11.30.2011

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Hey y'all!  Hope everyone is having a good week, it's hump day!  Hump day means that it is Wednesday and it's time to link up with Jamie and think about things that make us  HAPPY!


- I'm loving that my husband and I survived our long distance relationship and we are now living happily ever after in the SAME city.  I can't tell you how good that feels after having to drive two hours to see each other for our entire dating relationship.  Not to mention the fact that I was working night shift so we were seperated by distance and schedule constantly.  It was hard.  Worth it?  Absolutely.  But boy was it hard.  I would find myself picking fights and getting irritated with Baron the night before we had to leave each other just because I was upset that we were going to be seperated.  It wasn't fair to him and I still struggle with how I act whenever Baron has to travel.

Baron's had to leave for work more frequently than either of us had thought going in to this.  It's been hard and it takes me back to the time when we were dating and couldn't be together.  Sometimes it's harder than others.  I think right now, while we're still new to the area and I don't have a real support system here, it's going to be the hardest.  It just feels so lonely sometimes.  I really wish there was another word for "lonely".  I just hate to use lonely because I really am happily married and happy that we are here in Alabama,  together.  I think this move will make our marriage stronger because we have to depend on one another and only one another initially.




- I'm loving that I'm back on track with Weight Watchers this week.  I gained a little bit when I weighed in right after Thanksgiving but I figured that would happen.  I didn't try to stay on track while we were at the cabin in Georgia (which is probably not the right attitude to have) but I have to do what's best for my long term success.  I'm okay with losing slowly and looking at the big picture because if I stayed 100% on plan all the time I think I'd lose weight quickly, but I know that I would'nt be able to do it for long and would probably gain all my weight back in a flash.  So yeah, after paying the piper at my weigh in on Monday, I'm happy to be back on track!


Floss your teeth, kiss your husbands, tell your friends how important they are-
Later Taters!


11.29.2011

First Alabama Snow!

Y'all, it's SNOWING!! I've been on "Snow Watch" since last night.  The forecasts were calling for snow starting at about 8pm, I stayed up til 1 with no snow sightings and woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6:30 to peek out my window.  Imagine my despair when I saw just a bunch of rain and wet grass.  How disappointing!

I wrangled up the dogs and as soon as I stepped outside, the snow starting falling!  It was beautiful!  I haven't seen actively falling snow in years and I was just like a kid in a candy shop watching it fall around me.  Unfortunately it wasn't enough to get any pictures but I'm so excited to have some snow white days in our future!  Couldn't stay out long though because I'd get pneumonia.

Oh wait. I already have it! Ha!  Baron and I finally went to the doc last week and he thinks we both had pneumonia.  Sent us to get chest xrays and we got some antibiotics and are feeling SO much better now.  I can't wait to be 100% again, it feels like it's been a month!

11.28.2011

Thanksgiving in Georgia

This year for Thanksgiving we drove down to Blue Ridge, Georgia and met both sets of our parents for a weekend in the mountains.  We stayed in a fabulous cabin on a beautiful lake that had tons of room for all six of us and our four dogs (my mom's dogsitter flaked out at the last minute).  It was hectic and fun!! 


Let me introduce you to Duncan and Cooper, my parent's dogs.  Duncan is a five year old Labradoodle and might possibly have been oxygen deprived at birth.  Cooper is a three year old Boston Terrier with an attitude.  His hobbies include winning lots of blue ribbons at agility competitions and growling at people.



We thought that the cabin would be a ton of fun in the summertime too! There was a boat dock and swimming deck attached to the house (well about a gazillion stairs down from the house).


My Dad was just in heaven.  You see, he really loves Boston Terriers, or as he calls them, BT's.  I got Macey and at one point my Dad called me and asked if I would ever consider giving Macey to them.  When I said NO, they got their own BT a week later.  That's Cooper!


My Mom's Birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year!  We had Pecan Pie instead of a traditional birthday cake, we brought all the stuff to bake her a cake but after seeing 6 pies in the fridge we vetoed that idea.  Maybe next year you'll get a cake Mom!




