So about the last two weekends....

Yes, I haven't written in two weeks. I'm just....not inspired? I dont know.

Anyways, another reason for my lack of writing is because I've been so incredibly busy. So, here's a quick recap of the past two weekends.

First off, I headed to the parents' house for Foster's Saturday Morning Pancakes. My little brother was home and my dad invited me over to partake in this, the oldest tradition I can remember in our family. When we were young, my dad would wake us up every Saturday morning with the sweet smell of chocolate chip pancakes coming from the kitchen. Y'all. These pancakes. So yum. I think it's probably my most vivid memory of my dad from my childhood.

Then, that afternoon, JM and her fiance had their first wedding shower last Saturday, which was splendid. Her sister and I did a fine job entertaining ourselves with talks of old times, chubby people (no worries, I was included in this bunch), fad diets and parts of the human anatomy that people use for curse words. These things are normal for conversation, right??

Afterwards, I jetted out of the shower, went straight home, changed clothes, freshened up and headed to the Scott wedding. I felt like I was doing a costume change at a concert, y'all. Anyways, the wedding was very pretty and the reception was even better. Best food I've ever had at a wedding, hands down. And we all know I like food. A lot.

Da Gurlz.

Isn't he so suave?

Mr. and Mrs. Scott! 

Alright, fast forward to this weekend. Last night, I threw a little shindig for Miss LH to celebrate her 26th year on this planet. By the way, 26 is totally the new 21. LH proved that one last night. We grilled out, played cornhole, the boys belted out some KC and JoJo (yes, really), and kept the entire neighborhood up until after midnight.

The point of all this is two things....1) I guess I just wanted to let y'all know that sometimes I'm not a loser and do fun things...yay me! and 2) It has been the most amazing feeling getting together with old and new friends alike. I told LH the other day how much I was looking forward to last night because we haven't been making the effort to do stuff like that much lately.

It was also sooooo great to see my out-of-towner Mrs. AB for a hot minute and my Army boys for the first time since they got home from overseas!!!!!!!!!!! It was a strange feeling of relief, excitement and happiness that washed over me when I hugged them. Same thing with Mr. Humphries. The boy was released from the hospital five days before and still made an appearance last night. Thank God for miracles, because he's definitely a big one.

So, there you have it. Fabulouslessness.

Annnd, this is what I spent my Saturday night doing.

Mmmmm. Cuuupcake.

The whole lot of 'em. 

Saturday Smorgasbord...

Saturday is for my random thoughts. You know the drill. I'm too lazy to write about a theme today. 

• Who else is reallllyyy glad the weather is gorgeous today? So pretty. Too bad it's not just a teeeensy bit warmer so I could lay out by the pool. Oh, but it's coming soon, whether my flabby stomach wants to admit it or not. 
• Today = day number four with no Diet Coke. I'm not gonna lie, y'all, this has been hard. I was super disappointed in myself on day number one when I got a headache that afternoon from lack of caffeine (that was WITH my daily cup of coffee). I didn't realize that I was addicted to soda. Like physically. Laaaammmmeeee. See, here's the thing. WD and I even talked about this the other night....in college, I never drank Cokes. I don't think I bought one to go in my fridge the entire time I lived in Clemson. I don't know what happened! I started working, needed a pick-me-up in the afternoons but without as much caffeine as coffee, so BAM! I fell into the soda trap. This? Will. Not. Work. I don't like having to have something to function. Good Lent choice, I say. So yeah, this was a really long bullet point.....but the moral of the story is, I have not had a Diet Coke since Tuesday, so I am punishing the Lent. Gooooo me.
• What's up with the pup? He's good. He's relentlessly licking my hand right now, which makes it really hard for me to type.....so now I just opened the porch door so he can go out there and pretend like he's gonna rip every passerby to shreds (He won't. He's really a scaredy-cat. He'd get so mad if he knew I called him a cat.
  

  

  I am not a cat. Or scared. And I will lick you to death.

• Oohhhhh also! The boy and I went to the Sugarland concert on Thursday night. I tell you what....it was aaawwwesssome. Jennifer Nettles is probably one of the weirdest people I've ever seen, and that is why I want to be friends with her. She wore this leotard looking thing that had tassels all over it. She danced the oddest dances across the entire stage. Her facial expressions were....wow. We are so meant to be ya-ya sisters. 
• Unfortunately, I didn't get a whole lot of good pictures, but here's what I have.

