Valentine's Day

We had a nice Valentine's Day. Pete and Annabelle were groomed on Friday and were so cute with their red hairbow and Valentine's bandana.

Pete likes to hang out and sleep in this carrier. There is a little treat at the entrance to the carrier. Pete saves her treats and makes sure they're in Annabelle's sight. When Annabelle gets within ten feet of the carrier, Pete starts growling.


This is Sweet Annabelle. She is excited wherever she goes.

I spent the weekend in Atlanta. When I arrived Friday night, Justin had cooked manicotti and had a chocolate souffle baking. Both were delicious! He also gave me pretty pink tulips and a box of chocolate truffles. Tulips are my favorite and the truffles were so tasty. =)

We went Cosmic Bowling with friends on Saturday night. I bowled two games and watched the other two games (my arm got tired). Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun!

A little smooch...

Look at that form!

He was successful so he took a bow. My red eyes are super hot (and super tired)!

Cupcakes!

When I go to Atlanta on the weekends, for some reason I usually crave cupcakes. I don’t know why…it’s just one of those things. I found the Atlanta Cupcake Factory online a few months ago and insisted that Justin and I go.

The shop is in a small retail strip and is tiny. I doubt more than four customers could comfortably fit inside. I remember buying a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing and a chocolate cupcake with almond icing on my first visit. I can’t remember what Justin ordered. Mine were both delicious! The cream cheese icing was unbelievable. It was light and fluffy and heavenly. The almond icing was the same except that it was almond flavored. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

The Sunday before last, I needed a cupcake, so Justin and I headed to ACF. When we arrived, we found them closed because they were sold-out! I can understand and accept that they sold-out (those cupcakes are delicious!). What can they do if they’re out of cupcakes?! We drove to another cupcakery only to find them closed, too. I was beyond mad. Atlanta had to have one cupcake for me!

We then went to Whole Foods. I’ve had their cupcakes before and they’re ok. Their cupcakes aren’t as light and fluffy as ACF’s cupcakes, but they’ll do. I always get a carrot cake cupcake from Whole Foods. One good thing about the Whole Foods cupcakes is their size. They are huge!

This is a link to the Atlanta Cupcake Factory's website (http://www.theatlantacupcakefactory.com/index.htm). It’s not very informative, but there are a few pictures.

Food

Since I don’t have anything new and exciting to blog about, I am going to talk about food.

Obviously, Atlanta has many more food choices than Nashville, Tifton, or Valdosta. Justin is a lot more adventurous than me when it comes to food. He’ll try most anything and really likes moldy cheeses. I, on the other hand, am much more reserved about what I eat. If I don’t recognize something or if I perceive something to be unsanitary, I just won’t eat it. Justin, moldy cheese is unsanitary. If meat doesn’t come from the supermarket, I don’t eat it. I know that is absolutely absurd, but that’s the way my mind works. Since I no longer eat most meats (I only eat seafood), I don’t have to worry about the meat thing.

Our house is near Buford Highway. If you’re familiar with this area in Atlanta, you know that there are many ethnic restaurants here. There are a lot of Mexican restaurants on Buford Highway. Farther north, there are many Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian restaurants. Justin and I enjoy Mexican food. He likes very authentic while I like Tex-Mex. We went to this taco stand/restaurant on Buford Highway called El Taco Veloz. Justin chose it and it was quite authentic. The employees did not speak English (if they did, I never heard them). Customers ate outside in this covered area where birds walked around under tables. Yes, there were birds walking around where people were eating. This wasn’t really a problem (the birds didn’t bother you) and I’m sure it’s hard to keep them away when customers put excess food on the ground for them to eat. Luckily, the restaurant was clean so I ate a cheese quesadilla and rice. Those are usually safe.

One of my favorite places to eat in Atlanta is Taqueria del Sol (http://www.taqueriadelsol.com/). I love their cheese enchiladas with lemon cream sauce. Mmmm…delicious! They have weekly specials which usually include a taco special. One of the first special tacos I at Taqueria del Sol was The Bob. It was a soft shell taco with fried shrimp, lettuce, pickled jalapenos, and a flavored mayonnaise. It was delicious! I could have eaten 10. Sadly, they haven’t had that again (that was in October or November). They have had other special tacos, but none have compared to The Bob. If you’re in Atlanta (or Athens), you should try this restaurant. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

I’ll talk about my favorite place to buy cupcakes soon.

Annabelle Plays Dress-up

While my niece was out of school for Christmas break, she stayed at Mama's house with Pete and Annabelle for a few days. One day, she decided to dress-up Annabelle in some Halloween costumes. I'm not sure why Pete didn't play with them.

My niece got "artsy" with these black and white photos. I'm glad she knows how to make the camera do that...I don't!

Master Bedroom and Sunroom Repairs (Part 2)

We finally have the structural work at the house complete. Justin ended up hiring a different contractor to finish the work and we are pleased with the results. The only remaining items are to lay and stain the oak flooring, touch up paint in one room, paint the other room, install the closet organizers, and install the base moulding in both rooms. I’m not sure when all of that will be completed, but I will post photos when the projects are complete.

This picture shows the master bedroom after the supports under the house and the damaged plywood were replaced. The walls had some imperfections, so the contractor had them repaired. I need to paint those areas before the new floor is installed.

