What A Weekend!

Andrew and I have had a very exciting weekend---we bought a car, picked a wedding venue, picked the date for our big day and picked our photographer!

We had been planning to start the wedding process this weekend for a while, and I had made appointments at my top two venues and at a photographer that I really liked. But before we could make it to the first venue I made an offer on a car! We had been looking for a new car for a few weeks but had made no serious offers but earlier this week I found a car that had everything I wanted and was a good deal-- but the decision maker for me was when I showed it to Andrew and he loved it as well. Up until this point we had not found anything we both liked and could afford--because we both agreed that a new Mercedes would be awesome but let's be realistic! We bought a Nissan Maxima that's black with black leather. It has a navigational system, a back-up camera and to say the least it has more features than I will ever be able to figure out but Andrew has spent tons of time in the garage playing with it.

I was so excited that my offer was accepted on Friday but I was even more excited that our families would get to see it while we started our wedding planning! Our fist venue to look at was The OAKES in Centerville. My sister-in-law Amanda found this location a few weeks back for us and I just had to see it! Everything about it was wonderful! The next stop was The American Village in Montevallo. While I have driven by the American Village I had never been inside before but it was just as beautiful as I imagined! After leaving the American Village I told Andrew I did not know how we were going to decide between the two venues. But before I could dwell on the daunting task of picking between two great locations we meet with a photography company we had found- LoveStruck! It's two wonderful ladies who take beautiful pictures and have great personalities. After looking at more of their great work I asked what we needed to do to book them!! I am not sure who was more excited me or them because this was the first actual wedding decisions I had made since saying "yes"!

After visiting the locations and meeting with the photographers we had dinner with both of our families--yes I mean everyone! It was wonderful to see everyone while we were in town and talk about the decisions we had to make concerning the wedding. After all of that Andrew and I headed back home to Annie and Bo. We were worn out but I all I could talk about was the pros/cons for each location. Andrew said we have all weekend don't worry--but me being me I woke up first thing Saturday and started asking Andrew more questions about which location he thought would work best and before 10 a.m. we had made a decision. But before I share the decisions we made I wanted to share some pictures from both locations!

These are the pictures from The Oakes

These are the pictures from the American Village

Sooooo. The decision we made is that we will get married at The OAKES on June 1, 2013!

Projects around the House

Andrew and I moved into our house in December 2010 and for the first couple of months I was totally into decorating. However, once I got the house to a point where it did not look bare and I felt ok with having guest I stopped decorating. Now that I have found Pinterest I am once again excited and have a desire to decorate. Don't get me wrong my house is not going to be featured in a magazine but we have had a BLAST creating new things for our house.

The first thing we did once I had a few projects "pinned" was make a trip to the local thrift store. And this in itself was an adventure because we learned a new term that neither of us were familiar with... the "no price buggy". We found 3 gently used picture frames that I thought would be perfect for a few pinned projects I wanted to create but one did not have a price. We decided we would take all 3 to the register and make them an offer...it's all going to charity right? We made them an offer of $5 for the one frame without a price, the other two frames together were going to cost us $2.79. So we thought $5 was a great offer. But that's not how the thrift store works, items without a price go into the "no price buggy" NO questions asked. So of course I made Andrew make a second trip to the thrift store a few days later to see if my beloved frame had been given a price. He found the frame priced $2.98, however when he tried to checkout the cashier felt that the frame was mispriced. By this time Andrew is grumpy and wanting to leave the thrift store and never return but because he knew how much I really wanted that frame he caused a minor scene. He told the lady he had attempted to buy this frame twice and had even offered more but was told no, he said he was determined to get this frame. By now everyone in line is starring at him wondering why he visits the thrift store so much! So needless to say going to the thrift store was an adventure one that I am not sure if I can convenience Andrew to participate in again.

