Sunburnt!

I had a lovely weekend, and I hope all of you did too! I spent Friday night catching up on a marathon of The Hills and Say Yes to the Dress (love both of those shows...and I hadn't watched the Hills since college--major blast from the past). Obviously it was very busy and exhausting-not! Saturday I did even more lounging around because it was very rainy and dark outside. I woke up early and managed to get a nice walk around my apartment complex in before another downpour started. So, I watched tv and enjoyed the rain.

In the afternoon, I finally gave into my permanent Bojangles craving, and drove down to Forest Park to pick up a tailgate special on my way to John's house. Up until this point, it had just been raining. The moment I got into my car and headed toward downtown ATL, the bottom fell out. I'm talking monsoon--torrential rain. It did this for the whole drive. But did I let this deter me from Bojangles? Absolutely not. I drove approximately 40 miles per hour through Atlanta to Bo's, picked up my (phenomenal) tailgate special and drove it to the park in Fayetteville to have a lovely rainy picnic--my favorite! It was under a very nice covered picnic area, and the rain had subsided a little by the time we were eating. We had the whole place to ourselves (except for a possible drug deal that we witnessed...), and it was great.

Sunday was the day of the Renaissance Festival. Oh, yes. I had never been to one before, but it was actually a lot of fun! Highlights included: jousting, a birds of prey show, comedic acrobats, petting zoos, turkey legs, a museum of torture and truly some of the best people watching I have ever experienced. Unfortunately for me, I was burnt to a crisp...ok maybe no that bad, but still pretty red. Overall, Renaissance Festival definitely gets two thumbs up. If you're in the Atlanta area, I highly recommend it. The festival is 8 weekends in Fairburn, GA, and you can buy tickets at Kroger before you go and get $2 off! Photos of the old time fun will be posted later this week :)

And in other excitment, I have a few countdowns:

Raleigh for the weekend--3 more days!
Jekyll Island beach weekend--32 days
BSB concert!!!--38 days (Atlanta friends, I'm sitting on the lawn if you'd like to join!)

What are you looking forward to? Happy week!

Forgive me

I've been a terrible blogger lately. I've pretty much abandoned this thing for the last few weeks, but hopefully that means I've been out living life and having fun instead of sitting around writing about it? Hmm...maybe.

So, a little bit of a September recap is needed. Disney was lovely and wonderful, but definitely not relaxing. I think it took me a week of sleep just to catch up! I was in Birmingham all last week for work, which was also fun. I like the city. We stayed downtown near the Five Points area (does every city in America have a Five Points? I think yes), and went to some great restaurants. I had delicious BBQ--NOT NC style--one night, and we went to a fabulous place called Highland Bar & Grill to celebrate my birthday a day early. We split lots of amazing appetizers including baked grits and spiny lobster tails, but the best part was definitely dessert. I had a chocolate bread pudding which was to die for. I also tasted the creme brulee which was like velvet. Delicious!

Luckily, we left Birmingham a day early, and I got to come back to ATL for my birthday. Honestly, any birthday after 21 is not really exciting, and a little bit of a let down. I loved the excuse to get my friends together, play trivia and drink martinis (and go to a crazy 80s dance party with the weirdest people I have ever seen), but the day didn't feel that special. I enjoyed it, and hopefully 23 will have a lot to offer this year! Friday I flew to Raleigh and had an awesome weekend at home. Pretty lazy overall--the most adult thing I did was get my own cell phone plan...it pained me to split off from my parents plan, but you've got to cut the apron strings eventually, right? I can barely even use my new phone, which makes me feel like an old person! I guess I'll just have to read the manual..sigh. I did some shopping, went to dinner at the Angus Barn, as is the usual bday tradition, and then got to see my wonderful friends on Sunday for dinner and a movie. FYI for anyone interested in seeing Love Happens, the new Jennifer Anniston movie: its a total downer. Just be prepared. Monday I took the day off and visited SCD at her school and got to see her classroom. It was so perfect, but I'd expect nothing less from her.

