A to Z

Here's something fun

A- is for Aruba. Only a few more months.

B- is for Boys. My husband wants a baby boy. I use to but now I think a baby girl would be better, except can we guarantee to not have all the "girl drama"???

C- is for cats. We have two, one fat, one small. NO, seriously Eli weighs 25lbs (he has lost 5lbs, go Baby Boy!) and Link is still a kitten so he has yet to get FAT.

D- is for dog. (Yes I know I am being generic with the letters C and D, but get over it). We have Isabelle, the neurotic, OCD princess who is spoiled rotten.

E- is for Education. Extremely important, to the point when we do have children we will either foot the bill for private school or move to be in better school district.

F- is for football. Fav sport, GO PANTHERS!

G- is for gardening. I have a black thumb, scratch that I have two black thumbs. I kill every living plant in sight but just looking at them. Therefore, I will need to hire a gardener

H- is for Harrisonburg, VA. The city where hubby and I went to college, the city where we fell in love.

I- is for islands. Love traveling to them. It could also be for Ireland which is my next vacation.

J- is for Baby Jackson, my new nephew. So adorable!

K- is for Keegan. I found the name in one of my sister's baby books and fell in love. Who knows how long I will like it for and its not like I'm preggers right now.

L- is for LOVE. I give and receive it :)

M- is for money, I need more :( to feed my shopping addiction.

N- is for new house. I love the blank slate that we have but I need more time and inspiration to complete it.

O- is for ocean. How I miss living next to the beach. I can smell it right now.

P- is for PINK! Need I say more?

Q- is for questions. I know people say there are no "stupid questions". These people obviously are not nurses dealing with patients who I swear sometimes ask the dumbest things.

R- is for reef sandals. I need a few new pairs. Already have them in some online shopping carts just need to click to buy.

S- is for sisters. I have the sweetest!

T- is for Tijuana Flats. Favorite low-key restaurant. We will be getting one here soon, but for now I travel home to eat there. Delicious!

My fav hot sauce from there. YUM!

U- is for unlikely to get our taxes done this weekend. Gosh, we are usually done by now.

V- is for victory. DUKE victory on Sunday! Keep your fingers crossed.

W- is for work. Love my job; stressful yet rewarding.

X- is for XBOX 360. My husband's 3rd one just kicked the bucket again! UGH! I need that for him to stay occupied.

Y- is for young. Oh how I yearn to be 21 again, heck I would take 24.

Z- is for zebra prints. Not a fan and I have been seeing more of it lately. Especially in the new scrub lines. I just don't know if I like it.

LOL

Haha

Just have to get that off my chest because UNC needed to LOSE!!!!!


GO DUKE!

Fav things

So I have to discuss some of my fav things, just cause!

I love Cran-Grape and they now have it in the single packs for a water bottle. AWESOME!



I have been using Bare Minerals for about 3 years now. I wear foundation a lot just because I do not have the greatest of skin and this does not feel like I am wearing anything. I have tried other mineral products and this is by far the best.

You can purchase this manicure set at Walgreens. It cost about $7. They are basically peel and stick and they last for about 2 weeks. I love the french manicure one. I have long nails when I grow them out and I stink at painting my nails so this is perfect. My nails look like a professional did them. I can not afford, nor do I have time to get my nails done every week so this set is perfect.



Steam and mash potatoes! Found in freezer section of any grocery store. I prefer home made mash potatoes and I certainly KNOW how to cook them well. However, I sometimes like quick meals and these fit in perfect. Great flavors of garlic, sweet potato and cheese. NO BOX FAKE FLAKE potatoes are allowed in my house but these are.

New fav book. Love the awesome cupcake designs. Will have to post pics of some soon.

Just a few random things. Maybe I can add more later

Unexpected visitor

The other night, like the old married couple we are, Jason and I went to bed at 10. When you have to get up at 5 to go to work you go to sleep before the good TV shows come on. :( So, we are fast asleep and Isabelle starts whining at our bedroom door. She sleeps in the room with us (typically in her OWN bed but sometimes she wiggles her way onto our bed). I hear Jason get out of bed to open the bedroom door for her. He thought that she was just whining to be let out to roam the house.

