a day in the life of the Todds

10 years ago today

2011-12-23T08:12:00.000-06:00

When you are a kid, you never think about your loved ones not being there. It's almost impossible to think about them being removed from this world, because they have always been there. You spend your Saturdays playing in the backyard constantly looking up at their backporch to see if one of them would come out. When they would, you would wave and hope there wouldn't be many questions. There was something about answering 20 questions about school/elementary school boyfriends/life in general that wasn't too appealing espcially on a Saturday.

And those mid-summer/mid-winter visits next door were the worst. Their house was either hotter than blazes or colder than the artic. It was non-stop talking about something that Sis and I couldn't understand. Most of it probably was about Auburn, football, or Auburn football. At the age of 7, I wasn't too interested in football talk. Not appealing...

Something else not appealing: pulling up to the bus stop in the afternoons looking to see if he was standing there to (yep, you guessed it) ask 20 questions and chit-chat for 5 minutes. Did he not understand? We were ready to get home to our snacks and cartoons. We couldn't miss The Rescue Rangers or Saved by the Bell reruns. We were on a strict afternoon schedule before homework had to be done. We didn't have 5 minutes to spare.

Now I would give up a lifetime of tv just to have 5 more minutes with him....

My first grandparent to pass away was my father's father. We called him Popa, but our (older) cousins called him Granddaddy. My dad is the baby of 3 with a brother 17 years older than him and a sister (who passed away in 1996 from leukemia) 11 years older than him. Needless to say, Sissy and I grew up on my dad's side without cousins around our age. Popa and my grandmother, Winnie, lived next door to us. Or rather we lived next door to them since we bought part of their land in the late '80s to build a house.

Growing up, Popa always wanted to see/talk to Sis and me. There was nothing about our lives that he didn't want to know about. Sadly and shamefully, we didn't pay him the time of day he deserved. It was a huge inconvenience to stop and talk. I think that is what I feel so guilty about now.

November 2001 Popa had surgery. Honestly, I can't even remember what type of surgery it was because it was so minor that everything was sure to be alright. I mean how life-threatening could a little surgery be to someone who was 83 and in tip-top shape? Well, the surgery itself was fine, but it was the sponge that was left inside of him that began the downward spiral. When we found out about the sponge, we initally thought something the size of a dish-washing sponge. After much questioning, the sponge was the size of a foot by foot (12" x 12'). Someone in the O.R. was not doing their job because all utensils and equipment had to be accounted for before he was sewn up. It's odd to think that the sponge was causing factor of what was to come. He developed pneumonia in one lung and then the other. He wasn't getting any better. He was put in the ICU. How life-threatening could this little surgery be?

I will never forget the call: Sunday, December 23rd roughly 5pm. Dad called Sis and me to meet him and Mom at the hospital, because he wasn't expected to make it much longer. No way, I thought. There is no way! It was just a sponge!

There was a whole room full of us there: cousins, my uncle, Mom, Dad, Sissy, my old youth minister, and others. We gathered around his bed and watched him breathe his last breath around 6:30pm on December 23rd, less than 2 days before Christmas.

I was a senior in high school and thought about my graduation without him. In early September, I was accepted to Auburn, which I was able to share with him. Popa was the biggest Auburn fan I knew (even bigger than my dad which is hard to believe if you know him) and I knew he was proud of my accomplishment. I think my degree from Auburn was my gift to him. I still regret my actions of ignoring him and not spending more time with him. Being a kid, you don't think about what the future holds, or who it doesn't hold.

Today on the 10th anniversary of his passing, I remember all of the good times we had. I wish I had more time, but that time will come again.

dear 17 year old me

2011-11-12T18:56:00.005-06:00

It will haunt me for the rest of my life. Why did I do such an irresponsible act? Why did I feel like I needed to look a certain way in order to be beautiful? I knew the consequences and shrugged them off. Then it hit...

I was a junior in high school (yep, just 17) when I went to the dermatologist for the first time. I was going for 2 reasons: acne and a large mole removal on my mid-back. I don't remember much about the visit other than Mom's main concern was my acne. It was bad (and still is as far as being an adult). After trying every known acne-prevention product, nothing seemed to work so it was time to call in the professionals.

As I was lifting up my shirt for the doctor to see my mid-back, he noticed a place on my lower back. He said that was the one that needed to be removed, but could remove the other as well. Both were sent out for testing. The mole that the doctor found had precancerous cells. Surgery had to be done immediately to remove the roots and surrounding cells. The surgery wasn't too bad, but they did have to give me a double dose of shots to numb my back. And my dad had to sit down because he got queezy watching. He was there holding my hand. I had about 10 or so blue stitches that prohibited me from bending over. If I did, I would have ripped my skin. That scenario didn't sound pleasing so I did not bend over once during the number of weeks that I had stitches.

A few days later the results from my precancerous cell removal surgery came in: they had successfully removed all of it. But I was under strict orders to lather up the sunscreen and beware of tanning beds for the rest of my life. Did I listen? No. Every bride must be tan at their wedding. Bad mistake...

This past week I went to my 2nd dermatologist appointment specifically for a full body checking. And I had another mole removed, but this time from my stomach. The doctor also measured some on my back. That night I was following my cleaning instructions and I took off the band-aid to find another belly button: a gross one at that. My biopsy spot was at least 3 times bigger than my removed mole and the hole was deep. All I could think about was that I hoped the doctor had removed all abnormal cells, because I couldn't go through another cutting. Thankfully God is looking out for me, because the results were as good as they could be. No additional cutting is necessary, but there is a 10% chance that it could return as cancer. I will go back for periodic check-ups.

I want to challenge everyone to go to the dermalogist for a full body checkup. Skin cancer can pop up without warning. I was a 17 year old who was diagnosed with precancerous cells. Ten years later I am a young adult with continued skin problems and my later years don't look promising. Tanning beds are NOT safe. I will NEVER use a tanning bed again and will only be spray tanned in the future. Please know the facts and myths about tanning. Also use sunscreen with at least an SPF 30. Beauty in your younger years will quickly turn into wrinkles, leather skin, and sun spots in your later years. Please watch the video below. It changed my life.

Dear 16-Year-Old Me YouTube Video
http://youtu.be/_4jgUcxMezM

3 years

2011-10-08T10:46:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday, October 4th Daniel and I celebrated 3 years of marriage. It has truly been a blessing being married to such a thoughtful and caring man. Not every day is a walk in the park, but that is the beauty of a marriage. Some days are challenging, but most are rewarding. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else. I love you, Daniel Henry Todd.

October 4, 2008

October 1, 2011

no pictures, please

2011-10-04T22:12:00.000-05:00

Back in August, I shared my determination for shedding some weight. I am happy to inform you that my first goal (of minus 7 pounds) has become a reality. HELLO, WEDDING WEIGHT! Yes, that's right. I am at a weight I haven't been at since March 2009 (post-wedding). Yay, me!

Now for the ultimate goal: minus 10 more pounds to be back at my senior in high school weight. I still think I am crazy to want to be that small again, but if I am losing, then I better shoot high.

Furthermore, I wish that I had taken pictures before this process. Not like I would have posted for the world to see, but just for my satisfaction. If I know myself like I think that I do, then I wouldn't have been as motivated as I have been with those pics. The secret is no pictures, please.

As my weight loss journey continues, I will keep you informed....

Thanks for all of the support!

The Great Prostate Cancer Challenge

2011-10-02T16:49:00.002-05:00

Well, he did it. And I couldn't be more proud of him. Daniel set a goal and followed through with it. More surprising than accomplishing his first goal, he is actually setting another goal and working hard towards it.

A couple of months ago, Daniel told me that he wanted to compete in a 5k race. I thought he was joking, because he comes up with ideas all the time and they fade within a week. He was determined to prove me wrong. Boy, did he.

The morning of Saturday, September 24th was a chilly one especially waking up at the buttcrack of dawn. He got ready with great excitement while I tried to put on eyeliner half awake. I am sad to say that this race was the first time I had made it into Oak Mountain State Park (that I can remember). It was a beautiful setting for Daniel's first race. So many people are awake and dressed before 8AM on Saturdays as the park was pretty packed. Shocking to me that people get up so early on the weekends.

People from all walks of life, young and old, black and white, male and female, assembled for this great race. Proudly my husband stood as one of them. He might not have finished first, but he sure didn't finish last. He finished in the middle and I am so proud. He was able to follow through with one of his goals. He is currently working on his next upcoming 5k in December. I have started the running process as well, but I have no plans of competing.

Enjoy the moments captured that morning....

Daniel's serious race face

I was so proud of him!

Jane came out to support as well! Thanks, Jane!

Daniel and his best friend, Scott.

Both did amazing in the race.

All of the runners and walkers for The Great Prostate Cancer Challenge

Starting the race...

finishing strong at 32:56 minutes

10 years of change and a lifetime of never forgetting

2011-09-11T11:37:00.000-05:00

Ten years ago today, America changed forever. It wasn't by choice and (I like to believe even though there are conspiracies galore) no one saw it coming. Many have given all. What have you given?

I will always remember that day and exactly what I was doing. I will never forget how I felt. I encourage you to relive my 9/11 story as I told it 2 years ago. What were you doing that day? What have you done differently since? Have you thanked those who have given so much in order to protect our freedom?

May we NEVER forget. God bless America.

A-U-B. Way to be!

2011-09-10T23:21:00.000-05:00

All of these years I believe I have been lying by saying spring is my favorite season. uh, no. Fall has got to be my favorite season. There is cooler weather and FOOTBALL SEASON! Since attending an SEC school, my love of football has multiplied since I was a wee lad. My favorite part of football season while in college was Friday afternoons. Whether I was living in the dorm or in the apartment, the routine was always the same. The windows were up, the tunes were on, and I was in my element cleaning the place. Life didn't get any better than that until later that night when we got dressed up and we out. ah, memories...

Every year I am trying to celebrate my Auburn traditions by making a craft of some sort before the season starts. Last year it was making "AU" shirts for the Brindley girls: Sis, Mom, and me.

Mom's shirt

Sis and my shirt

So this year I decided to try my creative painting side and make 3 Auburn paintings (one for each of the Brindley girls). Special thanks to Mom's neighbor, Brenda, for the hardwood floor samples. I wouldn't have been able to make this project without her! And I must say they turned out pretty cute especially for free-hand painting each one. I call them Auburn Aubie Art. Take a peek...

painting for Mom and me

another view of the painting for Mom and me

painting for Sis

another view of the painting for Sis

I think Mom and Sis are currently looking for ribbon in order to add a bow. Updates to come....

The projects didn't end there. Not only did I make 3 paintings, but I managed to find a set of navy placemats and turned them into this...

my homemade AU placemats

(Special thanks to my husband for buying me the plates. I love him!)

Hold on, because the crafting isn't over just yet! Mom even got in the spirit of crafting for football season and made me this for our front door...

My very own Auburn wreath. I LOVE it!

Stay tuned for next year's Auburn craft. Who even knows what that will be... And maybe Sis will get in on the crafting action. eh, or not.

War Damn Eagle!

determined

2011-08-01T15:01:00.001-05:00

It's not completely unrealistic. I was once that before and actually saw myself differently at the time. Looking back I see where I want to be...

thin.

For once in my life, let me be content with my weight. Back in the day, I wasn't dissatisfied, but I didn't feel thin. Looking back at high school pictures, I was thin...even sickly looking compared to where I am now. I am just 15 pounds heavier which doesn't sound like too heck of a lot considering my senior year of high school started 10 years ago. (10 years!? 10 year reunion is coming up!) <~~~you can see my motivation, or at least part of it.

Minus 15 pounds in my ultimate goal. My more attainable goal is my wedding weight, which is minus 7 pounds. Now that is more realistic. I can live with that. I need to be thankful that I am just complaining about an extra 7 pounds since our wedding (almost 3 years ago). It could be worse. Plus I have already lost an additional 7 pounds since Christmas 2009. It's hard not to pack on the pounds when I am married to a man who loves sweets and will eat at all times of the day and night. I have always been a "social eater". If someone is eating, I feel compelled to eat with them.

I also think to myself: "If they are eating pizza/brownies at midnight and can be thin, then I can too." Being around Sissy during food time is always bad for me. She is always hungry throughout the day and eats all the time. Her secret to being thin? not exercising like you would think. It's called eat until you are full and always save room for dessert. WHAT? Stop eating when you are full? Are you CRAZY? I always eat until I am miserable. There is no enjoying the digestion of my meals. Plus I always eat the rest of Sissy's meal since she "wastes" it. But is it really considered "waste" if she is forgoing those extra calories?

Being thin just to be thin isn't my only reason for losing weight. My migraines are getting out of control as of recently. Not out of control as in they are occurring every day, but it is getting harder to pinpoint the cause. Yes, stress will always be a reason since I am a high-strung person, but I am not high-strung 100% of the time. After some research, I think my diet has a lot to do with it. It is a fact that I eat a lot of junk and carbs. I love bread, pasta, and eggos.

Here's my plan: Workout 4-5 days a week at least 20 minutes. Eat less bread, pasta, and eggos. Focus more on vegetables and fruit. I even discovered some great healthy recipes. One of them is my new favorite dish: eggplant lasagna. I think I like it because it is super easy to make and you can toss in all kinds of veggies. delicious!

picture update

2011-07-10T13:13:00.003-05:00

I haven't been doing a good job with my blog updating. To make up for lost time, this entry will strictly be pictures of our previous months' adventures with captions. Enjoy!

Turning 27: my mini self photoshoot
(4.8.11)

with my 26th birthday present, Barkley

with Daniel's 26th birthday present, Tyson

self portrait of my 27th year

Girls' Beach Weekend
(4.15.11-4.17.11)

Mom bought me a cake for a post-birthday celebration.

the cookie cake. It was delicious if I actually liked cookie cakes.

with Bentley, Mom's new dog

Happy Easter
(4.24.11)

Happy Mother's Day

(5.8.11)

Sissy, Mom, and me

Sissy, Jane, Granmolli, Mom, and me

Billy Bowlegs Celebration

(6.4.11)

After catching lots of beads, Daniel got a kiss from a winch. This might be his favorite pic ever.

Farley's 2nd Birthday Tea Party

(6.12.11)

Picture with the birthday girl, Farley, who turned 2.

Whitney, Farley, and me

July 4th Beach Trip

(6.30.11-7.5.11)

Guess who wanted a birthday cake just like mine.

posing before going on the town aka Harbor Walk Village

We saw Jason Castro in concert!

Dad won the covetted Putt Putt National Championship Trophy!

ellebeeTee giveaway!

2011-07-07T08:55:00.000-05:00

ellebeeTee Originals is having a giveaway: $25 store credit to one lucky follower. The shop is still new so your chances of winning are great.

Check out the website for the official rules. Hurry! The giveaway ends Saturday at midnight. The winner will be announced Sunday.

what really matters

2011-06-29T19:49:00.000-05:00

How long has it been since my last substatial update? a month, or 2, or 3? Anyhow, no matter.

Last weekend Daniel and I traveled up to Grayson Valley to visit Dad for the day.

Our goals:
Daniel: Help Dad paint the exterior of the house.
Me: Clean out childhood and college items and memories.

Frankly, I think Daniel got the easy task. I mean it was close to 100 degrees outside and he had to avoid wasps and mosquitos, but still. He didn't have to really think to paint. I had to really think about what was important to me in order to keep. Unfortunately for me, the lack of space in our attic dictates just how many items can be important to me. Considering I find all of our year round decorations to be extremely important along with a few of Daniel's items, we just don't have much more room in the attic. Now before you start thinking that we have an entire attic full of tubs, don't. According to Daniel (I have never been in the attic before because I freak to go up the unstable ladder to see for myself), we need to purchase more plywood to extend our attic. So our small area in the attic we have is almost maxed out.

There were 2 things to consider while I cleaned out: what is really important to me and remember limited space.

So I began my quest. I shuffled through some old school papers that Mom had placed on the hearth. And I found some interesting items. First up, a newspaper clipping from the 7th grade (circa de 1997ish). Check out this classic photo

7th graders across Jefferson County were honored at Bartow Arena for high scholastic honors. That is me with my big foot and poofy bangs. Next to me is Blake Burdett, who eventually became my bf that year and the next. Much later in 2008, he was a part of my wedding party. ha!

Don't worry. I definitely kept this clipping because I want to laugh about it in the future when I rediscover it again. I love refinding things like that.

After looking over some pre-SAT/pre-ACT test results and still realizing that I am a TERRIBLE test taker, I moved to the basement where the real fun was. I went through a small stack of items from both childhood and college years. Why was I hoarding coloring books and my 4th grade subject notebooks? bye-bye. And let's face it: back in the day, Sunday School artwork was no where near the calibar of school artwork. So bye-bye Jesus and the little children artwork that was half-colored. Don't judge me because I threw away my Jesus artwork, because I did keep all of my Bibles since birth. I have my pink baby New Testament Bible, purple Precious Moments children's Bible, and hardback Teen Study Bible. My navy College Bible and navy "adult" Bible are kicking it at the house already.

The above were easy toss outs, but the hard part came when I moved to the play area, which is under the front porch. That is where Sis and I played house. We couldn't play Barbies in there because it was too narrow and cluttered. And our Barbies lived in mansions so we needed much more room for that. In the play area, mounds of stuffed animals could be found. And we LOVED our stuffed animals. Too bad we let them get all gross and let rats poop on them. So bye-bye to my Cabbage Patch Kid, Pinky. Bye-bye to Sissy's Care Bears. Bye-bye to My Buddy, who we dressed up in real kid clothes and diapers. Bye-bye Teddy Ruxpin. It was a hard moment to let them go. But when I realized that I was wearing gloves to protect my hands from germs and the grossness, then I didn't feel so bad. No one can take the memories of those toys away from me. And isn't that what really matters?

Christmas at ellebeeTee

2011-06-24T15:09:00.002-05:00

from ellebeeTee Originals blog:

I have always loved the holiday season. Christmas is by far my most favorite holiday. I think it is my favorite from all of my fond childhood memories. ahh, memories. And I can't wait for Christmas this year.

Because I am so impatient, I decided to celebrate early! ellebeeTee Originals is having a 20% off sale this weekend. And yes, that is an extra 20% off the already low sale prices. Use the code MERRY at the checkout.

Don't wait too long because the sale ends Sunday evening.

and details coming soon about the July 6th giveaway!

the streets of Tuscaloosa: my April 27th story

2011-06-09T15:30:00.003-05:00

My April 27th story is no where near as graphic/exciting/dangerous as the ones who lived it. I felt like I needed to share as to not forget the ones who experienced and continue to experience the aftermath.

April 27, 2011 will forever be etched in my brain just like September 11, 2001. However, there was no attack to our nation on our soil, but mother nature destroyed thousands of lives along with killing a few hundred across my state. Let me start at the beginning...

Close to a week before the 27th, our area meteorologists had warned of the weather severity on that day. Friday, April 15th had been a bad enough day for Alabama already. Luckily I was at the beach that day when a handful of tornadoes swept across the state. On the evening of the 26th, Daniel warned me of how bad the weather might be the following day. He was watching the nightly news when the meteorologist was talking about the next day's forecast and just how bad it would get. He had never seen the weather read anything like that before and cautioned all viewers to be prepared for the next day's weather. Two rounds were headed this way....

Daniel and I were woken up between 5-5:15AM by the hollowing of wind and rain the next morning. We turned on the tv to see there were possible tornadoes/straight-line winds just minutes north of our house. Thankfully we dodged the bullet even though it sounded terrible outside. On the way to work (in Tuscaloosa), I noticed every other tree was snapped along I-20/59. When I reached the Mercedes plant, there was at least a dozen trees down laying across the interstate. Multiple trees were down in the median along with light poles. I didn't realize just how bad straight-line winds could be.

As the day progressed, I watched footage of James Spann on UStream. I saw the Cullman tornado touchdown and decided it was time for me to leave. I gathered my stuff to leave at 2:30 and this and that started to come up. At 3:10, I finally told my boss, Jolly, that I was leaving. The winds were really picking up and I needed to get home. He joked around saying that it was going to be fine and gave me a hard time for leaving. I told him that I wasn't going to stick around to find out.

It wasn't long after I got home when a couple of tornadoes made their way towards Tuscaloosa. Then we saw it. James Spann was freaking out. I was praying that no one was still at the plant. The biggest tornado I have ever seen started ripping its way down 35th Street (where I work). All we could do was watch in awe as the mile wide twister created complete havoc through Tuscaloosa. I began pacing and hoping that Jolly didn't have a team there still working. I texted him to make sure everyone was fine. It wasn't for another couple of hours before I got a repsonse that all was okay. I had no idea what that meant until I got a call from my co-worker, Greg, later that evening. Our plant suffered damage: a few buildings were gone along with our fence. Debris was everywhere. Considering that Waste Management across the street from us was completely destroyed and every business up the street from us was nothing but rubble, we were pretty lucky.

I later found out that Jolly along with another man were still at the office when the tornado traveled behind our plant and office building. He says that he immediately felt the pressure and his ears popped. He ran to the back and looked at the window. And he saw it. He saw the debris and felt the concrete office building shaking. Then it passed. Businesses just blocks up the street from our workplace were completely destroyed. I didn't make it back down to Tuscaloosa until Friday (2 days after the tornadoes hit). The damage was unlike anything I had ever seen. Skeletons of buildings were still standing along with pencil trees. There was no way to find landmarks or to even know where you were standing in the middle of the destruction.

