Maryland 2.0

Two weeks ago I snuck back to Maryland for a few days.

It's funny how even after spending just shy of a week total combined in Frederick, MD I have become quite fond of the town and even fell into some sort of routine.

Per usual, LT worked all day Friday and Saturday while I proceeded to shop, drink coffee at their little cafe, meet him for lunch, and shop some more while waiting for him to get off work. In fact I did almost all my Christmas shopping while there.

Rough life, eh.

One of my favorite moments of the trip was Sunday though. LT had the day off, and since I was (HA) supposed to be flying out early Monday morning we had decided to go ahead and make the hour drive to Baltimore, spend the day on the harbor and get a hotel near the airport.

We spent nearly the entire evening just wandering around on the waterfront, ducking into shops, admiring the sites, grabbing drinks, and just talking.

Talking.

That's what I miss the most with him being gone. Is sitting across from one another, drink in hand, chatting about anything and everything for hours on end.

Phone calls just fall short.

Anyways, sob story aside. It was a really nice long weekend. We didn't do anything spectacular. Had dinner at a few spots that we had fallen in love with last time I was in town, watched a few movies, shopped a little, wandered hand in hand and just soaked up being together. It's funny how much you take the smallest things for granted.

I'm grateful he is only a short hour and half flight away, and keeping my fingers crossed that they wrap up their work there sometime soon to head home but no one really knows any info there for sure. Back to long distance'dom for now. Wahhh!

Theory of Evolution.

Last weekend I was out doing some Christmas shopping and texted my sister-in-law to see what my niece was wanting for Christmas. The response had me cracking up in the middle of TJ Maxx

I wandered through store after store looking for some sort of fun dinosaur book, toy, puzzle, anything. The tiny figurines I found were just way too boring. I had an idea pop into my head, and last night I headed out for some supplies and got to work.

After taking to my handy dandy notebook to sketch up some dinos, I was ready to get this prehistoric party on the road....

And in just a few short hours, a stack of flannel evolved into cuteness of Jurassic proportions. I present to you Bronte and Stag (poor Stag still needs eyeballs added)...

I have a feeling the little monkey is going to love her new cuddle buddies!

 

Five year journal.

How does a month fly by in the blink of an eye?

I figured if the world ended tomorrow I may as well get one last blog post up. You know... go out with a bang, right?

It's gotten to the point where friends and family are even pointing out that I haven't blogged since late November.

I was sitting next to an older fella on my flight home from Baltimore a few days ago (yes, I was able to go visit the boy again!) and he was writing in this "Five Year Journal". Each page was a date, with 5 sections, one for each year. And I thought to myself, what a cool idea... I need one of those!

And then I laughed and shook my head, realizing this blog is my five year journal. I'm quickly approaching the 4 year mark.  Four years worth of posts. Musings. Rants. Stories. Happiness. Heartbreak.

I promise to not be such a stranger, if not for my readers, for myself. Because nobody wants to look back on a blank five year journal!

So... you've never met her in person?

Sometime in the Octoberish era of 2011 a string of blog comment emails, as they tend to do, turned into g-chatting. I didn't really know who this chick was, but she was funny. And we seemed to see eye to eye on a lot of things.

Following my natural trajectory of meeting people on the web (ahhem, boyfriend), it should really come as no surprise that she quickly became one of my best friends.

Fast forward to a few weeks back when I casually mentioned going to visit LT as we were chatting one day. She immediately pointed out the close vicinity of LT to her. Queue the great big 'finally meet at long last' plans.

Saturday morning LT was getting ready to go to work and I was getting ready to meet Whitney for the first time. He didn't know that. Non-bloggers don't get it. I had always referred to her exactly as what she was, my friend, not as "some chick from the web" or any other equivalent. He knew we met through blogging, and after brushing his teeth he stood there puzzled, deep in thought. "You've never met her in person... have you?" he finally uttered. A grin spread across my face. "All the best relationships develop that way, don't they?" He gave me a goodbye kiss and with the most serious face told me to be safe. Silly boy.

