Winter

Well there was ice on my windshield this morning, so I guess "winter" has finally hit the south. I must say, it's hard to believe when just on Thanksgiving (less than a week ago,) it was 65 and sunny out. We'll see if this chilly weather sticks around or if "winter" down here only lasts for a few days. Apparently last year down here actually got snow, but we all know last year was a freak year with most of the U.S. getting an absurd amount of snow (let's not forget I couldn't leave my house for over a week and Mizzou canceled school for three days in a row which has never happened. School hadn't been canceled since the Civil War and that was only for a day.) With the way the weather has been up until now, I highly doubt we're going to see snow down here any time soon.

With that in mind, it's been hard for me to get into the holiday spirit. I guess I've always equated snow (or at least cold weather) with the holidays, and since it's felt like spring break until yesterday, I haven't really been in the Christmas-y mood. Maybe if Keegan and I go shopping in one of the bigger cities this weekend and pick out a Christmas tree, it'll start feeling like Christmas? I've decided that I want us to pick out an ornament that describes our family each year so that our tree can be filled with memories, just like my family's was. My mom still puts up ornaments that I made when I was in pre-school, and I hope that some day, I'll be doing the same thing. I've been looking around for an "our first Christmas" ornament since this is the first year Keegan and I'll be spending Christmas together, and I hope I'll find one soon.

Maybe on the way home I'll put on some Trans-Siberian Orchestra (just about the only Christmas music I can stand anymore) and try to get into the holiday spirit. I think once I get around my family, that'll help a lot, I've been missing them a lot lately. Hopefully holidays away will get easier as time passes.

Thanksgiving

This was my first Thanksgiving that I haven't been around my family. For as long as I can remember, we've always gone to a long time friend's house (I was in the same play group as their oldest daughter,) and spent the day stuffing ourselves silly with good food and catching up over the last year. This year, two of our friends, Ben and Ryan, came down from Illinois and Missouri respectively, and we went over to Ben's family's house in another small town in Mississippi for lunch. While I appreciate Ben's family having us over and cooking, it just wasn't the same. I honestly missed my family a lot today and was pretty teary/moody for most of the day.

Also, let's just say I'm not a fan of going out and shooting guns in the woods after the Thanksgiving meal. Just not really my thing.

I do want to say that I am thankful for many things.

• First of all, I am thankful for my family. We've gotten so much closer over the last few years, and it took a lot for them, especially my parents, to be ok with letting me move down here with Keegan. It really means a lot to me that they thought I was strong enough to start my own life, and have supported me when I've needed it. 
• I'm also extremely thankful for my now finance, Keegan (I love saying that hehehe.) He is honestly the best person I know and he has supported me in so many ways in our move down here. Without him, I would probably be in a balling heap living on the streets. He constantly tells me that he loves me and how much I mean to him. We have the type of relationship that I've always wanted, and I'm so lucky that he's decided he's wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. 
• Next, I am thankful for friends, both old and new. I am so glad that I have kept in touch with friends through the move down here; in their own ways, they have shown me who my real friends are. The friends that I have made here have made my move so much easier, and I really owe it to them for making sure I don't go crazy and for making the transition easier. 
• Lastly, I am thankful for me. I know this sound conceded, but I am really thankful that I have allowed myself to grow and become so much more confident in the last few years. If I had stayed as shy as I once was, I would never have found my passion for art which means I would probably never have graduated high school early, gone to Mizzou when I did, found that certain group of friends which eventually lead me to Keegan who moved me to Mississippi where I am now. I wouldn't be the person I am today, and honestly, I'm pretty ok with me. I love my friends and my family, and I'm so excited about life. Things seem tough at times, but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I hope yours was amazing and that we remember to be thankful for everything we have not just today, but everyday.

Dear Boy Socks...

Dear boy sock,

I HATE trying to match you up while folding laundry. You all look basically the same but have teeny tiny differences that make you different like your toe is a different color, or the weave is different. You're all either dark blue so you look black, or faded black so that you look blue. This makes it extremely difficult to figure out who goes with who.

Can you honestly tell these apart?

Why can't you take a cue from girl's socks and either all be the same white ones so it doesn't matter who matches with who, or all be a different pattern so it is very simple pair you up?

