My Birthday in a nutshell.

7:30 am Crawl into bed with Mom. She tells me the story of my first birthday.

8:15 am Already late in getting ready for work, I forgo the shower and dress myself in yellow.

8:50 am Leave a few minutes early to go to Burger King and Starbucks for breakfast.

8:51 am Scrape the frost off of the windshield

8:52 am Curse the blankety-blank car because it won't start.

8:52 am Try to start the car again.

8:53 am Try to start the car again. There goes Starbucks. But I still have time for Burger King.

8:54 am Try to start the car again. There goes Burger King too.

8:55 am Call Mom to come and help me start her blankety-blank car.

8:56 am Car FINALLY starts.

8:57 am Realize that the car is on E.

9:05 am Put gasoline in car. Now late for work.

9:35 am Arrive at work frustrated and hungry.

10:00 am Cough and blow my nose.

10:03 am Cough and blow my nose again.

1:30 pm Eat the lunch that my daddy made for me. Finally get to sit down.

3:13 pm More coughing and nose blowing.

5:25 pm Wahoo! Finally got caught up at work so I can take a break and sit on my duff.

6:45 pm Leave store and begin the process of delivering the clothes.

8:15 pm FINALLY leave work.

8:23 pm Drink some yummy hot chocolate from Starbucks.

9:00 pm Get home and go hang out upstairs with mommy.

9:30 pm Open Presents from the parentals.

9:45 pm Take some cold medicine and go off the sleepy land.

Have no fear! I will have a proper Birthday celebration on Saturday.

And thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! They were much appreciated!

Lily

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!

"You sit on a throne of lies. You smell like beef and cheese."



Lily

Let's make some lemonade!

So it is funny how things eventually work out in life. I sat in the airport for almost an entire day today, praying that I would make it on a flight home. And now I am sitting in a comfy first class seat having just watched a movie I was dying to see. Now I am listening to Adele while writing to my peeps on my long neglected blog. Is it bad if I realize that I am an extremely lucky/spoiled person?! Cause I think that I am. This whole trip ended on a completely different day than originally planned. I was going to come home on Saturday evening, but I woke up Saturday morning early with some gastrointestinal distress. Then it quickly morphed into vomiting. Yeah for me. Sorry if too much info. But anyway, I had the chills and a fever and there was no way that I was going to be able to leave my bed let alone travel across the country. I had already paid the $40 to ride the shuttle, so I was totally out of luck getting that non-refundable money back. But what is $40 when you think that you are going to die? Do you feel sorry for me yet? All of Saturday and part of Sunday were a complete blur, mostly because I was asleep for the majority of it. But after eating nothing but powerade and ginger ale for 36 hours, I figured that I could try to come home. Especially since no one else could cover for me at work past Monday. So we get to the long day at the airport and then the all of the spoiling that I got on the airplane. Hopefully my dad AND my luggage with both be there when I get off the plane so I can get home and kiss my puppies and sleep in my own bed!

Lily

P.S. My luggage was NOT there and it was lost with no id tag on it. I should have listened to The Spirit when it told me to make sure my address was on ALL of my belongings. However Heavenly Father was looking out for me and I had a bag inside of it that had my name on it. I got my bag back with all of my stuff in it AND I got back the tube with the picture of my sister and Kizzie that Jack drew with charcoal that I lost in the lost baggage counter. Ironic, no?

Here is a little teaser of my trip to Arizona...

Frequent Flyer

So it only took me 7 hours in the Atlanta airport to finally catch a flight out to Phoenix.
Currently I am in the Phoenix airp0rt trying to get home.
I am now at 5 hours and counting.

Oops. Computer is dying...

Poop!

Will write more later when I find an outlet to charge this beast.

Lily

Happy Halloweenie!!!!!!!!!!!!

~Lily

What a Way to Go!

Wow! Look!
It’s a blog post from me! Who would have thought? I sure wouldn’t. I apparently suck at maintaining a blog. My life has been pretty boring. Work and church. That’s about it. Who wants to hear about how someone brought another bedspread with dog vomit/pee on it into the store? I know I sure don’t. Work has been pretty slow lately. I am not sure if that is good or bad in the long run. Well, it’s bad. But it lets me catch up on my reading and attend to my slacking blog.

I am currently eating milk and cookies. Yeah it is one of those days. A milk and cookies day. At least I didn’t get whole milk. I compromised with 2%. I might go into a sugar coma if I anymore cookies though. Blast you Publix for making oh-so-tempting chocolate chip cookies!

