Nice to Meet You, Miata

seminars. woot :|

Hello and goodbye to the midweek!  Three down, two to go, but not without some light resistance. Poor Christine drew the short straw on fortune today was was whisked off to a webinar-gone-awry over in STL. She captured a brief moment of her morning and passed it along to us, making me grateful for a day spent here rather than there. Way to take one for the team, Christine! :)

I've got the necessary commute times down to a science as it pertains to the home>work>Dawne's>home>whereverelsewe'resupposedtobe routine of things. Being Wednesday, that meant I would have to pick up the pace and exercise some urgency to get Sydni, stop at home, and be inside the church by 6:30 for Wednesday night. *knock on wood,* I've not had a problem yet, even if we are flying by the seat of our pants right at 6:30. Whatev'.



little thing, isn't it?



I caught sight of Joe in the foyer right at the end of the service; between late work hours and bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway, he was limited in his ability to make the actual lesson. No big deal :). We headed out to the parking lot, where I commented on some poor sap's bright red Mazda Miata that saparked next to us speckled with hail pockmarks. It wasn't until I had strapped Sydni into her carseat that I realized Joe was standing with the miata's door open, keys in hand. 

 A flash of red crossed my mind as I attempted to dismiss the onset of believing he'd bought the thing; I think he must've noticed, because he was quick to explain that it was just one of the many damaged vehicles his shop was repairing, and the dealership guy had told him to just bring it home for a couple days to try it out. Interesting. It's a cute little thing, but for some reason I can't ward off thinking that it should ideally belong to some retiree cruising his or her way through golf-course neighborhoods in Florida. My imagination's a wild thing, I'll tell ya.......

yes, playing pretend can be adorable!

Anyway, so we have this loaner thing, so-to-speak, out in the garage, and it wouldn't be fair to let it sit without being explored by the true head of the household: Sydni. She thought it quite peculiar up front and asked, "Mommy, where car roof go?" < Love. As weird as it was to see a convertible up close, it didn't stop her from pretending it was her new ride. Hope she enjoyed that little moment, because .... Fat chance, kid. Haha.
Oh, and in case you were wondering how Relay for Life fundraising is coming along, enjoy this little moment of action at the home of the Towerview Tire's latest pitstop, John & Ellen Best. They've been officially made TIRED OF CANCER!! :) 

nothing gets people goin' like a 400lb purple tire :)
ellen & john best host the traveling towerview tire,
our latest fundraising tool for the 2012 acs relay for life!

The night ended with some chicken and veggies, and some relaxtion, which winds down to this, right now, and me waving an e-goodbye to all my lovely blogbots. See you tomorrow :).


eat your veggies :)

xo | cmd

"I'd Love to Stay, but I MUSTACHE!"

Aside from work so far this week, I've not got much other compelling news to share with you townsfolk. [Sorry.]

Sidenote: I did want to share something from yesterday that I must note was pointed out to me by my husband, a few days ago as we were immersing ourselves in part of our pastor's Bible study. Please note that this little blurb is from the study notes only, and is not from actual text. Still, pretty funny :)

read that first line ;)
.. women everywhere are smiling.. lol.

More comically important:

mustache!! haha

Christine, about whom I've chronicled a few times before, has a serious affinity for the mustache. I love it, because let's face it: who doesn't love the perfect above-lip squiggle?! Well, she's found a late afternoon niche of parking herself at my desk, masked in aviators and each time with a different variation of the finger mustache.  It's everything I can do to keep from laughing; it's usually at an opportune moment like me trying to leave a voicemail and barely remembering what I need to say. Good stuff ;) I discovered today that somewhere out there in the world of zany creations, there are mustache bandages. Something tells me we'll have those in our office, soon. Hah.

This is turning into a good week! :) Time to hit the hay....

xo | cmd 

Logo Quiz [Thanks, Mo]

contessa paella
yum. :)

I discovered something new today.

-- Well, really I didn't discover it, per se, but I certainly will accept its challenge. Hello, LogoQuiz.

Right. So I got home from work and took care of some typical menial Monday things around the house before Mo & Jimmy stopped by. They were delivering some things to our neighbors, and were nice enough to bring us some Paella to whip up for dinner. I'm definitely cool with that ;). I've never tried this version of store-bought paella, but it wasn't bad at all; looks like we'll be stocking our freezer with some in the very near future. Thanks again to our good friends for joining us for dinner [and making it for us!!]

logo quiz!