Meh to the picture. Yay to sooo much fun that night!

See the tassels? Also, does anyone pay attention to the other guy in Sugarland?
I don't even know his name. 

Zoomed out. With the chick in front of me's head.

•  I don't like the pictures of me. I figured out why, too. I've been squeezing the last little bit out of my Clinique mascara and, by the look of these pictures, it's dead. Now I'm just waiting for Maybelline to go on sale. Because, as we all know...I don't pay full price. For anything. 
• Except for the low-sodium roast beef I got at the deli counter the other day for TEN FREAKING DOLLARS. The only thing that made it okay was that the old man beside me was whistling the happiest tune the whole 5 minutes we were standing there next to one another. I smiled. It brightened my day. Happiness is so contagious, yeah? 

Have a HAPPY Saturday!

Phat Tewsdee.

Wow, it's been a while, yeah? I've had things to say, but no words to say them, I suppose. I hate when I don't write for a while, because I lose my groove. Boo.

Okay, jumping back into it.

Today is Mardi Gras. It shocks me that people don't know this. I mean, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which would make today.......FAT TUESDAY. It amazes me the people that don't understand the correlation. I wish I could draw a diagram. Let's just go for an explanation in Caralee terms.

• Mardi Gras = a humongous party which includes but is not limited to glutonously stuffing anything and everything you can into your body before Ash Wednesday
• Ash Wednesday = when Lent starts - or the day you see people with black marks on their foreheads
• Lent = 40 days before Easter to commemorate Jesus' temptation in the desert - aka you give up something you super like to show your commitment to the Lord.

The whole Lent deal is hard. I guess that's the point, though right (there's your deep thought from me for today)?

Anyways, even though I'm not even a teensy bit Catholic, Anglican or whatever, I do observe Lent every year, basically just to challenge myself and do something to strengthen my relationship with the man upstairs. A few examples from past years include: shopping (ouch), fast food, chocolate, sweet tea, and Spider Solitaire (don't make fun, that was one of the hardest ones to give up, you know what I mean gamers).

This year, I've decided on soda. Why? A few reasons actually. First, I'm severely addicted to Diet Coke. I try to limit myself to one a day, but mostly that doesn't work out so well. Second, the boy sent me some article the other day about how diet soft drinks will eventually take over the world and kill us all. I don't buy into it so much because just about everything nowadays will cause our demise, but I figure the more I can do to ensure I make it past 30, the better. And third, in keeping with tradition, soft drinks are something that will be difficult for me to give up, which, as previously stated, is kind of the point.

So there you have it.

If you feel the need to get me a sursy today, please do so in the form of an aspartame-laiden, carbonated quaff.

If you feel the need to get me a sursy tomorrow, please send condolences, chocolate or gift cards to TJ Maxx. Just don't mention the words diet and coke to me.

Happy Mardi Gras!

For those of you in The Big Easy right now, I am so jealous.

Laissez les bon temps rouler, y'all.

This is what I'm eating this evening.

This is what I'm listening to.



This is how I'm feeling.

T.G.I. - almost - F.

Well now I'm just confused...

I've never been a big fan of Valentine's Day. When I was in grade school, I'd get anxious about the day because omg I did NOT want to give any of my boy classmates a card that had anything to do with me crushing on them or any other sweet words whatsoever. I mean, ew, in 1st grade, boys totally had cooties.

Now, I just tend to treat it as any other day. I've even gotten to the point of just cooking at home instead of fighting the madhouse that is restaurants on the 14th of February. It's just not worth it.

This was the boy's and my first Valentine's Day, though. I made my feelings on the matter very clear. I don't want you to do much, I feel more special if you pick up flowers on a random day when I'm not expecting it. Better yet, I'd feel super special if you gave me a day at the spa round about April (kidding).

But of course he didn't listen.

I came back from lunch on Monday to find a huge bouquet of flowers on my desk. Nobody's ever done that for me. The card was simple. Happy Valentine's. I love you, D. But alas, I still wasn't sold on the whole celebration day.

