Sweet Caroline

We are officially celebrating my 26th Birthday here on "Throwback Thursday" this week. Ah. To just be turning 26, those were the days....ha! This was our family birthday celebration last year mom's birthday is two days after mine, so we always do a big joint dinner! On Friday, last year, after work (did you get all that?) we left for Asheville, NC for my best friends BACHELORETTE shin dig! We had almost 20 girls piled up together in the mountains for an amazing weekend. Friday night we do what we do best....sit around the house, gossip, play, drink, open presents, and just have a BLAST being girls=) The bride to be opening presents! Saturday during the day we were SO lazy, it was perfect. We all slept late, and then laid around all day watching football (yeah, we are Southern SEC girls!) and hanging out. It was the perfect fall day in the mountains. We had a bus come pick us up Saturday night, then headed to the ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS Grove Park Inn . If you have nev

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? Seriously Forever 21? That looks AWFUL. Okay, that is all for now...be back later for more! HAPPY 27TH BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have probably said this before....but if I could choose, and money wasn't a concern (my, my wouldn't that be nice!) I would decorate my house in a blend of Pottery Barn , Ballard Designs , Coastal Living magazine style , and Strobler . So today I bring you some of my wants from two of those places....Pottery Barn and Ballard Designs. I'll take two of these please, one in lime and one in white. LOVE these beauties, they are literally in every home decorating magazine now. Just take a look at the latest Coastal Living Idea House, I saw three right away! I need a couple of these to accessorize ... This is just simply gorgeous. I love everything about this picture, especially the colors. I need some furniture for my deck pronto.

So... my main birthday present is a trip to the windy city, hooray! (I am giving up fun, non necessity wants for a cultural experience! Yay me!) I have never been to Chicago and couldn't be more excited! Mikey has a good friend that lives (nearish) to the city, so he and his girlfriend are going to be playing "host" and we have lots of fun things planned. Some of our very best friends are making the trip with us....this is what we have in store: 1. Architectural Boat Tour . I heard from several people this was a must do to see the city. I love water, boats, and pretty buildings. Should be good times. 2. Hop on/off Signature Trolley tour. I know Chicago is a walkable city, but I like these tours b/c you get to hear about lots of neat historical things, etc. Added bonus: not as much walking, I'm lazy. 3. Second City . SUPER DUPER pumped about this. Really. Pumped. We are going to see "The Absolute Best Friggin Time of your life." 4. Giordano's

What a weekend folks! Sadly, I had to watch my GAMECOCKS lose to Auburn. I was not very happy about it and I blame Mr. Spurrier for a lot of what went wrong, get it together STEVE! It's just the same ole same old for the cocks, we are always right there with a lot of our SEC competitors, but can never score/prevent from when it really counts and more often than not we just can't get the W in the big games. Frustrating! Anyways, besides that misery....the weekend was a good one! My parents and I took my niece to Monkey Joe's Friday night and she LOVED it. LOVED. It was so much fun. Belle, Lolly, and I going down the slide. Belle's just a waving at Granddaddy! Granddaddy, Belle and me in the middle of one of the obstacles! Adults can have fun too, right! My little munchkin=) Saturday morning, we slept in! Woohoo for that. There aren't many Saturdays where we get to sleep in, and take our time eating breakfast, running errands, etc. We got some stuff done a

Everyone let's give a big HELL YEAH to it being the weekend! So, last night I had BIG plans. Big plans of parking my rear end on the couch for about 5 hours. I needed a nap and then I wanted to watch My Generation, Grey's and Private Practice. Mikey was cooking dinner (thankful for a husband who loves to cook, he cooks, I clean...perfect set up!) out of our Cooking Light: Fresh Food Fast book, (more on that in a minute) and I was being a couch potato. I'm generally not that lazy at night, but my Wednesday night wine time with the girls lasted a weeee bit longer than normal and I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. So anyways, dinner is cooking and I'm watching ET waiting on the new shows to begin. Between the hours of 7 and 8 we got a total of 6 phone calls from friends wanting us to come out. I kept trying to ignore them....couldn't they understand I was tired!?! Of course though, when we started talking about it, we caved. We can never turn down a night

HOLY HELL. THE WORLD IS OVER. *being a bit dramatic bare with me* I am going to be TWENTY SEVEN years old a week from today. WHAT!?! Say huh? You might as well tell me I'm turning 35, that's how old I feel. Ridiculous? Maybe. I know, you don't have to remind me that 27 is still incredibly young in the whole "adult" life ride. But still. 27? May as well put a fork in her...I'm done. The majority of my friends are all turning 28 this year ( some as soon as a mere month and two weeks after me!), and they probably hate me for thinking 27 is old, oh well....serves you right! I had to put up with being the youngest way too long when it SUCKED (i.e.: being able to drive, getting into bars without worrying about the po po's , etc.) I will take full advantage of being the YOUNG one now! *Rant over, sort of.* I feel very blessed to be where I am in life at the OLD (ahem...youngish) age of 27. I have an amazing family, a wonderful husband, the best fr

