Apologies

So my husband informed me this morning that if you click on my name on Facebook and read all of my status updates, I really sound like a negative person. He even said our friend, Tracy, told him yesterday that I seemed to be having a really hard time of it lately. I told him yes! I have been having a hard time lately and I don't want to put some fake happy posts on there! But I do sincerely apologize, perhaps I've been a bit too honest. First there was the mouse fiasco, which stressed me out for about a month before we caught it, then Tyson was here for only a week (note to Eric: you're going to have to take credit for a little bit of the Tyson stress), during which I had to clean up vomit and diarrhea twice a day for the duration thanks to a hambone my brother lovingly gave his dear doggie (he did mean well). Put work (which you can always assume is not going the way I'd like it to) on top of all of that, and yeah, I haven't had too many upbeat status updates lately. But things are turning around! Eric's home for a while, it's almost the holidays (my favorite time of year!), and there have been no creature sightings (rodent or canine) in over a week now. Yay!!! So here's to a hopeful future of more positive updates and maybe even blog entries.=) You can keep me accountable and give me a hard time if I start getting too negative again, ok? Thanks to everyone.....Happy November!

Yes, I Am A Woman

I definitely have some catching up to do on this blog, I know. I promised pictures of Europe, but there are some on my facebook page. Just look at them there, HA! I'll at least post a random picture from time to time of our trip........we had such a great time!
But to get to the heart of this post, I must share something rather embarassing with you. I've always had determined intentions to be a strong woman, not some girly girl who gets squeamish or emotional when things surprise me or upset me. I used to be quite anxious, before I gave in and starting taking a SSRI, and I would cry at the drop of a hat. Just ask poor Eric. It's amazing he even married me, since we started dating pre-SSRI. Ever since then (and this is after many moments of crying hysterically for very minor, insignificant reasons), I've been pretty good about not losing it over the small stuff, so I'd convinced myself (not sure about anyone else) that I am indeed a strong woman who can deal with whatever comes her way. I don't need to cry or react irrationally, I am independent and can handle myself.
Then this morning happened.
On Friday as I was eating some cheese puffs (I could dedicate an entire blog to my bad eating habits), I realized the bag had holes all in it. I thought that was odd and it didn't hit me for a full 5 minutes what that probably meant. Once I realized I may have a mouse in my house, I went down to the pantry and my eyes were suddenly opened to what had probably been in front of my face for days or maybe even weeks. I noticed other items of food that had bite marks and holes. I noticed little pieces of mouse droppings that I thought had just been crumbs or something all over my pantry. I had a dawning realization that the stomach pain I'd had for 2 days a week and a half ago that kept me home from work could probably be attributed to me eating food that a mouse had been into. I realize you're probably gagging while you're reading this, and trust me, that is an understatement to what I was actually doing. I freaked. Eric had just left that morning for a week, so I was home alone and had no idea what to do. I threw out the food that I knew the mouse had been into (and at this point, let's just say there's only one mouse) and went to Target to get some traps. I kept thinking about what I'd been eating and just kept grossing myself out.
The only way I got through the weekend was to not really think about things and I threw away any food I came across that looked like it needed to be thrown out. I didn't want to clean the entire pantry out until the mouse was caught, because I didn't want to have to do it again. As of last night, I had not caught a mouse yet, so I naively thought that since I had thrown out any open food and had closed things up pretty well in the pantry, maybe the mouse had left because it couldn't get into any more food. Yeah Amanda, because the mouse has only been getting fat off of your food for who knows how long now, maybe he just gave up once you closed a couple of boxes. Right.
This morning I checked the trap by the fireplace........nothing. I opened the pantry and looked at that trap......nothing. I noticed a bag of pecans that were out of place, so I picked it up and saw the hole in the corner, cursed under my breath, and threw them in the trash. I came back to the pantry and kind of stuck my head in looking around for more evidence and I came face to face with a very fat mouse. A very scared, very fat mouse. And now we come back to the theme of this post. Did I laugh in the face of my nemesis? Was I a strong woman who cursed at the stupid mouse and tried to catch it? Uh, no. I screamed bloody murder at the top of my lungs.............even with the windows shut, I was surprised I didn't get neighbors coming over to check on me. I probably screamed 5 times, and of course, the mouse went running. I have no idea where, but it got out of there as fast as its fat little legs could run. I started crying like you wouldn't believe (I think it was the shock of it and PMS doesn't help!) and called Eric, because he could do so much from 600 miles away. He was laughing at me because I was crying and had that high pitched squeal to my voice where he couldn't understand a word I was saying. Of course, now he feels bad about it, but I'm sure I sounded ridiculous.
So much for being a strong, independent woman. I need help. I need my husband! I DO NOT DO WELL WITH RODENTS.
So if you have any advice for me, bring it on! In the meantime, I'm going to go and try to find my dignity.

Facebook and Other Thoughts

For the two people who read this blog, I just felt like writing today, HA! Seriously, though, we are now blocked from Facebook at work, in case you ever wonder why that's not updated more often. I'm on the computer more at work than I am at home, so that's when I used to visit all of my usual websites. Work has been a challenge lately, to put it mildly. I don't normally say anything about work on here, as anyone who googled me could find this, so I won't say much. All I will say is I could use prayers on getting through work right now. I am thankful to have a job, and I love what I do, but the situation, especially lately, is not at all ideal. Of course, work by definition (in the dictionary of Amanda), is never fun, so I should probably just deal with it, right?=) Maybe I'm just very VERY ready for our trip to Europe, which is less than two weeks away! Woo hoo!

