Feels Like Home... Thanksgiving Update

I enjoyed every second of being home.

My sisters and I were under the same roof for two whole days! Jennie had to leave Friday after lunch to be at work in Marietta at 6:00 am... what a trooper. There were tears as she left, but plenty of smiles and laughs during her visit to make up for it. I'm hoping we'll have more time together when Christmas comes. I love this time of year - I know I'll get to see my whole family at least twice in less than a month!

After lunch, everybody took a nap for a little while (of course) before waking up to eat dessert. We eventually made our way outside for our annual Thanksgiving Boone Family Photo Shoot.

Jennie's boyfriend Chris played photographer, which kept our smiles authentic to say the least.

Daddy-Man and his Girlie-Girls

Mama with her girls
(I think this one was my favorite.)

Lulas are the best!

Hopefully, Christmas, NYE and other outings will be updated soon!!

Forgot My Favorite!

One More!

I saw this on Nattie's MySpace and forgot we'd taken it. I think we look quite fabulous if I do say so myself. :-)

Lulas are the best.

I Heart Being Home

A Few Pictures From Imogen!

An evening out with this chick made the whole thing worthwhile.

Possibly the quirkiest performer I've ever seen, but a fantastic show.

Give me a break. You really think I'd let her?

Not a chance.

Coming Home

After a VERY long day, I made it home around 11:00 last night. I came in to a bowl of Mama's Potato Soup, homemade cornbread, and two of my three sisters - Kadee came in about half an hour later.

We sat around the kitchen table laughing, relaxing and just.... being home.

Jennie brought Chris with her for a couple of days, which can only mean fun things will happen.

See?

And again... he's just that funny, ladies and gentlemen!

More to come in a couple of days! :-)

What I Am Thinking?

I am going to drive home tonight so I can take Nattie to an Imogen Heap concert at the Orange Peel in Asheville. I bought the tickets months ago thinking they were for a Friday night show. Nope. Thursday night.

"Say Goodnight and Go..."

I'm in the middle of an intensive writing unit in my classroom. As I write, I think all 23 of my students are trying to ask me 23 different questions. I have to be back here tomorrow, or my unit will be off kilter.

So.... I am getting up at 5AM in Asheville in order to be back here for my 10:30 Writer's Workshop class.... I am going to be a zombie.

Say a prayer, wish me luck or call me crazy. Any one of those three options would fit!

Me. About 10 AM tomorrow. Minus the other 3.

Surprise!

Another update!

Here are some photos from September and October I haven't posted yet.

I Don't Remember Where These Came From! :-)

A night out at Hemingway's with 7Sharp9

Sherry, Michelle and Moi on our way to....?

A Night With the Braves!

In the last week of the Braves baseball season, Bryan and I saw three of the four final homegames. I saw my first fireworks game, and we made it out for the very last game of the season as well.

Gotta love those foam fingers!

Fireworks at Turner Field

Bryan's cousin Tracy and her cousin Caitlyn met us there

A Birthday in Athens

Bryan and his Grammy, who turned 85 last month!

Chowin' down on some BBQ and brunswick stew... yum!

A birthday cake for a birthday girl!

Be on the lookout for another (yes, another!) post on our trip to see my future husband! :-)

Stuck Inside

I've hit that point in the semester where I only have 5 or 6 weeks to go, but I feel completely overwhelmed. When I look at my "To Do" lists and try to figure out what to do first, I just want to crawl into a hole and hide.

So today I'm hiding from my grad school work by updating my blog with a few photos and a good story. That's what you people really want to see anyway... right? :-)

Last weekend, my friends and I went to a Halloween/ Going Away Shindig hosted by our favorite groupies - Jon and Spencer!

Jon (Juan Schwab-e)

Spencer (Rico Schwab-e)

The morning after is when the adventure began. My girls Katie and Michelle spent the night with me, and on our way out the next day, we saw a couple of kittens run into a drain. I was unable to fight my "cat lady" urges and we decided to try to coax them out a find them a good home.

Note: I was not going to keep them! I was going to find them a home. Somewhere else!

I went back inside my apartment to get some "bait" (cat food) and on my way back outside, I found that I could not open my own door!!

That's right. The doorknob was broken. Busted. And I was stuck inside my own apartment. It took a few minutes, but when Katie and Michelle realized I wasn't coming back out, they came to find me. After we were finished laughing hysterically, we started trying to figure a way out. We started here:

No fun, no fun, being locked in is no fun.

