Wishful Wednesday

I'm late on this Wishful Wednesday but I loved this one so much, I just had to participate.

'I wish' .... I could relive one particular holiday experience over and over again, and it would be watching my parents, sisters and brothers-in-law slow-dance to Christmas music in the living room.

I can only remember a few Christmases that they actually did this but I can so vividly remember the warm, happy, secure, hopeful way it made me feel.

My amazing Papa is not a dancer at all. In fact those Christmases and my wedding are the only times I've ever seen him dance. Each time was so special.

At the time I didn't realize that I would lose one of my brothers-in-law to cancer and the other two to divorce, I just knew that in those beautiful moments, my family was together and happy.

And it made me long for the day I would be able to join them, dancing with my husband.

My family will most likely never dance together at Christmas again, but they will forever dance in my memory.

Thanks to Kelsey for hosting Wishful Wednesday!

You Can Call Me Pablo

Picasso, that is. Because he's the only artist I can think of at the moment who painted anything besides fuzzy lilly pads and flowers. Oh and Van Gogh but I think he's the one who chopped his own ear off and that's just gross. Not to mention psy-cho!

This year, our supervisor (with prodding from some of us super cool underlings), decided to have our annual holiday party at a painting class! (Of course, this was decided after I'd already bought a gift for our usual White Elephant gift exchange, but that's beside the point.)

None of us are anything close to creative (we're in research, which leans more toward anal-retentive than artsy) but we knew we'd have fun trying! Since we were a private party, we were able to pick the painting we wanted to do, and there was a leader walking us through each step.

For me, it was extremely relaxing and fun but some of my co-workers got a little twigged out when their paintings didn't come out just so. I'd for sure go again. I don't care that my picture's not perfect, it's something I created all by myself, which is so rewarding. Our painting place is called Corks N Canvas and I'd highly recommend checking it out if you have anything similar in your area!

{Ahhhhh. Who doesn't love a clean slate?}

{Me and Natalie, one of my BFFs from college. We work together and our offices are right next door to each other. Awwwww!}

{Work in progress}


{The group with our masterpieces. I love that everyone's paintings were similar but unique.}


{My finished product.}


I'm really happy with the way mine turned out. It's not great by any means but it's better than what I expected! It's a picture of a local bridge so it's a special piece of home. We plan to hang the paintings in our new offices, which should be built and ready to move into this summer, so we'll have a nice reminder of our fun time together. Not bad for $35!

Friday Night Fun and My 2nd Guest Post

Friday night JD and I went to a Hornets game (New Orleans' NBA team). We got some great tickets that we couldn't pass up even though we were both super tired. I actually don't remember all that much from the game because I was sitting there half asleep the whole time. I think we had fun, though!

{Notice the Honey Bees' outfits in the lower left corner. Mmmmm klassy.}

On our way back it started snowing! It's only about the 3rd time in my life it's snowed where I live. We tried to get some good pictures but there wasn't quite enough snow to actually be pretty so go here if you want to see some LA snow pics (not something you'll see very often in your lifetime). Those are from our real snow encounter last year... which pretty much shut our cities down for a couple days while we all scratched our heads and tried to figure out how the heck we were supposed to function with SNOW on the ground.

Off the subject but equally as exciting, please go check out my guest post over at Pursuit of Happiness! Malin is the cutest, sweetest international student ever, who's currently studying in Mexico. But she's off having even more traveling adventures for the next few weeks, this time to Yucatán, Belize and Cuba! She asked me to do a post about any Christmas-related topic while she's away, so head on over and see some of my favorite things about Christmas... the things that give me those warm fuzzies we all love so much. If you know me at all, you've probably guessed that there will be pretty pictures from we heart it. I just can't get enough!

About Durn Time

As I mentioned in this guest post, we've been trying to decide for approximately a year where we wanted to go for our December vacation. We've gone back and forth and around and around, even thinking at times we would just skip the vacay and save the money (I know, how boring, right??). Well we're preeeety sure... like 90% sure, I'd say, that we're going to... wait for it... drumroll, please...

New York City!

We went right before Christmas 2007 and got to do lots of fun stuff so now I need suggestions on new things to do. We plan to see at least one show, maybe two and we want to take a ferry to get some good pics of the Statue of Liberty but other than that, I think we're pretty plan-less.

I'm super excited to be in the city again but I am not looking forward to the cold. If anyone has any jackets, gloves, scarves, long johns, etc. you're not using, I'm currently accepting donations for the "Keep Amber Warm and Cute in NYC" cause. And I'm only mostly kidding.

