It's Friday!

This week really hasn't been that unbearable, but I still feel like I need to be enthusiastic for Friday! Yippee!


I’ll break down the past week and half into a couple of topics:

Wedding Related:

• I have asked (and received ‘yes’ responses) from all of my bridesmaids! So happy to have such a fun and meaningful group with me on our big day!
• Shane has asked most of his groomsmen…but has a few more to get to.
• I tried on wedding dresses, finally! My mom, my dad’s girlfriend (Greta), Shane’s mom (Debbie) and my bridesmaids Kelly and Jennie all went with me and it was really a lot of fun. Champagne and shopping – um, hello? I have it narrowed down to two dresses that I really like and I’m going back tomorrow to try them on again…hopefully I can make a decision.
• We are meeting with our first florist/event coordinator tomorrow. My friend Monica used her at her wedding and just raved about her…excited to meet her and hear her ideas!
• We got our Save the Dates! They are seriously The.Cutest.Things.I’ve.Ever.Seen. Seriously. Here is the comp that I promised:

• Shane’s parents, Manny and Debbie, along with my mom threw us an engagement shower last weekend. We had so much fun! The food was awesome, the drinks were strong and we had celebrities! (I did have to ask later who they were, but still…) I don’t have any pics yet, besides my friend, Stobbe’s, that she posted on Facebook…here are a few shots:

House Related:

• I have some pretty dope, that’s right – I said dope, plans for my guest bedroom. I’m trying to be all artsy and sketch them out…we’ll see how that goes. If it doesn’t look like a five-year-old drew it then I’ll post it. If not, well you will have to just wait until I put my plan into action! In 2013!
• I ordered these chairs for my NE W sitting room…more to come on that.

This Weekend:

• Going to see a band tonight. Might be a wedding band...might not.
• Dresses and florist tomorrow. Along with a beer festival at Kel and Austin's!
• Celebrating my dad's birthday on Sunday!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

March Goals

Post #2 this week…watch out.

It’s been a while since I updated, established or assessed any goals but I’m going to try to be better this month. With that said, I’m expanding my goals to a total of six…three house-related and three wedding-related.

Disclaimer: Whenever I slack on something, I always feel that I need to overcompensate the next time (or on something else) to take away from the fact that I didn’t do what I said I was going to…so, bottom line, I might not do anything and then April’s list will be 12 items, May’s will be 24…it’s a nasty cycle.

March Goals

• House:
• Paint the front door black 
• Paint exterior of back door 
• Paint kitchen ceiling and trim

• Wedding:
• Find and buy wedding dress
• Finalize food and alcohol selections
• Mail out all Save the Dates by Monday, March 15

Wish me luck!

Why are all of my posts updates?

Oh yeah, because I never post anymore! Sorry! I hate to be that person that is like, ‘Oh, I just don’t have time because I’m SOOO busy…’ but unfortunately – things have been pretty hectic and so I am going to have to be the person that says that.


So, let’s update…

• First and foremost, Shane and I have chosen a wedding venue and set our date! Get ready for August 21 at the King Plow Event Gallery! I think that we both knew this was the place the second we walked in. I seriously walked into the ceremony room and thought, ‘This place is mine if the price is right…I don’t even need to see anything else.’ Shane is all logical and stuff so I’m sure his mental conversations were a little different.
• We shared all of our wedding research with our family and they were very excited for us! And didn’t faint, vomit or convulse over the numbers.
• Shane and I joined a new gym over by our house so that we can work on our fitness. I’ve already been working on my fitness because I have a gym at work, but Shane wants to also get lean and mean for the wedding. His words, not mine. :)
• I responded to Wells Fargo’s passive-aggressive letter they sent denying all fault with my auto loan debacle. The Better Business Bureau gave me two weeks to respond and let them know a MIDDLE GROUND resolution to get this situation over with. I don’t really know what a MIDDLE GROUND would be…I don’t expect them to comp me a month on my car loan, and I don’t expect an ‘I’m sorry’ card…so, we’ll see what happens next.
• Shane and I have narrowed down our wedding parties – which was a very painstaking process, I might add. We are in the process of asking, but once that is done I’ll share how we did it.
• I created a wedding website! Check it out here: http://www.stacyandshane.wedsite.com/
• We ordered our Save the Dates! They are so cute…I’ll post an image of them once they come in.
• I got new rugs for in front of my driveway and back doors:

• I need to get back on track with goals so I will try to make that happen this week.

Hope everyone has a happy Monday!!

I’m back.

What’s going on peeps? I haven’t blogged in about a month, sorry ‘bout that, but let’s do a quick recap of the past month:


Week of January 24: Went to Las Vegas for work. Wasn’t really looking forward to it, since I hate Vegas, but this time was actually pretty fun!


