

Source

I have to get something off my chest...I've been feeling a little guilty for a while...

Since the 2007 release of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," everyone has taken a much greater notice of our Mother Earth and how we've been treating her...Which is great. Awesome.

I'm all for Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

And cue the green guilt:

We don't eat organic. {No where even close, actually.}

My 5 month old daughter doesn't sport cute cloth diapers, and I don't make her pureed food. She also doesn't wear organic onesies, or sleep on an organic mattress.

We both drive a Toyota, but not a Prius, that's for sure. {And we both have over a 30 minute commute!}

Sometimes, we're known to drink our water from a plastic bottle! And when I go to the grocery store, those nice, eco-friendly totes that I have bought {I promise!}, are left, forgotten at home on the counter or under the sink.

We don't compost. {Even though we've discussed it, since we'd like to start a garden next summer.}

I may wear Bare Escentuals, but that's about as far as my green beauty routine goes...Even though I do love some Burt's Bees every now and again.

In saying all of that, I do try to contribute at least some...Those plastic grocery bags {I can hear the gasps} that I inevitably come home with every week, are stored up and then returned to the store so they can recycle them.

I'm also working on using up all of my household cleaners to be replaced with greener alternatives, such as Clorox's GreenWorks line of cleaning supplies. I've even tried the baking soda+vinegar mix of cleaning our tub, but my hubby didn't appreciate the smell too much. Or the fact that I also cleaned out his lunchbox with this concoction...

I guess I've just been feeling a little guilty while reading about how so many others are choosing to go green, and doing a fantastic job at it.

So, forgive me, Mother Earth. I'm doing the best I can, dang it!

The Babe's Room

I had planned on posting the rest of the pics of our new landscaping, after it was finished, but alas...I can't find them, and I'm too lazy to go get up and get the card out of my camera. I instead have my external hard drive plugged in and went looking around on it, and found these instead: My precious girl's nursery room...Her Daddy put long hard hours in on the paint, chair rail, and molding (moulding?). I think it turned out pretty cute. The crib and chair are from JC Penney's, and the bedding is Wendy Bellisimo "Floral Patchwork," {or something like that!} I love how it turned out...simple, soft, and sweet. Just like baby A!


The chair side table is one of the cheap-o 3 legs-screw-into-table-top that you can find at good 'ol Wal-Mart, and I just threw a simple brown cover over the top with the round glass topper also. The lamp was a bring-over from our old apt...The changing table is my old desk, with new knobs, fresh paint, and a changing pad we threw on top. (Gotta love re-purposing and recycling!)



I can't wait until she finally actually uses this room!{lol}

Summertime Favorites...

I say that Fall is my favorite season, but Summer is a close second...My Birthday is in June, our Anniversary, my parent's anniversary, and both my Dad & MIL's birthdays are all in July, so we always have a lot of celebratin' goin on! Not to mention Independence Day. Along with that, there are the requisite faves, like vacations, longer afternoon light filtering through the windows...I just love it.

One of my other favorite things about summer is "SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE!"

I love this show. I danced in high school, and am just amazed at what these dancers are able to do w/ their bodies. I was and never will be very flexible, it's a wonder I made the team in the first place, but anyway...One of my favorite things (are you seeing a pattern here at all?) about SYTYCD is the lovely host, Cat Deeley. She just seems to be the sweetest thing ever. And her fashion on the show is amazing. I love watching each week to see what she's wearing...

Last night I needed a break from all the MJ coverage that I couldn't seem to get away from, so I decided to catch up with DVR friends and watch last weeks' SYTYCD epi's.

Source

Anyway, I was sooo glad that Karla and Vitolio went home...they were good...but now it's getting down to the wire and I don't want to see some of my favorites sent home!

Will be ready and waiting to watch tonight's episode!

Anyone else a fan?

Five Months...

Hangin out...

Sweetie pie is five months old already! I can't believe it! Time definitely flies when you're having fun!

I've taken her picture on each "monthly" birthday to document her growth! It's a really cute idea, I recommend it to any new mom!

See ya later alligator!

Outdoor Upgrades, Part II

Our Friday holiday was spent updating the front landscaping...I say the term "our" very loosely, as I was basically the ice water runner...LOL. Nick's BFF Matt came over to help, and baby girl and I watched from the side-lines. They started by ripping out the scraggly boxwoods that were barely hanging on...

The before-before: {This was before we installed the concrete curbing.}

In progress: the new yellow bushes are in the ground, and our weeping cherry white snowfall tree is hanging out on the corner... next up: more lava rock!

This was mine and Ava's view at one point...LOL:

{Just hangin' out with Mom...} I kinda <3> her!

Before:

After:



More pictures to come later! :)

Finished!

