Merry {Late} Christmas!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!! Even though I never officially got in the Christmas spirit, I managed to have a great time anyway! It was an exhausting couple of days {Christmas Eve & Day} and I did get a little sick from the lack of sleep and constant "going", but isn't that what Christmas is all about? It was nice to have a few days off work, and I'm looking forward to 2009. This year has been ok, but it got off to a rocky start. First our dog Nanci passed away late last year. Also it was today, December 28, a year ago that I found out I was pregnant. Unfortunately I miscarried in February of this year. Crossing each milestone hasn't been easy, but as the year comes full circle I'm looking forward to hopefully starting off 2009 with another exciting announcement. Stay tuned...

In other news, here are some of my favorite Christmas gifts!


My favorite perfume - Romance by Ralph Lauren


A Garmin nuvi - I'm very directionally challenged so hopefully this will keep me going in the right direction! I've named him Edward - you Twilight fans will appeciate this - I picked the British accent male voice :o)


The Slanket in Green


Two tickets to Zoo Atlanta!


Pure Grace by Philosophy gift set

I also got a beautiful three stone diamond necklace from Adam, but I can't find a picture ot if online. It's beautiful and I was totally suprised!

Vote for Coach Ayers!

Mike Ayers, Wofford football coach, has been nominated for coach of the year for Division 1AA. The link to vote for him is on the right. Please vote for him - he's such a great coach!!

A little less Scrooge-like now

The Christmas spirit is creeping up on me. I've done a little shopping, and that always seems to kick start your Christmas Spirit. Here are some cute LOL Dogs and Cats for your viewing pleasure:

Bah Humbug

I will not be decorating for Christmas this year ::::insert gasps here:::: I'm just so not into it this year at all. Christmas seems like it's coming at me at 90 mph and I barely have bought any gifts! I still have no idea what to get my parents and my husband (so if y'all read this, please send me ideas!). We always go to South Carolina for Christmas, so we won't even be home to enjoy the decor, and we're not having any parties this year either. So it's just us and the dogs. Call me Scrooge, I will not deny that I am exhibiting very Scrooge-like behavior. But I am not apologetic or sorry for this at all, in fact I'm rather happy about it. Maybe we'll decorate again next year :o)

Oh yeah, and no Christmas cards this year either. So don't be upset if you don't get your usual Brannon Christmas card.

Callie-isms

Callie has been with us for nine months now, and she is just such a joy in our lives. Once we got her cataract surgery done this summer, a whole new Callie evolved! Here are some of the funny things that Miss Callie does - otherwise known as "Callieisms".

1. Terrorizes her brother, Calhoun - She is quite the spunky monkey and will go right up to him and grab a toy out of his mouth. He never fights back and usually lets her win unless he's up for a game of tug-of-war.

2. Chasing invisible things - I'm not sure what is going on with this one - either we have a ghost or Callie has an invisible friend. She will start looking around the room and literally chasing something that appears to be above her. She'll pounce from one spot to another, roll over on her back, run in circles, etc. It's hilariously cute to watch!

3. Eating her collar tags - Callie has never been a fan of the tags on her collar. I posted a video of her several months ago trying to attack her collar. She still does this - but we feel the tags are necessary if she ever were to get out. All of her little tags have tooth imprints on them!

4. Getting herself into predicaments - Our neighbor was dog sitting for us over Thanksgiving and said that one morning Callie greeted them with her round rope toy stuck around her waist! It was not harming her because it's much bigger than she is, but this is just a typical Callieism! She somehow managed to get the rope around her body! She also pulled a Nanci move two nights ago. I woke up Monday morning and Callie was out of her crate and the door was still shut! Nanci did this once too. We must not have latched the bottom of her crate door all the way and she squeezed her little butt out!

5. Loving Calhoun - Callie LOVES her big brother. He has a hot spot on his belly right now so he's wearing an e-collar and a sock on his foot to prevent scratching. Callie can sense he doesn't feel well and will lie down near him and whimper at him. She also tried to help him out by pulling him by the edge of his e-collar and also trying to pull his sock off. My theory is that they planned this, but the plan failed.

Here's our silly girl twisting around on her back on the sofa this morning while getting belly rubs from Adam:


Here she is in the car with Calhoun, she behaves so well in the car!


And here is poor pitiful Calhoun with his "party hat" on and a sock on his foot. He's NOT a happy campter!

Weekend Review

We had a wonderful fun-filled Thanksgiving weekend. On Thursday we went to my aunt and uncle's house and had lunch with the whole fam damily. It was great to see how much the little ones have grown as well as catch up with cousins.

