It's been three years, but who's counting?

Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve written! What has happened, well, we moved from San Jose, Calif., to Tempe, Ariz., living there until November 2013. Our Doberman Bowden passed in 2011, leading us to hook up with the local rescue to foster. We ended up fostering nine dogs, and met a variety of interesting and fun people. We also adopted a new puppy, who we thought was a Doberman/Shepherd mix, but turned out to be a cattle dog mix. He is probably one of the funniest dogs we’ve ever met. After living in Tempe for two and a half years (the longest stint in a while), we have been relocated to Puerto Rico. Prior to moving, we welcomed a little girl to our family, Eva Grey, and we packed up and shipped out to the little island. We live in Humacao, about 40 minutes southeast from San Juan. It is a little weird, I feel like I am constantly on vacation! However, who can complain about 85 degree weather every day?!? Eva is four months now, Jasper (our new dog) is two, and we still have sweet Mischa who will be seven in April! Life has presented us with so many adventures so far, I can’t wait to see what will happen next! Stay tuned.

My soapbox

I know some people are saying we are coming out of the recession and some are saying we are still in it. Now, as many of you know, I am NO financial genius and probably the last politically in-tune person on the planet (probably next to Cookie Monster), but I do get frustrated with all the “drama” instilled through the media, and maybe it is because I don’t get it, but I am still going to voice my opinion.

What brought this post on? Well, Corey and I were watching something, 60 Minutes or Dateline, one of those shows and the highlight was older people who didn’t have jobs and were struggling in today’s economy and job market. OK, I get it, I mean I know a lot of people that have lost their jobs and it has taken a long time to get back on their feet. It took me six months to find a job in Charleston, so I completely understand what it means to make sacrifices, granted we probably didn’t have to make as many as others, but we were, and still are, affected.

I’m sure my next few sentences are going to ruffle a few feathers, so I will apologize now, but please remember this is an opinion.

My whole aggravation is that it seems a lot of the people shown on TV and in the papers are sitting and waiting for their dream job to come around. I understand you may have been a director somewhere, but do something part time or tack on full time at a retail store. I mean, it isn’t exactly going to promote your resume, but it will show employers that you are doing something, and in that way is most definitely a resume builder. When I graduated college, I thought I was going to move to Charlotte and find my dream job right away. Of course that didn’t happen, but I adapted, got something part time and took internships and sure enough it led to my first job (almost a year and a half later). And there are always part-time gigs out there. I went back to being a waitress several times, and may have to again. It wasn’t enough to buy me a $400 Cole Haan bag, but it paid the bills and allowed me to still enjoy life (with a little added stress of course, ha ha).

Bottom line, stop waiting and do something about it. Reach out to your connections, join new groups and nonprofits and show that you still have the drive to get that job. Everyone’s retirement dream right now is to just retire, we are all dealing with it in one way or another.

Ging Ging's birthday

On Aug. 7, my family celebrated the 80 wonderful years of my grandmother, Tillie Grey Carden (aka Ging Ging). To celebrate, we all traveled to Oak Ridge, TN, for a surprise party in her honor. How do you surprise an 80-year-old woman with 50 of her closest friends and family in a small city? Tell little white lies.

The weekend started with me, my parents and my cousin who is my age arrive in Oak Ridge on Friday night. Ging Ging knew my cousin, Turner, was arriving for the weekend, however she had no premonition I was coming. So we spent Friday hanging out at the house with her, talking about what was going on in my life in California, what Corey’s been up to, etc. Turner didn’t get in until 10 p.m., so he stayed over at the hotel everyone was rooming.

Saturday, my mom and I woke up to do some “shopping”, which was actually meeting up with my other two cousins, Cory and Colby, with their families, as well as my younger brother Will. I finally got to meet my cousin Cory’s wife Amy and their son Cole (who looks just like Cory!). It was also great to spend more quality time with the rest of the family. It was almost like a reunion.

