Tribute to a lost friend… my friend Lars

Just a few photos of my friend Lars. We lost Lars last night / this morning. 9-18-11. I got to say good-bye to him on Saturday. I knew things were not good when I went to my parents house on Saturday. Lars always was excited to see me. His whole body would shake and he would verbally through whines and barks let me know how excited he was that I was home. It will never be the same going to their house. Lars was one of the calmest, easy-going dogs I have known. I will miss him, but am very glad that he didn’t have to suffer with people poking him trying to figure out what was wrong with him. Now he is back with his best friend and sister, they are playing in Heaven. Enjoy! RIP buddy. Love you!

20 Years, Where Has the Time Gone?

Twenty years ago this summer I graduated from high school. A couple of weekends back, I had my twenty year reunion. I was not going to go, but through the past few weeks of talking to people (who were not in my class) and a one who was in my class. My mind was changed and I was talked into going. Go have fun and enjoy every bit of the night was the advice I got, I was determined to do just that, once I decided to go.

Friday night started with a social night at a classmates house. Once I decided to go to the event, I had to get ready, what does one wear to a gathering at a classmates house where some of the people you have not seen in 20 years… I decided on Jean Capris and a v-neck t. Finally get there and it was a great time reuniting with people that I had not seen for 20 years. While some people I had connected with on Facebook, there were many that I really had no idea what they had been up to.  One of the nicest but at the same time most frustrating complements was “Your single, have no kids and have your own house… you are a catch for any man.” Or something close to that. While I know he meant it as a complement, at the same time, he made me think what is wrong with me.  All in all, the night was fun.

As Friday night wrapped up, I had made a decision to attend the next evenings event.  Saturday night was a nicer event at a local restaurant. We were going to be on the back patio… summer time, 20 year reunion… again, what to wear. After going through my closet, I realized that I had nothing that I wanted to wear, I decided to go shopping for something new. I found a cute silky tank top which I paired with black capri pants. I arrive, get my name tag and talk to a couple of people. Saw my “best” friend from high school (totally got the cold shoulder) and talked with a couple of other classmates. As I was sitting at a table, a few husbands came up and asked if they could sit at the table. I said no problem and asked who they belonged to… I got some BS answer and had to walk away and find a drink. Funny thing is just by looking at them, one could tell that they were assholes in HS… and some people never change. The rest of the evening was spent catching up, listening to a band and having some drinks.

Once the “party” was over… we headed down the street to a local bar. Where some classmates who didn’t come to the event were hanging out… and I ran into “Guy 2” from my previous post.

While I wasn’t planning on going to any of this reunion… I am so very glad that I attended both nights. If I had any advice to share, I recommend going to your reunion.

Breakups and Paybacks

As a single woman, I have been through a variety of breakups… some on my part… and some on the part of the guy. Some have disappeared from my memory bank and some have been slammed right back to the forefront of my mind. One of the most recent “Guy 1” (not the most recent but recent) breakups I experienced was on his part… it was almost as bad as Carrie’s breakup on Sex and the City … Breakup by Post it Note. This break up was really non existent. We had been dating for 6 months, and all of a sudden, I called him after a weekend class to determine our plans, and I got a “quit stalking me”. The most recent… was a guy “Guy 2” that I went out with for two dates. Two… this one just completely stopped talking to me. This one, is where the paybacks come in. Guy 2, I met right after high school… He was 5 or 6 years older than me… and beautiful. We went out on two dates, I got scared, I was this scared little girl… and stopped talking to him. At the time, while I really liked him, I didn’t really know how to communicate my “scared” feelings, I also wanted to see the world… he was “grown” and I was just getting my wings. I while I liked him, I sure wasn’t ready to give up my future, my schooling. Fast forward about 20 years, probably exactly 20 years. I ran into Guy 2 after my class reunion. A group of us went to a bar after the reunion. As I was walking through the outside bar, I saw this beautiful man… I stopped, backed up and stared… was it him? I said Guy… and no response, Guy 2… he turned around and we locked eyes and stared at each other for a minute. We had a great few minutes talking and catching up… when all of a sudden he reminded me of our two dates and my not talking to him. As I explained to him my side… he seemed to forgive. We talked a few minutes and then I moved on into the inside of the bar to talk with some former classmates. As the evening went on, he ended up inside the bar talking with me. We exchanged numbers…. and he kissed me good-bye. Fast forward two dates later… and then nothing.