I am really missing my babies. I try to keep up with them as much as I can from across the country, but Auntie Lily needs baby cuddles! Stat!

My car is broken. I am not sure what the problem is, but it can’t go over 35 miles an hour without shaking like it is going to explode. See why I need cookies and baby cuddles?!

I swore that I would never be one of those people who uses their blog as a larger platform to complain, but I just needed to vent.

Here is a link to a hilarious video that my sister told me about. My brother-in-law said that this chick reminds him of me. I am not sure if I should be really offended by that or flattered. Well he did say that it reminded him of me when I am not on my meds. Not sure how to take that comment either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1c2KzJbcGA




Lily

Behold my life...

The air conditioner is broken.

Therefore my brain is broken.

I always have plans for a witty and profound blog post, but time and life always seem to get in the way. This is all I can muster in the sweltering heat that is my house right now. I hate being too poor to call a repair man.

Boo.

Thus endeth this rant.

Lily

Challenges

When I look back at all of the challenges I have faced in my life, I realize how blessed I was to have the Savior on my side.
I feel beyond grateful.

But life stinks sometimes.
I mean really stinks.

But there is one person who truly knows what I am feeling, and I am not the only one.

I love my Savior.

Lily

P.S. Sorry this is confusing. I am full of lots of emotions right now. But have no fear, I am alright. I just need a good cry and I will be fine.

amAZing!

The Happy Family

The girls

My Hilarious Nephew

Splish Splash

Awwww.

I would write more but I need to get ready for work. That's all for now folks!

Lily

Arizona here I come!

My sweet boy the day he was blessed! Alas I wish that I was this skinny again, and that my little boy was this small so I could be there with him growing up all over again!

Now my sweet girl is getting blessed this weekend, and I couldn't be happier!

I love being an Auntie and I love my babies!

Lily

For your amusement...

Lily

I enjoy being a girl...

Why is it so expensive to be a girl?
I just spent $50 of my very hard-earned money on one bag of beauty products?
I went in with a list that seemed relatively short:
Shampoo
Conditioner
Face Wash
Face Powder
That's it.
And I even resisted the urge to get some new mascara.
Boys have no idea what we girls go through, and that is just to look pretty! ;)
So here's a shout out to all of my sistas out there.
Beauty = pain, on the wallet!

Lily

No smoking, please...

So yesterday we found out that our smoke detectors are not working.
How did we discover this? Well, I'll tell ya. In order to make the house smell homey I made a concoction of oranges and cloves. It smelled fabulous! Well I should have thrown it away when I was done, but I forgot about it on Saturday.
Yesterday I came home from church with a massive headache and I needed to take some meds and sleep it off. I went into the kitchen and saw that my dad had added more water and turned it on. I saw that the burner was a little too high, so I turned the gas down, took meds, and went to bed.
The next thing I know my mom is yelling. "The house is on fire!"
Well not really. Mother is a tad dramatic. BUT there was smoke everywhere and it smelled horrible.
Dad fell asleep, totally forgetting that he had anything on the stove.
Now the pot is ruined and my house reeks of smoke.
Boo.
I might have to move now.
No joke.

Lily

KABOOM!!!

So I couldn't find a picture of my sister's dog Bruce off hand, so just imagine that this dog is all black and you have Bruce. The reason I am telling you this is that Bruce is coming to live with us probably tomorrow. Long story, but it's happening. I am in the process of cleaning the house for my brother in law and his mother, and instead of dying from the fumes in the bathroom I decided to write on my neglected blog. I suck. I'm sorry. Hopefully there will be more time to write later. I just hope and pray that Cletus and Bruce get along. I have a feeling that it is going to be a very long couple of days, or weeks even. Boo. Me any my kaboom headache are going to finish the bathroom now.

Lily

Introducing...

Kezia "Kizzie" Elizabeth Fleming

6 lbs 9 oz
18 inches long

Born April 29, 2011
7:22 am (Arizona Time)

Virginia is for L♥vers

As I opened the latest Southern Living magazine, I was surprised to see an article about a weekend trip in the Shenandoah Valley. The first day of the trip was entitled: Buena Vista to Lexington (16 miles). This was my beloved Buena Vista! This is where I went to college and met some of the bestest friends a girl could ever ask for. Where I became an adult. Where I became who I am today. I LOVE the Shenandoah Valley and I wax nostalgic many times about my former life there. But that season of my life has passed and sometimes I wonder if it will ever return. But alas, I fear that it is gone for good. Instead I dream of my former days as a Buena Vistaian.