The next item was to pick up the decorations and cake for the party. We used purple and yellow colors, two of my grandmother’s favorites, for the balloons and cake, and bought Whitman samplers for the guests. My grandfather used to get her a Whitman sampler every year for her birthday.













My mom was convinced she knew how to get to the venue, Elks Lodge. Leaving the store, we had both my brothers trailing us. We started off. Realizing we actually didn't know where we were going, we had to call my dad. . .three times.

Finally arriving at the Elks Lodge to start setting up, we realized there was a teen concert that night in the private room next to ours. This disguised the fact that the otherwise dead-on-a-Saturday-night venue was packed for Ging Ging’s party.

As the right time came around, 6:30 p.m., we waited anxiously for Ging Ging and my parents to arrive. Since she knew I was already in town and meeting them for dinner, I ushered her inside. Responding to her comment about how packed the Elks was, I said, "Oh, they have this teen concert going on."

"That makes more sense for the cars," she replied.

My parents and I smiled.

Ging Ging opened the door to the room and saw all her friends and family and was ecstatically stunned. Immediately the tears came, which for my grandmother is not a frequent thing. My dad went over to give her a hug and the party started!

There was a table set up at the front for everyone to write notes to Ging Ging for her birthday. The pictures taken, coupled with the notes, will be put into a photo album for her as the finale to her present.

It was a great weekend.

Day two and three of my trip - long post

Day two of driving to California, we started off from our hotel in Clinton and started into Texas. Apparently, as my dad was sore to find out, you aren't supposed to drive in the left hand lane because that is ONLY to pass. And, if you drive more than one mile over the speed limit you get pulled over. We were promptly informed of this upon driving about 10 miles on I-40 in Texas. The highway patrol stopped us, but was nice enough to let us off with a warning. Apparently, the officer was from Charleston, who knew!

We went through Amarillo and driving the strip of I-40 at the top is very decieving compared to the rest of the trip as it only took about two hours to get across, whereas every other state was four to six.

Going through New Mexico, it was almost like we could feel the heat come through our car. I love New Mexico and Arizona, the colored deserts and overpasses. It seems like a different world. We passed through a very small town with numerous Adobe-style huts.

As we hit Arizona, we started to come out of the desert and into the forest parts of Flagstaff. It was so beautiful. We felt like we were back in Tennessee with the tall pine trees and how green it was. It also dropped in temperature about 30 degrees. We made the exective decision to continue on for a full 15 hour drive to Needles, Calif.

The funniest part of the whole trip occured when we crossed into California at the agricultural check point. They stopped us and of course asked if we had any produce or livestock/animals. We said we had two dogs and the guy told us the reason he asked was becuase we are prohibited from bringing in sugar gliders and quaker parrots.

Once we got through the checkpoint (we were nervous) we stopped at a small hotel. The dogs, again, decided it would be the most fun to make a sandwich out of me rather than sleeping in their beds. It was surprisingly comfortable though.

We awoke the next day to only eight more hours to drive. We stated driving through Mojave and passed Edwards AFB, into Tehachapi Pass. We started seeing the wind turbines on the mountain and then quickly discovered we were going to drive through the mountain.

This wouldn't have been daunting if the atmosphere hadn't dropped the tempurature from 80 to 40 degrees and we were subject to driving through . No that was not an omitted word, that was the word "this" behind the fog on the mountain. It was crazy!

After getting through the pass, it dropped us out into the farm country. We drove up 223 just below Bakersfield that took us through the farms and milk country. It was pretty interesting to see the dairy farms, I had never seen one before.

We took a break from eating really bad food and stopped at an IHOP, which was apparently the busiest IHOP in the country. When we got on I-5, it was smooth sailing. We got to drive through Gilroy, AKA garlic country, and the rural areas south of San Jose before passing the illustrious welcome sign, "Welcome to San Jose Population 1,023,083".