But with one of the frames we purchased during the first trip to the thrift store I made this cute addition to our bedroom. It was inspired by Pinterest and we love it. Andrew even rigged it so we can attach the dry erase marker. He also had to fix the frame stand because we bought the frame for .79 cents and you can't really expect much. But this is the type of thing Andrew loves! He is super handy, which is a quality I recommend every girl trying to find in their man. If he can build or make something he is happy and I'm pretty lucky because he uses these skills to make lots of stuff for our house! We have made two more awesome projects that I will share later this week!

Going Green and Saving Money!

So I have decided to take my coupon and saving "kick" one step further... I made homemade laundry detergent! I know it's a little odd but I kept reading about the cost saving benefits and how homemade detergent has less chemicals and decided to give it a try.

If you google "homemade laundry detergent" your going to get lots of recipes for both liquid and powder detergent. However, all the recipes call for three standard ingredients that can be found at Walmart.
1. Fels Naptha soap-$0.96
2. Arm&Hammer Washing Soda-$3.24
3. Borax-$3.38

The recipe I used called for 1 cup washing soda, 1 cup Borax, and 1 bar of fels naptha soap grated and mixed together. Really simple!! You use 1 to 2 tablespoons in each load of laundry. The liquid detergents called for the same ingredients but you added water and all the recipes made huge amounts--smallest I found was two gallons. For a family of two (plus two dogs, but they don't create lots of dirty clothes haha) two gallons of detergent would last forever! So I decided the powder detergent was best to start with.

As you can see my total cost for the ingredients was $7.58. This is about the price I spend on store bought laundry detergent with coupons. But the cost saving benefit for the homemade detergent will come in to play the next time I make the detergent because I will only have to buy the $0.96 soap!

Below are a few pics from the project. The pic that looks like grated cheese is the soap. I also did not buy a cute container I used an old water pitcher I had till I find something better.

So far I have washed 3 loads of laundry using the homemade detergent and I'm very happy. I can not tell a difference! I know this might not be for everyone but it was a fun project for me and I plan to continue using it. I also have plans to swap some of our standard cleaning products with homemade products! If you have and good recipes let me know!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Going to give this another try....

After one year of not updating I'm going to give it another try. The reason I have decided to try again are two fold--- 1) I love reading my friend Brandi's blog and my sister-in-law Amanda's blog and feel it is probably not fair that I get to learn so much about their lives yet I share nothing. 2) I'm engaged!!! Andrew and I are very excited about getting married and I want to include family and friends in the wedding plan process as much as possible.

So here comes the first new post and I must sadly say it is not about wedding planing! My sister-in-law introduced me to the greatest website ever....Pinterest! I have wasted lots of time browsing this this site getting ideas for the wedding and home decorating. One idea that I saw and thought was easy enough for me to complete was a Christmas Card book.
I love creating my Christmas cards each year so I go to great lengths keeping the cards we receive but I never know what to do with them. I did not have a great place to display them so they just sat in my kitchen till the end of the season when I packed up my Christmas stuff and put the cards in a ziplock bag with the year on it.
The idea I saw gave me a free template that I used with just minor adjustments! I made one for 2010 and 2011! You can see the picture below. I think they turned out pretty cute and I now have the idea to create books for birthday and other cards we receive.

Where did January GO?

Wow. I am so sorry that it has been so long since I have updated! But I have a questions for everyone! Where did the month of January go? I remember writing January on documents, but I can’t quite remember what happened. Yes, it has been a crazy busy month. But I can’t complain, life is going well.

First, I have been working on decorating my house. I picked out pillows and an ottoman for my living room. Pictures are below, let me know what you think.

I have also been working very hard on our annual StafFest at work. This event took place last week and I was part of a secret group of employees that did a Flash Mob! If you do not know, what a Flash Mob is you do not watch the TV show, Modern Family. A flash mob is where people randomly break out into a choreographed dance. It starts with a few people, then more people jump in. Go to Alabama Credit Union's FB Page and check it out. We do not have the completed video back from the Videographers yet, but once I have that I will let everyone see it as well. This might look crazy but it was so much fun and was a big hit at StafFest.

I have been super busy with work and decorating the house that I have not had time for much else. But I am excited to announce that I will be going to Philly this weekend…for work. SO yeah, it want be as much fun as going with friends but I am still very excited because I have never been to Philly.

