Shockingly doing Ten on Tuesday ON TUESDAY

1. Where are you from? Have you lived there your whole life?

I'm from a little town near Charlotte, NC. And yes, I've always lived here, I'll probably die here, and y'all can all judge me and talk about how un-worldly I am. I'm ok with that. I love it here, and it's home. I've lived in Chapel Hill for college, and did a year of law school in Columbia, SC. It's easier to go back to Chapel Hill and get all nostalgic about it now that I'm removed from living there a little bit. But when I was there, I always had the distinct feeling that it wasn't home and that I just sort of had to be there because of college. I didn't enjoy it as much as a lot of people did, though I love to go back now. Columbia? Columbia is a terrible place, in my opinion. I know there are

people who love it, but I found it a dangerous, hot, ugly place full of giant roaches. I'll take my town - I've never been as happy as I am now, living on my own, in my town.

2. How would you classify your clothing style?
Homeless chic. Just kidding. Though I was Food Lion yesterday in a ball cap, t-shirt and UNC sweatshirt because I didn't feel like putting on a bra. Most of the time, I don't wear it if it doesn't come from Target or Old Navy. Maybe the easiest thing is just an example. Today I'm wearing Old Navy dark wash skinny jeans, a gray tank top with a few beads and lace at the top from Abercrombie kids (yes, Abercrombie kids) and a big, slouchy army green cardigan. All with my "renaissance festival boots," as my friend T called them.

3. What kind of car do you drive?
A Toyota FJ Cruiser. Y'all, I love that car. It has rubber floor mats you can just wash off with the hose when they get dirty. It's bright blue. It has giant mirrors that totally eliminate blind spots. It has a compass that I have never used but that looks cool. Also an incline meter. Makes me look like I'm the kind of person who hikes and camps and kayaks. Oh, illusions.

4. What would your dream home look like if you could have it (or already do!)?
Honestly, I feel like I have it now, but it is perhaps a little small (only 2 beds, 2 baths). So basically, I want my exact house, in its exact quiet, cute little neighborhood, with all of its closets and cabinet space, and its screen porch, with maybe a second story.

5. Do you have kids, and if so, how many and how old were you when you had them?
Lord, no. But I do have puppy fever. See my last post.

6. What is your favorite hobby?
Knitting. I never have enough time for it, but I love to do it while I watch tv or a movie on my couch. It's so fun to take some yarn and needles and actually make something out of it. Maybe I love baking for the same reason. It seems like magic.

7. Are you going to have any New Year’s resolutions for 2011?
Yes. The typical, work out more, stay healthier, blah blah. We'll see how that goes. But I do have a wedding dress to fit into, so it better go pretty well.

8. What is something, if anything, that you’d want to change about yourself?
I wish I was one of those people with just a touch of OCD that has to have everything cleaned out and organized and prepared all the time. I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, cram-that-junk-in-the-closet kind of girl. It can be very frustrating.

9. What is something that you love about yourself?
I am pretty darn loyal.

10. Pick one of the following: Someone to cook for you, someone to do your laundry, or someone to do your dishes.
I love to cook, I find it a lovely creative process. One which normally involves me messing up every dish and flat surface in the house. But fortunately, the rule at mi casa is if you cook, you don't clean up. And PB hates cooking,so he cleans up, and it works out great. So that's covered. But maybe you know of my laundry woes. Laundry is the bane of my existence and PB hates it too, so it's like the one thing that's always naggingly undone at my house. I really, really need a laundry elf.

Your turn!

Thanks to Chelsea at Roots and Rings for coming up with this! And to Walking with Nora for getting me into it!

Puppy Fever

A lot of y'all have been posting about baby fever lately...and the peeb and I are not there at all. But we do have puppy fever. Intense, incurable puppy fever. So much so that I have been cruising Petfinder for HOURS and we made an appointment to go and see this little bebe:

We're going this afternoon to see her in her foster home. We've promised ourselves we won't bring her home today though. I've got to go back to class tonight, and I kind of intentionally scheduled the visit on a day that wouldn't be great to bring a dog home so that I'll be less tempted to do it. Seriously, me and PB are the worst. He wouldn't let you know, but he'll want to take her home too. We're a dangerous combination.

Also, PB wants to name whatever dog we get "Peggy." This is the kind of weird person my fiance is, but it cracks me up. Especially since we are looking at getting a dachshund or a dachshund mix (because I love those, and I really can't have a big dog) - it makes me think of little peg legs.

It was hilarious yesterday when I brought this intense puppy fever to the attention of Mama Dearest. There was an intense text message battle for roughly thirty minutes, to the extent of "a dog will ruin your house, you can't have a dog, wait until after the wedding/bar exam, it will make your cats pee on your furniture, etc. etc. etc." I pointed out that if I am in fact going to get a dog, now is the time - after the wedding and bar exam, I am (presumably) going to have a job that requires me to actually be out of the house all day long. Nowadays, I'm here a good amount of time, and I will be all summer too, even if I'm studying for the bar. That means time for potty training a dog/puppy before I have to be gone all the time.

