Oops.

I should have included this in the last post but here is what our living room looks like now :-)

I'll let you know how it looks come July!

Watering my own grass.

My friend Raven is getting married in a few weeks and I'm so excited for her.
She was such a loyal and loving friend through college. There were some pretty complicated times for me and when other people were turning their backs on me, Raven was always and honest and reliable friend. I can't wait to see her marry long time beau, John, in June.

Recently Raven posted a little something to her Facebook:

"If the grass looks greener on the other side,
water your own grass."

I think this is wonderful. The root of this quote is NOT about keeping up with the Jones' or constantly trying to compete with your friends. It is simply about focusing more on your own self improvement and enhancing your own life for your self and others you love and not worrying about the other "grass."

This quote spoke to me because I have been catching myself overly green with envy in recent weeks...it's an embarrassing story (or couple of stories) so I won't share but I will say that instead of being ugly and jealous, I have opted to water my own grass :-)
I've already shared that Coach and I live in a shoebox. It's a comfortable, almost stylish shoebox, but a shoebox no less. I have had the same decor in the living room for 3 years and most of it was collected through 2nd hand means. This is who I am- a collector or eclectic items I love. And garage sale-ing was SO fun for me. BUT! I am a grown up now, with a real job and soon I will have a husband. This means I'm old- I think it's time to redecorate. It's time for new items, a new look. I love my shoebox and I love its feel but rather than longing for a big place that we don't need, I'm going to spend my summer redecorating!
Here are a few photos of living rooms I'm in love with! What do you think?
Some of the items in this room look similar to our current LR. The standing lamp stand, the couch and a few chairs filling the room. I also really like the multi art on the wall and the pattern on the rug!


This room is fabulous! I love the color and the how warm it feels and I really love that it's small like our LR!

I love the cool blue colors in this room. I have neutral couches so I think that azure blue might be perfect at our place!

Love & Peace!

KITTY BONANA!

(Papparazzi! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!)

(What is this music we're listening to??)
(Do you see that bug down there? I'm going to need to stalk it and smash it with my paw.)
(What are these "snow days" you speak of?)

(Oh, this is nice- yes I like snow days)

(This bag was for me right?)

(So thiiiis is why you sleep up here!!)

(...aaaaand now I'm blind.)

(Good night Blog-sphere, I'm worn out.)

If you have met me you know that I am OBSESSSSSSSED with my cat, Jeremiah.

So! In honor of my friday night at home with the kitty-monster I give you....

Captions by Kitty!

Love & Peace.

Let them eat cake!

I have given over the responsibility of choosing a Wedding cake to my Mother.

I trust her- I love her taste- I think she'll give it just the time it needs to chose a GREAT cake.

BUT I'm still looking at cakes, like these...

Which one do you like the best?

Love and PEACE!

I'm sorry, did you say 300 people?!?!?

We really do hope that our wedding is this much fun, however....

Coach and I were out of school yesterday because it was Election Day and as in most places our public schools are used as polling places.

This was an excellent opportunity for some Professional Developement and some R & R. We had a nice day together. To end the night we started creating our WEDDING GUEST LIST. Coach comes from a REALLY REALLY BIG family. His Dad is 1 of 10 children and his mother is 1 of 8. The man has 65+ FIRST cousins.

I don't have a tiny family but it doesn't compare to the Coach. I expected our list to be around 225 and I expected between 190 and 200 people to attend....Boy was I wrong.

Our list is at 300...300!!!

We're still 13 months out, I know that we'll need to add a few people between now and then so the number will only go UP! I know that as you're reading this that your reaction is to tell me to simply cut my guest list. Believe me, I thought of this myself. However, 182 of our guests are Coach's (close) family! 80 of the guests are my close family and my parents friends and the remaining 40-ish guests are a combination of our bridal party & their dates, a FEW of our mutual college friends & their dates and a FEW of our professional collegues. We are not inviting my entire sorority- in fact I'm only inviting about 6 girls from college (with dates, that's 12.) Coach is not inviting every guy from his flag football team, in fact he's only inviting 2 of them and 1 of them is in our bridal party....

Look, we love our family, and we love our friends, I am not trying to complain about that I am simply sharing my SHOCK and my embarrassing inability to estimate!

300 people???? Holy crap.

Love and Peace!

Diamonds, Darlings & Derby.

There are so many things I haven't posted about so I've decided to condense 3 into 1!