Hope everyone has a great week.

Kelley

New Year's

Hope everyone had a great New Year’s! Andrew and I had a pretty low key night and day. We went to a awesome dinner at a restaurant downtown that I had been wanting to go to for a while, then we had a relaxing day of watching TV, snacking and reading. While most people would have hated this kind of night/weekend I loved it. We had been going ninety-to-nothing for the past few weeks with the move and Christmas so it was very nice to relax and rest. However, we did work on our New Year’s resolution before the ball dropped.

After reading my friend Brandi’s blog and hearing about her “List”, I decided that Andrew and I would make a list of items to complete throughout the year. We came up with 50 things that we would like to do and or see before the year was over. Once I figure out how to work my blog better I will post the entire list on here. However, I will tell you about a couple of the exciting items we decided to do. One is to go one day a week without TV. I know this might sound weird but neither Andrew nor I really like TV but we find our self turning it on every afternoon and watching it after we eat. But there are so many more things that we could do with our time than watch TV and hopefully this will give us the time and motivation to do it.

Another exciting item on our list is to visit three state parks. This is something my family use to do when I was small and I want to get back in the habit. Also, a wonderful lady that I work with goes camping (in and RV) quite often and they visit different state parks and she always tells great stores and how much fun they had. Now I am not saying that we will be camping out at these state parks but there are lots of parks that we can get to and from in a day. If you hear of any great state parks that we should visit, let me know.

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Kelley

Christmas is over and I'm so Blue.

I am so sad that Christmas is over. It is my favorite time of year and I feel like if flew by. That could be due to the fact that this was the first year ever that I did not get a month off to celebrate Charismas and that I moved into my new house not even a week before Christmas. However, the little time that I did have off was spent with family and friends and it was great. Andrew and I spent Christmas together with each other’s families and this required about 5 Christmases in a 2 ½ day period. However, it was a lot of fun and we enjoyed getting to do everything together.

I am in the new house and I love it and the dogs LOVE it! I am still working on getting everything set up but I am getting there. I do have things up on the walls and I did put up a Christmas tree that I have refused to take down till Saturday. I do not want to put pictures up till I get everything how I like it.

Speaking of putting pictures up, I received a great Christmas gift from Andrew. He got me a new camera that does everything! It takes video, you can take special pictures where you pick out one color to stand out and everything else is in black and white. It is awesome and I have been using it a lot lately. So expect more picture from me in the future. I am also about to start on a Photo Book using Shutterfly. If you did not notice with the Christmas cards, I have become obsessed with Shutterfuly and they give great discounts to bloggers and to everyone. Hailey, Andrew’s sister, made a photo book and it is super cute and ever since seeing it I have wanted to make one for myself. So as one of my many New Year’s resolutions I will be making one.

I have not blogged about Annie in a while, so I will update everyone on her life now. She is doing great, she has a wonderful big (but younger) brother who is very sweet to her. Annie is definitely the more bossy of the dogs and she always gets her way with both Andrew and I and with Bo. She is loving the backyard and I am very proud of her going out and playing by herself. She has had another seizure and is suffering from stiff joints during this cold weather but she is doing good. Andrew made her a special Christmas present that she received last night. He made her a “real” bed. I am not talking about one of those regular fluffy dog beds, I am talking about a wooden bed. It is so cute and she seems to be enjoying it. However, we are still working on breaking her from sleeping in the bed. I know most people think it is gross that dogs sleep in the bed, but Annie is not a dog she is a baby. But I am trying to be strong and tell her NO. I will keep you posted on how the training is going both from my point of view and hers.

You can see the pictures below.



Well, I hope everyone had a great Christmas and that you have a good and safe New Year’s. My next post will be about my New Year’s resolutions. I hope to make a list similar to Brandi’s of things that I would like to accomplish within the next year.