A few weeks later I drove through the main part of Tuscaloosa that was hardest hit (but who's to say that everywhere in Tuscaloosa wasn't hardest hit? Devastation was everywhere.). I drove down 15th Street (aka University) to the intersection of McFarland. There was nothing. Nothing but debris and damage. Debris and damage everywhere. Those poor people who experienced the wrath of the tornado. I can't even imagine living through or dying in a tornado of that magnitude.

Tornados have a different meaning to me now. Don't get me wrong I was always terrified of their possibilities. I guess growing up I always knew that their destruction could reach unfathomable levels of destruction, but I never knew just how bad until I drove through the streets of Tuscaloosa.

getting back on the bandwagon...for a split second

2011-06-05T21:55:00.001-05:00

alright. so I am behind MAJORLY on my updating. still LOTS happening, which is the reason for the tardiness. maybe one day I will be able to "ketchup".

until that day comes, my shop (y'know ellebeeTee Originals) is hosting a summer long sale. it's gonna be HOT! if you want the scoop and I know you do, then check out the ellebeeTee Originals blog for the event of the summer!

and don't forget to follow the ellebeeTee Originals blog either.

busy times and HONORing our troops

2011-05-17T19:10:00.000-05:00

yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it has been a while, but I have a good reason...seriously. Remember the April 27th killer tornadoes? Well, I have been reliving it every day since it happened. How? I work in Tuscaloosa and feel its affects every week day of my life. It is gruesome, depressing, and humbling. Please continue to pray for everything involved. It will take years to rebuild what was destroyed in a few seconds. More to come on that dreadful day in a later post...

In the meantime, head over to my shop for the biggest sale thus far!! 30% off everything! Just use code: HONOR at the check out. You can read the blog post from ellebeeTee Originals below....
Then go buy something!!!!!

Via ellebeeTee Originals:

In celebration of Memorial Day, ellebeeTee Originals is having the biggest of all biggest sales. Use discount code HONOR to receive 30% off everything in the LBT Store. You can choose from a yarn wreath, Hair Blooms, or even the newest item: Bloom Bows. All are available 30% off!

The best part of this special celebration is that 50% of all proceeds will go to my brother-in-law's FRG Unit Fund (more specifically the 720 EOD Unit FRG Fund). Josh is currently serving "overseas", defending our freedom by disarming one bomb at a time. It's not easy but someone has to do it. You can read more about my contribution to his unit and by buying an item from the "Justice Sacrifice Patriot" line (aka JSP line).

my brother-in-law, Josh

Justice Sacrifice Patriot wreath

Justice Sacrifice Patriot Hair Blooms

HONOR can be used to receive 30% off your entire order from now until Monday, May 30th

(Memorial Day).

Amy Cornwell Jewelry-$50 GC TODAY ONLY!

2011-04-22T11:29:00.000-05:00

I am IN LOVE with some new jewelry: Amy Cornwell Jewelry. Her design is simple, elegant, and vintage. Those are my favorite descriptive words when it comes to jewelry.

Check out the Captured Necklace. How bad do I want this necklace? REALLY bad! And what about the True Love Ring? LOVE it too!

Today ONLY over at The Bird's Party Blog, there is a $50 gift card up for grabs!!!!! I want it so bad that you have no idea. The details are here so check it out and leave some comments. If you aren't crazy about her jewelry, then leave comments any way and try to win the $50 gift card for me.

3 from 30

2011-04-09T23:48:00.001-05:00

I don't know why "3 from 30" scares me so bad. I guess it's mainly because I don't feel like I should be 27 years of age. I still see myself as a 16/17 year old living at home with Mom, Dad, and Sissy. Those days are far from over now. I have been living on my own for a few years now and paying my own bills since graduating from college in 2006. Still it feels like time is at a stand still even though the clock keeps ticking.

My 27th birthday turned out to be a great one. Daniel always makes my birthdays so special. He even puts up with my week-long celebration.

with my special cake and bday flowers from Daniel

Thanks to everyone who made and always makes my birthdays something to remember especially Daniel.

the return of Cowgirl Leslie Cyrus

2011-03-27T13:50:00.002-05:00

I've got it BAD as Usher would say. Spring fever is here. I am in the mood to redecorate, shop, and lay out. Today isn't helping at all since it has been stormy especially yesterday. Thankfully Daniel and I were able to get out of the house yesterday afternoon/evening before the next wave of tornadoes came through. We hit up Old Navy, which was like a mini-shopping spree for me. I was able to find my Easter outfit. yay! Now to find some shoes...

Last weekend we went to Nashville to visit Daniel's sisters, Leah and Katie. Leah just recently bought a 1950s style house and has completely remodeled the inside and is working on the out. It is very precious if I do say so myself. She has a blog of her home makeover adventures.

We had a big time in Nashville. It has been a while since I have been up there not on work or to visit my aunt who was in the hospital for leukmeia. In fact, I haven't been there in my adult life at all...just for fun. It was beautiful weather which fueled the spring fever even more.

After a long night of travels, we arrived around 11:30 to midnight. We got a quick tour of the house and went to bed. Saturday we got up and ate at the Pancake Pantry. delicious! Special thanks to Katie for our meal. She graciously paid for lunch with money from her very first "big girl" pacycheck. Yay for being a college grad with an awesome job!

with Daniel at the Pancake Pantry. 03.19.11

Daniel waited in line for over an hour while the girls went to all of the boutiques. I think that was my favorite part. We don't have those types of shops close to my house so it was nice to see what was in style. Speaking of style, everyone up there was very fashionable and trendy. I hardly saw a person without some kind of tattooing. I guess for once I am in style. Too bad I don't display my tattoo on a regular basis. That might be a little inappropriate and gross.

After hitting up some antique shops and an afternoon nap, that evening we ate dinner at Whiskey Kitchen. It was good too. We walked around downtown Nashville for a bit visiting the country-style shops. We had to get a picture of the Wildhorse Saloon since that is all my dad ever talks about when you mention Nashville to him.

for you, Dad

Then we hit it big time. We found a boot store with an awesome deal: buy 1 pair, get 2 free. uh, what?! Yes! I didn't have any intention of getting a pair of boots. Not that it isn't my style, but it isn't my style very often...like maybe once in a blue moon kind of style. And what do you know...Daniel found a pair that he really liked. So I had to find me a pair which I did with ease. After a discussion with his sisters about splitting the bill with them or not, we all decided that we were collectively leaving the store with 6 pairs of boots between the 4 of us. Daniel looked for a second pair to round out our 3. Sucks (sorry, Jane) for him, because he didn't find one. Guess who has 2 pairs of cowgirl boots now. That's right! Cowgirl Leslie Cyrus.

(Who is Cowgirl Leslie Cyrus you might ask. It's me from about the 3rd grade, I guess. Sis and I had vivid imaginations growing up. Don't even ask about playing Colonial Bank as Leslie Jones {married to Chipper Jones} and Sissy Miller {married to Mark Miller, lead singer of Sawyer Brown}. In elementary school I was in love with Billy Ray Cyrus and wanted to marry him. Therefore the name Leslie Cyrus came about. Then I went through a cowgirl stage during one summer. I found a leather fringe "cowgirl" purse that was my mom's eons ago. I dressed up as a cowgirl, traveling through town {aka the house}. I remember very specificly one summer day eating lunch as Cowgirl Leslie Cyrus. Mom {aka a kind stranger} had taken me into her lovely home for a nice meal {aka a sandwich}. When I left, I left a note for her thanking her for the meal signed by Cowgirl Leslie Cyrus. I think she still has the note today. I like to bring my alias back every now and then just to relive the old days.)

I will be stylin' now.

I know that Sis can't wait until my beach trip mid-April to hit up the Block in my new boots. :)

And Barkley had to try on Daniel's boot yesterday. She wants to be a cowgirl just like her mommy.

Cowgirl Barkley Cyrus

Hopefully we can hit Nash-Vegas up again real soon. I want to take Sis up there. She would have a blast!

Thanks, Leah and Katie, for a fun-filled weekend that flew by too fast.

only begun

2011-03-25T19:40:00.000-05:00

One year ago today feels like an eternity ago. It was the best and worst day. Nothing is scarier than thinking your life is going to end, but knowing that it has only begun....especially with a new addition to the family.

Barkley has brought great times to our family. It actually feels complete having 3 dogs. It's weird to say that, but it does. I can't imagine not having each one of our precious dog children. Our house would extremely quiet and boring without them here.

Jackson

Tyson

Barkley

the silence is broken

2011-03-06T11:57:00.001-06:00

My current post at ellebeeTee Originals blog is too important not to share. I hope you will join me in supporting our military. Freedom is not free, and millions of families sacrifice their loved ones being at home so you can be free. Please enjoy the blog entry below from ellebeeTee Originals:

For a long time I have felt like I needed to help out. What could I do to show my support? I want to give, but it is hard to send hundreds of dollars. Times are tough. If there was a way that I could make something and show my support and give, then I could make that work. And it came to me: the Justice Sacrifice Patriot Wreath (also known as the "JSP" wreath).

Some of your may or may not know that my brother-in-law is currently serving our country. He is in the 720 EOD unit which is currently deployed. His job is to disarm bombs, not one of the safest jobs in the miliary in the least. He is awesome at what he does.

Then there is my sister. She is awesome at being his support system. She has never lived anywhere but at home and when they married, she had to move close to halfway around the world to Mannheim, Germany to be with him. Is that dedication/love or what?

This is how my thought process started. I mean I am related to "awesomeness". Here I am living in the good ol' Alabama being an average citizen. What could I do to help them out? What could I do to help out his unit? What could I do help out the men and women who currently give their life for you and me every day just so we can have our freedom? That's when I thought of making a military line: a wreath and Hair Blooms. It's not much, but it is more than just sitting at home taking advantage of being an American. The "JSP" line honors my brother-in-law, Josh, and his unit.

Justice Sacrifice Patriot "JSP" Hair Blooms

Justice Sacrifice Patriot "JSP" Wreath

Half of every sale from the "JSP" line will go directly to the 720 EOD Unit FRG Fund. This fund is set up to directly support these soldiers and their families. My sister told me a heartbreaking story about how thousands of dollars were supposed to be raised last year for the fund, but the events (ie bake sales, etc) never happened for whatever the reason. Their unit is without most of the needed funds. I hope you will help me support the 720 EOD Unit by purchasing an item (or 2) from the military "JSP" line.

If you would like to contribute any other way to the 720 EOD Unit, please contact me at info{at}lbtoriginals{dot}com.

just had to

2011-02-28T18:24:00.000-06:00

Have you checked out the blogs that I follow lately? You haven't? Well, let me take this time to tell you that you REALLY need to check out Peggy Ann Design. She is having this C-R-A-Z-Y giveaway in honor of her birthday, that in reality won't be happening until next year but she is celebrating today. She is a leap year baby.

A LOT of good posts have been posted about the giveaways, which end Wednesday at midnight. PLUS the best news of all is that ellebeeTee Originals will be featured and have a giveaway! yay!

So check out Peggy Ann Design and get to commenting. Be sure you check out her store too. It is fabulous!

getting it over with...fast

2011-02-27T13:08:00.000-06:00

Why do I hate it so much? I dread doing it. I always have and always will. It is the worst part of the new year. ugh, tax season!

This year is the latest that I have waited to file for taxes. I know that it is just the end of February and I have a whole month and half left. However, I like getting it over with...fast.

In previous years, my co-workers and I would have races to see who could file their taxes the fastest. I mean we got down to the minutes, because as soon as Valmont sent our W-2 forms it was on! You know as soon as we got home we were plugging away numbers and looking to see what time we clicked "file". I think the "highest" ranking I ever got in our work tax race was tied at third place. We also played the "who got more back" game. I never won those since I didn't (and still don't) have kids. Were we lame? Probably. Nerdy? uh, yes. But there's no arguing that this definitely gave us motivation to get our taxes filed and returned in a hurry.

And I can't lie when I say that I am glad that my co-workers motivated me to to file my taxes. It made it kinda fun and less painful. So a HUGE thanks to Whitney, Lisa, Greg, Ed, and Jason for giving me the motivation to file my taxes over 2 months before they were even due.

(and I miss those good ol days at V-N.)

because I can

2011-02-20T19:23:00.000-06:00

Have you been to ellebeeTee Originals lately? As in today? There's a lot happening over there. Ideas GALORE are being birthed. (a little gross...probably.) Well, what I am trying to say is that a lot of new ideas are being created and hopefully executed this week! I have already posted and blogged about the newest wreath designs. There is also a new hair accessory line called Hair Blooms. Get over to ellebeeTee Originals to check out the latest products and blog posts.

And I know I said I would talk about our personal lives/happenings on this site, but it is my blog. I felt the need to comment about the exciting times happening in the business.

Hope you like it!

my pre-season ritual

2011-02-15T16:50:00.007-06:00

The start (or should I say before the birth) of every new season (ie spring and fall) I buy a new purse. Always. And. Forever. This is how it is. So there shouldn't be any "big" surprises (at least to Daniel) that I am getting a new purse somewhere around February/March and August/September.

Just finding the RIGHT purse is never an easy task. I find myself saying this a lot: "I like the style, but if only it was in another color..." Or how about this phrase "I like the color(s), but if it only was a little bigger". I can pretty much find something wrong with just about any purse to talk myself out of buying it. I always know when I have met "the purse of the season". Daniel says that I get REALLY excited and a special "glow" comes over me. I guess he must know firsthand since that is how I am every time that I see him. (I know...gag...gross...barf.) But all I can say to that is ;)

Anyways back to my purse of the Spring/Summer 2011 seasons. This might be the first time in the HISTORY when I really like TWO (yes, 2) purses. Take a gander......

Purse #1

Meet Juicy Couture Dots Tote. It's hard to tell but it is pink (not red) (not in one MILLION years red) polka dots. It's very flrty, fresh, and fun. Kinda like me (again, I know gag, gross, barf.) I love it's simple style and shiny texture. It is very neutral even with the tan straps. Another great thing is how big it is. It is definitely the bigger of the 2 and the bigger the better. (That's what she said.) These days if I can't carry an umbrella with ease inside my purse with all of the crap, then it just isn't making the cut.

Purse #2

Meet Fossil Key-Per Shopper. I actually own this EXACT style purse except in fallish colors. I absolutely fell IN LOVE with this style. It does have a slight drawback: it looks really roomy, but it is hard to fit all that I have PLUS an umbrella. I really love this print/pattern as well. It is very neutral and yet not really. It does have a nice "new" feature" from my current Fossil style: the zipper on the front. Now that is nice. Plus I know my wallet will match since it is salmon-colored. :)

So I need your help...Which one should I get?

June 10, 1994 to January 15, 2011: 16.5 years of great doggie living

2011-02-11T23:32:00.002-06:00

Saturday, January 15, 2011 is a day that I will never forget. It is the day that I knew would be coming for some time now and always dreaded its arrival. Whenever my dad called, I always prepared myself for the sad words., the words that would change my adult life. What words are those? "Bandit passed away."

You might find it silly that I have let a dog take a position of a person in my life. The truth is that Bandit was more than a dog. He was my little "miracle" brother. I could go on and on about him and our memories together, but there just isn't enough time unless you have the next 16.5 years free to listen.

Bandit was born Friday, June 10th, 1994. I will never forget the morning of Saturday, the 11th. That morning Mom, Sis, and I were standing in the kitchen after I got up (so it was probably more like lunchtime instead of the morning) when Mom gave us the news. She said, "Something happened to Webby."

Webby Gail was our first ever dog. We got her in '87 or '88 as a small pup. Sis and I were TERRIFIED of dogs before Webby came along. Mom even tells the story of how we (Mom, Sis, and I) were getting loaded up in the car to go somewhere one day. I think Sis was still a baby so I would have been around 2 years old. Some how or another as I was walking to the car, I became surrounded by 3 large dogs all barking and growling at me. Mom said that she was pretty much panicked and I was crying. Ever since that moment, Mom said that I have been deathly afraid of dogs. Until Webby....

I miss her too. I hope one day to do a post about her and Rocky, our other "backside" (aka backyard) dog. Rocky was part lab and rottweiler and would never hurt a flea. Well, except for that one time that he almost killed Bandit by picking him up by his throat and slinging him around. Yeah, not a good Bandit memory of him running up the house with blood gushing out of his throat onto his white chest. scary...

And moving on... Back to "Something has happened to Webby." Sis said, "She is DEAD!" But I knew better. I could feel it. I quickly said, "No, she had PUPPIES!" And she did. We started asking a MILLION and one questions about the puppies like where they were and could we see them and how many there were and could we hold them and could we keep one? The list goes on...

This was Webby's second litter. She had 2 puppies in her first litter when I was in the first grade: one boy and one girl. "My" puppy was the boy and "Sissy's" was the girl. We didn't keep them, but those were the specific ones that we played with. So Sis had told me the next time Webby had pups that she wanted a boy one, which was fine by me because WEBBY HAD PUPPIES!

Bandit was the only boy out of 3 in Webby's second litter and apparently he was a miracle. The morning of the 10th when Dad found Webby and her puppies he placed them in the pen by the red barn behind our house. He called Popa (his dad, who lived next door to us) and instructed him to "get rid" of any puppies that needed to be "gotten rid of". After finishing his task, he called Dad at work and told him that there were 2 girl pups left. After work Dad went down to see Webby and her precious little girls only to find there were 3 puppies instead of 2. And there was 1 boy with 2 girl pups. How did this happen? Did Webby hide Bandit from Popa's prowl? Did she know he was a special dog from the beginning? We aren't 100% sure how Popa missed Bandit, because he was sure that 2 girls remained. Just like any other protective parents, it wasn't for se-eh-veral years later (like I am talking about 10+) until Mom and Dad told us the story of Bandit's miraclous escape from Popa Huell's death grip. Sis and I were shocked beyond belief to hear of Bandit's survival. He truly was a miracle dog.

Almost 16 and a half years (that's close to 2/3 of my life!) Bandit has always been around. I had just completed my 4th grade year at Chalkville Elementary when Bandit was born. I always think back to the year (or so) after Bandit was born. I was in the 6th grade and Mom and Dad announced that we would have another brother or sister. He or she would be arriving in March. (The reason I can remember that is because I would lose my spot as being the first birthday of the year in my family. And I wasn't too happy about it.) I can't really remember the time frame...probably a month or so...Mom lost the child. It was a devastating and emotional time in the Brindley household. I still think about "what might have been". For some reason I have always had a gut feeling that if the child was alive today, I would have a younger brother. I can't see myself with another sister so I guess that is why I feel that way. And for that very reason, I have felt like Bandit has been my "lost" little brother. Bandit was close to the same age as the other child would have been. It's weird to think this way, but Bandit represents more than a dog to me. He represents my little brother (or sister) who is in heaven.

Bandit was always a cheerful dog. He loved playing with his toys especially rolling his ball back and forth to you. He was very smart because he made that game up by himself. One day he started nudging his tennis ball towards me. So I rolled it back to him. He could play for about 5 minutes as long as you said "Roll it". He was quite the barker too. Boy, did he ever have some pipes on him. He barked at and for anything and everything: for table scraps, if he needed to go out, if he saw another animal, if he heard something, if he was playing, etc, etc, and etc. Sis claims that I was the one to teach him to bark, but I just taught him to associate the word "speak" to his bark. Sadly, that was the only trick Bandit knew: speak, Bandit.

Bandit met many family and friends over his lifetime. He was loved by all who had the chance to know him. His last few years were his toughest, but I am so glad that I have over half of my lifetime (as of right now) to remember the happy memories of Bandit.

Aww, the sweet head. Bandit had lots of nicknames including sweet head. Look at his cute curls.

Football Season 2003

me with Bandit

Football Season 2003

Bandit on my 21st birthday!

He was wearing his "happy birthday" bandana. He was always wearing a bandana.

"Was he wearing a bandana?"

Christmas 2007

He was shivering so Sis and I covered him up. He loved to snuggle.

The first Christmas card with all 3 dogs: Paris, Jackson, and Bandit.

Christmas 2006

Dad was Bandit's favorite person ever. They were the best of friends.

Christmas 2007

Celebrating Christmas and our engagement with the sweet head. Secretly Bandit loved Daniel too and all of the pickin' that Daniel did to him as well.

Christmas 2007

Sis and Bandit

Easter 2008

The last picture I took with Bandit

Christmas 2008

Move-in weekend in our first home and guess who came to help paint.

Bandit!

May 2009

The last picture that I have of Bandit. He loved wearing his bandanas, especially wearing shirts. This hoodie (that I bought him from the AU Bookstore) was one of his favorites.

Football Season 2009

RIP Bandit Coco Nuts Brindley. I will miss you always and forever. Thank you for being the best little brother that God gave me.

really, it's not funny

2011-02-11T12:19:00.000-06:00

All I can say is "WHOA, Nelly". This past week I have done nothing but live, breath, eat, and sleep crafting materials. It has been a crazy ride so far with ellebeeTee Originals. I have so many ideas that it isn't funny.

I started a blog just for "ellebeeTee". You can check it out at http://www.lbtoriginals.blogspot.com/. My goal is to rarely comment about the business on our personal blog (aka this one). So if you want to know what is happening in that area of our lives, then you will have to check out its own blog.

In the meantime, I have so many unfinished blog entires that it really isn't funny. I want to attach some pictures to the unfinished entires, but every time I get home I am just not focused on updating this blog. I will try to do better this weekend. And I need to give an update on the first month's resolution of "saving more than we spend".

See. There is so much to do and so little time. No wonder I went to bed last night at 11pm on a school night. ::sigh:: Here's to getting some good rest this weekend during the "weekend of love". I know that is what I would love: sleep.

ellebeeTee Originals

2011-02-06T14:29:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I launched my newest idea, ellebeeTee Originals. My primary craft right now is yarn wreaths. I hope you will join me for my first crafting adventure.

