Truth in Advertising

I have colored my hair a million and one times both at home and in the salon, every color imaginable from highlights to all over color... saying that I have found the most wonderful hair color ever! I had some really bad hair going recently since we have moved. I haven't had time or the courage to find a hair salon. I really miss Robert at Richard's Style Studio!

At home hair color in general has always been a tricky, messy and smelly experience for me. This new haircolor was so easy, start to finish it took 20 minutes tops. It comes with a comb applicator that helps you to coat every strand. It also has some salon smelling conditioner to put on afterwards. I am so happy with the result... golden medium brown that really is the right color. Most hair dyes are too dark and look normal after a week of washing. This one was perfect day one!

I love when a good product comes along that makes life easier....

Coming Soon....

It is late and I have made a great dent in catching up the blog. I know all of our fans out there have been dying of anticipation...ha! I literally have 100's of pics of Celeste's wedding, bridesmaid brunch, reception etc. I am tired and will leave a preview. It was beautiful and wonderful. We had such a great time with both our big italian families....

The Cousins

Brett and Jim in their "hater blockers" ( yes that is a tie around Brett's head)

I'm sure it will be another few weeks until I update. Nothing exciting planned for the next two weeks. We are home!! After being gone every weekend we are looking forward to it. Next weekend will be both our 28th birthdays...woohoo!

The Office/Weekend in Jackson

I have so many pics and so much going on I am trying to seperate it out instead of doing one super long post. Our office is a shopping center that is under construction. I am so worried that it is not going to be completed in time. The contractor has reassured me that it will. They seem to always be a few days behind whatever task they tell me will be coming soon. I have some pics of the progress. My interior is framed! Exciting! It is unbelievable to me how small 1200 sq ft feels. I guess it is just the long and skinny shape of it...

It is kind of hard to tell what things are but I am sure it will be beautiful! I picked out the paint colors today and they are doing stained concrete for the flooring. I had my final evaluation last week. I sweated it out in a boardroom for 3 hours! They loved my ideas for the office and my business plan in general. It is unbelievable how much I have learned, grown and changed this year! I am super pumped in case I have not said that enough by now!!

The weekend after Nashville we went to Jackson for Father's Day to see Brett's dad. Friday, we stayed with some friends from college, Brooks and Amy Taylor. They have a 6 month old , Briggs. He was a sweetie! Over dinner, we found out that Brooks is an AVID rock band player. Brett only thought he was into the game. Brooks has formed a "band" complete with doo rags, tshirts, armbands and their own website! They have nick names and competed in a "rock off" at Buffalo Wild Wings... seriously! I have never laughed so hard in my life!! He tried to play it cool but eventually whipped out his gear and showed us the website... have a look. Our buddy "swamp donkey" is the lead singer :)

http://www.3bwbd.com/

The band name is 3 bottles of wine and a bad decision. Apparently they had a few drinks and decided to buy the game and got addicted. Brett had the honor of "jamming" with them that night. I am still in stitches just thinking about the whole thing!

Here is the little man...I couldn't catch him laughing but you can see his sweet little face in this one:

The fun continues...

We have literally been on the road every weekend for the last 5 weeks! The weekend after Celeste's bach party we had Paige and Eric's. The girls went to the Opryland hotel in Nashville and the guys went to Biloxi for deep sea fishing. These pics look pretty crazy but it was a very classy weekend overall. We ate delicious meals, layed by the pool and shopped. We cut loose Saturday with a list of "activities" and pictures to be taken with randoms that met certain special criteria... try explaining why your friend needs to take a pic with you without giving away that you qualify as "bad plastic surgery lady"!

I made cups on a whim the night before we left. Brett had some of his guys drive over to Bham so they could all ride together. While they were playing rock band they decided I needed to make Eric one as well. They made him drink all of his drinks from it :)

One good thing, I got to wear the outfit I bought for Celeste's weekend on Friday night. Saturday we went to a very cool club at the hotel that had just opened that night. It was packed and they let us sit in the VIP lounge to celebrate and helped us to complete our "list"

The pic below is a "walking tree" that was in the atrium of the hotel. It was sort of freaky. She was on stilts and would walk and pose then lay against something and completely blend in.

It was a fun weekend. We cannot wait for the wedding! Paige and Eric met at our crawfish boil last year....awwwww :) Plus they picked a great weekend. It is July 12th and ours is the 13th :)

Beach Week

A few weeks ago, Brett and I embarked on "fake-cation". If you say it quickly it sounds like vacation but it is in fact a fake vacation. We have been such workaholics that we aren't taking a trip this year. We did get a chance to go down to the coast to meet with agents and work then drove down to Gulf Shores one night for seafood and putt-putt. We made it over to Foley on Friday for some really great shopping. We got a ton of deals on suits and work clothes plus a few fun things. We stayed with his sister Amber Friday and went for more seafood on the beach...

