Oh, what a night...

Let me preface this by saying that I have the utter most respect for law enforcement officers.  They put their lives on the line everyday to protect people that don't appreciate it, feel inconvenienced, bemoan, and disobey them (kind of like those in the military).  They have hard jobs that take them away from their families at all hours of the day.  I can only imagine what that's like.  People can be so rude to civil servants, and it's disgusting.  That being said... I hate it when they get a chip on their shoulder and feel like they can just be rude to everyone!  We've run in to that a few times at traffic stops, and then again last night... And here we begin our story...

Granny finally got her money from the V.A., so she bought us a new dishwasher, since we'd sold ours when we moved in to take care of them.  We went to Lowe's Sunday before last to order it.  It was supposed to come in to the Lowe's store this coming Monday and then be delivered to us on Tuesday.  I happened to realize after a week of waiting impatiently, that on the receipt it told you how you could track your order, so everyday this week I kept looking it up to see if it had come in early, and Jackpot!! yesterday it said "Delivered."  I called the store to see if they would be delivering it earlier than scheduled since it came to the store earlier, or if I could come and get it if they were still planning to deliver on Tuesday.  They said that the earliest that they could deliver it would be Sunday, at which point I told him "I'll see you tonight!!" (I was a little excited if you can't tell :D)

We got there at about 6:40... Nigel was asleep, so I ran in and Nic was going to stay in the van with the boy and wait for me to tell him where to pull around.  I told the lady at the check-out what I was there for and she called back to the place that you call back to to get your special order stuff (like I know what that place is called), and told me to pull around to the exit and he would be out in a few minutes.  25 minutes later, after a host of Lowe's employees kept gathering in the exit and looking out at us, and a police officer had already taken one man away in handcuffs, another police officer came and banged on the window with his flashlight (and this guy just looked like he had an attitude in general) "What are y'all doing here?  You need to move!  You're blocking everything!!" "We're picking up a dishwasher and she told us to wait here."  "Well, who is she?! You're blocking everything."  "I don't know her name, but she's right in there."  He finally started to come down off of it at this point, "Well, I'm gonna move my car, and you can pull up there so you're not blocking everything."  I don't get it!  Why on earth do you have to start out with an attitude?  Who does that help?  All he had to do was tap on the window, "Hey folks, what's going on here?"  "We're waiting on a dishwasher and she told us to park here."  "Well, this is kind of blocking everything, I'm going to move my car, and if you wouldn't mind pulling right on up there, that'd be great."  And that could have been the end of it.  Manners, people!  We did eventually get out dishwasher, though, so all is well...

Then... We went over to Wal-mart to get some dishwasher tabs, and a few other things like the basket for bottle parts (Hallelujah! I don't have to wash those blasted things by hand anymore!).  On the shelf below the bottles was an open, empty, but still bloody and icky meat tray... Someone had stolen the meat!!! What in the round world?!  Then we went to the toy section for Nic to scope out what he wanted to spend his birthday money on... Yes, he knows that he's 34 and doesn't care! :)  You know the Lego minigures?  Well they come out with a new series of them every once in a while and you can buy them idividually to collect... Scattered throughout the toy sections were 6 opened, and emptied packages of the minifigures!  Somebody had stolen Lego pieces!  Apparently, thievery was running amuck in the Wal-mart last night! 

Then... We'd finished checking out and telling the cashier about all of the stolen stuff (especially the meat tray so that somebody could go and clean that up), and the power blinked... In Wal-mart!! I thought that Wal-mart was impervious to that kind of thing... Like the White House!  They came back up, but all of the registers had restarted... I felt bad for the people with big hauls that were halfway through, and had to be re-rung.

Have you ever imagined what it would be like in the parking lot of Wal-mart if none of the lights in the parking lot were working?  Apparently, the parking lot lights are on something different than the store, because while the lights in the store came back on, the parking lot was pitch black!  It was eery!  I felt like I was in the Walking Dead, or at least I'm sure I would have if we'd bothered to watch past the first episode.  It just felt very deserted and creapy!  I was very glad that we were parked right up front and didn't have to walk to the back 40 of the lot!