It was so nice to have time to see both of our families without making a whirlwind trip of it.  We played several rounds of Catchphrase, drank some wine, watched some football, and pigged out!


My Dad was begging for a picture of all the "BT's" and this is the best I could come up with for him. My Mom-in-law took a bunch so hopefully there's one I can frame for my Dad.  He's a little strange, what can I say?



My sweet little boy did great on the trip, took him a day or two to master all the stairs and he even scaled the mountain a time or two.  He loved running around with all the big dogs and both my pups were pooped when we got home.  Macey loved getting to see all the Grand-paw-rents (I crack myself up) and got lots of cookies.

In other news:
The forecast is calling for it to snow tonight. ACK! I have enough food to last a few days and am planning on staying inside as much as possible.  I have no clue how to drive in the snow!!  I bought the dogs some jackets because they start shivering like crazy when we go outside...this should be interesting!!!

11.18.2011

Every Day is a New Obsession

Seriously y'all.  About every 3 days I think of something new to obsess about over our new house.  First it was bonus room upstairs or not.  Next was tile or hardwood in the kitchen.  For the past few days my new obsession has been paint colors.

And FYI we decided on the bonus room upstairs and continuous hardwoods everywhere except the bedrooms.

Onto paint colors.  Here's the deal.  We are allowed to choose three paints colors total for our house.  I kinda wish that would've said just one because lord knows I can't make a decision to save my life.  So we're thinking of choosing a neutral beige-ish color for everywhere except our master bedroom and dining room.  We figure down the road we can paint the bedrooms/bathroom/office easily enough.  The master bedroom and dining room both have these beautiful pain in the butt to paint tray ceilings in them that I would hate to have to repaint any time soon.  Let me see if I can find a picture:





Ok, so you get the idea about the trey ceilings in the dining and master bedroom, right?!  I guess we could paint it at some point but I'm not really thinking that's gonna be a fun task.  Sooooo, that's why it's so important to choose a great (neutral) color for now!

Here's some colors that have been on my mind:


Behr: Anonymous


Martha Stewart: Gray Squirrel


Behr: Mocha Accent


Behr: Porpoise

I always thought I would have a red dining room but after watching a bazillion epidsodes of House Hunters it seems like red might be not as in as it used to be.  I know, I know, we should choose what we like but it's so hard.  I've seen lots of grey inspired rooms on Pinterest and I really love the look of black and white and grey with a POP of color.  Who knows, I may revert back to red when it comes to decision time!

I'm kind of leaning towards "Mocha Accent" for our bedroom, it looks like a warmer grey color and I think it is a good mix of girly and masculine.

If we choose one of the more traditional grey (lighter) colors we may paint one of the bedrooms grey and use it for a nursery at some point.

Now for the rest of the house...

We're looking for a warm, neutral, beige/taupey color for all of the house.  More brown undertones than pink or yellow.  Does that make sense??

I'm kind of at a loss for this.  I'm hoping that we can just choose the same paint color that the model home was done in because I'm overwhelmed about how to choose the perfect neutral beige color for our entire house!

Any thoughts? Any terrific paint colors that I should take a look at?  I'd like to steer clear of blues, greens, and purples but other than that I'm game!





11.17.2011

Share Your World Thursday

Time to link up with Jessica and play

1. Did you have a favorite blanket or toy as a kid? If so, do you still have it??
"White Bear" was my favorite stuffed animal that I loved dearly.  Unfortunately we lost White Bear when we moved when I was three years old.  Or at least that's what my parents told me.  I may never know ;)  They tried to replace him but couldn't, it was heartbreaking.
2. I love it when my _______ does ________.
I love it when my husband comes home with flowers and a Sonic Diet Cherry Coke!  Yesterday Baron came home with flowers and a freezing cold diet coke and I was in heaven. Swoooooooon!
 
 
3. You're at a ball park. You have $5 in your pocket. You order...
Um, I haven't been to the ballpark in a while, lol! Do they have fountain Diet Cokes? What about pretzels and cotton candy?  Okay, then I'm set!
4. If you could have any celebrities 'voice' as the voice on your GPS, who would it be?
Carrie Underwood. Duh. And we would sing beautiful duets all the time.
 