                        How easy are these to pair up?                        

                                       It doesn't matter which one goes with which, they're all the same!

Boys, please take a hint from girls socks and make it easier on me and everyone else out there who is stuck doing your laundry. Start wearing pink socks with bicycles on them. 

I Have A New Girl Crush

Kinda.....

Keegan and I had a date night tonight and saw "In Time" the new Justin Timberlake/Amanda Seyfried movie. The movie was actually really good which I was surprised at because I don't really like Justin Timberlake as an actor (well I don't like him in anything really,) and after seeing Amanda Seyfried in "Mean Girls," I pegged her in the stupid girl side kick role. I did like her in "Mama Mia," but I didn't even realize that it was her tonight until I looked her up on IMDB. Anyways, the whole point of this post is she looked AMAZING in the movie.

Red hair does wonders for her and I think that is why I didn't realize who she was. Plus her eyes look HUGE; its amazing what a great smoky eye can do for someone. 

The only problem I had with her is she was a little too skinny. In one scene where she was sitting down, I could count every bone in her knees and I'm not a fan of that. 

I also found some new loves in my life with four wheels, but sadly I cannot find pictures of them. The 1970-ish Charger that was used by the police in the movie was b-e-a-utiful, complete with suicide doors. 

And this Jaguar doesn't hurt to look at either. 

You should go see it. Pretty girls, beautiful cars, good plot, lots of things blow up and JT doesn't look bad either (if you're into that kind of thing.)

The Decorated Bride

One of my friends on Facebook posted this link to another blog, My Love For You, about decorated brides from Kosovo. According to the blog, "Lubinje brides of Kosovo are meticulously dressed and made up for their wedding day. It's done to ward off the "evil eye, and discourages gossip and speculation."

I looked through the pictures and saw the video of the elder woman (not sure if its a mother or grandmother) adorning the bride with paint, sequins, and probably the prettiest, and most expensive clothing that the bride will wear her entire life. At first, I thought to myself, "I'm glad that brides over here don't go through this," but after second thought, don't we? Don't brides spend months before their wedding working out to get that "perfect" body (I'll admit to this,) and spray tan for weeks before? The day of, don't many brides cake their faces in foundation, eye liner, mascara, lipstick, jewelry, crystal headpieces and wear a dress that costs as much as a down payment on a car, if not more? If you think about it, the two customs are not that different no matter how much we care to think they are. 

Funny enough, I think that many of the western brides who spend $10,000 just on a dress and look like a clown in their make up are the strange ones. I think these decorated brides are absolutely beautiful. Maybe this is what I'll do for my wedding day.  

Here is the link to the specific blog post if you want it: The Decorated Bride

Wedding Bliss and Fast Cars

Woohooo wedding progress has been made! We finally have an official date and place as of this morning. We were trying to get married on August 11, 2012, but the venue that we're getting married at was booked, so we moved it up a weekend so now the official date is August 4, 2012. Since I was off work today, I spent all day designing our invitations. This is somewhat backwards since I still haven't made our save the date cards, but our photographer hasn't gotten them back to us yet. I'm hoping she at least sends the CDs to us by the end of the week *fingers crossed.* Our wedding website is 85% done, I'd say, it just needs our engagement photos added and once we figure out our honeymoon, information about that plus some more information about hotels for out of town guests.

Once the engagement photos come back, I'll make the save the date cards and send those out. Hopefully we'll get some early RSVPs and can get a rough estimate about how many people are actually going to come to this shindig. When we're in Columbia for Christmas, I'm going to be dress shopping, maybe cupcake tasting, and potentially meeting with a florist if we decide we have the budget for flowers (even fake flowers are surprisingly expensive!) A lot got done today, but there is so much more that needs to get done in the....264 days left.


P.S. Keegan treated himself and bought a 1971 454 Corvette.