We saw:

IT. WAS. AMAZING. And I didn't even really know or like Beatles music...would totally recommend it!

Hung out at the House of Blues Foundation Room - at the very top of the Mandalay. Check out our view:

Week of February 1: Work has been/is crazy right now…although I did get to catch up with some of my Solvay friends, Joanne and Laura Jane, on Tuesday night. Went to Uncle Julio’s…delicious!

Ended my battle with the idiots at Wells Fargo Financial. (I apologize for anyone that may not be an idiot that is employed by this company…but they are awful.) I finally got my corrected tag on Friday!

Had some friends over to the house on Saturday night for some drinks and appetizers. So good to see everyone! It’s sad how when you get older you lose touch with old friends so easily….

Week of February 7: We had a really big work meeting during this week so I stayed in a hotel on Monday night to be close to the venue and had to be at the venue at 7:30 the next morning (which is a no-no for me. I don’t work or function in the 7 a.m. hour).

Looked at a wedding venue – The Foundry at Puritan Mill. I asked for a discount on the rental rate – and Shane giggled.

Friday it snowed! Like for real snowed! I had two inches on my back deck and it was so cute watching the dogs play in it! I left work around 2, went home and made some taco soup and snuggled in with the boys for a movie…cozy.

Shane and I had a nice dinner at Two Urban Licks for dinner on Saturday night. I hinted for two weeks that I wanted diamond stud earrings for a present, but I guess he didn’t quite pick up on it. After dinner, we headed to the Highlands for some drinks and blues music…very nice night.

Week of February 14: Prayed for snow on Monday. Didn’t get any.

Got a letter from Wells Fargo Financial to respond to my Better Business Bureau claim. They denied all fault in the situation. Will be writing a response to refresh their memory...and just to clarify, my complaint was also about customer service. And so your response to that was that it wasn't your fault? So, your good at your jobs? No...didn't think so.

Looked at another wedding venue, The King Plow Event Gallery, and LOVED it! Their only available Saturday is August 21 – so I guess that’s the date! We still have to run it by the fam but we are pretty sure that this is the one…

Have been doing a Couch 2 5K program, and while I am on Week 7 or 8 of the program – I’m still operating on Week 4. But I am proud to say that I can now run for a full 5 minutes at 6.0 mph without a break!

And now we are up to speed…it’s Thursday. I can’t wait until Friday.

Viva Las Vegas

I will be in the obnoxious, overindulging city of Las Vegas all week for work. Don't love the city, but am looking forward to our task at hand and hanging with Kel! Hope everyone has a great week!

P.S. Shane and I have officially started wedding planning!

Errrrghghghghgh....

I'm sorry it's been so long. I have had the worst week ever...between work being SO crazy, having no free time because of work and personal commitments and having to deal with the dumbasses employed by WELLS FARGO FINANCIAL, I unfortunately haven't had any time to even think about blogging or being creative or doing anything besides eating and sleeping.

Today, honestly, I just want to cry. I'm stressed/confused/aggravated about a SLEW of things that have happened/are happening and I keep focusing on the ones that I absolutely cannot control and getting so upset.

And I hate WELLS FARGO FINANCIAL because they don't know how to do their jobs so now I'm riding around in a car (that I am still required to pay my loan note on) that has an expired tag and no registration. I guess that titling a car is difficult for them...and then when you pile on their lack of professionalism and customer service, well, they just don't know which end is up. I called Clark Howard's Consumer Action line today and they recommended that I go to the branch and have someone explain the situation to me face to face. I respectfully declined since I cannot be held accountable for my actions once I am there. I have also filed a formal complaint with Wells Fargo Corporate and the Better Business Bureau, posted a nasty Facebook comment, mentioned it here and I am calling them daily until they fix the issue.

Okay, enough self pity. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Ballard Lamp Repair - Part Deux

The lamp has been repaired! Although, I still feel like it's going to break again at any moment...I don't know, it seems a little shaky.

First, I glued down the bottom portion of the lamp clamp and resecured the light kit. (Sorry again for the awful pictures...still don't have a new camera so I can't preview any pictures!)

I then put the lamp kit back on...

Then put on the shade...

Put in a lightbulb, turned it on and Voila!

It is fixed! The only thing that I didn't realize about the lamp is that it doesn't have a switch on the light kit, so to turn it off and on we'll have to unplug it and plug it in to the wall. A little bit of an inconvenience but we can make it work...

What do you think?!? Did I get my money's worth?

Ballard Lamp Repair - Part 1

Remember this baby from a few months ago?

Well, I'm finally getting around to repairing it. How? It's all very technical, but I used a cuticle pusher-backer (metal stick thing that has a flat edge) and scraped off all the old glue from the base of the lamp and the lighting kit at the top. I then used this trusty solution...