And now its back to the work grind for a couple of days. I'm only in the office for a 3 day week (only 2 now!), then I flex on Friday, and leave for class in Minneapolis for a week before homecoming at Wake next weekend!! So excited to go back to Winston! And in the mean time, so fairly exciting stuff is going on in my personal life, but I'll leave that update for another day :)

I hope you all are fabulous and are having a lovely start to fall. It was 55 degrees here this morning when I left my apartment! I love crisp weather, and I was not at all sad to say goodbye to this summer and close that chapter all together. Fall is definitely my favorite season, and I'm so glad its upon us. Has anything exciting happened with any of my awesome blog friends out there? Don't be shy! xoxo

Sigh of relief

After many, many hours of thinking, deliberating and agonizing over my life situation of last week, everything is finally out in the open and I can breathe easy again! Yay! I'm not used to having so much (if any at all) drama in my life, so I'm glad that I don't have to constantly think about it anymore and berate all my friends for their opinions on every aspect. All the advice was very much appreciated though:)

Raleigh was great. I got home safely Thursday night, slept in my own bed and got to see my kitty! Friday I went shoe shopping and was apparently feeling pretty gangsta because I bought not one, but two pairs of shiny gold metallic shoes. One pair of awesome Coach tennis shoes and one pair of Jack Rogers. Its love. I had lunch with Be and dinner with my parents and grandparents at the Angus Barn. As much as I love that place, I just physically cannot eat that much meat on a regular basis. I'm pretty much done with meat for the rest of this week, if not next week too! But, my prime rib was pretty awesome:) Saturday, Sara and I ate Boajngles on her living room floor and played wii games until we were sore (wii boxing is intense physical activity), I saw Erin at Cameron Village and had dinner with the entire fam again that night. My mom made a very delicious chocolate cake too:) Sunday, I attempted to fill out my taxes which was a total waste of time, and otherwise lazed around the house until the parents took me back to the airport. I feel bad that I didn't spend more time with them--or maybe just the fact that the time I did spend with them was consumed with me thinking of other things. Oh, well. As soon as I got home last night, I went over to A's house where he made me a very fancy schmancy dinner and we watched Wake lose to Duke. I really like spending my Sundays with him.

And, here I am back at the office and so tired that I'm drinking black Starbucks coffee. The one downside of having a social life: I definitely don't get my 9 hours of sleep every night. I think I can deal with it though:) The absolute best part of this week: in 3 days I'll be in New Orleans with Kristin!!! Excited beyond belief.

Home Sweet Home

I must admit that Raleigh has not always been my favorite place in the world (and I guess it still isn't, but its definitely moved up on the list). This morning I read an article in the local paper about how Raleigh is now officially the #1 best place to live (on some possibly subjective MSNBC list). Apparently its also Racheal Ray's #1 place for singles (who let her make a list?) and its the #4 best "gay ghetto" according to GayRealEstate USA (very interesting and hilarious). I guess its hard for me to see Raleigh as somewhere that thousands of people want to live because I've been stuck here my whole life. My friends and I used to complain about how boring it was and how there was never anything cool or exciting to do. Now that we're all older, we can appreciate the great bar scene downtown and the excellent boutique shopping, as well as all the great upscale restaurants that have opened in Raleigh in the past few years. I know I appreciate the city more now that I've lived in Winston-Salem for the past four years, and have recently moved back. There's actually plenty of fun things to do, great people to meet and excellent places to go out. So next time I complain about Raleigh, I'll just remember that I'm supposedly living in the #1 city for singles...what could be better? Haha.

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As for the weekend, I didn't do much of anything worthwhile. I saw Mamma Mia yesterday which was actually pretty great. Not a cinematic masterpiece or anything, but I love muscials and it didn't let me down. Meryl Streep's hair really got on my nerves for the majority of the movie, but I got to look at Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan for a solid hour and a half, so everything was fine by me. I also had some great Mexican food last night (my favorite), so yesterday was a great day. And I spent most of Friday afternoon with J, which was really nice since he's leaving town again today.

Goals for the week:
1. Relax.
2. Catch up with friends.
3. Study for the GMAT (ugh...maybe not).