New Phone, Spa Day, IKEA Round 2

So I have luckily been off work since last Wednesday at noon. My mom and I took off a few days to have a "dallas vacation" and just hang out here.

Wednesday we went to lunch and a movie. On Thursday we went shopping and then met my brother, Jeremy, for lunch and then I introduced my mom to Sprinkles Cupcakes!! On Friday, we spent a while at the Sprint store updating our plan. We updated to the data plan so I can now check my email (and use twitter!) all day long from my phone--just what I need, huh?

And I was also lucky enough to get a new phone. mama reed and nick decided to keep their current phones, but I was ready for a new one and so far I am very pleased with my...


Samsung Instinct! It is one of Sprint's newer phones and I really love it. I had thought about getting a blackberry, but this one is definitely more fun!

Then my mom and I spent the afternoon at the spa... getting massages, facials, manicures and pedicures. It was a wonderful afternoon and I really enjoyed it!

Today I got to go to IKEA (2 times in the last week!) with my brother, Nick, to help him get organized! He is living at home and basically my mom told him he needed to clean his room and organize it better or she was going to kick him out (not that she would actually do that...) so he called to see if I would go with him to help him find things and transport them in my car.

So we got him a new bookshelf and organization bins. It's definitely a start... and I could seriously spend all day at IKEA...

Now I am curled up with Allie watching a movie and looking forward to having tomorrow off to continue to rest before starting a crazy week!

Have a Wonderful Memorial Day!

IKEA

It has been a wonderful weekend! Friday night my family and I went to Arlington for the Rangers' game. My mom absolutely loves baseball, so we bought tickets for all of us to go as her Mother's Day Present and she really enjoyed it.

Then on Saturday Erin and I headed out to IKEA in Frisco. It was so nice to have the whole afternoon to look through everything and not feel rushed... because it definitely can be an ALL DAY experience!

I went in with the hopes of finding a new coffee table. My coffee table is one of the last pieces of furniture that I inherited... my old Sunday School teacher Lisa had an old one that she gave me and I have been so grateful to have it! But I was ready for something a little sturdier. So I set out to find one of my trip out to IKEA.

And luckily I found one I really liked that wasn't too badly priced. So I got it and then sweet Erin came back to my apartment with me to help me unload it (because there's no way I could carry it up the stairs!) and then assemble it! Then we headed over to her apartment to hang her new picture ledges and get her dining room set up! (For pictures of the assembly process, you can see them at her blog!)

But here are a few pictures of my finished table:


And my favorite part: A shelf where I can hide my remotes and computer and other random things!

2 years ago...

2 years ago I graduated from Baylor. I've been thinking about that graduation a lot in the last week, after going to my cousin's graduation and in the process driving through Waco twice (I haven't been in Waco since the fall for Homecoming)

But what I really want to talk about is my car... 2 years ago I also was gifted with a brand new 2008 Mazda Tribute...

Yesterday said new car hit 50,000 miles (which is a bit ridiculous)...

... and is getting a very expensive birthday present since sometime this week I have to replace the Transmission Cooler. Last week my car started driving a little weird (and by a little I mean that occasionally I would be stopped, would put my foot on the gas and my car would not go for a minute and then lunge forward). I was trying to hold off on taking it in until next week because Mama Reed will be off work that week so it would be easier to get in and out. On Sunday I was back in town going to pick up the Allie Monster and I stopped at a red light and my car completely stalled. I had to turn it off and back on to get it to go...I decided it couldn't wait...

So I came home Sunday Night and looked through all of my warranty info (we got an extended warranty, so it was still good even though I drive an insane number of miles). Got up early yesterday to take it in... after 2 hours of waiting the verdict was in. My car is leaking transmission fluid (which just in case you're wondering, isn't good...) and that specific part of my transmission is (surprise surprise) not covered by the warranty...

Sigh--Happy Birthday Mazda Tribute!

Graduation Weekend

This weekend I went to San Antonio to watch my cousin, Melissa, graduate from St. Mary's. I took off half a day on Friday and my mom and I drove down. It was a great weekend with my family. I spent most of graduation catching up with my cousin, Michelle (Melissa's sister). Michelle recently got engaged and just found out Friday she was accepted to Pharmacy school, so she's got a lot going on! We spent most of graduation talking about wedding plans and playing games--we did pay attention and cheer when Missy walked across the stage of course ;)

I unfortunately forgot my camera, but am supposed to be getting pics from my Aunt, so I will definitely post those once I have them! But let me leave you with this picture, because someone else had a wonderful weekend with her cousins too...


Allie spent the weekend with her Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Aja and got to play with her cousins, Sadie and Maggie. She got a good progress report, she and Sadie played hard all weekend, and NO ESCAPE ATTEMPTS!!! The only complaint is that she didn't sleep well at night because she didn't know where she was--but she is definitely tired now. She came home, jumped on the bed and hasn't moved in the last hour!

Tweet! Tweet!

So I recently joined twitter and I am really liking it! I have more recently learned how to text in new tweets which is so fun to me!! One of my co-workers recently found out that I use twitter so she is constantly asking me if I'm going to "tweet" about... whatever has just happened. Today many of these moments occurred and I did not twitter them, so here they are in a lovely blog...

This morning I arrived to work and the front door was propped open and as soon as I walked in I realized why--it smelled awful. We were having a hard time finding the smell, but my co-worker Rhonda found it was coming from the trash (even though we just took the trash out yesterday when it was smelling bad). And proceeded to run out the door with the trash and my supervisor running after her with a can of Lysol... and when my supervisor came back in the first words out of her mouth were "are you going to twitter about this?"...

Then we went and got Chiloso (yum!) for lunch and while we were eating at our back table, Erin came back to "stretch her eyeballs" and asked if I was going to twitter about that...

I spent the afternoon at a visit with a little boy I hadn't seen in a while and at the end he came to cuddle in my lap while he drank his juice. And when we told him we had to go bye bye he said "uh no" and then ran after us crying. That broke my and Carri's (our speech therapist) hearts as he cried after us... to which I thought Lord Help me when I have kids of my own that I have to leave anywhere with them crying for me...

Now I am off to get some cleaning finished. My mom and I are leaving at noon on Friday to go to San Antonio for my cousin, Melissa's, graduation and I would like to leave my apartment in some kind of order!

Imagine...

... North Texas without hunger. Help bridge the gap!

This was the slogan printed on the t-shirts for today's Russ Noland Memorial Golf Tournament that I helped at! This golf tournament was to benefit the Food 4 Kids Program at the North Texas Food Bank. This program provides a backpack of kid-friendly food to at risk kids for the weekends. Basically helping to "bridge the gap" between Friday lunch and Monday breakfast that are served at school.

Our pastor that passed away in August (Russ) was a huge advocate for this program, and he was always big into this golf tournament, so it was only right that this year the golf tournament was in memory of him.

I went to help wherever needed and ended up running all over the place! I started by helping with registration and then went to help judge the putting contest (which was pretty amusing considering I had NO IDEA what the heck I was doing!). Then one of the ladies said a couple of her volunteers didn't show up so she needed help at the 7th hole during the tournament.

So I spent the afternoon at the 7th hole handing out prizes to anyone who made it within the circle around the hole--only 2 guys got prizes but it was fun to see everyone as they came through! And when the rain started, everyone teased me for my pink umbrella! Unfortunately the tournament was cut short because the thunder and lightening and torrential downpours started! So we headed in early for burger and raffle drawings!

It was a fun day and such a great experience--I'm so glad I was able to help out!