Breakups are awkward, and hard to do… but I think honest conversation is so much better than nothing….

I find it interesting that Guy 2 says he is looking for a good woman… not a psycho, no drama, a nice girl… and like I have heard guys say to women…. you say the words, but when you find one… you don’t really want her.

Jerrod, Blake and Brad – H2O2 Tour

Some people are against country music or think country music is only for hillbilly’s or rednecks… while it isn’t for everyone, I think country music is American through and through. This was my second concert of the summer, earlier, I saw Kenny Chesney ❤  🙂

Last night I went to the Brad Paisley concert… saw not only Brad, but Blake Shelton and Jerrod Neimann. While we only saw the tail end of Jerrod and got no pictures, what we heard sounded great.

Blake Shelton was amazing, while he sang mostly his own songs, he told a great little story about growing up in a family where music was played all the time and in a huge variety of genres. The songs he played were amazing and entertaining. It’s All About Tonight and Kiss My Country A$$

Brad did an amazing job too. His opening  was so cool It really looked like we were looking at him on stage, however he actually started out in the crowd. He walked through the crowd and walked down to the stage. But this is the picture from his opening number. It looked so real, I couldn’t believe it when he was actually out in the crowd.

Some of my favorite pictures of the night:

Blake and Brad on stage together ^

Brad and memories of 9/11 ^

End of – My Love Affair with Water ^ amazing, looked like real water, and like Brad was swimming away in the “tank” below.

Some of my favorite songs Brad sang last night –  Who Are You When I’m Not Looking, Ticks, A Letter to Me, and Old Alabama.  I think the biggest surprise of my night was that I knew more of Brad and Blake’s songs than I realized.

Last picture of the night… waiting to leave the parking lot.

While it wasn’t Kenny ❤ , it was still a great night.  Who was your best concert of the summer?

A sense of accomplishment

Today, I decided to start my first painting project. My bathroom needed painting… I found the “perfect” white paint in the “oops” paint at Home Depot. If you don’t know about oops paint… a gallon for a low price of $5. I have a variety of paints for my house all from the oops paints. Check Lowes and Menards as well… if you are looking for a color, but not super picky about the shade, you can find some great colors. 🙂 I knew I wanted to paint my bathroom white from the day I closed. I think that a white bathroom is refreshing and the options I am left with are wonderful. I wanted to be able to have a variety of rugs and towels to add color to the room. If my wall color is white, I am not limited in the colors of rugs and towels.

Here is my starting point… a sort of creamy coffee color.

 

Midpoint… first coat…

Almost end point… a pretty white. The only thing I have left to do, take down the tape.

I do feel a sense of accomplishment, even if my bathroom is not 100% complete. Painting is a lot harder when doing it on ones own… especially when you have to paint around the toilet, sconces, mirrors is a small space. Right now, my rugs and towels are yellow… my other decor in my bathroom are ducks. Rubber ducks to be exact. The next thing I need to add to my bathroom is shelves for my ducks. Once I find the right ones. I will add a follow-up picture once my ducks have their own home. What have you accomplished lately?

What my town needs… at least in my eyes

So I have had some time to get sort of settled in my house and my neighborhood. I have some wants for my town to add to my list of things to make this little part of the world a little better. Now I know no where is perfect, however, I am loving my neighborhood. I have joined our neighborhood organization… and provided some ideas of things that I think would be fun for our neighborhood. There are also some things that I think my town needs…

1.  Trader Joes… or Whole Foods… I’m leaning toward Trader Joes, they have great cheese and wine.

2.  A wine bar or a place grown folks can go to meet other grown folks. How does one make new friends as a grown up?

3. A better public transportation system. One that runs into the evenings… so you cane be the responsible one and not drive after enjoying some of those adult beverages.

4. They need to build up the downtown area. I can tell, and actually know that at one time it was a busy city center, however with the invention of the mall, the store front stores went out. 😦 Just a sad state of the world.

5.  A real farmers market. When I lived in Kansas City, I fell in love with Farmers Markets. Here is the link to the Kansas City Market http://www.thecitymarket.org/ check it out you will see how amazing it is. It has a little bit of everything and some great produce. This could also build up the city center. Just a thought. One of my biggest frustrations is that the current farmers market is on Fridays from 8am – 2pm. Makes it very hard for a person who works to go and enjoy the farmers market.