5. Are you a messy sleeper or a neat sleeper?
I've always described myself as an aggressive sleeper.  I don't hold still at all, I always lose socks and blankets and get all tied up in the sheets. I'm not the kind of person who wakes up in the same position that I went to sleep in. 

11.16.2011

WILW


Well it's Wednesday already, time to link up with Jamie to discuss all the things that bring us smiles on this rainy Wednesday!

First of all let me give y'all a fair warning.  The plague has hit our house.  Baron and I have been sick for almost two weeks now on and off.  I keep thinking we're getting better but we've progressed to the coughing stage of the game.  Baron's is worse at night when he's trying to sleep and mine is terrible when I first wake up in the morning.  My poor hubby didn't get a wink of sleep last night.  Every time he'd been quiet for long enough for me to think he'd fallen asleep he'd start hacking up a storm again.  After I fell asleep it seemed like I'd wake up every 20 minutes hearing Baron cough or coughing myself. 

This is our first round of us both being sick since we got married.  It's not really that much fun!  I'm by far the worst patient.  Baron complained one time that he wasn't feeling well TWO weeks ago and hasn't said another word about it unless I ask him.  Me?? Well I've been complaining about it since I got sick. Wah, wah, wah!

Okay onto to brighter topics:

- I'm loving that we picked out our brick color for our house!  We were instructed to drive through another neighborhood that was built in it's entirety by our builder and choose three different brick colors that we liked.  These are our choices (I don't know who these houses belong to, but there's no identifying road signs so I think we're legal, right?! Ha!)

Brick Color #1- We really loved this color since the first time we saw it.  It's not too red, but it still looks like a traditional brick color.  We like it with the dark colored roof and beige windows.  When given the choice between white or beige windows we thought immediately that we would choose white but after seeing the white up close, it was a little too white.






Brick Color #2- We liked this one but think it would look great with a
darker roof and the same beige trim and windows.






Brick Color #3- We also felt this one would like nice with a darker roof and beige windows and trim.  The difference between brick colors #2 and #3 is hardly noticeable so it might be a coin toss if our first choice isn't available.



- I'm loving that Thanksgiving is right around the corner!  We're doing Thanksgiving with my parents and Baron's parents.  I can't wait to see everyone and have a few days of fun together.

- I'm loving that our Christmas cards came in already.  I'm trying to wait to start writing them but I may not be able to much longer...I just love Christmas!!

- I'm loving my hardworking husband.  He's had to be at work at six o'clock every morning this week and is running on little sleep.  Hopefully this weekend is full of sleeping in and relaxing!  I sure do <3 him!


11.14.2011

Monday Already?!

This weekend seemed to fly by for us!! We spent a lot of time discussing options for our new house and driving around looking at brick colors.  I think we've decided on a color for our brick, shingles, and all the trim!

On Saturday after watching the Gators lose (boo!) we jumped into the car to go take some Christmas pictures.  Lemme tell ya, a self timer, high winds, and Baron and I being the subjects just really isn't pretty. I think we got one or two useable pictures from the dozens we took. Here's a hint:


I think we picked a good day to go take our pictures because all the fields around us were being harvested, and the field we took our pictures in was being harvested while we were there.  Don't worry, the giant tractor was cropped out.




After our quick photoshoot, we headed home to get ready to go watch the Huntsville Havoc play some minor league hockey.  I don't know a dadgum thing about hockey but Baron used to play a lot so he 'splained it to me.  I'll break it down for you.

- There are 2 blue lines on the field, the players can't cross the line unless the ball puck crosses it first.
- They also can't just fling the puck down the field willy nilly.  If they do, and the other team gets it first then they have to have a faceoff right next to their own goal.
- The plexiglass around the ice is breakable.  Yeah a huge chunk got broken and flung into the crowd during the game.
- They're fights build up like a buncha middle school girls.  Seriously. 

