Engagement, take two.

Today I wanted to repost an old entry because it tells the stories of one of the best days of my life. The day my boyfriend made it officially known to the world he wants to spend the rest of his life with me; it’s the day Davy proposed. I was laying in bed last night and for whatever reason started thinking about his proposal. I can honestly say it’s THE most creative, wonderful proposal of anyone I know. Warning, it’s lengthy, but it needs to be in order to tell the story in its entirety.


One Wednesday night after church I went to have coffee with my girlfriends. All three of my best friends Sarah, Melissa, Beth agreed to all come and hang out which I thought was wonderful because we never all got to hang out on a week night. So we get our drinks and sit down to talk and Anthony (Melissa’s husband) calls her and proceeds to tell her a radio station (one I don’t listen to) is doing their “around town scavenger hunt trivia game”. The game was simple: they say a riddle about a certain place in town over the radio and then the first person to crack the riddle and get to the location wins $5000 (in $1 bills) and 4 tickets to the “Walking with Dinosaurs” event that was coming to town. She starts telling us the riddle and something about Betton Road. Well conveniently the coffee pub is very close to Betton so we, well mostly me, starts freaking out and decides it’s a great idea for all of us to jump in the car and play the game. Competition, money, and dinosaur tickets are all right up my alley and so I’m immediately very into the game and very determined to win. Let me pause and say Melissa did such a good job playing along, the way she was talking to Anthony and acting so nervous and excited had me completely fooled.


The riddle has something to do with a bench, tree, swing and peddles. Our first thought is the park off Betton; we pull in and I’m demanding Beth to drive over here and shine her lights over there hoping we find a matching description. We see a bunch of rose bushes at one side of the park and take off that way on foot looking for the prize. At this point I’m yelling at Beth telling her to pull her car off the road and shine her lights at the flowers so we could see better but she was acting all dumb and wouldn’t do it because she knew what was coming. So here we are with cell phones in hand trying to light up the ground. We found a bench and feel under it trying to find some kind of clue. We’re are having no luck and I’m getting bummed because it all made sense that the prize would be here. So then the girls start asking if there are any more rose gardens around here and me, being angry at Beth and Sarah (for standing by the car and not really helping) starts getting frustrated because OF COURSE there are no other flowers in the park.


And then all of the sudden I remember my dad’s girlfriend lives off Spruce road which is off Betton road and right by her house is this beautiful rose garden. So I start freaking out thinking no one else listening to the radio would think of that garden and we all pile in the car to head that way. Emotions and excitement are peeking and Melissa starts saying comments like “we could really win this” and “this has to be it”. We pull up to the rose garden and I’m yelling to Beth to drive on the grass to shine better light on everything; she doesn’t claiming she doesn’t want to get in trouble! We end up parking and practically running over to this bench by the swing. We are feeling under it but nothing. Then I remember inside the rose garden is a tree with a bench built all the way around it. We all start creeping threw the rose bushes but the girls are so far behind me acting skittish. When I walk into the center of the garden I notice rose petals have been laid all over the bench and I make the comment “looks like someone just got engaged” but even at this point I’m still oblivious to what’s really going on.


Then out of nowhere lights turn on. Christmas lights were wrapped all through the tree and rose bushes and my first thought was WE WON. We had found the location and the prize was ours. In a sort of confusion we’re all just standing there and then this guy, all dressed up, comes walking down the pathway towards me. I thought this has to be the radio DJ because we just won. As he got closer I realized it was Davy. “Davy?” I asked in complete confusion. The thoughts going through my head were “why is he here, he’s supposed to be at work, did he already win?” then he walks up to me and as nervous as he could be dropped down to one knee! He nervously mumbled out all the sweet things he planned to say and asked if I would marry him!


At this point I was in total shock. Of course I said yes and tears were flowing with the best emotions I’ve ever felt. He was so nervous that he just handed me the open box with the ring in it and as we were hugging I whispered “can you put the ring on my finger?”.


Out from the bushes comes his best friend Joe, and Melissa’s husband Anthony. Then my sister and dad come walking over from across the street and by this point I was beaming with excitement putting together all the details it took to set this up including devised an entire plan to get me to the perfect engagement! How could someone love me so much to have thought about this for weeks and planned every detail to come out just perfect? I have the best fiancé and can’t wait to be his wife for the rest of our lives!