Please check out my website at LBTOriginals.com.

such a tease

2011-01-28T14:53:00.000-06:00

I might have actually have it...for the first time in 2011. I have spring fever. And it's bad! Too bad it's still January.

All I want is some warm weather and sunshine. Oh heck. Who am I kidding? I want sand, water, a slight breeze, suntan lotion, flip-flops, sunglasses, palm trees, swimming pool, a good book, my iPod, and some good seafood.

SUMMER, WHERE ARE YOU?

I must brag for a minute though. I have 2 relatives that are living at the beach, and I can go there any time that I want. There are talks of a spring trip to stay with Sis in her condo on the beach. (Did you hear me? ON THE BEACH! eek!)

In the meantime, I guess I could start back up my workout regime. I need to trim up the flab since I am suppose to be trying to lose more weight any way. What fun is that though?

I guess I really enjoy this weekend with the temps getting in the 60s since I won't be getting what I want for another 2+ months. This weather can be such a tease.

goodbye, friend

2011-01-26T21:12:00.000-06:00

On December 20th, I had to bid farewell to an excellent friend. It was one of the hardest things that I have done in my recent years. We had been through a lot together. Let me recap in no particular order:
-getting my first job
-traveling to Jacksonville, FL all by myself for a friend's wedding
-carrying around my firstborn (Jackson)
-making the long trips to Alabaster from Chalkville to spend time with my boyfriend turn fiance turn husband
-oodles of beach trips
-getting loaded up to move into our own house
-almost getting sucked up in a tornado the night of purchasing my baby girl (Barkley)

Even now I still get choked up thinking about our last drive. She was an excellent care and honestly hated to see her go. I have some great final shots and love to remember her like this forever.

The times I shared with her have been some of the best years of my life. Good-bye 'Tima. I will miss you.

2 weeks in...

2011-01-14T21:33:00.000-06:00

We are 2 weeks into 2011 and have I kept my resolutions thus far? Sure have!

My stress level has decreased significantly since January 1. I am not saying that it has been easy in the least. It is hard to change what I have always been. It is for the best though. I attribute this horrible acid reflux to my 26 years of worrying over pointless things. There's really no need to worry about things that I have no control over anyway. It doesn't help solve the problem and instead it creates a new (health-related) one. Lesson is slowly getting learned: no more worries/stressing out, Leslie.

2 grocery trips down in oh-11. One trip was slightly over the $50 budget and the other was slightly under. Combined we spent $94.15, which is $5.85 under budget for the year! YAY! You can't tell me that you aren't impressed with my budgeting skills. To go a step further, we saved close to 55% with both trips. Now that is impressive too. Not only are we keeping to the budget, but we are saving more than we spend. I hope to increase our savings even more throughout the year. Can it be done? Sure can. How much time will I have to spend in order to get there? oh gosh...who knows.

Honestly, I haven't been keeping as close watch with my weight as I have with my grocery shopping. I was paid a compliment today by my co-worker asking me what I have been doing to lose weight. And my response is nothing. I have been keeping a watchful eye on my weight by using the scales at work (which I LOVE!) My wii scales always say I weigh about 4 to 6 pounds more than the scales at work. weird. When I weighed myself today at work, it read that I am exactly 10 pounds lighter this time this year than I was back in oh-10. Huge success! It's not over yet. The year is just beginning and swimsuit season is closer than it has ever been.

time for new resolutions

2011-01-02T00:14:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year! It's hard to believe the holidays have come and gone again. It didn't feel like Christmas one bit either probably because I was consumed with work that I couldn't think about anything else. Not good...

So that brings me to my first resolution for 2011: do NOT stress over things that aren't in your control and understand that there are more important things to worry about besides my own petty worries. This resolution alone will be a HUGE task. I have always been a "worry wart" ever since I was in elementary school. I was the nerd who did both even and odd numbers of the Math assignment...not becase I wasn't sure if it was one or the other, but I trust the teacher to stick to her own assignment. Maybe that is why I love Math so much these days...because I always did double the homework.

...which brings me to my next resoltuion for 2011: document total savings throughout the year with my grocery shopping. Dorky? yes. A waste of time? I don't think so. This will be a great way to see how much we are spending per week. I started a goal back in October-ish to keep the grocery bill under $50. We were able to keep it around the $50 mark if I can remember my averages correctly. And soemthing else super-dorky of me is that I found (via internet..you are wonderful) a spreadsheet already in the savings format! I don't even have to create one myself. I am super excited about it! I will actually begin tomorrow with our first grocery trip of 2011.

and with food comes my final resolution: slim and tone up. Not really that shocking of a resolution because that is the #1 resolution on 99.9% of people's lists. I know it is lame to say it, but for me if I don't vocalize it to the blog world then I will never do it. Please keep me accountable in this department.

As far as last year's resolution went, I think it was pretty successful. We have slacked BIG time as the year progressed from eating healthy to eating junk. I blame the holidays and being busy for that. My underlying 2010 resolution was to lose 10 pounds before the end of May. I didn't quite lose that much, but as I recall I lost about 4-6 pounds before then. Then I gained some more weight due to my promotion and now I am back down again. After my severe acid reflux attack, I am now down about 8 pounds from last January 1. YAY! That is a great victory for me. I hope that the 8 pound drop will be motivation to get back down to my wedding weight, which means losing another 6-8 pounds.

I wish everyone a very happy new year and stick to those resolutions no matter how challenging it may become. As always I will keep you posted on my progress.

a collectible figurine

2010-12-30T23:30:00.000-06:00

I thought when I hit my quarter of a century in age that I would be just as healthy as I was in year 24 and before. If you remember my 2009 recap, I explained my old person experiences. I truly thought that I was healed from all things "over the hill".

Not so fast...

I don't remember the exact date, but I believe it was sometime in August. My baby cousin, Andrew, (well, not so baby because he is 22) had emergency heart surgery. After a going to see a doctor about why he hadn't been sleeping well at night, an aneurysm the size of a grapefruit was removed from his young body. Now I might ever-so-slightly be a hypochondriac, but I thought I had one too.

My chest would burn in the middle of the night and I would have uncomfortable bloating all day and night. After learning Andrew's story, I panicked and went to the doctor. Come to find out I have acid reflux/heartburn.indigestion/etc. Oh great....something else to go wrong.

After being prescribed Nexium, I felt like I was well on my way to preventing this terrible feeling from happening again.

Not so fast...take two...

December has been the most stressful month for me as far as work goes. There are other ones that have come really close, but this December was unexpected. I wasn't used to working 9 to 10 hour days for 5 days in a row...to only accomplish nothing. The piles were getting bigger and multiplying with every day that I went to work.

Not only was work stressful, but try squeezing in 4 different family holiday functions. I love being about to spend time with family, but I love being at home that much too. Sometimes I put it in overdrive and I run out of steam...fast! On December 26th (a few short days ago), my body told me to slow down...WAY down!

I woke up in the 26th with aches and pains and feeling like crap. I thought I had the flu, but I never had a fever. I slept somewhere from 29-33 hours straight trying to rest my tired body. I woke up the next day aches-free, but still like crap. It was my stomach mostly, but it ranged from my throat all the way past my bellybutton. I could eat or drink without feeling like I had to vomit. This trend continued up until yesterday. The good thing is that I dropped about 2 to 3 pounds. Granted that is definitely not my preferred way, but whatever.

I made my visit to the doctor again to see what was happening this time since the pain was completely unbearable and my Nexium was NOT working AT ALL. I was tested for bugs (literally) living in my stomach: negative and my blood count was good. So what was it? SEVERE heartburn/acid reflux/indigestion. UGH. never again! I have never felt so close to death before.

(Well, maybe that one time when I was slung out of the boat doing down the Ocoee River the summer after high school graudation. I just knew that I was going to drown and never step foot on the Auburn University campus as a student. But after a handful of football-sized bruises later, I was vowing to NEVER white water raft again.)

Anyway...

I am not as tough as I thought I should be after what 2009 brought my way. I guess God designed me to be more of a collectible figurine meant to be displayed in an antique cabinet rather than a durable dog's toy. So here's to 2011...what else could go wrong...the infamous last words...

from us, to you

2010-12-21T20:39:00.000-06:00

Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

Love, The Todds

Daniel, Leslie, Jackson, Tyson, and Barkley

retreat from a hard day's work

2010-12-10T23:42:00.000-06:00

The first weekend in November I was reminded of just how much I hate painting. In fact, a nightmare-ish flashback to the first weekend of owning our first home came back to me all over again (when we painted every room except the laundry room). Seriously without Daniel's dad and my dad that weekend, we might still be painting. I can say that we learned a lot about painting that weekend so I am thankful for all of the love and support. I think it made this go around a little easier.

Back to the re-do now.

It is not a surprise that my bright mustard room just wasn't doing it for me...at all. I mean it was a great vision in my head, but it didn't really work when it was put to life. ah, memories of sleeping on the sun...

I have been thinking about a "master bedroom makeover" for a few months now. I knew that it wouldn't be cheap or fast (that's what she said.) in transforming. Nonetheless, I was determined to make it as painless to our bank account as possible.

I knew that I wanted the theme to be calming and peaceful. I was leaning more towards an ivory or light blue paint color. Basically it depended on the comforter color(s). My vision jumped from ivory walls with a blue comforter to blue walls with an ivory comforter. I felt like the light blue was the way to go even though having an ivory comforter with 3 dogs is risky.

After finding the soul inspriation for the room (3 Euro shams from Restoration Hardware), I knew that I had to go with the light blue walls and ivory comforter. The Euro shams were marked WAY down to $30 each, which is still extremely high for my "cheap" makeover. I figured we could splurge a little on the shams and still be fine. I eventually found an ivory comforter set (comforter and 2 King shams) at Walmart for less than $60. You can't go wrong there. And if it gets messed up, go back and get another. I purchased the tan bedskirt for $20 from Target. Same deal with that...if it gets messed, then no problem. I originally thought about making the bedskirt from an old sheet, but I became too lazy. It might have been more trouble than it was worth anyway.

There's no hiding from the expenses of painting though. Oh boy...those can easily run in the $200 or $300 range. Yikes! I will say that tinted primer saved us when painting over the mustard color. It took us 3 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint. Bye bye, mustard and hellooooo, beach house blue!

The biggest decision we faced (other than the paint color) was deciding what to do about a headboard. One day I want brand new bedroom furniture with a sleigh bed. Our bedroom is too small to hold brand new everything so that will have to wait until we move into a bigger house. So what to do now? Purchase a cheap headboard? Or is there another option?

There's always another option. We were out looking for a headboard one Saturday afternoon, and we stumbled across a wooden door at a local cosignment shop. And BINGO! Instant headboard slash wall art. And DONE! So for $40 we picked up our faux headboard. I count that as money saved.

Trying to be thrifty, creative, and unique all at once, I personally made the curtains. I wanted something with a design and not the typical (and sometimes boring) curtains. I found some really nice...almost too nice...fabric at Hobby Lobby. It was regularly $15 a yard, but 30% off. I went ahead and got the lady to cut me 3 sections of 3 yards each to avoid my miscalculation with measuring. I wanted ceiling to floor curtains. That must be the new thing since I see them in every home decorating magazine I own. So final cost $100 for custom-made curtains. And I must say I am becoming quite the little sew-er on my sewing machine. I have come a long way from not knowing that the presser foot needs to be down when sewing because it makes life so much easier.

My last item of decorating consisted of new lamps. Oh geeze....our pathetic little lamps we had in there weren't cutting it decorative-wise. They were way too small next to our king-size bed. After looking at several stores (and again not wanting to spend an arm and leg), we found some beautiful lamps at Lowe's. Of all places! I think we spent around $100 for both lamps. Yes, that is pricey, but I was able to cut corners elsewhere. Plus I really loved those lamps compared to less expensive ones.

My last mention of the decorating process is the blue dresser we found at the same cosignment shop we bought the wooden door. We really needed more storage so this dresser makes all the difference in the world. We paid $140 for it, but we still need to purchase some knobs. Honestly, I am in no hurry to buy these even though I probably should be.

I think for $850ish that our room has been transformed into a nice and relaxing retreat from a hard days work. It feels completely different. I am not exaggerating when I say this either: I have actually been sleeping so much better. I think it was sleeping on the surface of the sun that stressed me out.

...being an Auburn graduate

2010-11-27T00:50:00.000-06:00

Over the past couple of years, my loyalty and love for my alma mater has been challenged. I have been questioned by Alabama and Auburn fans alike about how I could love Auburn University as much as I do. It's extremely hard for me to just answer in a short and sweet explanation. So here's the long version...

When I was a little girl, I had dreams of becoming a true Auburn Tiger. I remember going to the Auburn games and tailgating behind Parker Hall and Allison Lab. We would always eat chicken fingers, potato salad, and pawprint cheetos. Mom would take us in Parker Hall to use the restroom before we made the long (or so I thought in my young mind) hike to Jordan-Hare Stadium. Of course, we sat in the nose-bleed section and having two little girls wasn't always pleasant when the hike to and from the bathroom took 30 minutes each trip. I knew even in my young years that there was something special about Auburn. It was more than just your typical Southeastern Conference school.

I always loved going to Auburn for games and atmosphere. We didn't go to very many, but the ones we went to were some great memories that I still have today. I was there for the 1994 LSU game when Auburn scored twice within a minute and six seconds. We sat in the LSU section for the game and it was terrible! I knew all of the LSU cheers, not by choice, by the end of the game. Thankfully, Auburn won so that shut 'em up.

Growing up an Auburn fan in the '90's was extremely difficult. Try being a little girl and having nothing but Alabama fans as friends. After the Iron Bowl, I would go to school and get made fun of because I cheered for the "losers". In fact, I was a loser because I cheered for Auburn. Whoever said kids aren't mean is a liar. Kids are mean and scarred me for life.

Not only did I get made fun of at school, my sister and I were also made fun of at our extended family gatherings. Try having uncles and cousins, call Auburn losers and say they never had a chance. (And Auburn during those years probably didn't, but still...it is the principle of it.) Sissy and I couldn't defend our beloved Tigers, because to an extent, it was true. I never knew just how much these memories have hurt me and just how far in life I have carried them with me until now. When you have been made fun of as much and long and hard as I have, you grow a certain hatred for the opposing team. My hatred for Auburn's closest rival came from being made fun of. Bullies are real. It's one thing when it's your friends, but another when it's your own family.

As a senior in high school, I only applied to one college: Auburn. I never wanted to go anywhere else. I have a picture in our Auburn bedroom of Sis and me in our matching "Of course, I am going to Auburn" shirts. I was about 5 1/2 and Sis was 4 when the picture was taken. It's one of my favorites from my childhood. Anyways...back to senior year...I remember going to War Eagle Day with Mom and Dad to tour the campus. Every student we passed either said "hey" or "war eagle". There wasn't an unfriendly face on campus. It felt like home.

September 1989

After getting accepted, moving into the dorms, and starting classes, I felt a sense of pride once the first football game rolled around. If you have never attended the college that you pull for, it will be harder for you to relate to my story. As a student of Auburn University, I became somewhat angry at the Auburn fans who strictly loved Auburn for football or any of the other Auburn sports. Auburn University is more than just an Athletic Department. It's a place where young adults come to learn and expand their minds. They don't just learn about academics, but rather how to live and interact with people. They learn what it is like to become a part of a family who supports each other by interacting with the many faces around the campus. They find a home for life upon entering the classroom. Auburn men and women are challenged every day by professors and their peers to make a difference in the world. At the end of the day, nothing matters more than family...our Auburn family.

In fact, Auburn isn't football, but football is a small fraction of Auburn. Auburn is a spirit, a way of life, a home, a family, a warm cozy feeling. Auburn is so hard to describe to someone who has never stepped on campus as a student. It's an honor to be an Auburn alum. It was my first life-long dream that came true on August 7, 2006.

In essence, I get superly offended when people "dog" or make fun of my Auburn. Likewise, I get extremely upset when I can't celebrate a win for the Tigers in "peace" without someone being in "shock" or sarcastically calling me "classy" because I make a post on fb. Really, people? Fans have been saying "cut-downs"/celebrating for their teams for decades and you are going to call me out for joining in? My team works their tails off and I am showing support (as you do for your team) for their hard work. If you can't respect my team for winning a hard-played game, then someone needs to check your "sore loser" meter.

Furthermore, if you are offended after a loss by the same cheer that your school chants after every game they win, something is messed up with that. Again, check the sore loser meter... If you have a problem with your team's cheer(s), then join a new team. There is no reason to be in "shock" because an Auburn fan has slightly changed the words to one of your school's cheers. completely ridiculous.

And yes, I am fired up. There is no need for shock or sarcastic remarks ESPECIALLY if your team is the same as mine. Some people may not be as committed to Auburn as I am. That doesn't give you the right to make "unclassy" remarks to me. Have I ever pushed my views upon you? Uh, no. There is no need for you to push your views upon me. My heart...whole heart (and money) belongs to Auburn University. If there is a problem with that, you can just get over it. It is foolish for me to defend my views for the same university that we both cheer for. In fact, I find it unclassy of you to pull for Auburn's biggest rival just because they are in the SEC or your family members are for the "enemy" or whatever your excuse may be.

As an Auburn graduate, there is no reason for me to have to defend or censor what I say on my fb, blog, texts, or wherever else I have the freedom to express how/what I feel. Auburn is a part of me, and I am a part of it. I will defend Auburn until my last breath. Auburn taught me more than just finance; Auburn taught me how to be an adult and contribute to society. I am a better person for being an Auburn graduate.

a simple request

2010-11-18T16:24:00.000-06:00

Dear Mother Nature/The Keeper of the Weather,

     Fall is one of my favorite times of year. Living in the South has made me grow to appreciate that much more as I have gotten older. I used to not really care for fall-like weather. However, there is nothing like the cool crispness of a fall morning.

    I have been planning for this fall season for several weeks now. I have made multiple trips to Old Navy to update my wardrobe for this very season. For some reason, temperatures reading in the 70's and 80's don't seem to go away. Do you understand that we are in the mid-to-late-mid November now? I need some cooler weather a-sap so I can wear my new sweaters, jackets, and long-sleeves.

   Besides busting out my new clothes, I need the cooler weather to get in the holiday mood. It just doesn't feel like Thanksgiving is next Thursday when the weather is in the 70's. Don't get me wrong: Thanksgiving in the 70's at the beach is totally different than Thanksgiving in Birmingham. I don't want it to feel like beach Thanksgiving weather while not being at the beach. There is no point in that.

   My simple request is a slight drop in the temperature; nothing too major. I like the 30's at the night and 50's during the day. If there is any way that you could make that happen for me, I will forever be grateful.

Sincerely,
Leslie B. Todd

gray is to Brindley as red is to Schmitt...

2010-11-14T15:04:00.000-06:00

...which has NOTHING to do with Alabama colors (red and gray) by the way. Each side of my family has their bad traits and for me the hair color is the worst. It's funny how the worst traits in both family genes is in the hair. I know you can understand where I am coming from on the "gray" part, but others might find it offensive with the "red" part. Don't get me wrong: my family members who have reddish hair look beautiful with it. I, on the other hand, do not. I have always had brown hair, but why is my hair now showing signs of red? I guess the coloring doesn't help with hiding the red like it does with the gray.

I love both of my family heritages. You read about some of the traits from one of the sides in a recent post. Now the other side is quite different. I am not necessarily saying "good" different, but just different. If the Brindleys are analytical and "worst case" scenario, then the Schmitts are cautious and thought provoking. Let me explain...

While the Brindley side of me analyzes everything to the immediate worst case scenario (of EVERY situation), the Schmitt side of me is cautious to act upon something with haste. While both sides like for everything to be thought out and planned to a T, the Schmitt side is more giving to uncontrolled situations that may or may arise. Being a Schmitt means thinking rationally and realistically in every situation. Always knowing what COULD happen, but don't overthink the outcome.

This might be the worst battle that has EVER enter my mind. I immediately jump to the worst case scenario, but then thoroghly think through the situation like a realistic event. strange? yes. helpful? possibly.

I think my favorite part of being a Schmitt (without the actual given name) is the crafty side. My grandmother makes beautiful things in her ceramic shop. I couldn't even begin to be that creative or great with a brush like she is in painting. I will never forget being at her house when I was in early elementary school and she drew free-handed a picture of Minnie Mouse. I was in awe of her raw talent and her story about how she would always doodle in class instead of taking notes. The Brindley side of me came out and I wondered to myself "How in the world did she make straight A's if she wasn't taking notes and instead drawing?"

Growing up, my mom was always a crafty "room mom". I was always envious of the things she made up for us to make or to give as gifts to our friends. I always told myself that preschool teachers have to be creative so she was just living up to her profession. As I got older I realized that she didn't have to be creative because she was a teacher. Mamski was naturally creative. And it wasn't until the past couple of years that my jealously for Granmolli and Mamski started to be suppressed by my own creative mind. I am not sure what happened. It seems like a light bulb turned on overnight, and here I am making tablerunners from an old bedsheet, AU shirts from old Tshirts, beach blankets from sweat-stained-armpit college Tshirts, and kitchen curtains from super cheap fabric.

My ideas are numerous and my time is few, which is extremely frustrating. I need more hours in the day and days in the week to create my ideas. Maybe one day "ElleBeeTee Originals" will come to life and you too can purchase your very own creations made by yours truly. Until that day comes, I will continue making all that I can with the time that has been given to me.

the creation of the name for my creations

2010-10-19T16:52:00.002-05:00

For the past few months, it seems like I have been in a super crafty mood. However, I haven't had enough time to create all of my crafts. sad times.

