So This Time NEXT Week..

I'll be in Jamaica! With Rob! Doing who knows what!

Just kidding. Well, mostly. We're less than 4 days out from our departure date, and I am beyond excited. We haven't booked any excursions or other off-resort things yet; we figure we'll do that when we get there, but I saw these today as I was getting some preliminary things together: 

seeeeeeeeeeee ya!

Yep. It's happening. I'm stealing Rob out of the country for his first trip abroad.
I. Can't. Wait.

Yiieeee!!
Happy Wednesday!

xo | cmd

Travel Bug?

I'm startin' to get an itch...... [don't be gross..]

Seriously, though. The travel bug has been creeping up on me in the worst way over the past few weeks. I don't know if it was the trip to Scottsdale that's been fuel for it, or if it's just the fact that outside of Arizona, my recent excursions have been just short of non-existent.... but either way, I'm starting to pine for some time away. 

hmmm... where to?

I'll get back to you on some top pick destinations here shortly... ;)
... If I'm lucky, I'll have to go find a whimsical map of the world, not just the U.S. We'll see.....

xo | cmd


Express Christmas [Because the World DIDN'T END]

Holy smokes, ya'll. It's FRIDAY!

First things first: WELCOME back to the daily Friday grind, especially to all of you who had planned on the world coming to a close sometime earlier today. I really hope none of you are disappointed, especially if you've shelled out wallet weight on Christmas gifts this year or have plans for New Years ;). 

..... things that didn't happen today....

Funny story to get this rolling. Okay, well it's not so much funny as it is just plain weird. It's not really even a story, really, but it's still bizarre: Basically, it was an early night last night, only to awake at 3am to not one, but every single smoke detector in my house on high alert. It was synchronized in that they all started at the same time, but definitely not on the same pulse. For all I could tell, it was one steady blare on surround sound for about five minutes before it... just.... stopped. Weirdest thing ever. We're on a love/hate relationship, my house and me. Between the thermostat tantrums and the smoke detectors party rockin' at random hours of the night, I'm not sold that there isn't some sort of maniacal scheme brewing...... I even mentioned to my friend Rob that I thought this was indication of the world ending.... I don't think I sold him on it. Oh well.

ANYWAY,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
[early!!]

it's a good day for christmas sweaters, peroni & breakfast! (:

By that, I mean that today was my office Christmas party. Everyone in my office has a track record of excellence in the arena of potlucks. I work with all women and a man who used to run a restaurant, so it's pretty fail-proof that we'd be eating well. Oh, and we may have added some additional spirit to the party. Haha.

merry christmas! | with ♥, express

So yeah.... we made with it gettin' busy on some food, but the best part by far [as is customary with Christmas these days] was not only a blast, but hilarious all together. [I'll get some of those pics up soon, too].

Here's just a preview of how thoughtful these people are:



secret santa gift + mini christmas bonus + express columbia fleece?
.... we're loved.

yep. love it. & love her.
merry christmas!

My addiction to popcorn may have finally been satisfied on a whole new level; Diana had me as her secret santa draw, and because everyone here is fully aware of my obsession with popcorn, I got this little guy, all wrapped up and ready to go. Plus, we each got part of our Christmas bonus in cash form, and a suuuuper comfy Columbia logo'd fleece. We were as surprised as we were grateful. It's been a crazy year here, but we're sticking it out and enjoying ourselves.

Tonight I'll drive back to Ohio for the weekend; I can't wait to see my family and a few long lost faces before I get back.

Wish me luck......

&& very MERRY [early] Christmas to all of you, my dear friends & blogbots!

xo | cmd

Ohio. This Is Becoming A Habit.

I made it.
This whole long-distance commute thing is starting to become less and less daunting, the more I do it. I took off after work and before I knew it, I was rolling right into Eastgate. I'm not exactly sure where five hours went, but I'm here, and all is well.

[borrowed!] | cincinnati, ohio

Four day weekend.... begin.

xo | cmd

O-H-I-O!! O-H-I-O!!!!

true. story.

GUESS WHAT?!
Syd and I were on the road by mid-evening, en route back to good old OHIO. I.. am.. SO excited for this weekend, I can't even tell you. She was just as ready as I was, and all smiles at that! We were off to see Mamaw, and a bunch of our friends!


best road trip buddy, ever

Fast forward 5 hours later, to now, when we're settling into the hotel. It's gonna be a jam-packed weekend, and I cannot wait :)

WE'RE HERE!!!!!!!! :D

See you tomorrow.......

xo | cmd 

A Song for the Road Home

HooRAY for 3-day weekends! 

