Americasmart!!!

This is what my jacket kind of looks like.....



So I recently made quite possibly the quickest trip to Atlanta ever!!! (I wasn't speeding though...) I needed a little retail therapy, so I took off by myself for a day of shopping at Americasmart (market) in Atlanta. Now, I have been several times to market with David's business and I always have a great time, but my recent trip was the best. It was cash and carry day!!! :) For those of you not familiar with how market works, most of the time there are minimums that you have to buy....for instance, you see a jacket that you really like, well you better make sure you REALLY like it because you have to buy like 5 of them. So I got to just pick up and buy whatever I wanted. I got this really cool Houndstooth coat to wear for homecoming this weekend in Tuscaloosa, so pray that it is cold enough....otherwise I will be sweating with my jacket on! I also got a TON of stuff from Morgan and Company which is a monogramming place that I LOVE!! Oh, and they had food vendors set up too which was not good for me, because I shopped all day without eating, so of course everything I tasted was absolutely awesome and I bought a bunch of food products. I guess we will be having some parties in the near future to use up our new gourmet food!! :) So, here was the trip, left at 5:45 a.m. drove 3.5 hours, shopped 5 hours and drove back 3.5 hours. I thought the drive would be bad, but everything is so pretty with the leaves changing right now. So all in all it was a fabulous day, I had a great time, just me, myself and I!!

Lasek Surgery Day!

So today I took David to have his Lasek Surgery (I think I am spelling that right, he didn't have LasIK surgery, so I think I spelled this correctly) and everything went well. They have a viewing room where you can watch them doing the surgery. I really didn't care to watch it, but I went in anyway. I know I am in nursing school, and if it would have been anyone else's eyes, I probably would have been fine. But when they started poking David's eyeball, I thought I was going to be sick. Plus the fact that I was terrified the laser would slip off of the correct part of his eye and blind him forever. So, before the procedure was over, I ended up in the floor of the waiting room, knees up to my chest, which helped me. Just to tell you how sweet my husband is, during the middle of the procedure (and he couldn't see me) he asked the doctor to look out and make sure I was okay. I gave the doc the ol' thumbs up from the floor, so he told David everything was fine, which it was. Another interesting part of this surgery is the stuffed animal they give you to hold. I didn't take a picture of David with the stuffed elephant, but I found this picture on Google and thought it painted the correct picture. When you lay down, they hand you either a stuffed elephant or stuffed frog I think. You don't really have the choice whether or not you want to hold it...probably because all of the macho men would refuse to hold the stuffed animal, but it gives you something to do with your hands during the procedure. And, secretly, I think it is a comforting thing to have, grown or not.
So right now, David is trying to sleep, but can't, and I am about to put about 4 different kinds of eye drops in his eye, so wish me luck!

Happy Birthday Bree!!!

On Friday night we got to go to one of my favorite places...Chucky Cheese! I know most people absolutely despise that place...the nasty pizza, the creepy HUGE RAT and all the snot nosed children running around and screaming at the tops of their lungs, but I love it. Everyone makes fun of me because I love that place. The pizza is my absolute favorite even though most people think it tastes like cardboard, I love to play skeeball and am quite good at it (once I go through the majority of my 100 tokens practicing) and I do enjoy seeing all the joy in the children's faces that are there. So, when my sister-in-law called to tell me my niece Bree's birthday party was there, I was super pumped. All the kids had a great time and she got some great gifts. Her favorite Aunt Anna and Uncle Dave got her a Build-A-Bear gift certificate, so we will be going to fulfil that gift in the very near future. Here are some pictures from the party.

The birthday girl with her cake!!

This was hilarious to me...Chucky was trying to feed Bree the first bite of her birthday cake and she wanted NO part in it. I think she is too intelligent to be entertained by that giant rat...

This is Bree and her Uncle Dave...he swears he hates the pizza there, but what is that in his hand??? A half eaten piece of pizza!!!

The birthday girl with one of her presents!

Fishing Blues....

Most of the time, when I have a hard day/week my favorite stress relief is to go fishing. Unless you are a fisherman/fisherwoman, you probably don't understand the wonderful benefits of going out and "throwing the worm." So, I went out to do a little stress relieving fishing and ended up doing quite the opposite. I guess you could say I am one of those weird people that can't stand the thought of people shooting deer for fun, or fishing and killing the fish for no reason. I know that we have to help maintain the deer population so they do not overpopulate and starve to death. If I was a deer, and my death was up to me, I would much rather have a quick death than to slowly starve to death.....I feel the same way about fishing. I love to go fishing, but unless I am going to eat the fish, I always throw them back and I am very particular about making sure they are uninjured if at all possible. Well, this past fishing trip was not that way. I performed more fish surgery (using my nursing skills) than I ever have. Granted, all I was catching were little brim, but none the less, I do not want them to suffer either. The majority of the 9 fish I caught that day completely swallowed the hook, where it was so far down in them, only the knot on the top of the line was showing. So, thank goodness I had my trusty sewing kit with me....this allowed me to stick various objects down their (throats) to remove the hooks so I didn't have to just cut off the hook and leave it in them. Now granted, there was a little blood involved, but when I gently tossed the fish back in the water, the didn't float back up, so I consider that a win. Here is one of my tiny victims, I mean patients, that day...before I realized he had swallowed the hook. I think he was okay though...Needless to say though, I left there more stressed than I did when I got there. I hope all my fishes are okay!!