Some friends of ours will be there at the same time so we'll do some stuff with them but we're open to ideas. If you have any, please share!

Here are a few lots of pics from our last visit.

{Santa ice skating at Rockefeller Center}

{Wish we could've gone to a game here!}

{Loved the decorations in Serendipity!}

{And of course the frozen hot chocolate.}

{My handsome man}

{We were on top of the Rockefeller Center and I had no idea I would be proposed to on top of the building behind us later that night!}

{Better view of the Empire State Building}

{The ring of my dreams! Could not, for the life of me, get a good picture of it.}

{Walking around Central Park, calling everyone to tell them I was engaged.}

{Ice skating in Central Park. They wouldn't let us take pictures on the rink! Meanies.}

{Washington Square. This reminds me of August Rush.}

{Our last meal at a cute Italian restaurant.}

{We saw this show the night we got engaged. Loved it!}

{Showing off my new bling on the way to celebrate Christmas with my family.}

So... ya got any suggestions of things for us to do while we're there this time? I really don't care if we just walk around the city aimlessly looking around in awe but it probably wouldn't hurt for us to have a few things planned.

Insert Title Here

Yeah, how's that for a post title? I'm just fresh out of 'em today.

I was going to write a detailed post about our Thanksgiving weekend, which we spent in Gulf Shores, AL and the last-minute 12 AM shopping adventure we decided to have on Black Friday but it's already Wednesday and I'm kind of over it. So here are a few pictures from the weekend and then we'll move on.

{Headed to shop. At 11:40. Can you sense the sarcasm in my thumbs up? I'd had about 2 hours of sleep.}


{I'm gonna need a big pretty mirror like this in my house (with better lighting) to take outfit pictures from now on. Mmkay? Kthx.}



{Dinner at Jimmy Buffett's sister's restaurant. Again, stinky lighting.}


{The spoils from our trip. We went to Christmas shop and there are oh, approximately two presents in there. The rest is all ours... including all 10 seasons of Friends, which were a total impulse buy on the way back home. I'm telling myself our kids will love to watch them one day. Only, by then DVD's will most likely be obsolete, so I guess that's not really a great justification. Whatev.}

Anyhoo, on to more exciting news! Well exciting for me, anyway. I've been having kind of a blah week (nothing bad, just blah... kind of funky) but that all changed in a flasharoo when my lovie Liz texted me and told me to check her blog. I thought, "Surely I didn't win her completely amazing givieaway. Nah She probably wants me to see the latest pair of fabulous shoes she's found." Which she did. And they're pretty mind-blowing, I must say. But I also won the giveaway!! I am be-yond excited. Talk about turn my frown upside down!

Something else that made me smile last night? This.

Those puppies crack me up. They sat there like that the whole time he was eating. They know momma's kind of stingy with the table food (she likes to keep it all for herself) but daddy will totally fall for the "butbutbut I'm staaaarving no one ever feeds me I will die if you don't give me a piece of that right this instant" face every single time. I love my little family :-)

Thanks Giving

I was tagged by Dana at Sweeping Through Life to list 5 things I'm thankful for. I really enjoy this Thanksgiving tradition so here you go:

1. My relationships with my Lord, family and friends. I'd say that's probably numero uno on most of our lists!

2. The ability to make such wonderful memories with my husband before we start having kids. I know a lot of people don't have the time with work and other responsibilities to just drop everything and run off to have fun whenever they feel like it so I'm hugely thankful for this blessing!

This past weekend, for JD's birthday celebration, we went to Biloxi to have dinner at Ruth's Chris (a super nice steakhouse if you're not familiar with it) and watch Darius Rucker in concert. Um, and maybe to shop at an outlet mall. (Somehow, even when it's his birthday, we end up doing what I want to do. He's good like that.)

The food and the concert were fabulous. It was a wonderful little getaway for us.

3. A job that offers great vacation time. Yay for two days off this week!

4. Fun Blog swaps. I've actually only done one so far but I had so much fun I'm looking forward to doing many others. My partner was Monogram Girl and she sent me three lovely scarves! The blue one is an infinity scarf, which I've been wanting to try for the longest time. I'm so excited I finally have one!


The Mr. seems to think I have a bit of an obsession with scarves but I have no idea what he's talking about. I mean, I think it's perfectly reasonable to feel the need for 13 (now 16) scarves in a state where the temperature stays in the 70s well into November and sometimes December, don't you??

