Arrangement - Need Your Help

In my last post I mentioned hanging up wedding photos.  It's true... it's almost been three years and I'm FINALLY hanging up wedding photos.  We got a collage frame for our last anniversary, so I used that.  I also picked out 3 pictures from our ceremony I loved and framed them.  I framed an 8 x 10 photo of our wedding party.  And finally the thorn in my side, a beautiful picture of Chad and I.  The reason it was a thorn in my side was it was formatted to be a 4x6 so when I expanded it to a 8x10 it cut pieces off.  Normally there would probably be some room for that, but this picture didn't have any room to be cut off.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do, and then I heard about a site -Mpix.  I was able to order a bigger size that didn't cut anything off.  Of course it was hard to find a matte for the frame, but luckily my friend Liz works in the framing department at Michael's and was able to cut me a custom matte.

So now here's where I need your help.  I have no idea how this arrangement to go.  The collage frame is the part that's make it difficult.  So, I played around with a few arrangements... and I need your opinion of which one you like the most.  Or, if you have a suggestion for something better I'm all ears!

For a reference, this is the wall the pictures will be going on.  This is next to the office door, and across from the previous photo arrangement.

And here is what I came up with

Arrangement #1

Arrangement #2

Arrangement #3

Arrangement #4

Arrangement #5

So those are the five choices... which do you like best?  Do you have a suggestion for a different arrangement?  Someone please help a sista out!!

4th Quarter Goals

The other day I was talking to a friend and she told me she had made some goals that she wanted to complete before the end of the year.  While I know we aren't really into the "4th quarter" yet... but hey it sounds good.

This conversation made me think, what kind of things do I want to get completed by the end of the year?  Maybe challenging myself to get some of these things done will mean they will actually get done?  Is that possible?

So, I've come up with a few... maybe I'll come up with a few more... who knows... they all center around the house... but there's a lot I want to get done!!

So here they are:

• Paint the kitchen
• Hang the wedding photos
• New curtains in the living room
• Art for the blank wall in the living room
• Hang the mirror in the bathroom and paint cabinets

Wow, that's some lofty goals... we'll see if I can manage to get them all done!!

Week in Review

Something a little different...

Friday August 19:  Every other Friday my friend-slash-coworker, Carrie and I go to lunch.  We went to bread company, it was fun.  Friday night, we celebrated my good friend Susan's birthday.  We went to the Little Hills Winery Festival in St. Charles.  First we had dinner at Llewellyn's.  It was my first time eating there and it was pretty delicious.  We sat outside, and that was really nice.  I really can't wait until it's fall and the weather is really nice to sit outside in.  I'm pretty done with this warm weather!  Then we walked around the festival.  None of us bought anything, but it was a good time.  We did get fried oreos... pretty delicious!!  At the end of the night our car got stuck in a parking lot.  There were no signs saying we couldn't park where we did, but they pretty much locked us in.  Luckily we were able to get the car out (not that I thought we wouldn't), but it was pretty funny... at least to me.

Saturday, August 20:  Chad made plans for us to visit his friend, Melissa's house in Jerseyville, IL.  We picked up his other friend Elizabeth.  (both of these girls are members of his motorcycle gang (ok, it's a club, but gang sounds so much cooler)  We went to Melissa's house to shoot guns.  I shot my very first gun... ever.  I didn't really care to shoot one, but Chad really wanted me to - so I did.  After the others got their fill of using deadly weapons the plan was to eat at Fast Eddie's Bon Air... however it was SO FREAKING PACKED that we just headed home.  We ended up getting Taco Bell for dinner and renting a couple of movies from Red Box.  We watched Adjustment Bureau and Sucker Punch - both were entertaining.

Sunday, August 21:  Chad and I slept in again and then ate some food together.  Then Chad had to head to work.  I did school work (thrilling I know).  Timing worked out perfectly and I was finished with schoolwork when I needed to leave to meet up with my family to finally celebrate my brother's birthday.  We went to a restaurant on the Hill.  It was super delicious, the toasted ravioli was probably the best I've ever had.  After dinner I headed home and just hung out.

Monday, August 22:  It was my Monday off work.  I love this schedule!  I got to sleep in, it was awesome.  Then Chad did motorcycle stuff while I did laundry (excitement city!)  I also am trying to reuse a canvas so I painted over the last picture... After Chad was finished with the motorcycle stuff we had dinner - take out from a local Thai food place and nutter butter blizzards from DQ.  We also finally watched Paranormal Activity 2 - kinda freaked us both out!