How to have a free weekend and catch Baby Rabies:

Being new to home improvements/ craft projects there are some things I’m learning along the way. The biggest one so far is paint brush vs. roller; who would have known a roller can cover a surface 5 times faster than a brush and yield 80% less frustration! Hand painting the edges and drawers were no big deal but when I tried to use a paint brush to cover a 5 foot surface it was dang near impossible; the primer was already drying in the time it took to cover the entire surface and when I went to do long stroke (to make it look pretty) it was pulling my dry paint up! For the next coat I tried out a small roller and oh.my.gosh, genius! I’m not kidding when I say what took two hours took me 20 minutes during round two! Now I just need to apply the paint color, let everything dry, and the biggest painting project will be complete!

This weekend was operation Don’t Spend Monday and we were (pretty much) successful. I would be ashamed to tell ya’ll about our 6 day eating out streak and the total cost of our stupidity; to make things right we immediately stopped spending money for a few days. The strike was poorly planned with the lack of food in our house so Friday night we had to make a small trip to Publix but the rest of the weekend we were spending free! We played at the house, went to the gym (free child care and guess pass thanks to Davy’s part time job), and spent time with our parents. It was definitely hard not to visit Chick Fil A, Target, or Starbucks but we need to start making better spending choices and if it means not stepping foot in Target then we have to do it! Moses had a blast in child care at the gym and we all left feeling good about our mid day exercise so it may become a regular weekend family outing.

I was worried about how I was going to get a gift for the birthday party we attended Sunday but I remembered I had a store credit to a Toy store (pure blessing is what that is) and took Moses (his first time in an actual “toy store” and not isle in Target) to picked out something special.

This may be semi creepster of me but I have to share a picture of the birthday girl. She is not only extremely welled behaved and “chill” but she is adorable and super petite and makes my heart go pitter patter. When she came out in her bathing suit it was one of those moments when you see a baby and your all the sudden figuring out the fastest way to make another baby (something people like to refer to as Baby Rabies) and oh my gosh I died inside and even start typing like a Valley girl because I get so excited about babies . I was standing right next to her Mom and Grandma trying to take a picture of this cuteness; yes, I’m that creepy lady at the party.

Yes, she is wearing a tiny weeny yellow polka dot bikini!

Who runs the world? Girls.

Girlfriends, gal-pals, besties, friends, best friends. Back in high school and beginning of college I had oodles of time to spend with friends; no real job, no real responsibilities, and not much going on besides homework and friends. Now that I’m getting older and have many more things on my plate keeping good girl friends is a lot harder! I need friends in my life that understand the importance of family, working, the responsibilities “real” life brings, and that I’m not readily available. I need friends who can go days, sometimes weeks without speaking to and then be able to catch up over coffee without explaining myself. I need friends who I can cry with, laugh with, and most importantly be myself around.

Thankfully, I have them. Even though it may not be a “posse” of girlfriends anymore it’s certainly more than one and I am so blessed to be able to say that.

My girlfriends love to eat and talk and watch stupid TV and exercise before ice cream and confide in each other and trash talk each other (in a good way) (ok you may need an explanation: “uh I hate how SHE has such great legs…her legs are perfect…she looks so good in those jeans…Hey ___ you look so good in those jeans!) and just be together.

Our collective favorite thing to eat is fruit with homemade orange-caramel dip and our favorite show was Grey’s Anatomy. We battle about this (and majority rules) but our favorite guilty pleasure books are the Twilight series and The Hunger Game series.

We can be serious, stupid, funny, loyal, and a good time. I am truly blessed to call these beautiful ladies my best friends.

Divorcing his free time.

Today is a very special day because as I write this Davy is sitting in college orientation! All his ducks are in a row and now all he has to do is sign up for classes and show up! I am so proud of him for taking his professional life to the next level and taking on such a big challenge.


