Savannah Scrapbooking

Sexy and I know it...

Oh don't be jealous...

My mother in law gave Big Dave a set of compression, moisture wicking pants and shirt to wear under his hunting stuff, and I loved it so much that I decided I needed it too.

Uh huh. 

I'm one sexy be~yatch! 

I've got five weeks until the Critz Tybee half marathon, and if I've learned one thing, it's that I HATE... no seriously HATE running in the cold.  My nose drips, my ears burn, and my sweatpants flap around my ankles.  Oh but now I've got one less problem... no ankle flappage.  Not with my new Peter Pan suit.   And besides, it makes me feel macho to blow my nose in my shirt tail.

Geez, sometimes I scare myself.

;)

Christmas 2011...

It was beautiful.

I think I'm more thankful this year than any other.  I'm thankful that my girl is grateful for EVERYthing she received and also helped us as much as she could entertaining her younger cousin Andrew, cleaning up the unwrapping chaos and using her own money to buy really thoughtful gifts for her loved ones.  She's my joy.  Truly.

I'm thankful for getting to spend a few hours with my sister who I NEVER get to see.  She's my big sis, and I love her.  I wish life wasn't so complicated because I think we'd be best friends. 

I'm thankful that my mom had a Christmas to remember.  I'm gonna be honest with y'all... last week this beautiful woman was 'officially' diagnosed with alzheimers, and it's kind of scary.  Yet, she handled the holiday with grace and dignity and for that I will thank God. 

I'm thankful for the ridiculously irrestistible boy I married.  He surprised me with a truly thoughtful gift... a charm bracelet representing the things closest to my heart. (Don't worry, pics to come for sure!)  I hate that he had to work today because not only is it the first Christmas in Miss Priss' life that he missed her opening presents, it's also his birthday.  My ol' man turned 44 today, and I'm thankful I have the privilage of celebrating it with him. 

It was a special Christmas for sure...

Here are a few random pics that capture the merrriment...

Miss Priss and Cousin CJ... our Army boy.  SO proud of him!  (And he's SUPER cute too.... heheehee!)

Cousin Robin, sister Lori, and nephew Andrew.

Mom and Aunt Joyce... the matriarchs of our family.  Our family has continued our Christmas Eve tradition for approximately 50 years.  Very cool.

I've tried to think of the perfect words to describe our holiday together, but I just can't do it.  I think this pic of Mom and Andrew sums it up without a single word.

And once again... I am thankful.

Merry merry Christmas.

Three thangs I'ma lovin'...

Three things that floaty my boaty right now...

Miss Priss and I watch this every week and laugh our asses off.  I'm pretty sure Jamie Presley's character is my hottie neighbor and the goofy redhead is yours truly.  Thank God Mendy and I have each other to get through the out of control mine train ride called adolescence.

Holiday wassail...

Wassail comes from the Anglo-Saxon toast "waes hael" or be whole". The first carols were Yuletide drinking songs and singers caroled their neighbourhoods carrying their wassail bowls with them.

One of my silliest childhood Christmas memories was when my Aunt Margaret, Aunt Joyce, and Mom concocted a steaming pot of wassail.  I'm pretty sure I was the only sober one in the house that Chrismas Eve!  I plan to re-created the memory again this year, haha!

And the third thing that I'm lovin...

Sigh~~  I love me some Rob Dyrdek.  And his latest MTV show, Ridiculousness makes me laugh til I about pee my pants.   That's good stuff right there.  Okay sure, maybe not everyone likes to see a human do a full on face plant into a guard rail, but dammit I'm a fourteen year old boy down deep inside, and I can't help it. 

One, two, three.  Three things I'ma lovin'. 

 

 

 

Girly fun stuff...

While in BAMA, I had the opportunity to hang out with my favorite almost twenty year niece.  She's pretty much fabulous... good kid, good grades, good role model for Miss Priss.  The only bad thing about her is that she goes to Auburn University, but I'm willing to forgive her for this since she's so darned cute and all.

She's got a creative mind like me, and before I knew it, we were digging around my Pinterest boards looking at cute stuff to make.  We settled on some fun fabric bracelets, headed to Hobby Lobby for fabric and proceeded to have an impromptu 'craft night' at my mother in law's kitchen table.

We followed the directions, patiently weaving the one inch strips of jersey knit fabric through our fingers...

... and...

...VOILA!...

Braided fabric bracelets!

These are super easy once you get the hang of it, and they'd be cool for teenage friend presents (I think).   Here's the website link if you're interested.

Back from our BAMA Christmas...

Ah, home sweet home.

We've got a few hundred more miles on the odometer, two happy pups who keep hugging up on their daddy, and hearts FULL of some rather kick ass memories after a beAutiful visit to Big Dave's parents' home in Fort Mitchell, Alabama.

Man, those are MY kind of people.

