....travel down the road and back again....

Have I mentioned my recent love of "thrifting" to you yet? My break through moment was when I discovered the "Color of the Day" at The Salvation Army! You can't beat getting sale items from a thrift store! If that's not the epitome of "thrift" I don't know what is!

This weekend, actually, Valentine's Day (not relevant to the story, just thought I'd throw that out there) I was hitting an antique mall on my way to Hertford, NC to look for junk, or tables, or a bright yellow door with an antique door knob that my mom almost had to pry me away from (again, not relevant, but this door was absolutely AMAZING! Sadly, I have no where to put such an item...) when I turned the corner and saw the most glorious dresses! They looked as if they had been stripped right off of Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sopia! It was like these dresses just hung there, with a glow around them, and maybe even angels singing in the background... cue the flashback music and a dazed look on my face...

I found myself back in college, more specifically Halloween 2005. My roommates and I, the clean cut girls that we were, decided to dress up as the Golden Girls. (Yeah, we were some hardcore rebels...) While most crazy college chicks are dressing up like playboy bunnies, frenchmaids, or skanky police women... my roomies and I hit the thrift stores in the search of "old lady dresses." It took a while, but we found what we thought were perfect dresses and purses and shoes, all of which fully captured the old women inside each of us. To form more unity amongst our "costumes" we spray painted our shoes gold, that way, if there were any questions about what we were and why we were wearing clip on earrings, we could point at the shoes, which, we believed, spoke for themselves in the most matter of a fact way, plainly stating "Duh, we are The Golden Girls."

Flash back to real time... Who would've thought that our dresses were not perfect Golden Girl dresses! Who would've thought that right outside Hertford four, even more perfect dresses hung, simply awaiting my discovery! No, I didn't purchase these gems... I simply stood, in awe, of their golden glory. And then with a quick (and sneaky) snap of my my ice blue chocolate LG camera phone I captured the moment, and shared it with my roomies (well two out of three... Christen hasn't quite caught up with the times and the whole texting thing yet. I fear her wrath whenever she receives texts and realizes she has to pay a quarter to read something that someone could've simply called and verbally told her, for free. That's just a heads up to any of you who were unaware of the existence of non-texters. Who knows, they may be the smartest of all, 30 years from now, when the rest of us have carpal tunnel, folks like my brunette roommate will be painlessly flaunting their jazz fingers in front of us.)

I'd like to finish up with blog with a cheesecake, the picture of the Carolinian Golden Girl dresses, and possibly a picture or two of Halloween 2005.

In the cupcake zone...

I could not sleep last night and found myself watching "The Soup" much after midnight. I was hysterically laughing when this clip came on, and my poor dog, who was curled up in bed with me was so upset by my behavior that she leaped out of bed and didn't return until the morning. Anyway, enjoy the laugh... It had me crying myself to sleep last night (due to laughter)!

A few minutes to spare!

I had a few minutes to spare today, well, actually, I didn't have any minutes to spare, not even one, but I spared them anyway. 4pm on a Friday, can you blame me? I should be able to take 15 minutes to try a new craft!

I'm a huge fan of the shabby chic slash distressed look when it comes to decorating. I was on my way home from visiting realtors today and stopped at the Salvation Army. (It's always a toss up as to whether or not you will find something there, but let me tell you, anyone who is local, the prices have dropped since their "Grand Opening") I bought this funny looking flower candle thing today for all of two bucks. It was bronze, and ugly-ish, I mean, it's not something I would have put in my home. But for a couple of dollars, I figured, let's see what I can do with this... took it home, oh wait, did I add it was on sale?! ($1.50!) So I took it home, experimented with my spray paint and turned it into this: (the photo is pretty crappy, and does not do it justice... but... here goes...)

Before:

(Spitter advises us to "Stop and Smell the Flowers")

After:

Ta-daaaa! I think its kinda cool now... Not yet sure if I am going to keep it, but it's definitely something I would consider buying in a store now!

