Random thoughts from people our age...

Enjoy...

-I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

-I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

-There is a great need for sarcasm font.

-Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first saw it.

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's
laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

-How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

- I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

- Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart". Or, "I'm an idiot."

- How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent someone from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and
said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything else productive for the rest of the day.

-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

-There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

-I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

Video of the Week

Two weekends ago Matt and Kathryn and I went to a place called Lazy 5 Ranch. It's a 3.5 mile drive through a safari. There are over 700 animals - zebras, deer, water buffalo, lamas, giraffes, a rhino, cattle, pot-belly pigs, all kinds of animals! You can purchase buckets of food and feed the animals from your car. They walk straight up to your car window! IT WAS SUCH A FUN TRIP!!!!

The video below is of us feeding one of the animals.... By this point, one of the zebra's had taken a bucket of food from OUT of MY HANDS and walked off with it! So we learned the way of the wild and out smarted this bad boy...Yep, you just roll up the window..

Catch Up Time

Ok, apparently I have slacked off again at blogging. I really don't see how people are able to blog daily. That just baffles me. Below are the latest updates that I can think of for our family. And by updates, I mean Kathryn updates:

1. Kathryn, of course, is such a amazing gift to us that I still can't believe we've been entrusted with her. She happens to be hilarious and cracks me up on a daily basis. Today we were sitting at the table for lunch and she starts giggling over nothing (that I can tell of). I look at her and kind of giggle back because she looked so cute and all of a sudden she starts farting really loud in her high chair. I start laughing so hard, I can hardly breath. She starts laughing back because of my reaction and then starts to try to make herself fart! Which of course makes me laugh harder and ALL THE WHILE, of course this is not something I would encourage so that made it even funnier to me. We started laughing so much that at one point, she was just holding her breath and squeezing so hard to make a fart come out that I had to tell her, she'd had enough. She's going to kill me when she finds out I blogged about this...

2. She learned to put her shirt on by herself the other day. (Over her clothes and inside out.) You can clearly see how proud she was of herself.

3. She LOVES watching Sesame Street. One of her favorite books has Elmo in it and I was curious to see how she'd react seeing him on tv so a few weeks ago I recorded Sesame Street and she is just enthralled with it. She calls it "ses-see". The minute the show ends and something else starts, she's back to reality and on with her day playing with her toys.

4. I was reading a book to her today and I pointed to a few pictures on one page and asked her what they were. She told me a "turtle", "bird" and "sun" - genius. She was right. And while we were driving she saw a flag high in the air on a flag pole and yelled "kite!" I was so proud. It may not have been a kite but the association is what's brilliant!

5. For the longest time any bug Kathryn saw she called an "ant". She said it with two syllables though like "ann-nt" (emphasis on the "nt"). Spiders, flies, moths, were all "ann-nts". We had a huge break through the other day. She now classifies all bugs into "flies" and "ann-ts".

And that about wraps it up for now.

Happy Anniversary to us!!!

August 14th was our FIVE year anniversary!! We had a wonderful weekend in Charleston, SC celebrating. It's hard to believe it's already been five years but I can tell you, I truly treasure and value every single year and how it's shaped our marriage. Without a shadow of doubt, Matt and I know that our marriage would not be where it is today if it were not for our Lord Jesus Christ. I came across the poem below a few years ago. It is perfect.

Marriage Takes Three

I once thought marriage took just two to make a go,
but now I am convinced it takes the Lord also.

And not one marriage fails where Christ is asked to enter,
as lovers come together with Jesus at the center.

But marriage seldom thrives and homes are incomplete,
until He’s welcomed there, to help avoid defeat.

In homes where Christ is first, it’s obvious to see,
Those unions really work, for marriage still takes three.

Turkey says "Gobble, Gobble?"

That's actually a topic of debate in our family. We went to the coolest park EVER this past weekend. It's the Dan Nicholas Park in Salisbury, NC. We had so much fun. We took Kathryn to the see the Nature Center and Petting Barn - where she got to meet a cow, sheep, goat, peacock, pig, turkey and a mini-donkey. Seriously, could a child ask for more!? It was at this petting barn where our little topic of debate came about. I tried telling Kathryn, "A turkey says, "gobble, gobble"." And Matt goes, "No, say "Yummy! Yummy!""... So Thanksgiving this year will be a little interesting... We rode the train through the park and also rode on the carousal! We all had a great time! Enjoy the pictures:



Turkey says, "Gobble, yummy!"



Kathryn isn't quite sure about riding the carousal but Matt's sure having fun!









Clearly Matt's having a great time!

July 13, 2009

One year later.

This is dedicated to Matthew B. Phillips. Husband, brother, son, friend.

Matt, you are terribly missed and dearly loved. We are very proud of you and remember you often; more than often. We are forever grateful for your sacrifice.

We love you.

Is this for real?

Remember my dream house? Last weekend while I was in town visiting the family, my mom and I drove over to see the house again. Yes, it was still under contract and no, we still do not have a job in GA nor have we won the lottery since my last post... Apparently the fact of the matter is I enjoy torturing myself. We drove around the curb and as soon as we see the house you can clearly tell some one's been there since my last visit during Memorial weekend. When we saw the house the first time, there was tons of overgrowth and tall grass everywhere. It looked like no one had touched the house in about a year. The sidewalks were overgrown and weeds were all over the place. Of course from my rose-colored glasses, I saw through the overgrowth and saw the house as 'the diamond in the rough'. Since my last visit, someone had cut the grass and trimmed back ALL the overgrowth and hedges. I actually thought, "well that was thoughtful of that person to clean up my yard like that." But then reality kicked in and I figured it was God's way of letting my down easily. So I've been prepared for the past few days to see the word "SOLD" when I look up the house online.