Those are my 5 things that I think my town needs to improve the lives of those living here… mainly me 🙂 Thanks for reading!

 

My weekend in pictures… Things that made me happy

This weekend was a busy one, some of the best times from the weekend, I didn’t take pictures of… Friday night, I went to dinner with one of the coolest, strongest woman I know, didn’t take pictures. Saturday morning, had to get an oil change… during the oil change, my mom and I walked around the “French Hens Market” and then checked out the stores downtown. When that was done went out to my parents house and found a cute little tree frog in the garden. Then on to church and Cruise Night. Sunday morning, my parents headed up to my place to help me pick up a free stack of bricks. Two truck loads, loaded by hand. Did I mention that I have GREAT parents? I have no pictures from the bricks… because we were too busy moving the bricks to think about pictures. After moving the bricks, on to Home Depot… where there were no pictures taken either. Picked up some new plants, some hardware to hang some shelves, and some bug spray. Pictures from my DIY planter to come! 🙂 Check out the other pictures:

Car from the cruise night… I could see myself driving down the road, wind blowing through my hair.

Look at this little bug, check out the driver’s door…

check out the passenger’s side door… see the difference?  🙂 Love it! And the colors!

Awww the little tree frog!

Sign would look great in my bedroom!

Found in one of the downtown stores. I have an old lamp and the silk lampshade is falling apart. When I saw this, I thought what a great way to use something instead of adding it to the landfill. Watch for another DIY project to come!

Great words to live by!

Cute planter, Mom and I both liked. Looks like another DIY project in the works!

Still have a lot to do to get my house together, but things are slowly coming together both inside and out. Love the chance to get out and get ideas to do to my house.

DIY Fairy Gardens

This weekend, my mom and I attended a class on building/creating Fairy Gardens. Blumen Gardens was offering a crafts and cocktails afternoon. Sounded like a great girls day out, garden stuff and drinks. So we headed out for our trip to Blumen Gardens… it was about 2 hours from my parents house. So I headed out early to their house and we started on our way. Upon our arrival, we had some time to walk around and see lots of great plants. So our class was about to get underway. We were given an empty box and some basic explanations. Next we would fill our box with dirt, and pick out plants for our fairy garden. Some of the people brought items from home, some picked out a lot of additional items to add to their gardens. My mom and I focused mainly on the plants and rocks. As we didn’t have a lot of ideas as to what we were doing. So my original fairy garden looked like this.

All this for $15 plus a watermelon mojito (really tasty) 🙂

However, today, as I was looking at the fairy garden, I wasn’t happy with it. It didn’t turn out how I wanted, and I had more ideas of what I could do. I actually created two fairy gardens from my original one.

New Fairy Garden #1 –  Using a bucket that I was going to plant in, this was the perfect plan for the bucket.

New Fairy Garden #2 – using the box we got at the class

This is a really fun craft/gardening idea… next is to add accessories. Hobby Lobby here I come. I think in the doll house sections we will find some cute stuff.

Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, Charlotte and I

I fell in love with the TV show Sex and the City many years ago. Through out the years, I found myself connecting with each of the characters at different times/seasons of my life. Over the past weeks, I have been watching reruns and find at this season in my life, I have a little bit of all the ladies in me.

The side of me that has Carrie, is my love of fashion, my belief that Mr. Big is out there… and my love of great shoes… well I love great shoes, but can’t afford them.

Samantha is the wild woman… and the one who has her heart close off for most of the series. While I don’t have a lot of Samantha I love her attitude and her strength.

Miranda is the serious one… focused on her work and career. Doesn’t want anything to get in her way. While my career isn’t the most important, it is one of the focuses in my life. Being successful is important, and I don’t think a career is the only way to be a success.

Charlotte is the “good” girl… I probably most relate to her.

While Mr. Big isn’t one of the girls… He is what I am seeking… It has nothing to do with the money, it has nothing to do with the job. It has to do with the tingles. It has to do with the butterflies. I want the one that I don’t want to live without… I can always survive on my own, but I want to share my life with someone. I want to be with the one who I can’t live without and the one that can’t live without me.

These ladies are incredible women, each in their own right, but together they make an unbelieveable strong supportive group of women. One of the most important things a woman can have is a wonderful group of friends. Thanks for reading…

Sepia Sunday

It has been a while since I have done a Sepia post… These are some pictures I took when out wandering in the city. I think they turned out great in color, and even better in Sepia.

 

Thanks for reading! 🙂