After work, I came home, went for a walk and started supper. Pork chops, roasted asparagus, sauteed mushrooms, twice baked potatoes and chocolate covered strawberries. I ain't gonna be shown up, y'all. I made a quick scrapbooked card, jumped in the shower and put on a sundress, because gawsh, I know he's tired of seeing me in sweats with wet hair and no makeup. I got kind of excited, because it was out of the norm. It wasn't the every other night TV watching, quick eating, laundry folding, talking about our day kind of night. Something about it was special.

The boy arrived, card in hand, in which I found the new Zac Brown Band CD and a gift certificate to get my nails done. It was simple, as the entire day had been. And exactly what I wanted without knowing that I wanted it.

And the best part of all, turns out, is that he did listen to me. He didn't go to extravagant measures to make this one day of the year sooo amazingly great. But he did go out of his way to make it known that he loves me. And to show me that love by cleaning up the kitchen (so. many. dishes. wow.) and rubbing my feet and legs. He took the opportunity to once again tell me that, hey girl, you da bomb.

I wasn't expecting anything, per se, but the fact that he met me in the middle of my "I hate this day" and his "Please shhhhhhut it and enjoy my doting on you" outlooks, made it the best of all.

Maybe Valentine's Day isn't so bad. But maybe the other days that the guys we love take the trash out without being asked, and lend a listening ear when we're whiny, and give up a Sunday of football watching to go on a picnic mean just as much, if not more. I'm glad I was blessed with this day to realize that. :)

Saturday Smorgasbord...

• I bleached the bath tub today. I hate tile. I hate the gunk that gets in every little crevice of it and forces me to clean it out. People keep telling me Tilex (sp?) works, but I'm too cheap to buy it when it's not on sale, so Lysol 4 in 1 and Clorox had to do the trick today. My hands stink and I burned my forearm because I didn't realize bleach splattered there. Fails everywhere.
  
• I also did all my laundry today, and let me tell you something....I'm beginning to find holes in the toes of every pair of my socks. How does that happen? The washing machine elves think it's funny to put holes in my socks instead of just stealing one of them so they'll never make a pair again. But see, the bad part is, I change shoes a lot at work (I feel the need to wear heels, then have to go out in the warehouse and put flats on. It's a daily battle. Don't make fun of me), so people actually see my socks. Maybe my bosses will see them and understand that I don't have the money to buy new pairs. Raise? Perhaps. Doubt it.
  
• I'm watching skiing on TV right now (no cable, hello), and it's seriously giving me a panic attack just watching these people. They're going, like, 150 miles an hour down over 5,000 feet of vertical mountain. I'm sure they don't have anxiety. I'm sure they are missing that part of their brain that warns them of danger....because that's just crazy. Crashing on skis at 500 mph = way worse than cracking a skull, or falling off a ledge, or getting your pinky finger bitten off by a shark. I'm knocking on wood now because I really don't any of the above to ever happen to me.
  
• Wanna see pictures? Yea? Okay, that's what I thought. My good friend Josh does some woodworking in his spare time. Last summer, I saw these two end tables he was making and commented that I loved them. Well, I ran into him before Thanksgiving and he asked if I wanted the tables. The ones I loveeee. Ummm...pshyeah! I asked him how much he wanted for them and he said nothing. Sweet boy. I kept meaning to come pick them up from his house but he lives so far away and I just forgot or didn't have time or whatever. He dropped them off last week on his way into Greenville. He also happened to just have a coffee table that matches them, so he threw that in with my loot. I CANNOT express my thanks to him. They are perfect in my little apartment. It finally feels complete. 

Coffee table. I haven't quite decided on decor yet. 

One of the end tables. I have NO room for the other. I'm not giving it to anybody,
so it might just hang out in random places for a while.

The final product. Whatcha think?!!?

Have a wonderful Saturday everyone!!

Writer's Block.

I was gonna write Wednesday. And yesterday. And today. And I've got nothing.

Lots has happened. I went on a drive. It cleared my head. I had a fabulous Sunday. Work has been intense this week. I've been frustrated, and thoughtful, and irritated, and glad the sun is shining, and excited, and nervous and, though I hate to admit it, a little angry. I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday.

But I still have nothing.

I have this wariness about writing personal things on here. I don't want to get too close. So, this is why there's a block between my mind and the words I want to say this week.

Sometimes it's good to have best friends to lean on and a family who brightens my day and a guy who makes me tell him what's on my mind and a God who understands.

I think I'll leave it at that.