The bulk of today was spent driving back to IL, but not before we spent the morning and early afternoon visiting with my aunt and uncle from Cleveland. They came down to spend the day with my parents, and we were situated perfectly to have a few hours with them before we left.

Oh, and since there wasn't much else to report today, I thought I'd share this little diddy from late last night, when I partnered up with my sister, neice and nephew on one of those classic praise songs, Holy Holy Holy. Like I said, I am so blessed to have such a musically-inclined family.

I ♥ them, every single one.

We're home now, and Mo & Jimmy just showed up with Bootsie - they'd had her for the day. It's only been a few short days since we saw them last, but I'm gonna go catch up anyway :)

Short work week, woo!!

xo | cmd

And We Drove......

...... and drove.

yeah road trip.


- and drove s'more.

This is absolutely backdated. It's almost 2:30am, Ohio [EST] time.

[but we made it, WOO H-zzzzzzzzz]

xo | cmd

Airport Debachles

I'll start at the end of this one:

We're HOME! [woo!]


reading. waiting. thx, airline.



Now rewind to how we almost had to get here separately today. It was an early start after we were up mega late with Sam & Kalyn. Luckily, we had everything packed up and ready to go; this time I did NOT leave my D90 behind at their apartment. Hah. Anyway, KP was still asleep when the rest of us left, bound for the airport. We passed back by Camelback, which we didn't have the chance to conquer on this trip, but will absolutely do on our next. Sam dropped us off curbside, we bid our farewells, and headed in to start the process of checking in. We were both still half asleep.

It became obvious to me today that I don't fly often enough. If I were anything of a frequent air traveler, I would have known that when you purchase a roundtrip ticket, you are required to make your outbound flight[s], otherwise you forfeit your ticket back. Okay, so not only did I not remember that, I had no idea that pithy rule existed in the first place. News for ya: It exists. It totally exists.

heading home.... together!!

As it turned out, because Joe had been forced to fly from Atlanta straight to Phoenix, instead of his original intention of flying out from St. Louis with me, his return flight home had been canceled. After weighing it over, we decided to send me on my way, and get Joe on the next available flight. Had that happened, Joe wouldn't have made it back to St. Louis via connecting flights until 9pm. Not cool.

He made it through standby onto the first leg of our return trip: Phoenix to Denver without much protest; we even sat together. It wasn't until every single passenger was buckled in and I was nearly positive I'd be making another trip back to St. Louis later that night that my jaw dropped to the tray table [in its upright and locked position, please and thank you] as they shut the cabin doors after my husband, the actual last person to board the plane. We were separated by four rows of seating at this point, but that sure beat the daylights out of separate arrival times over five hours apart. Wahoo!

beauty from an aerial perspective over the rockies

Touchdown in St. Louis > shuttle back to the hotel at which I'd originally crashed for a whopping three hours last Wednesday > retrieve my car > head over to Joe's St. Louis store. It was a catapult back in time to the days when Joe toted me around to all his stores, meeting all his managers, csr's, and techs, and waiting patiently for him to handle whatever piece of business was at hand. We're back.

Once we finished up with a dip in the glass world, we made our way back home, picked up Sydni, and settled in for a relaxing night with just the three of us. Good thing, too, since he heads straight back out tomorrow to Atlanta, again.

*Sigh. We don't ever stop. :)

Hittin' the hay.....

xo | cmd

Easter 2012

#back.dated.entry,yo.

It's technically Monday right now, but since I hear it's bad safety etiquette - or something - to blog while driving, this is the best I can do.

Easter girl!

So Easter itself pretty much flew right on by. It started early when we were up and at it, en route to our old stomping grounds at New Harmony Baptist Church for the Easter service. It was such a welcome refresher seeing all the familiar faces from our time there; it blew me away at how grown all the smaller kids seemed. Since we'd left, a new pastor has taken the reigns, rendering not only a beautiful service for everyone, but the baptism of little Ashley. As a sidenote, seeing the little kids get baptized, while such a warming feeling, makes me feel all that much older. Given the reason, though, I don't mind one bit! We were blessed to be present for it! My parents joined us, and the lot of us headed to lunch afterwards before trailing back to the apartment and undertake the process of switching everything from our car to my parents' for Sydni's weeklong vacation with them. Since distance is now a small obstacle with us living in IL, it's less frequent that they see her, so a week at a time now is the best conducive solution. Plus, it'll be a small breather for me since Joe will be flying back to Atlanta in a day or two.

my family. love love love.

