Life in Pike Road

2012-01-10T08:42:00.001-08:00

What is with this crazy weather? I love it, but it is weird!! Last night I took Mason to Wal-Mart in a summer-y outfit with no socks on (Ben insisted it was warm outside). I felt like a freak. It is January. He should be bundled up wearing a fur coat. This baby is hot natured like his daddy... he always feels so warm but I have this stigma about socks. He needs socks. However, he was fine.

One of the African American ladies that I work with informed me that white ladies always underdress their babies when it is cold outside. She said black ladies have their babies bundled up but white ladies will have their babies with no socks on and short sleeves. Huh? I never noticed this but it makes me self conscious that all the black ladies are looking at me like, " Her baby is cold. She is obviously white."

Anyway, I snapped this photos of Mason playing outside in the winter in short sleeves. ( I am, after all, white. )

January

2012-01-08T17:04:00.000-08:00

I worked extra at the pharmacy this week as Wal Mart was anticipating a huge influx of prescriptions from Walgreen's customers (long story about insurance) and they were providing triple pharmacist coverage. Let me just say, I love some triple pharmacist coverage, but I am not a huge fan of working extra. Anyway, all that to say that my photo project on days 4 and 5 went out the window, but I do have some informal shots to bring me up to date.

I think most people who read my blog read Haley's blog so you will know that I stole this collage idea from her. Thanks Haley! Haley is awesome at the collages. She is also awesome at taking pictures with her wide angle lens.

Like Haley, I love the Instagram app on my iphone. It is sweet! Instagram can make what would be ordinary pictures look pretty cool in a matter of seconds. When I can't use my SLR or I am just too busy or lazy to hook it up to my computer, upload, and edit the photos, instagram is a great option!

My birthday was Saturday and I turned 29!! I am enjoying the last year of my 20's but also embracing the idea that the big 3-0 is right around the corner. I think the 30's are going to be great! I had a wonderful weekend and Ben was extra sweet to me, allowing me to even take a luxurious nap on Sunday. My friends Josh and Shelley came down to hang out on Saturday/Sunday and it is always great to see them. Unfortunately I was a bit sickly, but am starting to feel better today. With a stomach virus last weekend and a cold/crud this weekend, I don't know what the deal is with me. I am very rarely sick but I guess it is just all going around. Thankfully Mason and Ben just had the cold stuff and they are doing well.

Mom and Dad gave me a Kindle Fire for my birthday so I am learning how to use that and it is pretty neat. It is no ipad, but for the price, you cannot beat it!

Day 7: Taking a wagon ride

Here is my little man in his wagon (a Christmas present from my parents) on my birthday. We all took a walk/ride down to the dog park with our dogs and Josh and Shelley's two long haired dachshunds, Mordecai and Tully. A kid stopped and asked if all four dogs lived in the same house. That would be something. Mason was all fixed up with his formula in the cup holder, mounds of toys to keep him entertained (at one point Ben even put an entire bag of blocks in there before I started taking things out) and his seat strap buckled. We have to keep that thing buckled because this weekend he learned how to pull up! He has pulled up on our ottoman twice all by himself! He has also learned how to go from his belly to a sitting position which is awesome because he was getting so mad when he got stuck on his belly and couldn't figure out how to move!

Mason's favorite person is his Daddy. I am jealous. I even told Ben to start talking me up to Mason a little bit. Haha! Mason lights up whenever Ben walks in the room and if Ben does not pick him up or acknowledge him, he falls to pieces! Maybe he will get that excited about his Mommy one day too. I did, after all, have my abdomen completely cut open so he could have life. Seriously kid.

Seriously though, that little green and white thing in the foreground of the second picture of Day 8, is awesome! My sister-in-law, Tori, made that for me for Christmas and it is one of those heat packs with the rice in it. It also has stress relief aroma therapy oils in it and it smells so good. It is my new best friend. All you do is heat it in the microwave for a couple of minutes and you have hot aroma therapy for your neck, back, whatever. LOVE IT! (That is why I took a picture of it.)

Well, I am off to do some worker's comp cases. I hope everyone is having a wonderful New Year! Enjoy the BCS game tonight!

Coffee

2012-01-03T07:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I did remember to take a picture for the 365 project, I just didn't make time to post it since I was watching The Bachelor premier. Trash, I know, but I can't help it! It is just so fun to make fun of.
Anyway, I haven't decided exactly how I want to do this project yet, but until then I will just go with it. Below are day 2 and day 3 and an extra one just for kicks!

Day 2: My sister gave me this lovely Keurig coffee maker for Christmas and I loooove it!!! Ben, then ordered about $200 worth of K-cups (because they were on sale, so get them while they're hot, right?). This is only a small amount of the coffee but I just had to get a pic of it before I made room for it in the pantry. This cracks me up, but we will have coffee for quite a while. If you are in the area, stop by for a cup. I think I may have some to spare.

This weekend my parents and sister were here for a visit. It was a blessing to have them because 1. I came down with the stomach virus on Friday night and they were a HUGE help with Mason (Ben had to do some work) and 2. My mom rearranged my living room and I love it! It motivated me to get some things done around here that I have been dreading and 3. It is just nice to have them around.

Day 2: Random, right? Ben put a fire in the fireplace for me this morning and I am feeling all cozy in my warm house on this chilly day. I love throws, blankets, and especially hand made quilts. They seem to add warmth just by looking at them.

Project 365 Attempted

2012-01-02T06:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a fun New Year. I have a lot of posts I want to do but for now I will get to the point.... I am going to attempt project 365. I say "attempt" because the chances of me remembering/taking time to take a picture a day is slim so this could easily become Project 52. None-the-less, I am giving it a go! Here is my picture from yesterday (I am already behind!).

Nana and Mason check out the iPad. Have you seen the kid videos on YouTube? They are great!

I thought it would be fun to attempt this project to improve my photography and get more creative. This may also help me become a more consistent blogger and journal our memorable moments. That is my hope...

If you are doing this project, let me know so I can follow your photos! If you haven't heard of it, just google it... I am not following it exactly... just kind of doing what I want. I will be back tonight with today's picture.

Seven Month Photos Attempted

2011-12-09T08:20:00.001-08:00

My Little Man is on the move! So much so, that when I tried to take his "seven month pictures" in his chair and crib, he would not hold still. Thus, most of them turned out blurry. See below...

I initially sat him in the corner of chair.

Attempt number 2

Attempt number 3

Attempt number 4

Attempt number 5

Attempt number 6

Let's try some crib shots. We started out in the corner of the crib, ended up pulling up on the bumper pads.

Still climbing

Another attempt at the crib shot

My personal favorite

Considering cooperation

Success!!

I suppose the 8th time is the charm!

And we're done here.

Skin Care Product Review

2011-12-06T06:32:00.001-08:00

Ok, this post is extremely random, but it is something I have been wanting to do for a while now. I rely very much on product reviews so I feel that it is only fair for me to do my own to contribute, thus helping someone make a decision about investing in a product. Most skin care products that are supposed to be "really good" are quite pricey. I know this as in the past 3 years, I have tried 3 different pricey products. I am not really sure how I began trying these products other than I heard about them and felt my skin looked blah so I thought I would try them. I was tired of trial and error with random products that I ended up not liking and using half the bottle before tossing it in the trash.

The first pricey product I tried was Bare Minerals Rare Minerals (all photos on this post courtesy of google image search).

My friend Shelley told me about this product and I thought it sounded neat. Is is supposedly made from untouched soil/minerals found in another country. (Obviously my memory of the product details is a little foggy.) You apply it at night like a powder and you can use it in the morning under your make up. You can even wear this product as a make up if you get the tinted kind. I really loved the Bare Minerals make up so I was excited about trying their skin care product.

This little baby (and I mean little) will run you about 60 dollars. There were a lot of great reviews about this product but I was not blown away. I don't know what I expected, but I am not sure I could tell a huge difference in my skin. However, I have to say that I was not 100% compliant and I used it at night for a few weeks before I just gave it up out of pure laziness. (When I was using Bare Minerals make up I didn't have to wash my face before bed because it was "natural" so I was hit or miss on this.) The shame, right? Who spends that kind of money on a product and lets it disappear into a drawer? I know, I know....

Product #2 is the hailed WonderBar. I went nuts over this thing. I read all kinds of reviews and researched the website and thought it sounded like the best product ever! I used it during my pregnancy and the thing that appealed to me most, besides the great reviews, was the fact that it was supposed to shrink pore sizes and tighten your skin. That sounds good, right? Well, this tiny bar, the size of a bar of hotel soap, will cost you $45. The price went up since I purchased it at $40 but I am pretty sure it is now $45. Ben made fun of me for months for buying this but I was so excited about it.

The trick to this little bar is wetting your face and then rubbing the bar on your skin. This preserves the bar and mine lasted about 6 months.

I loved this product to begin with. After I used it, my skin had the look of getting a facial. I could tell that it was tight and shiny and it felt really clean. You are supposed to leave the product (also some type of special soil from some other country) on your face for 3-5 minutes before rinsing. (I rarely left it on that long.) This product claims to detoxify your skin and balance the pH. If you purchase this, I highly recommend reading the details on the website about how it works. The first week of use induces what they call a "healing crises" where your skin goes nuts and breaks out because it is getting the "toxins" out of your skin, thus balancing the pH.

The main con of this product, besides the price, is that you can only use certain make-ups while using it and NO mineral make ups (which is what I used). I had to totally switch make up brands to use this product. Also, as I said, it is not compatible with certain make ups but you don't know what make ups. So, that is a pain since make up can be expensive and you don't want to go switching make ups all the time trying to accommodate your expensive skin care.

I used this product over a year before I started to dislike it. (I even bought bars for my sister, mom, and a friend because I loved it so much.) However, after much continued use, I felt that it really dried out my skin. It seemed as thought no moisturizer could fix this problem so I stopped using it and switched to product number three.

Using product #3 was like coming home... Clinique's Skin Care regimen is what I used as a teenager back in the day. I did a little research and thought I would give it another go.

I love it!! I have been using the three products above in a stepwise fashion for about 3 weeks now and I am extremely happy. After using it for less than a week, my skin went back to normal and was more balanced. I really like the way these products make my skin look and feel. I got the three products about plus a bag and a travel size bottle of each product for 65 dollars. That is a special for this time of year and I believe you can get the three above for about $50-$55. After 3 weeks of use, I have barely made a dent in the products.

The main con of this regimen is that the face wash, which is the first step, is to be used AFTER you remove your make up. That means you really have 4 steps. I am a bit of a slacker in that aspect and just splash my face with water to "get off" my make up and then proceed. Works well so far.

Well, that about sums it up. I thought this would be a good post in case some of you were looking for some beauty products for Christmas! Let me know if you have any questions.

I am also familiar with Bare Minerals, Lancome, and Repechage make up. I just switched to Clinique Even Better make up and I love it! I am happy to answer questions about those as well.

Getting Ready for Christmas!

2011-11-29T08:09:00.001-08:00

So, I have 1,100 lights on the tree and counting. We found the most awesome deal on Fraser Firs at Costco where you could get an 8-9 foot tree for only $30.00! However, the trees were wrapped up so you just had to pick one and hope it looked good. We got ours home and, yes it looks great, but it is massive!!!!!!! By far the biggest tress we have ever had...nearly 10 feet tall. I will post pictures of it when I get it all lit up (which could be a while since we have already made 2 Christmas light runs and it still needs more). I am trying to re-vamp my light stringing method because it is taking me forever. I grew up with artificial trees and my grandmother taught me how to go up and down each branch to give the tree depth. However, with real trees, that is proving to be a challenge since the branches aren't exactly symmetrical. Oh well... we will see what happens.

If you are familiar with Snapfish, then you know they were running a special that expired yesterday for 500 prints for 1 cent apiece and 50% off the entire website. Well, Ben and I were gonna get everyone hooked up with photo gifts AND get 500 pics printed (since we are backed up to 2007 with no pics printed) and just get sooo much accomplished. Well, we put it off too late (trying to get the tree lit) and fell asleep with the computer between us while we were waiting on the photos to upload! However, here are a few old shots of Mason (and one of Poodle) that I never got to post. They are from 4 months old and 5 months old.

Fingers crossed, I will be back soon with tree pictures! Fingers crossed.....

Grand Babies (and Mason vs. Neely)

2011-11-25T12:29:00.001-08:00

This past Monday we went to Russ and Jessi's new house in Auburn to have dinner with Ben's whole family (as in immediate family). Jessi cooked an awesome meal and we all enjoyed getting to spend some time together.

Here are a few photos from the evening... remember how I said I am learning to shoot on manual? Well, forgive the quality of these photos because I was wedged up against a couch trying to get both babies in the frame and shooting quickly so as not to miss any of the fun.

Heeeeyyy... I'll have some of that milk please.

No Mason, That is Neely's milk.

Mimi is about to feed you some baby food in just a minute.

But I still want that milk.

Me and my skinny jeans are taking the milk some place safe from that baby.

Blast!

Now I can enjoy my milk in peace.

Curses!!!!

Cate, Adalyn, and Cole are so big now!

Russ and Jessi are loaning Mason their walker and HE LOVES IT!!! It is perfect for this little man who wants to walk everywhere but can't quite do it on his own.

After several attempts at getting all 6 grand babies to look in her general direction, Tori successfully snapped this photo. Mason thinks his Uncle Russ is hilarious!

Then we attempted to get a photo off all the kids and grandkids....

Mason is still depressed about the milk. Bentley wants Pop and doesn't want to sit on the couch. Neely has the cutest belly!

And.... almost complete success! This time next year, there will be one more on the couch!! (Tori, not me.)

We had such a fun night together and it is so fun to see all of the kids playing and laughing. Mason is going to have such a good time growing up with his cousins!

We all have so much to be thankful for... especially family and friends!

Blue Ridge and Other Things

2011-11-21T07:08:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving week! I am sure everyone is gearing up to cook and/or eat lots of food here in a day or two. I, for one, am super excited about spending Thanksgiving with my family! I haven't spent Thanksgiving in Florence since I got married so I cannot wait to see a lot of relatives I haven't seen since my wedding and introduce Mason to everyone. I am also very much looking forward to my Aunt Marva's macaroni and cheese and my mom's seven layer salad and my grandmother's (Mamaw) chicken and dressing, fried okra, and potato salad!!!!! I am so pumped! (Big Fat Fatty) Notice I only mentioned the food and nothing about the thankfulness. I am very thankful for so many things, but I will save that for a future post, Lord willing I have time to do another one soon.

Now, let me wrap up the Blue Ridge vacation with these pics from the last full day we had at the cabin...

Here we have Ben's artistic photography capturing his "perfect s'more."

Ben and Mason are going to kill me for putting this one on the blog, but I love it!!! Mason doesn't favor us in many ways physically (the bright blue eyes and blonde hair), but he has so many of our other characteristics. I love their sleepy head looks early this morning. We didn't get much sleep on the trip because Mason had a hard time sleeping through the night for some reason. Special thanks to mom and dad for staying up with him a couple of nights.

Ahh, I am so sneaky capturing this picture of Matt. Cara brought her cool travel hammock and I think I need one of those as well... maybe for Christmas.

Cara was forcing Matt to share the hammock with her.

Not exactly the correct focus, but I think this picture of Berkley is hilarious.

Mason is always thrilled to walk around. I am learning to shoot on Manual and I forget I have the camera set to manual and just start shooting. This pic is over exposed and unedited but I love the expression captured on Mason's little face.

Berkley Boo my mountain dog. He is such a rugged poodle.

The sun made the leaves light up like they were glowing! I love fall because of all the beautiful colors!

It was all in all, a wonderful trip and we had so much fun! I definitely recommend Blue Ridge as a fall vacation spot for any family. I wish I had captured a few shots of down town Blue Ridge because it is such a quaint little town. I also need to share our experience at the store "Gypsy Eyes, Mystical Shop." Yes, didn't know that was the name of the shop until after we went in there. You can just imagine....

I would also like to share this link with you. It is from Women's Bible Cafe which I stumbled upon while searching for a good Bible study. The Women's Bible Cafe offers several on-line Bible studies that you can follow along with every week. I did Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World and I loved it! I highly recommend this website if you don't have time to meet weekly with a group or another individual but would like to participate in a study. It was a blessing to me even though I did struggle to keep up with the reading. The link I shared is a really uplifting article about gifts that we can all share with others such as Joy, Strength, and Peace. It reminds me that "small" things, as simple as praying for someone or just being there for a friend going through a tough time can have such an impact on another person. Check it out if you have time!

