Wall Collage

Out friend gave this awesome wall collage set for Christmas & I finally got around to hanging it yesterday. The only reason it took me so long is because I didn't have any pictures for it. I still don't have pictures for it, but until I do, the random white & hispanic family in the photos will have to do! ha!

I don't know where he bought it from, but I have to say whoever decided to put in the "map" with the grid marks on exactly where to put the nails, was a GENIUS! This was SO helpful!

Fool Proof!

 And voila! 

Random white & hispanic family hanging in our hallway!

 We plan to fill it with pictures from our Hawaiian Vacay! 

So until October, these people will be on our wall.

 Loves it!

Liebster Award Part 2

I'm officially back. I took a little blog break after my friend's husband died. I just literally talked to her, and it's still so sad. One of her boys asked, "Were we not good enough?" Ughh, breaks my heart. I just constantly pray for her & the boys to find peace and strength. I can't imagine the pain & loss.

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So one of blog besties, Jamie from Life in a Southern Town, re-tagged me for the Liebster Award last weekend! This is how it works:

The Liebster Award is given to up and coming bloggers with less than 200 followers. "Liebster" is German and means "beloved", "dearest", and "sweetheart".  

How it works:

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves.

2. Answer the questions the tagger set and create 11 questions for bloggers you tag.

3. Choose up to 11 bloggers and tag them.

4. Go to their page and tell them.

5. Don't tag the person who tagged you

 

Here are Jamie's Questions:

1. What are your five favorite things about where you live? What are your five least favorite things?

I wouldn't call this place a favorite even though I've been here my entire life. I like that most of my friends & family are here. I do like the weather for the most part, we rarely if ever have any terribly bad weather, or I should say any violent acts of mother nature- no tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, etc. The cost of living isn't bad. My least favorite things would be: no jobs. I have one, but I'm ready for a change and I've been looking for 4 years and I can't find anything. Nothing to do, other than eat. I'm not a clubber anymore so that doesn't appeal to me. The racism is crazy. It's not blatant, but everyday when I read the local news website I read the comments and I hate how everyone makes everything about race instead of about the person.

2. If you could go back in time and be any age again, what age would you choose and why?
 I would choose 26, back in 2004. Why? Because instead of spendig X-thousand dollars on a wedding, I would take all that money and buy as many shares of google as possible. That's when their shares went public @ $85 per share. I'd be a rich bitch right now! lol!

3. If you had to spend a day doing volunteer work, what charity would you choose and why?
I'd pick either a homeless shelter or animal shelter. In this great country of ours, with it's millions of rich people, I can't for the life of me understand how we can let any American be homeless and hungry.  I'm not saying we need to buy them all homes, but damn. When the CEO of Oracle can buy a Hawaiian island for $500 million, I think that he could also spare a few dollars and buy a damn trailer park for the homeless so we don't have VETERANS sleeping on the street. (Can you tell this subject gets me irate?) 

4. If you had unlimited financial resources, what one store would you choose for a shopping spree?
Now this is hard. I'd probably START with Christian Louboutin and buy a shitload of red bottoms. LOL!This is my "when I hit the mega millions" pair that I want. They're about $6k. (Of course, this is after I help the homeless people!)

 5. Do you have any tattoos? If yes, tell me about them.
Yes I have 5. My first tattoo is on my back right shoulder blade of mickey mouse and my name. I loved MM as a kid. My second tattoo is a Chinese character on my left ankle that says "good & beautiful." It probably means fat ankles though, who knows, Ha! A group of friends & I all got this on our ankles together. My third tattoo is a butterfly on my left shoulder. I loved it for years, but now I want it removed. I wear a lot of sleeveless dresses and shirts so it's not so cute anymore imo. My 4th tattoo is on my back and it says "bella donna", Italian for beautiful woman. My 5th tattoo is the hubby's initials, KL, behind my ear. That one hurt like a mofo. I felt like I was getting a tattoo on my skull.

 I need to get this retouched. Now that I see it in a picture, it looks faded!

 6. What is your biggest vice?

Definitely cigarettes. Bad habit I picked up as a teen. 

 

7. What are your three favorite daily blog reads?

I like so many, but 3 that I check daily would be Jasmine Star's photography blog. Her photography is amazing and she writes so well!  Hostess with the Mostess is another favorite. I get a lot of great ideas & inspiration from here. And Better After is amazing! I love seeing amazing before & after pictures!

8. If you have a significant other, how did you meet him/her? If you're single, what's the most interesting way you've ever met someone you've dated?

Through mutual friends. His childhood friend was dating my childhood friend.  And when they got married, he was the best man and I was the moh. Now, 10 years later, they're divorced and we're married! lol!

9. Tell me about the most memorable vacation you've ever taken.

Our honeymoon in Italy was the best! It was our first time there, we didn't speak a lick of Italian, and we had a blast. We started in Venice for 5 days. It was gorgeous! We then traveled by train to Florence. While in Florence we also visited San Marino & Pisa. From Florence we traveled by train to Rome. We spent our last week here and of course went to Vatican City as well. We met so many nice people, ate some fabulous food, saw a lot of beautiful churches and buildings, and did a lot of picture taking! 

10. Post three pictures and explain why you picked them to post.

This is a pre-par-tay pic of me & some friends on my 30th birthday. I should say this is "pre-glam." We bbq'd at a friend's house and then a party bus came & picked up me & 34 friends and we partied that night away in Atlanta.

