once upon a dream...

ok so normally i don't have much to say about david beckham. i mean, he's gorgeous no doubt about it. but i wouldn't normally bring him up in conversation (he's not johnny depp). don't get me wrong, i like him, but i just don't think about him either bad or good.

but disney recently published some pictures, including this one and another of scarlett johanssen that are just beautiful and especially this picture of david beckham. sleeping beauty has always been my absolute favorite disney movie, and they have beckham dressed as prince charming. how lovely :)


and:

if i had $240 million.

Obviously, the first thing I would do would be pay off my mortgage, student loans, car, and credit cards.

-I'd give $10 million to the Queen Anne's Revenge Project.

-I'd give $20 million to Carmen, because she said she'd do the same thing if the situation was reversed.

-I'd probably give my other friends money too.. we'll see :)

-I'd take all of my friends on a Caribbean cruise.

-I'd buy a Saturn Sky.

-I'd learn to scuba dive.

-I'd learn to skydive.

-I'd buy a great camera, and learn how to take great pictures.

-I'd hire a 24 hour personal trainer and chef.

-I'd set my nieces up with college funds.

-I'd finally get DVR.

-I'd buy a house in Malibu, Boone, Vermont, and somewhere foreign.

-I'd visit every single continent, starting with Africa (starting with Egypt).

-I'd buy some antique stuff!

-I'd hire a fashion expert.

-I'd buy a pug.

-I'd probably quit my job.. definitely quit the brush.

-I'd buy Jared a new car :)

-I could keep going here forever and ever..

what would you buy?

mikey again.

ok here's one of mikey from 2000, on his birthday at pi-zon's:


okay.. well, I thought he was hot. but then again i was 18. hmm..

anywho.. here are some pictures from the schmoozefest that was the annual meeting and the tap room adventures afterwards:




to see them all go here or here.

snubbed!

first things first, the greatest movie of the year, Children of Men, was snubbed by the Oscars. it should win best picture, but now it can't. something is wrong with the world, so now i won't even be watching the oscars. :P

ok on to my story. when i was a senior in high school, i worked at an independently owned pizza restaurant in Concord, NC called Pi-zons. it was owned by a couple from New York, and they certainly were the epitomy of New York attitude. AND they were hardcore NASCAR fans.

here is the owner, ronnie tornatore, and his two horrible daughters with their car:













blech. i'm not a big fan of nascar. or racing in general, which is ironic since i grew up in kannapolis, home of dale earnhardt.

anywho. i had a fun time at this job because i learned to cook all sorts of italian things and i learned how to make NY style brick oven pizza. it was awesome. i could toss dough, and i could spin it on my hand in the air. i was cool.

halfway through my senior year, a guy named mikey started working there. mikey was from albany new york, but was not connected with mr. tornatore. he had come to charlotte to work on his music career, but ended up at pi-zons to make extra money. he was 4 years older than me and i LOVED him. i mean, he was 6'2", slightly skinny, sideburns, dressed cool, AND he had a cool accent. talk about dreamy mcdreamersons.

i lusted after him for 6 months but was too shy to ask him out. i was EXTREMELY sweet to him too, which, any guys who's ever dated me will tell you, i am Overly sweet to boys i like. i did everything i could to make him happy, and i wasn't even dating him.

after a few months, however, adam came to work at pi-zons and 3 weeks later, we were dating.. so.. my crush for mikey was halted. then, about a month before i moved away to college, mikey moved back to new york to go back to school. i was disheartened to say the least, even though i no longer wanted him, i still thought he was super cool. as a going away present for him, i made this really awesome scrapbook with pictures of all of us and it was cool. i hope he still has it...

so then i went away to college. and discovered the magic of the internet. i was a late internet bloomer (i was CONVINCED the internet was a fad). when mikey had moved away, he failed to leave any contact info for us, and i was so sad about this. upon discovering the internet, i searched for a long long time for him. do you know how many people in albany, ny have the same name as him? like 20. i gave up after a while. but every few months or so, i'd look again. this was in 2000. eventually, i gave up altogether.

