What a fabulous (but busy) Wednesday

Yesterday was such a great day! This could be broken up into several posts but I'll spare you all that and make one really long one. Ready...go!

Some of you may or may not know but my grandfather was rushed to UNC about 8 weeks ago. There were quite a few days where we thought he may never make it home. It still makes me want to cry just thinking about this. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Yesterday.....HE CAME HOME!!! I'm going by after work tonight just to see him sitting in his recliner. It really means a lot to me to be able to see this sight again after all he has been through. Thank you Lord for answering my prayers as you know just how much my Papa means to me :)

Also, yesterday after work I headed to Gboro to 1) Drop off my quote at the BB 2) Pick up three of the books on my list that were waiting for me at the library and 3) go to my very first Supper Club. Much to my delight I completed everything on time and Supper Club was a hit.

The three books I picked up were:

Time Traveler's Wife
The Red Tent
The Kite Runners

Tonight I plan on starting one of them although I'm not sure which one. Thoughts?

Last but not least...Supper Club! I've already mentioned how great it was but seriously it was a lot of fun. Dagney was our host this month and she just has the cutest little family and such a great home to use to host these events.

She cooked stuffed pork tenderloin, salad, green beans, and mashed potatoes along with a chocolate cake for dessert. It was all fabulous and that is going to be a lot to live up to when I host in November.

We had lots of good conversation including politics and no one even got heated. This is just reason # 1,443,644 why I love my JL girls.

My only regret is having no pics of anything for like the last week including last night. I'm planning on working on that tonight :( Have a great evening!

Books On My To Read List

• Water for Elephants
• The Secret Life of Bees
• Molokai
• The Red Tent
• Eat, Pray, Love
• The Kite Runner

According to the library website just now three of them are in transit. I'm excited!

Book Review: The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

This book was written by the same author as The Secret Life of Bees. Before reading it I had gotten mixed reviews but all in all I *think* it was a good book. The jury is still out for me in a way because I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. On one hand I feel like I read the whole book just to get to the end and it sort of just ended but on the other I think there was a really good underlying moral to the story for married readers.

The book really has two different storylines going the whole time. One storyline is about a woman who has to go stay with her mom on Egret's Island where she grew up because her mother seems to be mentally ill. For some reason he mother has chopped off her finger. When the daughter arrives she finds her mother planting her finger in the soil. At the same time this occurs the daughter meets a very striking monk who also lives in a monastery on the island.

This is where the two storylines begin. The daughter (the whole book is written from her point of view) is married but has recently felt very distant from her marriage. Once she meets this monk she decides to tell her husband she wants to take some time apart. The majority of the book is then spent detailing her short lived relationship with the monk.

At the end of the book her mother chops off another finger and then everyone intervenes to discuss with her why this was done. She was trying to repent for helping her husband commit suicide many years prior because he did not want to succumb to a debilitating illness he had. The daughter then ends her relationship with the monk and she goes back home to her own husband and daughter.

All in all, I guess it was a good book if you consider the underlying morals but the ending sort of left something to be desired.

Book Review: The Innocent Man by John Grisham

At work I'm involved in a book club and this is the book we were to read for September. I'm a huge fan of books by this author and this one did not disappoint even though it was one of his only non-fiction works.

The book was about the investigation, trials, and outcomes of two murders in a small town in Oklahoma. It also delved into the corruption in the criminal justice system that was trying to solve these cases.

The main suspects were a group of men but it really focused on one or two throughout the book. As you read the book you knew these men were innocent but it really showed how the police wanted the crimes solved so they were doing everything in their power to make it look like these men had murdered these women. They went to the extreme of ignoring evidence and even confessions that did not make sense which caused these men to spend a large portions of their lives on death row when they should not have.

Through my life I have heard and read stories of this happening and I truly can't imagine. Once it was all over and the men were proven innocent they were just released from prison. That was basically it. No compensation, no apology, no assistance in getting their lives back together...just set free.

As citizens, we should be ashamed that this is even allowed to occur in this day in age but I'm sure somewhere, somehow, in America this is occurring as I type this. It's very sad to know that innocent until proven guilty is not the case the majority of the time.