Home Sweet 2nd Home (On Wheels)

So as most of you know, we have a piece of property out on the river that we are planning on building a cabin on in the very near future. However, when this process started, I didn't realize just how difficult or time consuming this process would be. I was getting a little impatient... especially since it took 6 months to get power run out there. (you would think we were on a deserted island) So finally we made the decision to buy a camper to put out there while we decide exactly what we want to build and get into that process. Now, before all of you all start sending me e-mails about timeshare possibilities or weekend rentals, just don't bother. You probably can't afford it. :) Please join me in viewing our second home....its a luxurious 25 feet long and a spacious 300 square feet. It says it sleeps 8 people, but I am assuming they would have to be midgets and sleep on top of each other. So without any further waiting.....here she is!

Ladies Night Out!!

On Tuesday, we had Ladies Night Out at the Casual Gourmet. For any of you that know me, I am a little bit anal when it comes to being in charge of events/parties. I guess it comes from doing it for a living, but I do tend to get a little more stressed out than others. So, needless to say, I was in a wad on Tuesday because of all of the unknown's happening at this event. We had a HUGE turnout, which I was not expecting, and we were doing something with the staff of the Casual Gourmet that they had never done either. It was a learning process for everyone involved, but we had such a great time. When we got to The Casual Gourmet, we had the option of doing either Chicken Parmesean or Chicken Curry and then we had squash casserole and sweet potato casserole for our side dishes. Everything went really smoothly, we had one group in the kitchen at all time and everyone else was out eating a wonderful meal, my favorite from Jackie...Poulet, green beans, rolls and strawberry pretzel salad. After everything was done, all the ladies definately wanted to make this a permanent event, so I consider it a success. Below are some pictures from the event!

Some of the ladies making Parmesean Chicken..


Enjoying Dinner....


MMMMM....


Tracey and Kristen dipping their chicken!!


Some of the ladies after a long night of cooking/having fun!!!

How Many Phi Mu's does it take to put up a tailgating tent?

So this weekend, my sorority sisters and I had a "first." We all went down to the ballgame, but for whatever reason, our husbands/boyfriends couldn't come. It was kind of weird because in all the years we have done this, they have all never been absent at the same time. David was a little concerned about our tailgating issues, especially with me hauling the majority of the stuff down there by myself. But never the less, a challenge was presented, and we conquered it. Just to be safe though, David and I did a trial run in the front yard on Friday night of putting the tent up, assembling the table, etc. It went rather well, so I decided this wouldn't be too bad. Now, I have always made fun of David for his elaborate tailgate transportation set ups that he has. I have always thought he went overboard and took entirely too long with loading our cart up once we got out of the car. Well, never again will I mock his precision. When we unloaded everything I did not take the time to bungee it all down like David does...I thought I did a pretty good job of balancing everything on the cart and it was heavy enough I thought nothing would happen. Well boy was I WRONG!!! Every hill, both up and down resulted in my cart dumping over and its contents spilling everywhere. One time, it conveniently happened while I was in the middle of one of the busiest roads with cars coming both ways. However, I did not panic, I slowly re-loaded my cart again and set off. Once we got to the tailgating site, everything went smoothly. The tent went up without a problem with myself, Kelli and her mom (sometimes) helping. Oh, and Couch threw in a hand as well when he came over, but we really didn't need him! :) I think the funniest part of the whole day was when I was trying to get to Lawren, who I knew would not be able to find us in the sea of Crimson Tide tents. I walked to meet her at the Mound, and it was a site I will never forget. Lawren, dressed in a precious hounds tooth tunic and leggings, dragging a cooler with a bag full of stuff, with chairs hanging off the side is covered in sweat, and proclaims, "WE WILL NEVER DO THIS AGAIN WITHOUT BOYS!!!!" It was hilarious, especially since she dumped her cart once on the way in as well! All in all though, we had great time and I am so glad that I got to see everyone. So the moral of the story is, yes, us girls can throw a mighty good tailgate ourselves, but it is much more fun when you have your significant other there to do all the heavy lifting!! :)

Happy Birthday Couch!! Couch came by and tailgated with us throughout the day! I miss him and wish he would move closer!!!



Ginger, Carey and his sister stopped by as well!



Lindsey and her friend from Texas...she got a big dose of Alabama football this weekend!



The gals...


Kelli graced us with her presence again.... :)


Me and Lindsey....my long lost Texas friend! Thank goodness Thanksgiving and Christmas are not too far away!!!



Me and Lawren at the game....ROLL TIDE!!

Ladies Night Out!!

So I am in charge of Ladies Night Out for our church and I wanted to do something a little different....so I came up with the idea of doing a mini "Dinner By Design" in Decatur!! The fabulous Casual Gourmet is going to let us all come in and have different stations set up for us to assemble a meal for our families to take home with us. I don't know if many of you are familiar with Dinner by Design, but David took me there for a present a couple of months ago and it was really fun. You pick 6 or so dishes that you want to make to take home and then go to the different stations to make everything. They have all the ingredients out, everything already chopped up and you don' t even have to clean up your mess!! I would love to have something like this in Decatur because it is quite a haul over to Dinner by Design. Plus it would be so much fun to get together with a couple of girlfriends and go do it!! I think it is going to be a really fun evening and I am really looking forward to it. I will post pictures as soon as the event happens. Depending on how this goes, I would love to have the Casual Gourmet open up their shop to the ladies of Decatur maybe once a month or so to do this kind of thing. Any interest out there?