5. Last but definitely not least, I'm thankful for YOU! Even though I'm super busy lately and not able to comment like I used to, I'm keeping up with you the best I can and your stories and comments never fail to put a smile on my face.

I probably won't be able to post the next few days so Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Giveaway Winners

Sorry for the delay in announcing the giveaway winners from my post on Experiments in a Galley Kitchen! I finally got it together and had JD draw the winners yesterday then I spazzed out and forgot to post them.

The winner of the Target gift card is Sue from The Cotton Patch and the winner of the Starbucks gift card is Deelsu at Dee's Adventures! Apparently JD decided to make it fair and draw both an Alabama fan and an LSU fan! (Not really, it was totally random. Promise.)

Mrs. Sue, I'll be mailing your gift card and Dee, yours will come from Mrs. Potts.

Congrats to both of the winners and thanks to everyone who played along!

Weekend Fun

JD is off with a friend watching the Hornets play tonight. I decided since I'd be home alone I deserved a good (read: the greasier the better) dinner. I stopped by a local Mexican restaurant to pick up a quesadilla and when one of the workers told me in a heavy Mexican accent that I could take the carry-out menu I was looking at, I said, loudly and sloooowly while pointing at myself, "I take?" Ugh. I am such a moron. The fact that I could barely understand what he was saying didn't mean he couldn't understand (or hear, for that matter) me! He just smiled and said, "Yes, you're welcome to have it." I felt so stupid.

But anyhoo, the real reason for this post is I just realized if I want to recap what we did this past weekend, I'd better do it before this next one starts! Friday night our friend Erin (one of my favorites) drove in from New Orleans to hang out with me and JD. We went to dinner at our favorite sushi place then watched A Christmas Carol. The special effects were amazing, which made it such a fun movie to watch. I thought it was supposed to be a movie for kids but there were some parts that might scare small children. I hope more 3D movies come out soon because I thoroughly enjoyed this one! Erin and I tried to get a fun picture of us in the silly glasses to text to her sister but after a few attempts, this was the best we could get:

Kinda goes along with the whole special effects theme of the movie, right? ...no? Well, we're totally blaming it on the delayed flash on her phone!

It was sooo good to spend time with Erin, I don't get to see her nearly often enough.

I love you, Erin! Start a blog already! ;-)

Saturday, JD and I went with four other couples to the horse races in New Orleans. It was such a new, different experience. I loved it! We won a few bets and mostly lost, but it was so worth the money for the fun time with friends!

The only thing that cast a little shadow on the day was that a friend of mine told me the race horses are badly mistreated. We're such animal lovers it's no fun to think we supported something that could harm animals. The friends we went with were positive that the horses aren't mistreated so now I don't know what to think.

Do any of you know for sure one way or the other? I'd love to go back if the horses are ok but probably won't if they aren't. Let me know if you have any insight!

Here are a few pics from the day.

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Side note: I planned to draw the winner for my giveaway over at Experiments in a Galley Kitchen Friday night but now I'm not sure if I'll have access to the internet. It might have to wait until Saturday night, which just gives you an extra day to enter!

Hope y'all have a fabulous weekend!

A Scarf And A Guest Post... Not Random At All, Right?

Remember when I whined about this scarf being out of stock? I've been obsessively curiously checking back on the off chance that it would come back in stock but with no luck.

HOWEVER, I believe I found a scarf yesterday that, if not being completely similar, will at least satisfy my craving.

It's soooo soft, has the same gathers and colors and at $7 I just couldn't pass it up! I found it at Walmart, of all places.

(Please excuse the hasty car pic, I think you can at least get the general idea of what it looks like.)
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Now if you want a real post from me today, you'll need to go to Experiments in a Galley Kitchen cause I'm guest posting, y'all! Woohoo!

It's my first guest post to actually get posted on someone else's blog haha.

If you read the post and comment, you'll be entered for a little giveaway Mrs. Potts and I are doing. I stole this little trick fun idea from some other bloggers. Thought it would make the post a bit more interesting!

What are you still doing here? Go get entered! :-)

Happy Tuesday, y'all!

Happy Birthday, My Love

Today is the anniversary of the day my amazing husband was born! Like last year, he's not very excited about being another year older. Something about being in his 30s just doesn't sit well with him.

I, on the other hand, am beyond excited to celebrate his life and the fact that I'M the one, out of every single girl in the world, that he chose to spend the rest of it with. I actually like being married to a slightly older man :-) I'm often overwhelmed with gratitude and awe that I was the one God chose to bless with the honor of being JD's wife.