Anywho... We made it home, safe and sound, after the raging cop, slow Lowe's guy, Wal-mart crime sprees, and what I'm sure the apocolypse would feel like in the parking lot of Wal-mart.  I now have a shiny new dishwasher taking up residence in my kitchen! 

I think that I might run another load of dishes tonight... Just because I can :)

Cougar Town

I'm thinking about re-naming my blog "Cougar Town."  The problem is, that you have to watch Cougar Town to understand the joke there... For those that don't get it:

When the T.V. show Cougar Town first aired, it was a show about a woman,

Courtney Cox, who was just turning 40 and dating a man that was in his

early 20's (Vince from What I Like About You).  There was another

lady in the show that was a competing realtor that was probably in her 50's

that was also dating much younger guys (funny thing is that the actress that played

that character was also in What I Like About You).  Well, about 4 episodes in to the first

season, Courtney Cox and Vince (I don't remember the characters name, so we'll call him

by the name that I do know) broke up and she began dating men her own age.  She is

now engaged to her neighbor who is also in his 40's.  The show is now in its 3rd season, so

she hasn't been a cougar for 2 1/2 seasons, and the other lady hasn't been in the show for a LONG

time.

So the show REALLY doesn't match its name anymore... The funny thing is, they've started making fun of it themselves.  Here's a link to a sight that has "The Best of..." Cougar Town's self-depricating title cards:  http://www.buzzfeed.com/jpmoore/the-best-of-cougar-towns-self-deprecating-title-c.  We make sure to pause the DVR every week so we can read what the title card says.

I've said all that to say:  Look at the title of my blog.  I haven't posted anything about anything homemade in months!  If I was witty, I would make up title cards to go with my blogs about how they're no longer about homemade stuff... But i'm not... So I won't...

And the broken record plays again...

So, I'm suddenly back on a Nora Roberts kick (don't judge me, Alicia and I used to trade her books back and forth all through high school), and I'm reading the first in the Bride Quartet series.  I'm not too terribly far into it, but it's all about these 4 friends who own and run a wedding venue business thing.  There's the photographer, the food girl, the florist/decorator, and the planner/keep everything together-er.  And reading this book, while sitting inside a building with no windows on a beautiful spring day just makes me keep screaming in my head that I'm wasting my life...

I LOVE to do ALL of those things.  I may not be a great photographer, yet, but I enjoy it.  I'm big into the crafty, decoraty stuff.  I love planning things.  And for Pete's sake (whoever the junk Pete is) I went to school to do the baking/food stuff!  But instead, I'm stuck here.  Now don't get me wrong, there are upsides to this job.  It's easy.  It pays money (not good money, but I guess any money is good money).  And if I need of in a moments notice to take Nigel to the doctor, they don't even bat an eye at it. 

Yes, I do feel so much better emotionally and whatnot after my spur of the moment stay-at-home vacation last week, but overall I'm still not where I want to be in my life.  There are so many things that I'd rather do!  So many places I'd rather be.  So many other pieces of paper that I'd rather stare at all day, than this stinkin manilla colored application...

I just feel like my talents are being wasted.
And yes, I would like some cheese with this whine :)

Spring Fever

Spring is in the air, and I've got the fever!  I am just in a cooking, cleaning, organizing, declutering, crafting, making my life better all around mood and I'm loving it!  I was feeling pretty down, and gloomy, and just plain grouchy, and then Ms. Brenda gave me an idea.  Last Tuesday we were talking about how terribly awful my house was and how I didn't have the time (er, make the time) or energy (yes, I know that it's because I'm just plain lazy) to do anything about it.  Ms. Brenda said that when her house would get that way she used to just take a few days off of work and do something about it.  Genius!!  I took off Thursday and Friday of last week and did just that!  It was so wonderful!  I'm usually already off on Wednesdays anyways, so I had a 5 day weekend, and it was just what the doctor ordered! 

Wednesday morning we spent the morning all of us together and Nic and I started on the living room... The main thing that we did was to pull the couch out and really clean under and behind it.  I'm ashamed at how much that was needed.  Funny part is that our couch is sunfaded on the back from being in front of the window :)  Then that afternoon while Nic went to school/work Nigel and I ran some errands... I don't know what it is about running errands just Nigel and I that makes me feel like the stay at home mom that I so long to be... I know that it's weird, but it just does.  All of my stay at home mom friends are always talking about all of the things that they do with their children and all of the errands they run and rooms that they clean and I just envy them so! 