Not long after my phone lit up. I headed down the hotel stairs into the bright Maryland daylight and there she was posted up against her Equinox like some sort of Clint Eastwood movie. It's so funny in retrospect. We hugged, said FINALLY! and hopped into her car to chat the entire drive to DC, like old friends.

LT text me a few hours into it, confirming I wasn't cut up dead  in a dumpster. I eased his worries and we carried on. She drug me all over Gods great East-Coast earth the next two days, leaving me with souvenir shin splints as I hobbled onto my plane at the Baltimore airport Sunday night.

So funny how paths collide in this crazy world. Let's just hope it doenst take another 12 months for ours to cross again!

Don't online shop without this!

If you plan on doing online shopping this season, which I have decided to do entirely, I urge you to look into ebates if you havent!

You simply sign up, and then get a little kickback when you shop. 1, 2, even up to 12% back sometimes. (You have to visit ebates first and then click through their link to the store of your choice - don't forget that step!)  

Check out the Cash Back specials they have right now. Seriously, pretty much any store under the sun is on here (even random places you wouldn't expect, like Lowes - but you can buy online and pick up in the store!). Target, Snapfish (20% back - hello holiday cards!), Walgreens, pretty much any hotel chain (3% back  on a whole vacation would be a nice little check!),  5% at Nordstrom.... sooo I can buy the $100 boots I've been drooling over, and get $5 back for no reason other than because I used ebates? Love. Love. Love.

It may not seem like much... but heck, it's free money - why not!? Then you can either have a check sent to you, or have it sent directly to your PayPal.

Sigh, I love a good deal!

(No, this is not a sponsored post or anything, I just get excited about good deals ha!) 

 

Eastbound and down.

Source: twinning.tumblr.com via Becca on Pinterest

It's funny.... I was super nervous as I stepped off the plane Wednesday night. I had just landed in Baltimore, it was late but I was too giddy to yawn. As I stepped through the automatic doors my phone vibrated with a text instructing me to look to my right. There was that white truck, there was my boy anxiously hopping out the drivers side door to greet me with the biggest hug.

It had only been three weeks, maybe four, since we last saw each other. But that's a lot. A lot when you're used to seeing each other 3 or 4 times a week.

Frederick, Maryland welcomed me with open arms. You see, the boy works 8am to 7pm every day. So I would take him to work, wander the town, go grab lunch with him, wander some more and then anxiously await 6:59 when I would pick him up for the evening.

There were a ton of little boutiques to satisfy my shopping craving, and the restaurants were outstanding  Seriously we did not have a bad meal. It was so nice to just be there, doing the "normal" thing for a few days. Getting ready together, grabbing food, walking hand in hand, catching a movie, laughing and smiling.

Four days was FAR too short of a visit. And with no timeline on when he may be back from this gig, it was really hard to say goodbye when Sunday rolled around.

And like a dummy, I am absolutely KICKING myself for not getting ANY pictures of us. Seriously. I may have cried about it when I realized. (Melodramatic, I know)

(I also had a chance to FINALLY meet a girl who's been climbing the friend charts lately, but that's another post for another day!)
 

Tip it Back

LT and I have this thing where we get excited about non-mainstream country singers and immediately make the other listen to a song when we stumble upon it and deem it great...

Well early on in the summer his flavor of the month was some band called Florida-Georgia Line. (Hah, hilarious saying that now since they've skyrocketed on the charts lately)

Lo and behold I OBVIOUSLY fell in love with them and immediately made all my friends listen. And when we heard they were going to be playing at the Tin Roof in Indy a bunch of us scooped up the $5 tickets.

Casey and I went there immediately after work (because we're nerdy like that) and got to see the guys of FGL setting up the stage and just hanging out, we had some drinks and waited for the rest of the gang to arrive.