Goose River Rapids

2011-11-13T14:05:00.001-08:00

Goose River Rapids, this year's chosen cabin for our fall vacation, has provided us with lots of natural beauty as well as a fun venue for family entertainment.

We have spent many hours sitting out by the creek, around the fire pit, talking, laughing, and roasting marshmallows while Mason plays with leaves and tries to walk around.

This year we decided that the guys would be in charge of one breakfast and one lunch and the girls would do the same. For their breakfast, the guys surprised us with their version of breakfast burritos. I was impressed! The picture below is Ben's burrito and it was slightly bigger than the one I ate.

In addition to the blue bear suit from the previous post, Mom and Dad bought Mason a brown reindeer outfit. We basically put an outfit on him, talk about how cute it is, and then take 500 pictures. That is the routine. Somehow, it never gets old.

This is how Mason spends most of his time..... and how all the grown ups spend most of theirs...

Notice the tennis shoes. I figured that if he was going to be walking around all the time, I should probably get him some shoes. They are so tiny, yet stylish, yet rugged.

The dogs are having a blast chasing the ball down in the creek. Berkley has discovered his inner bird dog and is retrieving like a champ. The ladies in the cabin next door told me that they thought Berkley was a black bear when he was outside the night before. Hmmm, black bear or giant poodle? Both equally intimidating and horrifying.

Playing with dead leaves is Mason's new favorite past time. They provide about 15 minutes of entertainment. Also, please notice my hot outfit. Only the most stylish new trends for vacation.

Also, Mom and I challenged each other today to go all day without speaking "Southern." That means no "fixin to," no "I wont it," no "I'm gonna," no incomplete sentences, etc. That means perfect English all the way. Lemme tell ya, I ain't doin too good. :)

A Fall Update

2011-11-11T19:11:00.001-08:00

Hi Friends! I am on vacation and now I have time to do a little bit of documenting! We have had a lot off fun this fall and I have a lot to catch up on. Mason is SIX MONTHS OLD! What in the world?

I can't believe how fast the time goes. All Mason wants to do these days is get to where he wants to go by himself and immediately. However, he doesn't know how to crawl or walk yet, so this presents a bit of a problem. I don't think it will be long before he figures out how to get around, but I am not sure if that will be good or bad for me. This little man is into everything already!

We were lucky enough to get away with the family for a few days to Elijay, GA where we visit every year. There is something about a cabin in the mountains that just brings a sense of calm and relaxation. Here are a few pictures I have taken so far....

Mom and Dad bought Mason that little blue bear suit and we just had a fit over it. I probably took 50 pictures of Mason in the bear suit. Ok, I would've probably taken 50 pictures of him anyway, but I did love the bear suit! We got out early this morning and watched the dogs play in the creek behind the cabin. The leaves have all changed colors hear and they all fall down when the wind blows like it is snowing leaves. It was beautiful!

The dogs love to play in the creek and they are so much fun to watch! Berkley was too fast for me to get any good pictures of him but I will try to get some good ones before we go home.

My mom is the one who always finds the awesome cabins. She is extremely picky about the cabin and it usually takes her many hours of searching to find the perfect one. She hasn't failed us yet!

Little Punkin loves the outdoors and he loves playing with the leaves. He sometimes tries to eat them so you have to watch him closely!

Speaking of Punkin, we got to take him to a pumpkin patch a couple of weeks ago and we had the best time! I will try to do a post on that and Halloween a little later. Here is Mason playing in the corn box which I thought was so neat. I just knew that he would try to eat the corn, but to my surprise, he just played in it. I can't wait to get him a sand box! Oh, and does this child need a hair cut? Yes he does. Did I mention that he had his first hair cut at 4 months old? Out of control.... our friends say he has a comb over and I think that is pretty funny. Most of his hair is concentrated on the very top. What color is it? Not sure, but it isn't the same color as mine! Some people think it is blonde, some think it is red, some think it is brown.... I think it is more brownish blonde. My hair was light like that when I was a baby and has gotten darker as I have gotten older.

I am really happy to have a few good pictures of Mason and me together. Since I am always behind the camera, I realized that I have very few pictures of him with me. I prefer to be behind the camera, but I want him to look back and see pictures of us together one of these days.

My sister-in-law, Tori, took the picture below a couple of weeks ago. Tori is very talented and I was glad that she was able to take some family pictures for us! I will post more as soon as I get the other proofs.

We are loving this fall weather and we spend as much time outside as possible. Mason is more content to just sit and play on a blanket when we are outside. Indoors, he is always grunting in frustration trying to get somewhere else. However, the dogs provide a lot of entertainment for him wherever we go! Mason LOVES Pete and Berkley and always smiles and laughs at them when he sees them. He tries to crawl or walk over to them and touch them. The dogs leave him alone for the most part, walking up to lick him occasionally. They don't mind him pulling on their fur. Berkley, however, could be a little more aware that there is a baby in the room; he thinks he is the baby. When Mason and I are playing on the floor, Berkley tries to sit in my lap and lay on me. I love them, but sometimes they are a lot to handle on top of taking care of a 6 month old.

Here are some of my favorite shots from playing outside. I took these a week or so ago when Matt and I were outside doing some yard work. Ok, Matt was doing yard work and I was instructing him on what to dig up and where to plant. I love yard work. :)

This is Mason doing his "dance." It is actually his, "I am moving my arms and legs and hoping I go somewhere" dance and I think it is hilarious!

We have the privilege of hosting my little brother (I always call him my little brother even though he is about to be 23), Matt, for a little while as he takes some time off from school to get a little work experience. He has been extremely helpful, especially since Ben has been working extra, and it has been fun getting to spend time with him. Matt and I haven't really lived in the same place since I left for college when he was 12. Can't believe it has been that long.... Oh yeah, Matt hates it when I take pictures of him so I have to be sneaky and do it when he isn't looking... like above where he is carrying the hundred pound root ball of the tree that was previously in my flower bed. Thanks Matt.

So, Halloween was hilarious! My friend Haley let me borrow her son, Sam's, costumes that he wasn't going to use this year. We got so many comments and compliments on our little octopus. Thanks Haley! Mason and Ben are posing with our friends Adam and Caden (who is a monkey). I think this picture is too funny and will probably end up coming back to haunt Caden and Mason many years down the road.

We really enjoyed a visit from Aunt Sissy this past weekend. She got lots of quality time with Mason and says that he is "her baby" since he looks more like her. I have to say, I can't claim those pretty blue eyes!

And hopefully it won't be another month before I get to post again! I just discovered that I can upload big pictures to my blog strait from my computer instead of uploading them to the internet!! What a time saver.

I am off to start The Hunger Games. I have heard good things about it but have no idea what it is about. Hope it isn't too scary! (It sure is nice to have round the clock in home baby-sitters!)

Work Stories

2011-10-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

So, it is 3:45 am and for some reason I am wide awake. If I had horrible heartburn requiring me to sleep on so many pillows I was upright and eat Tums like candy, it would take me right back to being 8 months pregnant. However, I am not pregnant so I have no idea why I can't sleep. I just hope this doesn't become a habit.

Usually when I can't sleep I think about random stuff. Memories from college, high school, and even early in childhood randomly come to mind. Then I think about weird things that happen at work. Upon remembering the work stories I think, I have got to write this stuff down. Thus, the random 3 am posting about stories from work....

Story Number One didn't happen to me, it happened to my partner when I was off but I thought it was hilarious.
A man sticks his head through the pharmacy drop off window and asks, "Hey, is this window open?" Keep in mind, his head is THROUGH the window.
Pharmacist: "Looks open to me,"
Man at window: "So, this window is open?"
Pharmacist: "Is this a trick question?"

Story number 2: This happens on a regular basis....
To preface this story I need to explain that when you call the pharmacy, the electronic message says, "Thank you for calling your WALMART pharmacy." Then, it prompts you to do a number of different things, the last one being "press 0 to speak with someone in the pharmacy."

The phone rings. I answer it by saying, "WalMart Pharmacy."
Customer: "Is this WalMart?"
Again, is this a trick question?
Me: Yes it is.
Customer: "Is this the pharmacy?"
Seriously??
Me: Yes it is.
Customer: Uhhhhh.... uhhhh.... I uhh......uhhh...

This gets me every time. How do you not know who you called? How do you then, not know why you called them? I don't understand.

Story Number 3: "My Baby's Prescription"
This one happened a while back but since then I have noticed a recurring theme and it happens pretty frequently....

A woman comes to pick up a prescription. When she gets to the register she realizes it is not on the insurance and tells the cashier. The cashier turns to all of us behind the counter and states that we need to put the prescription on insurance. We say,"ok" and finish what we are doing because we are currently working on someone else's prescription. Keep in mind, it is our job to know EVERYTHING about EVERYONE's insurance and what drugs they pay for and how much their copays are and what their ID numbers are. It is NOT the PATIENT's responsibility to know what their insurance is and BRING IN THEIR INSURANCE CARD. (That is sarcasm in case you don't know.) Anyway, after a minute or two passes, the woman bursts out (and I mean, bursts out yelling in a loud voice),

"AIN'T NOBODY GONNA DO ANYTHING ABOUT MY BABY'S PRESCRIPTION??!!! MY BABY NEEDS HIS PRESCRIPTION!!!!!"

Upon closer examination, her "baby" is 28 years old.

Story Number 4: "The Similac and the Nudist"
I am behind my computer working when a customer out on the floor (the OTC area) catches my eye as though he is trying to get someone's attention in the pharmacy. I don't think anyone else notices him so I call out over the counter, "Do you need some help?" He motions for me to come talk to him and walks up to the counter. ("Oh no", I am thinking to myself because this guy looks kinda crazy.) He proceeds to hand me a can of infant formula and says, "She tole me to get a bottle of this formula and I don't know if this is what I was supposed to get."

Me: Well, what did she tell you to get?
Customer: A small bottle.
Me: (Not knowing what to say but trying to be helpful)Well, this is a can. This is the smallest can they make.
Customer: I don't know if this is the right one.
Me: Well, did she say to get (reading the can because I have no idea how to respond) "Similac"?
Customer: Yes.
Me: Similac Easy Digest?
Customer: I think so.
Me: Then this is it.
About that time, the asset protection guy (who works for WalMart and looks for thieves at the store etc.) comes behind the pharmacy counter and ask the customer if he can help him. (This is weird because the asset protection guy never comes and helps me give pharmacy advice to my costumers.) It is then that I notice that this man has no less than 30 cans of Similac in his buggy. It's like, "I don't know if I have the right thing, but I am buying every single can in the store, thanks." Apparently formula gets stolen like hotcakes around here. Who knew? I think the guy knew he was being watched and was trying to look like he was going to buy the stuff. On a side note, we have to lock up condoms and pregnancy tests in little clear boxes and keep baby formula behind the counter because it gets stolen so much. Again, who knew?

Then... later that SAME day I am working behind the computer when a customer at the register with his wife catches my eye. He is an older gentleman and he smiles at me and asks if I am staying out of trouble.

Me: I am trying to. Doing pretty good today.
Customer: As long as you stay back there behind the counter.
Me: Yes sir, I am usually ok back here.
Customer: Have you had a good laugh today?
Me: (thinking back to the Similac guy) Yes sir, I actually have.
Customer: You seem like an open minded person.
Me: I try to be. (At this point his wife walks away and he moves down to the "consulting" end of the pharmacy counter. Keep in mind that I am the only pharmacist at the store.)
Customer: Come here a minute.
(He motions for me to come talk to him and I think he is about to ask me a question, perhaps about a natural supplement or something.)

I walk around my counter and go to the front counter where he is standing. When I get there he takes off the hat he is wearing and lowers it to where I can see it.

Customer: Read my hat.
Me: (reading a pin that this man has pinned on the front of his hat) "Discover Nude Recreation dot com"
nervous laughter ensues. I think this must be a joke. An old man just trying to be cute. He looked normal. I laugh it off.
Customer: I am looking at your eyes because that is where your brain is. There are over 240 resorts worldwide. When you are there people talk to your eyes because that is where your brain is.

Realization hits me. This man is not joking. This man is a nudist. I have no idea how to respond to this.

Me: Ohhh. Interesting.
Customer: Yes. It's great. They don't judge you for what's on the outside or what you have on. They judge you by who you are. You are only nude in the sauna, hot tubs, and pools. The ladies where little sarongs. I have been going there since the mid eighties. I just got my wife involved about 6 years ago and she loves it!

Me: Well, a good thing is you don't have to pack much! (I mean, what am I supposed to say??)

Customer: Well, you need something to carry your change around in and a towel or something to sit on if that's what you want.... but you don't need much.

Me: That's nice. (Keep in mind that there are customers waiting on me to check their prescriptions. I am thinking, "how do I get out of this conversation?" I start slowly backing away....the nudist continues...)

Customer: You should really check out the website. I think you would like it. (Do I put out a nudist vibe I am not aware of??) It doesn't show any nudity, just tells you where the resorts are. You are only nude in the sauna, hot tub, and pool. You probably are used to that with a hot tub anyway.

Me: I make a random noise, practicing active listening, trying to be polite, nodding my head, wondering if I should be offended by this conversation and how do I get out of this??

Customer: Yeah, I can tell you know what I'm talking about. winks

Me: what the...??

Customer: You know that's what causes bubbles in the hot tub anyway, don't you? Clothes. It's the detergent in your clothes. No washing machine made can get all that soap out of your clothes and that's why you get bubbles in the hot tub.

Me: I continue nodding and slowly backing away. Huh, wow. Learn something new every day! Again, what am I supposed to say?

Customer: Well, go check out the website.

Me: hurrying back behind the counter to safety...Ok, thanks. BYE!!

Story Number Four: "Porno"
Upon filling a man's prescription, I tell him: Sir, this cough syrup is going to make you sleepy."
He responds, "Well, if it makes me too sleepy I will just pop in one of those porno videos and that'll wake me up." eh? huh? seriously? This was only a couple of weeks post nudist.

Story Number Five: "NO Lady!"
A woman is pitching a fit because her medicine isn't ready.
"I left it here Tuesday! It was ready but I didn't have enough money so the lady sat it right there by the counter and she said it would be here today when I came to get it! It was a white lady. She told me I could come back and get it! (I was the only white lady at the store on Tuesday and I had never seen that lady before.) The technician tries her best to help the lady. "Mam, we haven't filled anything for you in months."
The lady goes on. "What? I ain't stupid. I KNOW what I am talking about! It was ready and it was sitting right there!!"
The technician gets exasperated and calls me to the window to help the lady. I get on the computer and try to figure out what is going on. I look at the other stores and see that she has had some prescriptions filled a couple of days ago in Greenivlle*. I say, yes mam, I see some prescriptions you had filled at another store.
The woman replies,"NO LADY. (She called me "lady.") I know what I am talking about!"
Me: Well mam, I just see some filled the other day in Greenville.
Lady: This ain't Greenville?
Me: No mam.
Lady: Where is this?
I inform the lady where she is.
Lady: I thought this was Greenville.

Please note: Greenville is an entirely different city over 45 minutes away.
*Location was changed.

And I think that should be enough for one ~~evening~~ morning.... I will try to get Mason's 2,3,4, and 5 month pictures up here one of these days!! Time sure flies.

If I Had All the Time in the World

2011-08-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

I would not have gotten aggravated at the Vivint alarm system guy who conned his way into our home and took up our entire Saturday night talking to us for 4 hours about a security system, that we are now trying for free for 1 month, that we don't really need. (That is one of the many reasons I put up with the giant shedding dog that is "Pete" living in my home.)

I always feel like I never have enough time to do the things I want or need to do. I know that I am not alone in this but I am having a hard time coming up with a solution. I guess I could eliminate hobbies, friends, church, pets, and cooking from my life and then I would have a lot of time. That sounds like a great life, doesn't it? I guess I should just be thankful that I have more than enough things to fill my time which equals a very full, even if a bit crazy, life.

I have been putting forth a little effort to wake up at 5:30 in the morning to have a little "me" time and spend some time on my hobbies or things that I don't get to do during the day. By "putting forth a little effort" I mean "setting the alarm on my phone to 5:30." That is as far as I have gotten.