Just finished the reading the sweetest little novel…I just bought it the night before last while I was at the grocery store: “Sundays at Tiffany’s” by James Patterson. I absolutely loved his “Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas,” so when I saw this one, I thought I’d give it a whirl…I showed it to a co-worker who also has an affinity for reading, and she said that it has actually been on the best-sellers list for a while…so anyway. It was a quick little read, especially on a slow day, and I really really enjoyed it. The premise is the story of a now-grown woman, Jane, who has been unable to forget or move on from her dear friendship with her imaginary childhood friend, Michael, (who is in his 30’s.) {Some people who had written reviews for this book said that at first, it was a little creepy for a 30 yr old to be a little girls’ imaginary friend, but I thought it was sweet. At that point in her life, he was just like a guardian angel.} She is the daughter of a successful Broadway producer, and Michael is pretty much her only friend, sharing ice cream sundae’s with her while her mother is visiting with friends, too busy to bother with her little girl. He leaves her on her 9th birthday (which is how it’s supposed to go with imaginary friends, apparently), and tells her that when she wakes up the next morning, he’ll be nothing more than a dream to her. Well, little did he know that for the next 23 years, she would think about him every day. And he, her. And then, one day in New York, the unimaginable happens!

Loved the story, and I won’t ruin it for those of you who may want to read it, but her 9th birthday party is not the end of Jane and Michael’s story! :)

6/4/09-Big day!

Baby girl is getting so big! On 6/4/09 (my birthday) our baby girl turned 4 months old! She's getting such a big and fun personality!


This picture was taken with my new 50mm...For those DSLR owners, you NEED this lens! It's wonderful, and I'm having so much fun getting to play around with it!


On another note, in a previous post I had mentioned some adorable necklaces I had found on www.etsy.com and my sweet, wonderful hubby bought two of them for my birthday! Here's one, seen below:

It includes three charms, with each family members' name and their birthday...I think it turned out beautifully! Very simple, neat. I love it. He also bought me a 2nd necklace with a single charm, with the letter "A" for baby girl, and a single pink "pearl," included on the chain. I'll have to get a picture of it later...

Big weekend coming up...I have a wedding on Friday, a Busch race on Saturday (don't get me started on the Nascar/redneck argument! Have you taken a good look at Dale, Jr. or Kasey Kahne? Enough said.), and then a family cookout on Sunday...it's gonna be great! I love summer!

Any more Nascar fans out there? *crickets*

Hmmm....

Weekend Warriors-Part I

This weekend was alllll about the landscaping in our backyard...

Last summer, the hubby built an addition onto our back deck, which extended it to a whole other level...so nice and roomy. We did minimal landscaping around it, basically just throwing down some mulch, a few stepping stones, a few azalea bushes and called it a day.

Not for long! We started by pulling out the old and dead bushes, and then putting down a fresh layer of landscaping paper over that old layer of mulch to further help keep the weeds out. We layed fresh black mulch bought from a local family owned landscaping company. (They only sell mulch and rock, so then we headed to rusty trusty Lowe's.) We bought several Winter Gem Boxwoods, some "grassy" plants, and two other bushes, can't remember their name right now! What a difference they make! I also bought several hot pink Zinnia plants to add some color to our predominately green color scheme. We then re-laid the stepping stones coming off the bottom of our deck...and let me tell you, this took 2 days! We both have the sunburn to prove it, even after SPF 50 applied several times over!

I'll have a list and a budget break down as well as before and after pictures in a later post, so stay tuned!

Hope ya'll had a great weekend!

Ch-Ch-Chaaaanggess..

I am dying to get my hands on our living room...we have such huge furniture, it swallows up the whole room, and there's really only this one way to arrange the furniture...it's starting to get on my nerves...

I love our big brown couch, it's so comfortable...but it's so...brown. I'm done with the red striped curtains and the red paisley pillows...it's past time for a change! Here's a few options I'm thinking of...

This first one can be found at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I love the colors...

These tab top window panels are also nice...

The following two are from JCPenney.

This one is at Kohl's.

I sense a shopping weekend coming up while Mr. Bee is away visiting family...across the country in Seattle, WA. He may just come home to a new home!

Master Cleanse: Pt. 1

And no, I'm not talking about the "diet." lol After flipping through TYH and Bower Power, and seeing their incredibly awesome renovations, I thought I'd post how far our humble abode has come. Way back when, it was just a sad little abandoned foreclosure.

Exhibit A: The Living Room

Well well well...what have we got here...maroon carpet circa 1992, builder basic brass ceiling fan, and boring white walls. Another view, looking into the dining room from the front door:
And then, voila, we had some color! And notice, we are in the middle of putting down some shiny new hardwood floors...

Done! (well, not really.) But at least the floors and walls were finished...

Now, as of 5/11/09, we are pretty much complete!

• New Couch
• Wall decor, all of which were painted by my dear ol Dad...and I think one is crooked...hmmm...
• Doggie stairs, (see noted doggie, in the cushion that's all mashed down.)
• Token Grandpa chair...uh. It's an eyesore for sure, but really comfy!
• Hardwood floors
• Fresh wall paint
• New light fixture
• New tv and console

DH's pride and joy, the 42" flat screen...and he even picked out the tv console all by himself! He was really proud...and actually, I was too! LOL Notice my Mom's Day cards? Too cute. And that pink floof on the floor is above said doggie's other bed.

Quite comfy all around...but I'm getting bored...I want some new pillows, window treatments, something!

More of the Master Cleanse to come later...gotta spend some quality time with Baby A...