Thanks
Kelley

Ordered my Christmas Cards

Delightful Damask Magenta Christmas Card

Make a statement with custom Christmas cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Favorite Time of Year

It’s official—The Christmas Season is here! I love this time of year and everything about it especially Christmas Music and Christmas Lights. I have been listening to Christmas Music for almost a month at work and am so excited that it is now being played on the radio. Last week was Thanksgiving and Andrew and I had three thanksgivings to attend but had a great time at each of them.

However, the first part of the week I was afraid I was not going to make it. Monday afternoon I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Kidney Stones. I had been hurting for a few days by then and had even missed Meg’s Shower on Saturday due to hurting so bad. Nothing could have prepared me for the pain I was in on Monday night. I have to thank Andrew for being a trooper and putting up with me crying and being plain out mean. But by Thursday after missing two days of work I felt great. That was until we watched the game on Friday. We went to the Fraternity house for the game and had a great time hanging out with Andrew’s friends and seeing his cousin’s, even though they were pulling for the enemy.

Saturday we had our last Thanksgiving with my Dad and afterwards we picked up the kiddies(Annie and Bo). Annie had been at home since the weekend before and poor Bo had been at home for a couple of weeks due to our crazy November schedule. Now we have both of them back and are so glad. On Sunday Andrew treated me to an IHOP breakfast then we attempted to have a photo shoot with the kiddies. This turned out to be a disaster, but I did get a good one of Bo and a few ok one’s of them together. You can see them below.




The closing on the house is getting very close. I am getting excited but stressed as well. I have so much to get together to get moved not just packing but changing the power over, getting cable and internet, water, garbage, buying blinds and…. The list just goes on and on. But once everything is done I know I am going to be very excited. I bought a table a chair(s) set from JCPenny this weekend that was on sale. I had looked at it a while back but it was a little out of my price range, just playing around on the internet and I found that it was marked on Clearance and was 75% off. I could not pass this deal up and I ordered it. Now I just want to see what it looks like and pray that it looks good in my Kitchen.

Now that it is Christmas and I am an adult I am going to send out Christmas cards. I am excited about this and my wonderful sister-in-law has found a website where I can get some FREE! Now I need addresses. So if you have addresses I need them! Send me your address and any additional addresses of friends to KelleyJ0423@aol.com!

Thanks

Kelley

Christmas Cards

Shutterfly is offering a great promo for Bloggers! If you blog about your favorite Holiday Cards you will receive 50 FREE. I had already been checking different websites about Christmas Cards and had my sister-in-law take a picture of Annie and I on Thanksgiving! So I was set, then I saw this great promo and thought I would give it a shot. I looked at all the different designs and have picked out my Top 4. See pictures below.

Option #1

Option #2

Option #3

Option #4


This is a very hard choice for me but I think I like the “Get Glowing Christmas Card” (Option #3) best. My second favorite is the “Pine Cone Toile” (Option #2). These two are very different in my mind but I think I am going to go with the more fun looking option than the classic one. Maybe next year I will do the more classic one. Tell me what you think and check out Shutterfly and see which designs you like best and let me see them. I could spend days looking at these designs. I also want to try one of the photo books. Andrew’s sister made one of the photo books and it looks great. I am starting to gather and take pictures now so that I can make one soon.

Kelley

Home Sweet Home

Sorry I did not update last week. I have been super busy because I have just bought a house. Click on the link “Details” to see some pictures of the house. I am still waiting on the appraisal of the house, but my expected closing date is between December 8 and December 17. It was originally December 17, but everything is moving pretty fast so they think it might be sooner. I am super excited about the new house, but it is going to be a big change. I love my condo that I live in now and I am very comfortable in it, but now Annie is going to have a good size backyard to play in and we are going to have a much bigger Kitchen.

I am very excited about decorating the new house and I am constantly going through magazines and looking online for ideas. I am most worried about the Living Room. I need to pick out curtains and pillows and I am not sure what color/design I want to go with. I know I have time to decided and that everything does not have to be perfect right when I move in, but I need something to do to keep me busy with the house cause if not the waiting game to move-in is going to drive me crazy.