Well, this was NOT the case. After he opens the bedroom door she charges down the stairs to the front door and starts going crazy. I have never heard her like this. She is snarling, growling, jumping, etc. Basically acting like the German Shepard mix she is! I am still in bed (I sleep like a rock but I was starting to stir) so Jason looks down the stair case and does not see anything. He tells me later he thought maybe she was barking at deer which are popular on our street. He turns the hall light on and still nothing. So he does what any caring husband would do and finds his glasses (blind as a bat he is without contacts or glasses) and walks down the stairs in his boxers and nothing else!

He looks out the front door through the door window and does not see anything. So then he turns on the front porch light. Well, that is when I hear him say

"CAN I HELP YOU!!!" (really loudly and mean-like, well as mean as you can be in boxers)

At this point I race out of bed in my tank top and underwear (these were not my granny panties or comfortable undies either, they were my Vicki's stringy panties) and race out to the hall. Our roommate Joel is already downstairs standing behind Jason.

This random guy is just standing on our front porch at midnight, MIDNIGHT! The guy starts telling some story about how his car broke down, his grandmother is sick, the cops won't help him and he needs money for a cab ride. Jason basically tells him no way and keeps him talking for a bit while I sat on the stairs and called the cops. The guy tells Jason that he tried the neighbors but no one would answer or help. Well, HELLO we are the only ones that live on the street right now! The guy eventually leaves. At this point we all go outside (after the guy has disappeared) and check everything out. The boys walked the perimeter of the house and I checked all the vehicles. Everything looked okay.

The cop shows up, says he can not locate the man and that he will stay in the neighborhood for awhile to keep an eye out.

We go back inside and try to sleep, no such luck. Poor Isabelle huffed and puffed all night and could not sleep (for her good work she received a large amount of treats!).

Jason calls the Home Owners Association the next day to alert them of this. The HOA director sends Jason an email with a mug shot of a guy who has done this stuff in the past. It was the exact man! Evidently he was in jail for awhile and now has gotten out. Two weeks ago he did this same thing to a lady in the neighborhood.

Now we live in a very nice large community and this guy lives like 2 miles away but decides to come to our neighborhood to try out his scam. God knows how long he was standing on our porch!

Oh security system here we come!

How I spent my Hallmark Holiday

So we typically do nothing for Valentine's Day other than go out to dinner. This is usually the night before to avoid the crowds. This Saturday, the hallmark holiday, we drove to my hubby's home town.

Our purpose: furniture shopping

Our goal: buy a dresser for bedroom.

What we accomplished:

Purchasing a dining room table with 6 chairs, two leaf extensions and a large mirror for above fireplace. Yah, I know a dresser is suppose to have drawers and belong in a bedroom, but the dresser turned into this! Magic? or just a GREAT deal!

Loading up the camouflaged dresser into the back of the truck took about 90 minutes. This included my hubby's parents and I telling him that there was plenty of bungees to secure it and we were good to go. My hubby was not thrilled with how it was secured but had faith in my word as he always should.

So now we are driving down the road. I am looking through the side mirror at my cherished find, smiling because I am so proud of my bargain shopping skills (the table was originally around 2500 and we got it for under 1000). Hubby says

"Does the stuff look like it moved back?"

At this point I turn around and look at the table and realize he is correct. So I am all like

"Pull over now!"

And he is like

"I am trying to find the perfect spot to pull over"

Well he did not exactly say that but it took forever for him to pull over on this minor freeway that had a huge shoulder and numerous turn offs. We get out of the car and inspect the beloved dining room set. The table which was on the bottom of the pile had not moved (this was good because the gate was down and if it had moved everything would have slide right off the bed of the truck) but the chairs piled on top had moved all over and the bungees were loose. We found the culprit bungee that actually came undone about 500 feet from the truck. Realizing that we did not have enough colorful elastic cords to secure everything for the 90 minute drive home we called his parents. After his mother and I laughed about it for a bit they drove to meet us with reinforcements.