So this got me thinking....(no, I wasn't thinking about how I need more time or to make more time to create...like you think that I should be doing)...what would I name my little business? It would have to be a "catch-all" type of a name since I don't have a specific item that I am in love to create. A few months ago (when I thought about making doggie tutu's inspired my little Barkley) I thought of the name "Barkley's Villa". As time has worn on, I have grown to dislike that name.

And then it hit me...

what about "ElleBeeTee"? Does that make sense?
"L-B-T" = like my initials. clever, huh?

or is there a better way to write it out. I think it is super important that a company's name is as pretty to look at as it is to say. comments? thoughts? (psst...this is your time to comment please.)

And by the way, I can make your dog (or cat) a homemade tutu (see barley's picture at right). Just let me know if you are interested and we can discuss colors, measurements, and etc.

it runs through my veins

2010-10-08T23:25:00.001-05:00

I believe if you could look up "Brindley" in Webster's Dictionary the definition would be a family who loves Auburn (especially football), to talk, and save every penny to the point it comes quite ridiculous. (Oh! and have premature gray hair.)

If this definition was real, I am truly a Brindley at heart.

Growing up, we weren't poor, but we weren't super rich either. Sure, there were things that I would have liked to have had, but I was never deprived in the least. Some might even consider us spoiled since we constantly got "small gifts" here and there...just like we still do today. Those "small gifts" were always things on sale/clearance. I grew up immediately going to the sales rack as soon as I entered a store's doors. To this day, I find is really difficult to buy anything at full price (no matter how inexpensive it may be), hence, the reason for my coupon addiction.

When I was little, we used to visit my grandparents' (dad's parents) house in what seemed like the most extreme weather conditions. It was either burning slap up or freezing my pa-tooties off. And it never failed: the temperature in their house was always just as extreme as the outside. I never understood why my grandfather would have 2 box fans running full blast with the windows up in the middle of summer while his brand new a/c unit was turned off. It didn't make sense to have paid so much for a nice a/c unit to only have it remained unused. In the winter, the windows would be down (a/c off as it was all year round), but the fireplace was a-blazing. I could never quite sit close enough to the fire to get warm enough. Maybe if my seat was actually in the fireplace then I would have been warm.

None of this would have been bad if we were only at their house for an hour or so, but our visits would end up being hours long...or so it seemed. You see, my grandfather was a talker: full-fledged talker about anything and everything especially Auburn. I honestly think he could have held a conversation with a brick wall, because that is how much he loved to talk. It didn't matter what the subject was; he could talk for hours on end about it, expert or not. He always had a good heart from what I can remember of him. He just needed someone to talk to.

As I age every day, I find myself becoming more and more like him. Since moving out, I have found myself turning up the a/c a degree or two in the summer and layering clothes in the winter to avoid a high power bill. I have even researched online the cheapest place to find cute brown boots so I won't overpay. And that mission was a success: a pair of brown knee-high boots from Rack Room Shoes sold to me for less than $20. Can't beat that!

And as I type this blog, I find myself becoming more and more talkative, or rather type-ative. I don't feel like I have anything too important to say, but sometimes I just need to let all of my "talking" out. I can't hold it in for too long or else I start talking to the dogs. Oh wait, I already do that. hmmm....

And I do love Auburn with all my heart. I could probably spend an entire blog just about why I love Auburn. See another talkative subject matter...

But do NOT get me started on the premature graying. One of my lowest moments in life was Mamski discovering my first gray hair at 19. ugh! It is definitely the downfall to being Brindley...if there was a downfall.

happy 2nd anniversary to my loving husband

2010-10-04T21:58:00.000-05:00

Two years ago today I walked down the aisle of my childhood church with only 2 hours of sleep and became Mrs. Daniel Todd. I am not saying that I was delusional when I made this decision in the least. I was very much aware of what was happening during the 9+ months of being engaged and planning the entire wedding. (How exhausting! I hope to NEVER have to plan another one of those again for...well, ever. Unless it is my child's at least 40 years from now.)

I love you, Daniel.

why are health resoltuions so hard to keep?

2010-10-03T19:00:00.000-05:00

I guess you could say that I am on my 3rd attempt to lose 10 pounds since January 1st. I started back up my working out today. Yesterday I bought my 2nd work-out dvd since the 30 Day Shred was kicking my tail. I ultimately gave up once I reach level 2.

Yes, Jillian Michaels, you are hard to workout with! I can't keep up with you no matter how short of a time it is. With that said, it doesn't mean that I have abandoned you completely. I just won't be seeing you every day.

My 2nd work-out dvd is a dancing dvd with Julianne Hough. I am learning the cha-cha, jive, and paso. And can I just say that I am completely disgusted with Julianne? Well, I am. There is no way that I will ever be that slinder even if I became a celebrity and did nothing but workout 24/7. Glad that is off my chest. Now on to my personal critics about my dancing...

Um, it's not good. My coordination is highly lacking, but I was able to somewhat keep up with the "proper" dancesteps with the jive. How in the world do people have their arms and legs do those things so easily?

Before I was 16, I always had a fear of not being able to drive a car since my coordination was so bad. I even remember my mother making a statement along those lines. Thankfully, I can drive pretty dang well so I am just hoping that I can "get the hang out of this" pretty soon. And don't ask Daniel to show you the recording on his phone of my first dance lesson. I am not happy about that.

I will say that I have managed to lose the 4 pounds that I gained back since the end of May so I am at net 6 since January 1. Just those pesky 4 pounds left to lose. C'mon, Julianne. I am counting on your skinny ass, flat stomach, and slinder legs to melt these 4 pounds off my flabby bones.

time for a re-do

2010-09-30T16:07:00.000-05:00

It is time...
time for a re-do.

I have gone long enough in our bright mustard colored master bedroom. In fact, that isn't even the color that I wanted. The paint chip was definitely NOT that bright or yellow. It was quite mute compared to the paint being on the wall. I wanted something more brown. Guess I have learned my lesson in picking out paint.

My next vision for our master bedroom is something a lot more quiet and relaxing. I see either a pale blue or light tan on the walls. The comforter is going to be along the lines of ivory, khaki, or tan with some accent throw pillows. I have already ordered the euro shams from Restoration Hardware for a third of the original price. In fact, they are going to be my inspiration for the bedroom since I can't seem to find a picture of my dream bedroom. The only picture that I have is in my head and sometimes that picture can be blurry.

I am planning on making curtains for the windows instead of having valances. Our bedroom is on the east side of the house so it is bright too early in the morning especially on the weekends. I guess you can see why the bright mustard paint isn't working now. It is like waking up on the surface of the sun. My sleep mask is bearly doing it's job: keeping any hint of light off my eye-balls.

We recently upgraded to a king-sized bed (recall my stories here and then here) and felt like it is time for a more "grown-up" style. Just to be honest, I would LOVE to rearrange the furniture for the make-over, but the someone who I am married to doesn't want to do that. Now just answer me this: how can I fully complete my master bedroom makeover if I can't even rearrange the furniture as it is laid out in my head? ugh, frustrating.

my obsession

2010-09-29T14:44:00.001-05:00

Some people are obsessed with various things such as shopping, cleaning (I am a "smidge" obsessed about this), eating, exercising, working, sleeping, facebooking, football season, tv, etc. I think you get the idea. The point is that people are obsessed with many things ranging in different categories. My latest obsession is saving money....otherwise known as couponing.

I might think about saving money at least several hours or more in a single day. It gets REALLY bad when it is time for my weekly grocery list. I spend about 2 or more hours just making my grocery list for the week, which doesn't seem that bad when I am saving more than I spend. I have tried to quickly go through the list without obsessing over every single dollar that might/could be saved. It doesn't work. I have to go through my list of known websites.

Here is my routine for each week's grocery list (in a brief nutshell):
-I start by looking through the Publix's ad to see exactly what is on sale and what we need. I try to think about coupons that I already have cut and filed in my coupon binder.
-Next I got to I Heart Publix and Southern Savers to look at the weekly Publix ad with coupon match-ups. They are both really good websites tell you item by item what coupons to use for each. Some coupons can be printed from another website! AWESOME!
-Keep in mind I am making my list and printing/searching for coupons from my binder as I am on each website.
-The next websites I go to really "seal the deal" as far as couponing goes. Coupons.com, Money Saving Mom, and Target (store coupons) are all great places to find additional coupons for your weekly list! And another thing: Money Saving Mom is great about listing free samples of products that can be mailed right to your door! I get roughly 3 samples (or more) each week on various items: shampoo, conditioner, hair styling products, cereal, Hamburger Helper, toilet paper, deodorant, granola bars, feminine products, lotion, shaving cream, laundry detergent, just to name a few.
-And when making the grocery list I can't forget that Publix doubles coupons (up to 50 cents if in AL) and take other store coupons including $X off a $XX purchase. Even more savings!

Now you can see where I come from every week in making my grocery list. It takes time, but time is money in trying to save via couponing. For example, this past Sunday we spent $55.33 and saved $97 (savings of 63%)! I am not going to list every single item, but we got a lot of stuff including popcorn, a frozen CPK pizza, cheesecake, produce, fish fillets, bread, 2 bottles of Complete contact cleaner, TP, shampoo, shaving gel, sandwich meat, and 6 bags of Halloween candy.

Speaking of Halloween candy, it has been my goal to not spend a dime for any candy this year. Considering Publix has had the good candy (Nestle's Crunch, Reeses, Hershey's Kisses, and Yorks) BOGO, it has been hard to stick to my goal. So far we have 9 total bags of candy (no small bags, but decent sized bags) and have spent less than $8 total. Not too shabby; less than $1 a bag. You can't even that good of candy at the Dollar Store for that price!

September 11th

2010-09-11T11:37:00.000-05:00

Today is the day that will live on in America's history for eternity. I will never forget that day and watching the news coverage. The images of dying people, burning buildings, and destroyed planes are imbedded in my memory as long as I live.

Today I am lifting up the fallen, their family members, and service men and women who have helped make our country the greatest place to live.

You can relive my 9/11 story here.

confessions of a 26 year old shopaholic

2010-08-28T22:20:00.000-05:00

Confessions:

I told myself that I would never buy jeggings. And I did today. After I told myself (last year) that I would never buy skinny jeans. And I did and currently have 2 pairs of those. So I have 2 pairs of skinny jeans and 1 pair of jeggings.

Next I told myself that I hated those bootie high heels. And I bought some of those today as well.

To make things even worse: I put them on together. And they look great as an outfit.

I just need to buy a shirt to wear with them. Now what is a shirt that I told myself that I would never buy...?

lucky #5

2010-08-27T21:38:00.000-05:00

For almost 2 years, I have been struggling to get good sleep again. It just hasn't come easy. There are several factors for this, but the #1 is the MATTRESS. As I previously reported, mattress #4 made its appearance at our house and left in a quick fashion. It spent roughly 4 weeks at house before making its leaves of absense last night.

Not even 5 minutes after the delivery guys left, we noticed several stains on the brand new mattress. GROSS! I don't even feel like going into the round and round conversations that we had with Mattress Firm about receiving a new mattress. I am just thankful we now have a STAIN-FREE mattress.

Not only is it stain-free, but it is SUPER firm. In fact, it is the firmest matress they sell. It is h-e-a-v-e-n! I am pretty sure the mattress episode is over. I have definitely met my sleeping match and we will sleep happily ever after.

THE END

30 day shred

2010-08-21T16:56:00.001-05:00

The end of May has come and gone and sadly I did not meet my resolution goal. I got down 6 pounds, but the last 4 were extremely hard to lose. Basically I just gave up. In the meantime, I have gained 4 back so I am still net 2 for the year. Some people think that is a win, but for me it is a complete fail. I am on track for gaining the 2 back plus more before the end of the year. Then I will be back to where I started the first of the year. It's time for a change...

For the past few weeks, my co-worker, Erika, has been saying she wanted to lose some weight. Her birthday and a beach trip are coming up so she wanted to use those events as motivation. She brought a couple of her work-out dvd's to work yesterday to show us just how intense they are. After seeing The Biggest Loser workout, I set my eyes on the 30 Day Shred by Jillian Michaels: 20 minute workouts everyday. Not too bad, I thought. So we decided to start the dvd together; a buddy system really is the best way to go. We set our start date for tomorrow, Sunday the 22nd.

I have to confess, though, I started it today. I have been SUPERLY lazy tired recently and I know it's from not proper exercise. I hope that my workout today will help my sleeping tonight to improve. I know that I slept great during the first half of the year. It has to be the workout!

We will see where this takes me. I am not setting a goal of "I want to lose this amount of weight" or "I want to wear this size clothing". I simply want to do the 30 Day Shred and take a look at the results afterwards. This is my pressure-free work-out routine.

2010 backyard makeover

2010-08-03T11:55:00.000-05:00

When we moved into our house last May, Daniel had a vision for both the front and back yards. His front yard vision was simple compared to the back yard. His goal was to remove the bradford pear in the front. He did that with flying colors and ease.

The biggest project we knew buying our house was the backyard. There was nothing wonderful about it except that it was a decent size and fenced in. There was good bones about it, but Daniel talked about how much there was to dig up and replant.

And boy, was there! My intentions were to help with as much of the makeover as I could. I am happy to say that I contributed one day's worth of work by digging up rocks. I have never seen so many rocks on all my life! I would have to say that we had close to 1000 rocks in and buried in the yard. Obviously I couldn't dig them all up so Daniel did about half of the rocks digging as well. Then my part was done.

Daniel exploded on the scenes with his digging up plants and planting new ones in their place. He made several really nice beds for the new plants around the yard. Two of the beds are against the house and are lined with brick pavers. They look fantastic!

The hardest and most stressful part of the makeover was deciding on the pavers for our patio extention. We wanted something that wouldn't look janky, but also didn't want something that was too expensive. We had already unloaded hundreds of dollars from our wallets and I was looking to save as much as I could. After many weeks of researching and comparing, we decided on plain gray pavers. They were less than half of the fancy ones we had originally picked out and we still have plans to paint the them along with the original patio.

After deciding on the pavers, Daniel went to town on laying them. I must say that Daniel surprised me with his paver-laying abilities. He spent several hours watching video after video about how to lay pavers and the materials needed to do so. He laid them all down within a few days' time. And they look great! I hope our next house is already landscaped and beautiful, because this was a very stressful project.

Before Pictures

left corner of yard

right corner of yard

back of the house

left front corner of yard

After Pictures

left corner of yard

right corner of yard

back of the house
part one of the patio extention

back of the house
part two of the patio extention

the new and improved back of the house

Christmas in July

2010-07-28T18:19:00.000-05:00

With less than 5 months until Christmas Day, I have started brainstorming about this year's outside Christmas decorations. Last year's huge ornament window decor was a lot more trouble than it was worth. I thought I had thoroughly thought through the hanging process, but it all became too much. Daniel and I had several arguments about those brightly colored balls: I had a vision and he had the know-how to make it work. The catch was that his know-how and my vision clashed.

outside Christmas decor 2009

So the goal for this year is to have a peaceful holiday decoration season. I am thinking the traditional window wreaths will work, but as always, I am not satisfied with just the plain ol' forrest green colored ones. How boring is it to have green wreaths with green bushes with green/mostly brown grass. Super boring! My goal is to search for bright and shiny wreaths to add some pizzazz to our house. I am not saying that I want 1970s tacky Christmas wreaths, but something along those lines will work. Of course, I don't want to spend a buttload for them either. We all know how much of a cheap gal I am and there's no sense is spending too much on decorations that are only out for a little over a month (if that).

Plus we are buying a taller Christmas tree for our living room! I am SUPER, DUPER excited about this! Don't worry about our first married 6 foot Christmas tree; we are still keeping it. I plan on putting it in the kitchen with all of the "usual" ornaments. Daniel says "we'll see" about putting it in there, but he will be the one to see once it is lit and decorated in front of the kitchen bay window.

The living room tree is going to be our "fancy" tree like the ones in rich people's houses. I have always wanted to live in a house with multiple trees (like my grandparents who have like 4+ trees!). The thing is growing up we barely had room for just one tree in our house. I still have great memories from childhood Christmases though so I wasn't missing out on much. Anyway, back to the new living room tree... My vision for this tree is simple: silver and gold (I love that song!). During the post-holiday season, Mamski went hog-wild buying up super cheap ornaments at the dollar store. And thanks to her we just might have enough for the tree! Of course, I still need garland, a tree topper, and various decor such as flowers and sticks to finish it off. That gives me an idea. I should collect sticks and spray paint them silver and gold! Maybe I can remember to do that in the fall.

Should be looking good at Christmas time though.

And another thought: how come when you decorate at Christmas it never feels like enough decorations, but when you pack it all back it, there are like 10 bins fill of stuff? My philosophy is that one house can never have too many Christmas decorations. Look out, Daniel! We are no where close to having too many decorations.

football project preview

2010-07-22T14:43:00.001-05:00

As of lately, my brain has been going to town on thinking of ways to make and create different inexpensive (precious) projects. I completed my summer beach project (that I have yet to blog about, but will soon). I have ideas for the fall season as well:

1. Fallish table runner/napkins/maybe placemats
2. Cardboard wall art
3. Football t-shirts

I haven't started on the first 2, but I am full swing in making precious AU shirts for football season. I can only leave you with this image. More to come on this developing project...

the princess and the pea

2010-07-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

When I was 14 months old, I began sleeping on a mattress that is thought to be harder than a brick...at least that is what other people have said. To me it was my heaven...ironically just like sleeping on clouds. Who cares that my back grew accustommed to the firmness of the mattriess? It was (and still is) bliss when I lay on that mattress, but when it came time to marry, my back terribly missed that mattress.

Since Daniel and I have been married (for less than 2 years), we have gone through roughly a mattress every 6 months. Nothing is supporting my back like "ol faithful".

When we married, we had Daniel's old mattress. He LOVED it and I HATED it. It felt like I was sleeping in a bowl and I always rolled next to him. After some research, we decided to buy a Sleep Number bed. Great! Problems solved. Or not. I must say that we kept that mattress a pretty long while. It had its moments of good and bad, but mostly bad. As it turns out, it was like sleeping on an air mattress. No support at all!

Once Daniel and I completed our backyard makeover project in May, we started looking for a king-sized mattress for our ever-growing (dog) family. Well, "start looking" to the Todds means we are buying one this weekend. This is how fast it happened! I wasn't complaining because I had heard great news about pillowtop mattresses. I was exicted that we got a firm pillowtop mattress. Ah, yes. True heaven awaited us in our dreams. Until the infamous bowl happened...

A month and half (yes, less than 2 months) of owning the new king mattress, I began to sink into the mattress. No support was given to my back/hips/neck. It felt like being in a swimming pool and laying your head on the side of the pool. Absolutely no support! After spending a near sleepless night on that mattress due to horrible back discomfort, we trucked it back up to Mattress Firm. After spending close to an hour in the store performing a sleep diagnostic test, laying on several mattresses, and mental analysizing, we are welcoming (with big arms) our 4th mattress next Thursday. You have no idea how grateful I am to have another (and hopefully final) opportunity to have a good night's sleep. And all I have to say is that it BETTER work this time.

I will report back with my sleeping habits in due time.

never say never

2010-06-13T18:42:00.000-05:00

A lot has happened since my last blog entry. My (work) life as I know it will forever be changed. Starting tomorrow morning I report for duty in Tuscaloosa. This is a place I thought I would NEVER work. Being an Auburn graduate, I have never enjoyed going or thinking about "the armpit of Alabama" also known as Tuscaloosa. I thought it was fairly ironic when I first started working at Valmont that I occaionsally had to visit that place for certain events considering that is the location of our concrete plants.

When I was a sophomore in college, I remember taking a roadtrip to Tuscaloosa. It was one of the worst weekends of my life (for more than one reason), but mainly because of having to be in the "enemy's" territory. I vowed that weekend that I would NEVER have anything to do with that city again.

Never say never.

With Daniella's departure to Dallas, I was offered her position....located in Tuscaloosa. (oh my. open mouth and insert foot.) It was an offer that I couldn't refuse for more than one reason. Time-wise the commute is the same, but it is more than double the miles. That is the only (other) down side. I will manage though.

Along with Daniella's departure which was last Thursday, Whitney said good-bye as well. Frankly, it was hard for me to think about leaving Whitney in Birmingham, but she turned in her notice shortly after I made my decision to work in Tuscaloosa. I wish Whitney and Daniella all the best in the future, and I will miss them greatly.

In happier news, Lisa is coming back to be the Office Manager again. Talk about blast from the past! I am so excited to work with her again even though we will be miles apart. It's funny how things work out.

me, Daniella, and Whitney

June 10, 2010

always something

2010-05-24T13:55:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was Jane's Retirement party hosted by the ever wonderful Daniel and Leslie. (ha!) And it was a blast! I am pretty sure that Jane had a great time as well. We had a full house and it doesn't take many people to fill it up. I am so glad that some of Jane's co-workers were able to come and celebrate too. The sun was shinning, and it was extremely hot. I wish it would have been a tad bit cooler so we could have enjoyed thoroughly enjoyed the games that Joe and Betsy brought before the sun disappeared.

The best news of all was that our backyard makeover is officially complete! We do have one more step to do in order to fully complete it: paint the patio and pavers. I am happy with it being like it is for right now though. I didn't even do an eighth of the work and I am so tired from all of the hard work that Daniel did. He really busted it and completed it in high style. It looks beautiful! I hope to have pictures posted this week.