We rolled up around nine o'clock Wednesday night, got some squeezin' and eatin' out of the way and headed into the living room for some good ol' present opening.  Big Dave's mom, Carol, ALWAYS goes way overboard with the present giving and once again, she spoiled us pretty rotten. 

(This is a trait I especially admire about her, hee hee.) 

She outfitted us all in fresh new BAMA gear, which is a total perk about having a mom-in-law who lives where you can get U of A stuff at the Walmart or just about any convenience store on any corner.

(LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS!!!)

(I think Big Dave LOVES it too!)

Miss Priss loaded up on some BAMA gear, a fancy new video camera (which I plan to hijack on occasion), her favorite Viva La Juicy perfume (I got some too, which is good because I often sneak into Miss Priss' room and snitch hers), some penguin footy pajamas (and yes she actually wore them into the convenience store by Nana's house), a glow in the dark Wii remote (very cool) and enough bras and panties from Victoria's Secret to choke a very well dressed horse.

In return, we were able to give Bill and Carol some fun presents, as well as the creme de la creme of Christmas presents... a party pack of oysters!  Let me tell you, my in-laws LOVE LOVE LOVE oysters.  They even eat 'em raw. (Ick.)  So when we brought them out to the car and opened the cooler for them to peek in, they both squealed like they'd won the sweepstakes.  I've never seen two people more delighted with a present in my life.  Making Bill and Carol happy warms the cockles of my heart. 

We'd brought our cooker, shucking knives and cocktail sauce so Thursday night we cranked it up and served up some yummmmy oysters for the family.

I didn't get any pics of the frenzy because I was too busy shucking like a madwoman myself.  Let me just say... my mother in law was a happy chick.

Everyone was a happy chick. Or whatever the male version is of a happy chick .

It was a visit to remember, and I am SO freakin' thankful for this time with them.  Now, we've got my family Christmas to look forward to and lots of cookies and fun stuff to bake and create this week.

It truly IS a MERRY Christmas!

 

 

 

I've been defiled...

...and I'm feelin' pretty darned happy about it. 

My Christmas present this year was...

...a...

TATTOO!

~Gasp~

I know, I know.  You're shocked. Stunned. Flabbergasted.

But I did it, and there's no turnin' back now. 

See, it goes like this...  I've had this little mantra, it's pretty simple, but it gets me through when life throws the tricky stuff at me.  I find myself repeating it over and over when I'm on my long runs.  There's a copy of it on my fridge, and I finally decided to make it a permanent addition to my life.

She believed she could, so she did.

Plain and simple.  I love it.

I've never ever ever wanted a tattoo.  There's never been anything that's tickled my fancy in that department ya know?  But something about it just spoke to me.  I guess in this, my fortieth year on the planet, I discovered something cool about myself.  If I believe it, I can do it.  (Or I'm having a midlife crises... take your pick.)

Okay, enough hemming and hawing... do you wanna see it?

Okay...

(Sid, close your eyes.)

 

It's absolutely perfect. Sigh...

But I've gotta tell you, the getting it part was NOT absolutely perfect.  But we all know that right? 

 I've been planning this little gift since Summer as a reward for completing the half marathon and Bridge 10K, so I've had pllllenty of time to deliberate, weigh the pros and cons, and talk myself out of worrying about the insanely crazy intense pain that would be caused by a tattoo artist's needle thingy jabbing into my virgin flesh a gozillion times.

So I didn't even need to take a valium or anything when I headed down to Good Fortune Tattoo Studio.

I'd already made an appointment with Amanda (the owner) thanks to the fabulous referral from my friend J.J (THANK YOU JJ!!) so she was ready and waiting for me.  I told her what I wanted, she drew out the phrase in several different fonts and let me pick my favorite. 

Then she traced it onto some transfer paper, invited me to sit down on the super comfy but sort of sinister looking chair and copied it onto my skin so I could see if it's what I wanted and make any necessary changes. 

She comforted me by saying things like, "It's reeeeally gonna hurt" and "Don't worry, it won't feel any worse than wearing really high heel shoes all night." 

She's really cute and pretty and wears nice jeans, and I was really diggin' her. And then she lunged at me with her zapper of fire and I decided that I didn't like her very much anymore.

In fact, there were a few minutes where I was pretty sure I hated her.  I may have fantasized about stomping on her precious little hairless dog Bella. 

In fact, she and Mendy (my trusty photographer) seemed to be enjoying themselves entirely too much.  Mendy's a dental hygenist.  They're both sadists. 

And then she was done.

And I loved her again.

Truth be told, it wasn't that bad.  In fact, I'd probably do it again if there's something I feel passionate about.  Probably not.  Althought there was LOTS of laughing and NO tears, it was pretty crazy painful.

But now it's done, and I'm happy, and I have a sickeningly sexy tat on my tootsie to remind me of this time in my life.

Merry Christmas to ME. 