Amanda and I


Adam and I with the Bi Lo bull :o)


Friday I got up around 8:30 and went shopping just for a few hours. I found a few good deals but was so tired that I called it quits around noon. We got to repeat Thanksgiving at the Brannon's house on Friday night! Saturday was the Clemson vs. USC game which we ALL know how that turned out. It was a great day even though it was rainy and cold!!

Another exciting event - my parents got a new Shih Tzu puppy named Max. He is 3.5 lbs of lovin and so cute and cuddly! He's really going to keep my mom busy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

more animals

New word added to the English language!

One of my favorite expressions (written and verbal) is "meh". Adam and I were listening to NPR yesterday and someone announced that it has been added to the dictionary! Score! Now maybe people will take my meh's seriously! Here's a blurb about it I found online:

'Meh'-the apathetic expression-enters dictionary
At least someone is excited about "meh." The expression of indifference or boredom has gained a place in the Collins English Dictionary after generating a surprising amount of enthusiasm among lexicographers.

Life after Twilight

The Books:

Where do I begin? As of this morning I have read all four of the Twilight Series books. I was pleased with the ending but I refuse to give anything away. So if you want the details you'll just have to read for yourself. But I will say that these books are the most amazing, captivating, and truly enjoyable books I've ever read. In all my 28 years on this planet I've never had a problem reading a few chapters, waiting a week, reading a few more, etc. Not with these - these were impossible to put down. My husband and dogs are probably glad to have me back. They affected my work - couldn't concentrate - my sleep - dreamed about them constantly - and everything else in my life as well!!

In the three weeks I've spent with these books, I have feared this day. Would there be life after Twilight? I couldn't imagine parting with the characters, the thought made me very sad. I'm still sad it's over, but it's bittersweet. The author, Stephanie Meyer, closed all loose ends and left me with a very peaceful and happy feeling. What is next? I am going to dive into the online version of Stephanie's fifth book of the the series (which may or may not be published). I do plan on reading Twilight again and probably all the others as well, but maybe I'll be able to put them down this time.

The Movie:

The movie was total cheeseball, but I loved every minute of it. The part where Edward smelled Bella for the first time (when she was walking into science class) made me laugh so hard I could barely contain myself. Mainly because Adam asked me if Bella had just farted - the way Edward was holding his nose, lol. And then he proceeded to say how she looks like she smelled a fart throughout the whole movie. Edward was swoon worthy as usual, but I am not impressed with Kristen Stewart at all. I didn't have any expectations for the movie, so I guess you could say I wasn't let down. Overall I'll give it a B, and I plan on buying the DVD when it comes out!

Eeeee!!!

Twilight came out today!! I couldn't convince Adam to see the midnight showing with me, so we're seeing it tonight at 9:15. I told him we MUST get there early in order to get good seats and I've even contemplated tailgating in the parking lot, lol. I can't wait!!

If you still need convincing...

This is Robert Pattinson - the guy who plays Edward Cullen in Twilight. I don't think this picture needs words:

Computer Probs

You're wondering where I've been, aren't you? Well there is a perfectly good explination - actually 2. My first excuse is that my power chord on my laptop is shot - therefore I have no battery power. I have tons of pictures to upload of our latest adventures. Three weeks ago Adam's cousin Hannah got married in Charleston. I was sadly not able to make it due to a stomach bug. The weekend after that, we spent at Pawley's Island at Adam's Aunt and Uncle's beach house for Adam's 30th b-day. This past weeked we were in Panama City with the Edens/Kown families for the Clemson/FSU game.

The second reason I haven't been on much is because I've been reading, A LOT. There is a book series out called the Twilight Series. It's a forbidden love story about vampires. Yes, I said vampires. You have to read it to understand. I read the first two books (close to 500 pages each) in less than a week. One might say I am obsessed. But if you have read them, you will understand. I am elated that the Twilight movie is coming into theatres on November 21 and I will be going to see it. I considered taking the day off work to go sit in the movie theatre all day, but I have to save my PTO time for Turkey Day. Here are the covers for each book of the series and also a picture of Edward Cullen and Bella - the two main characters. I'll also try to link the movie trailer here as well.

WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT READ TWILIGHT AND PLAN TO READ IT, DON'T WATCH THE TRAILER. IT MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. You have been warned.

Happy Birthday Adam!

My hubby turned 30 today! We will be celebrating by spending a wonderful weekend at Pawley's Island!! I will make it a point to take pictures this weekend of US together because we seem to not have any of those!

Workin for a livin

I'm happy to report that Adam has accepted a job with Bright Tree. He will be a Senior Application Engineer. Thankfully they are just down the road in Duluth, GA so he'll have a super easy commute. His first day will be November 3. He's really excited and I'm so happy that he found what he wanted!