This house is a 3 bedroom 2 bath house so I am ready for some visitors. However, I am not sure when the extra two bedrooms will be decorated/have furniture. I talked to Mave on Sunday night and I want to do a girls weekend soon. I miss all my girlfriends so much and it is crazy to think that we all live in different cities now. Maybe we can do something close to New Years or maybe later in January.

This week is going to be a lot slower than last week. I am off on Friday! I have worked full-time since May 10 and this will be only the 2 day I have taken off. I love my job, so I like to come to work, and when I am out of the office I get behind on things, but I have important things to do on Friday. That is to sleep then watch Harry Potter again. Yep! Harry Potter comes out Thursday night at Midnight and I will be there. My brother and I are going to this together and we are very excited! I have my Harry Potter shirt ready to go!

That’s all for now! I will try to update again soon with more details of the house.

There will be days like this…

Yesterday was one of those days when everything I did went wrong. Things started going wrong for me before 7:00 a.m.. This was the first sign of a bad day. I over slept and had to rush to get ready. Andrew being the kind person he is, let me start getting ready and took the dogs out for me. Well, we don’t always put Annie on a leash when we take her out with Bo. So Annie was taking care of her business and so was Bo, Bo and Andrew start walking back to the condo, Annie looks at them like they are crazy and goes the opposite way. I believe Annie was thinking, “Those boys are crazy! There going the wrong way!” Andrew was thinking, “Annie must not be done with her business”. After Andrew puts Bo inside her turns around to discover Annie is missing.

Now Andrew did not come and tell me Annie was missing immediately, because 1) He thought he could find her fast and 2) He knew telling me would make me upset. Well after looking for a while and no sign of Annie he comes inside and tells me he needs my help finding Annie. I run outside in my bath robe and slippers with wet hair looking frantically for my dog. The first area I look is the parking lot, because I have a huge fear of my dog getting hit by a car. I could not find Annie. Now about 15minutes has passed and we are both circling the complex looking for this dog. I decide to go get Bo and see if he can sniff her out like a hound dog.

Not even half a lap around the complex I see Annie peek her head out the rails of the building next to mine (literally one stairwell over). I was already crying at this point and frantic so I call out to her. She wouldn’t come down the stairs to me! In her head she was thinking, “Mom come open the door, I’m cold out here!”, I am thinking, “Why the HECK is my dog standing at this random person’s door!”. After I carry her down the stairs and to my condo, I have mixed emotions of relief and disbelief that my dog could be that stupid to forget where she lives.

Don’t dogs have a unique sense of smell? My lord, the dogs in Homeword Bound found their way home after going through a national park! Annie could not find her way home following Andrew and Bo (a 42 pound dog). I worry about her. However, this was not the only bad incident of the day but this one turned out with a happy ending. The other incidents include but are not limited to, being without power for 8 hours the night before, missing a meeting with my Realtor, losing my car keys at the mall, my internet modem box breaking, getting lost going to Comcast, and getting pulled over by the cops. Let’s just say when the day was over I went home and stayed home! Valerie asked if I wanted to go walking with her and I was afraid I would break my leg if I attempted to leave the house.

Hope no one else had a day like this. Today has been much better thus far and for that I am very thankful!

Only WEDNESDAY~!!

Wow! It has been a crazy few days! We have lots of new material at work that is needing lots of my attention. I also went home on Saturday! It was a short weekend but I am glad I got to spend it with the family.

I did something Saturday Morning that I never want to do again. I did yard work! It was hard and I got dirty and I hope to never do it again! Well, I have a feeling that doing yard work will be inevitable with the possibility of buying a house with a yard in my near future, but still, it was hard work.

ACU and our Adopt-A-School Rock Quarry Middle School worked together to do landscaping in the front of RQMS. First we had to move the rocks they had covering the entire ground area. Then we have to dig holes. (holes the size of Texas) However, I dug 3 holes by myself and 1 more with the help of a co-worker. After we dug holes we had to mix the dirt together and plant the trees and shrubs. The actual planting was mostly done by the landscaping company we had out there to help us, but still we did a lot of work.