Having a 3 month old doesn't allow for a lot of time to do "me" stuff, but then I realize that spending time with Mason is "me" stuff. Even if someone offered to keep Mason all day long while I studied photography, blogged, worked out, got a tan, tried out new recipes, etc. I wouldn't want them to. So, basically, I am doing exactly what I want (other than working :) ).

Here are some sweet photos of my little man that I snapped the other night during his bath time. Ben is the primary bath giver as it gives him and Mason some quality time together each day. I love watching them do their little rituals. Hopefully more on this later if I can squeeze in some time to edit the photos!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2011-07-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

If you have been reading this blog for a while (and bless you because I have been anything but consistent), then you might remember my posts from last summer and fall about my garden. If you haven't read them, then you can find them here and here.

Now, let me bring you up to date on this lovely garden of mine... Early in the spring, when I was still pregnant with Mason, Ben and I were in Wal-Mart buying groceries when I decided that I wanted a box of fruit roll-ups. Strawberry flavor. Keep in mind that I haven't bought a box of fruit roll-ups ever and I probably hadn't eaten one since grade school, but I wanted a fruit roll-up. So, we buy them and I have one out of the box and unwrapped before we are even in the car. (Not as good as I remembered. Still have about 8 left from the box of 10.) So, Ben is like, "I can't believe you bought that box of fruit roll-ups. Those things are expensive." "They aren't that expensive." I counter back, defending my purchase.
Then the conversation continues like this:

B: "They have to be at least 3 dollars."
K: "No, I looked before I picked them up, they were only 2 dollars."
B: "No, they have to be more than that. Let's make a bet."

I have to add here that Ben is all about making bets. He claims that he will not make a bet unless he knows he won't lose. Ben is also all about saving money. I could write 15 blog posts about Ben and his money saving. This is the reason he is questioning my frivolous fruit roll-up purchase in the first place.

K: "Ok, what do you wanna bet?"
B: "I bet that those are more than $2.50 and ....."

I honestly cannot remember what I was going to have to do if I lost, but that isn't important anyway since I won.

K: "Fine. I bet that they are 2.00 or less (remember, I looked at the price before I bought them but he didn't believe me because I am so frivolous, obviously, and just throwing money into the wind) and if I win then you have to prepare, plant, and cultivate the garden to my specifications ALL SUMMER."
B: "It's a bet."

So, we get home, pull out the blessed Wal-Mart receipt and low and behold, those babies were $1.99!!!
Muwahahahaha!!!!!

So, feast your eyes on this year's garden:

See how cultivated it is? Isn't it lush? See all of the lovely, defined rows of plants? Not a ~~tree~~ weed in sight! Oh, and the produce!! Don't even get me started. You are all going to be so jealous. Allow me to show you these pictures (can't capture it in just one) of our bountiful first crop of tomatoes:

Aren't they so beautiful and round? Don't they remind you of prize winning tomatoes or the ones you see at the farmer's market? I know. We can't all produce this kind of quality fruit. Some have it, some don't. And, I guess we just have it. Don't worry, there was more where these came from! Unfortunately I was unable to photograph the three tomatoes that grew together to form one tiny tomato with three bottoms. You will just have to imagine it.

I think we are also producing jalapeno peppers... if I could just locate the plant.

Ok, so needless to say, that is not exactly to my specifications. However, remember my post about Ben traveling to montevallo every day for all those months? Well, when is he going to have time to care for a garden? So, I haven't been that hard on him.

It wasn't until my friend, Ashley, who was in town yesterday visiting from Florida while her hubby took the Bar here in town, looked out my window and said, "Oh. Is that your garden? It kind of reminds me of a rain forrest." that I realized it was a pretty good laugh. So, at her suggestion, I decided to fill you in on the latest garden events. I hope I did not cause you to covet. Just holler at me in the comment section if you want to sign up for my community crop share program. Thanks.

When I went to photograph the "garden" yesterday, I happened across this little beauty on my butterfly bush and I just wanted to share these photos since you don't get to see pretty butterflies like this very often.

The Power of Positive Thinking

2011-07-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

First of all, thanks to all of you who thought of me this past week as I went back to work. Your comments, notes, and text messages were very encouraging and I definitely felt your prayers coming my way!

As I mentally prepared myself to go back to work, I tried to think positively about it and not dread it. I knew that dreading the day would only make things harder and make the situation worse. Honestly, that mindset helped a lot. I was able to remain upbeat and the week went really well. I am not attributing the success of the week just to my positive thinking; I know that God played a huge part in the way things played out and I really had a sense of peace about everything. However, I am constantly reminding myself of the power of our minds and how I can use my mind to make things better.

Living with an eternal optimist really encourages my drive for positive thinking. Before you start thinking I am all optimistic and stuff, I have to tell you that Ben's positivity sometimes drives me crazy. I'm all "can't you just let me whine about this for one minute?!" :) Forcing me to look at the positive side of things and put things in perspective is one way that Ben helps make me a better person and for that I am thankful.

When I get down or become negative, I am reminded of this verse in Philippians 4:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.(verse 8)

That verse is preceded by "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. In my Bible I have written, "Dwell on your blessings while God works out your problems.

Yesterday, my mom sent me this article which I found very motivating. It is about thinking big, thinking outside the box, and acknowledging the power of your mind. The main points that spoke to me in this article are:

1. Invest time strengthening your strengths.

2. Spend your life on your passion. "This is what you were created to do."(Do you know what your passion is?)

3. Deposit your energies into the creation of products and services that will add value to the lives of others.

4. Choose to see abundance, be abundance, and live abundance, but never at the expense of others.

If you have time, it is worth the read!

And for you moms out there, I stumbled across this website, last night while reading an article on PW's blog about the effects of school on creative children (yeah, I guess you could say it's a little early for that). Anyway, that website (coolmompicks) has a really great recommended reading list that you might want to check out. I think I will be reading a lot of those books in the future.

And I leave you with this:

My little man is three months old today!! Can you tell that he was DONE with this photo shoot? I was taking pictures of him this morning ( I will post the Three Month post once I get them edited) and we were doing some shots in vintage outfits. First I put him in a Feltman Bros outfit that belonged to my brother, Matt, that was complete with matching shoes. Then, I remembered the p.j.s pictured above which is what Ben and both of his brothers wore home from the hospital when they were born. I had intended to take Mason's pictures in those a while back (like, when they would fit him) but forgot about it. When Mason came home from the hospital he was only 6 pounds 3 oz so the outfit would've swallowed him whole at the time (since his daddy was a whopping 8 lbs 12 oz when he was born). Anyway, this morning the p.j.'s barely snapped (I didn't even attempt to snap the top one) and Mason was not having it! Needless to say, I have pictures of him in his daddy's outfit, but they all look like the one above. That picture is a bit deceiving because Mason was an absolute angel during the whole event until I tried to put those on him! You will see when I post the others later on.

Have a great day!

Ben's Job

2011-07-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

So, every week day and many weekends for the past 20 months, my husband traveled an hour and 15 minutes one way to Montevallo, AL to manage and oversee the construction of the Alabama National Cemetery. What started out as a "once a week" visit to the cemetery for meetings quickly turned into an every day trip, sometimes turning into overnight trips. To say I handled it poorly at times might be an understatement. Ben would sometimes leave as early as 5am and not return until 9pm or later. He never knew when he would be able to leave the job and could only give an estimated time at which he may be able to be home for dinner. Drove. Me. Nuts.

Ben is the type of person who, when he does something, he does it right and he does it to the best of his ability. As the project manager of this phase of the cemetery, he wanted everything to be perfect to the extent that he would get out in the field and do some of the work himself in order to keep things going, keep people happy, and make things happen. This is one of the things I love the most about him and at the same time, drives me crazy. However, at the age of 25, Ben has an 11 million dollar (plus) job under his belt which is a huge accomplishment. Not only did he get the job done, but his company received the highest ratings that can be given by the VA and those records will be stored in Washington. I am extremely proud of him.

A separate company created a book about the cemetery which includes pictures of the cemetery and some of the buildings that Ben was in charge of. When Ben left C and C Contractors (the company Ben worked for when building the cemetery) two weeks ago, the owner of the company presented Ben with a copy of the book.

The cemetery was completed the week that Mason was born. One of these days I hope to take photos of it myself and see the final product. Ben worked tirelessly to make sure that they met their deadline so he would get to be home with our new baby with no worries. After Mason was born, it became more obvious that Ben needed a job closer to home with no traveling involved. (aka I was an emotional wreck) So, we prayed a lot about it (and had been for a while) and a perfect opportunity presented itself... a company literally right down the street from our neighborhood. I couldn't be more thrilled! What an answered prayer!! Ben was sad to leave the people at C and C but they were very understanding about his desire to spend more time closer to home.

I have to say that God has gone above and beyond in the way He has taken care of our family and our job situations since Ben and I got married. Things didn't always go as we would have planned, but we have been able to see the good things that have come from each situation and see that God's timing is perfect. Now Ben and I have the opportunity to be home more and be closer to home and to spend lots of quality time with our little man and each other. We are so thankful and consider ourselves so blessed!

We are loving the experience of our most important job yet, being parents.

Here is Ben with Mason in my hospital bed the 2nd night we were in the hospital. I couldn't get around very well because of the C-section and I am certain that Ben changed more diapers than I did and got up almost every time I did during the night. I was the feeder but Ben was the master swaddler.

Independence Day Pictures

2011-07-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

Ben and I were blessed with some time off for the holiday and we got to make the trip up to Florence for the weekend. So, we loaded up the little man and the doggies and headed North on Saturday morning. On Saturday night, Mason got to go to his very first shrimp boil. I wish I had gotten some pictures of that but I tend to get stressed out when I take him in public places or outdoors, afraid that he is getting too hot or uncomfortable or worried about him being passed around a lot. Thus, I am too distracted to take pictures. The food was amazing and there was a TON of it! They did it Low Country Boil style where they dumped bucket after bucket of shrimp, crawfish, corn, potatoes, and onions into a huge homemade trough. It was amazing!

We spent all of Sunday and Monday hanging out at my parent's house playing in the pool, eating, and just relaxing. Mom made chocolate covered oreo balls (holy moly), pasta salad, a cheese ball, and lots of other goodies that we snacked on all day. The 4th was complete with grilled steaks marinated in Dale's sauce, my favorite!!

Here are some of my favorite photos from the weekend....

I tried to relax on the float while Ben tried to make me miserable.

Sweet Pea and Daddy hanging out by the pool

Not So Sure About This Chilly Water

Big Feet, Little Feet

My Daddy and His Boys

Berkley and Pete Having Fun

The 4th Wouldn't Be Complete Without Fireworks. It Helps to Have Neighbors Who Own Fireworks Stands!

Notice Anything Odd About This One? I Was Practicing Photographing Fireworks and My Sister Thought She'd Add Her Special Touch

The Neighbor's Could've Shot These Fireworks After a Baseball Game or Something. They Were Huge!

Mason and His Great Grandmother

Mason Sound Asleep in Nana's Arms

Local Celebrity Gets a Bath

Mason Loves Bath Time

So Relaxing

Poodles Like to Relax Too
(my wide angle lens distorted him a bit)

Disclaimer: This is a normal picture of my sister, unlike the one that follows.....

We Had Fun Taking Pictures Off the Diving Board

It Provided Lots of Laughs... then again, my sister usually does.

My Brother Makes It Look Easy

Love the Elbow Dimple

While we were in Florence, Mason started smiling and cooing a lot! It is amazing how fast babies change and learn new things. I was getting my feelings hurt because he kept smiling at the ceiling fan but wouldn't smile at me. (I know, he is just a baby.) Now, he is all about smiling at me and everyone else and talking to us too! I love it!! He also wants to sit up or stand all the time and keeps trying to pull himself up into the sitting position. It is so funny because he strains his head forward like he is trying to get up. I start back to work next week but more on that later... it is ok to go ahead and start praying for me though. :)

Two Months

2011-06-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

Today Mason had his 2 month check up which means that shots were involved. Three shots and drops to be exact. I was really nervous about how he was going to do and afraid that I was going to get really upset when he started crying. We made it through just fine and I kept reminding myself that these little shots were a million times better than the diseases themselves. And yes, I did my homework on vaccines and I am ready to state my defense if anyone feels the need....

Moving on... My sweet little man is in great health, praise the Lord! He is sleeping soundly after his vaccines and only cried for a little while. Let's hope that continues. He weighed a whopping 12 pounds and 11 ounces putting him in the 70th percentile in weight and he was 22 and 3/4 inches long which puts him in the 50th percentile in height. So, he is a little chunk! He loves to cuddle and he loves his swing! He sleeps great at night and is really easy going. He is such a blessing!

The two month pictures I took of him turned out much better than the one month (which I haven't blogged about) because I was more prepared. My friend, Lindsey told me how she put her little boy in the same place every month so she could compare the pictures. Great idea! So I put Mason in the chair in his room and in his bed. I also tried to get close ups of his little hands and feet. The last picture cracks me up because his neck just disappears under all of his chins and he is like "Why am I sitting in the corner of my bed?" In this first picture he is looking at his most favorite thing in the whole world (besides food), the ceiling fan. I am kind of jealous of the ceiling fan.

Seriously?

2011-06-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

Do you have a constipated baby? If so, I have the solution.... it's the Pooper 5,000, formerly known as the bouncy seat thingee. For real, do you see this picture?? Look closely.

Beneath the right hand... yep. Poo. Front and back this time. And that's not all....

Ben got home from work today and I told him that he should put Mason in the seat so he could see how much he liked it (Ben hadn't seen him in it yet). Guess what? He pooped again!!! Front and back blow out number 2 for the day. This was literally 10 minutes after I had just changed him. Mason is literally 3 for 3 in the bouncy. What is the deal with this thing? Coincidence?

This Week

2011-06-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

As my maternity leave is coming to an end (only 2 weeks left!) I am treasuring every moment that I have with my little man and we are having such a good time! I have finally started exercising again and I invested in a jogging stroller! I bought this one from my friend, Haley, who gave me a great deal! This is a picture of our first outing and, as you can tell, he loved it.

We have spent some time at the pool and outside in the bouncy seat. The bouncy seat does not provide enough entertainment anymore so we don't like to stay in that for very long. Notice that he is wearing Luvs diapers from the one pack we received (we mainly got Pampers) and more on that later...

Mom and Dad came down this past week for a conference my mom had to attend for work. So lucky it was in Montgomery! Dad kept Mason for me a while so I could run errands and then Mom and Dad kept him while I made my first "trip" away from him up to Birmingham. Even though I was only gone for a few hours, I was really nervous about being an hour and a half away from Mason. However, I knew he was in good hands and of course, he was just fine.

On Saturday we were invited to come to Lake Martin. We packed up Mason and all his gear and headed to Tallassee. Here he is in his swim shirt and swim hat. We have a hat that matches his swimsuit, but it is a size newborn -toddler (?) and covered up his entire head.

We put him in a life jacket just to be on the safe side....

I think he was really confused but too sleepy to care....

Here is our ride. That boat was put together by our friend Ben B. and some high school guys as a summer project. It is great and perfect for cruising the lake with a baby!

These are Ben B.'s dogs, Pete and Berkley's buddies, who always provide entertainment!

Here I am with Mason enjoying our ride..... even if the max speed was 15mph, which was perfect for us. I realized looking through pictures for the blog that I have very few pictures of me with Mason because I am always taking them!

This is one of the few family photos that we have taken since Mason was born!

Our friends Ben B., his sister Mae Mae, and his niece, Alley. Great looking family, aren't they?

Mae didn't make the whole ride awake.... Good thing Katie had a hand on her or I am pretty sure she would've ended up in the floor.

Beautiful Lake Martin sunset! Ben took this picture and it might have been just what he needed to convince him that shooting on "auto" is for the birds.