Tuesday, August 23:  Urg, back to work.  But, I stayed busy, so that's something.  I got something annoying that I left on Friday done, so that felt good.  When I got home, we went out to dinner with our friends Ryan and Kayla.  We went to Smugala's up the street b/c they have pitcher specials during Cardinals games.  We got pitchers of beer, pretzel bites, chicken wings, and buffalo chicken pizza - all VERY good!!  It was a fun night, I like Smugala's and happy they put one up the street.  Plus, Chad and Ryan won us some of those fake candy cigarette things... reminds me of my childhood.  Also found out that my step-sister Adriane had her baby.

Wednesday, August 24:  Ugh, work again!  This was probably the least exciting day of the week.  I did accidentally break one of my plants at work.  SAD FACE.  I'm trying to save the piece I broke off, I should be able to.  I came home and made my favorite dinner when I'm alone - chili mac.  A can of turkey chili (Wolf brand with some extra spices), macaroni noodles, and cheese... and oyster crackers!  Oh, so good... but probably oh so bad for me.  I watched Bachelor Pad (I like reading the recap on RealitySteve.com) and the finale of the Challenge - Rivals on MTV - I'm sad it's over.

Thursday, August 25:  Ugh, work yet again (sensing a trend??)  I went to lunch with Susan.  We always go to McAllisters and it was no different on Thursday.  It was a good time.  We also stopped by Babies R Us so she could help me pick out a gift for the new baby (since she has a little guy herself).  On Thursday night, I had dinner with my dad.  We went to Fuddrucker's.  It was pretty delicious - good burgers.  It was nice to catch up with him one-on-one.  We decided to look at Borders since it is going out of business.  I picked up a book I wanted, but realized I could get it for the same price on Amazon as the discounted price at Borders.  After dad and I parted ways, I went home, but first stopped at Michael's to pick up a final frame for the wedding pictures I want to hang up.  Now I can work on the arrangement and finally (almost 3 years later) get them hung up.  My goal is to have them on the wall before our anniversary.

And that was my week - like this segment?  I can do it again let me know!!

Vacation - Day 6 & 7

The reason I'm combining Tuesday and Wednesday is not much happened on Tuesday.  We drove... A LOT.  The two things that we wanted to do - A coal mine and Hilly-billy Hot dogs - the timing just didn't end up working out. ::sad face::

But here's a picture before we left Myrtle Beach:

We made it all the way to Lexington, KY on Tuesday.

On Wednesday we headed back toward home.  We stopped in Louisville, KY to pose by a wax Coronal Sanders

We also saw a giant bat at the Louisville Slugger factory

And then we saw another giant bat

Then we stopped in Santa Claus, IN

We went to the Santa Claus Museum

Then we shopped at the ornament store - I mean who doesn't like shopping for ornaments in August?!?

After that we checked out Lincoln's Boyhood Home

Mom went and looked at the bronzed foundation... it was too hot for the rest of us

After Lincoln boyhood home we got something to eat and made the final stretch to home.

It was a wonderful trip, full of a lot great memories.  Mom, thanks for planning a wonderful vacation!  You're awesome!!

Vacation - Day 5

I've been really slow with this recap... whoopies!!

On Monday we finally had a pretty low key day.  First we took my mom's car into the shop because we thought the AC wasn't working correctly... turns out nothing was wrong... whoops... but let's face it in that heat we NEEDED the AC to be working, so it's better to get it checked out than not have AC.

After we got back to the hotel we ate some lunch and mom headed down to the beach with Lindsey.  I was sun burnt and really didn't want to be out in the sun anymore anyway.  So I stayed in, did some school work and hung out with my grandma... here I am looking lazy with grandma...

And here's a pretty picture of the beach from our balcony.  Grandma and I sat out there for awhile to enjoy the beach view.

That evening we decided to have a delicious dinner at Villa Romana Italian Restaurant.  It was a delicious authentic Italian restaurant.  It was like a course meal or whatever it's called... soup, salad, entree, and dessert.  With this super yummy bread.  Here's Lindsey pretending to look over the menu.

For dessert we had THE BEST spumoni ice cream ever.  Seriously!  It was really really great!

After dinner we decided to go souvenir shopping.  I got a t-shirt, sweatshirt capris and a bracelet.  We wanted to shop at the Gay Dolphin, but no good parking spots at that place.  It would have been cool to get a shirt that said Gay Dolphin :)

After that we went mini golfing.  Apparently, Myrtle Beach in the mini golf capital of the world.  The problem is everyone visiting Myrtle Beach mini golfs!  So it was super crowded, we had to wait a lot and it was super hot.  After about hole 11 we decided to just skip the rest of them... and that was a good choice.  It was fun for a few holes though.  We did a jungle course with animal statues all over the place.  Here's a couple of pics.  