It was after that that we settled in for a few hours and Mo introduced me to Logo Quiz. Now, most days, I like to think I'm fairly intelligent when it comes to memory recall. This however, is one of those games that makes you wonder what else out there you're missing, because it's all you can do to keep from driving yourself crazy guessing. Hah. We had a few hours' fun scouring our brains [and Google, eventually] to hunt down miscellaneous logos from airlines, banks, and clothing brands from all over the world.

Clearly, my Monday was quite the wild ride [har har har....]. Hey, I relish calm evenings now and again.

See ya tomorrow, kiddos.

Oh, and here's one for ya.. guess this:

guess the logo?
hint #1: $$$
hint #2: european.

xo | cmd

Mother's Day 2012

The number one thing on my mind this morning:

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!

the mamas of my family
niece cynthia | sister heidi | mama | me :)

I know that in my immediate family alone, there are four mothers. We each have our own style, our own tastes, and of course, our own daughters. These three women are three of the most incredible ladies I've ever known. They are among the ranks of mothers who constantly surpass the expectations of being mothers, and for that I admire them.

.. But they don't stand alone. For every mother, every where, I'm celebrating your victories today: both big and small! :) The world moves because of you. Thank you to my mom, my mother-in-law and all the other moms who are the example we need to follow. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

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We started church off this morning with an incredibly fun performance of the Mom Song, sung by Robin & Rachel. Great job, ladies!

rachel & robin : the mom song! :)

Once church was out, we made a quick pitstop at the store and grabbed some last minute grub before heading over to base to the Babots. We joined Alex & Lara, along with the Gobles & all the little ones, and also Lara's friend Brooke, for a grillout. We filled the afternoon with eating and playing outside. Jason showed up towards the end, right before Lara got the slip-n-slide out for the kiddos. 

Here's how that went.....

tom. jason. alex. joe.

landon & jason | getting air!

kids tying each other up ;)

she's getting so darn big! :|

alex setting up the slip-n-slide

three little ones in a row
jacob. sydni. landon

i. love. this.
syd & jacob

water!

"mama, i'm cold. brrrrrrr!"

"daddy: march!

slugger :)

paparazzi ;)
brooke. lara. cori

what a beautiful day :)

time to go: that is one tuckered-out little lady ♥

 Happy Mother's Day, everyone :)

xo | cmd

Hi, Again, St. Louis :)

ah, the arch....

Joe's manager from Atlanta is still in town helping out at the St. Louis store. The two of them were up and out early to slay another day's worth of work. I stayed back in efforts to clean the house up and get some chores done. I timed it right; they rolled back in just as I was finishing up. After showers and a rescue call to Kallie & Sandy to come and watch Sydni for the evening [thankyouxmillions, girls!!!], we were off to St. Louis.

the dubliner

Since Josh hadn't ever been to St. Louis, our first stop, naturally, was the arch. We parked up by Laclede's Landing and spent the next few hours just roaming our way around downtown: Past the packed stadium [Josh thankfully left his Braves shirt for another day ;), haha], all the way up 8th, and halfway down Washington until we found ourselves at The Dubliner.

hangin' out downtown
the arch | the city | the stadium

josh & joe outside the dubliner

We laughed our way through dinner and spent some time getting to know Josh a little better before we picked our way through the sidewalk crowds for two blocks to the Gelateria. Until tonight, Josh had never tasted gelato, so we were all in for a treat :).

mmm.. gelato!

Once we had some tasty gelato on our tongues, we meandered up to the City Museum, if nothing else than to just show Josh the lobby and the outdoor mazes that comprise just a portion of what that crazy place has to offer. Next time you're here, Josh, we'll take you for a visit.

strange little statue..

The walk back to the car was much quicker than the walk up from the garage; of course we realized once we'd made it all the way back through our self-devised labyrinth trail that Washington was a straight shot. Hah. Oh well.

Joe dropped into a snooze on the way back, leaving Josh and I to discuss the undeniable levels of talent of musical artists [Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas.... Reba? haha..] and face the standstill traffic mess that was 64, down to one lane. As psychotic as that was, we finally made it back. I got the sitters back home and now I'm calling it for now..