but last week, i was bored at work (which i am so often!) and i remembered something that triggered a mikey memory. then i got on myspace, the haven for anyone trying to find anyone, and i searched for him.

and there he was. mikey, in all his gorgeous glory. still hot. still making music. he's still in albany, and he's in a band! i sent him a message, and i got a reply! so now, thanks to myspace, i've reconnected with one of my absolute favorite people from the past! i hope we can remain friends for a while this time, thanks to the magic of the internet.

here he is:

and here is his myspace.

i have a bunch of pictures of him from concord, and i'll find a good one to put up for ya tomorrow.

i love myspace.

etc. etc. etc.

so i've been "elected" vice president of my homeowner's association. whoopee. i still have no power. i bet i would still get 3 visits from the police and a noise ordinance violation ticket if i threw another ragin' party. at least i didn't get elected secretary, like carmen, who now has to write a bunch of letters and like, keep track of stuff. actually, i guess it's kind of cool.

have i mentioned my brother is getting married in April? i went home on saturday to try on my bridesmaid dress and it's pretty styling. AND it's only $50.00. sweet. i may even wear it again someday.

tonight is the big whoopacog annual meeting party thinggy. all of coworkers and i are to be there and we're supposed to spend the evening schmoozing with all of the local big-wigs. i'm dragging jared along and we plan to spend most of the evening frequenting the open bar :)

lately anytime carmen and i go out anywhere together we get hit on. bad. but it's not by pretty boys (usually). it's by creepy old men. what the hell? do we look like easy targets or something? i am not interested in hearing about your divorces, your kids, or your salesman jobs. blech. even if i was single i would turn you down. i'm still young enough to be picky about age. and 4o and 50 year old men? no thank you.

i have a new favorite song. it's called "Cupid's Chokehold" by Gym Class Heroes. i friggin love it and can't stop listening to it. go to myspace and listen to it if you can. i swear it's addictive.

speaking of myspace, i have a great story (at least i think it's great) to tell you tomorrow.

crazy in california

got this text message (picture) from my ex boyfriend Sean, a.k.a. crazy in california, a.k.a. The Fry Master of All that is Meat:




i'll go ahead and say it, that is NOT a flattering picture of him..
especially when you consider the last time i saw him, he looked like this.

he's called me twice this week, but i have yet to call him back because i don't feel like listening to him talk at me for an hour about how i should break up with jared, quit my job, and move to sunny California. ha! as Cher would say, As If!!

greatest movie ever.

i mean it.
children of men.

good things..

a few good things going on...
-i'm getting new contacts soon to combat the serious dry eye problems i've been having forever.

-i've started bartender training at the brush and next week i will officially be bartender.

-jared has been given a manager job at the brush here in hickory. this is great news since for a very long time there was concern he would be moving to boone.

-sunday katie and i are going to boone for no reason at all! yay! hopefully i'll get to take a bunch of pictures on campus just because i can.

-today i got to see this promotion picture from the 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean movie:


-and most importantly, it's 12 days into the year and i've completely kept up with my new year's resolutions. one more month and i break my longest relationship ever record.

waterfall

So yesterday my mother and my oldest brother, Scott, decided to come visit me and attempt to replace the faucet handles in my shower. The hot water handle, and the diverter (the one that switches from bath to shower) have both broken off since I've moved into my condo. As it turns out, my home warranty people won't replace these because they believe this was caused by "excessive force". The truth is, Mr. Finger (the previous owner) put the cheapest handles he could possibly find (which didn't actually fit) in my shower and therefore both handles came off quite easily.