...to put it back together again! I don't have pictures to share as everything is still drying - but I hope to show those tomorrow! Let's all keep our fingers crossed that the broken $200 lamp, that I stole for $20, can be salvaged!

Kitchen Organization: Goal #3 Accomplished

OMG. We accomplished a goal. Get.Out.


Saturday was pretty busy (Asher's birthday party (cutest little baby and adorable party!), hanging with Dave and Jennie and getting to see our friend, Tricia, who was in town from California) so we didn’t get a chance to get started on the kitchen organization on Saturday…so we knocked it out on Sunday!

We started around noon and worked until 6 p.m. That’s right. Six hours of organization – the perfect day!

Schedule:

• Go through each cabinet, purge unnecessary items, wipe out cabinets (shelves and both sides of the door) and reorganize placement of contents. (We did this for four sets of cabinets on the top and three on the bottom.) Here are some highlights:

• Clean out all drawers and wipe out all crud and nastiness that was present. We then needed to reevaluate what was in each drawer. We had kitchen utensils in the drawer next to the sink and the dishrags in the drawer next to the stove…duh – we flipped those. And randomly enough, we had a whole drawer full of air fresheners (Glade Plug-ins…Hawaiian Breeze – delish) next to the stove. What?!? That doesn’t even seem logical…or safe for that matter. So, we moved those.
• Slap ourselves for letting our kitchen island get to this point…

I know, I’m thoroughly embarrassed at the disarray of this cabinet. What I’m even more embarrassed about is the time that I took to cram/balance/shove stuff in there and ensure that it didn’t fall out when opening the cabinet doors. I have glass vases teetering in the balance for God's sake! However, we cleaned this out and got rid of a lot of stuff that we rarely or have never used, which cleared up a lot of room. We now have this nice and neat 'after' picture…

After the cabinets were complete, we:

• Cleaned out the refrigerator and wiped down all appliances.
• Cleaned and reorganized pantry.

• Wiped off all items/appliances that are sitting on the countertops, and then wiped down the countertops with the special cleaner. (Special cleaner = Clorox Green Works all purpose spray. It is fantastic for granite.)
• Wipe down all baseboards and chair rail and vacuum.

I am so proud of us for getting this done. We would like to go through the entire house, room by room, and clean things out and organize everything. We have only been in our house a little less than two years but I feel like we have accumulated so much crap that it is ridiculous!


Anyway, the only thing left to do in the kitchen is painting the ceiling and crown molding and trim. I am going to list those as separate goals because the ceiling painting goal has been loitering on this blog since about July.


What do you think? Were you terrified of our ‘Hoarders’ style island?

It Really Snowed!

As I mentioned on Wednesday, we were planning for snow...and it actually happened!

Puppy Prints!

Thursday night, Shane went over to our friend Mel and Jon's house to watch the National Championship game. By the time he got home, the driveway was completely snowed/iced over. We were able to pull it in to the driveway and leave it at the bottom, but within 30 minutes it had SLID INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD!!! Can you believe that?!? So we kept it classy and just pulled it into our yard. :)

The snow and ice on our street...

Shane and I both worked from home yesterday to avoid having to try to drive in the ice and mess that were the backstreets in Smyrna. And last night, we just watched movies while eating homemade calzones and drinking wine...mmmm.

It is Saturday and our street is STILL pretty icy and we STILL can't get the car up the driveway. However, we will have to make it because we have a pretty busy day - some shopping, little Asher's birthday party and plans to get started on the kitchen organization. 

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Southeast Snow Watch 2010!

For those of you who live in the Atlanta area, you are probably aware that we are expecting some snow tomorrow! So exciting...if it actually happens. I always say that my ideal job is actually a meteorologist because you don't ever have to be right. 'It's going to rain tomorrow...or not.' 'It's going to be sunny and warm tomorrow...and cloudy and cold.' Whatever! However, if it does snow I'll be super excited! And even more excited if I can get out of working!

So, for my fellow southeasterners who may not be well versed on the cold and snow (myself included), here are some tips to keep your house safe:

• To ensure that your pipes don't freeze, leave your faucets dripping. Remember to turn on the cold and hot water.
• Open your cabinet doors to allow warm air to surround your pipes.
• Keep your garage doors shut (for those of you lucky peeps who actually have a garage).
• Keep your blinds shut.
• Remove hose pipes from outside bibs. This prevents water from freezing within your hose and starting the process of freezing your pipes.
• Make sure you are using space heaters safely and turn them off before you go to bed.

Hope that everyone (in the ATL) stays safe tomorrow and enjoys the snow!

(Our casa last March after a freak little snow storm!)