I can't even express how excited the dogs were to see Corey, and of course I was too:). It was great to be a family again, but I did cry after dropping my dad off at the airport. It is overwhelming to think that you are that far away.

I am happy here and glad to call San Jose home, as are the dogs:

Drive to San Jose - Day One

My plan was to write a blog post each day of travel out to San Jose, but of course the hotels that allowed dogs didn’t have Internet for free, so needless to say it hindered my writing!

And as life seems to go, once I reached the Left Coast (as people like to call it out here) my days were filled with unpacking, figuring out the area, bills, contacting old landlord and new landlord, etc.

So here we go – a recap of Day One.

We started in Nashville, Tenn., taking I-40 all the way to California. It was smooth sailing in the beginning, until we reached Memphis. We immediately hit road construction on the outside of Memphis that set our trip back about 45 minutes. Finally on the road again, it was pretty smooth through Arkansas. I quickly learned, from viewing the landscape, that if you eat soy beans, they probably came from Arkansas.

Passing Fort Smith into Oklahoma, it was time to plan on where to stay for the night as we figured we would be heading through Oklahoma City upon reaching about 11 hours of driving. There is a microscopic town outside of Oklahoma City named Clinton we decided to get a room (the hotel did not care that we had dogs or what kind they were). Pulling up to the room, outside entrances of course, we put the GMC Acadia in park and proceeded to unload the car. I popped the back to let the dogs out, Mischa (the angel she is) waited until I grabbed her leash to hop out of the car. However, Bowden decided he wanted to get out at the same time and just jumped out of the car! He immediately discovered he “wasn’t in Kansas anymore” and ran for the closest open door, thank goodness it was OUR hotel room.

The town of Clinton was very interesting, apparently everything closed in the town at 8 p.m., causing us to eat the hotel’s restaurant food. It actually turned out to not be that bad.

I took the dogs’ beds in the room, but like I figured, they decided to sleep in the bed with me, Mischa on one side, Bowden on the other.

And we’re off!

I decided to drive straight through to Nashville on Tuesday, a full nine hour drive that included a 30 minute detour right outside of Murfreesboro.

I guess I should start at the beginning of my eventful move.

Tuesday morning, I let the dogs our in the backyard. They promptly ran over to the fence growling, so I went out to see what the commotion was about. A baby opossum was lying on the ground, "dead". I put the dogs inside and looked for any bites or blood on them. Free from any incident, I thought I would get rid of the animal the best way I knew how, which was calling my dad. I opened the door to go outside and looked at the little baby. At the same time, the opossum had flipped over and started hissing at me! I jumped (and screamed) and ran back inside. It was actually playing dead with the dogs! I had always heard they did that, but have never actually seen it. Needless to say, I waited a few hours before I let the dogs out again.

The movers got everything packed up and on the truck Tuesday afternoon. However, they informed me that our stuff won't be at our new house until May 24. Of course, this is the end of the week long window they gave us.

I have had a great time with my parents though. We went shopping, to a winery, to get manicures, to a dog park, etc. The dogs have been getting TWO walks a day thanks to my dad.

Even though it has been fun with my parents, I am anxious to get out to California to be with Corey and start our family adventure! I know the dogs miss him too:).

First trip to San Jose!

I have to admit the trip started a little crazy. My flight from Charleston came in an hour late, causing me to be late for my connector in Houston. However, I have to give props to Continental Airlines because they held the plane in Houston for me! I was literally sprinting through the airport, hopped on a courtesy cart and got to the gate at the exact time the plane was scheduled to take off. It was nuts. The plane was nice and big though. Continental offers DirecTV on the back of every seat, which is pretty awesome. I was so tired though, I didn’t not take advantage, so I napped.

My first day in San Jose was really fun. First of all, every street I drive I can see the mountains, which are beautiful! I woke up, took Corey to work, worked out, then went back to Corey’s work for a cookout. The plant manager at Flowcardia introduced both Corey and me and sat and talked to us for a bit. After the cookout, it was time for the house hunting!