Anyhow, we changed clothes and headed over to Joe's Aunt Sis' house, where the annual Easter crowd was already gathering. We arrived to find the food already coming out of the oven, and while final preparations were happening in the kitchen, we spent time catching up with family members we hadn't seen in quite some time. Chrissy and I got to talking about her upcoming endeavor of hiking the Appalachian trail, starting at the south end and completing the entire thing. She looks fabulous, and I envy the adventure on which she's about to embark. If I had 6 months of spare time, I'd be all over it. We all sat down to eat mid afternoon, on an invisible schedule centered around the egg hunt. We stayed on track.


three generations of ladies of joe's family: sandy. nicki. katelynn
[joe's cousin] chrissy & me

kiddies getting ready: katie & billy | sydni

dad & joe

This egg hunt is a big deal. Not only do they stash over 225 eggs in their backyard for the findings, they fill those things with everything from the standard chocolate [which is usually half-melted by the sun by the time we get to it, making for lovely kiddie fingers!] all the way up to $20 bills. I happened across one of those golden eggs this year, and am proud to say I finally beat my husband at something: egg hunt earnings. Hahaha. It doesn't take much, I know.

$$$ money eggs! $$$

cousins :)

The next almost 7 hours following the egg hunt can only be summarized as travel time. I made the trip alone back to IL, and after getting caught up in some late night road construction and a carwash to remove the blanket of black bugs plastered on my front end, I'm here, now, just shy of 12:30AM.


gorgeous sunset

It's back to work, tomorrow. Needless to say, I'm out :)
xo | cmd

Oh To Be.. In OH-IO :)

I feel like I've been awake for a very long time.

That could have something to do with the fact that I have been awake for a while, didn't get to bed until late last night, and then topped with a 6 hour drive back to Ohio. Just sayin'.

Sydni and I pulled out of the driveway at 5am this morning and rolled into our final destination just after 11am EST.  We met Joe there and spent some time catching up as a trio before heading out to Mason to visit Joe's mom at work.


mini admin

As it turns out, Sydni seems to have the blood of an office administrator; she wasted no time in settling in to Sandy's desk, taking the whole process very seriously. We let her finish up her pretend phone calls to everyone she knows [Nana, Pappy, Mamaw, Dawne, LandonBabot, Bootsie, Joe, and myself - they were very short conversations, ha] before toting her off to grab some lunch and head to the park.

the dills ♥

It was hardly crowded at Miami Meadows, which I thought unusual for a Saturday until I remembered it's a holiday weekend. The only real mass of people outlined the soccer fields, where elementary-aged kids swarmed around in a group after the ball. I remember that. So does Joe, and it all gave me a new excitement for when Sydni gets to that point. We took a long walk, stopping every 10 feet or so for Sydni to pluck and splatter blow all the seeds off of those white puffy dandelions. Sorry for the gross repopulation of those things, pretty park; I'm pretty sure they'll quadruple in number from Sydni's efforts alone today.

We decided to head back home, which led to Sydni begging us to ceding point to sit and watch Tangled with her. We've only seen that movie a grand total of abouuuut 74982378048320750217 times now, but I'm pretty certain anyone with small children knows exactly how this feels; if you've got little girls right now, then you also know all the lines and lyrics to this movie, just like we do.

Joe's mom made it home mid-afternoon, and volunteered to watch Sydni so we could meet with Justin and his family for an expedition to the bowling alley. JB & his mom are apparently on the same bowling league, through her work; I would later make the conclusion that everyone who works for this local Toyota dealership is apparently just hairs shy of pro-bowler status. I've never seen so many consecutive strikes in my life, not in person anyway. We were there for 3 games, plenty of time for us to catch up with JB, Dez, and the rest of the Boesherz family, but not before Joe was pulled over for speeding, on the 2 mile stretch between our place and the bowling alley.

are you kidding me?!