Just got back from taking a break with a friend.......got to vent a lot, so I won't do it on here as much as I had intended. It's been tough finding time to spend with friends lately, just because most of them are in a different place in their lives, it can be hard to relate to each other, and just hard to find time to even talk. It makes me laugh just thinking about when I was in high school and thought that my life was so complicated and that it couldn't possibly get any worse. How naive I was! How naive we all are at that age! Of course, it is hard at the time, high school is a different kind of hard, but at least you and everyone you know are in the same stage and you can get through everything together. Now with everyone being all over the place (different locations, different life stages, different beliefs, different priorities), it's hard to recapture the closeness of those high school friendships. Yes, you still have difficult things to get through, but you have less people to get through them with. Wow, please disregard the grammatical errors of this post, I'm just writing like I would talk out loud, HA! Anyway, not to be a downer today, just being contemplative. There have been a lot of things to celebrate in my friends' lives lately, new babies, new houses, stuff like that, so that has been really exciting! Good things and bad things, just a part of life, right?=) I know God knows what He's doing, so I just need to learn to lean on him more than I have lately. He's the only one who will keep me sane and keep me grounded. Well until next time! It will probably be after Europe, and I'll probably have way too many pictures to post on here, but I'll share a few!

Tyson and Eric: Friends.....

......only when it comes to taking naps. How adorable are these pictures? I mean, seriously.

USA Soccer

We had the pleasure of seeing the USA soccer team play here at the Titans stadium in a World Cup qualifying match for the 2nd time! We saw them 4 years ago as well, and then also saw the Olympic qualifying team here last year. I guess they know we love soccer here in Nashville (we are quite a diverse city). Here are some pictures of the players, the field, the crowd, and Eric and I, Clint, Danny and their friend, whose name escapes me at the moment, I'm so sorry. I took these with our camera and my phone, since our camera does not like to capture motion very well. So I'll preface these stating that I am an amateur photographer, and it shows in these pics. It was such fun!!!!!

2nd Anniversary

My last post was actually on our anniversary, but I didn't have the pics uploaded yet to the computer. Mom, just for you we took some pictures of ourselves in our old spot........sitting on my old bed with the camera on timer sitting on the bookshelves across from us, HAHA! Knew you'd love that! We went to the Melting Pot to celebrate, but didn't have our picture taken there, so we just did it ourselves. I cropped them, though, because I didn't feel like looking at my fat body in these pictures. For reference, take a look at some of our first pictures taken as a couple years ago, and you'll see what I'm talking about. A little bit of a difference there.=)=) On a more serious note, though, I am so grateful for my wonderful husband. I still am in awe that I found such a kindred spirit and good friend, and then he actually wanted to marry me! I am so blessed.

Flowers and My Puppy Dog

I am SO proud of my bleeding heart bush, I just can't even tell you. It's gotten even bigger since I took these pictures, but until we have a sunny day and maybe another growth spurt or two, I probably won't take any more. How cool are these blooms? And then I have no idea what these other flowers are, and the blooms were knocked off by the frost a week or two ago, so hopefully they'll come back. I planted these bulbs in the fall, so no, I did not plant things too early this year, they just decided to show themselves early.=) And because I planted them back then, I don't remember what they are. I'm going to have a lot of surprises like that appearing in my yard soon! It's actually kind of cool to not remember what I planted, I'll get to find out what they are along with everyone else, HAHA! Oh and Mom, I included a picture of the kitchen with my new plants and plantstands, and my little plates up on the wall.

And of course, the rest of the pictures are of Tyson, the cutest dog in the whole entire world. Clint is taking him to Mom's this coming weekend, where he'll be staying for a while, and I'm going to miss him so much!! Perhaps this is just an underhanded plan of Mom's to get me to come visit her more often...............=)=) Just kidding! I love this picture of him with his mouth wide open about to attack his toy. And the very serious one by the fence is so funny, because he may look very frowny, but that's definitely not his personality. That's just his poker face. Enjoy!

Memphis-March 2009

Finally, I'm getting around to the Memphis pictures! Here is a glimpse of Beale Street at dusk, before we went to the Grizzlies basketball game. You might even see some BAB's being carried around, you can drink on the street here, woo hoo!

Matt and Meagan at dinner before the game

Eric and I at dinner before the game

The giraffes and their keeper at the Memphis Zoo. There were babies! (6 feet tall babies)

The daddy giraffe trying to get some water. You'd think they'd put some up higher when this guy is so tall!

This was a picture of Eric and I, but as you can see from the small bit of him I couldn't crop out, he decided to make a stupid face. I thought it was a good picture of me, so I promised him I wouldn't post this with him in it, but I couldn't do much about how close he was to me, LOL!

YaYa with her back to us. I took some of LeLe, too, but they were so blurry with him behind the glass. YaYa's stomach was supposedly shaven because they had taken some ultrasounds of her stomach (she's trying to get pregnant), but you can't see it here. I love pandas!

The miniature spotted donkeys in the farm area. Had to go visit them, of course!

One of the red pandas. They have the cutest little paws. Usually these guys are so far up in the trees you can't see them, but they were out and about just after the rainfall.

Liam, Sam, Ava

So I just felt like posting some pics of my friends' child, Liam. He just never ceases to amaze me in how cute he is! And I love these pictures of him with Sam, their pug. They're slowly, but surely, learning to live in the same house and be at peace with one another. Ava is the first picture, my absolutely beautiful 2nd cousin...........I guess...........she is my first cousin's daughter.=) Jessie looked so much like this as a little girl, and I had that same little pixie nose. Guess I still do, but it's not as small and cute now. I'll be posting some pictures soon of our weekend with Matt and Meagan...........went to Memphis one day, where we took most of our pictures, and those mostly of animals at the zoo, of course. But there are a few of us!=) We had a blast, we're all a bunch of kids when we get together, always so fun! Coming soon.....