I will spare all the fine details, but we really liked a place in Sunnyvale. It is a decent size and the price is good. It is also close to downtown Sunnyvale, lots of shopping and things to do. We also looked in Mountain View, Santa Clara and a last stop in Los Gatos. Los Gatos is such a cute area, it reminds me of Decatur, Ga. We ate at the Los Gatos Brewery.

We will be looking in Campbell today and hope to sign this afternoon. I hope we get to watch the Derby!

West coast baby!

So Corey found out a little while ago that his company wants him to move to Sunnyvale, Calif. I have to admit, I almost fell out of my chair when he told me that! My friends and parents are completely excited, and I can't wait to start getting visitors.

So the plan is for Corey to move out the weekend of April 23. I will come out the weekend of April 30 to help try and find a place, finish out my last week of work and then head out.

My first stop is going to Nashville to visit my parents and then my dad and I will be traveling out to California together. I am really excited to spend some quality time with my dad, wish my mom could come too, but she's not much of a road tripper.

I am excited about this new adventure and hope to start posting more than just one every six months!

I don't have a job yet, but will be actively looking. My position at the Charleston AMA has been filled and I will spend my last month in Charleston making sure everything is in order there, as well as at my current employer.

Wish us luck! Stay tuned for updates. . .

When in the makeup aisle. . .

Growing up with two brothers, I was never the “glamorous” little girl every parent probably dreamt of. Granted, I did like getting into things, like my mom’s makeup and nail polish and, of course, the closet. I would watch my mom put on her makeup, fix her hair, find out which outfit to wear. But, I also watched my dad shave and put on his cologne, which I always asked for a little bit on my own face before I ran off to school.

As I have aged, I have realized my slow growing obsession with makeup, facial products and hair products. In about sixth grade, I started developing some acne, not debilitating but bad enough to be self-conscious. I tried all the over-the-counter remedies but nothing seemed to work. Throughout high school it got better. In college, I tried the basic Murad solution set, cleanser, toner and moisturizer with tea tree oil. The combination seemed to make my face incredibly oily.

Then came the incredible Proactiv solution – this felt like it was heaven sent! My face cleared the tone and texture improved and I felt like I could finally leave the house without makeup. Of course, at $45 a set, that can get a little steep.

As I started trying every over-the-counter regimen available to compensate for breaking up with Proactiv, I completely stumbled on my new product by chance. One day as I was looking for a cleanser that would double as eye makeup remover that wouldn’t make my face oilier or cost me a fortune, I found it. On the bottom shelf at Publix, the little blue bottle looked up at me – Purpose face wash. The “Gentle as Water” facial cleanser runs about $5 at any grocery or pharmacy and is as effective at cleaning pores as the more expensive brands.

I was mystified as I started using it and my pores began to shrink and skin tone evened out. Purpose even proved to me that as I thought I always had troubled skin, it was just that I was using products that were too harsh for my skin.

Granted, I still swear by Proactiv, but if you are looking for a non-expensive alternative and your skin can handle no salicylic acid, Purpose is definitely worth a shot.

All women should consider themselves a Duchess

Long time no post! Friday night Corey had to work late so I thought I would catch up on my chick flicks. The first selection was Keira Knightley in The Duchess. Knightley plays Georgiana, The Duchess of Devonshire, who is “sold off” to marry the Duke on Devonshire by her mother. Blinded by the thought of a rich house, title and living in the public eye, Georgiana assumes she and her husband will grow to love each other, considering they had only met twice. Knightley was captivatingly beautiful, as always, in this period piece and I was pleasantly surprised at the movie’s blunt transparency into the time. Not only was the Duchess raised to assume being sold into a marriage was OK, she was also told to ignore her husband’s indiscretions.

