Awkward Turtle

Okay, so I have recently gained the nickname "Awkward Turtle" at my office. Every year we have inter-office Olympics (which my company has dubbed the "Olimpics" because we are all such amazing athletes). My department has t-shirts made every year that have our nicknames on the back of them. This year I was "Awkward Turtle." Not the most intimidating name, I know. But it can be pretty accurate. In order to make my blog entry today reads like a high school paper I give you the Urban Dictionary definitely of Awkward Turtle:

 

 So, I have been a fan of the awkward turtle hand gesture for a while and I do it quite often - mostly because I put myself in awkward situations almost every day. 

All this build up brings me to the point of today's post - to show what an awkward turtle I really am through the use of photographic evidence. No one can say that I don't have a sense of humor about my awkwardness. Also, for the record, these are all photos that are on Facebook that I have NOT untagged of myself (and which I found in the span of about five minutes). One can only imagine what photos are out there that I actually deemed too awkward to be on my page...

PHOTO FROM THE OLIMPICS THIS YEAR

AND I'M LIVING UP TO THE NICKNAME

I STARTED YOUNG...

THESE THREE ARE STELLAR

I WAS COLD!!!

WHAT DO YOU WANT?! - THESE THREE SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES...

So, happy Thursday! And here's to not taking yourself too seriously!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

 
1. Pandora Radio on my phone - How Great Thou Art station. Pandora is an amazing invention. I love that you can mark songs that you like and that you don't like and so the stations you create continue to evolve. I have some random stations - Defying Gravity, which plays Glee songs, Broadway songs and the occasional Disney song; Circus, which plays current hits mostly; Battlefield, which plays girlie anthem kind of songs; and How Great Thou Art, which plays Christian songs. Right now I am really loving being able to listen to all sorts of good for your soul music all day while I'm at work. 

2. Google Reader - Okay, I started a Google Reader account a couple weeks ago and it is AMAZING. Basically, you subscribe to whatever blogs you follow regularly and it keeps them all in one place. So, when I log on it shows me all the blogs that have recent posts and I can scroll through and read them all at once. It's a great tool for the avid blog stalker and really easy to use - especially if you already have a Gmail account. Some of the blogs that I subscribe to (read: stalk) are... Boonies, Sugar Savvy, Ornamental Habit and Truthful Conversations.

3. Spending this last summer week with Will. I am enjoying every minute that I still have with Will in town this summer. We are going to Little Rock on Sunday for the Fourth and when I come home on Wednesday I will be coming home alone. :-( Will is working at a firm in Little Rock for six weeks and I will still be in Nashville since I have to work, too. I am not looking forward to him being gone so I am definitely (this week) loving that he's still here.

4. We're going to U2 on Saturday! I am loving that Will and I always have something fun to look forward to and right now it's the concert we're going to on Saturday night - U2!! Cannot wait. I know that one day down the road this one will be a "Memory Monday." 

Happy Wednesday!!

Memory Monday

What's in a number? Today's memory may seem a little odd... but I'm going to write "in memory" of my Arkansas cell phone number. Will and I switched cell phone carriers yesterday (AT&T can eat my dust - that's what you get for not giving me service on I-40, one of the busiest stretches of interstate in the country and I can't get a lousy two bars of "Edge" service? Yeah, see ya). We talked about it and decided that since we were switching to Verizon now was as good a time as any to also switch to the 615 Nashville area code. I don't mind saying that this was HARD for me. I was basically twitching in the Verizon store. So, here's to you 501-425-3777. Thanks for all the memories:

1. I can't totally remember but I'm 99% sure that my first phone was that tiny, boxy Nokia that came in red and blue. Mine was blue:

•  First of all, with the iPhone at a close second I think this is my favorite phone I ever owned.
• I played Snake on this phone for probably a full week straight when you add up all the hours.
• I could assign specific ring tones to people on this bad boy and Zach Thicksten got the Lifehouse instant classic "Hanging by a Moment" 
• I would pay a LOT of money to be able to turn this phone back on and read the text messages. There is no telling - between the three boys I dated and texted and the girlie high school fights that probably happened - that would be a great afternoon activity.
• Will and I started dating via a text on this phone. :-)
• I gave it up for a flip phone - huge mistake. 

  2. I had this Samsung piece of junk when I went to college:

• I took a picture of Robert Redford on this thing when he came to town. And now it's gone forever... Ahhh. Sad times.  
• Will and I had a LOT of conversations through this phone while dating long distance. We broke up through it once, too. Ha. Good riddance little flip phone. 