Saturday, I left Brett with the fam and went over to Biloxi for my cousin Celeste's bachelorette party. Her friends did an awesome job! The Hard Rock hotel was fabulous and modern. They rented a special "deck" to lay by the pool and made wedding cake martinis. I had a great afternoon by the pool but... Unfortunately, sun and drinks don't mix well for this girl. I didnt make it out that night. I did have a partner in misery that felt as badly as I did....major lesson learned! I didn't make it into any of the cute pics and crawled in bed fully dressed to go out... not a good evening. Brett said I sent him 1 million texts that said need u so much. I alternated between that and miserable.. you get the idea... The only pic on my camera was this random ...

A belated welcome to Baby Alex...and Ritt..

Like always, I have been busy and a very bad blogger! We have so many photos and stuff that we have been to that I am overwhelmed and keep putting it off. To procrastinate, I thought I would post the birth announcements of Alex I made a few weeks ago. Congrats to Chris and Cynthia!!

It seems as if everyone is marrying or having babies these past few months. Trey and Marti welcomed baby Ritt last week. I have not gotten to see him so no pics :( Congrats Rittenhouse's!

Class of 98

This has been a great week. I got all of my employees enrollment paperwork submitted and can relax a little for the weekend. My parents came to see our house this week and brought Brett a Wii. He is a gamer for sure and loved it! We have been playing each other in tennis for the past few days. It has been hilarious. There is a "fit test" and it grades your skill level in each sport to give you a "Wii age", Unfortunately my age is 50! Brett has gotten down to 30... It is very addictive!

This weekend we went home for my 10 year reunion. We didn't get away until Saturday and the 5 hour drive was long! We stopped in Merigold and picked up some new pieces... It was really wonderful, he has so many new and different things out. Tons of animal pieces and lots of different color patterns. I got the new delta fields vase see above... so cute! I am easing into the green patterns. I have always been a nutmeg fan but when he started putting a green edge on the nutmeg, it made it easier to mix and match. I also got Paige and Eric a wedding gift.

We went to Hopson that night. Out of our class of 48 people, only about half came. We had a great time. We had catfish and danced the night away. I am sure my classmates were surprised, I was pretty reserved in high school but breaking it down last night!

"The old crew"
I dug out some old pics from high school to post under this pic but I am too lazy to scan them in. I will do it tomorrow and post some embarrassing ones... thank God and Stacie Gravlee for hair straighteners!! There is a definite shift in my pictures...before hair straightener and after!

It was a fun night with a lot of stories and nostalgia! I will post some old high school pics once I get them scanned in. The only positive is that I was so skinny in them! Even being skinny can't overcome the bad hair and hideous clothes...stay tuned!

The days of our lives...

Ok, I lied! I said I would keep up with the blog but I have not. We are busy as usual. Brett and I held formal interviews Friday and hired one employee! We are still interviewing and considering a second. We also have a part time bilingual employee...exciting! We have been trying to sneak in some discover Bham time but haven't gotten much done other than restaurants. Brett passed his life and health licensing exam Thursday so we tried a place called Fire. It was pretty dissapointing. After dinner we walked past a cute ice cream shop called Clumpie's. It was amazing! Best ice cream I have had in a very long time. After the stress of interviews Friday we had a really good dinner at Plaza III. It felt sort of like a chain but had a great steak regardless. We have visited 4 of the restaurants on our "list"... we are planning on trying Bright Star this week. We should probably cut out the fine dining but it is the only time we get to really chill and talk and not think about work. I will admit, I have been pretty much consumed 24/7 with State Farm. It is amazing that plans are finally becoming reality!

Last weekend we went to my cousin Claire's pinning ceremony for nursing school. She is finally done with all the hectic craziness that is nursing school!! Yay Claire!!

I like the above pic, I played with the settings on my camera and accidentally got this effect..




We went to dinner after and bought Claire a shot to celebrate. My aunt, obviously had never seen someone take a shot and exclaimed, why would you do that?! when Claire took it. We ordered her one and chanted until she finally took it to avoid dying of embarrassment.

After dinner, we went out with Claire and Jim...not much to get into so we drove out to the Bourbon mall and had a great time (and apparently took pics with the band)

We went to Pickwick on Sunday for mothers day and hung out at my parents new house. It is really cute! I am so proud of them, they are learning to decorate and doing a good job. I had pics but can't get them to upload.


This morning I pulled out the sewing machine and made some decorative towels. The pics do not do them justice, they are really cute! I have a cheap Walmart shower curtain in the guest bath, it looks nicer than Walmart though. I couldn't find any towels or things to match so I made two hand towels for the jack and jill baths and 2 for the towel bar from another shower curtain. In these pics, they look puke orange but in reality they are more of a rust color...