The movie really made me think about the mid-late 1700’s and what a modern woman in today’s society would do if placed in the similar situation of Georgiana? I know what I would have done.

As someone who considers herself a modern woman, I have had my share of heartbreak, men who were unfaithful, mean to me; I could go on and on. But to my defense, I never lived in the same household with my boyfriend and his lover, nor pretended it wasn’t going on. To Georgiana’s credit, she did confront the Duke and Lady Elizabeth. I don’t know if they ever reconciled their relationship as friends (Even though in the movie they did, I have yet to read the book), but I believe she was rightfully livid and her husband was repugnant.

Now, in all fairness, we do have to give something to the Duke. The story wouldn’t have made headlines, been made into a book or a move if he didn’t act the way he did. And to Georgiana’s mother, who was equally disgusting, she wanted her daughter to remove herself publicly to lower the chance of rumors. Well, Georgiana showed her with several published works about her, numerous paintings and is still being talked about in the 21st Century.

So every time I think I am being outspoken, too opinionated or quick-witted, I will think of the Duchess of Devonshire and how she turned her tragedy to her favor by being in the public eye and not bowing down to criticism or speculation.

I loved this movie and can’t wait to buy it on DVD.

Me and my hot chocolate

It's 6 a.m., and for some reason I can't sleep, which is VERY unusual for me. Corey got up at 5:30 to go to the gym, his normal Friday routine. So I got out of bed for a second, but now I can't get back to a REM cycle. Of course the dogs are happy, I was greeted downstairs with happy faces an wagging tails.

Now I will admit that my mind had a few random thoughts floating around: I missed Lipstick Jungle this week! Don't forget you have the meeting with the Charleston chaapter of the AMA at 3 p.m. I need to vacuum and go through the rest of the wedding presents today. I need to go get toilet cleaner. It is getting cooler outside, I need to get some large mugs for my tea and hot chocolate. My mom is going to get me a pair of jeans, I need to go to the Gap.

I mean, who thinks all this random stuff at 6 a.m.? I am a bit of a off-the-wall person, but I hardly ever keep myself awake with my thoughts. Oh well, there are worse things. . .good morning Charleston!

Newlyweds

Ahhhh, the sweet married life! I can't say that it is REALLY different, but changing your name is a bit of a pain. Corey and I sent out the thank you cards this week, he was so great, didn't complain once about doing his part! We will be going through the remaining gifts this weekend and deciding what to use right away and what to save for a bigger place. We just don't have enough room in our current house to keep everything out unfortunately!

The honeymoon was fantastic! Nice is beautiful and so historic! There are extreme Russian influences, in architecture, restaurants, bars, etc. The French Riviera is the prime vacation spot for other Europeans, so it was a very international trip. We visited Cannes, St. Paul, Monaco (which is a lot like San Fran because it is full of hills!). We couldn't have asked for a better trip.

It was very interesting that the main boardwalk, the Promenade des Anglais, was developed in the 1800's, the name given in tribute of the English. The harsh winter made for several homeless individuals, in which the English proposed they build the walkway down the coast, which would be financed by the English.

This is our view form the top of our hotel of the Nice coast.

Corey and I at St. Paul, testing our photography skills. . .ha ha not very good!

This is Antibes, in the ramparts, one of the most historic areas in France.

Corey and I at one of the local outside bars in the Cours Saleya.

Charleston

We have started our journey into our new life. . .nomads in America. Corey received his new position at a medical device company near Charleston, so we have settled in Mount Pleasant, just over the bridge (whichever one you decide to take).

We have a lovely townhouse - perfect for guests and the dogs - which is close to everything! We have spent the past weeks getting aquainted with our new city, taking in the restaurants, beaches and history.

Three things I haven't gotten used to yet:
1. the climate. . .it is so moist!
2. the bugs. . .I had no idea what a Palmetto Bug was
3. job market

So here we are! Countdown to wedding. . .32 days (thanks Marge for the ticker!).