Yesterday we were completely lazy...well deserved lazy. It felt weird not having to clean the house or work in the yard. We had been so focused on Jane's party for so many months that when we didn't have anything to do, it made us feel like we wasted the day. I know Daniel is thinking of the next project, but honestly I hope it is nothing expensive or hard to do. I don't think I (or our wallets) can take another (mentally and physically) exhausting project.

And then I started thinking of the next "inside" project. I have my huge wall art that I need to do this summer, but before that I have another project in mind. I went through my closet a few weeks ago and decided it was finally time to rid myself of my college AU armpit-stained T-shirts. I had been hanging on to them because it is so hard for me to let go of something that brings back great memories. So bye-bye, college T-shirts. It has been nice knowing ya.

...or so I thought. After talking with Mom, she suggested that I not give them up. But what was I going to do with T-shirts that I can't even wear anymore? And that got me to thinking and searching...I could make a beach blanket out of them! I saw a blog about someone making a beach blanket out of bandanas and I can use my T-shirts. I have no idea how it will turn out, but as I like to say "I have a vision". I doubt that I will be able to even start on this project before this weekend's beach trip, but hopefully by the 4th it will be complete.

resolution update, not forgotten

2010-05-18T11:40:00.000-05:00

It's just 2 and half weeks late. There's a reason for that. At the end of April I was pretty much still sitting at needing to lose 4 pounds. I didn't feel the need to update since nothing had changed and clearly wasn't motivated enough to change it.

However, change did come in the form of a horrible, lingering stomach bug. In fact, I still have a small trace of it still sitting nicely on my stomach. It has been with me for about a week and it hasn't been pleasant. I will spare the details as I am sure you can imagine.

So thanks to my little "bug friend", I have about 1 to 2 more pounds left to shed to meet my goal of "down 10 in 5 months". A guess there is always a small blessing with every hardship.

brief update

2010-05-06T09:48:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since I have updated about our "eventful" lives. We really aren't super important people, but we tend to stay busy every weekend. Let me recap:

Yesterday concluded Sissy's 6 week stay in the States. Daniel and I traveled to the beach to surprise her the night that she flew in. Needless to say, Sissy was VERY white and sleepy. I didn't feel her excitement that we were there to see her, but I understand what it is like to be tired. We had a great weekend and were able to spend time with Jane as well. We didn't do much laying out since it is pretty cool in mid-March, but we sure did shop.

Sis and me at the Boardwalk

March 19

Towards the end of her stay, Josh was able to "surprise" her by flying over for a couple of weeks. He was a few days getting in due to the volcanic ash, but we were thankful for his safe trip.

The first part of April was pretty busy between Easter and my 26th birthday. We were able to take Barkley over to Granmolli and Granddaddy's house on Easter. She is a good little girl when she visits other people's houses. She is extremely calm and quiet. It figures. Don't let her sweet face fool you. She can be a pistol, as Daniel and I like to call her.

We are in the final stages of our backyard makeover! What a relief! It has been quite the project especially trying to decide what pavers we wanted. We didn't want to spend $500 on these mugs so we settled on plain gray with the intentions of painting them along with the patio. Daniel has done a fantastic job digging up plants and planting new ones. He has even planted a couple of trees! Sadly, the before pictures were lost with the computer virus so just the after pictures will have to do.

The last weekend in April we took Barkley to Mentone to celebrate Daniel's dad's birthday. It was a nasty Saturday with severe weather and tornado warnings. Thankfully all of our family was safe during the deadly outbreaks. We even had to take cover late Saturday night, which only sent me into a total freak-out mode. Ever since driving underneath that tornado at the end of March, I have become more terrified of severe weather. Besides that little episode, we had a wonderful time playing games, watching The Blind Side, eating, and visiting. I would say that Barkley left with a 4 new cat friends, but I would be lying.

Other than busy weekends, Daniel and I have been doing our usual routine of working and resting as much as possible. Daniel finished up the spring semester of classes last night. I am not sure how many more hours he has left to take, but it's not too many. I am so proud of him and all that he has accomplished so far in his schooling. I know it's not easy working 40+ hours a week and then go to class/do homework. When I was in college, I only worked 15 hours a week (at best) and was a fulltime student with hardly any responsibilities. He never lets me down and always surprises me at how much he can handle at once. He is my hero.

As for me, I have been cleaning up Barkley pee and poop. Well, mostly...Daniel does help with that too. She is now going outside and LOVES it! We have significantly cut down on the use of paper towels and carpet spray. For the most part, she pees every time she goes out. She is learning very quickly and it is quite shocking. I know there will be accidents for at least another year or so, but hopefully her brothers can teach her as well.

And now the dreaded resolution update: I am still needing to lose 4 pounds before the end of May. I know it can be done, but I am not motivated to lose it as much as I was at the beginning of the year. I am just surprised that I have lost 6 pounds and have been able to keep it off! I need to kick back up "The Biggest Loser" work out.

Hope everything is going well in your neck of the woods. Or as Sis use to say "in your naked woods".

not for the happy people

2010-05-05T13:13:00.000-05:00

Can this entire post be nothing but things that are currently bothering me? Oh, sure it can, because it is my blog. So if you are anti-"Debby Downers", then stop reading. I need to vent.

Yesterday I got home and found out that our computer had a virus. UGH! not good. Thankfully, Daniel was able to rid the virus, but EVERYTHING was lost. and unretrievable. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING! Nothing is left. After I felt like puking, I wanted to cry. I still want to cry! I had just gotten done orgaizing all of our pictures into cute little folders. Everything was so neat and perfectly organized. It was simply Leslie. So those are gone. And all of our documents are gone. And my iTunes is gone. We have a back-up external hard drive, but it hasn't backed up the computer in almost a year. So not everything is a complete loss. I am really upset because our backyard makeover pictures are lost. There will be no dramatic before's and after's. And most of my organizing Jane's house is gone as well. (Is there a puke bucket close?) Daniel and I learned a valuable lesson: Back up everything at least every day.

Today Sis and Josh head back to Germany. Six weeks is longer talked about than it is actually lived. Her time here flew by and Josh only stayed for a couple of weeks, but his stay flew as well. We had some good times while she was here. No fights too big. We just wouldn't be Leslie and Sissy if we didn't argue about something. I am glad that they were able to come. There are more talks about their coming back in August. Until then, I will miss them.

Why are some people so different? This is something that Sis and I were actually talking about one afternoon. How can some people be so completely rude and impersonable? Does this stem back to their upbringing? not entirely true. Do friends play a role in how you will treat others? possibly. Are people just born with a rude gene? I would say yes, but I need to form a formal hypothisis. It's hard to be nice to others when all they ever do is keep proving my research to be correct. It's like no matter how sweet I try to be, there's no way that I will ever catch those bees. Maybe my "honey" isn't sweet enough, or just has a bad flavor. Whatever the case may be, apparently I need to learn to move on. I am not the one with the rudeness problem, but they are. And they will realize one day, just how close we could be, but aren't. Will that change them then? Who knows, but by the time that happens, I will be the impersonable one to them.

savings mania

2010-04-29T14:55:00.000-05:00

Ever since I got a taste of the "savings greater than paying" bug, I have been a mad woman trying to find/research the best deals with coupons every week. It's no easy task and reminds me of a word problem. I always hated word problems in school, but as I have aged I have learned how solve "real life" word problems. My "real life" word problem for every week: How many grocery items can Leslie buy on a discounted price just by using coupons and sale prices?

The answer: around $60 to $70 worth of items on a weekly basis...which leads me to more questions. How in the heck were we spending close to $100 a week at Wal-Mart after getting married? Isn't Wal-Mart supposed to be the discount store? And the real question is why did we put ourselves through that torture of going to Wal-Mart every week? Ugh, now I cringe every time we have to make a stop by Wal-Mart. It's hard to beat $17 for a 44-pound bag of dog food. Thankfully Jackson and Tyson have serious tummy problems when switched to the more expensive brands. They must have part of their "human" mommy in them...the cheap side.

And my word problem makes me think every week about how many people refuse to clip coupons and don't research for the best deals. Honestly, there is no point in anyone not saving as much money as they possibly can when making their grocery run whether it's weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. I mean you can't get in the habit of eating your favorite cereal every week when trying to save money. And you will have to become creative when it comes to making supper. Can't have the same ol' same ol' every Monday night.

Ironically, this process has taught me a lot about cooking. Because we buy a different buggie load every week, our meals change. If you are having a hard time finding recipes for your sale items, go to kraftfoods.com and search under the ingredients section. You can input up to 3 different ingredients and several recipes pop up just like magic! Kraft Foods has been a source of my cooking for several meals. They are so easy to make, and some recipes don't require a lot of ingredients, which is super handy.

Please: don't take my word for it when it comes to savings. I challenge you to start saving. You will be happy that you did, but I have a warning: once you start, it's super hard to stop.

mission: kitchen art

2010-04-21T14:42:00.000-05:00

Just about every wall in our house has some kind of art or picture filling the voided space, or rather "sky" as I like to call it. There is a huge "sky" in our kitchen that needed to be filled a-sap! It was driving me (and Daniel) nuts not having a picture to hang in that area. We even tried to motivate ourselves by hanging a stockings painting for our kitchen Christmas decorations. All that did was establish where the naked nail would be in the wall for the next 4 months.

Our ideas were sparse:

1. Buy four 5x7 or 8x10 pictures of the different seasons.

2. Buy a huge (and I am talking ginormous) frame and a cute smaller canvas picture to hang inside.

3. Buy pretty much anything large that would match.

So we went with the 3rd option, because it has nearly been a year of moving in and I am tired of looking at a green sky.

Now to unveil the kitchen art masterpiece....drum rolll.....TA-DA!

What is it? (you may ask.)
Well, it's a cloth napkin from the World Market in a 16x20 frame. Am I creative, or what?

And if you recall, I hate buying something at full price and this, already cheap project, was no exception.
WM cloth napkin: $2.99 with a 10% off coupon making it $2.69
Target 16x20 frame: $14.99
Total kitchen art price: $17.68

Not the best savings ever, but hey, 30 cents is 30 cents. Plus we have less green sky to look at.

Up next....the GIGANTIC blue living room sky behind our chairs. I have thrifty project in mind for that area. I am still collecting my "suuplies" so it might be a few more months. You will see what I mean...

getting paid to shop, or something similar

2010-04-20T13:06:00.001-05:00

Today on my lunch break I headed to Publix to catch some of the deals that were expiring today.

On my list-
2 boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats (strawberry...yum!)-BOGOF
2 cans of Scrubbing Bubbles-BOGOF
Scrubbing Bubbles toilet gel
Scrubbing Bubbles 2 in 1 brush kit
Dentyne gum-BOGOF
2 birthday cards

I love collecting cleaning supplies!

My spending grand total was $10.02. Not too bad for everything listed above. And now...for the savings: $23.89! That is a savings of 70.45%!

How does that even happen? Let me break it down:
I already saved money with the cereal, gum, and cans of SB being buy one get one free. Now it's time to stack the coupons. I had two $1 off coupons for the cereal. Then I had three coupons for the cans of SB: one $2 off Publix coupon and two $0.75 off manufacturer coupons. I had a "buy SB toilet gels, and get a SB 2 in1 brush kit free" coupon. The brush kit was regularly $5.99, but it was free with that coupon. Then I had three $1 off coupons for the SB toilet gel. That brings my coupon total to $14.49.....just in coupons!

Plus I can't forget to mention that I have an SC Johnson $5 rebate for buying 3 of their products. Boo-ya! Even more savings!

If you are thrifty and patient, you can start saving 70%, but it's not easy. And don't get frustrated.

a penny saved is a penny earned

2010-04-19T15:32:00.001-05:00

Saving money in this economy is not only nice, but it is almost essential. Over the past 3 years, I have made coupons and free samples a part of my every day existence. It's not an easy process. In fact, it's a challenge. Who isn't up for a challenge?...especially a challenge that can save you a BUTT load of money. (Yes, it was necessary to capitalize "butt" in order to get my point across.)

Here's my life summed up in a simple equation:
coupons + free samples + butt-load of savings = one happy Leslie (and Daniel)

I used to not be like this (aka a crazy, money-saving monster). Nope, I used to spent my money like I was dying the next day. I would spend down to the very last pennies. Yes, the money would burn a hole in my pocket if it wasn't spent immediately. When Sissy and I were younger, we were complete opposites of how we are now with money. Sissy would save, almost hoard, her allowance money. She would also hide it from herself only to discover the piles of money years later and instantly become a twenty-dollar-aire. I remember upon several occasions that she would feel sorry for me once she discovered her hidden treasure. I would ask for money and shockingly she would give me whatever she didn't "want". What a nice little sister she was!

Ironically, we are reversed now. I hoard my money like it can be transferred to heaven when I die. And Sis...well, let's just say she loves to clothes shop.

Once I graduated from college and moved back home, I was introduced by my co-worker, Lisa, the joys of coupons and ad matching. She taught me a lot about how to save double and triple! There's no need to spend the full amount on an item just search for a coupon. My money-saving techniques have come a LONG way since a few years ago.

My ultimate "money-saving" goal was to save more than I spend (at Publix). With Publix's BOGOF deals and doubling coupons up to 50 cents, I was on a mission. On Tuesday, March 30, I met my goal. I saved more than I spent at Publix. I spent $61.19 and saved $69.73...a total savings of 53.26%! However, I feel like the cashier girl didn't ring up all of my coupons. She was the coupon Nazi and wouldn't scan some of them. Did she skip over other coupons without letting me know? uh, probably. I will never go to your line again, Rachel.

How do I do it? Simple. I research and print and cut. Another wonderful reason for the Internet being invented: super savings! Thank you, Al Gore (for taking the credit the internet's invention, or else I would thank "for real Internet inventer" guy).

Step #1: I clip coupons from the Sunday paper. We subscribe to the B'ham News 4 or 5 days a week for 15 weeks, which totals $35ish. Within 1 or 2 times of visiting the grocery store, I can save that money. So the subscriptions are completely worth it to me.

Step #2: I subscribe to http://www.coupons.com/. This is the easiest website to join! You give them your email address and they will email you when new, updated coupons are available. Just select which ones you want, and print those bad boys out.

Step #3: I follow a few coupon-saving websites on Twitter. The websites will post the best deals on the Twitter feed displaying the great deals! But to get the best deals, I go to the websites directly. I only follow 2 as of right now:
http://www.southernsavers.com/
http://www.moneysavingmom.com/
Both websites are set up in blog form, which is super easy to read. They post entries about every stores weekly deals, individual coupons, and even free samples! The free samples are my favorite! I have gotten everything from shampoo, condition, toothpaste, laundry detergent, "lady" products, and white strips mailed to my house for free! Most of the products even come with coupons so you can purchase those products in the future.

Step #4: I try to go to the product's official website to see if they have any extra coupons. I have been successful with finding $1 off coupons on those websites. boo-ya...extra money saved.

There's other methods of obtaining coupons and great deals on items, but the 4 steps above is all that I do now. I am sure that I will expand my steps sometime soon.

With as many coupons are there are, I VERY rarely spend full price for an item no matter if it is groceries, clothing, home decor, and misc.

What money-saving routines do you practice?

a gift for the birthday gift

2010-04-08T14:40:00.000-05:00

So today is the big day. The big 2-6. Happy birthday to me! Man, I feel old.

As promised, I made Barkley's first tutu last night. Consider it my gift to my birthday gift. You are welcome, Barkley, for becoming humanized. If you don't like it, then you shouldn't have been so darn cute in those pictures from the breeder. Secretly I know that you were wanting a spoiled-rotten life.

Now time for the unveiling of Barkley's first homemade tutu:

As you can see, I had a blast and might have gotten a little carried away at Hobby Lobby. They had spools of tulle (25 yards) on sale for $1.99 each! So I got 7 spools (yellow, green, lavender, purple, rose, and 2 whites). Then their other tulle was $0.77 per yard. I got 3 yards of 3 different colors (hot pink, orange, and navy). Don't forget the elastic, which is 4 yards for $1.29, ribbon on sale for $1.19, and a pack of barretts for $0.99 also on sale. My grand total came to $26.

My goal was to make a hot pink, yellow, and white tutu for my birthday celebration on Friday night. (Yes, she will wear it.) I measured around her waist and from her waist to her tail. I cut 2 inch strips of 10 inches in length of tulle and tied them to the elastic as seen above. It took a good while to cut and tie.

The above picture was probably about 45 minutes in the project, but I did get faster as I tied.

I couldn't stop at just making a tutu. She needed a hair bow to match! I clicked a barrett into her hair to get her used to wearing it. I don't think she minded it at all.

Next came the hair bow. Doesn't she look precious? Later, Tyson came up and ripped it out. Maybe he isn't a fan of the bow.

After my brief intermission with making the hair bow, I was able to complete the tutu. The above is the final product. It turned out SUPER cute (if I do say so myself). The next part was the hardest, because she was a wiggle worm and did not want me to put it on her.

Too bad. I got my way. Look at how precious she is!

She is still unsure about what the crap is happening, but I know she enjoyed it. She will learn to love clothes just like her brothers.

This is my favorite picture! Barkley will be an excellent poser when she is older. It will just take some time.

The final product: tutu with hair bow.

I think this project turned out extra successful! It was fun to make and fun to watch Barkley prance around with it on. Let me know if you are interested in your angel having a tutu. I think I might start selling them.

new project: Barkley clothing

2010-04-07T09:38:00.000-05:00

I have been doing a lot of thinking as of lately about what it means to have a little girl dog. I have always wanted a little girl dog who I could tote around and dress up. You might think, "Leslie, that is what having kids is like." True, but a little girl dog is my gradual transition into having kids. If too much change happens at once, I tend to freak out and become overly stressed out about my new life. Just ask Daniel about when we went from one dog to two living in an apartment. I had a small freak-out/overwhelemed session when Tyson wouldn't cooperate like Jackson. I was used to Jackson being the perfect angel that I didn't realize that not all dogs are as calm and sweet as Jackson was as a puppy. Thankfully, Tyson has turned into a great dog. He never pees or poops in the house, because he knows that he will get a spanking and yelled at. He is very much the people-pleaser dog.

Anyways...back to Barkley. She is my test-run for kids. Not that Jackson and Tyson haven't been treated like our babies, because they have. They are our sons, but they aren't as needy as Barkley seems to be. We have mastered the boy-side, now we are testing out the girl-side. Gotta be ready for whatever God decides to give us.

I have been doing some research on little dog clothing and wow! Can we say expensive?! $20 for a little x-small tutu! oh, please. So my new project is to make Barkley precious clothes. A trip to Hobby Lobby should seal the deal on my goal of making inexpensive dog clothing. My first project: a little tutu with a matching bow. How hard can that be?

Stay tuned for a blog post on either successfully making or failing miserably.

Resolution update

2010-04-01T10:59:00.000-05:00

Another month down in oh-ten and it's time for the New Year's Resolution update. My time limit is over halfway complete and not much progress has been made since last month. Around 3 weeks ago I was sick with the yuckiness. After getting well, I just haven't been motivated to work out.

I stepped on the wii fit last night to see just how much I have gained back. I was informed that it had been 21 days since I last stepped on the balance board. Then it was time for do or die. And surprisingly I have lost another pound since my last weigh-in. I am still sitting at a negative 6 pounds since January 1. I was completely shocked! Go, me!

That means that I have 2 months to lose at least 4 more pounds. Can I get motivated to lose it? I hope so!

welcome to the Todd family, Barkley

2010-03-30T13:18:00.000-05:00

Barkley Where-is-she (Daniel gave her that middle name) Todd was born January 22, 2010 and joined our family on March, 25, 2010. She is one of four females born to a set of imperial shih tzu parents. She will grow to be 5 pounds or less, according to the breeder.

She was welcomed home by Jackson and Tyson who share mixed feelings about her. Jackson is still warming up to her and trying to figure out her role in our family. He isn't necessarily happy or sad about having another dog enter into our lives, but he is being protective of what is rightly his. Sunday he was able to semi-play with her by doing his "butt to the face" move. Monday morning while I was getting ready for work Jackson started barking at her to get her to play with him instead of Tyson. In some ways, it feels like he is trying to handle her with care since she is so tiny.

On the other hand, there is Tyson who thinks his sole mission in life is to protect and guard Barkley at all times. It really is precious to see him herd her around by literally walking over her. I call him our "Curious George" child and he continues to do this by checking on her every movement and cry. As soon as he comes inside from doing his business, he isn't interested in getting a treat. Nope, he is set on knowing where Barkley is and if she is okay. He loves to play with her and there have been a couple of times when he has been too rough. It is hard for him to play gently. He has even made Jackson squeal a few times in the past. Poor, Tyson. If only he were smaller, then he would feel more "at home" in his body.

Barkley LOVES her new older brothers. She doesn't understand why Jackson isn't playing with her as much as Tyson is, but she obviously still loves him. Her favorite thing to do besides pee and poop on the carpet is to run as fast and hard as she can from the kitchen through the living room into the computer room and dive under the computer chair. She looks like a little rabbit when she runs and she breathes heavily when running. It's so hilarious! I have tried to video it, but seeing it in person is so much better.

Friday night Daniel and I took her to PetSmart for a collar, leash (which I doubt we will ever use), pink blanket, weird-looking lamb, pink beanie baby dog, duck teething toy, mini-chewies, and puppy/baby-looking wipes. Oh yeah...and puppy food. I think she will be set on food for a while since she is still eating on the bag that the breeder gave us. She slept pretty much through the entire experience except when dogs were barking. She is not a huge fan of hearing other dogs bark. It scares her.