After a few pushes and pulls...

Success! With a few escapees right behind me as well.

(Yes, K - that large orange monstrosity I'm holding is Charlie.)

It took about an hour for the weekend maintenance man to show up, but he very quickly managed to take the old doorknob off and...

Ta-Da! :-) Stuck no more!

You Never Know What You'll See...

On the way to Athens!

I was on my way to class last week when I happened upon this interesting fellow traveler. Of course, when I saw the award-winning mural on the back of his truck, I had to stop and grab my camera. Aren't you glad I did?

Let me walk you through this lovely little bit of artwork.

First and on the left, we have Juana. Juana Humpalot. She is sporting her Kmart bra, Wrangler jeans, Payless hooker heels and Lee Press On Nails. Her friend Ima Givusum added the fabulous highlights and helped her with the press on nails.

The second half of this pimped out ride brings us to Rico. Rico Rodriguez -note the smoke enhanced thought bubble that helps us read his last name. He is sporting a black tobaggan pulled down over his eyeballs... makes me wonder how he manages to walk, drive and basically function on a daily basis. For some reason, his nose is completely black. Like a very dark Rudolph. Or that guy from the game Operation - maybe his lightbulb burned out!!

Either way, I had to share this. Nobody would have believed me if I'd just called to tell you about it!

Catching Up...

I should definitely be doing work for graduate school, but that just doesn't seem appealing right now. I've been on another one of my blog "hiatuses" (that word looks weird!), so I thought I post another belated update....

We kicked off our Back to School Weekend with a night at Hemingway's with 7Sharp9. I think we are the cutest, most fun groupies ever.

Well, at least we're his favorite groupies!

L to R: Claudine, Chris, ME, Nikki, Sherry and Michelle (in the front)

One of the best parts of the night was getting Megan (my Mo!) and her hubby to come out and play. We actually had a lot of new mommies and new teachers become part of our Hemingway's crew that night! We all had a BUNCH of fun! :-)

Auntie Cha and Mommy Mo

Vulgar Voicemail. If you haven't heard mine, you should really ask about it.

Boone-Dawg and My Trimble!

Summer Gal Pals gettin' down!

Justin Timberlake turned out to be the best summer surprise EVER. Michelle and I were listening to the radio when the DJ announced that extra tickets had been released for that night so we JUMPED on the computer and snatched up three!

He came on an hour late after we had waited in the rain for an hour and a half to get inside but oh baby, he was worth it!

Messin' with Sherry while she played with her phone

Superfly Sexy Mamas

Who got the Sexy Back? We got the Sexy Back!

More! More! More!

Upon leaving dinner on Day One, we found ourselves at the Acme Cantina - a local bar within walking distance of our beach apartment. We also found ourselves there every night for the next four days. If we didn't have to leave on Friday, we might have ended up staying and working there! :-)

While I will spare you most of the pictures from our first night, (I have to. Really.) I will share some of my favorites with you...

This is what you call a "before" picture.

Sherry and Michelle gettin' gangsta with Adam, our favorite bartender.



Look! It's our favorite drunk dialers!

We got to the beach ASAP (which wasn't very early) on Tuesday. We only stayed out for a couple of hours because the whitey-white people (Abby and Sherry) began to roast. While I do have a rule about not going into any water I can't see my feet in (Did that make sense?), I did do some "sitting" nearby and I even waded in - a little bit - for a Fair Oaks Hottie beach picture.

Abby, Nikki and Sherry

Who knew that sitting on the beach could make my butt look this good?!

Claudine, Michelle, Nikki, Abby and Sherry

Night Two started here! :)

Blogger Makes Me CRAZY!!

We're going to have to do this a little bit at a time I guess....

Pictures from Day One!


Sherry in the car getting gangsta!

Vanna Abigail and Vanna Claudine in front of the Ocean Inn where we stayed.

Ooh! Oooh! Let me in!

As soon as we dumped our bags... we were off to the beach!

Shortly after arriving, we made our way to a local restaurant. The Dirty Banana Daquiris have since erased its name from my memory. However, when we were leaving, we decided to make a "pit stop." Never have I ever seen such a unique potty setup.....

It's a good thing we're friends! :-)