And that brings us to today.... But, let me back up and talk about church yesterday.... So, I dressed Mason in this adorable Feltman Brother's bubble outfit that Cara gave him. Ben said it felt like sand paper but it was so cute! Anyway, about 5 minutes into the sermon, I smelled a dirty diaper. I go to change the diaper only to find that the poo had leaked onto the outfit. Darn. Then, Mason starts spitting up on the outfit before I can get it off of him and put on the back up outfit. I finally get him changed and then just as I am snapping up the clean onesie, Mason decides he is hungry. When he gets hungry there is very little warning and he gets furious! He gets it honest though. Anyway, so I feed him and he spits up all over outfit number 2 just as everyone is exiting the auditorium. Awesome. I am asking myself, why do I come? I guess you just have to keep going and eventually you may get to hear one whole sermon. We will start putting him in the nursery when he is a little older and maybe then I will be able to focus on the service.

So, this weekend, Ben bought Mason one of those little jumping seat toy thingees (not sure what they are called) and I put Mason in it for the first time this morning. Notice the face....

When I got him out of the seat, my hands felt something wet.... weird. I didn't see him spit up...

Surprise!! Not sure about those Luvs getting the job done.... I had to lay him there because my changing table cover was being washed from the last blow out and the changing pad is cloth and not plastic. I don't typically lay him on the floor like that in case you were questioning...

Anyway, it is feeding time so I better go!

Coming Back

2011-06-23T21:31:00.000-07:00

He's here! Mason Grant Lassiter was born on April 20th at 8:26 pm by emergency C-section. He weighed 6 pounds and 10 ounces and he was 21 inches long.

I honestly don't know where to start with this blogging thing because there is just so much to tell! Mason is 9 weeks old now and our lives have changed drastically.

In these past two months we have experienced Mason's birth, his first Easter, my first Mother's Day, our 3rd wedding anniversary, and Ben's first Father's Day. It has been a whirlwind, but a wonderful one at that!

I believe I mentioned in my previous post, many months ago, that I was praying for a happy, healthy, laid back baby. Well, that is exactly what God gave me! I couldn't ask for anything more! Mason is so sweet and loves to cuddle. He rarely cries and he is a good sleeper!

Since Mason was born we have been to Auburn, Atlanta, Florence, Birmingham, Panama City, and Nashville. We are crazy but Mason has been an angel! After our last trip (to Nashville) I think he was fed up with all the traveling and I decided that we would be staying here for a while with no more road trips. I love being at home with him and we enjoy our routine of eating, sleeping, pooping, and doing it all over again!

Mason has already changed so much since these pictures from his first week of life. It almost hurts me to look at these because those days are already gone, but at the same time, I love seeing him grow and change and learn new things! I have already become one of those psycho obsessive moms who takes pictures of her child's every move and facial expression. I can't help it. Sorry.

So, once again I am going to try to keep up with this blogging thing. If you are still around to read this, thanks for keeping up with us! I will try to pull us up to date on pictures now that I think I have things figured out and then we will go from there! My problem is figuring out which of the four hundred million pictures to post! Ah!

Oh Baby and Baby Belly

2011-02-15T06:29:00.001-08:00

Too. Lazy. That's what I am. I have a few pictures to put up of my ever-expanding belly but my computer isn't cooperating and if I don't just post this then I may never post again. Why is my font blue? I got on here to write something and couldn't remember my own url. Then I couldn't remember which password I use to sign in.

So... on to the blog....

(This is more for me to document so that I remember details. It may bore you and will definitely bore you if you don't know me personally.)

For the most part my pregnancy has been awesome! I have been soooo lucky because I have felt pretty great and I have only been sick (as in thrown up) one time during the whole seven months. Now, I have experienced some other pregnancy symptoms, namely forgetfulness (as you can see from the first paragraph) and clumsiness. It. Is. So. Weird. At work I drop things. I drop medicine bottles, baskets, leaflets of paper, pens, you name it. I cannot hold on to anything. I forget a lot. I forget what I am saying or thinking (more than I normally did before) and things just slip my mind. I also have heartburn a lot. Randomly. I can't blame it on certain foods because water can even cause it which is odd to me. I sleep with 4 pillows now. Four.

However, the strangest thing is the belly. I can't get used to it. It came out of nowhere. I will walk by a mirror and and be like, "Whoa. That is me." haha! I keep bumping the belly on things because I am not used to it being there. I can no longer turn sideways to squeeze past something or someone. Turning sideways does not make me smaller. It is so funny! Feeling Mason move is the coolest thing ever. He seems to be all over the place and I can't pinpoint how he is positioned. We have a 4D ultrasound scheduled for next Tuesday and hopefully it will work out that Ben can come and we can actually get it done! I can't wait to see his little face! (If he cooperates.)

I haven't had too many weird cravings. I do crave random stuff for different meals, but the only things I have consistently craved are mocha ice cream with snickers from Marble Slab and mochas and iced mochas from Starbucks. Not. Cheap. Cravings. The weird thing is that while I am craving mocha stuff, I pretty much stopped making coffee at home. It kind of grossed me out at first. I have gradually come around to it and drink a cup every now and then but when I am home by myself I drink Tazo tea instead. It is strange because I have pretty much had coffee every morning since my 4th year of pharmacy school when my roommate, Shelley, and I would take turns making it before we left for our rotation.

The nursery is well underway! Mom and Dad came down these past 2 weekends to help us get it ready and it is now painted a pretty light blue/gray color. One-half Sea Spray to be exact. It only took me a couple of emotional breakdowns to get to this point. After attempting to order not one, but two cribs that turned out to be "no longer available," we finally picked out and ordered a set that was actually available and it should be here in a week or so! I will post pictures when things come together a little more. Now I just have to figure out what to do with all of the junk we were storing in what is now Mason's room.

Oh, I am also proud to announce that I passed my glucose test by 2 points!!! Whew! I was so nervous that I would fail and have to go through the 3 hour screening. Lucky me. It is so hard for me to believe that I am already 29 weeks along! The time is absolutely flying by and Mason is going to be here before I know it! I am so excited!

So, yesterday was Valentine's Day. Ben sent me a dozen red roses to work which was a complete surprise! They are so beautiful and I was so excited to get them! The hard part was getting them home. I put them in my passenger floor board and they tipped over with the first hard turn I made (in the Wal Mart parking lot) and it was kind of like a flood with little waves. Not to self: dump out water from flower vase before attempting to transport. The flowers escaped unharmed and are sitting beautifully on my dresser.

I couldn't help but think about how this was mine and Ben's last V-day alone. Next year it will be celebrating with a baby or hiring a sitter! We are trying to savor all of our time together and our sleep (as everyone advises).

Ok, next time I will post pictures. Hopefully I won't forget I have a blog in the mean time.

Colorado

2011-01-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

During our first year of marriage, Ben and I took a trip to Beaver Creek, Colorado with a group of friends. With the exception of 1 day on the slopes many years before, this was my first attempt at snow skiing. This is how the trip started out.

This is how the trip ended. Can you say ski ambulance?

While I am smiling in the picture, I ended up with a crack in my tibia (I think) right below my knee. This was a direct result of me attempting to ski down a slope that was entirely too difficult for my skill level. Lesson learned. So, when the idea of the ski trip was brought up again this year, I wasn't totally gung-ho about it. However, Ben LOVES skiing so I didn't want to hold him back. Plus, we had a free place to stay thanks to some very generous friends and you can't really turn that down, can you? I immediately started to debate whether I wanted to re-attempt skiing this year when lo-and-behold, baby Mason makes his presence known, thus the ultimate excuse for not having to ski!! Yay!

Thus, here is how I am spending my Colorado vacation this year....

Can't complain about a little R and R in the beautiful snow covered mountains. This is the part of the view from the balcony where you can watch the skiers come and go.

Yesterday my friend Kristen (who is here relaxing with me because she is also pregnant) and I went to the spa where we each got Prenatal massages. It. Was. Amazing! On the way to the spa we walked by the ski lift and saw the skiers coming and going. I must say I felt a twinge of anxiety just looking at the lift. Then I smiled to myself at the fact that I was going to get a massage and not going to spend hours in the freezing cold falling on my face.

Cara is here this year and she is doing great which is no surprise. She loves skiing and she has a really good teacher. Here they are all decked out and ready to go on the first day. The following pictures looked totally different when I edited them on my computer than they do here. I am not sure what went wrong... excuse the odd coloring please.

Ben (talking about my husband Ben, not the Ben pictured above), who has deemed himself "Black Magic" is beside himself about hitting the slopes on the first day. Here he is with Cara getting ready for the action.

And that's about it from Day 1, more to come though. I think I will go get a facial now and be thankful I am not face-planting in the snow or skiing into trees.

More to come from Ski Trip 2011/ The Last Hoo-Rah Before Baby....

New Things

2011-01-10T14:44:00.001-08:00

Greetings from Pike Road during the ice storm of 2011!! I have to say that it was a bit of a let down for me, seeing as we didn't get any snow. We did, however, get a little ice covering here and there and I woke up in time to snap a few pictures of the ice covered pines before they returned to their normal state.

Now, on to new things....

First of all, we have decided on a name for our baby!! He will be called Mason Grant Lassiter. Mason is my mother's maiden name and Grant is Ben's middle name. Although we have thought this would be the name for a while now, it has been really hard for me to say it was a definite! It is just that he will be stuck with this name for the rest of his life and I wanted to be sure he would like it. I hope that he does! For Christmas my sister-in-law, Jessi, gave me some monogrammed cloth diapers with Mason's name on them and they are adorable! It was very exciting to get his first personalized item! I have officially bought all of the fabric for the bedding (that my friend Kellie is going to make, she, along with mom and sis have been a huge help) so now I can get going on the nursery!

With the new year comes new year's resolutions.... I make these resolutions pretty much every year with last year being the only exception. I thought, I never keep these resolutions so why make them? So, last year I was resolutionless and somehow I survived 2010....shocking. Anyway.... this year I went back to my old ways and decided to make some resolutions... I'll begin with the one I have actually kept:

1. I cannot order a beverage with any meal (other than water) unless it comes with a combo or a special (like at a bar-b-que place where tea is included, etc.). I did this back in 2007 and it worked well. Cuts back on unnecessary calories and saves money... two for one bonus! Ben and I make this into a competition to keep us motivated and so far we are doing a good job with this one.

2. Bedtime at 10:00 and wake up time at 6:00. So far this one is a no go. We have made it to bed at ten on occasion, but it is the waking up a 6:00 that gets me every time. I wanted to do this resolution because I feel that I will be more productive if I get on up and going earlier in the mornings. You know what they say, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man (or woman) healthy, wealthy, and wise!!!" I know that 6 is not early for many, but it is early for me!

3. Read my Bible more often. I set my goal for 3 times a week. I am not doing so well with this one either but it is going to improve!! I am going to start a new Bible study (a 90 day study) called "Becoming the Woman God Wants You to Be" focusing on Proverbs 31 and I am quite excited about it. I am waiting on my book to get here from Amazon so I can get started. My friend Shelley is doing this study with me and my mom has already started it with some of her friends. I think this study will help me with my "read the Bible more often" resolution for sure!" Now, if only my book would get here!!

4. Exercise more. This also has a 3x per week goal. So far I stink at this. What happened to those days in college when I loved to go running as a stress reliever? Now thinking of running causes me stress. Granted, I can't exactly run with this belly because it just feels bazaar, but I should be doing more exercise wise. Why is it that the older you get and the more exercise you need, the more difficult it is to do?? Life can be so ironic sometimes.

5. Thank you notes. I AM AWFUL. I mean, I did well with the wedding and showers and writing hundreds of thank you's for those things. However, I am really bad at writing sporadic thank you notes. I want to be better about this. Several friends have already given me little gifts for Mason that I appreciate so much but I only think of writing the thank you note when I am at work or driving or in some situation where writing a thank you note is completely inconvenient. Ben, who doesn't really see the value in or the necessity of a thank you note says I need to let this go, but I can't. I can't. It is good etiquette to let the gift giver know you are appreciative. Ben's reasoning is, "you don't expect a thank you note, do you?" Granted, no, I don't expect one and I wouldn't remember if I didn't receive one. But they are really nice to receive, aren't they?

So, there are some other things that I have been working on lately that aren't really resolutions but just things that I am enjoying and wanting to do more of:

First, pictures! We have finally purchased some wedding pictures (yes, over 2 years later). We decided to purchase the cd of all the pictures so we could do what we wanted with them. It was just waaaay to hard to pick and choose a few. I am excited about putting together a photo book and getting some of these pictures printed to actually HANG ON MY WALLS. If you have ever been to my house then you are aware that I have NOTHING on my walls and NO recent pictures displayed. It is pretty sad actually. We have been here 3 years in May! So, before Mason gets here, we have got to get some photos up. When we have a baby, we are officially no longer newly weds and it will not be acceptable to have no wedding pictures out. Here is one of my favorites! (Seems like it was just yesterday. Sigh.)

Another thing I have been wanting to do for a WHILE, and have recently started, is archiving recipes. That probably sounds lame. I love to read recipes but when it comes time to cook, I get so overwhelmed trying to choose a recipe out of the thousands on line and in the fourteen hundred cookbooks I have, that I freak out, mentally shut down, and then cook Poppyseed Chicken Casserole. That is always fine with Ben because that it is his all time favorite, but I want to try new things!! Thus, let the archiving begin! What I mean is, I will write down the best recipes on notecards and store them in my handy recipe organizer box that mom gave me (it has a bluebird on it in honor of Mr. Tweeters). Then, when I go looking for new things to cook I can just consult one consolidated place instead of searching the afore mentioned plethora of recipes. Ahhh, I can think better already. On a side note, if you have not checked out PW's Tasty Kitchen site, please do so! I especially love the Tasty Kitchen blog. The blog often features themes of recipes that have been posted on the site. The themes include Mac and Cheese recipes, Pasta Salads, various beverages, chocolate desserts, etc. etc. etc. I love it!

And last, PHOTOGRAPHY! I have enjoyed this hobby so much and I have so much to learn! Very soon my reason for taking up this hobby (my baby) will be here in all his glory for me to photograph for life!! Thanks for all the practice, Pete and Berkley, but I am movin on up. I am very appreciative to my friends Kellie and Lindsey and Jessi for letting me practice on their babies.

In conclusion, a very special shout out to my Auburn Tigers!!! Good luck guys and WAR EAGLE!!!! It is almost game time!!!!!

Christmas in Pictures

2011-01-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!! I cannot believe that 2010 is already behind us and that 2011 is here! We have been so busy with work and spending time with family and friends that I haven't had the time or creative energy to keep up with the ole blog... So, I thought this would be the easiest way to document what we did over Christmas.... mainly pictures with a few much needed explanations....

My family came down to Pike Road the weekend before Christmas just so we could have some extra quality time together and do our traditional "ornament making." The following picture was used for my parent's Christmas card this year. And yes, I am looking quite pregnant these days as I am now almost 6 months along!

The "ornaments" we made were headed up by mom and they consisted of felted Santas as well as sculpy clay ornaments. The following picture is sort of what the felted Santas were supposed to look like but we couldn't find any flesh colored wool so they ended up looking a bit albino.

Ben took an original route and his Santa ended up being the "Zoro Santa from Texas."

Dad took one look at his Santa and died out laughing when he realized it looked like one of the band members of ZZ Top.

Oddly enough, the felted Santas provided fun for the entire family. This week I got more pictures of Matt than I have gotten in the last 3 years since he actually allowed me to take pictures of him! He and Cara decided to use the sculpy clay to make their Santa's faces instead of making wool faces. They were the creepiest things I have ever seen. (Pictures of Creepy Santas further down)

Then things got a little crazy with the sculpy clay.

Here we have Creepy Santas (Cara's on left and Matt's on the right) and the sculpy elf that happens to look exactly like President Obama.

And here we have the final cast of characters.... yes, we did set up a scene, complete with backdrop, to photograph them. In case you are wondering, the green balls with faces are "Christmas Peas."

The family visit was a lot of fun and it was nice to get to spend some "extra" time together since we no longer have those long breaks that we once got when we were in college!

Ben and I opened our gifts to each other on Wednesday night before Christmas so we could get rid of our dead Christmas tree before we had to go out of town. Here is our attempt at a photo of ourselves. Thankfully I got a tripod for Christmas so no more having to prop the camera on various pieces of furniture!

Christmas Eve was off to a great start with breakfast at Ben's parent's house for the Lassiter family Christmas. Ben and I were so proud of ourselves for leaving our house on time that I ran out the door without my camera!! I stole this family photo from Jessi's album on facebook.

In one of my previous posts I accidently said that our baby would be grandbaby #5, I meant #6!