This was a thought provoking book for anyone interested in this topic. It really makes you think about what you think you "know" in many aspects of life.

Long Time No Update

but I have lots to say today. First and foremost, I wanted you all to know that I did NOT fall off the face of the earth after our loss last weekend however I have been very busy.

What have I been doing you ask? My BFF Ashlee and her husband closed on their very first home on Friday and we helped them move until 2 am. Their house is very nice and spacious and we are looking forward to many get togethers at their new home in the future.

Saturday and Sunday were spenting watching the game and decorating our newly painted house :) It's so pretty and I'm so excited to spend more time (and money) decorating it. There are so many good ideas in my brain some of which I've already gotten to work on. Hopefully, this weekend I will get around to taking pictures and getting them loaded on here for you all to see.

Tonight the contractor is coming out to hang the tv on the wall. You see when we moved in it was a open box but we didn't like it so now it is a fully closed in wall and the tv will hang like a picture and hopefully be prettier.

Also, tonight I'm attending my very first Supper Club. As one of the JL Connections this year I've organized a Supper Club. It should be a fun way to relax with the girls plus steal a few good recipes. Tonight should be very good. The rumor is we are having some sort of stuffed tenderloin and a very yummy sounding dessert. I'm excited. Hopefully, I can get some pics and update on that one later as well.

What else has been going on? Not much work is busy and I haven't had the laptop at home so today is the first chance I've had to update on here. I've got a few more posts to write today as well since I've finished a couple of books over the last two weeks.

Have a great day!

So I ran but it wasn't pretty

This weekend we headed out of town for a golf tournament. While researching things to do other than the usual golf tournament social stuff I figured out there was a 5k in town this weekend as well. My thought process = 5k, no problem. Ummm, obviously I considered no mitigating factors that would come along with that decision.

Friday night there was a cocktail social. My inlaws decided we should all go and have a grand ole time and we did :) Fast forward to go time at 8:30 Saturday morning and my body was none too happy about my thought process. It was hot, sticky, and very ugly but I finished in 36:00 exactly. After checking my past 5k results this is officially my worst ever race.

Lesson learned. Now, I need to sign up for another one to make myself feel better.

3-0...Bring on The Pack

Saturday is a BIG day and I'm excited. My beloved Pirates play NCSU at Carter Finley. Honestly, I have lots of friends who are Wolfpack fans and I love them dearly but I'm really hoping the Pirates return to Greenville 4-0 on Saturday night :) Go Pirates beat The Pack!

7 years ago, at just about this time, tragedy struck

and the rest is history. Each year as this anniversary passes I'm always taken back to where I was when I heard the news on that fateful day.

In an earlier post, I had mentioned attending another college, UNCW, for my freshman year before transferring to ECU. As a freshman, a few of us shared a suite. That morning, being the obedient college student I was I had decided not to go to my 8 am class so I was still asleep when I was awaken by my suitemate screaming hysterically for me to turn on the television. I sat there confused, shocked, and scared as I watch the replays of the planes hitting the towers over and over trying to digest what exactly I was witnessing.

Finally, I decided to get dressed and head to my music class with my friend Kerry who is still to this day one of my very best friends. In fact, of all the girls I shared the dorm with that year I'm still fairly close with three of them even though we only attended college together for that one memorable year.

This whole event still seems very surreal even seven years later. It makes me sad to think of just how many people were touched in a negative way by the events that transpired that day. Many lives were forever changed that day and I pray for each and every one of them as we remember this tragedy. Hopefully, we will never have to witness anything like it ever again.

“Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children. “- President George W. Bush, November 11, 2001

We have a new home!!!

No, it's not "technically" my home but a girl can dream can't she? This house is new home and headquarters of the Junior League of Greensboro. Last night was our first meeting of the new year and the ribbon cutting for this fabulous house.

The house is also known as The Albright House. The house was donated to JLG and restored over the course over the last year. The house has a lot of history and JLG hopes to continue to be part of that history over the coming years.

It is so beautiful both inside and out. I'm so glad we finally have a place to call "home".

Also, as I said above last night was our first meeting of the new year since we take the summer off. It was so great to see all of the wonderful ladies in the league again. We enjoyed the meeting and then headed out for drinks to catch up. It was a much needed girl's night out with some of my favorite people.