Ever since high school Davy has worked for his parent’s business and went on to become certified and licensed in the industry. Eventually he took over running the business as his father become too ill to work and now he’s practically a one man show. He is great at what he does and enjoys his interaction with his business partners and their clients but in the long run this is not the career he wants for himself. As old as we seem to some of our single friends who go out drinking on a Tuesday night or stay up til 1am giggling or play Xbox til 3am or go to the beach on days they don’t have class we are still so young and have so much life to live; taking a few years to better our family is only one small step in the grand scheme of things. well unless the rapture happens in our lifetime and if that’s the case I’m totally okay with leaving Earth in this weird transition phase we are in to live eternally with the Lord

As far as the immediately future is concerned…he will continue to work full time, open the gym a couple mornings a week (he’s up and moving at 4:00am folks) to keep his free membership and bring home a little extra bacon, AND will take 3 or 4 classes a semester. He has no idea what he wants to do yet and that is a-ok with me; this first year will be full of the basics and discovering what classes put him to sleep and what classes has him researching for the fun of it.

I’m not going to lie…I’m anxious! Not anxious because life is going to fall apart, but anxious/excited for him to begin this venture and to see how our family life is readjusted to make time for school. I know what it’s like to work a full day and take two classes and be involved with family and it’s hard! I have no doubt that he can do whatever he puts his mind to; unlike many college freshman he isn’t going for the dorm life or because “it’s the next step after high school”…he’s there because he wants this!

Oh and THIS is the reason why the office needed to be cleaned out!

Mish. Mosh.

Last night’s projects were….just as wonderful as I imagined! I had big hopes for what we could accomplish in two hours and after we assessed the situation I may have been slightly overzealous. We decided to tackle the two smaller furniture pieces first and took our time doing a good job. I’m so happy how things turned out and how nice and crisp the black-now-white furniture looks. I turned our mud room into the craft space and will leave everything in their to dry for a couple days so I don’t ding up the 4 coats of paint before they are fully dry. I’m already thinking what I can do tonight in my 1.5 hour block of free time that doesn’t involve cleaning the house. I’m thinking sanding more furniture!

Moses has gone #2 in the potty two days in a row! TMI? I think not! He used to #2 all the time and never pee pee but now that we are seriously training he decided to get toilet shy with the poo poo which is delaying the official diaper-to-BigBoyUndies transition. The fact that he has (on his own) headed back to the bathroom to take care of business has been a joyous occasion in our house. We reward pee pee in the potty with 1 or 2 M&M’s but we stupidly made the mistake of telling him he could get a big treat for #2 in the potty. You can imagine my surprise when I walk into the living room yesterday morning and Moses is eating half a cupcake his Daddy gave him as a reward. We’ve got to figure out a new “big” treat that doesn’t involve 20g of sugar at 8am!

In case we’re not Facebook or Twitter friends I’ll share the picture that brightened my day late afternoon. To say my afternoon turned crappy is an understatement but unexpectedly leaving work early to get Moses from school turned my frown upside down. 

House love.

As you can see there is not much free time in my 24 hour day. The “Friends or Decompress” two hour block is an either/or situation and commonly includes folding laundry while watching TV. What’s not on the chart is the rest of the laundry, anything deeper than light cleaning, grocery shopping, exercising, and running errands. The biggest things that suffer are deep cleaning, organizing, and crafting. Even though I despise some of my house décor I’ve left it the same month after month because other priorities have taken precedence. Well…craft time has come!

It started with a much needed trip to the fabric store to find my inspiration for covering the couch pillows. After that is has played out into a full on redesign. After huge success with rearranging our living room a few weeks ago (even Davy’s bachelor friends complimented how much more “homey” it felt) I’m feeling invincible with other projects. Tonight one of my best friends (and DIY lover) is coming over to start sanding, priming, and painting the next phase of the makeover with me. I honestly have never been so excited to watch piece by piece of a project come together. When it comes down to it I already own a lot of the staple pieces needed to make a house feel like a home; now they just need to be painted, covered, or re purposed to become my vision. Seeing my daily time allowance please be patient with before and after photos because it may take weeks before there is a final photo to show!

Don't Blink

It seems like just yesterday...

Time flies so fast I might just have to cry about it!

My nephew Camden started kindergarten today and it's one of those moments I need to squeeze Moses as hard as I can in hopes he never grows up.