Ben's parents even gave our baby Christmas gifts including cute little clothes, a book, a toy, and a stuffed animal! He is already spoiled and he isn't even here yet! We had such a good time with Ben's family and really enjoyed watching all the kids open their presents.

After Christmas Eve breakfast, Ben and I loaded up the dogs and headed North to Florence. We woke up on Christmas morning to a beautiful winter wonder land! Snow had been predicted but it was really a surprise that it actually came and stuck!

Of course, we had to take our traditional Christmas picture on the steps. It's a good thing that mom and dad's new house has stairs since we have been taking this same (or similar) picture on Christmas morning for about 20 years. We used to all three sit on one step. Those days are obviously long gone. Please excuse the sleepy looks and the strait out of the camera shot much in need of editing.... I just found it too funny not to share.

Christmas morning was complete with Santa hats and reindeer antlers for all.

Matt was thrilled. This is my favorite picture of the morning.

Berkley had never played in the snow before and didn't know quite what to think. He took off running in it like a maniac and he would lay down and stretch out all four legs. Then he would eat the snow and lay in it. We all got a good laugh out of him and if I can figure out how to edit and share the video then I will do so later. When it was time to come inside, Ben and I had to blow-dry Berkley for about half an hour to get all of the snow balls off this pompoms because they were completely frozen to his fur. You can see them in this picture...

I enjoyed getting to take some pictures of all the beautiful scenery:

Our Christmas festivities ended with the "Cousin Bash" with all of Ben's first cousins, siblings, and spouses. Ben wore his festive Christmas sweater and everyone was jealous. I again failed to bring my camera and I got this picture from facebook that Tori snapped of Ben in his Christmas get up. (My mom bought Christmas sweaters like that a couple of years ago for all the guys in our family as a joke. You can find them in the women's department at Wal-Mart. Don't all rush out at once.)

The "Cousin Bash," complete with Dirty Santa and multiple games, turned out to be so much fun! I wish we all could get together more often. Ben and I racked up in dirty Santa with a gift card for me and a Shake Weight (that we actually brought) for Ben. We will both be extremely buff in 2011 from working out with our Shake Weight. Get excited about pictures to come!

"Nightmare on 31st Street!!"

2010-12-01T05:58:00.000-08:00

The events you are about to read took place at my home last night.

Me: Ben, there is something wrong with that toilet in the hall bathroom. There is almost no water in it at all.

Ben: Oh yeah, I meant to fix that. I'll work on it.

Me: Ok, thanks.

(I go into the master bathroom and begin brushing my teeth. Ben comes in to the master bathroom, grabs the plunger and goes back into the hall bathroom.)

Seconds later I hear a shrill voice yelling from the hallway:

Ben: Nightmare on 31st Street!! Nightmare on 31st Street!!

(Note: This was not a "real" voice he was using but one that he uses when being funny so I didn't think much of it. Plus, he was yelling "Nightmare on 31st Street" and what does that really mean, anyway?)

So, after a few minutes, curiosity gets the best of me and I go to the hall bathroom to see what Nightmare on 31st Street is.

Have you ever seen the commercial about the septic tank cleaner where it shows the lady in her bathroom mopping away furiously and water is pouring over the sides of the toilet? That is the scene that was currently taking place in my bathroom. Except remove the lady with the mop and replace her with Ben with a towel outside the bathroom door trying to keep the water from pouring into the hallway. No exaggeration.

Me: What happened??

Ben: It got stuck! Has that never happened to you?

Me: No.

Ben: I went to get the scepter (read: plunger) and when I came back water was everywhere!

Me: Well, the handle has hung before but it didn't cause water to run out of the toilet and into the floor!

Ben: That is what happens when there is a clog.

Me: Oh.

So, there you have it. A new Christmas Story: Nightmare on 31st Street. I wish I had pictures but I was too stunned to do anything but grab more towels.

If Fast Food Was Pharmacy

2010-11-09T01:34:00.000-08:00

AKA "Why We Can't Just Get a Z-Pak Off The Shelf and Slap a Label on it"

AKA "Why it Takes 'SO LONG' to Fill Your Prescription"

by Katie Lassiter, Pharm D

So, it is 4:30 am, I can't sleep, and the thoughts from the two previous days at work are running through my head. Sunday at work was the day from you-know-where including every complaining customer you can imagine, not to mention I caught a forgery which is a whole other issue in and of itself. I had the store manager called on us twice with a follow up from my district manager today (or, uh, yesterday?). I am extremely thankful that our managers understand the stress and pressure that we are under and come to inquire as to what actually happened instead of assuming we deliberately did something wrong. Even though my job is not on the line and I am not "in trouble" for said complaints, it is really hard for me to get past when things like this happen because a feel that it is unfair to me. I am not behind the counter watching a movie and having a good ole time and delaying people from getting their medications just for kicks. Contrary to popular belief, I hate it when I have a whole line of customers staring at me and continually checking to see if their prescription is ready. I know it sounds fun, right? Long story short, I have had this little synopsis brewing in my head for a long time in order to fully explain to people " your prescription is not back here sitting on a warmer ready to go" and "this is not fast food" and to ask, "why do you people think you deserve for your medication to be ready in 15 minutes or less?" and "why do you think you are the only customer at the pharmacy when you wouldn't expect this at any other public place such as a restaurant that requires WAITING for a table?" and "why do you think you can walk up to a counter and yell to the pharmacist behind the computer who is diligently checking people's prescriptions for errors and ask 'HEY! Where are the cotton balls?" So, thus brings us the story that follows.....

If Fast Food was Pharmacy

Setting: a fast food burger joint

A customer walks up to the counter with their order in hand. Please keep in mind that the customer ordering the food did not actually pick out what they wanted to eat, someone else wrote it for them. In fact, the customer has no idea what the order is, nor are they familiar with what is on the menu. The customer hands their order to the cashier who proceeds to take down the customer's personal information before scanning in the order. (I could go into a million things here such as, the customer refuses to give their birthday, does not know the birthday, argues about giving the information, or asks 500 questions about what their "order" is because they have no idea what it's for, but that would take all day. Just keep in mind that the "cashier" is delayed from doing other things because the customer is clueless.) Several minutes later, the order has been placed.

Next, the manager (pharmacist) has to check the order and assure that it was put in correctly by the cashier. The manager is the only person in the fast food place who can check orders because of their special knowledge of the menu. So, the manager sees that the customer has been ordered a double cheeseburger and a fry with a medium beverage. Uh OH! The person who wrote the order didn't put WHAT SIZE FRY the customer should have!!! The manager cannot just assume what size of french fry was to be ordered so they must make a phone call to the person who wrote the order. And guess who is the only authorized person to make the phone call??? THE MANAGER.

Oh wait... The Manager has to take a phone call because someone is calling in an order. Who is the only person who is authorized to take order call ins??? THE MANAGER. So, customer number 1's order is being delayed a bit because the manager is tied up on the phone taking orders.

Now, back to the order. The manager calls the person who wrote the order for customer number 1. After pushing 15 different prompts, manager is finally asked to leave a voice mail. Ok. Manager leaves the voice mail and continues to check the rest of customer number 1's order. Now, this may come as a shock to some, but the manager isn't just responsible for making sure the order is put in correctly. The manager must also check to see, does this person always get the double cheese burger or is this a new order? Is this double cheese burger going to cause any issues when eaten with the other things on the order? Is the medium beverage going to contain too much sugar for the customer? Calculations may have to be made.

But before the manager can fully check the order, they have another phone call. It is another burger joint calling to transfer an order. Who is the only person authorized to transfer orders in and out of the burger joint?? The Manager!

Finally, the manager is free to finish checking customer number 1's order.

Oh wait.... the customer's credit card (insurance card) that was stored in the computer that pays for the order is EXPIRED and the customer didn't think to give us the new one. Customer number 1's order is held up yet again. So, the cashier tracks down the customer, the customer digs out the new card for the cashier, and the cashier enters it into the computer. The burger joint submits the order to the credit card for them to pay for it. OH NO! The credit card won't pay for a double cheese burger! They will only pay for a regular cheese burger. So, the cashier informs the customer. The customer gets mad. The Manager then makes another call to the person who wrote the order to inform them of this situation. Customer number one can only get their beverage at this point. The cashier makes the beverage. The Manager checks to make sure that the correct beverage has been served (only the Manager can do this) but before the manager can check this, a customer has come up to ask the manager a question and is telling the manager their life story. The manager clearly has nothing else to do. So, the manager is finally free and can check the beverage. The beverage is good to go. The receipt prints out. The cashier rings up customer number one (we will have to wait for the person who wrote the order to call back before we can continue with the rest of customer number one's order).

Oh wait!!! The customer has a coupon for the beverage that he forgot to give the cashier!! However, these coupons cannot be scanned at the register. They have to be entered into the computer using codes, all of them different, and the whole entire credit card claim has to be redone. OH WAIT!! The customer forgot to "activate" the coupon by calling the number on the coupon that clearly states that the coupon must be activated. The cashier's time has been wasted yet again.

All the while there is a long line of customers waiting to pick up their orders and drop off new orders. All the while other orders are getting faxed in. All the while the phone is constantly ringing. All the while orders are being left on the voice mail. All the while customers are lining up to ask the manager random questions.

Now, that was just one customer's order. Just one! They do hundreds and hundreds of orders a day. Now, say a customer was accidently given a quarter pounder when they had brought in an order for the chicken sandwich.. not a big deal, right? But if a person is actually given medication for diabetes when they were supposed to receive seizure medication, it could be detrimental. That actually happened at a pharmacy (not mine). Or, say a child has been given a prescription for a drug that children are not supposed to take (I have actually seen this before) and the pharmacist doesn't catch it, that could be serious. Or what if the patient brings in a prescription for a drug from one doctor when they are already on a similar or interacting drug from another doctor? These issues are serious. They might not be happening on YOUR prescription, but they very well could be happening on any of the other 300-500 that we are working on that day. We cannot for-see these issues so we give the estimated wait time to the best of our ability. However, you never know what problems will arise. I didn't even touch on half of the things that could actually go wrong.

So please, cut us some slack people. Our job is serious and just because your Z-pak isn't ready in 5 minutes doesn't mean we're back there delaying it just for fun. We don't want you in our faces any more than you want to be in ours.

That being said..... you can expedite the process by calling in your refills 24 hours in advance, not the day (or hour) you need it. Also, make sure your insurance card is up to date. Also, realize that doctors often have no idea how much a medication costs or if it is on your insurance formulary. The pharmacy deals with your insurance as a courtesy to you. It is not our fault if your insurance changes or will not pay for something. The customer is responsible for knowing what medications they should be taking and how they are to be paid for.

Now, I have vented long enough. I am just really down about the issues I had to deal with this past weekend. It can be very discouraging when you are working really hard to do your best and serve people the best you can and people lie and act unfairly (yes, lie). I wanted to be a pharmacist so I could share my knowledge with others because I feel that knowledge is useful and beneficial to people. It is disheartening to find that all many people care about is themselves. I have been shocked and amazed at the types of people and attitudes I have encountered in the last 2 years. If people are treating complete strangers with utter lack of respect and sometimes even hatefulness, how are they treating their family members?

I also have to say that I do encounter some very sweet and gracious people from day to day. I just wish there were more people like them.

AND if you are still reading this, thanks for making it to the end! :)

Garden + Voting = unrelated

2010-11-02T06:21:00.000-07:00

Remember this? The garden we planted what seems like a year ago? I took this picture at the end of April when it was about a month into the growing process. Well, in spite of the negligence of its caretaker and the fact that it spent several months completely covered in 5 foot trees weeds, the garden is still thriving. Don't ask me how.

The squash and zucchini basically spontaneously combusted because I planted about 12 plants in a 2x4 foot area. However, this was not before they spit out a few squash and zucchini for us to taste. Here are a couple of tidbits of info that I have taken away from this experience....

1. It is easier go ahead and put in your tomato cages and poles for the cukes before they are actually full grown plants. Some may think this is common sense... anyway...

2. Squash and zucchini plants get REALLY large so they each need at least a 2 foot area to grow in. If you plant them too close, one day you will walk outside and find that they have completely split and grown as far away from each other as possible (literally over night), smashing some of your other plants. Then they combust. It's very strange.

3. Herbs are the absolute easiest to grow. My basil, parsley, rosemary, and especially the mint have thrived and are all still kickin. I have used the basil and rosemary the most. I decided that I do not like the taste of parsley, so, easy as it was to grow, I will not grow it again.

4. Water actually works. Shocking isn't it? I was really really bad about keeping the garden watered, especially in the time of stifling heat. It is a miracle that we still have any plants left. However, Ben recently started regularly watering the garden and it even brought back a squash plant that is now flowering! We are getting more jalapeno and bell peppers than we know what to do with and some basil spontaneously sprouted in the yard next to the garden. The water also brought back some of our tomatoes and strawberries that I thought were a goner. It was honestly weird.

5. If anyone reads this who is actually successful at gardening, could you please email me and let me know what you do with all of your produce? We got more tomatoes and peppers than we could eat. We gave some away but others just went bad. I hated that part.... I would appreciate any tips on how to save, cook or store the produce so it all gets eaten.

The thing about the garden that never ceased to amaze me was that I planted those little plants in the ground and then they gave me food. Every time I would bring in a tomato or pepper or an herb, I would be baffled over the fact that it even existed. I couldn't physically make the plants grow and produce fruit, it was the way God made them and they just did their job! The whole thing has been a wonderful learning experience and maybe one day I will have the discipline and knowledge to keep a garden growing in every season!

And now on to the unrelated.....

Today is voting day! I hate politics. I don't say much about politics on this blog because I don't see the point. In fact, I feel that the less I know about politics the better off I am because the less angry and stressed I am. I hate personal agendas and greed and just plain stupidity. I love this country and I think that we are very blessed to live here. I also think that the founders of our country who worked so hard to establish our great government would be very disappointed if they saw how things were going today.

Ok, that's all I can stomach to say about my thoughts on politics. All I know is that we need to pray for our country and pray for our leaders and pray that God will put the right people in charge. So, please pray.

Happy voting everyone!

The Lame House and Other Things

2010-10-31T18:55:00.001-07:00

Happy Halloween from the house who got 5 trick-or-treaters. Seriously. Ben and I bought 3 huge bags of candy because we had high hopes of handing out lots of it. However, a huge bowl now sits before me filled to the brim with Snickers, a variety of Reese's, and Sweet Tarts. I looked out the window of the front door and literally saw kids walking down the street past our house without even giving it a second glance. Is our lawn that unkept? Is it because I didn't carve a pumpkin this year? WHY ARE WE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU PEOPLE?!!!!

Next year I am going all out with fake spider webs, lifelike vampires, coffins, tombstones, etc. all over our pristinely manicured lawn. Then I'll bring back out this years candy and be like "There ya go suckers." I'm not bitter.

Moving on... FALL!! I love fall so much. I wish it would stay fall until December 20th and then it can be winter for 2 weeks and then fall can come back until Spring. I shall start praying this request now. Ok, check out this S'more....ahhhhh (that is a chorus of children (not snobby trick-or-treating children) singing in the background)

One of the lovely things that comes with this time of year is S'mores along with fires in the fire pit on our back porch. I love S'mores so much that I have been known to make them in the microwave when there is no fire around. It is easy... you just heat the mallow up for 10 seconds and when you take it out of the microwave, sandwich it between the other S'more parts and you are good to go. And, if you have never watched a marshmallow in the microwave then I suggest you do it now just for kicks. Except heat it for like 30 seconds. For an even bigger thrill, use Peeps.

Another Fall must have is Apple Cider. I have tweaked and perfected my own recipe from others and it goes something like this:

1 half gallon of apple cider

1-2 cups orange juice

the juice of 1/2 a lemon

4 cinnamon sticks

8 whole cloves

a squeeze of honey to taste

A few thinly sliced lemons and or oranges (for looks mainly)

Bring all ingredients to a boil (I am guessing on the quantities here... I just throw it all in there so you can add more or less as you like) and then let simmer for about 30 minutes. Store left overs in the fridge.

So, the news is pretty much out now that Ben and I are having a baby in April!! I mean, it is on facebook so that basically makes it official. Anyway, we are really excited! However, I think my parents are more excited. The week after we told them the news I found a beautiful bouquet of flowers on my front porch steps with this card attached....

