Dear Congress,

I could go on about how this bill doesn't address some of the key health INSURANCE issues that need reform (at least from what I hear... as a contributing member of society, I find it hard to find the time to read a 2400 page bill), but let's talk about the fact that until Americans start living healthier lives, our healthcare costs are going to be outrageous. I am FULLY on board with health insurance reform in a fiscally responsible manner, but let's not pretend that this is something that it isn't. It is not going to fix America's health crisis until the people of this country decide to get healthy. How sad is it that studies show that this generation's life expectancy is less than that of their parents?

I'm not going to pretend I have any clue what half of this bill is going to mean for me (do any of you even understand it), but I will tell you that I'm sick of our government and the way it runs it's "businesses." Hmmmm... Social Security, the Postal Service, VA Hospitals, Medicare, etc... need I say more?

"Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them."
-Ronald Reagan

Best regards,
A tax-paying citizen and contributing member of society

P.S. This is an interesting read.

Changes

Many hours of manual labor later...

BEFORE

AFTER

We painted our shutters black and our front door red, and I LOVE IT. Mind you, this before picture was taken in September, so our landscaping was a bit more lush, but ignoring the brown plants and grass, SO MUCH BETTER. It adds some dimension and interest to the house that I think it was previously lacking. I also spray painted the little table and chair set that I found in the basement of the condo we rented. It was a yellow-ish wicker, and I took it with the intention of painting it and just never did. You can kind of see it on the right side of the front porch in both the before and after pictures. It's a temporary solution until we find something we like and are ready to spend the money on it. Read: it will probably be sitting out there in three years. There are a lot of other things I am more eager to spend my paycheck on. :)

Also, I found a mirror on major clearance at Kirkland's Outlet. It was regularly $80, but I picked it up for $15 and spray painted it black. I liked the shape. It's now in our foyer, and I think I'll love it even more once I get a table I like to go under it. There's always something to spend money on... :)

BEFORE

AFTER

Proof...

... that Spring is actually here. (please pardon the shoddy cell phone pictures)

This little beauty in one of our flower/plant beds.

Someone else trying to take up residence at our casa.

YAY!

Good Times

Oh, how I love my friends. They are one of my greatest blessings in life, and it was so good to see so many of them in one place this weekend. We were all gathered for Dai and Andrew's fabulous wedding weekend, and it was just that... fabulous!

The weekend started on Friday afternoon with a Bridesmaid Luncheon at Betty Jane France's magnificent home. Mrs. France is the widow of the NASCAR founder, Bill France. I have seriously never been (and probably never will be again) in such an amazing home, and I had to keep reminding myself that this was someone's house.

Check out this place! GORGEOUS!

That evening, we had an amazing rehearsal dinner. It was honestly the best rehearsal dinner food I've ever had, and everyone else agreed. Seafood buffet... crab claws, oysters, shrimp, mahi mahi... YUM. We CHOWED.

After not a lot of sleep at all (long story, not blogworthy), we had the wedding day! Meg, Jenn and I were up early and went to get breakfast and spent some time on the balcony looking at the beach and talking. We laughed at how we never would have thought when we all met 10 years ago that we'd be sitting here at the fourth wedding for one of our crew, talking and laughing about our husbands. I am so thankful that these girls came into my life, because they are truly lifelong friends.

The wedding was great! It was part inside and part outside, and it was the perfect day and evening to be outside. The band and dancing were outside, and once we got on the dance floor, we were all plenty warm. :) My feet were absolutely killing me the next morning, even though the heels came off as soon as we were announced at the reception. You know when you get up in the morning and your feet hit the floor and pain shoots up your legs? Yeah, that's what it felt like. So worth it though.

The next morning we had brunch with the ol' ball coach. No big deal.

The End (for now).

Musings for the day...

Any other CrossFitters out there? I just joined last week, and so far, I am liking it. I much prefer to be in a structured environment when working out, rather than doing it on my own. I've had enough experience in the gym and with a trainer to know what to do, I just get bored (and unmotivated) easily, so it's much better for me to do classes or to have someone to push me and hold me accountable. Enter CrossFit North Atlanta. The basis of CrossFit is doing workouts that are designed around the movements you do in every day life. Generally speaking, they are short, extremely high intensity workouts that encompass exercises that activate your metabolism and fat burners for longer than say a 30-minute run would. Last night, we did a workout where you had to do as many as you can in 12 minutes - 5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 overhead squats, and a widowmaker. (Not that you care, but I did four rounds plus 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 2 overhead squats). I am still doing instructional classes, so we did a lot of stuff before that, but that was the workout of the day. It seems sort of counter intuitive that you'd only workout for around 30-45 minutes, with only about 15 minutes of that being really high intensity, but looking at the folks in the gym, I'd say it works. I'll keep you posted.

Matt and I hit up the mall for a bit on Saturday, which is something we had not done together in a LONG time. He needed to exchange the sport coat I bought him for Christmas, and I needed to make a return and continue my search for skinny jeans. Well, we certainly picked the right day! We returned his sport coat, which I paid around $120 for and got him a Calvin Klein suit (regularly $550) for $225!!!! and a Ralph Lauren camel colored courderoy sport coat (that looks sooooooo good on him, I mean, complete stud ladies - regularly $275) for $60! SCORE! Then, I picked up skinny jeans (thanks Jessi!), a blazer, two cute tops and a cardigan at Banana on the cheap, thanks to a 25% coupon they handed me when I walked in the store! DOUBLE SCORE!

We are heading down to Florida this weekend for one of my bestestestest friend's wedding! Dai and Andrew are an awesome couple, and I am so happy to finally see them tie the knot. I also cannot wait to hang out with some of my favorite people, several who I haven't seen in entirely too long. It's going to be an amazing time!