I had material left over so I ripped apart the couch pillows that were hideously modern and replaced the fronts, it took forever but was turned out cute. Once we really have things decorated, I will take some pics of the house. We have 3 or 4 rooms fully done but still have a lot left to completing the rest of the house.

Pretty boring stuff... but I was so proud of my sewing skills! I have been meaning to write a real blog. The other day I about went insane calling ATT with their automated menus that make it impossible to reach a live person. I almost blogged about how funny it is that a recording can make a perfectly sane person lose it. Well, as exciting as that would have been , you have all been spared... until next time!

Catch up

I started this blog about 3-4 weeks ago and have never had time to finish it...Bham is fabulous! I have been driving 2.5-3 hours a day to go work in an agent's office as part of my internship. That means leaving early and getting home late! I haven't had much time for anything but it all ends tomorrow :) After that I am setting up shop and soooo excited that the time has finally come!

We have been so busy and I am so behind so I just uploaded the camera. I guess anything that was important enough to capture on film will do..

Backing up 6-7 weeks ago...

We ran around like crazy the week we left Southaven to eat at our favorite places and see friends. The night we closed on the old house we went to Rendevous and had drinks at the Peabody lobby. Pure Memphis experiences...

Two days later (also the day of the move) we got 5 inches of snow..amazingly no ice! It was gorgeous but the movers didn't like it. I think they fell a lot which made me nervous. Luckily they only broke one item..our bed, but they got it fixed before they delivered it.

The packing process... so strange to see your house empty

I get housekeeper of the year! We moved a bookcase and found 5+ years of dust on a vent...i was so grossed out...how do you clean so hard all those years and have something so nasty lurking behind your furniture??

The next day, Saturday, we were officially homeless. We "camped" out the previous night at our house after the movers had taken all of the furniture. We thought it would be really cool. We made a huge pallet in the living room and lit the fire place. Instead of a romantic evening the fireplace gave out gas fumes and the pallet was comparable to sleeping on a piece of plywood. I felt bad, Brett spent like 20 minutes lighting it while I took a bath. We sat in front of it for a few minutes until I felt like it was making me high and asked him to cut it off :)

Heath and Robert had their crawfish boil Saturday despite the snow. It was fun... we ate with Eric and Paige at Bangkok Alley that night and crashed at "the cabin"

Sunday morning, I got to eat with the girls one last time. We had brunch at the Chop House. I am going to miss having so many fun girls to hang out with!!

I flew back to Atlanta for my last week that Sunday. Our very last night of classtime in Atlanta, we went out to celebrate....

After that week, we moved in! We love the new house. It is so cute and nice. Brett has a "man room" upstairs that he could probably live in and never come out of if he really wanted. He has his big screen tv, a bar, fridge, sectional and bathroom up there. We got walkie talkies so we could talk when one of us is downstairs..ha! My living room is tv-less which Brett thinks is absolutely ridiculous and I love! Men and their tvs...

I snapped some pics of our ridiculous piles of garbage after we unpacked. Thanks to Brett's dad and Gail our house was in order in no time. There is still a TON of decorating that needs to be done but it is really shaping up. Praise the Lord for Mrs. Rebecca! All of our old curtains were sewn correctly and I was able to rip out the 8 inches of folded hem and rehem them all to be long enough for this house.

I took the week after the move off work to run around and buy stuff and get settled. I made Brett go to a store in the ghetto that we had heard about to find a rug for the living room. It was worth it. We got a really pretty rug for a great price! There was a billboard with a syphyllis outbreak warning right before we got to the store so he made jokes all day about it. I love my rug, even if we did almost risk our lives to get it...

Thus far, we love our neighborhood and all that we have seen in Bham. We haven't had time for much exploring but we have been to the Galleria, the Summit, and an outlet mall in Bessemer. Our first Sunday, Easter Sunday, Julie and Seth took us to a church that was so huge it had 4 Starbucks inside! We made a new restaurant list.. in Memphis we had a "wish list" of nice restaurants that we wanted to try, so we made a new one for here. We tried one place, it was casual but very cool. It was called the Lakeview Oyster House. It was over by UAB and felt sort of like midtown in Memphis. There are tons left... I think our next one may be the Wine Loft downtown...looks very urban..

Two weekends ago we went to Pensacola to visit the fam for Amber's birthday. We cheesed it up and went bowling...It was a fun weekend. I helped Amber sew some things for her house and we got to catch up a bit.