This is another master bedroom picture. Those closets are a little small, but the house has so many other closets that I think we'll be ok.

This is the sunroom. I think this entire room will need to be painted. There are a few damaged areas and since we don't know what the paint color is, I think it would be best to just paint the whole room. The hallway on the right side of the picture has a closet that used to house the air handler/furnace for this end of the house. The unit had to be removed to replace the flooring below it, so we decided to have it installed in the attic, which gives us another closet! That closet will need to be painted, too.

This is another view of the sunroom.

This is the other side of the sunroom.

I decided to take a picture of the view of the backyard. It will be nice in the spring and summer. Due to the weather and other pressing issues (structural work, contractor, etc.), we have neglected the yard. We really need to rake and mow this, but it's so hard when it rains and is so cold every weekend.

This is a view of the courtyard behind the house. This really has a lot of potential, but as I said earlier, we've had other items at the top of our to-do list. That white planter has the equipment in it to make a fountain, so that will be neat when we get it going.

Merry Christmas and a Darwin Award nomination

We had a nice Christmas. It was uneventful, which was so nice and a welcomed change from the rest of the year. I got Justin a new computer monitor and I gave it to him a couple of weeks ago. It was defective and had to be returned (I was afraid of this happening and I gave it to him early), so he didn’t get to open anything from me on Christmas.

Friday evening, Justin and I headed to Atlanta for the weekend. He rode down with a friend on Wednesday evening so it was so nice having someone ride to Atlanta with me.

On my way back to Nashville on Sunday, I was hoping traffic would cooperate and not be terrible. I was so fortunate! Traffic was a breeze and might have even been a little lighter than usual. Northbound traffic was not as fortunate. I felt so bad for anyone sitting in that mess around McDonough. Traffic was backed up for miles. We’ve all been there and done that and know what a nightmare stopped traffic can be. Northbound traffic stopped again around Cordele or Ashburn (can’t remember which) in the construction zone. I did see a semi-truck that was about to be towed, so I’m not sure if it just stalled or was involved in a wreck.

Now to the Darwin Award nomination…
I was headed through Tifton around 10:00 p.m. Sunday night. Traffic was cruising around 70 mph. I was between the S. Central Avenue exit and the Southwell Boulevard exit. I was in the right lane preparing to exit at Southwell. There was a pretty large gap between me and the group of drivers I was with and the group of drivers ahead of us. Out of nowhere, I see a pedestrian darting across the interstate and he was in my lane when I noticed him. I slammed on brakes (the Honda’s anti-lock brakes work quite well) and came within inches of turning this brilliant-beyond-brilliant individual into road kill. I’m not sure if he realized how close he came to being hit by 3,000 lbs. of metal and glass traveling at 70 mph, but it was pretty dang close. I think my heart dropped from my chest to my feet. What was so crazy to me was that the GSP had a vehicle pulled over near where this person crossed the road. I guess the patrolman was concentrating on his task and didn’t notice this person.

When I was driving from Tifton to Valdosta each day, I would see people running across this portion of I-75 frequently. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone brave enough to do it at night. I’m amazed that no one has been killed here. I think they’re running from a neighborhood on the east side of 75 to a convenience store/Steak-N-Shake on the west side of 75. While the food at Steak-N-Shake is tasty (love those cheese fries), it’s not worth dying for! The people have to cross a chain link fence (I’m sure one of these road-crossers has already cut a hole in the fence on both sides so they don’t have to climb it), cross one direction of traffic, climb over a concrete wall (it’s tall!), dodge the other direction of traffic, and cross another chain link fence. Why they can’t just walk down the road to the underpass and walk on a sidewalk is beyond my comprehension. It might take 1-2 extra minutes (I know when those cheese fries and a milkshake start calling, you need to hurry, but really.). Maybe playing “Human Frogger” is a lot more fun for them.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it sure makes the rest of you lonely." -Charlie Brown

I am very tired of being separated from my husband and only getting to see him on weekends. I know I have it much better than some people, like military families, but it still sucks. This started on January 1 of this year and as of now, I have no idea when it might end. I knew this arrangement would not be easy, but I had no idea it would be this hard or last this long. If I could find a job in Atlanta, I could join Justin up there.

I have been looking for a job for about six months. I know the economy stinks and now is the worst possible time I could be job searching. I guess I'm lucky since I do still have a job, but the situation surrounding my job search is crappy. Ideally, I would find a job related to interior design but because the construction market is so bad, that's not likely to happen right now. I have been looking outside of my field and have found postings for several "office" jobs. I find these jobs on "job websites" and get my hopes up that this job is "the one".

I applied for one today and kept checking my email (about every five minutes). I finally got a response and my mood went from hopeful and excited to annoyed and angry. The posting and subsequent response were spam. I was cautious after reading the response so I googled the responding email address and discovered that it was definitely spam. I was so disappointed. Other people have applied for "jobs" posted by this person and are as angry as me. Why do people do this to innocent and desperate people just looking for a job in an awful market? Why?! These people are beyond scum! It's hard to remain focused and positive when this happens and it's sad that today isn't the first time this has happened to me.

I know I should be thankful for what I have, but it's so hard when I don't have what my heart craves.