Saturday late afternoon Daniel and I took her back to PetSmart to the Banfield Vet. Holy cow, Barkley! You are expensive especially since you have never been vaccinated. We set her up on a health plan where she will receive 4 sets of shot along with her spaying at 6 months. We will also get her microchipped when she is spayed since we are spending an arm and leg on her. I don't want to lose her.

She was very brave while getting her shot; that's what the vet said. She loved meeting the vet and his assistants. Drum roll please....Barkley weighs....still drum rolling....a whopping....2.4 pounds! She is getting so big!

Nevermind, I lied...her favorite thing to do is live the life of a rockstar: sleep during the day and party hard at night. Fright night we went to bed at 12ish and she woke up at 3:30. I took her to pee, drink water, and eat. We had to play a little bit, but it was back to sleep until somewhere around 6. I put her in the tub and she cried until Daniel got up at 7:18. He let me sleep until 10:30. Saturday night I went to bed at 1AM after she FINALLY laid down. She woke up at 3 and we did the routine of pee, drink, eat, and this time play. I ran around the house for about 15 minutes with her chasing me to wear her out. We went back to bed at 4:30-4:45ish. Then she woke up again at 7. I put her back in the tub and she cried for an hour. Enough was enough so I put her in Jackson's crate until I finally got up around 10. Sunday night I got smart and just stuck her in Jackson's box at the beginning of the night. We can't have this waking up every 2 hours to play in the middle of the night. Once she learns to sleep through the night, then she can sleep in the bed with us.

She always has to be held and will put her front paws on your leg if she is not in your arms. She doesn't stay awake long if she is being held and it out in no time. She cries a lot too: if she isn't being held, if she is hungry, if she is thirsty, if she can't find you, if she can't run into the computer room and dive under the chair. When she isn't crying, she's loving to look in the mirror. Her little tail will wag a mile a minute.

Thank you, Daniel, for my birthday present!

Thursday, March 25: the best and worst day

2010-03-29T10:43:00.000-05:00

After spending a wonderful weekend at the beach for Sissy's first homecoming (2 weekends ago), Daniel and I settled back into the normal every day life. We had a wonderful time with Sis, Mamski, and Jane during our "That's What She Said" weekend.

While walking around Mamski's new place of employment on Friday, we discovered a pet adoption place. Apparently, Daniel has had puppy fever as much as I have had because he would really pressuring me into getting a puppy for my upcoming birthday. I wasn't interested in the chow-chow mix that was there so I thought that was the end of that.

The following Monday I found a poodle mix female on Petfinder and emailed her picture to Daniel. Well, that opened the can. Daniel and I started researching the kinds of dogs that I would want as a birthday present. We saw lots of puppies and LOTS of high prices. Who knew that people were paying close to $2000 for a little puppy? crazy talk!

After calling and having people email me pictures on Tuesday, I saw a picture of a little girl imperial shih tzu who I couldn't live without. After contacting the breeder a few times, we made plans to meet Thursday evening at Jeff State. Isn't she precious? (This is the picture from the breeder.) I named her Barkley.

And the story doesn't end there...
Thursday's forecast was a chance of severe weather from 1pm until midnight. There hadn't been too many storms around Birmingham that day and the worst of it was stroms with heavy rain. After Daniel dropped me off at work to pick up my car, we headed to the house. It was close to 7pm when we exited the Alabaster exit on 65. Daniel proceeded to take a picture of a possible tornado without calling to tell me. Obviously I was in a different world thinking about our new addition.

As we turned on 1st Avenue and made our way up the hill, I noticed a dark cloud come down. I decided to call Daniel to see what he thought of the tornado-like cloud. As I am calling him, I look up and in front of my car and see debris swirling about in the air and trees laying horizontal. Daniel answers and I ask "hey, are we under a tornado?" I was waiting for him with something along the lines of "no, it's no biggie." Instead he answers "Uh, yes, I think so. HURRY AND GET HOME!" We both start flying down the hill with the wind blowing like I had never felt before. I seriously thought that I would be taken up in my car, and it was the end. I was only going to spend an hour with the dog that I have always wanted. A transformer blew in front of Daniel and a tree fell on the other side of the road. Daniel ran a red light and we finally made it home safely.

As Daniel was unloading his truck, all I could do was sit in my car shaking. I had never been so scared in all my life. We were truly blessed to be watched over by God. Daniel ran inside and turned on 33/40 as James Spann was saying that there was a possible tornado 4 minutes outside of Maylene. Uh, yes, James Spann. And we drove under it!

Just as we were starting to calm down from the tornado excitement, the pizza girl arrived. She informed us of our new resident: a bird nesting in our front door wreath. She was an angry bird and desperately wanted inside the house. Thanksfully Daniel took care of that situation yesterday. No more moma bird, eggs, or nest.

I hope Barkley doesn't think we have this kind of excitement on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis. I am so happy and grateful that we are all safe.

...stay tuned for pictures/stories of Barkley.

a new season

2010-03-18T09:17:00.000-05:00

Is it just me or has this been a long winter? cold. rainy. cloudy. snowy. and all around blah.

I am impatiently awaiting the arrival of Saturday for the official welcoming of SPRING! Now the weather can officially change over into the spring as well. Please, mother nature, automatically switch the weather especially the temperature to spring-like conditions. k, thanks.

I have never been more ready for sunshine and warm in all of my (almost) 26 years of living.

Speaking of "almost" 26...yep...it's time for a birthday countdown update. This is the first year that I haven't consistently kept up with a countdown. Is 26 really that bad? It seems like it will be. There's exactly 3 weeks from today to get your final gifts.

In some earlier posts, I was really gung-ho about what I wanted this year..now, not so much. I really would like a new camera though. My flash is super sketchy and only works when it feels like it. Other than that, I do need a new spring/summer wardrobe. and "need" is the key word.

here comes the sun

2010-03-16T11:23:00.000-05:00

For the past week or so, it seems like life has been a real drag. Maybe it's the weather, but I am ready for the sunshine to brighten up my world again.

After a horrifying day at work on March 5th, AL Ops found that we had lost 2 members due to downsizing. We are still struggling on how to go on without them since both were crucial to our everyday operations. Only by the grace of God are we slowly making due with the knowledge we were left with. I will miss them both very much.

This past weekend Daniel and I spent some much needed time together by traveling around Birmingham together. Friday night we had a date at Habanero's and went to Lowe's to stock up on backyard transformation supplies. Saturday was the day that my car finally got new tires! While NTB took 7 hours to switch them out, we searched for pavers. Not too much luck, but we were able to narrow down our options.

After nearly a year of being unemployed, my mom was offered a job today! She is now employed by Emerald Grande Real Estate in Destin. This is a HUGE prayer answered and a relief off our backs. I am so happy that I feel like crying! yay! Congrats, Mamski!

Just when life seems dim on every occasion, the sun peeks out. Today's good news is definitely a sign for brighter days even if the sunshine stays hidden behind clouds.

lesser of 2 evils

2010-03-08T20:11:00.006-06:00

This past Saturday my adventure of becoming a professional organizer continued. I spent a few hours at Jane's cleaning out her hall linen closet. We both felt pretty lousy so that's why I only did one hall closet instead of both.

I thought I was chosing the lesser of 2 evils, but somehow the linen closet became super scary. There was a huge mountain of twirled up bedsheets and semi-folded towels crammed into the closet. It's beyond me how my own flesh and blood can live like that. I guess that is why I am here: to help out my Aunt when in need.

Enjoy the makeover!

The Before

looking into the linen closet

looking into the other side of the linen closet

top two shelves

bottom half of the closet

Cody thought that I was making a quiet place for him to sleep.

The After

looking into the right side of the linen closet

top two shelves

middle part of the linen closet

looking at the floor

looking into the left side

the final product!

The Final Season in Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum

2010-03-07T17:42:00.001-06:00

To say our good-byes in high Auburn spirits, Dad, Daniel, and I spent last Saturday evening (February 27th) at the AU vs. LSU basketball game. It was the final Saturday game ever played in Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum. Both Dad and Daniel had never been to an Auburn basketball game before. Since I am the seasoned vet with having attended 2 basketball games my sophomore year of college (one against Alabama and the other against Kentucky, both of which we lost), I felt like it was my alumni duty to be there as history unfolded: both for Dad and Daniel and for Auburn.

We left our house around 2:30 in the afternoon headed for the best sandwich place EVER, Momma G's. Apparently there is more than one location now in Auburn, but we ate at the original. Y'know the ol' dumpy one right across from Lowder Hall (my home away from home...Lowder Hall not Momma G's). It felt like another lifetime when I use to stand at the corner of Donahue and Magnolia waiting for the light to change in order to cross the street headed to class. It was weird standing there with Dad and Daniel with no backpack, but I still had on my Wallabies. :) Daniel had never been to Momma G's before, but I think he liked it once we were able to sit down with our food. I could really go for a Momma's Love right now with some of Momma's Nachos. mmmm. just to taste all of those calories.

After stuffing our faces, we drove around for 10 minutes trying to decide where to actually park. With the new construction of the Auburn Arena and Village dorms, there is no more C parking! Where in the world do all of the students park now? I am SOOOOO thankful that I got out of there before parking became worse than it already was. We finally ended up parking about 5 rows from where we had initially parked for Momma G's. At least we tried looking for a closer spot.

We made it to our seats with 10 minutes to spare before tip-off. Supposedly we had seats in the lower level, but there was nothing lower about being the 5th row from the top! Thankfully, I was able to keep my seat for the entire game, because it might have been disasterous with no railing!

view from our seats

The atmosphere at a basketball game versus a football game is infinitely different. Auburn tries to bring some of the same excitements into the basketball game as football games. For example, 2 videos played: one before the players came out and another right before tip-off. The pep band, cheerleaders, and Tiger Paws are there to provide entertainment and spirit. I must admit that the LSU fans showed more spirit than the Auburn fans. In fact, if they hadn't have been there, then the Auburn fans would have fallen asleep due to the lack of excitement.

pregame

The Tigers played an outstanding game never trailing the LS-Who Tigers once in the game. They were spot on with their 3's. What an amazing memory to have of Beard-Eaves. I have so many memories of being there over the past 8 years. My favorite B-E memory still is my college graduation. There's nothing that can top that!

74-59 victory over LSU

Daniel and me

Dad and me

Thanks for the memories, Beard-Eaves!

WDE!

C'mon, Easter!

2010-03-03T12:43:00.000-06:00

Two months of 2010 are in the history books, my friends. And that means that my time limit for my weight loss goal of 10 pounds before the end of May is almost halfway over.

Yep.

How, you may ask, is it going? ummm, AWESOMELY. Better than expected. As of 2/27, I am down 5.7 pounds. Let me take a moment and brag on how wonderful that is. Y'see, I have never purposefully tried (hard) to lose weight before. In fact, I never knew that it could be done. But it can and I am extremely proud of the nearly 6 pounds that have evaporated into thin (no pun intended) air.

Now back to reality:
The celebration can't last too much longer because I still have more pounds to lose. And I can't lie about still being motivated like I was on Day 1. The motivation has slipped, and I am slacking a bit on the exercising. I know that if I want to see results like I have seen these past 2 months, then I have got to step it up again.

Easier said than done, but definitely do-able. With the no sweets for Lent still going strong, I think that I can achieve more weight loss in a reasonable amount of time.

Plus Daniel told me the other day that once Lent is over he is taking me to Yogurt Mountain and Dunkin' Donuts. (!!!!!!!!!!!) C'mon and be here already, Easter!

i. want. CHOCOLATE!

2010-02-26T13:59:00.000-06:00

When I made my 2010 New Year's resolution, I really felt like my true New Year's commitment was becoming a better person, inside and out. I know I said that I would like to eat healthy and exercise, which in turn would help me lose weight, but there was a deeper commitment that I felt needed to be made. Once I announce to the internet world my resolution/goal, it would be hard for me to go back on that. The internet is my accountability partner....millions of accountability partners.

So the decision was made for my 2010 resolution. And here we are almost 2 months into the new year and I am down 5.5 pounds. A tiny mirable as I like to see it.

Then I thought to myself...Leslie, maybe you should try to have better hygiene too. I know that sounds gross and yes, I keep myself "up". What I mean by that is actually flossing my teeth, using mouthwash, taking multi-vitamins, and using lotion on my dry hands. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but it is something that I haven't been doing a lot of in the past. Just doing the simplest of tasks can really change your future. I am happy to report that I am at least attempting to keep up with my new hygiene habits.

As if all of the above hasn't been enough for me to focus on, I have really challenged myself. I have given up sweets for Lent. I have personally never participated in the religious practice of Lent, but I felt this year I could/needed to do it. So no candy, cookies, ice cream, cake, brownies....and NO chocolate! Am I crazy? sure. possibly. ummm, yes. Can it be done? You're darn tootin'!

With every little thing I have challenged myself with in 2010, I have felt God's support. I know that none of the above can be done without Him, and He is the only One who can change me for the better. "I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13 He gives me the motivation to push through and remember my commitments to myself. Not only are they commitments to me, but they are commitments to Him. He has given me this body on loan and it's my responsibilty to take care of it. How can I do that if I don't maintain the daily routines?

I may have made a handful of outer resolutions, but I know that the greatest change in 2010 will be the one He makes within me.

2 month deadline?! are we nuts?

2010-02-22T11:52:00.000-06:00

This past weekend Daniel and I were discussing our next at-home project. When we moved into our house, we decided that the inside would take priority over the outside. That was a smart move, because my OCD would have set in BIG time if we had been any slower in cleaning/organizing/packing away all of the inside stuff. (Just between you and me: the garage is still driving me bonkers. But out of sight, out of mind, right?)

So up next...the outside! I think our main focus will be the backyard as opposed to the front. The front is in good condition and presentable to the neightborhood. Daniel has a vision for the front yard, but it has been deeply surpressed by the back yard's need for care.

Our vision is simple: nice and relaxing with a splash of color. So maybe I added in the color part, but what would the back yard be without color? I mean this is part my back yard too even though Daniel has "final" say. His vision is great! I just know that it will take a lot of time and hard work before it will be complete. And did I mention money too?

I keep envisioning those makeover backyard HGTV shows. Now it won't be near that professional looking but I am exicted to see what Daniel has in mind. And our deadline? yep, it's May. We have decided to host (if she will still let us) Jane's retirement party.

I am not supposed to give details about what we are planning on doing, but it will be drastic. My number one concern is Tyson. He has already uprooted a rose bush that Daniel planted after we had moved in. You should have seen Tyson drag that bush from one side of the yard to the other. Jackson just sat and watched him do it. Guess he wasn't about to get in trouble for what Tyson had done.

camera update

2010-02-17T17:23:00.000-06:00

My camera is fixed!!!!
At least for now.

hmmm...now back to the drawing board on "what to get Leslie for her 26th birthday".

weekend update

2010-02-15T11:27:00.000-06:00

Since when do the weekends go from 2 days to one slightly extended day? Seriously, I need more than just 2 days to rest after long weeks. Or we just need to incorporate naptime during the work days. I could easily go for a 3 hour nap...every day.

This past weekend was Valentine's Day weekend. I plan on making a post just about our V-Day so I don't wan to give too much away now. All I will say that it was 1000% more romantic and stress-free than last year's (you might remember this episode).

Sad news about my camera. Yep, I need a new one. I was going around last night making pictures of our V-Day gifts when something crazy happened. The evil camera spirits invaded it! It now won't take pictures witha flash at all and all the pictures are SUPER dark. So now it looks like my birthday request is changing from VB to a new camera. All money will be happily accepted (not saying that it wasn't before). Ugh, it just makes me so mad!

In happier news, I am just so proud of Daniel. He is taking an internet Algebra class this semester, and it's not the easiest class to take online. He has had a couple of stuggles with learning the new material strictly from the book and leaning on what I can remember from over 10 to 12 years ago. His first assignment of 59 problems was due last night at 10PM. After nearly giving up on a stubborn little algebraic problem, he completed 100%! I had given up on that last problem, but Daniel was determined to complete it. And his perserverance paid off. He got it right! 100%! Boo-ya! He is so smart. I hope he realizes that with some perserverance (and his new prescription of adderall) that he can do anything he wants.

less than 2 months until the crisis begins

2010-02-09T15:22:00.000-06:00

It just wouldn't be right if I neglected to start the countdown at 2 months.

Less than 2 months, people. Actually 2 months yesterday.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, then you don't know me as well you might have thought. Yep, it's a new year...and another birthday. Since my 22nd birthday (Slutty Disney party was my ultimate birthday party. check out fb for the pics), it has been harder and harder to get excited about the year's upcoming number. This year's number I am dreading more than any other number so far: 26. YIKES! 26 is the tail-end of mid-20s and the very beginning of late-20s. not fun.

Am I going to have a mid to late-20s life crisis? ~~Probably.~~ You can bet on it. I mean, geeze. I have been gray since 19, and this past year I have started coloring my hair every 6 to 8 weeks. Thanks to my Dad for carrying the Brindley premature gray hair gene. You might say, "Leslie, you are just over-reacting. You are not really gray-headed. It might be blonde hair." To those people, I say "You are sweet, but come a little closer. You will find at least 30 gray hairs on my head at this very moment in time. I can even point you in the right direction of where/how to find them."

Lemme tell you a gray hair story: This past Thanksgiving while at the beach, Sis and I had a very special sister bonding moment. Not just any sister bonding moment, but a Brindley sister bonding moment. It was well after midnight and we plucked each other's gray hairs. Is that gross? disturbing? odd? Well, yes. We gasped at each other's head filled with lots of gray hair. I think Sis did WAY more gasping than I did. So guess who has more gray hair?

Enough about growing more gray everyday. This was supposed to be about my birthday, but I know how to ruin a fun post. So back to the fun...

Around this time every year, I begin to think about what presents I would like to be ~~showered with~~ given. I think it's only appropriate that this year I continue my Vera Bradley obsession. For gifts, I would like ~~lots of~~ money ~~and~~ or VB gift cards ~~and~~ or Vera Bradley products. The safest gift is always money, but you knew that already.

Vera has come out with some cute spring patterns and even cuter purse styles. I am not 100% set on one style or pattern yet (since I LOVE going to the VB store and looking at all of my options LIVE and in person), but I have been thinking a lot about this purse in Totally Turq:

And since I now have non-Target sunglasses (Prada to be exact), I need a new fancy case. The plain black Prada case is nice, but I need something more stylish:

Let's say a hard sunglasses case in Cupcakes Pink. Yep, that should do it.

Plus I was just thinking about how I need a "good" wedding picture album. This would be PERFECT for our wedding pictures! This pattern is called "Sittin in a Tree". Super cute with little blue birds. It's one of the new spring patterns.

And I am ~~completely~~ ~~totally~~ 100% definitely getting ahead of myself, but how DARLING is this babybook? Vera, are you going to decorate my baby's nursery with your awesome-ness?

What a PRECIOUS babybook! I am very tempted to buy it and just wait until the stork comes.

But this is about my birthday and not about my un-conceived child's birthday. I am getting WAY ahead of myself. First my 26th birthday. Then my mid to late-20s crisis. And then...well, thoughts of becoming responsible for someone with just 2 legs instead of 4.

I think that about covers it for this year's edition of "What to get Leslie without asking her and having her be surprised all at the same time". I am glad you joined me.

*pictures courtesy of verabradley.com. go there and be amazed.

why can't I have free time to be creative?

2010-02-05T14:39:00.000-06:00

Since searching and buying a house, I have become highly interested in interior decorating. The thing that has grabbed my attention the most is turning yard sale/thrift store finds into beautifully decorative items. How do these people do it? And where do they find the time to do it?

My conclusion: they are stay-at-home wives/moms. ::jealous:: How great would it be if I could go around town all day searching for trash to turn into my own personal treasure? I am pretty sure we would need a bigger house within the first year of my new job.

And speaking of a bigger/newer house...ummm, yeah. I want one. But more than anything, I want to be able to design my new and bigger house. I have seen LOTS of HGTV shows and magazines and websites of the perfect kitchen, laundry room, bedroom, bathroom, mudroom, front porch, etc. Yeah, I think for our next house I will have be extremely picky about the design, layout, and square footage.

Now do NOT get me wrong. I LOVE our house. I mean I LOVE it with a captial L-O-V-E. It is so precious and a great first time home. I love everything about it, but are there some things that I have learned that I would change or update for next time? sure.

I love going home to our grayish-blue living room. It is so trendy right now that is almost scares me. When I envisioned our living room I wasn't basing it off what the "in" colors were. Not at all. I was basing it on how different and yet classy it would look. I am hoping that my original plan of different and classy doesn't fade with the trend.

And then my green kitchen with navy blue countertops. uh, yes, navy blue. It definitely was one of the downfalls to buying the house. But now...oh but now...it really does add character to the kitchen. I have used an Auburn platter (given to me by Sis) as the inspiration for the kitchen. There are 2 dominate colors (green apple and navy blue), 2 primary colors (bright yellow and orange), and 2 highlight colors (brown and black). I mean I can even live with gold cabinet knobs since everything ties in together so well.

So I guess no new house is on the horizon and thank goodness! I have just found a spot for almost everything since we moved in at the end of last May. I might like to stay put for a while.