2010 Goals and Planning

**Sorry for that title - sounds so much like a meeting invitation that I would receive at work. Eww.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am going to pick up my monthly goals again but try to be a bit more realistic. It’s just downright embarrassing to have 10 goals a month and accomplish two…I mean, seriously. So, to kick off this new decade and this new month, here are my goals…dun dun dun!

1. Paint the front door black.
2. Paint the exterior of the back door.
3. Clean out and reorganize kitchen. (I have a detailed plan for this and will share it once I complete this goal. ;) )

As part of a larger set of goals, I would like to do the following throughout the year:

1. Blog four times per week (minimum). Receive extra stars and pats on the back for five blog posts or more.
2. Start and complete one DIY project per month. (This can and will include wedding DIY projects. :))
3. Read two books (one for book club and one other) each month.

Wish me luck!

What about ya'll? Any good goals for 2010?

Merry Christmas, Newly Engaged and Happy New Year!

It has been a while! A lot, lot, lot has happened so let’s once again backtrack…

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas - we certainly did!

Wednesday: Went over to my dad’s in the late afternoon – played games, ate dinner, opened some of our gifts and watched a movie. The next morning, we opened the rest of our gifts and we got some great stuff.

Brother CS6000i Sewing Machine

Indoor/Outdoor Wireless Speakers Thursday: Went to my mom’s – played cards, played drinking games, hung out. We got up the next morning and my mom was making her traditional meal, including turkey, dressing, veggies, giblet gravy, fudge…yum. My butt is now two feet wider because of this meal. We opened prezzies before lunch and got some more great stuff!

My new food processor:Flip Video Camera:Friday: Went to Shane’s mom’s – hung out with the fam, including Shane’s aunt, uncle and cousins from Texas, opened presents (even MORE good stuff!), played games and played Rock Band. I think that we woke Manny up around 2:30 a.m…it was bedtime shortly after that.

New Coach Purse

Saturday: Packed up Shane’s car and headed back to the house. I made one bad move before we left for our three day adventure – I turned the heat OFF in my house. I’m trying to be economical! Needless to say, we arrived home to a house that was 46 degrees. Not a good move.

We are so very thankful for our family and friends and thoroughly enjoyed this Christmas! Thanks to everyone for your thoughtfulness and generosity – we love you!

December 30: A day that Shane and I will always remember…our engagement day!

Shane and I had dinner with his parents that night and got home around 11 p.m. Things were normal, he was taking the dogs out and I was making my coffee for the next morning. He popped his head inside and yelled ‘Hey, come out here!’ I thought that the dogs had tried to run away so I came outside and Shane had both the dogs on the front stoop with the ring in his hand. Our home is very special to us as that is where we started our family so it was only fitting to start this new chapter of our lives there as well. It was very, very sweet! I thought that I would cry like a baby, but instead I just laughed…and shook. But I ultimately said yes, duh! Here is a shot of the ring!

New Years: Me, Shane and our friends Austin and Kelly went to Athens for the NYE festivities. I went in to the office until around 11:30 a.m. (but did absolutely NO work) and then came home for a nap. Got up around 3:30 p.m. and got ready to head up to Austin and Kel’s in Alpharetta so that we could get the party started! We had a great night and good times…see some pics below!

This past weekend was pretty lazy as we prepared ourselves mentally to start a full, non-holiday work week. Boo.

Also, as we have entered a new year and a new decade – I feel compelled to start establishing some goals again. However, we are going to take a different approach this year and I will only have three per month. If I find after the first quarter that I can accomplish those three, then I will bump it to five. The 10-11 item lists are just unattainable, and the fact that they just roll over every month is just embarrassing.

What did everyone do for New Years? Fun parties? Chill evenings with family?

I hope that everyone is having a great ‘first Monday of 2010!’

Let the Holidays Begin!

Today, me, Shane, Beau and Brother begin our three-day family Christmas road show! We are going to my dad’s tonight, my mom’s tomorrow night and Shane’s moms on Friday night. To make the experience a little easier, we found travel crates for B&B. Yes - that's right, travel crates! They are made out of a tent material and collapse to a small 1' circle (if rolled up correctly, but we couldn't figure it out). Once expanded, they are almost as big as their metal crates, which are 46". Here is a pic (sorry it's dark...turned the flash off on my camera and couldn't get it to come back on. Yes, LCD still broken.):

And on the gift front, we are ALMOST done shopping! Shane is exchanging some stuff and picking up the last of our gifts today. And I haven’t shown any pics of my tree for this year! Take a look at our black, red and white tree…(it has nothing to do with us being Georgia fans, swear.)
And here is me trying to take some artsy fartsy pics of my presents. I was able to keep all of my wrapping paper black and red as well.
I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope that I blog before New Year’s, but you NEVER know!

Oh, and you wanna see a hystiocytoma?
Merry Christmas! Compliments of Brother