Inspiration

I'm totally ripping stuff off of my friend Allison's blog but this picture is just one of my favorites. I really want to try this in our bathroom over our garden tub. It may not be as drool worthy as a clawfoot tub, but ya gotta work with what ya got!

My other half

My friend Allison over at The Adventures of VAMH gave me this idea to share some things that my other half, Adam enjoys. So here ya go:




His new iPhone we got him yesterday for his 30th birthday on 10/29. This thing is SO cool! He hasn't put it down since he got it. I must have one but I have to wait for my Verizon contract to expire first.



www.fark.com - It's Not News, It's Fark



Wofford College, his alma mater. Watch out for those Terriers, they'll bite your ankles! Sorry couldn't resist, lol.



Clemson Football - Go Tigers!



Our dogs - anyone who knows us understands that Adam is slightly obsessed!



Firefly - Sweet Tea Vodka



Edisto Island, SC - our favorite vacation spot!



Golf



Me, of course!

Climb that ladder!

Well the time has come for Adam to make a career change. He has been in consulting for the past five years now. As in any career, you must make moves in order to climb the ladder. His company and his coworkers have been so good to him and this has been such a wonderful step in the right direction. Adam's last day will be October 31, just two days after his 30th birthday! He's been interviewing with several companies and has gotten one offer and is expecting more. I'm in awe of how easy it has been for him to get interviews and job offers. Recruiters have been calling him daily - one of them even tried to sell Adam's current job to him! Little did the guy know that ADAM was the guy who was leaving the job! If he was a good recruiter and had read his resume, he would have figured that out before he called him.

I'll update as soon as we know something!

Jewelry craze!!

Some of you know that I have a fantastic group of girlfriends that I met online. Many of us met long ago while planning our weddings on theknot.com and then we've met others throughout the years through thenest.com. Things got crazy on the nest, so we formed our own private message board and have formed some great friendships! I acutally got to meet many of them last winter in New Orleans! We had a blast! One of the girls is named Diana and she's in the National Guard serving in Afghanastan right now. Diana is a true southern belle from TN with a fierce eye for fashion and style and it always amazes me that she can be such a hard ass and serve in the military! There's not much to do over there, so Diana has befriended a jewler named "Nick" and he is seriously hooking us up with jewelry!! He's also making some custom suits for some of the husbands for about $75 a piece! I am getting three rings - blue topaz, black onyx and deep purple amethyst (for less than $200 for ALL THREE). All three stones' weight combined is well over 10 carats...we told her we wanted "honkin huge" stones! The topaz was $8 a carat, onyx was $4 a carat, and I got the highest quality amethyst for $4 a carat instead of $6 because the stone I am getting had a microscopic nick which he was able to scratch out!

Here's a picture of my topaz stone on the left - it's 4.25 carats and will be set in a simple prong tiffany style setting:



This is a picture of Diana's Onyx ring, and I'm getting one almost just like this but with a square stone:


And this is a ring from Tiffany & Co but my amethyst ring should look similar to this - emerald cut, dark purple, same setting:


And for good measure, here's a pic of us at our first get together this January in NOLA. Natalie and her husband live there and graciously hosted all of us, we had a blast!

A quick hello!

I've been so slack! We've been busy - for those of you close to us you know Fall is our "busy season" with football! We've been going on short weekend trips and enjoying this beautiful weather. Here is a link to a video I took of Callie begging Calhoun to play with her. As you see, he is NOT amused! He's gotten really good at ignoring her when she "acts a fool" as I like to say. She can be that annoying little sister sometimes, but you just gotta love her!

The look of the blog

I'm going to be playing around a good bit in the next few days. I discovered a website called Scrapblog.com which allows you to make scrapbook pages online. Really cool! There are SO many options that I just began playing with them. You'll probably notice the look changing a good bit - I tend to change my mind a lot :o) Once I find a design I like, I'll try and stick with it!

I have started a cooking blog

I had an idea for a really cute food blog name "My Pot Boileth Over" so I just had to create a food blog in order to use the name. Silly, I know! I will post recipes periodically, so check often for updates!

My Pot Boileth Over

Show me some love!

I always wonder who reads this, so if you are stopping by, leave me a quick message. I'd love to see who is visiting :o)

I yearbooked Adam too

I'm on a roll! It's so funny, I can't stop!!

1954


1958


1962 - LOL


1970 - I actually think this one looks pretty hot in a scholarly way!


1976 - that's a lot of hair!


1980


1984 - similar to my 82 style, haha


1990 - THE MULLET


1994 - looks like he belongs in a boy band


1996 - not bad!


1998 - lol