If you are the "non-jealous of other people's houses and creativity" type, then check out some of the newly posted blogs to the right. My guess is that you will not stay non-jealous for long.

making the dream a reality

2010-02-02T18:23:00.000-06:00

I guess you could call me a dreamer rather than a dream chaser. I haven't been as proactive as I should be when it comes to chasing after my dreams. Well, that's not completely true:
-In high school I had two dreams: graduate with a 4.5 GPA and become apart of the CCHS Chamber Choir. Results: I graduated high school with a 4.375 GPA. That's not exactly a 4.5, but it's still very good. My senior year I became apart of the Chamber Choir after 3 rounds of auditions.
-When I was 4, I pictured myself being an Auburn Tiger Paw. (That was my reason for wanting to go to Auburn as a little girl.) Result: I am not a very good dancer or athleticly inclined so no to the Tiger Paws. I was (obviously) accepted to Auburn.

I guess it' hard to chase after dreams if I don't have very many. I have always been realistic when it came to making dreams/goals for myself. What is the point in dreaming big if it will more than likely never happen?

On January 9, 2010 I began my journey to become a professional organizer. My aunt, Jane, has so grciously opened her home to be my "model" home. I wasn't expecting this job to be such hard work, but after spending 5 hours organizing, I was sore the next day. 5 hours...wow...that is a lot. And yes, it is. 5 hours of removing every last thing from all the cabinets. Then sorting the junk, er, stuff into various piles (keep, trash, donation). After that, comes the organization meaning putting everything back which makes the most sense in usefulness. It's a lot harder than it sounds. I have this science in my head, and it might only make sense to me.

The below pictures are "Before" and "After" shots of Jane's kitchen. Please remember this is my first job so I am working with a $0 budget. Plus this room took me total 6 to 7 hours to transform (2 days).

first day on the job as a pro organizer with my assistant, Tyson. :)

Enjoy...

The "Before" is first followed by the "After"

pantry #1

pantry #2

medicine cabinet

cup cabinet

underneath storage

"under the sink" cleaning cabinet

countertop

one month down in oh-ten

2010-02-01T11:42:00.000-06:00

One month down and eleven left to go in 2010. So far I am keeping my resolution of eating better and exercising. It hasn't been easy, but when there's no more junk food in the house, it seems to be easier. That doesn't mean that I haven't found ways to junk up my eating. Just last night I had the urge. Y'know what urge I am talking about: the one where all you want is something sweet. So I ate a packet of 100 calorie cookies. That doesn't sound bad at all, does it? Well, I can't forget to add that I dipped each tiny cookie in a tub of vanilla whipped icing. Yep, that did the trick.

I don't cheat like that often, but I try to keep it to where I have some healthy mixed in. Even if it totally negates the healthy vs the junk, I always feel less guilty about splurging.

In my attempts to stay on track, I find that staying cyber-accountable will truly help. If I start slacking, be sure to stay on top of me (that's what she said) about my resolution updates. As of yesterday (1/31/10), I have lost 3 pounds. go, me! Losing 3/4 lbs over 4ish weeks really isn't that bad. I am well underway for losing 10 pounds in 5 months. My reward for meeting my goal is a new swimsuit.

Let's not forget Daniel...
Daniel's resolution is progressing quite well. He received his P90X in the mail last Thurday. We watched the intro and part of the first workout session dvds. Holy smokes! This is SERIOUS business! Daniel is SERIOUS business! Friday night he did The Fit Test (which consisted of various exercise routines such as pull-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, vertical leap, and sit 'n reach) and I took a few pictures of him. Gotta have the "before" shots. I am sorry to say that I am not allowed to show you those pics at this time. Maybe once he finished, he will want to show the world.

I thought about doing The Fit Test, but decided against it very quickly. I have never been one to feel the urge to measure my heart rate about jumping jacks for 2 minutes straight. I am doing The Biggest Loser and he is doing P90X. Now that's not to say that I haven't joined him in his dvd workout.

Saturday morning I woke up to find Daniel face down on the living room floor breathing heavily. This is how intense it is, people! Then, Sunday morning we decided to try out the next dvd. Ummm, we made it about halfway through the dvd before we had to call it quits. And today I am slow to walk. Daniel seems to be making it just fine.

more to come...

other than me

2010-01-19T10:21:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I tend to get a little wrapped up in only blogging about myself that I leave off information about Daniel and the dogs. If I wasn't blogging at all, then who would even blog about our life anyway? More than likely no one since no one in my family is a persistant blogger. So you are stuck with "the Todd's" blog which is mostly about Leslie.

However, today I will update the world on Daniel, my precious husband. Daniel hasn't had an emotionally easy month or so. With MeMe's death being around the holidays, it has taken a lot out of him physically, mentally, and emotionally. He became almost zombie like for a few days, which is acceptable, but also scary since I had never seen him like that before. He is extremely strong emotionally and was able to find a happy place and is learning to move on. It hasn't been the easiest thing to do, but he is a fighter. I am thankful to report that he is back to his ol' self now.

Last week Daniel started up another semester of school. He is taking 3 classes (which includes one internet class), and I know he will do wonderful! He has become super focused on accomplishing his goal to attain a degree. And for me, it makes me so proud to have a husband who has educational goals. (Leslie's PSA: Education is very important. Please don't let life pass you by without learning something new everyday.) He is a machine: he works 40 hours a week and will sit in a classroom for 3 hours at night. This is his job right now and it will pay off in the long run.

Meanwhile, the dogs are still loving and crazy as ever. Their favorite days are the ones where we stay at home, and they can run free inside and out. Tyson loves being outside as much as he does inside so he is known to go outside and lay in the grass about 8 times a day. He will try to get Jackson to chase him by making circles int he yard. Jackson usually just sits by the backdoor and watches him. Jackson will take advantage of going outside with Tyson multiple times a day, but only to get a treat when he comes back in. And on days that there is bread for treats, you can count on opening and closing the door at least 50 times. They love some bread!

keeping my promise

2010-01-18T15:06:00.000-06:00

2010 is already 1/24th complete and it really doesn't feel any different from 2009. Lots of my facebook friends have commented about how great 2010 is and will be. I am just not there yet. Am I missing something?

My resolution is well under way and it feels nice to eat "healthier" again. One vegetable and a salad are required for every dinner. I have drastically reduced my sweet intake. I don't feel like I need to eat a huge bowl of ice cream after dinner every night. The key is learning to control myself once my stomach is full. It hasn't been easy especially since Daniel continues that habit to some extent.

My hardest hurdle to overcome is realizing that I am a girl and I can't afford to continue eating like a growing teenage boy. Those days are the past and I miss them tremendously. I remember when I was about 15 Mom said that when it came to food consumption that she felt like she had a teenage son by the way that I used to eat. She actually thought she would dodge the bullet by not having to feed growing teenage boys mouths, but then I became a teenager. She was gravely mistaken. I could out eat most of my boyfriends during high school. And I am fairly certain that I can outeat Daniel. Oh heck...I have done that plenty of times already. He is no match for my stomach.

With the eating healthier has come exercising. A little over a week ago, we bought The Biggest Loser for wii and it is not joke! It is serious exercising compared Wii Fit. I actually broke a sweat! And I hate sweating...blah. I can't complain too much about it since it is working. I have lost 2-ish pounds since breaking a sweat. Go, me! 2 down and 8 more to go! The bad thing is that this past Saturday I over did it. I have had the WORST Charlie horse, ever! My right calf muscle is so tight that it feels like a brick. And you know that I can barely walk too. This injury is not good since it is restraining me from exercising.

Leslie Todd, the next big thing (in the organizing world)

2010-01-05T16:26:00.000-06:00

When I was a little girl, I always remember keeping a clean/neat room. Every Saturday was "chore day" and Sis and I would have to clean up our rooms along with other duties. As I grew older, I would always rearrange my room and frequently reorganize my drawers. My room was my pride and joy, because it was my responsiblity. If I ever had a friend or visitor come to my house, I would ALWAYS have them come see my room. It didn't matter who you were, you were coming to see my room. I am even like that today only with the whole house. If you are a guest in my home, be expected to take a tour of the house as soon as you come in the front door. I have cleaned the house especially for you so humor me.

In the 5th and 6th grades, I would rearrange/clean out/organize my classmates' tubs. (All of our books and notebooks wouldn't fit under our desk seats so we had plastic tubs to go under the book rack that attached under our seat.) Yes, I was extremely nerdy, but I loved being able to help my peers simplify their lives with a clean tub. In some ways, I always knew they would get better grades because of their clean and organized tub, and they would have me to thank.

While visiting home during the college years, somehow it was my duty to organize the kitchen cabinets and drawers. I was the only one (oh, lucky me) who was able to clean out the Lazy Susan cabinet in the kitchen. For some strange reason Sissy nor Mom couldn't seem to do as good of a job as I with cleaning that particular cabinet out (or maybe they were pushing the work off on me).

My love for organizing grew exponentially when I started watching "Clean Sweep" on TLC in college. I was a sophomore in college and I would clean out and organize my "under the bed" tubs at least twice per show.

I can't really remember exactly when it started (maybe high school), but I have organized Sissy's closet at least 10 or more times. The deal always was whatever clothes Sis didn't want/or couldn't wear, I would have dibs. I have received a lot of hand-me-downs over the past few years from Sis. Just take a look at one time's fun cleaning out process:

Before

After

Frankly the pictures don't do it justice: the mess and the post-mess.

After years of cleaning and organizing my stuff along with others', my dream of becoming a professional organizer seemed out of reach. How many professional organizers do you know who live in Alabama? I mean this is like a big city and TV show type of a job. I had come to grips that this was a dream that I would die still wanting to achieve it until I actually met one...

Daniel is currently involved in a 9 month guys bible study. Back in October, his group had a spouse get-togerther at one of his group leaders' houses. After a wonderful meal, we had to go around and introduce ourselves. Y'know...the usual stuff: how long you have been married, jobs, kids, etc. I never expected one of the wives to say that her job is being a certified professional organizer. Immediately Daniel and I looked at each other and my dream of being a professional organizer suddenly jumped into the reality category. Of course, I talked with her about her profession and her schooling afterwards. She really helped direct show me the direction that I need to go.

Starting this Saturday, I begin my first official, unofficial job of working as a "professional" organizer. My first house is my Aunt Jane's. I call it my "dummy" house, but it might be more appropriately named my first "model" home. And when I say I am doing the house, I mean I am doing the whole house (minus the bedrooms)! I am starting in the kitchen and working my way to the other end of the house, not to mention the basement. I might need an entire year just to clean out the basement.

I am super excited about this door that God has opened for me. I have no idea where this path will take me or how "professional" I will become. I can only trust Him and be faithful in using my gifts to serve and honor Him.

New Year's and Resolutions

2010-01-01T19:20:00.000-06:00

2010 is upon us and WOW! 2009 was quite eventful:
-buying our first "together" son, Tyson
-buying our first house!
-moving/painting our first house
-Sis and Josh were married
-MeMe's death
- Sis moving to Germany to be with Josh

Am I missing something else? oh yeah, over that span I gained about 10 pounds. Just being frank with everyone. It bothered me at first, but then I have grown used to my new expanded self.

...which brings me to this year's resolutions. Daniel and I were talking a few nights ago about losing weight and what it will take for that to happen. I suggested that instead of "losing weight" that our resolution needs to be "to eat healthier and exercise more". I think starting at the source of the problem will (hopefully) influence the decrease in weight. I could be completely wrong, but it seems like a better place to start than to just automatically start losing weight. We will see how far this resolution will take us.

I am pleased to say that 2009's resolutions of reading and cooking more were met. (See here for a recap.) I read approximately 4-5 new books and actually learned how to cook using a recipe! 2009 was the first year that I have been able to keep to my resolutions all year. I think the key to keeping resolutions is to do something that you once had a passion for and pick up doing it again (such as reading). Or to try something new that you have always wanted to do, but were never given the chance to do (such as cooking).

New Year's Eve picture.

Happy New Year's! May God bless you and your family this year.

Christmas 2009 Recap

2009-12-31T14:59:00.000-06:00

It never fails to feel like Christmas until the day after especially since graduating from college. Does this mean I am getting old? eh, probably. I guess, that's life.

The Todd's 2nd Christmas together was quite enjoyable. Since we spent Thanksgiving at the beach this year, we spent Christmas Eve and Day with Daniel's mom's side. It's funny how God works. Last year we did the opposite: Thanksgiving in Maylene and Christmas at the beach. With everything that happened over the past couple of weeks, we were both glad to stay in town and spend time with his side.

Friday, December 18th Sis, Mamski, and Dad came over for the Brindley Christmas gift swap. It was super fun and we ordered Hungry Howie's (one of mom's favs). It was good to spend time with them since it has been and will be harder to get the 6 of us together. I am sad to say that we missed Josh not being there. He was there in spirit though. The next day (Saturday, December 19th) was the Schmitt Christmas at Granmolli and Granddaddy's house. Our family is gorwing and adding new members by marriage and birth every year. It's hard to believe that Sis and I don't necessarily have to sit in the kitchen nook anymore since we are older now. The nook is reserved for the newest generation.

Monday, December 21st Daniel, Mamski, Jane, Rhiannon, and I went to the airport to wish Sissy a safe flight to Germany. She officially moved there on a temporary basis. Everyone did very well with keeping it together until it was time to say our good-byes. Thankfully, we can skype with her so missing her hasn't been too bad.

Thursday, December 24th we spent the day cleaning and other various tasks. I finally finished with both of the dogs' Christmas fleece blankets. I decided that it would be a great idea to make each dog their very own fleece blanket. They are used to sleeping on one of our good blankets at night. I was tired of having it smell like dog and not being able to use it for myself. After hours of hard work, I finished both blankets and they are super cute! Jackson may love his more than Tyson does, but it's okay. They are both being used and I have my blanket back. Christmas Eve night we ate supper at Uncle Tommy and Lynda's house.

Friday, December 25th we woke up to Santa having been at our house. The dogs laid around on their blankets while playing with some of their new toys. Daniel surprised me (like he always does) with more gifts than I had purchased for him. Our plan was our new bedroom tv was our Christmas gift to each other. Obviously Dnaiel didn't think that was enough so he managed to give me a new watch, how to speak German, Germany travel book, and lots of candy. After getting ready, we went over to his mom's house for breakfast. That night everyone came over to our house for "homemade" lasagna.

The sad part about this Christmas is that Daniel and I did not get one picture together. I am sad about that.

Jackson and Tyson in front of the tree (the best we could do)

2009-12-28T20:59:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Jackson and Tyson sure did!

(more to come on that later.)

letting go

2009-12-23T20:46:00.000-06:00

2009 is coming to an end and there has been so much to happen! Daniel and I completed our first year of marriage. I must say I think the second year will be harder than the first though. We are slowly settling into the married life. I must thank Mom and Dad right here, because they prepared me for letting someone know what is going on all the time. Little did I know that they were prepping me for marriage when they would ask 50 million questions about what I was doing, where I was going, when I was going to be home, etc.

Enough about that...

2009 for me has been the year of "letting go". I have learned to let go of a lot of things: Sis, MeMe, friends, my perception of other people, caring about what others think, and frankly just the reality of my life as I know it.

Monday, December 21: I said "good-bye" to my little sister. She stepped on the plane to travel halfway around the world to start the rest of her life with her husband, Josh. It's weird to think that Sis and I are old enough to be married. I still think of her being in elementary school. I will miss her while she is there. She missed me while I was at Auburn and in some ways, Germany is her Auburn. The difference is that she can't drive 2 hours and be home. I look forward to visiting her and Josh while they are there. The Todds and Pates will reunite in the summer of 2010.

Monday, December 14: Daniel and his family tragically discovered that MeMe had passed away. It hit his entire family very hard, because she was the rock/glue of the family. She was precious and always had a smile on her face. When I first met everyone, she was the one to welcome me with open arms. She always had to give a hug and kiss when she saw you and before you parted ways. I will miss her humor and laugh. In some ways, I feel like she is still here watching over us. We will miss you, MeMe....until we meet again.

It never fails. The circle of friendship comes and goes as if on cue. I have learned to let go of best friends through various stages of my life. No friendship has been easy to let go, but this one in particular has. There's no need for details, because at the end of the day, it's really not important. In this situation, I have learned that you can tell a lot about a person's character by the way they handle a disagreement/argument. Being stubborn and prideful only get you so far in life and then comes reality. Secondly, there's no need to try to patch things up when the other person has deleted you from their life. Friendships come and go in life. Do I regret certain friendships? Never. They have made me who I am today. I have learned more from that one friendship than I could ever learn in a classroom. Do I still love this person? With my whole heart. Like I said before, friendships come to an end, but one chapter's end is another one's beginning.

It has taken my 25 years to truly understand that everyone is different. Not everyone was raised like me. I know you might think this is an elementary concept, but I have learned hard-core just how different two people can be. I learned in college what it meant to have an open-mind about my surroundings. At the time, that was a foreign concept to me, but I have learned that in order to form accurate, ethical decisions you must be open-minded. I never realized that some people don't have basic manners. Maybe their parents didn't teach them that sort of thing: to put others before yourself. Basically you must live by the Golden Rule. Yes, I must have been living partially under a rock. How does this constitute as my letting go? I am letting go of my "raising" perceptions of people. In a way, it's like letting go of my expectations of people, which I have ALWAYS held people that I knew to extremely high expectations. Not a good idea, Leslie.

If you spend your entire life worrying/caring about what other people think, you will die at a very young age. I am not saying you shouldn't "dress to impress", but if you dress like a million bucks every day, how far up the ladder will that get you? a minimal raise? sure. a pat on the back? possibly. a thank you for your hard work? don't hold your breath. Sometimes you can do your best only to find out that you might as well be sitting on your hands. Sure it's frustrating, but are you going to let that rule your life? The great thing about your life is that you get to decide what you want to worry/care about. Just remember: no one is perfect including you and the other person. I am learning to let go of the thoughts of others and learning how to truly be "free" from the criticism of others.

"Letting go of the reality of my life as I know it" might sound a bit strange to you. Let me explain: I feel I am destined for greatness. (who doesn't, right?) Ever since I was in high school, I have always wanted to help people, whether I am a teacher, financial analysist , or counselor. There's not much that I can do help people by sitting in an office all day 5 days a week. Don't get me wrong. I love going to work every day. I love the people I work with. I just don't feel like I am really making a difference in people's lives by paying bills and invoicing for concrete utility poles. I think I am reaching an age where I ask myself, "Leslie, what do you want to do? What is your passion?" I am 25, and I am only getting older. Once Daniel and I start having kids, it will be 10 times harder to accomplish my personal goals. This is why I am starting up my own business: becoming a professional organizer. I will explain in more detail later, but this is the direction that I am heading. There's a lot to figure out, but I know that I can make a difference in someone's life. The first person who I will make a difference in is my Aunt Jane. Her house is my "dummy" and I am super excited about revamping her life.

2009 is about letting go and 2010 is about imbracing the new and unknown.

from eye twitching to amazing

2009-12-07T10:29:00.000-06:00

There's something about it. I can't deny that I am always in a good mood when the sense of accomplishment arrives. It's not hard...just takes time. This is my definition of being a nerd: a person who becomes overly estatic when something is cleaned and/or organized in a wonderful manner. Ah yes, just call me Leslie, the Nerd.

This past weekend Leslie, the Nerd, and her nerdy husband, Daniel, decided to take on (yet again for about the 6th time) the mess in the garage. It drives me NUTS to see crap laying around when I know that it can be and should be put away. I am very much the person who has always tried to put everything back in its original place once I am finished using it. It ~~sometimes~~ always blows my mind that people let their clutter consume their lives. If you just take a few minutes a day and "clean up", then you wouldn't have as big of a problem later on. I am reminded of the preschool song that I would sing to either my MDO class or while babysitting: the clean-up song. It goes "clean-up, clean-up. everybody do their share". So simple and easy that even a preschooler can understand.

Back to the mess:
So this was a long time coming. Daniel has been collecting various types of wooden boards in order to make his very own work bench in the garage. I think it's great that he has that desire and actually knows how to make it! He is handy to have around. In the midst of the collecting, he has brought in more grass, spiders, and dirt than I am willing to let into our home. Plus he was staking everything up in front of the "junk" pile that I am in charge of organzing/donating/decreasing until it all goes away. So how could I organize my pile with his stuff in the way? Yesterday we changed that.

In just about 3 hours, our garage went from making my eyes twitch to it being very livable and enjoyable to look at. We mounted a shelf that he got from his dad. And I must say it helps A LOT with the strorage factor. Then I busted out the little shop-vac and proceeded to vacuum up every spider/cobweb and blade of dead grass that I could find. Daniel worked on getting his tool box in order. His tool box still is not as "together" as I would like it, but he has quickly reminded me that his tool box is his stuff. Fair enough.

He borrowed a saw-type-of-a-thing from his friend so he is planning on building his workbench this week! Yay for progress! Once that is complete, then I will be the one holding us up with the junk pile. I plan on tackling that this weekend though. I really should have taken "before", "progressive", and "after" shots of the garage to have documentation of the fantastic teamwork that Daniel and I possess. Eh, I will always remember it in my memory and that gives me nightmares just thinking about it.

time to get a'shopping

2009-11-30T16:32:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving down, and Christmas up next.

Just over 3 weeks until Christmas is here. Seriously, time does fly. And it flies faster and faster every year.

Daniel, Jackson, Tyson, and I spent Thanksgiving at the beach with Mamski, Dad, Sis, Paul, and Carolyn. We all had a wonderful time. It was nice to have the parents together swapping stories. It's moments like those that I have learned to cherish more and more as I grow older.

I think I gained at least 5 pounds while we were there. We ate non-stop. For Thanksgiving dinner, we ended up with 8 or 9 different desserts. That's no lie either. I loved them all.

We were able to get our Christmas card picture made as well. We tried something different this year since we were at the beach. I haven't studied all of the pics yet, but there looked like a few good ones. Stay tuned for the pricture winner...