Mother's Day is just around the clock ;)
[sorry 'bout the minor backdating.. hah]

xo | cmd 

*TIRED OF CANCER!* [Towerview Style]

As we dig deeper and deeper into our fundraising efforts as a church whole, I have to say that I'm quite proud of my Towerview family.

* I am this year's appointed team captain for the First [hopefully annual!] Towerview Baptist organized team for the American Cancer Society's trademark event: Relay for Life 2012. I feel almost sheepish sometimes holding such a prestigious sounding title, since the team Co-Captain, Lara, is really the superstar here; she drives so much of this that it kinda makes my head spin. I would be at a loss without everything she's contributed and the time she's invested into tracking down the right people, creating fliers, and just overall proliferation of response and enthusiasm from everyone we need, when we need it. Thanksxmillions, LB :).

Anyway, last night at the church, a small group of us rallied together to discuss current progression of our team in all areas: fundraising, fundraising ideas, event decorations, even utilization of the ACS-provided web tools. During that time, we decided and set in motion two of the handful of fundraising opportunities we dreamt up in the earlier stages of planning:

1. Sunday morning breakfast at the church, pre-Sunday School. [May 20th!!!, fellowship hall.. free plug yeah!]
2. The 400-lb tire that Alex, Joe, and now Jason play with like it's a toy, flipping it around the track on base like it's no big deal. Our thought was to paint that puppy up and drop it off in someone's yard. That person or those people then donate $25 to get it removed asap and sent off to another yard of their bidding.

We brought that idea to fruition with mad quickness after the meeting; the Babots went home and Alex proceeded to paint it up in the token RFL [Relay for Lif--c'mon, you know...] purple, with huge white letters exclaiming the ironic phase: TIRED OF CANCER.

Can't visualize that? Let me help you:

team towerview: the tire....
- makin' a pitstop at the woods' :) 

A W E S O M E . I love everything about it, and I'm almost a little excited about this puppy making its way to our house for a day or two. Should be fun. Team Towerview is an absolute blast. These are the things we love :)

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So the rest of today was pretty tame; it marked the end of our first full week sans Meagan; I realized I need to do some serious adjustment on something: time management, shortened lunches, ruthless increase of speed.. something to balance out the work. Hah. It's a good thing with the burst of business we're seeing, but man alive, we are swamped. I love it.

joe & josh: windshield maniacs

Joe's store manager from Atlanta is in town for the insane influx of business they've had in St. Louis post-hail storm; since he's out of his element here, we were more than willing to open up the Dills' hotel once again for an out of town visitor :). He's staying for a couple nights before he heads back to GA. It wouldn't be a real party with the glass boys unless we got to observe them in their natural habitat: They transformed our garage into a temporary bay for Mo & Jimmy's car; it was a seamless operation that ended just about as quickly as it started.

Cooooool. That's a wrap on Friday, folks....

Heeeeeey, it's the freakin' weekend.....

xo | cmd

RELAY: FULL SWING!

The 8 hours I spend at work each day flew by in the same fashion they seem to have been doing all week. I flew home to find Mo already there, and together we headed over to church for the Towerview Relay for Life meeting.

UPDATE TIME! Here's the latest scoop on our Relay fundraisers:

THE TIRE [stay tuned; I'll get you your picture] haha..
- There's going to be a 400 lb tractor tire making its rounds around the area once it's painted. All it takes to get it removed will be a small donation, 100% of which will go directly to our fundraising efforts.

BREAKFAST!! [Because who doesn't love free breakfast?!]
- NEXT Sunday, MAY 20 - at the Tower, downstairs in the fellowship hall. Come early, 'cuz we're starting at 8:15. :) Come hungry, and feel free to take it to Sunday School :)

** We'll have fliers for you... by tomorrow, for sure. :)

And if you haven't registered for the team yet, please do so! CLICK HERE :)
-- If you have any questions, please feel free to contact either Lara or myself, and we'll be happy to help!
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just lounging, ya know?

Oh, and tonight was a new for Sydni as she managed to coerce the dog into serving as an ottoman. We didn't teach her that, but it's surely innovative. Nice work, mini! Haha..

Mo & Jimmy are here, we're grubbing on pizza, and I'm pretty sure one of us is going to drop soon. Since I'm about to get Sydni tucked in, my best bet is that it's me.

In case I'm right.... goodnight ;)

xo | cmd