We have lots of exciting things coming up this year but as always we will have tons of fun along the way!

P.S. This is a really bad picture of the house because there are like 1oo too many people outside so hopefully I can update later with a better one. Thanks!

#14 in the nation...now that is what i'm talking about!!!!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words but I'm fairly certain there have been quite a few more said about this one. Last night we had the privilege of watching our ECU football team knock off the #8 team in the nation, WVU which boosted us to #14 according to this morning's AP Poll.

Watching this game just brings up so many what if scenarios for me. You see, I did not go to ECU straight out of high school but instead began my college career at another school which happens to not have a football team. All of my friends were at ECU going to parties, football games, and classes on the beautiful campus so at the end of the year I made the decision to transfer. In hindsight, this could have turned out to be a very bad idea but over the course of my life and all the decisions I have made this one has turned out to be one of the best. S

As I sat in the stadium last night watching the students rush the field and waiting for my turn to descend the stairs I pondered what if I had never transferred from my prior school where would I be today?

Both schools had made a mark on my life in their own way. When we got married last year my two best friends from my first college as well as my current best friend from ECU stood beside me as bridesmaids. These three women are still a very important part of my life even though we do not see each other as frequently as I wish. Had I not attended my first college I would never have met those two fabulous ladies I am still proud to call friends.

Are you confused yet because you thought this post was about football and now I'm talking about my life story? It's still about football but I can't talk about football without getting into how proud I am to be a PIRATE and how I ended up as a PIRATE!!!

There have been many good times and bad in Pirate history but overall it has been and will continue to be a fun ride. Keep up the hard work Pirates. There is a lot of football left but at the end of the season I hope we are hoisting the conference championship trophy that has eluded us so many times.

Go Pirates!!!!!

Those are some big fish, oh wait, those are pups in the water

As you can see the dogs had a great time at the lake too :) Cooper wasn't so keen on all the love and kisses he was getting from Tonka but it was fun to watch.

Tonka has been in the water maybe three times before this and all of that was pretty shallow and for short periods of time so I was a little nervous but he was a natural. One day I hope he swims as well as Cooper who sorts of glides through the water with little to no effort while poor Tonka still seems sort of frantic when swimming although he does quite well.

Yesterday when we got home he was just as exhausted as the two of us. Last night when we went to bed I opened the door to his crate and he walked straight in and plopped down. I'm not even sure he was awake when he hit the floor. We will have to get him to the water more often because he really seemed to enjoy it.

Walk the Plank Hokies!!!!!

Gooo Pirates!!! What a way to start off the 2008 season just like we ended the 2007 season with our bowl win in Hawaii over Boise State.

It was HOT on Saturday but other than that a beautiful day to spend watching the opening weekend of college football. Just in case you haven't figured it out yet by reading my prior posts I'm somewhat obsessed with college football especially when it involves my Pirates.

We hiked the 27 miles up to our nosebleed seats as demonstrated by the picture above and there I remained until after the victory celebration. As usual with our football team it was a rollercoaster. In the end though we were victorious and I even got a hug from the nice ECU fan sitting next to me.

Now it's on to the is weekend to see if we can pull off another win against WVU. Wish us luck!!

Me thinks I need a vacation from our vacation.....

We had such a wonderful time at the lake over Labor Day weekend. It was great to spend time with family eating, drinking, going to the game, and spending time on the lake.


Traffic going down on Friday wasn't bad which is partially due to the fact that my very generous boss let us leave at 2:30 to get a head start on our weekend. We arrived at the lake a little after 6 and everyone else was already there relaxing. The house was beautiful and literally had everything we need except for food so we were all set.

Overall it was a really great weekend. The Pirates came out on top in our football game against VT, I got to take lots of good pictures of my nephews, the dogs enjoyed lots of swimming, and we enjoyed tubing which is one of my all time favorite things to do (another one for the list).

After all of that it almost seemed like I needed another day to relax and lay around the house. This morning as my feet hit the floor to get ready for work my muscles sure were letting me know that they did not appreciate all the hard work. Hopefully we can do it all over again soon!