I think mom and dad actually meant for the card to say "ThankS for making us grandparents," but apparently this was the last card the florist shop had. :) Their flower arranging skills far outweighed their card-writing skills. Anyway, Ben's parents are excited too even though this baby will be grand baby #5 on their side. The newest addition, Neely, was born just over a month ago! I am ashamed that the only pictures I have of her are on my cell phone but she is such a cutie! She and our baby may end up being in the same grade!

Here is my first "pregnancy" picture. I finally bit the bullet to pose for it. I am 13 weeks here.

Ben and I actually made it to Auburn for a ball game last weekend! Our friends Josh and Shelley came and stayed with us for the game and they inspired us to make the long 45 minute drive to campus. I am sad to say that we have only been to 1 game since we graduated! This past weekend we didn't actually go to the game because we didn't have tickets, but we did go and hang out on campus for tailgating. We had the best time and all of the new additions on campus have made it even more beautiful!

Before we came back to Montgomery to watch the game from the comfort of our couch, we grabbed lunch at one of my favorite Auburn places, Pita Pit. I love it!!!! While I was there I found this hanging on the cork board near the coke machine:

If you can't tell what that is, it is little pieces "strips" of paper with pictures of chickens on them. I laughed out loud for like 5 minutes when I saw it. It was sort of awkward because the game was starting so the only people in Pita Pit were me and Ben and the people making the pitas. The pita guy did not acknowledge me but I was laughing so hard AND taking pictures of the sign. I went to take my own chicken strip but then I saw what looked like a spot of blood on one of the strips and I changed my mind.

So, Auburn killed LSU which was AWESOME because the LSU fans are possibly the rudest and most obnoxious I have ever encountered. They were yelling at Ben and me all day long (on our own campus!) and it got old fast. We would just smile and wave or ignore them. (I'm sure there are some very sweet LSU fans somewhere out there.)

In other news...

I traveled to Mobile a couple of weekends ago for a baby shower for my friend and old roommate, Allison. The shower was great and it was fun to get to spend time with Allison. She is going to be a wonderful mom! I am very excited that our children will be close to the same age!

Ben and I got to keep our nieces Adalyn and Bentley for a little while one Saturday night while their parents went out. They are so good and we had a great time getting to play with them. They are just growing up so fast!

And lastly I leave you with a picture of my silly poodle. He is always into something! Lately he has been digging in the yard, not only with his paws, but also with his face, as you can tell from the picture. I open the door to let him back inside and this is how he greets me. I don't know what I'm going to do with him. He is going to be so jealous when the baby gets here!

Disclaimers:

1. I am not seriously praying "please let us only have 2 weeks of winter."

2. I am not really handing out this year's Halloween candy next year. That was a joke.

3. I have no intention of spending more than 50 dollars on Halloween lawn decorations such as coffins, tombstones, fake lifesize vampires, etc. Ever.

4. My lawn will likely never be pristinely manicured.

5. I am not responsible if you try to heat a Peep or marshmallow of any kind in your microwave and it explodes. (The marshmallow, not the microwave is at risk of exploding.)

A Random Post About Work

2010-09-30T06:06:00.000-07:00

There have been multiple times at work that I have had to look around and ask, "Am I the only one seeing this??!" For example, when the lady walks up to the counter with 100+ gold safety pins in in her hair, or when a 70+ year old stick skinny lady walks past with hair that is composed of one giant white dreadlock. Usually I have to do this because what I am seeing is so completely bizarre that I need confirmation that it is, in fact, real. For example, yesterday I am at my computer making the regular checks and I hear "PRAISE JESUS I AM DOING GOOD TODAY!! GET THEE BEHIND ME SATAN! GET THEE BEHIND ME SATAN! THANK YOU JESUS! THANK YOU JESUS! GET BEHIND ME SATAN!"

Huh? Really? I sink down behind my computer, which is standard practice when we want to hide our reactions from the people out front, and turn around to confirm that I am not hallucinating. The shouting continued in the same format. It was coming from a lady who was in line at the register. After her purchase was made she yelled to us, "Be Blessed Children!" We said, "You too, mam." And then had someone follow her to her car to make sure she arrived home safely. I tend to think most of these people are insane, which many of them are, but the general consensus was that this lady was drunk. This is not a rare occurrence either, I just have a hard time telling the difference.

While it took me nearly 2 full years on the job to stop feeling like I was going to cry every time I had to enforce a law and a customer didn't like it, I don't think I will ever cease to be amazed by the crazy things people say and do. Don't get me wrong, my skin isn't super thick yet. I still get upset when people cuss at me and I get really mad when people argue and I get really aggravated when people are complete idiots but act like I am the one that just doesn't get it. Sometimes it makes me want beat my head on the counter. However, people like the safety pin lady, the dreadlock lady, the people with bugs in their ears, weird rashes, bizaar clothing, and random shout outs to Satan really keep my job interesting. I can honestly say that I rarely have a dull day. I can also say that there are many days when I just want to go home and sit on the couch and just stare at a wall.

It's a crazy world out there. If you are usually surrounded by pretty normal people and don't get much excitement, I invite you to visit my place of work. I promise, you will not be disappointed.

A LONG Post

2010-09-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally fall! Don't get me wrong, I like summer, but fall is my favorite time of year! I will do my annual "Things I Love About Fall" post a little later, but for now I need to recap a few things and post some pictures for memory's sake... Remember back in July when I wrote A ((as in singular) post and mentioned that I was in Blue Ridge at a cabin waiting on my family to arrive? Well, here are the events as follows.... And following those events... the trip to Elijay for Ben's family reunion!

(All of these photos (except 2 of them) are strait out of the camera taken with my 50mm lens. A lot of them could use some touching up, but I love the pictures that this lens takes! )

Blue Ridge Family Vacation

My family, part of which were supposed to arrive around 5, arrived well after midnight due to several various setbacks including that the Garmin is a liar and tells people to turn onto roads that don't exist. Anyway, I was sitting in the mysterious 3 story cabin surrounded by woods for several hours at night alone. Thank goodness I had the dogs because it was creepy! No blinds or curtains on the windows... not sure what was in the basement... etc. Anyway, the rest of the family (except Ben who had to work until Sunday) finally did show up.

Matt was exhausted from his summer job as a landscaper in the 100+ degree heat. In fact, that is probably the only reason I was able to get any photos of him on this whole trip. He hates it when I try to take his picture. But I got some. Sucker. Oh, and the little white dogs, Henry and Scooter, LOVE him. And they drive him insane. I think it's hilarious.

This is my sister at breakfast the next morning. We laughed at this picture for an hour.

We spent most of our time at the cabin just playing in the creek, fishing, and walking in the forrest that surrounded the property. It was a beautiful place and we definitely left saying how much we look forward to going back.

The boys watching Matt fish...

Matt is so excited that Pete got in the water with him while he was trying to fish.

I really love this picture of my dad.

When my family got into town, my dad and Matt were in charge of going into the store and picking up the things that were on the list Cara and Mom made. Cara put "large sunglasses" on the list. These are the ones my dad picked out. I would say he followed her instructions exactly.

Here is the cabin's kitchen. It is by far the best cabin we have stayed in. I wish I had taken more photos of it!

So, for a huge surprise, mom hired a chef, yes, a chef to come in and give us a cooking lesson! Our chef's name was Chef Douglas and he came around noon and brought everything needed to prepare a gourmet meal. He taught us how to make crab cakes with sautéed spinach and portobello mushrooms, peach champagne soup, goat cheese bruschetta, and a berry tart with Chantilly cream for dessert. It was amazing! For some reason, Matt and Dad didn't want to stick around for this so they went canoeing and fishing instead.

Chef Douglas actually has a business called "Cabin Cuisine" where he will come to various cabins and prepare meals for the guests or do cooking lessons. I think it is a great idea! Mom, Cara, and I had the best time, loved the food, and learned some good cooking tips!

This swing in the backyard was a favorite spot of all.

Matt and Cara at dinner one night. I really am their sister. We really are blood related.

The dogs absolutely loved playing in the creek that ran behind the cabin. Berkley was a little timid about the water at first but eventually warmed up to it and then turned into a reckless maniac. Berkley and Pete spent most of their time chasing balls that were thrown into the water.

Henry and Scooter wanted to get in the water and play with the big dogs so bad. It was hilarious watching them trying to participate.

One day we took a walk into the surrounding forrest and enjoyed taking a lot of fun nature pictures. This one is my favorite.

My dad was actually wearing a "Bama" shirt here, but I might have taken that out...

Ben and me ready to go out for dinner... I was so glad he didn't have to work the whole weekend and got to come to the cabin for 2 nights. It just isn't the same when he's not around.

Me and my Berkley Baby Poodle.

Lassiter Family Reunion at Amicalola Falls

I should start by saying that 1. I did a horrible job of taking pictures on this trip and 2. from the beginning I was very concerned about how this trip was going to turn out.... there is a Highfield family curse when it comes to taking trips and I was afraid I had inherited it.

It all began when Berkley and Pete (who were supposed to go on the trip which includes a 4 hour car ride) both got diarrhea the day before we were supposed to leave. I have no idea what caused this, but needless to say we were stopping every hour so or so to ensure that the dogs did not have any accidents in the car. On top of that, the night before we left, Ben discovered that some money had been taken out of my pay check without my permission for a "garnishment." So, we spent the drive up to GA stopping to let the dogs have diarrhea and on the phone with WalMart's garnishment office, a law office, and my district manager. Turns out that some man named Cedric, who also works for Wal Mart, has the same last 4 digits of my ss# and Wal Mart mistakenly took money out of my account instead of his. We are talking about 800 dollars. If we had not caught this mistake, the grand total would've been about 2300 dollars. Soooo, we are off to a great start!

We finally arrive safely to our Cabin in Elijay with no accidents. It was kind of tricky to find and we had to follow a very narrow gravel road to reach it. Ben and I dropped the dogs off at the cabin and went to pick up a few items from the store for lunch and for the reunion cook out the next day at the park. While we were at the store, a huge storm came up with a lot of thunder and sky to ground lightning. When we returned home we discovered that the power was out at our cabin. It really turned out great because we just relaxed, read, and took a nap. It'll be back on in a hour or so, right? Wrong.

Ben's parents made it to the cabin around 8 or so. I am not sure how they were able to find it in the dark! We lit a bunch of candles and sat and talked until Ben and I realized we were really hungry. However, how would we cook anything? Ben had a fabulous idea to cook our frozen pizza on the grill by the light of his cell phone. It was actually very good!

The power stayed off until around 11 AM the following day, just in time for us to get ready to go to the reunion at the park. Almost all of Ben's dad's family was there. Ben's dad is one of 7 children and we were getting together with his parents, the kids, and their families. It was fun getting to know them and we enjoyed hiking the trails at Amicalola falls. I didn't get many good pictures because I was mostly worried about Pete and Berkley. Bringing them to the cookout probably wasn't the best idea, but Ben's little cousins had a good time walking them around on their leashes.

The following day we didn't have a specific check out time so we spent some time walking the road that our cabin was on and playing in the creek in front of the cabin. The weather for the rest of the trip was beautiful and it really wasn't too hot... at least not compared to the stifling heat of Montgomery!

Before we left, Ben and I decided to set up the camera to take some family photos. This is the first try. The second try was better and that is the picture in my header above. The funny thing about this set of pictures is Pete. He drops his ball while the camera is shooting. My camera was set to take about 6 frames and you can see Pete watching his ball fall and then roll off the porch. It is hilarious because he is OBSESSED with the ball.

Anyway, that about sums up our summer trips with the families. I hate I didn't get more pictures of Ben's family while we were with them. Hopefully next time Ben's brothers and their families will be able to come too and I am sure there will be plenty of photo opportunities then!

Where Did July Go?

2010-08-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

Hi friends! Or should I say, Hi anyone who is still reading.... Have I really been blogless for a month? What happened to July? One thing is for sure, the time is FLYING by! I have a lot to update on so I'll start from the beginning and go from there.

Disney!! For our 2 year anniversary Ben and I took a last minute trip to Disney World. I say last minute because literally, it was. That's what we do. Wait till the last day possible (the day before we leave) and then book the trip. I literally booked the hotel the day before and we called Carnival on the way to Orlando to take our names off the waiting list for the cruise leaving Port Canaveral. We were on the waiting list because we waited last minute to attempt to get on the cruise. Anyway, we didn't make the cruise so we went to Disney instead.

I have to say that I love all things Disney but Ben doesn't exactly share the love. I mean, he tolerates it and somewhat enjoys parts of it, but he could really do without. I hope this changes when we have children. Anyway, I was pumped! I packed up our road trip survival kit: Oreos, Peanut M&M's, Reesce's Cups, Sour Patch Kids, and Cheez-its, and we hit the road.

We stayed at the lovely Dolphin Hotel (where the "dolphins" look more like giant goldfish, but oh well) that is in the Disney Park and has Disney transportation but isn't really Disney... so it was the best of both worlds. We got a good deal on the room since it was, after all, a last minute thing.

Our hotel was right off the Disney Boardwalk which lines the lake and is full of cute little shops and restaurants. It was a short walk from our hotel to Epcot or we could take a little boat to MGM (now Hollywood Studios) or Epcot. The location was really perfect. We probably would've spent more time in the parks and at these little shops had it not been a hundred thousand degrees and packed full of crowds of people who have no concept of personal space.

My time at Disney confirmed my distaste for crowded areas and sweaty people who don't wear deodorant.

The fireworks and lazer shows at Epcot and Magic Kingdom were really amazing! The people at Disney definitely go all out and pay attention to every detail. The parks are spotless and beautiful if you can manage to get a glimpse of anything around all the people. (Can you tell I am bitter about the crowds? Never go on a holiday weekend and never go in the heat of summer. You have been warned.)

The Magic Kingdom has had the long time standing of being my favorite park for many years now. However, this year I do believe it was surpassed by Animal Kingdom with Epcot falling in a close second. Ben and I rode the water ride at Animal Kingdom where Ben refused to tighten our seat belt so we would be able to stand up and avoid getting hit with water. While I almost smashed my face into the hand rail in the middle of the raft, we did escape the ride as the driest passengers. Go Ben.

One of the highlights of the trip was the dinner show "Hoop-Dee-Doo Review." We loved the food, we loved the show, we loved the service, it was so much fun! If you ever venture to Disney World, this is definitely worth the time and money. However, do not waste your time and money on the "Pirates" dinner show. Do not. Don't do it. Do. not. do. it.

So, Ben and I are two years into this whole marriage thing. Where did those two years go? Would you believe I am just now getting around to ordering wedding pictures? Seriously! Just now. I can't believe how fast the time is going by. Hopefully this time next year I not only will have my wedding pictures, I will actually have them in frames and hanging on my walls! Lofty goals... lofty goals...

Two Weeks Later...

2010-06-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

Hi Friends!

I am currently sitting in a creekside cabin in the beautiful mountains of Blue Ridge, GA waiting on the rest of my family to arrive. Sadly, Ben won't be able to join me until Saturday but I am already looking forward to him getting here! This is the annual Highfield family summer vacation and while we usually go to Sea Grove, we decided to change it up a bit this year. Anyway, pictures and more family fun to come but in the mean time I need to catch this blog up to speed with my life since May. It.Was.Busy.

Here are a few pictures of some of the highlights (more on births, anniversary, and freezer cooking to come):

So, as I (sort of) mentioned before, Ben and I joined our friends Josh and Shelley on a long weekend trip to Panama City. Josh and Shelley are two of my best friends from pharmacy school and Ben has grown to love them as well. We always have so much fun whenever we can find time to get together.

Here are Shelley and me showing off our jumping skills.

Here are Ben and Josh showing off their um, jumping skills...

Could this sign contain any more adjectives?

Oh, and what a pleasant surprise! We were there during Thunder Beach Week. What is Thunder Beach week? It is basically the week that anyone in the continental U.S. who owns a bike rides it down to PCB and drives it around for the entire week as loudly as possible. Awesome. This is what we found during our Wal-Mart run. Seriously, there were A LOT of bikes in PCB.

Here are some atypical Thunder Beach participants:

Here is a typical Thunder Beach participant:

Just kidding. We did, however, see a little bit of everything that weekend including a man wearing a "Cole Slaw Wrestling" tee shirt. Said tee shirt featured scantily clad cartoon women wrestling in cabage. I took a picture for the blog but decided against posting it because that picture definitely would've made this blog entry PG-13. Needles to say, Thunder Beach made our little weekend getaway very entertaining if not peaceful.