(of course we had to carry on the tradition of the Summer of Pabst)

 

 Easily one of the funnest concerts I've ever been to. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to their like 8 songs on repeat. I can't wait for their actual CD to come out in early December!

Catching up

I feel like there's so many things I've forgot to post about. Which while you may all not care I actually like to refer back especially when it comes to things like my niece's battle and relationship jazz ;) So. bear with me. or "x" out the screen. Whichever!

-Liv is facing her second battle with the same cancer, the Wilms tumor. She began chemo last week and will continue that for 12 weeks until hopefully surgery will be possible. She's such a strong little thing, I know she will get through this

-LT is still bouncing around the country doing the new gig. Since Chicago (and my overexaggerated meltdown) he has been to Louisiana twice and is now on the east coast dealing with the Hurricane Sandy mess.

-The great pantry redo of 2012 is still underway. My dad is insanely awesome. He has spent so many hours in that 5x8 room working effortlessly. To say I will have one heck of an amazing pantry is the understatement of the century.

-My weekends have been so full of concerts lately. So much good music and great times, I cannot wait to backtrack and share those with you!

-Work is finally slowing down post Halloween. Thank goodness. That was like 3 weeks of hell.

-Oh yea,I had a birthday in there. It was spectacular. I have the best family and friends, seriously! The big 25 now. I forget. I still try to tell people I'm 23. That's the age I always think I am ha.

I think that about highlights everything monumental and not-so-monumental. Hope you're all well!

A twitching hand.

Wishing you all the happiest of Halloween's from 50 Shades and his pinata girlfriend!

ten months

Give or take a couple weeks, ten months ago this roller coaster started. Ten months ago a belly ache ended up being a lot more than a belly ache.

There was a prognosis, a surgery, tests upon tests, a few months of chemo and a whole lot of celebrating when scan after scan came back clear.

At the tender age of two, she had beat it. Cancer was gone.

Except those two words never seem synonymous. Cancer, gone.

And another Friday afternoon phone call proved just that. My brother and sister-in-law were back at the hospital this weekend with Liv, another tummy ache, more waiting, more tests.

It's back. The cavity where they removed her kidney and the original tumor, a new tumor has grown. There are spots on her lungs. It's aggressive, it's not like last time. A month ago her scans were clear, and now this.

So now we're left questioning why, wondering, crying, being pissed off. And mostly gearing up to fight, because if there's one thing I have to say to cancer it's that it's not welcome in this family. It caught us off guard once and took my grandma, Liv showed it the exit route last time and there's no doubt in my mind she will do the same once again.

Halloween Greats

Growing up my mom always made us our Halloween costumes, which has caused me to despise those mega-huge costume stores and opt to create my own costume every year.

This year's is still in the works, but how bout a look back at some past greats?

There was the Double Dare team from 2009

The Mail Order Bride in 2010

And the Bell-ringer of 2011

Do you DIY or do you save your sanity and buy something already made??

Gimme a Saturday night my baby by my side

Well, the fact that some Felix character went up into space and proceeded to skydive back down makes my weekend happenings seem incredibly insignificant.

I won't let that get me down though. I still had a blast. It seems like most of my weekends have been filled with good music lately, and the concert calendar looks even more promising to round out the year!

Friday we hit up the local country bar to see Craig Campbell , which was a blast. They had the mechanical bull going, which provided COUNTLESS laughs. (No, I did not attempt that. I like to save atleast a few shreds of dignity)

(Justin Moore asked everyone to turn their cell phone flashlights on - so pretty!) 

And then Saturday, after spending most of the afternoon on the couch recomposing ourselves, we got all dolled up and heading down to see Kip Moore (love), Justin Moore (LOVE) and Eric Church (Seriously awesome line up). I can't even pick which fella was my favorite.

Come Sunday my feet were achin from all the dancing and jumping around in my boots, my energy levels were draggin, and my voice was a tad hoarse, and I was REAL thankful there wasn't a home Colts game. Those back to back concert nights sure do wear a girl out!