DWWD

2009-11-25T14:22:00.000-06:00

Why is it that people love to ignore history? All of my life, especially in school, I have learned that history repeats itself. Whether its with the stock market, economy, wars, or rulers/presidents, there's no denying that the repetition of history is part of the circle of life.

This Iron Bowl Friday Auburn has the opportunity to keep the "circle of life" going. There's a lot of history stacked against the Tide beating Auburn this year. Yes, they have a good team, but just read the facts. I believe history will be faithful in its repetition in 2009. Below are 2 more emails that I received from Tiger Rags. I don't know about you, but it has me pumped up for game time! WDE! DWWD!

On November 27th, 2009, Black Friday will take on new meaning here on the Plains. It's a day that signifies 20 years since Alabama first came to Auburn for the Iron Bowl back in 1989. After many Alabama fans and athletic staff members agreed that Alabama would never play Auburn on the Plains, it finally happened in 1989. Since then, the Tigers lead the series 11-9 overall, holding a 7-2 advantage in Jordan-Hare Stadium and even a 4-1 record on Alabama's home turf.
When Alabama made their first trip to Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium on December 2nd, 1989, they entered with 10 wins, no losses and were ranked #2 in the nation. They left with 10 wins, 1 loss and an ORANGE and BLUE stain on an otherwise perfect record.
The Alabama Crimson Tide made their second visit to Jordan-Hare Stadium in 1993 following their 1992 National Championship and back-to-back down years for the Auburn Tigers. Alabama was coached by the popular and successful Gene Stallings while Auburn welcomed new head man Terry Bowden to his first Iron Bowl. Alabama entered the game 8-1-1 having lost to LSU and tied Tennessee earlier in the season. Alabama packed up their 21-1-1 record from the past two seasons and headed to the Plains for what now would be a regular trip for the Tide.

-from Tiger Rags email

Here's another...

The Alabama Crimson Tide made their second visit to Jordan-Hare Stadium in 1993 following their 1992 National Championship and back-to-back down years for the Auburn Tigers. Alabama was coached by the popular and successful Gene Stallings while Auburn welcomed new head man Terry Bowden to his first Iron Bowl. Alabama entered the game 8-1-1 having lost to LSU and tied Tennessee earlier in the season. Alabama packed up their 21-1-1 record from the past two seasons and headed to the Plains for what now would be a regular trip for the Tide.

Terry Bowden’s first season on the Plains certainly surpassed expectations after Pat Dye stepped down as head coach following a five-win season in 1992. Auburn entered the game 10-0 with only the defending National Champions standing in their way. After falling behind 14-5 early, the Tigers backup quarterback Patrick Nix stepped in and threw a 35 yard touchdown pass to Frank Sanders and the SEC’s leading rusher James Bostic rumbled for a 70 yard touchdown to seal the Crimson Tide’s fate in a 22-14 Auburn win.

In 2009, Alabama will likely bring a two season record of 23-2 into the 1:30pm “Black Friday” kickoff in Jordan-Hare. Like in 1993, Auburn is coming off a five-win season. Once again, Auburn is introducing a new coaching staff to their first Iron Bowl while Alabama will be coached by the popular and successful Nick Saban. Chizik will not take a 10-0 record into the game like Bowden, but he is entering with a new offensive scheme, one of the SEC’s top rushers and a stadium full of supporters who echo the Auburn creed’s “I Believe in Auburn…”

Alabama shut-out the Tigers 17-0 in Coach Dye’s last game in 1992 and 36-0 in Coach Tuberville’s last game in 2008. The 1993 Tigers followed up the shut-out with a 22-14 win over the Tide. The 2009 Tigers have a score to settle as well.

-from Tiger Rags email

I believe in Auburn and love it

2009-11-24T15:01:00.000-06:00

Not only does this week mark another great American holiday, Thanksgiving, but it is the week of the Iron Bowl. Living in Alabama, Thanksgiving tends to get overlooked. Families turn on each other. Brothers are enemies. Friends become strangers. Houses are divided. Yep, nothing like the good ol' Iron Bowl to bring out the school spirit in people.

I was asked today if (under any circumstance...including if it benefits Auburn) I would ever cheer for Alabama. My answer was...always will be...and will never stray from "no". For some reason that was shocking and somehow I should explain my answer. With all of the "tolerance" in the world, do I really have to define/explain/defend why I stand firmly behind my decision to support my alma mater by cheering against its biggest rival? I don't think so, but if that leaves you unsatisfied, please read the story below. I received the below story from the Tiger Rags store, where I am a member of their email newsletters. I plan on posting a couple of more Tiger Rags emails over the next couple of days. It's funny how history can repeat itself.

In 1971, Coach Shug Jordan’s Auburn football team had a 9-1 season that ended with a 31-7 loss at the hands of Alabama at Legion Field in Birmingham. The next year, Auburn lost 13 players to graduation and the NFL (including the Sullivan-to-Beasley combination), so most experts didn’t expect much from the Tigers in 1972. Aside from a hiccup against LSU in Baton Rouge, the Tigers roared through the 1972 schedule and were 8-1 heading into the annual meeting with Alabama on December 2nd.

Prior to the game, Alabama coach Bear Bryant was quoted saying “I’d rather beat that cow college than beat Texas 10 times.” (Alabama was playing Texas in the Cotton Bowl in January). Presumably, Coach Bryant referred to Auburn as the “cow college” based on its agricultural background.

Alabama was undefeated and ranked #2 in the nation coming into the game and raced out to a 16-0 lead by the 4th quarter. Auburn placekicker Gardner Jett put a field goal on the board midway through the final frame and left the game in the hands of a capable defense from that point on. A Tiger walk-on, Bill Newton, and defensive back David Langner stole the show from that point forward. Newton blocked two Alabama punts that were scooped up by David Langner. He ran both blocked punts in for Auburn touchdowns to give the Tigers a 17-16 victory over the mighty, and heavily favored, Alabama Crimson Tide in a game now known, as Punt Bama Punt.

After the game, Coach Bryant regretted his comment and said he would never refer to Auburn as a cow college ever again. (We're not sure why his faithful followers haven't followed his lead.)

The 1972 Auburn football team is often referred to as “The Amazins” after their impressive season that included a 24-3 victory over Colorado in the Gator Bowl in December.

-from Tiger Rags email

the makings of a new Leslie

2009-11-18T14:38:00.000-06:00

2009 has been the year of fixing the "broken down" Leslie. At 25 I am literally falling apart, and I have discovered just how fragile I really am. Seriously, am I 25 or 85? My body might not have a clue with all of the problems that I have had.

In the middle of the year, I thought I was going to have shoulder surgery since I could not lift my left arm without screaming and crying. I had never had so much pain shoot through my body before. Driving, taking a shower, and putting on/taking off clothes, were things that I could hardly do without lifting/rotating my left arm. It's amazing just how much you use your left shoulder throughout the day.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night laying on my back with my left arm over my head. I bursted into tears as I tried to lower it...s.l.o.w.l.y. I woke Daniel to have him get me an ice pack because it was throbbing. ugh. It makes my eyes water just thinking about that horrible night.

Thanks to my husband's suggestion, he took me to the chiropractor. After my 10 weeks of rehab, I have been great ever since. If you have never been to a chiropractor before, I HIGHLY suggest that you go. You have never known what great feels like until you are adjusted and popped. It's like your individual vertebrae is floating on a cloud.

While at the chiropractor, they took some x-rays to see what the shoulder problem was (which turned out to be a pinched nerve), and they found something else (of course). The curvature of my neck is backwards and it puts a lot of pressure on the base of my neck and shoulders. Because of this increased pressure, I have migraines. (eureka!) Finally, an explanation on why I have migraines other than the typical causes that neurologists have given me in the past (lack of sleep, certain foods/drinks, stress). I must say that I have had about 2 migraines since going to the chiropractor (which is about one every 2 months). I will take it! I had gotten to where I had one every month, but one every other month is great! (You have to remember this is coming from the girl who had 1 to 2 migraines per week in college. Umm, yeah...not fun.)

My previous ordeal dealt with my ingrown toenail. (You can relive that memory here. There's no need to document that experience twice.) Just an update on the toe: it's pretty much healed. I am so thankful to be able to walk on my right big toe again.

This brings me to my latest problem: receeding gums on my lower front 2 teeth. I noticed it earlier in the year when my teeth started hurting. It got so bad that I was having to put orajel and pop pain pills just to go to sleep. After doing the dentist's suggestions for 6 months (using a soft toothbrush, don't brush hard, use sensitive toothpaste), I told him that it wasn't working and the gums were still receeding. He referred me to a periodontist (gum doctor) to see about having a gum graft done. (a what?! scary.)

My consultation with Dr. Kent was yesterday. She did recommend a gum graft on my lower front 2 teeth (ugh great). They would get the gum from a donor bank (like as in a dead person?!! yes), and donated gum would be stripped of anything living like blood cells and vessels. She prefers using a donor bank to limit the procedure to just one instead of two. She said in the past they would use existing gum from the top pallette of the patient. Then the roof of their mouth would hurt worse in healing and have more problems later on than if they just used a donor. Hey, sounds good to me...kinda creepy, but could it get worse? After having the procedure done, she reassured me that it would cure my problem and prevent more recession in that area in the future. I am pretty sure that I am waiting until after the first of the year to have it done. The healing period is about 6 weeks, but I won't be down for that long.

With all of my problems and cures, it's like I am becoming a new, better Leslie. I have cost us a lot of money this year, but thank goodness for health/dental insurance (until univeral health care takes over).
-left shoulder pain: cured!
-migraines: more cured than they have ever been
-ingrown toenail: healed
-gum recession: will be cured in 2010

I better live for a long time after all of my repairs. Ü

time? it goes fast.

2009-11-13T19:40:00.000-06:00

On New Year's Day 2010, it will be 3 years since the above picture was taken. I remember this trip very well. It was the first time that Daniel went with me down to the beach house. We had only been "officially" boyfriend and girlfriend for less than a week. Mom asked Daniel the 2nd night we were there if he was in love with me. It's funny how mothers know things before the rest of us do. Her inkling was right.

Do I have abnormal memories of my childhood Christmas decorating days?

2009-11-12T15:20:00.000-06:00

The holidays is my absolute favorite time of year (despite what some people think according to my fb personal quiz. It's not my birthday although that is also a joyous time of year.). My favorite part of the Christmas season is all the memories I have of when I was younger. I LOVED getting out the Christmas decorations. That might be in my top 5 days throughout the year.

We would spend the entire day in our pajamas. (SOLD!) Any day that lets me be in my pj's all day is always a good day. As much as I love getting ready, I have really grown to love being lazy at home. The older I get the more I appreciate it. There's nothing like being at home all day and relaxing either by cleaning, organizing, sleeping, and/or watching tv espcially after having to get up and ready during the week to work.

Back to what I was saying before I daydreamed about being at home in my pj's. (pure bliss, people!) We would spend the entire day in our pj's listening to classic Christmas cd's such as Vince Gill, 'N Sync, and The Carpenters. Mom would go to the basement and gather which boxes had the decorations in them. Dad would be outside basically the entire day either doing yardwork and/or putting up the outside decorations. If Dad was putting up the outside decorations (wreaths on the windows, garland on the porch, and white lights everywhere), then either Sis or I would have to help him. Sissy typically would help Dad outside since I love being indoors and I was the designated duster. I had to dust every piece of furniture just like any other Saturday chore day. After dusting, Mom would turn the living room upside down rearranging for the tree. The blinds on the front window would be up and I can still see Mom standing in the middle of the furniture with her hands on her hips. She always did her best thinking with her hands on her hips.

Once she figured out how the furniture would be arranged, I had to make sure that it was precisely correct/perfect. You know that we Brindleys are perfectionists. I even recall Mom having the piano rolled over her toe in the midst of moving the furniture around. It's never fun to see your mom crying because she is in so much pain.

With the new living room layout, we were able to get out/bring in the tree. We started out with a fake tree. Then they decided a real tree from Marvin's is the best deal. After a few years of doing that, they bought another fake tree. I loved going to Marvin's and staying in the freezing cold. I always liked a certain tree that we never seemed to get. Oh well. Mom would say, "Leslie, our ceilings are not that tall. The tree will look bigger in the house." Too bad she was right. The tiny Charlie Brown tree that we ended up buying always turned into the Elf tree. In the early years, Dad would put the lights around the tree. As the years went by, Sis and I got that job. I would hold the strand as she ever so OCD-like placed the strand on the branches. The ornaments were a great part of tree decorating. My favorite ornament was my "Baby's First Christmas". It is way cuter and prettier than Sissy's. I think she was secretly jealous of how beautiful it is.

After decorating the living room, dining room, and kitchen, we finally could decorate our rooms! That was my VERY favorite part of decorating! I loved getting out all of our Christmas stuffed animals: Miss Piggy, Kermit, Fonzo the bear, Rodney, Randy, Rhonda, Ramona (reindeer), and other various plushed items. Every night I would sleep with every single one of them with my ceramic Christmas tree and window candle lit. One time I remember laying underneath the lit Christmas tree with all of my animals. If I could completely fit under the tree again, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I know you had Randy, Rhonda, Randy, and Ramona as a small child.

This has me thinking: I really miss these guys. I might try to bid on some on eBay. Or if you are thinking of getting me something special this year, this would work. I might even kiss you on the mouth since I would be so excited!

too early?

2009-11-09T12:31:00.000-06:00

Is it ever too early to start listening to Christmas music? It is close to the middle of November and the temperatures are still topping the mid-60s to lower-70s during the day. Maybe if I start listening to Christmas music while at work (like I have done today), then the weather will drop and the days will go by a little faster. Now, there's no need for the days to start flying by since I am about a third done with Christmas shopping. I was doing good there for a minute. Then I had to make a decision: do I pay the bills, or buy Christmas gifts? Too bad for the Christmas gifts because the bills won. (Just a hint: the bills ALWAYS win.)

See, I am a very weird person. I actually like paying bills. There's nothing better than pay day and sitting down and paying the bills. It makes me feel like a grown-up. I haven't always had the desire to pay my own bills until I was in college. I hated living 2 hours away and still being under the parents. My minimun wage, 15 hour a week job couldn't come close to supporting me. That was just enough for groceries and "fun" money. I always told myself that I would NEVER, EVER in a MILLION years complain about having to pay for my own bills. In fact, I welcomed it with open arms because I am an excllent manager of money. You should ask Daniel. I completely transformed his life...in more ways that one. (hehe)

I am so anxious for December to be here that I am "patiently" waiting to decorate the house. Daniel isn't too keen on decorating before we leave for the beach for Thanksgiving, but I am slowly talking him into it. I think it would really help and make me feel good to at least have the inside decorated (or mostly decorated) before our trip. Sis and I have done that many times in the past. Sis, remember that one year when we didn't tell Dad that we were decorating the house before the beach trip and he came back from T'giving with the house completely decorated? aww, that was fun.

So no objections to my Christmas decorating/listening to Christmas music idea? okay, good. Then that settles it. Novemeber 9th is not too early.

things that rock and some that don't even come close

2009-11-06T14:08:00.000-06:00

In an effort to keep up with the latest peer pressures of my high school classmates (yes, I know that high school was over 7 years ago, but it still happens!), I have decided to make a list of things that rock and some that don't for the mom job website. This website can turn a boring, laughless day into a great one. (And I totally mean it, Amanda!)

things that rock:
-anything and everything Vera Bradley. If you have read at least one of my blog entries, then you would already know this.
-light 280 on a Friday at lunch. Traffic on 280 today at lunch time was extremely light. It was almost spooky.
-PB&J sandwiches. These have come to be a work lunch favorite. I have steered clear of them for the past 20 years since that is ALL I fed as a small child...well, at least it seemed like it was.

things that don't:
-Friday afternoons that seem to drag on forever. Friday afternoons are THE worst part of the week and always seem to drag longer than any other part of the week. bleh.
-waking up early on the weekend in order to be responsible. Tomorrow is supposed to be the best day for me to sleep in. Will I this weekend? uh, no. I have to get up early and take care of my car (ie. oil change, alignment, and rotation and balanced). The place closes at 2 and it's in Trussville, which is a 45 minute drive from our house. double bleh. You might ask why I can't go somewhere closer to my house to have this work done. And I will answer you with this: I really like this place...like REALLY do! (duh) So much so, that I will drive 45 minutes AND get up early on a Saturday to have them work on it.

One Year of Marital Bliss

2009-11-04T20:11:00.000-06:00

After one year of marital bliss, Daniel and I celebrated our one year anniversary the first weekend in October. I can't decide if it feels like it has been a long or speedy year. I will have to say both for these facts:
*Long, because I feel like I have known Daniel all my life. We just click, and he knows me WAY better than I thought anyone could....so much so that it's scary.
*Speedy, because it seems like yesterday we were planning the wedding. I do NOT miss those days at all and they don't feel like they were over a year ago.

To celebrate our fantastic year, we were able to spend an evening at Ross Bridge Resort. A HUGE thanks to Dad for babysitting Jackson and Tyson!

The view from our balcony was incredible! Daniel REALLY wanted to play golf. Too bad there wasn't enough time or money for that.

As part of my gift, Daniel gave me a gift certificate to the Vera Bradley store. As soon as we got to Ross Bridge and changed clothes, we decided we had just enough time for me to spend it. (See my new purse.) After a quick 30 minutes at the VB store (and it was quick), we headed to The Melting Pot for dinner. I was a little nervous and not sure what to expect, but Daniel assured me that it was great food. I had heard how expensive it is, but never knew the food was THAT good! It was my most incredible meal that I have had in a long time. I certainly didn't prepare myself for just how much food we would get. We had four courses: #1 spinach and artichoke dip, #2 salad, #3 main meal, #4 oreo/marshmellow chocolate. Of course everything but the salad was fonadu.

I believe the above picture was right after I thought I was going to vomit from stuffing my face.

Afterwards we headed back to the resort to watch the rest of the Auburn/Tennessee game. Daniel popped the bubbly just like he did the year prior.

And we raised our glasses to salute our first year of marriage. Daniel told me "Here's to one down and three more to go." Hmm...he tries too hard to be a comedian.

Daniel sipped and I inhaled the champagne while watching the rest of the game. I passed out during the 4th quarter after I nearly jinxed us by saying that Auburn would win their game this year as opposed to last. (On our wedding day, Auburn lost to Vanderbilt. It was a sad ride from the airport to the resort on our wedding night.) When I finally woke back up Daniel asked if I had been sleeping and in my drunken state I simply replied, "sometimes".

Sunday after check out, we went to The Egg and I in Hoover. Honestly it really wasn't all that great. It reminded me of IHOP only a lot smaller and tighter. We headed back home to relieve Dad of his dog duties and brought out our wedding cake. I wasn't 100% sure just how good it was going to taste, but surprisingly it was still semi-moist.

And as Daniel said, "Here's to one down, and three more to go!" May we have many more anniversaries to come.

Halloween 2009

2009-10-30T08:43:00.001-05:00

Happy Halloween from the Todds:

Daniel, Leslie, Jackson, and Tyson

the fall air

2009-10-23T14:39:00.000-05:00

Other than making curtains and buying VB, the fall season is quickly getting from me. I haven't truly taken advantage of the weekends like I would like. Don't get me wrong: I have been taking advantage of sleeping in as much as I can. You are NEVER going to see pass up that opportunity unless something is seriously wrong.

While I slept, spent, and created, Daniel has taken advantage of the open season. It started last Thursday, which the only way I remember is that his anniversary present delivered. His anniversary gift from me was a new hunting bow...how apporpriate. Before you get any ideas, I don't know any other details. He actually ordered it himself. Wasn't that sweet of me? I told him my money amount to him and he did the picking out. It worked out for the best since I have NO idea about hunting stuff.

To celebrate his gift and open season, Daniel and his friend, Renan, went hunting both Saturday and Sunday mornings. They were so precious in their camo gear. I need to take a picture of Daniel in his outfit and new toy. I can already hear the bickering about taking that picture.

The weekends to Thanksgiving and Christmas are disappearing. Thankfully I started our Christmas shopping during the summer. I picked up a few items here and there, but nothing big...until this past Wednesday. I love being able to find great gfits for people at an expensive price. It kills me to have to buy something at full price...no matter what it is. Gift-buying is no different. Why would I spend full price on a gift and max out on that one item? I like giving people a sack full of goodies (just like Santa).

lost in translation

2009-10-22T15:41:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's just a phase. It's getting ridiculous though. For some reason, I feel like I am the Tower of Babel. When I say something/send an e-mail, something strange happens" it's like I never spoke or sent the e-mail. There is no reply of any sort. Now this wouldn't concern me if it was just one aspect of my life, but it is present in all areas: work, home, and friendships.

What part of these phrases isn't clear/ambiguous?
-Please scan me the information as soon as you can.
-Has this shipment arrived yet?
-I have been waiting on your information/answers for 4-6 hours now. What answers do you have for me?
-The questions must be completely finished by Saturday morning. Then we will go over it together.
-How does this weekend sound?
-Do you have a problem with me?
-How are things going with you? How's life?

I know some of that doesn't make much sense, but those are just a few examples of what I am talking about. I have asked ALL of those questions at some point in time within the past week (and even one within the past 2 months). Have I gotten a response from those questions? Most of them, yes, but only if I persistently asked/stalked the person multiple times.

I know this might sound weird that I am even bringing this up, but seriously this problem has progressively gotten worse.

Maybe I need to make EXTRA efforts to make sure that both parties are on the same level. It might be easier said than done though.