So after about 15 minutes of silence, she sent me a text that said something like, "Well. I'm not marrying you. So. I don't have a dog in this fight." And then we immediately transitioned to her asking to help name it, looking up dog products on Etsy, and cruising puppy websites.

We did make an appointment to go see a puppy tomorrow morning too. That's another reason we can't take home the dog we meet today. Mom is really advocating us getting a puppy, rather than "a dog with baggage." I don't really agree with that, for a few reasons, such as me having to house train a puppy from scratch, the fact that it would be a dog from a breeder, etc.

But then, puppies are super cute. And I'm also wondering if that wouldn't be better for my two cats. They would probably put a puppy in its place pretty darn quickly. Thinking that won't be the same for an older rescue dog who has seen the mean streets for awhile. It would probably threaten to cut them or something. Mom also makes a pretty practical argument that these puppies are already here and someone might as well adopt them and make them pets. I know, it's still supporting breeders and all of that, I understand how that argument is flawed. But adopting one rescue dog isn't going to necessarily change everything and stop breeders forever. I'm a realist, yo.

At this point, I'm keeping an open mind both ways. I'm super excited to go meet both of them!

I plan on making PB the official event photographer this afternoon, so expect an update with pictures soon!

Eaten Until I'm Tired.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all! Turns out that two Thanksgiving meals in one day is too much for this girl, and so I've retired to my sweatpants, my Snuggie (yes, I have a Snuggie), and sitting by the Christmas tree with some tea. With my cats. And I'm thinking of knitting later. Could I be more of an old lady? Whatever. It's fine.

Anywho, we had the 2nd Annual Great Deviled Egg Cook-Off last night! Alas, I did not retain my title this year. A newcomer won the title - and I have to say, they were pretty good classic eggs. We definitely had a lot more entries this year, 13 in all, and it was tough to get through that many eggs. It also really spread the voting out, as I feel that despite my instructions otherwise, folks voted for their own eggs. We had about 30 people in attendance, and the winner got 5 votes - definitely crazy. But by the time we'd finished with all the egg-making and the egg-sampling, I think I could go for another ten years without touching eggs with

a ten foot pole. Seriously, I saw the deviled egg plate at lunch today and wanted to run and hide. The egg cook-off is always a great time though, and last night was no exception.

Today's festivities consisted of not one, but two Thanksgiving feasts, and since I have all the willpower of a hamster, I have eaten until I don't think I could physically raise the fork to my mouth again. But there was barbecue turkey (my grandmother's specialty, and my favorite), perfect dressing, gravy, hashbrown casserole, green bean casserole, and coconut cake. Basically, all that is good and wonderful in the world.

And now, it's Christmastime at my house!

I can't believe that it's survived a few nights now without totally being torn down by Twyla. She's big enough (11 1/4 pounds, and she's only a year old) and she's wild enough to go all nutter butters on the tree. Her strategy, I think, has been to slowly undecorate it, like I won't notice. She grabs part of the beaded garland, takes it from the bottom of the tree, and starts walking around with it. She'll mindlessly paw at the lower ornaments until she gets one off to chase around.

Yesterday, I was sitting at the table and looked over at the tree and saw it sort of shaking. I thought to myself, "Hmm, why would the tree be shaking?" Then I notice two little back feet sticking out from the bottom of the tree. "OH RIGHT. Because there's a KITTEN in my TREE."

Let's hope she doesn't get any braver in the next month or so - we may have a tree disaster on our hands.

Solidifying the Ball and Chain

I finally ordered PB's wedding band last night. Getting PB to commit to his favorite wedding band is like pulling teeth. He pretty much has zero opinions. "I mean, it's a ring," was a frequently heard phrase.

I originally really liked the fingerprint rings from fabuluster on etsy, but they only come in sterling, and a sterling ring + PB is going to last approximately 4.2 seconds.

I tried and tried to find one in tungsten, which is what PB really liked after trying on a ton of rings at the jewelry store. But tungsten is pretty much way too hard for a design like that, and I had pretty much the same results with titanium. I did find one, but the print didn't wrap around like that - it was just a solo print on one part of the band, and I was not a fan of that.

So after I sent PB a billion more pictures, he finally committed that this was his favorite:

It's tungsten, which he wanted, because it's heavier and PB likes that for some reason. And it's kind of different - I can tell that's one thing he really does want. I think he is going to be a lot less happy with a plain band or anything even close to traditional. Also, it's 9mm wide, which is super necessary for him. When you're buying a ring in a size 13, it tends to look real girly on his giant hands if it's not also pretty wide.

So yay, ring ordered!

It occurred to me that I've never shown you guys my ring - I've had it since August, but I've not posted any pictures!

There it is! I took that picture in our hotel room in Savannah right after we got engaged. It's on top of one of the roses PB gave me at the big moment. I know, you're throwing up in your mouth. But I'm always curious about other people's bling, so there's mine, for your viewing pleasure.