Upon our return home we found this:

A few special gifts from our friend Daniel. Seven hundred and seventy four of them...

We did what any other person would do. We played in them.

Then we put our poodle in the middle of them.

And he had no idea what to do. So he just sat there. The end.

Now that I am working the 7 on 7 off schedule, I only have every other weekend to spend with Ben. We took advantage of one of the few Sundays (ever) that we had no other obligations and took Pete and Berkley to play in the pond at Mimi and Pop's (Ben's parents).

Pete was pumped.

Berkley, not so much. Apparently he had forgotten how to swim since last summer.

Pete obsessed over his ball

While Berkley watched from a safe distance

Sometimes its hard to be a poodle.

Earlier that morning, Ben made us his special homemade doughnuts!

These things are awesome! My mom used to make these from time to time when we were little and Ben and I like to make them every now and then when company comes over. You just buy canned biscuit dough, ball it up, and drop it in the fryer.

Once the dough balls are nice and brown, let them dry (get off as much of the oil as possible for best results) and then drop them in the baggie of powdered sugar. Shake well and then serve. Yum!

We didn't let these dry enough before coating them in the confectioners sugar, thus they were a bit on the over-coated sugary side. Less is more in my opinion because the powdered sugar will kind of cake up in your mouth if you have too much on the doughnut. Also, we have tried different variations of dough shapes and have found the dough ball to work the best. Oh yeah, and you can't eat just one. Don't hate me.

I'll leave you with that but hopefully I'll be back before next month.

I'm Coming Back

2010-05-22T06:04:00.000-07:00

More to come: Thunder Beach 2010 PCB

The Green Thumb Has Arrived

2010-05-10T19:26:00.001-07:00

NOT REALLY

I have decided that now is the time to share with you, my friends, our source of nutrition, our organic bounty, our prize winning produce; also known as, our first garden, a possible failure, an 8 by 8 square foot bed stocked full of what could possibly become death.

I have wanted to plant my own garden for a while now. Last year I never really got around to it so this year I started planning in early March. I knew I wanted to make it happen, this "square foot garden" I had envisioned. So, one Saturday Ben and I got up early and got to work plotting out the ground, planning how much soil we would need, and all of that fun stuff. Keep in mind that my only garden experience is from when I was around 10 years old and mom and dad let Cara, Matt, and me pick out as many plants as we could stuff into a 2 by 4 foot area. Needless to say, I knew enough to know I liked it, that's about it. So we picked up the supplies (this sounds easy but it took us most of the day for various reasons I will not bore you with) and headed to the house.

Allow me to interject here to remind you that this was the weekend of the pollen attack. Notice that our entire porch is yellow. Oh, and we now have a fire pit in the middle of the chairs. We are not weirdos that just randomly place 4 chairs in a square staring at each other with no table or anything in the center. Yes, you're right, we already had the fire pit but someone borrowed it, burned pumpkins in it, and didn't return it for a while. And back to the garden...

So, from the ground up, we built our garden. We even added lime. I hear that's good for the soil. We also bought a book appropriately titled, "Alabama Gardening."

We spent most of the day just creating the bed. I say "we" but the pictures are all of Ben. Ok, so he did most of the hard work but I did load several wheel barrows full of top soil and dump them in there. He really couldn't have done it without me. Especially lifting those big railway ties. Ok, well he did that part by himself. I don't know how.

The next day, Ben had to go to work so that left me to purchase the plants. I picked out Basil, Parsley, Squash, Bell Peppers, Jalapeno Peppers, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Strawberries, Mint, Rosemary, and Zucchini. I know what you are probably thinking: how is all that going to fit? Well, I made it fit.

And No, buying full grown tomato plants from Publix is not cheating. I had to have some success here people!

So, I somehow managed to make it all fit. However, I got a little worried that I was planting everything too close so I put the mint and rosemary in pots and left a little space in the garden in case something needed to be moved. Oh, and Onions. I also planted onions.

Here is the garden after a couple of weeks of growth. Planting the garden meant that we also had to have a fence put up to keep the neighbors from stealing our produce.

Not long after the "planting", mom came into town to spend some time with me helping me out around the house and yard. I am so thankful that she did! I don't know what it is about moms, but mine always manages to get way more done in one day than I could do in a week. The one day that she was here, she helped me clean out and organize my closet (a huge job in itself), took me to drop off my old clothes at the mission, loaded up my car with all my returns and dry cleaning, wanted to shop, but I was too tired, took me home and washed all my laundry and did my dishes while I took a nap. Then the next day while she was leaving town she randomly discovered a farmers market in Montgomery, stopped there, bought me a ton of plants, came back to my house and positioned them all in my yard and on plant stands. The picture above is a close up of the blooms on the vine mom bought to climb up my fence. This next picture of my front yard is for you, mom. We still have some work to do, but it is coming along.

I wish I could say that the back yard is really coming along. However, the beautiful hydrangea bushes mom bought me have yet to be planted. One of them has been completely burned up by Pete's urine. I kid you not. I came outside one day and it looked as though it had been lit on fire. I thought it had been attacked by a horrible fungus so I moved it to the middle of the yard away from the other plants. Not long afterwards, I saw Pete run over and hike his leg on it. Nope. It was not a fungus.

Then there's this issue. The digging. We weren't exactly sure who the guilty party was until I found this (pictured above). It is a teddy bear (or the shell of a teddy bear whose stuffing has been ripped out) dropped in a whole dug by an animal. And who else carries around a teddy bear but this guy....

Berkley is pictured above, pre haircut of course, with our neighbor's new puppy. Berkley LOVES the puppy but we make him lay down to play with him since he is so much bigger. The puppy is probably terrified.

And I leave you with this.... A picture of our very first morsel. It was delicious! Hopefully there will be many more to come! It really did help out buying those plants with tomatoes already on them.

Running and Listening

2010-04-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

When I run I like to listen to music, Christian music to be specific. I think that is a little odd. Most people like to listen to upbeat tunes with a good rhythm to keep them going. I, on the other hand, turn my ipod dial to my Christian music playlist and hit the road. I suppose I find it therapeutic. When I run, I think. (That is when the dogs aren't dragging me off in 5 different directions and Pete isn't peeing on Berkley's head.) Christian music gives me a lot to think about so it keeps me entertained.

Third Day is kind of old school but it remains one of my top favorite Christian bands of all time and I never get tired of hearing their music. They, along with Casting Crowns, pretty much dominate my Christian music play list. I think they have actually recently released a new cd and, clearly, I have not gotten it yet. I'm not exactly a hard core-gotta-have-every-cd-ever-released-must-see-every-concert-will-drive-for-hours-to-get-there fan of anyone. Never have been.

And all of this to say, I wanted to share the lyrics from this Third Day song I listened to after my run today. (Oh, and don't think I'm all athletic and in shape because I didn't run very far and I kept having to stop and fuss at the dogs and get untangled from the leashes so it pretty much doesn't even count that I went running.) Henceforth, the lyrics... for some reason when I was listening to this song, a thought came to me that someone out there might benefit from reading them, so here goes:

Cry Out To Jesus

To everyone who's lost someone they love
Long before it was their time
You feel like the days you had were not enough
when you said goodbye

And to all of the people with burdens and pains
Keeping you back from your life
You believe that there's nothing and there is no one
Who can make it right

There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
Love for the broken heart
There is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus, Cry out to Jesus

For the marriage that's struggling just to hang on
They lost all of their faith in love
They've done all they can to make it right again
Still it's not enough

For the ones who can't break the addictions and chains
You try to give up but you come back again
Just remember that you're not alone in your shame
And your suffering

When your lonely
And it feels like the whole world is falling on you
You just reach out, you just cry out to Jesus
Cry to Jesus

To the widow who suffers from being alone
Wiping the tears from her eyes
For the children around the world without a home
Say a prayer tonight

There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
Love for the broken heart
There is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus, Cry out to Jesus

Lateley

2010-04-19T21:43:00.001-07:00

It's a good thing that I've been taking pictures lately, because I wouldn't be able to remember anything otherwise. Life seems like a whirlwind but we are enjoying every day that flies by. Here are a few fun things that Ben and I have enjoyed this past month or so:

Celebrating

The whole family came down to Pike Road for Easter this year. It was my first "holiday" to host everyone and we had a great time! Above is a family photo that we took on Easter with mom and dad cropped out. Sorry mom and dad, we'll get a better family photo soon!

Ben's mom and dad invited my whole family over for dinner with all the Lassiters, complete with an Easter Egg hunt! It was fun watching our nieces and nephew hiding and finding, hiding and finding all the eggs over and over again. After several hunts, Adalyn finally suggested that we just hide the basket instead of each individual egg.

Ben and Neal took the kids for a spin in the cool golf cart that Obama gave Neal and Tori. Thanks Obama.

In the meantime, I enjoyed attempting to capture some cute shots of the kiddos. Here is Cole telling me how many Easter Eggs he found. This is serious business.

I love this one of Cate with her great grandpa.

Baby Sitting!

Russ and Jessi went on a short getaway and Ben and I got to keep Adalyn and Bentley for a little while. We had a good time playing hide and seek with Adalyn, baking a cake, and gaining experience on what it's like to have two kids instead of just two dogs to look after. Needless to say, Berkley and Pete didn't get very much attention that day.

I got to take some pictures of Adalyn and Bentley together and I'm working on editing some of those. I have had a lot of fun taking pictures of things other than dogs and birds. Adalyn is such a good big sister and Bentley was an angel the entire day.

While the cake was baking, we had naptime.

Then we all loaded up, picked up some pizza, and headed to Mimi's house to play with Cole and Cate. While we were in the car waiting on Ben to get the pizza, Adalyn filled me in on how no one in Auburn (where she lives) knew how to drive. I told her that no one in Montgomery knew how to drive either.

Here are the kids at Mimi's after a pizza dinner. After dinner activities included hunting more Easter Eggs, even until it was so dark we could barely see them.

When Ben and I got back in our car to go home that night, Ben looked at me and before he could speak I said, "I know, I'm not ready either." He said, "Good." I admire all of you moms out there! I know it is a full time job and I respect the fact that you can raise kids and still function as a normal person. Maybe one day .....

Cooking

At the end of March, it was our turn to host Life Group. It was also our turn to cook for everyone. Ben decided that he wanted to cook a Boston butt with all the fixins and then that somehow evolved into "Que Dogs" (pictured above). "What is a Que Dog?" Everyone was asking at church when Ben announced that "Que Dogs" was what's for dinner. "You'll just have to come and find out." Was his only reply. "Everyone has to at least taste a Que Dog." I was getting so frustrated because, I for one, do not like hotdogs. A lot of people do not like hotdogs. However, we went to the store and bought 2 packages of hotdogs, one package of sausages, and over 20 hotdog buns. "Why??" I kept asking. "Why, for the love??" "Que Dogs!!!"

I was really trying not to hurt Ben's feelings by doubting because he was just so excited about these "Que Dogs."

However, to my (and everyone's) astonishment, the "Que Dogs" were fantastic! It involved making a hotdog, putting slaw on top (I made homemade slaw for the first time and it wasn't too bad), putting Bar-B-Que on top of that, then topping it off with shredded cheese and, you guessed it, Bar-B-Que sauce. And there you have it, the Que Dog!

I love trying out new coffee drink recipes like "Spiced Mocha Coffee" from myrecipes.com and the one pictured above, Pioneer Woman's Dulce de Leche coffee. It was fantastic and you can find it on her website www.thepioneerwoman.com. If you like coffee house drinks, you will love this one you can make at home. The picture on her website is much better than the one I have pictured here.

Coaching

I have had the pleasure of helping my sister in law, Jessi, coach the Trinity girl's soccer team this season. I had the best time getting to know these girls, spending time with Jessi, and getting to experience soccer again. The varsity girls are still working towards making the play offs and I am excited about getting to go to some of their games as well!

And, I think that about sums up the highlights of the last couple of months with the exception of our garden which I'll be posting about soon!

So Long Dog Snob Suckas

2010-04-17T20:39:00.002-07:00

Revisement: I wrote this post when I was really angry and I feel that it may have been a little harsh. I write this blog with the intent to be uplifting, informative, and funny to those who may read it and I apologize if this post was a bit out of character.

First, I have to tell you that I laughed for about 15 minutes when I got home tonight and saw this:

I apologize for the bad and blurry pictures, but I got what I could while Berkley was playing chase with Ben. He won't exactly pose for me. (And have I mentioned that it's really hard to get a good picture of a solid black dog? It is.)

So I took Berkley, the now skinny stick of a dog, to get groomed today. As I have mentioned before, I groom Berkley myself as I learned from a cd that came in the grooming kit I bought at Wally World. I personally feel that I do a decent job, however there are a few things I don't like to do, such as grooming around private areas, shaping up the ears, cutting toe nails, and plucking hair from inside the ears. (More on that to come.) Therefore, I like to take him every now and then to have those things done, plus get him a good, over all professional doo. Thus, I can learn more about how I should be cutting his hair.

Being from out of town, it was really hard to find a place to take Berkley to be groomed. I finally settled on his vet clinic because they had the best price and already had his records on file. Keepin it simple. So, this is the second time I have taken him in for a grooming. The first time, when he was only 6 months old, the high velocity hair dryer they used scared him so badly that he pooped on the table. It wasn't exactly the best experience so I was nervous about dropping him off today. I told the groomer that I wanted him to be cooler because the heat is magnified in his thick black fur. I also told her that his ears needed a LOT of work because, even though I tried to get the hair out of them, it was really hard for me to do so. THAT IS WHY HE IS COMING TO THE GROOMER.

So, when I come home tonight, I find this waiting on me....

And that, my friends, is some hair that came out of Berkley's ears. I guess they thought the voicemail they left on my phone while I was at work about the "horrible" amount of ear hair, or the lecture they gave my husband when he picked Berkley up might not get through to me so they wanted to drive the point home with a visual aid.

SERIOUSLY???? THIS IS WHY WE BRING HIM IN. TO GET HAIR PULLED OUT OF HIS EARS! THIS IS WHY I PAY YOU 61 STINKING DOLLARS TO DO EVERYTHING I COULD DO MYSELF. BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO PULL OUT THE EAR HAIR!!

Did I mention that these same ladies that work at this office are really rude? They have barely even acknowledged my presence any time I have been there and they act like they are doing a favor to check me out after the vet visits. If my vet wasn't a good friend of ours, I would not go back just because of the rudeness of these receptionists. In fact, I might just ask him to change practices so I can stop going there. Rudeness of retail workers is actually a soapbox of mine that I'll talk about later on... now back to Dog Snobs.

REALLY? This dog lives inside my home. He sleeps in my room. On his own bed. In a temperature controlled environment. He gets the best food. He gets treats. He goes on outings to the dog park. He has been to the beach and the mountains and the pond and to Birmingham and Florence. He gets lots of exercise. He ate my 5,000 dollar hearing aids, 8 pairs of my nice shoes, threw up in my car, peed ON MY BED, and is still living to have EAR HAIR that I PAY PEOPLE PULL OUT! Needless to say, I am in the market for new groomer. Any suggestions?

Countryside Ride

2010-04-08T08:19:00.001-07:00

Hi Friends! I'm a little behind on the blogging so I am going to backlog a few events from March.

P.s. This is not a serious blog entry.

My sis came to visit me a few weekends ago and we had the pleasure of taking a ride through the countryside of Pike Road to go see some land that is for sale in Bullock County. So Cara, Ben (husband), Ben B. (friend), and I all loaded up in Ben B.'s vehicle.

Cara and I had the pleasure of sharing the back seat with these beautiful eggs. Some people at our church are selling their "home raised" eggs to raise money for their mission trip and Ben B. happened to have just picked some up. Who knew they came in so many different colors? Cara and I had never seen this before so we did a lot of oogling over these eggs.

The ride got a little scary at times since we were on unfamiliar roads which lead to unexpected sharp turns.

When we arrived at the land (Wolf Pit by name which I think is a little scary in itself) we were amazed at its beauty. This land happens to be the highest point in Alabama south of the Alabama River. The view possessed us to immediately break out into a spontaneous yoga class.