Thursday, Nic and I had a date day.  I know that one of my biggest complaints is that I feel like I don't get to spend enough time with Nigel, but I need more time with Nic, too.  So much of the time I feel like we're just "Mommy and Daddy" and we've lost "Nic and Liz", so it was wonderful to have a day of just that.  We didn't even go out there for lunch, we just went to Bernie's and enjoyed each others company.  We spent the morning reorganizing and cleaning the living room... I swear we're going to wear out my poor vacuum cleaner before we're done!! Then we went to lunch, came home and spent some more time together, then took a trip to Walmart... Just the 2 of us!!  I'd forgotten how much easier that is :)  Now don't get me wrong, I love Nigel more than life itself, but I really and truly thoroughly enjoyed the time just the two of us.  We need to do that far more often.  We never really had to WORK at our relationship before Nigel, and now that he's here, we're having to do more work, but it is well worth it.  If we can't be a good Nic and Liz then we can't be a good Mommy and Daddy.  Plus, it made it that much sweeter to go pick up our little one that evening, and spend the evening with him. 

Friday, we didn't get as much done, but we sure did have fun.  I had to deliver a Scentsy order to Miranda who works at Protective Life Insurance up at Brookwood, so we all loaded up in my car and headed up there.  Well, while we were in the area we HAD to go to the new Toys R Us in the Summit!  We needed to exchange some screen protectors for Nic's DSi XL, so while we were there we might as well look around a little bit.  We spent and hour and a half in that store!!!  My goodness!  But we had fun, and got some things that we needed.  I feel like for his entire life (you know the past 10 months) that I have been perpetually behind in sock sizes for Nigel.  I'll get bigger socks, and they're already too small!  Frustrating!  They were having a sale on socks and so I finally got some that really and truly do fit him... Thank goodness!  We also got him a new pair of brown shoes, since he'd grown out of his boots :( And had some fun taking pictures of him in hats and sunglasses :)

Friday evening Nic went with Josh to see Star Wars Ep. 1 in 3D... Again... And Nigel and I were going to have an evening just the 2 of us, but Mom and Granny ended up coming over for dinner... But we sure did like the White Chicken Enchilladas that I got the recipe for off of pinterest :)

Saturday was a day filled with my new hobbies!  A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to be a photographer, but I didn't know if I was any good because I primarily take pictures of Nigel and ANYBODY could take good pictures of that cutie, so I had to talk someone else in to letting me take pictures of them.  My step-sister, Katie, is knocked up, so I talked her into letting me take her maternity photos :)  I think they turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.  They're no Bethany Odom photos, but I think they're pretty good... I would like a better camera, though (the one that I have that was a birthday present from Nic a few years ago is great, but I would prefer one with manual focus... If anyone was wondering what to get me when they win the lottery :D ).

Here's just a preview of them and the rest can be found on my facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150734676110799.457621.512730798&type=1&l=97ee556242

 

 

 

 Miranda has agreed to let me take her and Danny's engagement pictures... eventually :) 

 

After Katie and Baby Abby's photoshoot, we loaded up the car and drove to Rainbow... City that is :)  Alright, enough with the random Beverly Hillbillies humor... For Bekah's Scentsy party... My very first in home party.  I think that it went pretty well, and we definitely enjoyed getting to hang out with Blake, Rebekah, and Baby David for the afternoon :)

 

 

Last night I must have been bitten by the fever bug again, because I had to make myself go to bed shortly after midnight because I was reorganizing our bedroom and didn't want to stop! 

 

We've been doing really well following our meal plan.  I still haven't filled out past March, but I know that I'll get to it.  We're enjoying eating at home more, and given that we live in the sticks, not only is it saving us money, but it's actually giving us more time in the evenings, because we're not having to drive somewhere!  And we're enjoying all of the new recipes that I've collected from Pinterest and the Girls Night Out that I went to at the end of February!

 

I had an absolutely wonderful weekend, and feel so wonderful and refreshed.  I feel like my old self again.  I'm tired of being the bitter, angry, cranky person that I allowed myself to become over the last several months, and am enjoying the return of Liz, and the "spring" that I've got back in my step.