ATL

So, I'm back! I took a day off work because a) I am a little throat-scratchy, which might just be from sitting in the mold-infested Fulton County Courthouse all weekend, or it might be the start of a cold I could infect the whole office with just in time for the holiday, and b) after being gone all weekend I have so many little things around the house to get done.

Time for a little weekend recap!Like I said, I hadn't been to Atlanta in forever, and had never gotten to really see much of it, so it was cool to be down there for the weekend. It would definitely be a fun weekend road trip for me and PB sometime, because it's a fun city and there's a lot I still really want to see! Mainly I was sad that we didn't have time for the world of coke (wow, that sounded like a drug reference), or the Georgia Aquarium.

We did get to do a few cool things though. We stayed at the Omni, which is connected to the CNN center, which is super cool. Here's a view of the hotel and CNN from the outside:

It had a super-fancypants lobby too, which makes me feel real awk when I am traipsing around there in a t-shirt and sweatpants (that happened).

The hotel was also connected to the CNN center, which had an atrium and a giant food court with 94 billion delicious things to eat. Pretty sure I gained about 10 pounds in one weekend. There was a Dunkin Donuts that was a lifesaver every morning, and a Great Wraps place that makes a darn good falafel pita and some amazing fries with whatever seasoning you want on them!

The first morning there, the whole team went to brunch at a place called West Egg Cafe, and if you live in Atlanta and haven't been or are visiting, you HAVE to go there. They have an amazing menu and by amazing I mean that they put homemade pimento cheese and bacon into an omelet. Delicious, delicious. Also the atmosphere is so cool - very retro, very awesome.

The first night, my teammate Ash and I were having kind of a rough night for various reasons. So after a long day of competition, we found ourselves in the hotel bar, drinking $10 glasses of wine and $6 Michelob Ultras. But at one point, I think the bartender felt bad for us, and he brought out two giant pieces of cake and handed them to us. That's when you know you're having a rough night.

Fortunately, there was only one more day of competition and Ash and I got to be witnesses, which is easy peasy. Then there was a reception at Manuel's Tavern, which was the scene of the "crime" we were fake litigating all weekend. Thank goodness, everything was over for us at that point, and everyone enjoyed the free pitchers of beer with abandon. Here's the team!

We competed against the team from UGA during our last round and we all started hanging out together at Manuel's. When the trial crowd thinned out there and a super-obnoxiously drunk wedding party rolled in, the UGA team led us down the street to another bar in the highlands. And you can see how the team was doing at that point:

All in all, it was quite the weekend, and I have to say that it's good to be home, it's good to have a ton of extra time back since trial team is over for the semester. And above all, I'm ready for Thanksgiving break and some turkey!

My new shutterfly cards!

Framed With Joy Holiday Card

Make a statement with custom holiday cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

A-Town Bound

I'm heading down to ATL after class with some other lawyerin' school folks, to compete in the William Daniel Mock Trial Invitational. The reason I am most excited about this? It means that after this weekend, the competition will be over! And I can regain some semblance of a life! Yay! I am not the kind of person who stays at the law school for hours upon hours every day. Ever, ever, ever. And so now that I've started on this trial team thing, that's been a necessity, and it kind of makes me want to scream every second I'm here outside of class.

But anywho, I haven't been to Atlanta since...and this is a great reason...the Association of Christian Schools International Spelling Bee. Regionals were in Atlanta, and in sixth grade, I got to go. It was SUPER EXCITING, let me tell you. So if you're from Hot-lanta (trying now to use every obnoxious nickname I know, clearly): I need suggestions. What can't I miss? I don't have a ton of time at all, so I'm really talking restaurants, maybe a hangout spot or two. We'll be staying across from the CNN center, so you know the general area, and the competition is in the courthouse.

The "crime scene" in our problem is Manuel's Tavern, which is apparently a big, old Atlanta hangout, and we're going there for a post-competition party/reception on Saturday night, before the final rounds on Sunday. Other than that, we don't really have plans to be anywhere other than the courthouse.

I've been frantically packing, which I hate. I always, always, always forget something while simultaneously managing to overpack. How does that even work? Example: I've already realized I forgot to bring my jacket. Definitely left it hanging in the closet, so I have nothing for mornings/evenings when it gets chilly. Fail. Maybe I can do a Target run or something when we get there, after I realize I've forgotten 19 other things, despite the fact that I have 46 pairs of pajama pants in my duffel bag.

Anywho, I'll be MIA most likely for the next few days, until after we get home and I throw myself into full-out Thanksgiving mode. My official list of responsibilities for Thursday includes:

Hashbrown Casserole
Garlic-Cheese Biscuits
Caramel Apple Cupcakes
Pumpkin Gooey Cake

I'll post some recipes when I get back - those are a collection of my "Greatest Hits" recipes if you will, and they are all super-easy ways to be real impressive at T-giving. Have a lovely weekend!