So my mother and brother, along with my two nieces, Elora (who's FIVE now!!) and Madelyn (who's definitely hit her terrible two's). First things first, my brother tries to turn off the water in my house. We couldn't find a place to do this, so we called the condo complex's maintenance man. He tells us that to shut off the water in my condo, he'd have to shut off the water to the whole building. And? he won't do this because it's the weekend and everyone is home. Also, my building is the only building like this in the whole complex! grr...

So we decide that instead of replacing them all right now, that we'll just replace the hot water handle, since the hot water can be turned off at the hot water heater. We made a long and stressful trip to Home Depot and to lunch (stressful because of Little Miss Terrible Two's) and came back 2 hours later.

My brother quite easily takes off the old handles (what was left of them) and then decides he's going to go ahead and try to replace the cold water handle too, even though the water was not shut off. Apparently, if he could have done this without popping a certain um.. thing.. then um.. it would be okay.

He forgot one thing. He's no plumber. And bad luck with home improvements run rampant in my family. So I'm downstairs trying to rally my nieces into not killing my cat when I hear a loud WHOOSH and then what sounded like a train going by in my upstairs bathroom. I run upstairs to find my brother and mother both soaked standing in my (tiny) bathroom with the shower door shut with water shooting straight at the back wall of the shower with the force of a large waterfall. The doors weren't holding much back and water was going all over the place. I used almost every one of my twenty or so towels trying to soak up water in my bathroom floor. We immediately made a call to the maintenance man and told him he HAD to come shut the water off. My niece Elora called to us upstairs and said something about slime coming down the wall in my living room. So my mother went downstairs to use the rest of my towels to soak up the water that was coming down the wall.

After ten or so minutes the water was finally shut off. My brother quickly finished putting on the faucet handles and told the maint. man to cut the water back on. Water again begins to come out uncontrollably, but this time from the actual bath faucet. And it can't be turned off. So the maint. man had to shut the water off.. again. We discover we are missing a tiny black gasket from inside the cold water faucet handle. We felt defeated because most likely it had fallen down the drain during the waterfall escapade.

While this is going on I was in my bedroom closet where I had to remove my giant shoe rack and all of my shoes so that I could get to the panel that accesses the area behind the bath, just to make sure it didn't flood back there. With luck, I found the gasket behind the wall, where it had ricocheted and landed.

With a sigh of relief the faucet handles were finally installed correctly and the water was turned back on for good. After my brother's clothes had dried my family left and life returned to normal.

That is until a little while later when I decided to try to take a shower. That's when I discovered my hot water was not working. With ANOTHER visit from the maint. man, we gave up and decided that it just needed to sit for like, an hour, until the hot water heater could be filled up (at least we hoped that was all that was wrong).

So I went to dinner and around 9:00 returned to find my hot water finally working. Thank God. All this so that I could finally take a shower without the use of pliers. I think next time, I'll just call a plumber. Sheesh.

Top Fiver!

As it is the beginning of a new year, I'd like to briefly reflect on the last year. 2006 was a really positive year for me. A lot of wonderful things happened for me, things that I wouldn't want to forget any time soon.

On that note, here is a list of my top five happenings of 2006. Just know it was a tough decision and some of my other wonderful happenings were only left off because I am too lazy to come up with 10. :)

So here goes:

Number 5: It's a tie between: a)My tubing adventure. This doesn't seem like something that would be in my top five since it was just one afternoon among many glorious and wonderful drunken afternoons in my past year, but it is. Something about floating down the river, a six-pack of Bud Light tied to your raft by a string, without a care in the world for three hours at a time, it's just so relaxing and so... peaceful. The fact that I was there with a lot of my close friends really made it all that much better. Pictures


and b) my New Years Eve Squared party which was just a few days ago at my condo. This is especially awesome because ALL of my closest friends were there. All of the people I love were kind enough to come to my house for a little throw down. Only one or two people that I care about weren't there and that is mainly due to distance. A good time was had by all due to alcohol, karaoke, and of course, my hot tub. :) Pictures