Let me just say that I find it a stark injustice at how easily Joe can wiggle out of traffic tickets. For the last two years, he's been pulled over a small handful of times, each one resulting in a WARNING. Seriously? I very clearly recall being right around the 8month mark of my pregnancy and getting a speeding ticket while taking Kalyn home. I remember propping the clipboard up on my quite obvious bump and angrily signing my name away. Not even 10 miles over the speed limit, either, and here my husband has slid right through the grasps of at least 4 speeding tickets in the last year or so, maybe including this one. I'm not really allll that suprised, what with his cunning ability to sell people onto his brainwave; in hindsight now I'm actually more surprised that these officers haven't been paying him to continue on his way when it's all said and done.

Anyway, tomorrow is church with my family and Easter with Joe's family; the annual easter egg hunt is going to be in full effect, and we'll finally get to see Nicki, Joe's sister, who is newly pregnant with their 3rd child. We've got a neice or nephew on the way!

Time to get rested....

xo | cmd

Prep Time

I spent most of today engrossed in trying to lay down a solid game plan for the weekend. I had decided earlier this week that, with the impending trip back to Cincinnati for Easter, I would sacrifice attending small group in order to get a head start on the road. It's not an unbearable drive, but it's kinda long, kinda boring, and kinda tedious when you've got a 2-yr-old in tow and it's just you. Plus, while I love driving during the darker hours, I don't do well driving into the night. After a long day of tossing back and forth what I would actually do, I finally committed to attending small group tomorrow. Part of the tipping factor for that was that tomorrow will be the first large gathering for all of the three smaller extensions. I absolutely adore our small group, but definitely miss the biweekly times we had with the other couples.

So that was decided.
It was also decided that our office will do our Easter potluck tomorrow.
Oh, and Sydni and I will need to be ready to go asap, since we won't have time - or energy likely - after tonight to get packed up to hit the road Saturday morning.

Needless to say, I dedicated my entire evening to packing, cooking, more cooking, and eventually rendering my entire house spotless so that I wouldn't have to return to our regular toy-littered living room, disheveled beds, and scattered bathroom sinks. I promise we're not a dirty household, but we certainly have bigger fish to fry some most days than getting comforters turned down and pillows fluffed. [#lifewithatoddler, if there were such a # and if I did actually Tweet, or whatever it's called].

toddler pasta mode. love love love.

Oh yeah, and it's casual day again tomorrow and we're closing shop at 2pm if we get all of our numbers in order. Basically, we're leaving at 2pm. Just sayin' :) See ya then.

xo | cmd

Constant Comment

It's FREDNESDAY!!

Pardon me for taking it upon myself to create a new day. Frednesday is the leap year child of Wednesday and Friday that happens when Wednesday takes the place of Friday in the work week cycle and is therefore the last work day of the week.

Erego, Frednesday.


constant comment | ♥

 We left work at noon today, and so before I get to packing up all our gear for the long haul back to Ohio, I thought I'd take a moment to thank Nancy for tuning me in to Constant Comment, a tea with which I have now fallen in love, thanks to Nanc. I'd never heard of it before I started working here, not to say that it wasn't readily available at Kroger's back home; I just never tried it. I have to say it's a welcome change in my routine green tea cycle [of which I owe thanks to Michael Moreno... ].

Well, like I said, I've got a lot to do to get ready for this evening. I suppose we'll bid the blog adieu until tomorrow.

See you in Ohio!

xo | cmd

Juke?

Call me a total noob, but I’ve never seen this car before. Seeing as how we also are a Nissan family, I couldn’t help but taking a picture as I sat behind it at a traffic light driving home.

Speaking of driving home, that’s definitely what we did today. After hitting send on an all-day draft email outlining all the stuff that would happen in my name while I was out of the office, I stopped off at home just long enough for Joe and I to load up the car [to its brim, no less] with everything we would need for the next ten days, plus Sydni and her suitcase of fun for a mini vaca with Nana & Pappy. We hit the road and were off, back to Cincinnati….

… and here we are. We made it, on three whole pieces, and are going to friggin’ bed.
Mahalo.

xo | cmd

Checklist? Check.

I had one goal today:

Check things off the wedding checklist.

Dress hemming [finally] .. check.

Finalize details w/ photographers & dj's .. check.
Pack ... everyone .. check.

Pack ... everything .. check.

Checklist? Check.

I have never felt so organized, and simultaneously disorganized in my entire life.

*Sigh. Tomorrow we head out.

..Wonder if I should get a checklist for that, too...

SLEEP....?
... CHECK.

[g'nite!]

xo | cmd