Oh this story just keeps getting better. As we are waiting for his parents I realize I have to pee. I REALLY have to pee! My husband proceeds to ask me why I did not go back at the furniture place when the rest of the family made a pit stop to utilize the bathroom. This pit stop was over 2 hours ago. I DID NOT have to go then! So I do what any resourceful girl who went to a party college would do. I decided to "pop a squat" next to the truck. Now I have done this many times and have no problem with it. I used a piece of cardboard to enclose myself in so that no one would see the "deed" as they were passing by. Of course, my husband is unprepared for these events and did not have any napkins in his glove box unlike myself who always has her vehicle fully stocked for such occasions. So the ever so popular method of drip drying came into use. UGH! This event went quickly and I finished, LUCKILY, just as his parents were pulling up. Unfortunately I did not plan on my place of squatting to be in the direct line of where we needed to stand to retie the furniture. To be nice, I placed my cardboard hut on the ground like a tarp so that no one would get their shoes dirty!

Another hour later, we finished rigging the truck again and on our way we went. 10 minutes down the road we have to pull over again. One of the boxes had become a parachute with the wind and was misbehaving and we had to secure it in order to prevent one of my table extensions from falling out.

Now we are trucking along and all I hear from my loving husband is

"Umm, we might have to push"

"Push what?" I say

"The truck, we are almost out of gas"

Now we are on back roads where gas stations are non-existent. So I put a phone call into our great roommate to tell him to get the gas cans ready to meet us. We decided to have a "Seinfeld" moment and test how far we could get on the reserve tank. Luckily we pulled it off and made it home where we unloaded my camouflage dresser and hubby proceeded to pull a pectoral muscle! GREAT DAY! Never a boring moment in the land of "Life and Love in the South"

Lusting for Spring

I have SPRING FEVER! I love super hot weather but this time of year I get teased by spring like weather. I know it will be cold again tomorrow but for now I am enjoying the spring tease. I made a list of things that remind me of spring that I would love to have (note: add to my shopping list/wish list for my birthday)

These plates are super cute and they are from one of my fav stores: Target. Not glass, but still fun!







I love Reefs. I wear them all the time and definitely need a few more pairs.



I need patio furniture for my front porch. Something simple These would just need some cute cushions. Maybe, pink and green <3

I would love to have a new mixer and since I don't have any pink decor in my house this would be perfect. My hubby would never use it so he would be fine with the pink color.



This BCBG dress would be perfect for our trip to Aruba.



I love Roxy brand. I have a ton of it. This Roxy dress is super cute just to wear anywhere!



Hey Jensen Ackles reminds me of spring (I have no idea why) and I would love to have him! A girl can dream right?

25 things about me

Like everyone else who is part of the world of Facebook I am doing this post.

1. My fav color is pink. However, I do not have anything pink in my home decor. Shame I know. I blame my husband.

2. When I was younger I wanted to be a fashion designer, and then through my teenage years a dentist. I ended up becoming a nurse; random!

3. My two front teeth are fake. When I was in fifth grade both were crushed to dust by a concrete floor during a game of keep away. (I was tripped!) They are now crowned after numerous (probably 100s of hours) visits to the dentist chair.

4. I love jewelry. I have a gemstone collection and actually make jewelry on occasion. Bling!

5. My dream car is a BMW Z3, not Z4, I like the old school one from the late 90s.

6. I am claustrophobic to the point I freak out sometimes at the mall during Christmas, however I do ride in elevators but sometimes I close my eyes.

7. My favorite flowers are pink roses and white daisies. Together is better.

8. One of my biggest pet peeves if when I see children unrestrained in a car. It is against the law and car seats save lives!

9. This is somewhat embarrassing but I can burp the alphabet. Yes a useless but amusing talent.

10. I can not sleep with pants on. I have to be in a shirt and panties to sleep well. When I travel if I have a room with door then Game on! I only will wear pants if it is really cold (camping) or I am sleeping on someones couch.

11. I will wear flip flops year round. I don't care if it is 10 degrees outside, they are comfortable! I am not wearing them so much lately because I have not been able to get pedicure so my feet are hiding in socks.