Ain't she purdy? She arrives Friday from Austin Texas. I'm only a little excited 

Being a Grown Up

Nothing has made me feel like a grown up more than looking at houses and doing wedding registries. Don't get me wrong, both things are fun, but before, when I would "house shop" I was looking more at what color the house was, is it in a pretty neighborhood or by the ocean, does it have a "princess tower" on it? Now I'm looking at if the kitchen is big enough, if I can open the oven and dishwasher at the same time (one of my biggest pet peeves of living in an apartment) and if the house will be big enough raise children in down the road. School districts have suddenly become a big interest to me, one for potential children, and two, for re-sell value down the road. I've found myself reading the newspaper at work more frequently, and the shootings and random stabbings that occur stick out to me more now, and I wonder to myself if this is really a safe city to raise kids in. I kind of miss the more carefree days of college life where my biggest worries were trying to finish that paper in two hours or making rent.

Now doing the wedding registry yesterday at Bed Bath and Beyond was fun. It was suggested that we put twice as many items on our registry as people we're inviting which would mean we'd have to have about 400 items on our registry....we barely made it pass 80. We've asked for some things that we haven't been able to afford before like a $300 mixer, as well as upgrades to things that desperately need to be upgraded, like our mis-matched measuring cups that we've collected throughout college. I think we got a lot of things in a wide range of prices for everyone to choose from, and we're also going to register at Target, Lowes, and probably have a Word document of things that we want that can't really be on a registry, like things from ThinkGeek for me, or NewEgg for Keegan. While we were walking through the store with our little scanner, we were discussing how we were going to decorate our new house and how we liked some of the wall art that BB&B had. I said that the wall art didn't really mesh well with our current style of artwork and Keegan suggested that we may have to "grow up" and stray away from our decorating style of signed band t-shirts and posters. I think I'm going to have to disagree with that; we're just going to have to figure out how to do it in a more "classy, grown up way". I love my band posters, and have worked too had to get them signed by my favorite bands to just roll them up and put them in a closet :p

  We've asked to see a few houses next Saturday and I'm really excited about one in particular.  

4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,922 total square feet, built this year (hence the no grass) in a brand new subdivision in the school district we want. Hardwood floors, granite counter tops custom wood cabinets, the works. The lot is only 1 acre so it might be hard for Keegan to build his shop in the back, but who knows how long we'll be in this house. My dream house is honestly one like my parents, 3 floors, wide open floor plan, but apparently they don't build houses with more than one floor or basements here in Mississippi (which I don't understand with their frequent tornadoes, but ya know,) so this one will have to do. I just don't want to get my hopes up just in case something is really wrong once we step inside, but I'm excited to see this house.

Many many changes are happening, but they're all good ones. I'm excited about life again so hopefully this momentum will continue and more good things will come.

P.S. I can't seem to NOT write posts that aren't novels. I'm sorry.  

Being Dependent

I would like to say that I am a very independent girl in many aspects of my life. However, I know when I need to lean on someone for help. I HATE having to lean on things, though. One example is my dependence on medication that has happened in the year or so. Don't get me wrong, I'm not addicted to anything. I don't get shaky and bitchy if I don't get my "fix." My headaches just come back with severe vengeance if I don't stay on my drugs. I was really hoping that when my doctor put me on these medications back in January, I wouldn't become dependent on them. Unfortunately I have, and this was very evident when I accidentally left my medications at my parents house after I got back from my trip to Canada. The two weeks that I was without my medications were filled with a constant headache from hell, but in the two days since I've been back on my medications, my headache has been dulled to a slight annoyance.

My dependence on my medications makes me feel weak. I hate having to depend on pills to get through the day. They interrupt my schedule. I can't just get up in the morning, I have to get up, make sure I have water, take my 4.5 pills, and then go about my day. I can't just fall asleep at someone's house anymore, I have to make sure I take my pills with me or I wake up with  my head splitting in two the next morning. These pills make me feel old, like I've lost the care-free lifestyle I lead before. Let alone the side effects they give me. I feel like I have morning sickness 24/7. I'm glad they help the headaches, I just really wish that I could get off them already, or take less or them, or find another combination that gave me fewer side effects. And don't even get me started about trying to have children down the road. My doctor flat out told me he wants me to stay on birth control as long as possible so that I don't have kids on these medications because they'll cause too many problems for me and the baby, if the baby survives. Woohoo putting poison in my body! /sarcasm

I guess this is my rant for the day, I'll try to post something happier next time. Maybe something wedding related yes?