I have posted a few pictures of our project below. It was hard work but it was very rewarding to see how good the area looked after we were done.







Beside’s doing yard work I am once again house hunting. Instead of the SMALL condo that I live in now I am looking for a larger house with a good size backyard. However, I want to stay close to the central Tuscaloosa area. This makes house hunting lots of work. However, I have a great realtor named Trica Gray! I have found a subdivision that I like and I am now trying to figure out what to do with my condo. Let me tell all ya’ll home buying virgins a secret; buying a home sucks. There is a lot of little expenses here and there, you always have to consider the resale value and the appraisal value and in this economy you are always second guessing yourself in terms of rates. Will rates drop again, will they stay the same. WHO KNOWS.

Home buying is stressful and not near as much fun as the HGTV shows make it out to be.

Wish me luck as I continue looking at houses and weighting my option.

Volunteer- someone who does something without pay

I am currently teaching a Junior Achievement class to Kindergartners and this is one of the first words we had to talk to them about. Surprisingly most of the class knew what a volunteer was, however as an adult I find that few adults understand its meaning and want to become a volunteer. Maybe this has to do with the fact that by definition a volunteer does something without pay; and we as adults are always trying to make money. Don’t get me wrong, we need to make money but why not doing something out of the goodness of our hearts without trying to make money on it?

This is sad to me, because there is so much more we could do with our time than sit at home or sleep(lots of my volunteer activities happen very early in the morning!). I volunteered when I was in high school for different things but never to the extent that I could have and should have. While in college my time was spent studying or with the sorority. Now as I begin my career (working a minimum of 45 a week sometimes much much more) I find that volunteering has become an important part of my life.

There are many reasons why this has become so important to me; one is that I feel it is now time to give back to AOII and when Ms. Frey asked that I help I could not turn her down. However, the main reason I have started volunteering with different organizations is that the company I work for and my boss are passionate about volunteering and encourage me to volunteer. This is something I never thought would happen for me. Boy Was I Wrong or What?!?! My boss truly inspires me to be a better person. How many people can say that about their boss?? I can! She volunteers her time and gives without ever thinking “what’s in it for me”. Last week she was awarded a Community Service Award for the second time in three years (Guess they couldn’t give it to her in back to back years) and was recognized by many of our peer’s in the credit union world. I was so proud of her!

The reason for this post about “volunteering” is that this morning a group of employees from work volunteered at the West Alabama Food Bank to stuff food packs for the Brown Bag program they sponsor. This program provides food to needy elderly once a month. When I say morning I mean MORNING! I got up at 4:30 a.m. to get ready and get breakfast for our volunteers. What was truly amazing is that I asked Andrew to help as well. We were afraid we were going to be short on volunteers due to two of our main employee volunteers being off on vacation this week. Andrew said, “sure no problem” and when I told him we had to be there at 6:00 a.m. he still never complained. I have always known that Andrew had a big heart and is truly a great person, but today he amazed me even MORE. He was there at 6:00 AM no complaints with a smile on his face. When I returned to work today, everyone that was there has come up to me and said how nice it was of him to come and help and I know they truly meant it.

I want everyone to think about an opportunity that they could become involved with and volunteer their time. Ask your company what community service projects they are involved in! Adopt-A-School and Junior Achievement are two groups that are always looking for volunteers. I love a busy life and feel that I am more productive when I am going 90 to nothing. See for yourself, when you volunteer your time I bet you will find a more balanced life.



Thanks

Kelley

Three Day Weekends ROCK!

So I have had a three day weekend. Yep, it’s the wonderful holiday of “Columbus Day” and banks are CLOSED. With this long weekend I have not very little other than relax and spend time with Andrew. As many of you might be aware, Andrew and I became Facebook official this week. I am not sure why this is such a big deal, we have been “seeing” each other for a few months but we felt it was time to just throw the news out there to everyone. I think some people were a little surprised by this news flash.