Feed back welcomed! :-)

Things that make me ________ today:

Things that made me smile today:

My dog. Spending time with Leslie and learning how to use photoshop, at least a teeny tiny bit of it. No line at the post office. Eating dinner with my boyfriend at the coffee table. Finishing up with my reports for the past couple of weeks. Talking to yet another realtor to check off my weekly meeting list, and receiving an email confirming the shipment of the new warranties. The presidential inauguration. The hope Obama has... and will... provide to our country, even if it is simply because of his incredible public speaking ability. My kittens purring the second I talk to them. My wii fit reported my weight loss to be 7 pounds. The Biggest Loser, even though Joelle was not sent home.


Things that made me frown today:

The 4-6 inches of snow that were predicted for the day... it never showed up.

Things that made me laugh today:

All of the public schools in the area were closed today due to snow, which I previously mentioned above, never showed up. My mom, grandmother, and aunts drove all the way to Raleigh, NC to see Celine Dion. (Oh just wait, that's not the funny part). Upon their arrival they were informed, via a call from my sister, that the show has been postponed to tomorrow night. Stuck in Raleigh, in a hotel room, on vacation, with two smokers, and absolutely nothing to do, except wait for Celine.

Breast Cancer Cupcakes

I had a super slow day of work the other day and baked up a batch of cupcakes. When it came time to decorate them I had to put my thinking cap on. My friend's mom just found out that she has breast cancer and was having surgery that day... which lead me to there creations:
I hear they were delicious! I didn't want to eat them, you know, beginning of the year "i want to lose weight this year" thing that everyone goes through, so I sent them to Indian River High for the teachers and the special education kids.

Dear Diary,

Back in the day I was a blogger.  And not to sound full of myself, but I actually had followers, not a lot, but there were several of you who were loyal.  

It wasn't until recently, eh, I mean two days ago, when I stumbled upon a blog while googling, in hopes of killing time.  Lo and behold, I found a blog written by some girl, somewhere out there in cyberspace, whom I swear I could be best friends with.  Luckily, for her sake, she has no personal information on her page.  (Kidding.....  I mean, what kind of creepy stalker do you think I am?!)  Anyway, her blog led to another blog, which led to another blog which... yeah, you get the point.  I knew blogging was a huge thing, but I naively missed the boat on just how huge.  

They slightly intrigue me, for many reasons.  

1.  Why do we feel the need to publish our thoughts in one of the most public mediums?  Are we simply doing this as a way to express ourselves publicly?  Are we doing this in the hopes that other people will read and enjoy whatever nonsense happened in one day of a stranger's life?  Or are we doing this for ourselves?  Are blogs replacing the bedside diary?  You know, the Lisa Frank styled notebook with a lock on it's side, in which we all trusted that our key was the only key to this diary (or better yet, we trusted that our little, tiny, fake metal key was the only thing that would open the little, tiny, fake metal lock.)  Are little girls still journaling about their crushes in their diaries?  Are faithful men and women journaling their day to day emotions?  Or has the world completely moved to the next phase as now we begin blog together?

2.  Why do we feel the need to read the blogs of strangers?  Or better yet "subscribe" to their blogs?  (For the record, I'm not really positive about the "subscription thing"... I'm a blog-subscription-virgin therefore I cannot totally understand such action.  Do you actually subscribe to random blogs? or just blogs of your friends?)  Let me be honest, in my last couple of days, in an act of time killing and chore avoidance, I have become hooked on at least three blogs of total strangers.  There is something intriguing about the tiny insight these folks shed about their lives, their families, and their cultures.  Whether they leave a short three-sentence blog, or the more than common three paragraphed blog, you have the opportunity to see things from a different perspective, learn something totally random, or yet again, let me stress, just pass time.

As a communication's major in college I should have much more insight and understanding to this phenomenon, yet I am as intrigued as ever!  Why have I become hooked to a stranger's blog?  Why do I check back to see if she has updated it?  Why am I writing my own blog (again)?  Who is going to read this?  What kind of chore are they putting off as they read through my thoughts?  Have I given up on my dearest diary who would never share any of my top secret thoughts with the world, only to share all of these deep, dark secrets with the entire world wide web?

I leave with room for discussion as I embrace the blogging world which so aptly lay before me.