At one point I was all, "What's going on?" because the game stopped and everybody just stood around and looked at each other.  Then Baron says, "I don't know, but there's about to be a fight."  And I'm all, "How do you know?!" and then after what seemed like five minutes, the players took off their gloves and asked their friends to hold their earrings, the fists started flying!  That excitement didn't last long, and there was no visible blood so that was kind of a bummer.  Oh well, they have a lot of home games this season so maybe we'll go back for some Jerry Springer-esque drama!

Happy Monday y'all!







11.10.2011

Accepted!

Our offer was accepted this morning! Let the fun begin!


I went straight to the "Depot" to get Baron a shovel :)

Two Post Thursday!

Linking up for Share Your World Thursday.  That's right folks, two posts in one day!

1. What style do you tend to lean towards when decorating your home?
I'm not sure yet!! If you read my last post you know that we just put an offer in to build our first home, I can't wait to start decorating!!  I usually lean towards warmer colors, love to accent with red, and can't wait to have real living room furniture!
2. I never leave the house without...
my phone and chapstick
3. I love to pamper myself by...
Mostly pedicures, I just love them!  I could go for an hour long massage too!

House!

At 6 o'clock yesterday evening Baron and I signed a contract and put in an offer to build our first home!  We are so excited and trying to wait patiently to hear if our offer was accepted.  We should know something by noon today!

I don't have a ton of details to share at the moment other than we are trying to narrow down ideas for paint colors, cabinet colors, etc.  All of our decisions about things like that should be made before we break ground.  The lot is in the same neighborhood as mentioned in this post.  It is the same size and located near the back of the neighborhood on a road that shouldn't be a high traffic area.  Will will have neighbors behind us at somepoint, but luckily the houses aren't squared up directly behind one another so we won't be able to see what they're having for dinner every night.

The neighborhood is beautiful!  There is a huge lake very close by that has walking trails and bridges across the lake that I can't wait to take the dogs and future kids too!  It's in a great location (takes Baron about 15 minutes to get to work) and it's kind of off the beaten path, but within 5-10 minutes of "town".  We are just so excited!  We actually drove through the neighborhood back in April when we first came to Alabama to look for an apartment.  I specifically remember driving past the lake and through the neighborhood and we both commented that we'd love to live there one day.  Ahhh, here we are!

Side Note:  There is a man in his (I would guess) eighties who sits on his apartment balcony for most of the day just looking around.  Most of the time he's shirtless, haha!  He always says hello and ends of talking for a while so sometimes I try to avoid him if I'm in a hurry.  He lives with his son and daughter-in-law (I assume).
So yesterday when we pulled up to the model home in our new neighborhood, I saw a man and women that looked familiar but I couldn't place them.  While we were filling out paperwork, the builder's realtor said that someone else from our apartments just bought the model home!  Right then it clicked who they were!  The realtor said that they bought the model home because it had a front porch for their Dad to sit on.  We'll drive by that house every day! Thought it was kind of neat! 

Will post pictures of the building process along the way and more details later.  But we are so blessed and will be able to stay in this home for a long time. Plenty of room for kids and people to come and visit us!

11.09.2011

Exciting News...Tomorrow!

There's something exciting happening to the two of us this afternoon! Can't wait to share some details tomorrow!

Nothing to do with a baby or moving back to Florida...but we are SO excited!!

11.07.2011

The Five Love Languages


Have y'all read this book?  I'm in the middle of it now and it's an interesting read.  The book is basically outlining five different ways that people feel loved:

1) Words of Affirmation
2) Quality Time
3) Receiving Gifts
4) Acts of Service
5) Physical Touch

The concept is that a lot of times we may feel love a certain way (words of affirmation, for example) and so it feels natural for us to "speak" this same language when we are showing love to our spouse.  The problem comes when our spouse speaks a different language (acts of service, for example).  So even though we feel like we are showing love towards our spouse, they aren't really hearing what we're saying.

The author encourages us all to learn what our love language is and that of our spouse.  He says that it is difficult to learn to speak another love language, but if we can it will really help to boost the love that our spouse feels.  Now who doesn't want to do that?!