We then performed the age old pose we have been doing since we copied it of some show on Nick Jr. back in the early 90's.

The men were greatly impressed and begged us to teach them our ways with the yoga. It was a challenge.

Yet, somehow they managed to nail the pose and performed it with great skill as though they had known it for many years.

See? Aren't you impressed? If this photo were appropriately cropped and edited, you would never know that Ben was actually sitting on the hands and feet of another!

As the day came to an end and the Bens realized they should have been at a Life Group Leader's meeting at five, we decided it was time to leave Bullock County. It was then that we realized the roads left much to be desired as they were all washed out and had large crevices in them. I am a huge scaredy cat when it comes to dangerous situations which could cause accidents such as entire SUV's flipping over so I was not a fan of this part of the day. However, Ben B. navigated the roads with no problem allowing us to make it back home safe and sound.
Notice I had the camera ready in case the car flipped.

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S

2010-03-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

OR NOT

After working six days strait and Ben being out of town, and both Ben and me being sick for the past 2 days, I have this to look forward to on my day "off." Just in case you were disillusioned and thought that I had a glamorous life with a magically clean house and no dirty laundry or dirty dishes, then you were sadly mistaken. Of course, after reading my post about my dog peeing on my bed, I'm sure that very few of you are actually disillusioned about my life at this point. I just thought I'd make some of you feel better about your chores by seeing what I am currently tackling. Note: this is a family of TWO. Heaven help me when I have kids.

I have, however, managed to keep my kitchen clean by loading all of my dirty dishes in to the dishwasher. I just haven't had enough dishes to make a full load (due to eating out, using glorious paper plates, etc.) so the dishwasher hasn't been run in a while. Yet, I must use spoons at a much faster pace than anything else because I have no regular spoons in my silverware drawer. This is what I used to stir my morning coffee:

That's right folks, it's a serving spoon. The serving spoon was unfortunately too large to fit into my little yogurt cup I wanted to eat for breakfast, so for that I used a full fledged teaspoon. And I mean teaspoon, like the one you use for a specific measurement while baking. You know, it's about 2 and a half inches long.

You probably can't tell from the picture, but Wal-Mart has come out with (drum roll please) the Great Value brand of flavored coffee creamers!!! Yay!!! I'm always looking for more ways to save money... I love off brands. I love off brands in most things, that is. Some things, you just need to go all out and get the real deal. I can't think of an example on the spot, but there are some things that are better in brand name, I'm sure of it! Ugh! Brand name brain freeze.

Anyway....

I have spent most of my morning exploring Google Reader. Most people have probably been enjoying Google Reader for years now, I don't know, but I'm just now discovering it. It's kind of like when I got Shaniah Twain's "new cd" 2 years after it actually came out. I kept calling it her "new cd" and my sister would scoff at me. So I stay a little behind... now back to Google Reader..

It's awesome! I have fallen into blogger land and I love it! However, it is really time consuming to visit each individual website to look for new material. With Google Reader, you can immediately see if each blog has been updated and read the new material without actually going to all the websites. I am literally just starting it today, so we'll see how it goes.

So, that's what's going down in Pike Road today. Don't be jealous.

And yes, I have updated my blog three times today. I don't update often, but when I do, I try to go all out. Thanks.

Doggy Antics

2010-03-18T09:53:00.001-07:00

This is Berkley after I asked him to sit. Notice he is laying down. He gets so excited he falls over and ends up like this, or on his back with all four legs in the air.

Today, Berkley lost something underneath the couch.

I watched him for about 5 minutes as he tried to retrieve said object.

It was a valiant effort.

Notice that the distance from the floor to the bottom of the couch is about 3 inches.

Yet, that does not hinder Berkley's attempts to get under the couch.

He eventually admits his defeat.

What was Pete doing? The usual. Ignoring Berkley.

This is Braddock. He is an American Bulldog who belongs to our good friend, Daniel. Braddock is huge! One day, Braddock came to visit Berkley and Pete. While visiting, Braddock thought that he should let everyone know he was there by tee-teeing on the couch. It just so happened that I was home alone with the dogs working while Ben and Daniel had gone to small group.

I sent Ben a text that simply said, "Braddock pee'd on our couch." I got a quick response:

"This is Daniel. Take him outside and hit him with a log as hard as you can. Then yell at him and don't let him come back in the house."

Seriously Daniel? With a face like this?

Oh, and neither I, nor Daniel, hit Braddock with a log. The accident easily cleaned up with no harm done. I've learned that dogs who are potty trained still have accidents when they are in a strange place. It's ok. It happens to the best of us, right Berkley? (Sorry Dana and Katie.)

More of Mr. Tweeters

2010-03-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

So, I said I'd put up some more shots of "Mr. Tweeters" when I got them uploaded, so here they are...

He has been at my door and back window again this morning. I promise you, he is looking at me! It is so weird.

Mr. Tweeters on his perch... looking at me.

Mr. Tweeters at the window above my front door looking in at me. I have no excuse for the filthiness of the window other than I can't reach it from the step ladder. So sorry you had to see this. Mental note: ask Ben to clean front window. It is gross.

Mr. Tweeters perched on the house that my mom bought for him. Still looking at me.

Standard Poodle For Sale

2010-03-13T20:54:00.000-08:00

Never has this one dog made me so mad. Ok, except the time he chewed up my hearing aids, never has this dog made me so mad! Ben is at the beach with some friends and since I am working this weekend, I am home alone for this one night. I have just settled down into my cozy bed in my flannel sheets, covered up with my down blanket (which happens to be one of my favorite wedding gifts), and I am drifting off into peaceful slumber....

Suddenly, I feel Berkley jump up onto the bed. This behavior only occurs when Ben is nowhere in sight and is typically allowed by me since he doesn't shed and he usually stays just for a minute. So, Berkley jumps on the side of the bed opposite of that which I am laying. He is there for a second, walks over me, and jumps down onto the floor. As his paw brushes over my face and lands on my pillow (he has no concept of personal face and often steps on me, sits down on my head, stands on my lap completely blocking my view, etc..), I notice that the paw is damp and smells funny. In my sleepy state I rationalize that he's been chewing on a giant bone and his paw is probably wet from that. As the seconds pass I cannot rationalize with myself that what I am smelling is a normal bone slobber smell (neutral). I keep telling myself it's ok. Go back to sleep. Just slobber from chewing, nothing more. Finally, the smell gets the best of me and I reach up and turn on the lamp on my bedside table.

To my horror, I find a huge, HUGE, pee spot smack in the middle of my DOWN BLANKET!!!!!!!!

WHAT IN THE WORLD??????!!!!!! I immediately glance over at the guilty party who is sitting at the foot of the bed staring at me as if waiting to be discovered. We make eye contact. He darts to his crate. "OUTSIDE!!!!!" I yell furiously. "GET OUTSIDE NOW!!!!" He makes no move from his crate. I reach inside the crate with my arm extended as far as I can reach but I still can't grab his collar since his has pressed himself against the back of the crate. I finally have to put my head in the crate to grab him and I proceed to drag his 40 pound, stiff, resistant body out of the crate and push him out the back door.

I then proceed to survey the damage. Ruined down blanket, check. Pee spot on silk throw pillow cover, check. Pee seeped down onto top sheet under blanket, check. Pee seeped down to fitted sheet, check. Pee seeped down to mattress cover, check. Pee on mattress?? No. HALLELUJAH! Pee on my pillow case, check. Pee on Ben's pillow case, check. Pee seeped down to Ben's pillow thus ruining it, check. Master bedroom that smells like dog pee, check.

Anyone want to buy a free poodle?

Disclaimer: I have no idea why Berkley peepee'd in the house, much less on the bed. He hasn't had an accident in my house in at least 6 months. I took him out last night before bedtime per our nightly routine. Any ideas what can make a dog act like this? He is otherwise completely normal.

Here, There, Everywhere

2010-03-11T07:22:00.000-08:00

I just returned from my "girls weekend" trip with 4 of my best friends from high school, two of which I have known since I was five years old (that's 22 years!) and two I have known since I was 10. Thus, it may go without saying that these girls know me pretty well. Us five friends from 3 different cities all met up at Ashley's husband's family's (say that 5 times fast) beach house in Topsail, North Carolina. The photo above was taken there on the first evening that we arrived. Haley gives a more detailed description of our trip, as well as more lovely photos, here if you are interested. You have to scroll down to get to her beach posts though. Haley is an avid blogger and is actually up to date on her posts, unlike yours truly.

I can't say enough good things about these girls, our friendship, and the fun time that we had catching up with each other. It is amazing to me how much we have in common after all of these years, yet how individually unique our personalities are. I learned so much in the short time I spent with them and laughed my head off in the process!

At the beach I was able to get a little R and R and I enjoyed reading a little "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. I am only a few chapters into this book but I am really enjoying it so far. You can find out more about it at crazylovebook.com.

I haven't mentioned yet that I am changing jobs AGAIN. I resigned from the "back up pharmacist" job that I mentioned a while back and I am going back full time with Wally World. However, this time, I will have a REGULAR SCHEDULE and I'll be at the SAME STORE every day of work!!! I cannot imagine what it will be like to have a routine and a normal schedule after 2 years of craziness. I am so thankful for this opportunity! I have about a month and a half left of floating before I take my permanent spot. Can I get a Halelujah?

And I leave you with this picture of "Mr. Tweeters". (Remember, the title of this blog is "Here, There, and Everywhere.") I mean, I haven't actually named him yet, as I am still trying to figure out what in the world he's doing. He is actually sitting in the window above my front door looking at me as I type.

"Mr. Tweeters" showed up shortly after Ben and I got married. He started out coming to the master bathroom window and tapping on it. He tapped so loudly that it would actually wake me up. I would walk into the bathroom and "Mr. Tweeters" would be sitting there clasping on to the window screen with his little feet looking right at me. Sometimes he'd come to my bedroom window and tap. I couldn't figure out what he wanted. I have bought this fool thistle seed, my mom has bought him a bluebird house for me to hang up (which I did) and a bird feeder (which I put out and filled up with the thistle because I read that is what he likes), all trying to appease him. Over a year later, this guy (who also has a female bluebird that he flies around with) continues to tap on my windows. He comes to all the windows in my family room, kitchen, and above my front door. He taps and then looks at me through the windows. "Mr. Tweeters" and his female companion have actually inhabited the bird house which makes me very excited. I'll post pics of that whenever I put them on the computer. However, he doesn't seem to like the thistle.... I dunno. Why the incessant tapping? What does he want?? Any ideas?

Adventures

2010-02-22T07:01:00.000-08:00

In Atlanta...

The weekend before Valentine's Day happened to be the only weekend in February that I didn't have to work, so Ben and I decided to make the most of it and take a little getaway. I have been dying to see the aquarium since it opened last decade and I jumped at the chance to go see it. Among the desirable attractions in Atlanta was the Human Body Exhibit which, being the biology/anatomy-loving weirdo that I am, I have been on pins and needles to get a glimpse of that one too. So, we decided to leave early on Saturday, hit up both attractions and come back Sat night. (We have two furry children that depend on us for their life-sustaining needs and we are too cheap to board them.)

Disclaimer: The aquarium was super crowded since we got there mid-day on a Saturday. I was not anticipating this, thus, I was ill at all the people. The following pictures were taken very hurriedly, but I did the best I could given the circumstances...

The aquarium, as a whole, was impressive. I saw many never-seen-before-by-me sea creatures and I found them to be absolutely fascinating. Had there not been such large gatherings at each of the tanks, I could've stayed there for a very long time just observing the animals. I have a very low tolerance for crowds and inconsiderate people in crowds. These people would walk up and stand right in front of where I was standing or stand so close up behind me that I would finally just give in and move. Stupid lurkers.

And speaking of lurkers.... check out this eel peaking out under the rock. I can just hear his little raspy voice now, " GO. AWAY. HUMANS." Poor gimp starfish... your leg will regenerate soon.

This little guy (above), the Sea Dragon, was one of my favorite never-seen-befores. I wish these guys came in giant size and breathed outside of water and hopped around on land.

Du du. Du du. Du du. How do you spell that shark theme? That looks like I'm trying to type the song from the SNL Judy skits... anyway. The exhibit pictured above is probably the main attraction at the aquarium (Minus the beluga whales, which I was hyperventilating to see because they are sooo cute, but they are not there anymore. The aquarium people said they were on "vacation" with no set return date a.k.a. one of them died at the aquarium so we had to get them the heck outta here but we still talk about them and act like we have them. LAME.). However, the aquarium does boast 4 whale sharks which are beautiful and amazing to see so close up. The main viewing area for whale shark tank can accommodate the larger crowds and it was entertaining just to sit and watch all of the fish, sharks, whales, and rays swim about.

The following pictures are of creatures that I thought were just really cool.

The jelly fish, of course, were beautiful, but I have hated them ever since I was about 9 years old and one of them wrapped every one of its blasted tentacles of pain around my thighs and even my wrists, leaving white marks on my skin for nearly a year. I am serious, it was the worst jelly fish sting I have ever received and I remember the stinging pain lasting for days after. Right, mom? Back me up. Anyway, I spent the summers that followed that fateful sting taking my revenge out on all the jellies by catching them in nets and burying them in the sand. I caught and buried about 100. I guess that might have been a little extreme....

If I could have taken home any of the creatures from the aquarium to keep at my house, (besides a penguin, and I couldn't take a penguin from the aquarium because they didn't have any penguins to spare in their 3 foot by 3 foot penguin exhibit of 2 penguins) I would take one of these little sea horses. Notice the picture is terrible because there was one tiny 2 foot aquarium that 18 people were gathered around and I had to act fast. In fact, this picture makes them look kind of gross, but they aren't. Like the Sea Dragons, these guys amazed me. I think it is so cool the way God created so many different creatures, all unique and special. Just like the little Coddle fish in the picture below....adorable! The Sea Dragons, Sea Horses, and Coddle fish all had these tiny tentacle-looking things that enabled them to float in place and move around. They moved these tentacles so fast you could barely see them, and if you didn't look closely, you wouldn't even notice they were there.

I would've found the worm/snake-like creatures in the picture below absolutely detestable had they not had such cute little faces. They look absolutely confused and panicked and they all just sat there peaking out of their holes. Then, they all simultaneously backed down into their holes, then popped back out. The sign by their aquarium said that they will rarely ever leave their burrows. I mean, bizaar. They reminded me of the mer-people on The Little Mermaid that Ursula had hit with her pitchfork lightning. I'm pretty sure they're the same thing.

That about sums up the aquarium.... take away facts:

1. Don't go on a weekend in the middle of the day

2. Penquin exhibit = LAME

3. Beluga whales on "vacation" = LAME

4. They have many uncommon fish that are interesting to see

5. Definitely worth the drive and the cost of a ticket if there aren't large crowds

Now, it would be a travesty if I didn't give a shout out to the Human Body Exhibit because this was, by far, my favorite thing. I have no pictures of this because 1. I don't think pictures would've been allowed and 2. Taking pictures of dead humans and posting them on the blog would be morbid and weird.

Now, brace yourself, the Human Body exhibit is full of real, dissected, human bodies, all of which are Asian. Didn't see that one coming, did you? Me either. Anyway, all the bodies had intact fingernails, toenails, lips, nose, ears, eyebrows, and (ahem) private areas. In fact, the very first time I saw a body and realized it had all those parts, I got a little queasy. Then, after a minute of psyching myself up, I was ok.

I have to tell you that this exhibit was absolutely amazing. I felt that it was very professionally done and extremely educational. Even Ben really enjoyed it and he has never been very interested in biology-type stuff. He said it really helped him make sense of how the body works. There was only one evolutionary biased statement made throughout the whole exhibit which made me pleasantly surprised, but still irate at the same time. I mean, even if I didn't believe in creation, I still wouldn't believe in Evolution because it is STUPID! But that is another post for another day.....

And last, but not least, ok... it is probably least, but still... If you go to the Body Exhibit, you need to make a stop at Kilwin's the chocolate shop. It is awesome! Ben and I were stuffed from dinner but still managed to down some fudge and a caramel apple. We even considered buying 3 more pieces of fudge to take home, but thought better of it since we are trying to get off the the path to obesity.

If you are still with me, thanks for stopping by! If you would like more information about any of the aforementioned places, do not hesitate to shoot me an email.