Since Andrew and I are seeing more of each other our dogs have become quite close. Ok this is a total lie. The dogs spend time with each other because they have no other choice and I am positive if they had to choose a best friend they would not choose each other, but I think they are super cute together so I like to make the sit, lay, and play together. This is the ONLY picture I could get of them together and it took lots of work.



Cute picture of Bo wrapped in a blanket.



With my three day weekend, I got a haircut, went to the lake and watched the game, started the process of looking for a house (Yes, I am once again on the house search) and cleaned my apartment. That might not sound like a very busy or productive weekend but it was a great weekend!

Today Annie has been loving having her Momma at home. She had not been far from my side all day. When I went to run so errands she went for a car ride. She is now taking her afternoon nap, she has been so excited with me cleaning and being at home today to take a nap.

I am not sure when I will be able to post again this week due to a short week at works makes for a very busy week at work. But I will try to post at the end of the week. If Brandi is reading I still need her to send me pictures from the NOLA trip!

Thanks
Kelley

Brandi has inspired me....

Well, it has been a long time since I have last updated my Blog. For that I am sorry. Brandi has inspired me to continue with my Blog and update more often.

This past weekend I was able to visit Brandi in Mobile and go over to New Orleans with her and Natalie (Brandi’s cousin). We had a great time! I will post pictures from our trip once Brandi sends them to me. While in New Orleans we were able to do lots of fun stuff. We watched Alabama beat Florida and we went to a awesome Jazz Lounge. I believe the Jazz Lounge was one of the best things about the trip. We heard about the “lounge” while out shopping in the French Market. A guy Brandi was buying candles from told her about the band that played at the Jazz Lounge. The lead singer/trumpet player was in the Harry Conic Jr. Band. Overall the band was great and I think Brandi had a crush on the guy. He was pretty cute.

However, during the New Orleans trip I received bad news from home. On Saturday morning my Mom called to tell me that Annie had suffered from a seizure the night before. However, Annie was very luck she was already at the vet receiving her yearly shots. The vet said it could possibly be from an allergic reaction from the shots or could be something she is starting to develop. I hope it is the allergic reaction issue but this is not the first seizure Annie has had. A few months back Annie had a similar episode while we were getting ready for bed. After talking to the vet about this episode, they felt at the time it was a muscle spasm due to the long walk we had gone on earlier that week. Now we believe it too was a seizure. We will be monitoring Annie’s condition for the next few months to make a better decision on what to do to help her. Keep her in your thought.

That is all for today but I am going to try and update again later this week with pictures from the New Orleans trip.


Thanks

Kelley

I am going to do better about Bloging

So it has been a long time. I promise I am going to get better! I have been super busy with work and Secret Meals (which are the same thing). On Saturday, Alabama Credit Union finished up its two week kickoff campaign for its charity, Secret Meals for Hungry Children.

Secret Meals provided food packs to the backpacks of elementary children, who have been identified by school officials as not receiving nutrition over the weekend. Last year this program served 392 children in Tuscaloosa City and County schools. This year we have expanded the program to cover all areas where there is an Alabama Credit Union location. This program is funded by Alabama Credit Union and we rely on the support of individuals and businesses to help through donations. All money raised goes to the charity and Alabama Credit Union pays for all promotional materials.

This program has been amazing to work with, the school officials are so grateful for this program and it is amazing to see the need that is in our backyards. I thought hunger was only in third-world countries, but NO its in my backyard. So as you can see I am very passionate about this program! It is one of the reasons I love to get up and go to work every morning.

So besides sleeping, eating, and breathing Secret Meals I am not been up to much else. I am missing my sisters very much, but hopefully I will get to see everyone once football season starts. Give me a call if your going to be coming to some of the games.

Well that is all for today, I have to go and work! Yes work on a Sunday!

Father's Day

I hope everyone had a great Father's Day! Yesterday, my Dad, my brother and sister-in-law, and I went out to breakfast and just enjoyed some time together. It was a great start to Father's Day and I hope my Dad enjoyed it.

I don't always say it, but I am very thankful to my Dad. He has helped me so much to become to successful adult that I am. I especially want to thank him for all the hard work he has done the help me close on my Condo. He has taken care of so much while trying to make sure I don't stress about it. So thanks Dad, your the best!