Number 4: The Appalachian National Football Championship. As I've said before, it rocked. I can still feel that rush of pride, exhiliration, and all over sunshine-goodness that came when we scored that last touchdown and we knew that were once again national champions. The fact that I was there first hand to witness it all made it that much more special. I will never forget the amazing smells, sights and sounds of that day in Chatanooga. Pictures


Number 3: My trip to Savannah. A girls weekend in Savannah with nothing to do but drink, sight-see, drink, dance, ghost-hunt and drink. Could there possibly be any better to way to spend a long weekend in October? I think not. Katie, Andrea, Erica and I had an absolute blast and I wouldn't change a thing about the weekend (except to maybe somehow get rid of that hangover I had on the way back). Pictures


Number 2: Buying a Condo. Becoming a first-time homeowner is pretty damn big deal. I don't really need to add much to this. Except that with my Condo comes 2 other wonderful things: getting Meatwad! and having Carmen move next door! I really do have it made there. Something about owning your own place makes you really feel whole inside. Pictures


Nubmer 1: Meeting Jared. Obviously. Meeting someone who makes me feel so special and loved couldn't possibly be topped by anything, not even a new condo. I met him on Valentine's Day when he first worked at the Brush. On April 10th we went out for drinks and had a good time. And then on May 22 we had our "first date". My trip to Pigeon Forge & Gatlinburg is included in this one. I won't bore you with all the details. Just know he's my sunshine. I only hope I can keep up with my New Year's resolutions. Pictures


And there you have it. I've had a great 2006 and I can only hope I have an amazing 2007 to go along with it. Although, I accidentally did laundry on New Year's Day so who knows how this year will be...

*On a side note, I take a LOT of pictures. I didn't even realize when I was making this list that were pictures (granted, some were from Katie) of all the major events IN SETS on my flickr page.

my turn to post my resolutions for all the world to see..

be forewarned, this blog is stupidly emotional and probably boring to most everyone but me. i'm just writing it because i need to.

ok i guess i'll go ahead and jump on the bandwagon and make a new years resolution or two.
first off, i'm going to keep the same one i had last year, which i kept (mostly....) which was to be happy and be myself. this one is the toughest thing i've ever dealt with. being myself is something totally accomplishable once you settle on the fact that nothing can change you except you. it's never really dawned on me before that if i be myself, people will still like me. and the ones that don't? i guess they weren't really my friends. luckily for me, that hasn't been a problem yet.

being happy, that's a hard resolution to follow. many great and wonderful things have happened to me this year. i became a homeowner in march and i now have a great condo. i adopted a kitty, meatwad, in may and therefore will always have that companionship. and also, i've met and fallen in love with an amazing man, jared, who has been the source for much, much happiness this year. it had been a really really really long time since i've actually been happy happy with a man. five years in fact. i was beginning to think that no other man was really going to be up to par with how happy i was before. thankfully, i've found jared. and he fills all the holes that were left behind in my heart.

but as with all good things, a person tends to do themselves in and sabotage what makes them happy. i'm dumb enough to be a very jealous girl.. which is ironic because i've broken up with a boy before for his jealousy. now i understand what it's like. now i feel awful.. i actually make myself mad for being so jealous. i know how idiotic it is to be jealous. but then i question everything.. like why hasn't he called yet? he doesn't sound like he wants to see me... he isn't as happy to hear my voice as i am to hear his.. why did he not tell me where he got that shirt before... but then i realize that i'm being stupid and the reason he didn't tell me is because he knows how jealous i am and he doesn't want to piss me off. it's a vicious nasty nasty circle which leads me to my new resolution for the year:

to stop obsessing over things that aren't really what i imagine them to be..
to stop being so jealous when i have no reason to be..
to remember the motto i came up with in high school, "green is only as blue as you make it".

if i can pull that one off, it will be a miracle. but miracles never cease...

also, i'd like to try to stop cussing so much. and to maybe be healthier. yea.