;)

Showsie Tellsie...

Ahhhh... I LOVE Sunday afternoons in the Penthouse.  I got my workout finished up, did the dishes, and headed upstairs to play for a few hours. Between shrieking at Julio Jones and the Falcons, I managed to squeak out a couple of layouts, sort through some of the mounds of crap laying on my table, and plan a couple of pages for later.

I haven't taken pics of the new layouts yet, but I still have some from the last time I was in scrappy mode, so let's have a looky, shall we?

Lots of softball stuff...

I can honestly say that I think I have EVERY single softball paper and embellishment that's been on the market in the last ten years. 

I love that the coach gave me the line up paper from the game where Miss Priss hit her grand slam homerun... I included it in the layout above.

And I've even got a handful of custom SCPS papers and embellishments from back in the good ol' days when I could order anything I wanted and get it at cost... sigh...

Okie dokie, that's all I've got.  Anybody else do any scrappin' lately? 

;)

Finally... Feelin' Chistmas-ish!

Boy, these warm temperatures which are FABULOUS for running around the neighborhood or prancing around town in flip flops, have wreaked havoc on my holiday spirit.  But I think I'm finally coming around. 

Of course, it also helps that we got some of the best news EVER from my mom-in-law, who called to tell us that Big Dave's dad's lung cancer is GONE.  Praise GOD!  He's still got some other health issues, but of course the lung cancer was the scariest for sure.  Just hearing the relief in my mom-in-law's voice was the best Christmas present we could have asked for.  Phew.  That's good stuff I tell ya.

On a lighter note, while I was out having din din at Troy with Sid and Kristine the other night, my sweet little family decorated our Christmas tree to surprise me...

...Thanks little fam.  I needed that.  ;)

As you can see, there are a few presents already wrapped under the tree. However, these are NOT mine. Nope. They're the kiddo's gifts that she bought.  Uh huh... she's schooling me in how to get one's act together for Christmas, ha!  She did the whole tree (with help from Big Dave with the lights) and now she's even finished shopping and wrapping her presents.  She MUST get it from her Nana. 

And speaking of Nana, we'll be heading the BAMA next week for Christmas with my favorite in-laws.  YAYAY!!  Love those folks. And just in case they're reading this, let me just say how AWESOME their gifts are... hee hee.  I love surprising my mom-in-law with cool stuff.  ;)

So, things are starting to really feel like Christmas around here.  We're done with our home school curriculum for this semester, and now it's just time to enjoy the last weeks of 2011. 

Are you feelin' Christmas-ish?  Got any big plans?  What's on your list for Santa?  Do tell! ;)

Run yer pants off!

Last weekend's Enmark Savannah River Bridge Run was phenomenal!  It officially marked the first anniversary of my very first road race.  Pretty cool, if I do say so myself.

Since last year, I've managed to run my way right out of my favorite tan cords...

...which TOTALLY cracks me up because last year at this time, these were one of only four pairs of pants I could actually fit into. 

{Giggle}

This race marks a major fitness goal for me.

And I got to share it with my baby girl...

I'm so proud.

AND I am also SO totally thankful for, and inspired by my friend Dwan.  When I met her last year, she was like me...  a working mom who was just getting started in this running stuff. 

This is her running the bridge 10K a year ago...

And THIS is Dwan running the bridge 10K this year...

FORTY pounds lighter!

Look how tiny she is!!! 

And how did she do it?  She MOVED.  Okay, so she moved ALOT.  She conquered the Rock & Roll half marathon and beat her goal time at the bridge run.  She's an inspiration, for sure.

I mean, check out the before and after...

Shut up.  She's a bad ass.  Plain and simple.

I'd say this is definitely a case of running yer pants off. 

Hello size six!

So, um... what are you waiting for?  Lace up those sneakers and hit the road.  I'll see ya at next year's Bridge Run!

;)

 

 

 

Show and Tell!

I've been squeaking in a little time here and there to head up to the Penthouse and get some scrappin' done, but keep forgetting to take pics of the layouts.  But finally finally finally, I remembered to grab the stack while I was upstairs last night digging out Christmas ornaments, so I grabbed the camera and started snapping.

Let's see what we've got...

I love this one!  Of course, I'll probably get in trouble for posting it, but I couldn't stand not to.  It documents how Miss Priss and her friends have evolved from searching for seashells to hunting for hotties.  This past summer we ended up with a whole mess of teenage boys lurking around our condo.  It was pretty hilarious!

And this one makes me shudder at the thought of my child propelling herself down a soapy tarp while surrounded by drunken laughing adults in the middle of the night. 

And I can't remember if I posted this one or not... our freezing cold, rainy 5k at Tybee back in February.

Clean and simple... lots of rub-ons.

I've got a few more, but I'll save them for later.  I've gotta start cookin' dinner (spaghetti)... the manhunk will be home soon!

;)