Relaxing Sunday afternoon.....

After church and lunch at Panera, Brandon and I came home and enjoyed some of our purchases from yesterday.....a new patio umbrella and chaise lounge chair.





Chelsi enjoyed being outside with us too! However, whenever the umbrella swung in the wind, she got a little nervous :)





Such a relaxing Sunday afternoon :)

Now off to listen to Elon vs. GA Tech baseball in the NCAA tourney....Go Phoenix! Beat those Jackets!!! (And catch a little of the Nascar Race too, of course!)

Ever been so stressed, that you started shaking? Um, yeah, that was me today. It wouldn't make sense to most, but it was a bad day. I worked from home last night until 10:30pm to try and make the blow easier, was at work at 7:45am this morning, and worked through lunch......it still didn't give me enough hours in the day! I was feeling a lot better around 3pm, and then had an ice cream sundae at 4:00 which made things a whole lot better, and when I got home at 6pm, I changed into PJs, fixed myself a STRONG SoCo and pepsi and chilled out! I watched my birthday present slideshow video twice and listened to the rain outside. So, I have determined how to unwind after a stressful day, so now the theory needs to be contemplated on how I can prevent it???!!! My Thursdays have got to get better!!

On a brighter note, I decided to go blonder again after a visit with my hair stylist, Heather last night :) Fun for summer!!

Now back to the couch.......

30 something

Even though I am a week overdue, I had to blog about my awesome birthday weekend!! I am officially no longer a 20 something, and now joined the club of 30 somethings!!

My weekend started off by Brandon and I meeting my parents at Chop House for dinner. Much to my SURPRISE my brother was waiting for us at the table!! He flew in from California to surprise me for my birthday!! I must admit I did feel better when I heard he actually had to be in Virginia on business all week, so at least he didn't come to the east coast just for me, but he said he had bought his plane ticket even before he knew he would have to be over on business. He is such a good brother!! And spending the weekend with him reminded me of how close we were growing up, and I loved having him here.

Saturday started off with some girl time at the pool with Sarah and then she treated me to a pedicure!! It was awesome. Saturday night, Brandon, Sarah, Andrew and I headed out for a night on the town. We started at East Coast Wings to watch the All-Star Race, and then migrated over to The Mix to enjoy some after dinner drinks, dancing and all around fun times. The highlight of the evening was the awesome strawberries we ate on the car ride home that my mom had sent with my bro......nothing tastes better at 2am!!

Sunday was my actual birthday. My wonderful husband planned a surprise party for me (ok, so maybe I knew something was going on, but I had no idea where, what and who was coming, so it was still a surprise!). He left the house late morning and just told me to be ready by 12:15pm, as my fashion consultant would be arriving then. Sarah arrived and made sure my outfit was appropriate for the day's activities, and then she and my brother helped me get started on a scavenger hunt that Brandon laid out at the house before he left. I am not so good at scavenger hunts.....so I had a lot of hints and help from Andrew and Sarah, but it was still a lot of fun! In my last clue I was told I would be blindfolded and needed to trust my kidnappers as they took me to get ready for my high dive.

After 45 minutes of driving around blindfolded, I had no idea where we were, and they proceeded to lead me up to the 3rd floor of Natty Greene's where my party took place in the Loft. I was excited, but also nervous from being blind folded and a little carsick. When I arrived at the top of the stairs and they had led me into the room full of my friends and family, everyone yelled surprise and blew noise makers. I took off my blindfold, but since I also didn't have my glasses on yet, I couldn't see who all was there!! It was kinda funny. So, when I retrieved my glasses, everyone yelled surprise again :)

The rain ruined the 2nd part of the day's plans, which was a Grasshoppers game, but we had a wonderful afternoon just hanging out in the Loft. I was so touched to have so many people there that I care about and to help me celebrate!! I am truly blessed by having so many wonderful people in my life, those both near and far.

Brandon had yet another surprise for me at the party. He had put together a slideshow of pictures set to music for which he played for everyone. My parents had helped him collect pictures to document all 3o years of my life. It was the sweetest thing ever, and I have been wearing out the DVD ever since just watching it over and over and over again!!

There are so many wonderful pictures from my wonderful wonderful birthday weekend, so thought it best to just include a slideshow for all to enjoy. Thank you again to everyone for making me feel so special!!

Ticks

Someone posted an email at work in the break room that talked about a new way to remove ticks. Seeing as how Chelsi gets them some, and it is always a long song and dance to get it off her (which usually involves a trip to the vet because she won't hold still for us), I was intrigued. The theory is to take a cotton ball soaked in liquid soap and swab it over the tick for about 15-20 seconds and the tick will fall off on it's own. Sounds easy.

Well, I was able to make my first attempt at this just a few minutes ago. I saw a tick on Chelsi and so I grabbed a cotton ball and dipped it in my new Pomegranate pump soap (you know, gotta get the good smelling stuff!) and held it onto the tick. It was in a sensitive area, so I didn't want to do a lot of swabbing and of course she was resisting, so it was best to just hold it there. I am not sure if the liquid soap actually worked or not, but I think it may have at least loosened the hold, because then I took my fingernails (of course covered with a tissue) and pulled it out. The nasty booger was there head and all with the legs still moving. YUCKY!!! I know you should supposedly hold onto them in case there is an illness that needs to be detected later, but I flushed that booger down the toilet real fast!

Then, being the google guru that I am, I immediately came downstairs to see if my new found theory had any negative reports. Well, as with anything, there are always two sides to the story. I found a link that said that this "old wives tale" is actually bad because it encourages the tick to release additional saliva and/or regurgitate their guts, which means more of a chance of passing on harmful pathogen's.

Brandon hates that I do this, because of course I start bugging him and worrying if I did the right thing as he is trying to get out the door.

So, my question to the blog-world is, what is the right thing to do!??? I mean, if you have a dog that makes it impossible to remove a tick with tweezers while also trying to make sure you pull at the right angle and get the head, or is it worth the risk to have them regurgitate by using the soap on cotton ball method? The soap way was much much easier and a lot less traumatic. Bottom line, I just have to use my best judgement and do what works best, and for the Inscore's the soap method appears to be the way to go, at least this time.

Check out this link to see what I read:

http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/tick.asp

Bottom line, I don't like bugs of any kind, but TICKS are especially icky!!! They just have nothing but bad news written all over them.

Montreat

Had a FABULOUS weekend in Montreat! The relaxation, laughs and bonding time was much needed. I took my camera, but very surprisingly didn't take any pictures.....shocking, I know! The last time I had been to montreat, was many many years ago, and the memories are not all pleasant......it was Middle School, need I say more? But, I was very glad to make some wonderful memories this weekend, and can't wait to go back! There were 13 of us from GPPC that went, and it was really great to get to know everyone better. I seriously went to bed on Saturday night thanking God for bringing these wonderful people and this wonderful church into my life. And I even came home with some new and fun catch phrases.......still laughing in my head about it all as I trudge upstairs to shower and face the reality of Monday....blah!!!!