And that ended Day 5!

Vacation - Day 4

This was one of the first days on vacation we could actually sleep in... and boy did it feel good.  Later than morning Lindsey and I decided to go parasailing.  We had made an appointment for the night before for a place recommended by the hotel.  We figured it was just a few blocks down on the beach so Lindsey and I got dressed and made the trek to the place on the beach.  We walked and walked and walked and didn't see anything.  I mean you'd think it would be easy to find a parasailing place.

After we decided we had walked far enough we went up to the street to see and we had walked past the address.  Long story short, I guess the place we made reservations at was in North Myrtle Beach not South Myrtle Beach where we were.  I guess the road has the same addresses... we started to realize this trend more and more over our few days in Myrtle Beach... talk about confusing!!

Either way we decided to go to a different parasailing place that wasn't in North Myrtle Beach where we were not located!  Mom drove us down there, and we paid and got our life vests and waited for our turn.  We had to take a banana boat out to the boat.  The ride out there was fun, but the position I had to sit in really kind of hurt my hip.  Also going over the waves sprayed you with water... it was fun, but kind of annoying too.

Here is my sister and I on the boat

And here we are up in the air... ignore my goofy legs

Parasailing was amazing!  It was so much fun.  When I was watching the parasailing boats going by I was thinking it might be really scary being that high up... but it wasn't at all... it was really peaceful and fun.  When they brought us back in they drunk us, which was fun... and then the dragged us in the water... it was fun all around.

We went back to the and mom and Lindsey headed to the beach.  Here's a secret... I like being by the ocean, but I don't really like swimming in the ocean... and I don't like how sad gets everywhere and you can't get rid of it... I know... I'm crazy.  So I found a chair at the pool swam around in the pool and read by book poolside... it was very nice!

On vacation I read Sisterhood Everlasting.

This is a continuation of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.  It takes page of the verge of the girls turning 30.  I really like series where you get to follow the course of charecter's lives... and I loved these books and always wonder - what happened.  Well, now I know... it wasn't what I expected, but it was really good!

Now, I thought I was being sly by staying in the shade at the pool, but I guess I wasn't as in the shade as I thought - b/c this happen....

Sorry for the crappy iphone picture - but yes... my knees got seriously burnt... what a weird place to get a sunburn and I'll tell you it hurt!

That evening we went to a dinner show - Dolly Parton's Pirate Voyage. It just opened earlier this year and a lot of the website I read said it was a pretty good show.  They serve dinner and have the show.  The show was great, the plot was kinda silly but the acrobats were awesome... and it was overall entertaining.  There was a big pool of water and animals too.  We were expecting the food to be pretty mediocre but it ended up being really good.  We got soup, half a chicken (whatever rub was on it was fabulous), pork shank, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and an apple tart for dessert.

Overall pretty fun day!

Vacation - Day 3

We woke up early, hit the breakfast buffet and headed out.

Our first destination was the small town of Bishopsville, SC... this random small town has not one but two Roadside America stops.

The first one was one of the favorites of the trip... a visit to The Button King.  This guy had insomnia when he was younger and started to sew buttons onto suit.  Then he started to put button on other things too, like a guitar, coffin and even a hearse!  He's been on a lot of different shows like Letterman, Carson, and Geraldo.

Here's one of the best stories of the trip, we were lost in Bishopsville, so we called the number from Roadside America that got us to the museum, but no answer however The Button King left us his cell number.  So Lindsey called that number and I thought it was really funny b/c she asked for The Button King.  Anyway we told him we were lost and he said well, I'm in town I can come to you and you can follow me to the museum.  How freaking sweet is that?!?  So we met at the Cotton Museum and he took us to his place.

Here's the Museum...

Here we are looking at the suit that started it all

And here's The Button King himself standing new to the hearse

Here's the coffin he'll be buried in

And then he put on a jacket, hat and guitar and we snapped some pictures

Then he actually played us a song on the guitar... he was a really sweet old man

Then we checked out the second roadside attraction - Pearl Fryar's Topiary Garden.  Not nearly as cool as the Button King.

Then we headed toward the beach.  But first we stopped for some food...

Then it was off to the beach!!  We found our hotel pretty easy... here it is taken from the beach

Lindsey and mom immediately set out for the beach, but I stayed back because I needed to get some school work done (oh being responsible!)

We got a quick dinner... and I won't say much about that because frankly it was a pretty awful experience.  But we're happy to be at the beach!