Happy Blogiversary

Exactly one year ago today I penned the first bit of syntax about a country girl's life in a beach house, and to you blog I would like to say Happy Blogiversary. The first year anniversary gift is supposed to be paper, so I'll just print this out and we'll be golden. To my many readers I would like so say thank you, it brings me such joy that all 7 of you would take a break in your busy lives to read the stories that shape my little life. If you got a chuckle or two out of the past 365 days, even at my expense, know that it makes my heart smile.

Ah, the past five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes...I've said goodbye, said hello, loved, drank a glass or two of hater-aid (and rum), hugged, laughed till my cheeks hurt, kissed (probably more than I should have), and lived the best way I know how.

While living the minutes of the past year there weren't many times where I took pause, or thought about how a moment was shaping my life. Perhaps I should more often, seems there is no time like the present. Come take a walk with me....

~ This year I felt for the first time what it was like to love someone the moment I met them, a feat that is not easy for this girl. I've held more than a fair share of friend's newborns in my arms but this year I held a niece and when the nurse asked if I was My BMF's sister, it felt about right. ~ I talked entirely too much about my hair and it's level of awesomeness. ~ I said goodbye to more than one friend, but now know that a goodbye is necessary to say hello when we meet again, which for friends is inevitable. ~ I got mistaken for Ellen Degeneres by a 3 year old. ~ I gained a brother, one who can take a punch and party with me till the sun comes up. ~ I made entirely too many graphs and drawrings. ~ I introduced you to quite simply the greatest group of friends and family that ever were. ~ I discovered again and again why I heart living in the south. ~ In a moment of insanity I took a cross country road trip where I saw my first real life western mountain and became a badass snowboarder. ~ I exposed my clumsiness. ~ With a smile and tears on my face I pronounced a couple man and wife. ~

In between the 'big' moments there was laughter, tears, theme parties, occasional work, fights, celebrations, apologies and cocktails. It has been a pretty nice little year in my life. I hope you have enjoyed seeing it through my eyes.

Wedding Update

44 days to go until My BFF and The Future Mrs. My BFF/Rogue Hand make it official.

I've never been to a wedding in the South before so I googled Southern Weddings. This is what came up.

My BFF didn't mention it but according to South Carolina state law, the bridesmaid's would be required to wear either a Hunter's Orange hat or vest. Guess its time to hit up Bass Pro Shop.

You Can’t Afford the Luxury of Negative Feelings and a New Couch

I've never actually read a self help book, or even had a moment of pause as I've walked through that section in Borders but I suppose if I stumbled upon a book with that title or another overly specific self-help book like "How to Win Friends & Influence People While Painting Your Toenails" I might flip through a page or two. I did a search on borders.com, turns out they haven't been written yet. Perhaps the Gray Lining can toss those in her to-be-written book title pile along with "Patty Do: A Guide to Stargate, Beer, Accounting and Being Naked" and various others regarding life from the perspective of her two cats. You see, according to my sissy a great book starts with a great title, not vice-versa as the majority of the literary community believes. That being said, I'm a bit hesitant to wait for her to pen a self help book based solely upon a title.

In the mean time I've decided to live my own "self help book" because its true, I really can't afford the luxury of negative feelings and a new couch, and this girl has got to have a comfy place to sit and watch her stories.

Wedding Update

With only 53 days to go until My BFF and The Future Mrs. My BFF/Rogue Hand make it official it's time for the first wedding update.

With the wedding on the eve of All Hallows Eve, thwarting any chance of yours truly attending a Halloween party, I've suggested to the brides that the rehearsal dinner be done in costume. I will be attending as Wolverine.

And then there were two...

I'm goin' through the big D and I don't mean Dallas, well actually it has been about three weeks since the divorce was finalized. On the 9th No Longer Easy E and Angelrrific packed up their uhaul and made their way to North Carolina where I believe they had every intention of raising up, taking off their shirts, and twisting them round their head's, spinning them like a helicopter. I also think No Longer Easy E was going to work on becoming a doctor when not taking her shirt off, and subsequently spinning it around her head like a helicopter. None the less, on the 9th I came home from work to find what no longer looked like my home but more like it did when we first moved in and it was just a house....


Change is hard, and anyone who knows me knows I can easily admit to being a bit co-dependent. Though typically used with a negative connotation, I simply just like to be entertained, have someone to comment to about something that just happened on tv or something stupid one of our friends did, and ultimately and don't really enjoy being constantly afforded silence to be with my thoughts.

In that light, I have kept myself pretty busy with a lot of re-organizing, DIYing and wholly making my new, be it quieter, house a home.

My first project was painting a bookcase I acquired from the Kissy Faced Booty Shaker. It was a very light wood colored, simple bookcase which I immediately knew needed to become more 'my style'. I decided on brown for the outside and yellow (to match the couch!) on the inside of the shelves.



In just three short days, and what seemed like 10 coats of paint later I finally finished....that was until I got my coffee table and end tables I ordered in the mail. Though I still loved them upon actual sight, the picture on the interweb of them led me to believe they were a lighter dark brown. So....with this new development I decided I best change back into my paint covered clothes and re-do the brown on the outside of the bookcase or it would have no chance of matching my new furniture. So...three more additional days later I finally, finally finished.


Finishing up the bookcase put me at Thursday of this week. Due to the tv lineup, which includes Rookie Blue (starring none-other than the girl from Stick It), I looked for a project that could be completed while I sat my tiny behind on the couch and watched a girl with too much rock for one hand kick bad guys asses. I settled on a DIY clock project; I haven't really known what time it was when I was in the living room for about three weeks now so that in combination with the tv schedule, it seemed like perfect timing (yes, there was a pun intended).