Today, I did my usual search and saw that ANOTHER listing agent was listing the house now! Once it was under contract, all the other sites dropped the listing but I came across this site that had been updated with MY house just a few days ago. I couldn't believe the realtor didn't call me and make me aware that these shenanigans were taking place. I got the nerve to call her and see what was going on. She wasn't available but the lady who answered the phone informed me that it was closing TODAY and the realtor was at the "signing table" but a glitch had come up and for me to call back tomorrow to see if it was still on the market. Seriously?? Seriously. You're telling me I called at the exact moment someone was trying to steal my house away from me? God sure has a sense of humor.

So there you have it. There's another genius out there who fell in love with the same house and just so happens to have stupid essentials like maybe say...a JOB and MONEY and ability to MOVE.

I must put a small little disclaimer on this post...I'm pretty sure a friend of mine is convinced I need to be committed after my last post and I had to clarify I'm not "really" eating, sleeping, dreaming about this house. I mean, yes, I loved it, but I'm making light of circumstances. I had to explain and reiterate these are written in jest. I'm going to call her as soon as I post this and let her know I'm really NOT going to give the new homeowners a basket of poisoned baked goods.

I'm BaAcCK

Hello everyone! Sorry for being gone for so long. I won't bore you with all the reasons why I haven't posted anything lately. But I will share what I've discovered about myself in the past month or so...

I've come to realize that I am the following two things: 1. Type-A Personality 2. A Dreamer/Idealist. As far as the Type-A personality goes, whoa. That's a post in and of its self. Stay tuned. As for the Dreamer/Idealist....read below.

Some of you may know that we (Matt and I) are trying to move back to Georgia. That's the prayer anyway. A few months ago Matt found a house online that we were kind of keeping an eye on in GA. When we went to visit my family on Memorial Weekend, we all drove over to the house and were able to check it out (only the outside of the house). Instantaneously, we were in love with it. The property, the porch, what we could see through the windows...it was THE house. We drive back to my parent's house (less than 15 minutes away from our dream home) and look up the realtor to see if there's a possibility to walk through the house while we're in town. Turns out, the house was under contract!!!! We went from flying high to being shot down in a matter of minutes. I won't even begin to describe how letdown we were. So the next day, Monday, we drive back to NC sad...

Before I continue this story, let's go over the facts:
1. The house we like is under contract.
2. We've done absolutely nothing to try to sell our house yet.
3. We have no job in Georgia waiting on us.
4. We have millions of dollars sitting aside so we can pay two mortgages and move somewhere without another job to go to. Um. No.

So with those important facts noted, what do I do? I become obsessed with this house. Every single day I look it up online to see if it's still under contract. The realtor has our contact information to let us know if the contract falls through. I've imagined playing in the yard with Kathryn, decorating the porch with flowers, and where the Christmas tree would go at Christmas time. Have I seen the inside of this house? Of course not. Only sane people do that. There's no other word to describe my madness other than: Obsession.

Oh yes, my story continues... We are always checking out jobs in GA for Matt just to have an idea of what's available. The other weekend we found a job that if you asked Matt, would be described as "a shot in the dark". If you asked me, "the sky's the limit". I read the job description and thought it was a perfect fit for Matt. Matt reads the description and said he didn't have experience in half of what they were asking for.... That was the day I learned what Matt actually does at his job. My mom's asked me about a million times what Matt does and apparently I've been giving her and everyone else the wrong description for the past 4 years. Who knew? I now officially know what he does NOT do.

Anyway, since coming across "the perfect fit" job that Matt "only has experience for half of what they are looking for", I've convinced myself of the following: Matt is going to get this job. We are going to move to Georgia. Our dream house is miraculously going to be "For Sale" again in which case, we'll sell our house (in a matter of months because we're in the best economy ever) and live happily ever after.

Shamelessly Honest. The End.

Update to previous post...

Since posting my last post, I wanted everyone to know that the flower company I had previously written about has won my favor back. Not completely because I am still upset about the issue, but without question they have responded exactly as I asked of them and their customer service has handled my issue superbly. Now I feel a little bad about posting their name in my previous post so I'm making some edits so you'll just have to guess which flower company I used! (Unless you're quick readers and already read who I'm talking about!!) There goes my cool previous title that took me 4 minutes to come up with! (kidding..)

Consider this issue dropped now.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!! It has been a wonderful day today, although, most days are wonderful to me anyway. What an honor it is to actually be a mother! I'm so thankful to be a 'mama' and I'm so thankful to have great Mom's of my own. How fun to have a day to celebrate that!! I'm all about cooking delicious meals and making yummy treats for the sake of "celebrating"! And by "cooking delicious meals", I mean, eating the delicious meals Matt cooks!

Maybe you're curious about my title regarding Amazing Flower Company... Unfortunately, "Amazing" fell off their name when I used them for Mother's Day this year. We've used them a lot in the past and Matt tends to prefer them over other companies. I placed the order a week ago and ordered the "Lilies for Mom" arrangement because both of our mom's love lilies and when in bloom, they're beautiful. Below is a picture of what my Mom received and a picture of what I thought I was ordering...



No joke. My sister said maybe next year I should ask them to just mail Mom some seeds and she can plant them herself. And for your reference, there are supposed to be at least 12-16 FLOWERS.