Being married to JD is SO much fun. I cherish our time together and look forward to many more happy memories in the future. We'll be enjoying some of those happy memories this weekend when we celebrate his birthday so I'll fill y'all in on the festivities later.

Until then, here are a few pictures from his birthday celebrations last year (we're aware that we take far too many car pics).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GOOSE! I love you so incredibly much.

Happy Blog #3

If you're interested in the origins of my Happy Blogs, you can check out this post which is from back in January, when I was ecstatic if I got one comment on my posts. Happy Blogs were supposed to be a regular installment but I've apparently only done one other one so far. I need to get with the program and do these more often!

1. 3-D movies. The only ones I've seen so far have been at Disney World but tonight we're going to see A Christmas Carol and I am PUMPED!

2. The diamond and aquamarine earrings JD bought me last weekend. His bro-in-law recently opened a jewelry store so we were able to get an awesome deal on them. This picture's not the best but they're gorgeous in person!

3. Terivs tumblers. Seriously the best cups, ever. End of story.

4. Fresh hair cuts. If you read this post you know the craziness I've been through trying to find a good hair stylist. Wednesday I decided to give a high school friend a try and loved her. Not sure why it took me so long to make the connection that she does hair and I needed someone to do mine. Seems obvious, right? You would think.

5. The song I currently have on repeat: Halftime by Ying Yang Twins. This song is played at Saints home games and it makes me want to stand up and get crunk just like the song suggests!

What's something that makes you happy? How bout the fact that it's Friday? Yay! Have a fabulous weekend!

A Little Of What I've Been Up To

I'm finally back! I missed y'all so much! It's gonna take me forever to get caught up with everyone. I'm reading as fast as I can but commenting might still be light for a little while.

I went to DC for work Nov 1-4 with a co-worker and really enjoyed it! I've been a couple times before so didn't really feel the need to see all the monuments again. We arrived Sunday and after we checked in and grabbed lunch at the hotel, we went to the American History museum and walked to the White House. I absolutely loooove riding the metro around DC! I don't know if it's because we don't have any kind of public transportation where I live or if I'm just a dork (probably both), but it's so fun to me!

View from the hotel

Taking the ginormous escalator down to the metro (turn your head left and if anyone knows how to rotate pictures on blogger, let me know. kthx.).



Capitol



We asked the lady at a kiosk right in front of this building what it was and she said she didn't know. Really?? You work here every day and you don't know what building you're in front of? Well whatever it is, we thought it was pretty.

In front of the White House. I'd prefer if you didn't try to click on this one to enlarge it; I have crazy eyes here and it's not my best look. Just sayin.

Washington Monument

Cool picture. If I do say so myself.

Sunday night we ate in Chinatown at Sushi Go Round because I was curious about the sushi belt. It was so neat! You just grab whatever goes by that looks good. They have different color paper plates and they count up your plates at the end to get your total.

Monday we headed to Georgetown to shop and look around.

Not really sure what the point of this is but it's cute!

We wanted to eat somewhere with a view of the water and the girl at Pottery Barn recommended we eat on the patio of this restaurant. Which would have been a great idea if the patio wasn't closed that day! I wasn't very impressed by the food but you win some, you lose some!

We walked down to the water after lunch since we couldn't see it during. Very pretty.

Tuesday was filled with meetings but we had a little break that afternoon so we decided to walk down to the zoo to see the giant pandas. They were both sleeping and we couldn't get any good pictures but we did see this cute little guy. I think he's a red panda.

Here I was with my co-worker at the "social" Tuesday night. We had appetizers at Zatinya (I think?). The chef had just been eliminated from Top Chef or Iron Chef or something like that. The food was great but there wasn't much of it so we may or may not have gone back to Sushi Go Round after!

After our meetings on Wednesday, we decided to go to the Spy Museum before we had to head back to the airport. We bought tickets for the interactive "mission," where we got to be agents and try to crack a case. It was fun until we were in the middle of the suspect's living room digging for clues and the fire alarm went off! We had to evacuate the building and after all the drama, we didn't have time to go back and finish so now we'll never know if we would've found the trigger in time to keep the huge bomb from exploding!

Here are the fire trucks in front of the building. Turns out someone had pulled the alarm. Way to ruin our fun, rude!

Friday JD and I drove to Alabama for the LSU/Bama game. LSU lost. And that's all I'll say about that.

JD's friend told me I looked like I was wearing a table cloth. Hmph.

Now I'm headed to read some of your blogs (in between catching up at work)! Happy Thursday!