For something that sounded really simple to make it actually took me about an hour and a half.....but what resulted was perfectly perfect for someone such as myself who only likes one thing more than beer. Pretty simple: clock parts, some pretty paisley fabric, a empty six pack, glue gun, and double sided tape.

DIY 6-pack Clock

What tonight has in store for me I do not know, but I'll find a project, I'm confident of that. What worries me is what I'm going to do with my time when I run out of things to do.

Making some progress....

Vegas-Five, A-One

No one got married (at least that they can remember), no one went to jail, no one got slipped a roofie (or a floorie, or a rappie), and against all odds the four best friends that anyone could have made it safely home to their respective states in relatively unscathed bodies. And that my friends is Vegas in a nutshell.

For the extended version, which includes never heard before outtakes and the truth about what happened in Vegas not only not staying there, but ending up on the interweb via my blog please continue to read.

The truth about Vegas is that it is meant for the young at heart and the young at body….the place where Vegas and I butt heads is that I am only the former. Turns out a three hour time difference makes A sleepy tired at around midnight Vegas time and her desire to head on over to sleepy town greatly outweighs her desire to gamble and go to un-sa un-sa clubs (but then again, my desire to get a root canal outweighs my desire to go to un-sa un-sa clubs).

When I wasn’t going to bed before the buffets and clubs even opened up for the night I was trying to gamble. Trying is the operative word here. Here’s the thing, I’m not really a gambler. First off, in order to win money in a casino you have to be willing to lose money in a casino and quite frankly I’m just not willing. Secondly, gambling makes me nauseous. When I was a child my Momma was HUGE into bingo and it always looked so fun and exciting with the intense looks on the blue hairs' faces, cigs hanging out of their mouths, and the elation when they got to scream BINGO!!!! It truly looked like something I wanted to get all up in. As an adult I went once with Momma to Bingo. What I experienced was feeling like I was going to vom for about two hours. That’s when I learned that gambling makes me nervous. The aforementioned pukey feelings led me and The Gray Lining to mucho time spent setting up shop at the penny slots and waiting for the cocktail waitress to find us and bring us ‘free’ drinks. The way I figure it, I only spent about twenty to forty dollars a day on gambling which lead to free cocktails and consequently quite the buzz, so really I bested Vegas in that aspect as marathon drinking usually doesn’t result in a twenty dollar bar tab. Put one in the win column for A!

Let me pump the brakes for a minute and start from the start. The Gray Lining, Patty Cakes and I arrived at our hotel at around 3:30 on Thursday afternoon. My cousin, Satan's Spawn had gotten in at around 8:30am and with no adult supervision had proceeded to become heavily intoxicated, get up over $1000, and subsequently go broke. He was just as pleased as punch and much happier than anyone I had ever known who had just lost $1,250. There he was, vegas intoxicated with two beers in his right hand and a cigarette in his left, suffering from Drunk Induced Deafness (DID). This little known medical condition, DID, rendered him unable to hear our suggestions on beer drinking techniques that would prevent the beer from pouring uncontrollably out of one bottle while he drank from the other bottle. DID also caused him to speak at volumes only acceptable in noisy bars or your neighborhood retirement home. Apparently Satans Spawn also does not understand the concept of using ash trays for discarding lit cigarettes when he is Vegas intoxicated and finds it completely acceptable to simply flick lit cigarette butts into hotel hallways. Less than two hours into my trip I made the determination that I had one of two options to make this vacation enjoyable. 1. Get, and stay, as intoxicated as Satans Spawn or 2. Get back on the plane and spend my vacation at the beach pub in sunny SWFL.

I will say this for Vegas, its beautiful and shiny and you can have a girl delivered to your front door in less than 20 minutes, basically all the things you read and hear about. What I didn't realize was that in order to 'see' Vegas I would have to step outside of the casino into what can only be described as a giant hooker filled, sparkly oven with free cocktails. They must call it sin city because it is actually where the devil resides, hell. The heat, my god the heat. I live in a tropical location, I moved there because I despise cold and I'm perfectly content having the thermostat in my house set to 79 degrees....but this, this was heat like I had never experienced. Never in my life had I felt a breeze that made you hotter. When outside your skin tingled as if your body was being cooked by not the sun but just by the air. I actually used sun screen at the pool and still was the proud owner of a sunburn after only 10 minutes in the squelching heat. On top of that, its the desert, and my friends, the desert is dry. This was no bueno for my humidity loving skin and by day 5 both The Gray Lining and I were suffering from nose bleeds.

Speaking of heat, do you know what happens when people get hot? They sweat. The ungodly heat caused some chemical reaction in the shoes of Satans Spawn and what resulted was the unbearable stench of pickled cheese emitting from his feet. By day three the smell filled our room, by day four SS threw away all of his socks as they were clearly not salvageable. The Gray Lining and I became concerned that the maids might report us to code enforcement for running a pickled cheese manufacturing business out of a hotel room.

While I could probably go on for days about this trip I'll just round this out with a list of things I learned while in Vegas.

1. If you come home from the bar at 6am, climb over the barrier to the hotel pool and fall asleep on a pool chair, hotel security is "happy" to escort you back to your room.
2. Gambling is no longer a game for SS.
3. You actually can lose weight on a vacation, that is if you walk the entire Vegas strip and completely dehydrate yourself.
4. SS could use some type of medical intervention for his foot odor problem. Shit, scientists might even want to study it.
5. 5 days is too long to stay in Vegas.
6. The Gray Lining and I are 'Sunday Hot' in Vegas, as it was the only day we were given free passes to the "exclusive club" at the pool.
7. 60 year olds, with a bit of work done, are also 'Sunday Hot" in Vegas.

What happens in Vegas....

will probably end up on my blog.

Sin City with The Gray Lining, Patty Cakes and Satan's Spawn until next Tuesday!