 3. Hello Sliver!

• Best friends ever - I was having a hard time around my 20th birthday so my (amazing) friends wanted to do something really special for me. As you can probably tell from my comments above, I did NOT like my last phone. SO... for my birthday my friends all chipped in and bought me one awesome present - a new cell phone. The Sliver. They got me to go to the bathroom during my birthday dinner and they switched my SIM card to the new phone and had Will call me when I sat back down. When I went to answer it I realized that it was a different phone! Gosh, that was a great night and so sweet of them to do!!

 4. THE IPHONE

•  The month of mine and Will's first wedding anniversary the iPhone came into my life. And things have never been the same... Okay, that is WAY dramatic. But the iPhone is the greatest phone (I was tempted to say "thing" but that is too much) ever.
•  Countless photos of Ada and Mary Win were sent to this phone. 
• This phone helped me navigate NYC, Memphis, Atlanta, Durham, Chicago and many other fun places.
• Will and I searched RealTracs for houses on this phone.
• Will and I took tons of photos while fixing up and moving into our new house on this phone.

So, those are the highlights - the phones, the stories, some fun things that happened back when I was a 501 (and when I had one of the easiest numbers to remember).  

And here's to the future - I love our life in Nashville and have totally come to accept that we really might not ever move... and I'm excited about that! I'm also excited about all the new things that will happen with our new phones and new numbers. Here's hoping that we tell people we're pregnant, what sex the baby is, that Will got a job, that we bought a new house, that we are having another baby, that we're adopting a baby (who knows?!) and all the other fun and exciting things that will happen in our lives from our new area code. 


Signing out from the 615...

Sunglasses - Update

Remember the sunglasses I have mentioned being obsessed with TWICE on here?... My mommy spoils me rotten. :-)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Workin' for the Weekend

HAPPY FRIDAY!!

I'm so glad it's Friday this week especially because my mom is coming to town today! She is coming by herself and she hasn't done that in SO long! We're going to see The Color Purple tonight, maybe laying out, shopping, getting pedicures, going to the movie (who knows?!) tomorrow and then eating at Wild Horse Saloon tomorrow night! Cannot wait. I love you, Mom!

TGIF!! Have a great weekend!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Here's what I'm loving this week! 

Sunday School - Will and I have been going to Brentwood Baptist since we got married (Will went there during college, as well). We have LOVED it and our church is one of the big reasons that it would be really difficult to ever move away from Nashville. One of the things I love most about it is our Sunday School class. We are in a class of about eight young married couples and we really enjoy getting to talk about marriage, relationships, general goings on with a group of people who are in the same stage of life as we are. Love it.

Sunglasses - Can't move on. Still love these glasses. Here's hoping I get promoted this summer and celebrate by purchasing a pair of sunglasses that I don't need but really want.

Musicals! - My mom is coming to town this weekend and we are going to see The Color Purple musical on Friday night. A little over a month ago Kathleen invited me to go see Young Frankenstein with her and we had so much fun. I saw in the program that Les Miserables was going to be in town mid May so I also bought tickets for that for Will's anniversary present (will likes musicals fine but he LOVES Les Mis - love that about him). I had never seen it and it was AMAZING! I am still listening to the soundtrack on repeat. So... when I saw that The Color Purple was coming I knew that I should email my mom to see if she wanted to come to town for it. We both love the movie and I've heard the stage/musical version is ridiculously awesome. So pumped!

Diet Coke - I am trying to quit drinking so much DC. It's going OKAY. I don't know why but I just can't give it up completely. So now I am on a "only one a day - just in the morning" DC diet. Yesterday I also had a DDP at lunch and I'm still feeling guilty about it. Ugh! I need to be in AA for Diet Coke abusers. I guess that would be called DCA. Ha.

Happy Hump Day!!

Two-for-Tuesday

Well, since it's Two-for-Tuesday I'll write two Memory Mondays to make up for being MIA yesterday...

PEEPLES COOKOUTS

Over the past year Will and I have really enjoyed hosting cookouts/parties/dinners at our house. Will has the hosting gene bread into him and loves it. I also have the hosting gene but, like my mom, it is more of a talent than a passion (read: I'm good at it but don't love to do it). However, being married to Will these last three years I have started to enjoy it more and more. I was a WRECK before the first Christmas party that we had and now it's something that I really look forward to every year. 

This past weekend we had a supper club dinner at our house on Friday night and then a cookout/US Open watch party at our house on Saturday. Friday we had 10 people over. Saturday we had 25. And I really wasn't totally exhausted on Monday. Now, part of that was because Will and I didn't do anything on Saturday night and I spent most of Sunday afternoon on the couch. But still...