Have I told you how much I LOVE my engagement ring? I mean really really LOVE it.
I have not posted ANY pictures of my ring on Facebook because I have 1,500 "friends" only about 30 of whom are my actual friends. So not only do I believe that diamond ring FB posts are NOT obligatory, I believe that they are also tacky. However, considering the only readers of my blog are my BFF's, family (who have already seen my ring in person) & my followers who I have never actually met, I will this ONE TIME post a photo of my lovely little engagement ring :-)

In other news, I have really superb friends. I mean truly stellar. They have come to recognize and appreciate my absolute OBSESSION with my own birthday. This very self-absorbed interest is one of my very, very worst qualities and yet they love me not only in spite of it but also because of it. And for that, I love them more than they could ever know.

Last and definitely NOT least would be some photos from our sweet little Derby party in Lexington! Staci (my KD big sister) and her Husband, Clint, were kind enough to open their home to us all for a little college BFF reunion. Look at my cute Coach with his cigar on Derby Day!
It was so much fun to drink Lillies and eat Bourbon balls with 3 of my dear sweet friends and their men.

Sara, Diane, Staci & Me. (Please pardon my porker physique, I'm working on that!)

LOVE & PEACE

Wish List.

My birthday is Friday, and just like every other year, I am BURSTING with excitement.

Birthday's are so great- you get calls from all the people you love and you can eat anything you want.
The years post grad have been really great. At WKU my birthday ALWAYS fell in the middle of finals week so if I wasn't taking a MATH final on my birthday, I was studying for one- yuck. And now that college is over, I can enjoy a week with NO studying and NO tests.

As a child my parents did a GREAT job with birthdays. On my 9th birthday I had a softball game but 5 of my friends got to come along, have dinner with my family, and then come back to the house for a sleepover. My birthday party in 7th grade was pretty fun too, it had a Hawaiian theme and I remember lots of swimming in my parents pool. My 18th birthday was a DREAM. I was getting ready to move away to college and so I had 10 of my closest life long friends for a tea party at the Tampa Palms Country Club. Last year for 23, Coach and I went on our first couples vacation with my best friend and her husband, who we absolutely LOVE. We spent a couple of low key, super fun days in Clearwater- it was a blast.

(The BFF/my big sister in KD & her cute hubs)
But by far, the best birthday was 21. My Dad was coming up to take me to the Derby with my Sister and my Best Friend (Same BF mentioned above just pre-marriage). I had a dress and a hat and I got to go to Derby for the first time ever. I can remember the entire day like it just happened. (My sister, Me, and Staci at Derby!)

(My sweet Dad with his daughters.)
This year our plans are pretty simple but really good :-) Coach got me a MASSAGE! I mean, hello?? BEST GIFT EVER! I'm taking half of a personal day on Friday so that I can experience my brithday AWAY from a classroom full of kids. Then for dinner we're going to Mariah's because my favorite thing on the planet is Shrimp and Grits from that fabulous place. And then 2 of my favorite people from School and my best friend from college and their men are meeting us for drinks at 44o later that night! I am so excited I can hardly stand it.
To wrap things up I thought I would share a little birthday wish list with you all:

1. PEACE in the middle east and all around the world.

2. Wisdom for our nation's leaders.

3. Sunshine and NO flooding in SOKY.
4. Good teaching jobs for the coach and me in the fall (LOTS of budget cuts this year.)
5. As much time with my family as possible.
6. Effortless wedding planning.

7. Health and Happiness for EVERYONE.

Love and Peace.

My Opinion.

I know I know, it's like a bellybutton- we all have them... (That's the G rated version.)

Be here is my opinion (I'm in a bad mood- readers beware) :

1. Wedding dress shopping is hard if you are any larger than a size 6...maybe 8 on a good day.
2. Still on the subjects of weddings- there can never be enough coverage of Princess/Duchess/Lady Catherine a.k.a Kate Middleton's fashion choices. She inspires me to take spinning, eat more salad and dress better, even when I'm going to the store.
3. School should have ended this past Friday. No one wants to go back tomorrow, the kids are ready for Summer, I am ready for summer and state testing makes us all very tired.
4. Beds should make themselves.
5. Weekends should be longer.

I'm really not in a completely foul mood however, as the weekend draws to a close I feel more and more disgruntled.

Love & Peace.
I'll be happier tomorrow, promise.