I can understand what the author is saying and how it become a problem, but what I can't figure out is what my language is!!  I even took this quiz- What's Your Love Language?.  I struggled through the questions and each scenario was hard to compare, in the end it said my language was "Receiving Gifts" but it only won by 1 point compared to the other languages.  Hmmm?

What's your love language?

11.03.2011

Share Your World & Bummer


Happy Thursday everybody!  I'm participating in another blogger link-up in hopes to get some inspiration for things to write about.  We shall see!!

Go back five years, would you have pictured your life as it is now or would it have been different?  If so, how or why?

Five years ago I had just turned 21 and was in my 4th and next to last semester of nursing school.  I was so wrapped up in school and thinking about where I would work that the whole marriage and babies thing seemed like something from the distant future.  I never would've imagined that I would meet my husband through a friend who I kind of had an on again/off again relationship with, get married 1 year and 8 months later and then move to Alabama!!  But here we are and I wouldn't change anything about it.  

 In a perfect world with no attachments, my career would be...

Absolutely no attachments?  I would be a mom.  I've always wanted to be a mom and can't wait for that day, but we want to wait a few years before bringing a Brekke or Baron Jr. into the world.  We ideally would like to be in a house and get to spend some time with just the two of us before we rock our world with a screaming infant at 2am, 3:30am, and 6am every. single. day.   But with that said, if my husband told me he wanted to have a baby now I'd be on board :)

Name one thing you do {or don't do} that the 
world may think strange of you. 

I know that I'm a strange person but I'm having trouble coming up with something. Hmmmm.... My husband thinks it's weird that I dip my grilled cheese in apple sauce.   I don't really care for aquariums, so might think that's strange.  I used to be terrified to even go into one, I'm getting much better, but they still make me a little jittery.


Bummer of a Lot Update:
So yesterday I posted that we were going to meet with our Buyer's Agent and discuss holding a lot that we loved.  Well....yesterday afternoon I got a call from the realtor that works for the builder who told me that they had sold that lot earlier this week!  We were very upset because Nicole, our Buyer's Agent had spoken with the builder on Tuesday and was told that no one had significant interest in that lot and that we could hold it.  Apparently the communication between the builder and the realty company that represents the builder sucks.  So it's a done deal and there's nothing we can do unless the couple who purchased the lot has some problem with their financing, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I don't want to say that we are heartbroken, just upset.  It's the last lot in that neighborhood that we would want to be on so that means we kind of have to start all over again.  I know that we'll find something that we love and that will suit us perfectly, it's just upsetting right now.  We're meeting Nicole to look at some more houses on Saturday so hopefully we'll get excited again soon.

11.02.2011

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

Already Wednesday again and time to link up with Jaime and talk about all the things we're loving this Wednesday!

- I'm loving that I got back on track with Weight Watchers this past week and lost 3 pounds! Woohoo!

- I'm loving that I thought of a great idea for a place to take our Christmas card picture this year, now granted it'll be done with a tripod and a self timer so it won't be anything outta a magazine but I'm a little excited about the backdrop :)
I know you're jealous. Ha!
- I'm loving that talking to my best friends on the phone makes me feel like I never even left Florida but it makes me miss them a little more too :-/

- I'm loving that we're meeting with our Buyer's Agent this afternoon to see a lot that we've had our eye on.  Supposedly we can reserve the lot for some amount of money which might help us figure out exactly what we want to do.  I'm so excited!  We've been to visit the lot more times than I can count and it already feels like home.  Ahhhhhhh.

- I'm loving my sweet family :)
Da boyz

and da gurlz
- I'm loving that I've been successful with Weight Watchers and that I'm needing to buy some new clothes and I'm not loving it at the same time.  I'm not good at putting outfits together and I really don't enjoy shopping like I used to when I was younger.  The other thing is that I have some more weight that I'd like to lose so I don't want to stock my closet now and then have to buy more in a few more months.  Hummmph.  My mom told me that she never liked shopping and I always looked at her like she had 3 heads but I'm kind of understanding her now.  I guess eventually I'll have to give in but I'm gonna push it to the limit.  Hopefully I don't drop my drawers in the middle of Target.

I wish you all non-flat Diet Cokes and hair full of volume! Happy Wednesday!