I drove those 16 miles from Buena Vista to Lexington and back every single day, and sometimes twice if there was a Wal-mart trip involved. I could almost kick myself at all the times I drove amongst those rolling hills and took them for granted. I loved spending hour after hour in the Washington & Lee libraries smelling the books and dreaming of one day having a ginormous library of my own. And simply walking downstairs to go to church. I feel that if you were to see my heart, there would be a huge chunk completely devoted to Virginia.

Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you…

Lily

Feels like home to me…

Dorothy tells us that there is no place like home. What she should have said was there is no place like homes. And yes I know that that doesn’t make any sense, but it does to me. I have three homes. My parents’ house in Georgia, Southern Virginia, and my Abuelos’ house in California.

1224 Highland Rd in the beautiful Santa Ynez Valley is my happy place. When I was a little child I would wake up from a horrible nightmare and cry for my mother. She would calm me down by telling me to imagine my favorite place: Grandpa and Grandma’s house. I love the way it smells. (Mostly of tea rose, mate, and crafts. And yes, crafts have a distinct smell.) I love the way I feel when I am there, and most importantly, I love my Abuelos!

The anticipation from the airport increases by the hour as you drive up the coast with the window open smelling the salty ocean air. And by the time you reach Santa Barbara you think that you are about to burst out of your skin. (Maybe because you need to go to the bathroom.) But all of the driving and flying are worth it when you turn the corner and finally see your happy-go-pukey, and Abuelos waiting to give you a big hug and a kiss.

But alas, my time there is never long enough and I soon have to fly back across the country, but never empty handed. I always depart their house with a suitcase of full of plant cuttings, cloth from the dollar-a-yard store, and new craft projects I accomplished with my Grandma. As I leave I take an inventory of the trip:

Eating: check.
(Grandpa’s buckwheat pancakes with freezer jam, coach’s steel-cut oats, and challenging everyone to a taco eating contest.)

Cuddling with Grandma: check.

Never wanting to leave: double check.

Lily

There is beauty all around when there is no one home.

As the broccoli-bombs fall from the sky, as my mother so eloquently puts it, I begin anticipating that time of year when I feel that our house looks its best. Spring time. All of my parents’ hard work in the previous months begins to pay off when the first lovely bulb pokes its little head out of the red dirt and the grass becomes green again. Daffodils, Irises, Azaleas, Hostas, and Dogwoods permeate the entire yard.

I really love my house.

I absolutely love my yard.

I truly love the Spring.

Except for the pollen.

Lily

I'm not an addict, maybe, that's a lie...

I should be getting ready for work, but instead I am blog-stalking and drinking a diet coke. I wish that I could afford my fav, diet coke with lime. Alas, it is 5 dollars for a 12 pack. Being on a budget sucks.

Lily

Two for the Price of One!

Apparently I am feeling the need to be very "bloggy" today. And yes, I know that that is not a real word, but I digress. Maybe I am feeling particularly chatty because the house needs to be cleaned. Didn't we just clean this place.?! Surely it couldn't have become that dirty since last week.

Oh, but it has.

Blast.

Stupid pollen.

I am adding spaces for effect.

See.

:)

Well I have often thought a great deal about a theory my dear friend Melissa has about house cleaning, and I have decided that her idea is GENIUS!!!
Melissa wants to live in a house make of plastic with a giant drain in the center of the floor. When it comes time to clean you house just hose off the entire place and let it drain. Kinda like the portable toilets in San Fransisco. Melissa does indeed have a brilliant plan, but I am left with a few questions...

Do they make plastic couches?
And how do I get one?

Lily

Speak softly and carry a big stick...

So this afternoon I decided to take my very hyper doggie out for a little promenade, and what to my surprise did I find at the local drug dealer's house? A pit bull shaking the chain link fence while looking at Cletus and I like we were t-bone steaks. Yeah for us. And in all fairness the neighbor only takes drugs. I have no proof that he actually sells them. Any-who, I was praying so hard that I didn't have to curl into the fetal position making sure to cover my major arteries. Since I am a BIG fan of being alive I decided to hoof it home as fast as my little feet could walk. Score one more point in the column for why I need to get a gym membership.

Lily