I am sorry for the long gaps between my posts, but all I do is work. Now don't get me wrong I love my job, and I have no problem working a lot, but I doubt anyone wants to hear about my job everyday. Right now I am working on a Kick-off Campaign for Secret Meals for Hungry Children- this is such a great program and I hope the kick-off goes great and we can raise lots of money to help feed kids!

I am getting a facial tonight! I am excited about this, but also a little scared. I have never had a facial before but I hope it makes my skin look better. Kelly at Nancy Taylor assures me that this will help, she has already helped me with some new facial products that I feel are already working. If you have any tips for me about my Facial please let me know!

That is all for now, I will let everyone know how the facial goes tomorrow. Have to hurry off to work early for a conference call!

Kelley

Annie

Ok. I am horrible at updating my blog. I am going to try and get at least on post a week starting today. Brandi called me out on not updating, so I am going to write about my fav subject--ANNIE!

My sister-in-law took some great pictures of my dog Kiwi, that lives with my mom. Once I saw these pics, I asked her to take some of Annie. And she did, I have some cute candid shots of Annie. Above is one of my fav's.

Since I started working I have been feeling guilty for leaving Annie for such long periods of time. I guess this is the same when parents leave their kids in daycare. I come home for lunch and take her for a walk, but I usually feel more guilty when I leave cause she cries. And when I say she cries, I mean she cries like a baby. She has the tear stains to prove it. She has severe abandonment issues.

She has been doing some very funny things lately. For example, she spreads her toys out all over the apartment when I'm gone. I pick them up and she just watches me, so I try to play with her with them. She just stares at me. Then once I have moved on she picks them up and moves them back to where she had them.....without playing with them. She just places them throughout the apartment.

She also hates that I sometimes have to go into work at 7. This means I get up really early cause I do my Yoga every morning. When this happens she gets back into the bed before I can make it up and digs her way up under all the covers so that its nice and dark for her to go back to sleep. Lazy dog. I swear she sleeps 20 -22 hours of the day. I made her wake up the other afternoon at 7 cause she was snoring.

OK enough about my baby Annie. Brandi has asked about my schedule for the Summer. Well, my schedule is work, work, and more work. I work at the Ferg during Bama Bound sessions, so this means talking to scared parents and kids. So far this has been very fun! I don't have any major plans for this summer. With starting a new job, I don't have a lot of chance to take off. But like banks the Credit Union has great hours. We are closed on Monday so that means this is a long weekend for me.

On a side note, my Mom came up Friday night to help me do some stuff around the apartment. We steamed all my floors and did a few other things. I still have some decorating things I want to do to the apartment, but these will have to wait, I am trying to spread things out so I am not spending tons on decorating each month. Thanks to my wonderful Mom for all her help this weekend on my new home.

Hope everyone has a great long weekend!

Marketing Assistant

Today was my first day as a full-time employee at Alabama Credit Union. It was a great day, but a long day as well. It started with Honor's Day Breakfast at RQMS at 7:00, Avanti Breakfast at 8:30, and ended with a training session at 7:30 tonight. So super long day. But it was busy and I LOVE busy days.

I know that not everyday will be this busy, but I look forward to more days learning the ropes of my new position and hopefully taking on more duties to help the Credit Union.

This past weekend my Dad and I went to the beach. We had a great trip, just relaxing! I am glad I got to spend this time with my Dad, we don't always get to see each other as much as we would like.

We came back from the beach Sunday and I spent a little bit of time with my Mom before, I had to come back to Tuscaloosa. I am glad I got to see her on Mother's Day. I have the best Mom in the world, I know everyone thinks they have the best Mom, but my Mom is awesome. She is my best friend and my number one supporter.

Annie got a major hair cut this past week and is now super skinny. My sister-in-law took pictures of her this weekend, so I will post one when I get them so everyone can see how cute my baby is.

Hope everyone had a good Monday and is glad the school is done. I know I am.

Kelley