12. I have a large shoe collection. In our master bedroom we have two closets. I chose the one with the built in shelves (it is a little smaller) just to store my shoes. When we moved away from JMU I had to get rid of a lot of shoes. We had limited space in the moving truck. I cried as I picked which ones to give to Salvation Army. I still shed a tear when I think back to that day.

13. My favorite store is Target. I shop there at least 2 times a week.

14. I oil paint in my free time. I am not very good but it is relaxing.

15. My favorite alcoholic drink is a Venetian Sunset. It is champagne, grenadine and pineapple juice. Delicious but only with higher grade champagne.

16. I love my work clothes. Scrubs are like pajamas, so comfortable!

17. I hate paying bills. Its not really about the money but the process of paying them.

18. I can get ready to go out faster than my husband. I have it down to a science after all these years.

19. My initals are "PP". This is odd seeing that I work on a floor where a specialty is Urology. So I am Nurse PP. It is so awesome to hear this everyday I work. Note the sacrasm in my typing. I usually go by "PMP" because I'm pimp like that!

20. I prefer to eat vegetables rather than meat.

21. I LOVE Project Runway. Its an obession. Durham now has Bravo so I do not have to watch it on the laptop via Youtube.

22. My favorite holiday is 4th of July. I just love the spirit of it. St. Patty's Day and Christmas are my second favs.

23. I dress my animals up all the time. I don't care what people think because my dog loves to dress up as Tinkerbell and the cats love their outfits too!

24. I would love to become a nurse educator one day, but just as a side job. I love to teach but I need the action of patient care to be satisfied.

25. I am ready to start a family now. Maybe soon??

There are my 25 things. Maybe down the road I can add to the list.

House ideas

I am in a decorating slump. This is mainly because we do not have all the furniture we need to finish every room in this house. I want certain things and have decided I will not settle for less. Jason and I lived in apartments for so many years and had a mixture of hand me downs/thrift store/dumpster furniture. Yes, I said dumpsters. You can actually find really great things next to apartment dumpsters. I still have some really cute lamps from one apartment dumpster. The key is to find college apartments at end of year because college kids have the best stuff. I also love thrift stores. I visit one here in Durham at least once a week and have found tons of things I love. I will need to do a post on all my thrift store finds. Anyway, I am rambling!

I want to have a place the flows and has a nice homey feel. This is going to take time. I have been researching looks for each room to get a feel for what I need to start collecting.

Our bedroom is going to based on this concept:

Our room is painted aqua already. And we now have a massive black bed. I am refinishing a dresser that has been Jason's since childhood so that it has a black finish. I also have two night stands that will be black. The white accents will be in the bedspread and artwork. I think it is a"Relaxing" look with contemporary twist.

As for the next room this is our inspiration for the dining room:

This dining room is decorated for fall but you get the idea. I would love to find a 6 person black dining room table. We already have a black china cabinet. Our dining room has chair rails throughout so I am still wondering if whole room will be white or will paint different color on bottom. I think a light golden color or light blue would be cute. I love the brightness and simplicity of this not so formal dining room.

OH if I had a ton of money and time I would be complete with decorating my house.

My Valentine's Day Present

The other day at work I received a call from Jason. He said he had purchased his Valentine's day present for me to give to him. UMM, ok? So I am all for gifts but I like the shopping for them as well. Jason is extremely hard to shop for because he comes up with a list at the LAST minute and then changes it 5 times. I was kinda excited that I did not have to come up with a gift for him.

The reason he called me was to basically ask if he could use his gift. He picked out a new mp3 player. I informed him that he was not allowed to use the gift he bought for himself from me until I received my gift. So what do you know I come home to this: and this:

I love them! Couch wristlet (i had been wanted a new small purse to take out) and a Vera Bradley lunch bag (no more plastic bags for me to take to work)! So needless to say I let him play with his new toy.

And before you judge me about falling for mushy, manufactured holiday; Jason and I do not typically celebrate Valentine's Day with gifts. We typically go to dinner and give each other cards. This year we did not really buy each other Christmas gift due to the new house so we felt we should get each other something fun.