I've been really busy at work lately, hence the lack of posting...but I want to steal a quick minute and pay tribute to one of my favorite Gamecocks. Kenny McKinley was so many things to our program, but above all Kenny was a true role model and team player. I don't think there is a better athlete than the kind who can set positive examples on and off the field and that was Kenny. For whatever reason, Kenny chose to end his life yesterday. We will never probably know what was really going on in his head, but I do know that Kenny's smile was contagious and he will never be forgotten at South Carolina. Number Eleven forever. I'm not a great writer, so if you want to read the best story on Kenny...please take a minute and read what my dear friend Travis (Sports writer for the Post and Courier) had to say. Travis can put my feelings and emotions into words way better than I will ever be able to....he's amazing. http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2010/09/21/kenny-mck

So, funny story. I always check my e-mail on my BB on the way to work. I DO NOT tweet, facebook, etc. when driving anymore (unless a rare occasion calls for it). I really do think it is dangerous...there have been too many times where I have looked up and had to slam on brakes, etc. You know you all have done that too. The best thing to do is get a book on tape, it's the only way I find that I don't feel the need to check twitter/FB while in the car constantly. Anyways, I digress....so when I say I check my e-mail I really just clear our the "envelopes" that stay at the top when you have unopened messages. I don't ever like to have envelopes, they annoy me. I generally have 8 -12 e-mails/FB notifications to clear every morning...I don't even read them ( I wait till I get to work to do that) I just "clear" them. Well, I *promise Mikey* that I only do this at stop lights...I sit thru tons on my commute. Well this morning...this OLD lady starte

Let's talk about this book, AGAIN. I'm still reading it, which is very unusual for me. I can get thru most books pretty fast...I am just dreading reading India...(or pray) I just think it sucks basically. I loved the first section (Italy, eat) but this one is painfully boring in my opinion. Did anyone else feel this way? I don't know, it just seems like a bunch of the same "pray, meditate, pray", bull shit over and over. Not saying that I don't believe in that type of thing, but I'm just NOT feeling it right now. I think Liz is just starting to piss me off more and more...I can't pinpoint it exactly, but she is just annoying to me for some reason. Regardless, I'm going to get thru the dang thing, because i want to finish it before I see the movie. I pray that love is better. Sigh.... ( i know, i know...i need to just quit bitching and put the book down if it's that bad right?) EAT. *This is a copy of one of my favorite chicken/chees

September 11 now is a day of conflicted feelings for me. It is one of the saddest and happiest days of my life. How can that be? It really is hard for me to be happy when i think back on what occurred to our country on that day. I was a freshman, sitting in a Music Appreciation (required elective) class; I remember it vividly. We were only a mere days into classes, so I was still so nervous. About 20 minutes into class....someone told the teacher (actually interrupted him and I was scared for him at first) that a plane had just crashed into the WTC. I was so confused, huh? What does he mean? I think, like a lot of other people in the world I was extremely naive at that point in time on terrorism. I had NO clue what was going on. Luckily, our teacher had the foresight to let us go after checking on the students allegations. (Funny thought: I guess this student received a text or something, I really don't' think I texted back then...he must have been advanced!) Anyway

I can't believe that my throw back days have now turned full fledged into football weekends. It's really insane how fast time flies the older you get. We are now officially in my birthday month (eek!!) and I would swear to you that the 4th of July was two weeks ago. Sigh, such is life I guess. This weekend last year, we played UGA away, which means we went to the beach!! We try and go to a few aways games a year, and last year we already had a big Tennessee trip planned so no Athens trip was in the picture. We were invited to head down to Fripp Island for the weekend with friends. A free weekend at the beach, heck yes! We had several super dance parties, celebrated a birthday, enjoyed the beach all day Saturday, and cheered our COCKS on all night Saturday. (although, unfortunately we lost.) This picture cracks me up, apparently I chose a "thug" look for the evening. Super Dance Party night 1 boys watching football girls watching football/talking/eating our appetize

Things that are making me excited: 1.)Forever 21 to open at Columbiana!!!!!!!! Forever 21 will open its first store in the Midlands next spring at Harbison’s Columbiana Centre. The store is expected to be a destination for young women looking for fashionable clothing at a value. “This is a great thing for Columbia residents,” said Marianne Bickle, director of USC’s Center for Retailing, who descibed the retailer’s clothing as hip-casual and said they would appeal to high-schoolers up through women in their 30s and possibly beyond. “It’s excellent for a college town.” At 12,300 square feet, it will take up four retailer spots, including the former Miyabi restaurant and Radio Shack, which will relocate. That will make it the biggest store in the mall aside from anchor tenants, mall manager Tom Dornfeld said. The new store will have an outdoor entrance and inside entrance across from Belk, he said. This exciting news just came out today!

It's that time of year, my official last weekend of summer. Last year, I spent it differently than I normally do because of one of my favorite little friends wedding. Carolina had another Thursday night game to kick off the holiday weekend (just like last night, where we finally kicked some butt! Yes, I know it wasn't against a super awesome team, but whatevs...a W is a W right?) We have a man cave, a garage, a shed...whatever you want to call it. Mikey thinks it is his little piece of heaven b/c I essentially told him he could do whatever he wants back there and I don't care! No rules, no decorations, no cleaning...he's in heaven! The man cave/garage/shed is gross, so I really don't care about hanging out in there. However, it has come in handy for many late night games of "survivor" flip cup and game watching. He set up two tv's in there so that we could have a bunch of people over to watch games, hang out, etc. if we want. *although, i do ha