I bought a mirror from Kirkland's Outlet for $15 in December. It was a very cool shape but pretty ugly. It finally got nice enough a few weekends ago for me to get outside and spray paint it, and it's now hanging in our foyer. For a total of $20 (mirror plus spray paint), it was quite a steal. I will post before and after pictures soon.

The weather is finally starting to feel like spring, and I am beyond excited. And, that's all of my musings for the day. xoxo!

I am alive.

Just been busy! But, I really did have to pop in to get this off my chest. What the heck is up with the sidebar and pop-up ads when you log on to weather.com. They seriously have some of the creepiest pictures of people that do not at all seem to go with the ad. Has anyone else noticed this!?

Also, one of my friends is in town for a work meeting, and we were supposed to get together for dinner tonight. Well, she had to cancel because they have to give some big group presentation tomorrow, so she has to prep tonight. Not a big deal, but I turned down an invitation to the Atlanta Business Chronicle's Best in Atlanta Real Estate - Deals of the Decade awards dinner tonight and a movie date with my awesome friend, Mary Stuart. Total bummer. So, now a trip to Target and Grey's/Private Practice by my lonesome are in my future.

One last thing, found out one of my other awesome friends, Jenny, and her awesome husband, Matt, are having a BABY GIRL today (hmmm, just re-read that... today I found out they are having a girl... not they are having a girl today...lol)! So excited for them.

Success or Failure?

It depends on how you look at it. I decided to give up something for Lent that would really be a sacrifice but would also be beneficial to me. No, I'm not giving up alcohol or sweets... I don't drink or eat sweets on a daily basis. I do use an alarm clock on almost a daily basis, and I am a serial snoozer. I mean, there are some mornings where I hit snooze for an hour and then run around crazy so I can get to work without being too late. It's ridiculous. So, in honor of Jesus' sacrifice of Himself for us, I am giving up the snooze button. Perhaps only my husband can understand how hard this will be, but he doesn't even fully know, because I would never hit snooze as much with him in bed next to me as I do alone.

So, how's it going, you ask? Well, I didn't decide until yesterday that my Lenten sacrifice was going to be the snooze button, so today was my first test. And, I passed. Or, I failed. Or, my alarm clock failed. I'm not sure. I use my Blackberry as my alarm clock, and unless I have a morning meeting or am hitting the gym, I set it for the same time every day. I just leave it on "Weekdays Only", and I don't have to mess with it. Well, in the last two weeks, it's decided randomly that it just doesn't want to go off. So, I didn't hit the snooze button this morning, because there wasn't a snooze button to hit.

Tomorrow will be the real test, because we're going out for dinner and drinks after work to say farewell to a co-worker who is moving (back) to NYC. God give me strength... :)

Splendiferous

It was a lovely weekend in the ATL. On Friday, before I left work early due to the snow, I received a flower delivery. Now, for most married women, their first thought would be, "What a wonderful husband." For me, I was all, "Who the heck sent me flowers!?" I honestly thought they were from a vendor or something, but lo and behold, they were from my handsome hubby! He's never ever sent me flowers before, so it was a sweet surprise. I got 18 beautiful pink, red and cream roses that are now looking gorgeous in the lovely crystal vase I got from my in-laws for Christmas.

Once I got home on Friday, Matt was suffering majorly from cabin fever (he came home Thursday night since they were expecting snow all the way down into south Georgia), so we took a nice walk through our short-lived winter wonderland. Of course, my camera died a few pictures into our walk, which was a total bummer, because we got four inches of snow, and it was prettier than it was last time.

On Saturday morning, everything was frozen solid but it thawed pretty quickly. We got outside to make a snowman before everything melted. Our snowman is still there, but he now looks more like a headless, anorexic snowman.





On Saturday evening, we went to grab dinner at Nuevo Laredo (yum) with some friends before heading to the Nuclear Coyboyz (yes, with a "z") motocross event. Um, wow. The people watching was PRIME, my friends. The premise of the event was incredibly cheesy, but I did enjoy watching them do their tricks. But, can I go back to the people watching!? Holy heck. I mean, it really doesn't get much better than an event that attracts all of the best rednecks from around Atlanta. And, I say that with love, because, hello... I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and I'd say my brother is borderline redneck. His saving grace is that he is also a surfer. So, anyways... we got a lot of laughs and cheap thrills. After that was over, we went to a new pub near our house called Ormsby's, and we will definitely be going back. They have bocce ball, shuffleboard (the table version), pool tables, darts, and a few video games (and most importantly, NO SMOKING). Also, the drinks were fairly priced, so we've found a new hangout until we hit our midnight curfew and risk turning into pumpkins.





And, yesterday, we just laid low most of the day and watched the Daytona 500 and the Olympics. I really want to be a ski jumper or downhill skier or something. Or, I'd just really like to go skiing this year. We are seriously thinking about taking a day trip up to one of the "ski resorts" (I use that term loosely, in this case) in North Carolina this weekend, because we couldn't get our crap in gear to plan a real ski trip this year. We're itching to strap on some skis and hit the slopes!

Now we're back to another week and the world keeps turning...

I WON!!! I WON!!! I WON!!!

I won the Seda France-Lavende Provincale Toile Mini Pagoda Candle from Shop Chic Coles! I've never won a blog give away before. What a nice surprise on a Monday morning!

I have a post comin' atcha later about our lovely, random weekend which included the best people watching ever at a motocross event. I thought my hometown (Jacksonville, FL) was redneck... it's got nothing on suburban Atlanta!

It's SNOWING!

Again! Everything is white, and I am about to head home to play in it. We need a lot more before any sledding can happen, but I can see some sledding in my future tomorrow before it melts. Now, I just have to figure out what exactly I can use as a sled... baking sheet?