I am sure there are tons of things I could go on about but it is getting late and I have to be up early in the morning... My field development has been awesome. My agent is great. I have learned a ton and made friends with the girls in the office. I made everyone stationery last night as a happie for helping me learn so much. I have been recruiting HEAVILY for employees and not gotten a lot of good applicants. After much discussion, Brett and I decided to work together. It seems scary but we are going to make such a good team!! I am excited. We went to a networking thing tonight for the Chamber of Commerce. It is really fun to have the support and help of your spouse when you are pouring your whole self into something. I don't know how else to explain it, but I am totally in love with State Farm. I mean I have fallen...hook, line and sinker, I have drank the koolaid! It is such a wonderful company and opening an agency really has turned our lives upside down in so many wonderful ways. It is the best (and most challenging) thing that has ever happened to me! I can't wait to open up! This has been a long but good process. There are so many things you have to think about and plan for.... I will update the blog a lot more often now that I got the daunting task of catching up behind me..goodnight

Home Sweet Home

We bought a house today! It was a model home on a corner lot. We spent all day Friday and Saturday searching and fell in love with a neighborhood called Ballantrae. There are houses of every level here , a golf course/c;ubhouse and community pool. It is very woodsy with views over the mountain. Very different from the endless flat land we are used to :) We were exhausted and about to give up when we went in this last house. After debating different options all day, we knew that this was exactly what we wanted. We were convinced that we wanted a split foyer with a basement/media room, but at the end of the day we got a one level! I took a ton of pics but I am too tired to upload them so I grabbed some off of the web. The kitchen is beautiful! It is very open with a hearth room and built in desk then opens to a cozy living room. The master is big with a nice bath. The guest rooms have a jack and jill bathroom and one room has a window seat. Perfect for a nursery one day! There is a bonus room upstairs so Brett gets his "man room" There are hardwood floors and tile through most of the house. It was perfect! We are so tired but happy. We close on the old house Wednesday and the new one next week. It has been crazy!

SOLD!!

SERIOUSLY! The first person to look with a realtor made a fabulous offer! The only catch...we have to be out next week!! Talk about crazy..more to details to come!

(See Sunday's post, little St. Joseph was doing his job! I would highly reccomend burying one if you are selling. I may sound like a crazy lady but I said my verse of the day was a sign on Sunday.. God has been opening doors throughout this entire process. I really feel like I am on a path that I am supposed to be on :)

Premonition

We have 2 realtors showing the house today! I am so excited! We have had a lot of activity and phone calls the past two weeks but no one that has been really serious. One of the realtors has someone that is ready to buy and they were outbid on the last house they put an offer on. Hopefully today is our day! I checked our blog this morning and my favorite verse is the verse of the day today! If you read way earlier posts you would see that this verse keeps popping up in my life when I need some comfort or reassurance. It is pretty comforting:

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

I know God knows the desires of our heart. So, I am taking this as a sign that our house is going to sell today :) I will keep you posted!

Busy Times

I have been really bad at keeping up with the blog. It has been a quick 5 weeks home for field development so I figured I would just give a quick rundown of the highlights...

Valentines Day....

was great! Brett thinks it is a commercialized excuse to make people spend money but he also knows how much I love sweet and cheesy things so we indulged despite. Brett cooked filets, shrimp and of course my fave, mashed potatoes. We had a quiet dinner at home after a fun day together. We have never gotten to spend the whole day together on Vday so we made the most of it and had a day of shopping and a matinee. We swapped goodies and Brett topped off dinner with a fruit and cheese plate of baked brie for dessert. I was so impressed I snapped a pic!

This week we spent a few days househunting in Bham. We found a few neighborhoods we liked but are still confused as to where we want to call home. I had a meeting with my bosses and am in the process of working on my lease for the office! I am excited about setting up shop. It is finally getting here..

This neighborhood had cute houses with tons of upgrades and the prices were low. None of them have sold so we are wondering what's the catch with these?

Our trip to Birmingham also happened to coincide with the birth of our new little cousin. Brett's cousin Julie had her second child on Sunday. Baby no name as he has affectionately been called has now become Wyatt Seth Carney..What a cutie!

Babies seem to be everywhere these days! We have several pregnant friends right now. Nikki, who I used to work with at Nationwide ( see previous posts for her baby shower pics) had baby Greene about 6 weeks ago. I got to eat lunch with them this week. He was such a precious little chunk! I love chubby babies, they don't seem so fragile. He was able to hold his head up which made me ok with holding him.

In other exciting news, I chopped my hair Thursday and dyed it darker. I took a pic of Katie Holmes/Cruise . It is not exact but I really like it~

I wonder if I have a short neck, my looks longer in the pic but in reality the back is about an inch long...that is a big change for me! I am always scared to go short, although color has never bothered me. I have some very bland brown for my natural color so I am always highlighting or going darker. I really like dark for now. We take our pics for advertising, billboards and mailers etc. next week in training. Hopefully they will turn out! I thought shorter hair may look more professional.

Happy Friday...headed back to Atlanta Sunday!