This pic cracks me up. It's me dolled up for our annual company Christmas party. My forehead looks huge and make-up is a tad on the drag queen side.

Me & my brother in Tampa a few years back. My hair was super red and I loved it!

 

11. What is your dream job? If you're working your dream job, why is it your dream?

My dream job would be anything that makes me happy. It's hard to find a job that makes you truly happy!  I'd love to be a professional writer, or fashion designer, or activist for the homeless/animals, actress, social media guru, etc.

Maxi Dresses

During the hot months I live in maxi dresses! 

I have a favorite boutique that I get mine from in Warm Springs, GA called 

the Dressing Room.

Most of these dresses range from $9.99-$24.99.

Can't beat those prices, huh?

I've been stocking up on maxi dresses so I can have plenty for Hawaii.

By the time October rolls around, there won't be any more in the stores so I'm trying to get as many as possible. The hard part is trying not to wear them now, so that I don't get tired of them by October.

These are all "one size fits most".

My mom is a tiny size 8 and I typically wear a XL or 1X and they all fit both of us!

Here's 5 dresses I recently picked up:

 This one was $15.99

$15.99

$24.99

$9.99

$9.99

Magic Mike Review

I left work early Friday just to go see Magic Mike.

The theater was PACKED full of women.

Not.a.single.man! lol!

Other than Channing Tatum & Matthew McCnaughey...

the movie SUCKED.

 The acting was so bad, I actually took TWO light naps.

The story line was so corny and obvious.

The lead female actress (I don't even know her name) was horrid!

I don't know who the hell picked her or why they did, but watching her act was torture.

Maybe if they had picked a more known & experienced actress, I would have felt the connection between Channing & the chick and it wouldn't have been so bad.

In summary:

Channing can dance his ass off!

I would have liked to see him in person, Ha!

And Matthew was lookin amazin of course.

And I could have done without everyone else in the movie.

I definitely feel there wasn't enough dancing and not enough Magic Mike.

So 5 stars to Channing & Matthew.

And -10 stars for the rest of the movie.

Paid in Full!

We made our last payment on the hubby's truck this week! I can't tell you how relieved I am to be done with that car payment. Now we have 4 more years to go on mine, booooo!

We also finally paid off our cruise to Hawaii!

 I am so excited!

We booked a luau already too for our visit to Kauai.

We decided on the Smith's Family Garden Luau. 

I read some good reviews so I hope it's as good as

 everyone says it is. 

 I'm trying to find things for us to do on each island, but everything is so expensive in Hawaii.

I expected it to be high, but good lawd, it's reeeally high.

 We've looked at helicopter rides, tubing, horse back riding, massages, golf, volcano tours, etc.

There is so much we want to do, especially since Hawaii is not an everyday or even an every year vacation. It may be the only time we go so we're prepared to spend some serious dough so we can get it all in. We may have to forgo food for a few months! I kid, I kid! (No seriously, we may have to!) lol!

Anywho, I promise to get better at taking more personal pics and sharing things. 

I used to be so good at this, but I swear once you do it for a living, you learn how to put the camera down. Which is terrible because I've missed a lot of good memories.

Oh and I am aware that my blog is super jacked up. 

I tried to change the template and it's all screwy. 

You may see various changes in the next few days.

Ciao!

Wordless Wednesday

Weekend Recap

I just hate when the weekend ends. Can't we just have Friday-Sunday on repeat?

Friday night hubby & I typically go to this local BBQ place. Friday night they have a turkey & dressing special that we love. I think we're the youngest people that go because all the other patrons are 50+! But we don't care, the food is good & who says you can only eat turkey & dressing on Thanksgiving?

However this Friday we decided to meet up with another couple for dinner & drinks at TGIF. Do yall have any friends who are ALWAYS late. OMG its SO annoying. We were all supposed to meet up at 9, we knew they'd be late so we got there at about 9:15.  We got the table, ordered drinks & an appetizer.  At about 9:45, they STILL weren't there! So we told the waiter we'd give them til 10 and then we'd order. At about 9:55 our friend Solomon came in & said Lisa was still in the car priming. At about 10:10 she still hadn't made it in! Apparently her shoes were in the trunk & he had the keys. LOL! We finally got to order at about 10:15. I told them next time we go out with them, we'll show up AFTER they have the table.

Saturday I pretty much lounged during the day. Our friend David came down from Atlanta to give some of us a presentation about this company called ACN. They basically have a partnership with various cable, cell phone, & home security providers. If you switch (say from direct tv to dish tv) via ACN, you can save money. The other side of it is, if you want to work for ACN, and switch people's services over, you can earn a commission of up to 10% per month. ACN was actually featured on the Apprentice, endorsed by Donald Trump, & is on the cover of Success magazine this month! It was interesting and one of our friend's signed up to work for ACN.

After that meeting we had game night. Playing Scattergories can get heated with our friends. We didn't realize how fun it was. Everyone was seriously fighting & defending their answers, ha!

Sunday the hubby & I took a road trip to Warm Springs, GA. There is a little boutique there sells the best max dresses all for under $25.  Then we headed back & had lunch at Cheddar's. And finally went to my mom's for a bit. And of course Sunday night we always tune in True Blood! I love that show! Do any of watch it?