Both parties were a success but I don't have any pictures! I'll do better on that front next time...

COLLEGE FASHION CHOICES
My second Memory Monday entry will be mostly photos. Because there are few words...

Putting a tube top over a tee. My favorite. Also, why do I have that bangle on (a) at all and (b) that high? 

 BANGS.

  The white belt is bad enough but I thought it looked cuter off center?

 AHHH! So many things wrong - the white hair is B.A.D. and the Abercrombie shirt doesn't help.

 This isn't that bad but I find that in so many of my college pictures I wore long necklaces and let the short side wrap tightly around my neck. Not a cute look.

Hope that going down memory lane has been fun today...

Hostessing with the Mostessing

It's one of those weekends! We're having a cookout at our house tonight and a cookout at our house on Saturday. Will is an amazing host and I'm getting pretty good at it myself. Can't write much today but I'll write a full breakdown of how everything went in my Memory Monday post...

Have a great weekend!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

This will have to be quick today. Here's what I'm loving, though. 

The salad bar at Kroger is my FAVORITE lunch spot. So random. But so good. 

Also loving working in the yard lately! When we bought our house I was so glad that it was so well landscaped but it also intimidated me BIG time. I have slowly but surely started to really enjoy planting things and even weeding and mowing! Here are the hibiscus that I planted by our front door this week. They don't look like much yet but they're multi-colored so I think they'll be so pretty when they start to bloom!

I am loving that Will and I are hosting a dinner party at my house on Friday night and a cookout during the day on Saturday. I say this half truthfully and half sarcastically. I am excited about both events but not thrilled at the idea of cleaning up on Friday night in order to entertain again on Saturday. :-)

Okay, that's all that I can love today. 

Memory Monday

Well, since I have been especially obsessed with Will this summer (I'm tempted to say, "for some reason" but I don't think that's true - I don't think I have to make up an excuse to be obsessed with him!) I thought my Memory Monday would be about our engagement. I thought about writing about the wedding for 3.5 seconds and then decided that I don't have the energy to go into all of those (wonderful) emotions. So, instead here is the story of Will asking me to spend the rest of my life with him. And why the way he did it says everything about what our lives will be like forever...

1. Surprise was key. Will knew that we would get to a point where every time we saw each other I would think he was going to propose. So, instead of us getting to that point Will decided to propose much earlier than I thought he would. He definitely succeeded. I was CLUELESS. Now, Will's first idea for surprising me was to take me to a fancy dinner, make a big deal out of it so that I would think he was going to pop the question... and then he wouldn't. But he would the next day. Thank goodness Mary Helen kabashed this idea and Will just went for the, "we'll go to casual dinner and she'll think we're going to a movie then I'll totally shock her" approach. And it worked. We ate at Dixie Cafe and then I thought we were picking MH up for the movie when Will hit a knee in the entry-way of our house. Thus began two very important trends in our lives... Mary Helen saving Will from himself and delicious but cheap chain restaurants.

2. Throw me a party. After Will asked and I said yes he told me that our parents were together so we were going to see them. So, in the car on our way to my parents' apartment I called ALL of my friends and NO ONE answered. I was peeved to say the least. I was also rather dense, it turned out. We walked into my parents' to about 50 people - parents, grandparents, parents' friends, our friends. It was SO great. Will knew how excited I would be to share the story with everyone and how great it would be to be able to actually SEE everyone right after this major, life changing event. There was cake, champagne and lots of laughter. It was a GREAT party. And we haven't stopped throwing parties since.

3. Humor. A couple of funny things from the night.
-When Will and I told everyone the story of him proposing his dad asked if we had a date. I coyly answered, "Um, sometime in May." To which someone in the crowd responded, "It's on the cake!" Haha. Even funnier is that the date on the cake (May 24) didn't work out AND my dad threw that cake away exactly one month ago. Ick.
-I thought the plan that night was to go to see Die Hard 4. Very romantic.
-Before Will and I went to dinner he hung out with me at MH's for a bit and we all three watched TV. I didn't know it at the time but Mary had to go to her room several times because the tension/nerves were killing her since she knew what was about to happen.
-After the party I asked Will a (semi) inappropriate question because I honestly had no idea. I asked him how big my diamond was. His answer... "It's bigger than a carat and smaller than Amy's." Ha!

It was the day everything was set in motion and a day I'll never forget. He did an amazing job - sheer perfection. Another sign of things to come...

I'm Engaged!

Walking into the party

So surprised and EXCITED!

Parents. Love them.

(Clearly) At the end of the night. Couldn't be happier.

Until tomorrow...