Magnificent Monday! Except for LOST ending...

Who would have thought I would be saying that?! But really, I've had a great weekend and the greatness has rolled over into Monday.

We had an absolutely fantastic time with our friends from Vegas, Mike & Steph. Got to introduce them to some of our local cuisine—El Norteno, The Flying Shamrock, and of course, MY KITCHEN! No...seriously....stop laughing.

It really was wonderful though. Entirely too short if you ask me, but we managed to have a blast...we even snuck in some bowling! If all goes as planned, we'll be visiting them in Vegas in 5 months! Fingers crossed, people. Fingers crossed!

I was kind of bummed after they left yesterday though. Mainly because it's such a downer to sit at the house on a overcast Sunday when the previous 4 days had been filled with so much to do. I did manage to get my house the cleanest it's been in months and I finished the last season of Arrested Development. Got to get ready for the movie, you know! Not all of Sunday was gloomy though. My loving hubby did make me some homemade bruschetta featuring fresh basil from my very own garden! It's the first thing we've eaten from it and it was soooooo goooood! Jeremy was amazed. Seriously...amazed. He couldn't believe how much of a difference there was between dried and fresh basil. Amaaaazzzeeddd.

AND I finally got to see the finale of Lost. Oh how I love that show. I hate that empty feeling I get whenever I get so engrossed in a story and the lives of the characters and it comes to an end. It feels like a friend died. Well...in this case they did.

I have really mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I think they did a brilliant job of tying up the end in relation to the beginning. I love the attention to detail with the opening and closing of Jack's eye to begin and end the saga. I cried throughout the finale, especially as they each remembered what had happened to them. I also cried because I won't get to see Richard, Jack, and Sawyer all in one place again (man. are. they. hot.) But there's still so many unanswered questions. I feel like we don't know what happens to a lot of the characters and how they end up there. And what about all the mysteries of the island?! Seriously...what.the.heck? Who built that flippin' statue? Where was Walt and Michael? I'm still so lost....oh....how ironic. I get it now.

Almost forgot...started my new job today. Kinda scary, not gonna lie. Really hope I can live up to their expectations, but so far I LOVE being a marketing director. We'll see what tomorrow holds.

Anyway, I'm off to find another show to become obsessed with. Don't think it will be nearly as intense as this was. Thanks, Lost.

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The transition...

And so begins day two of the great transitional vacation. Not much of a vacation if you consider doing nothing but housework a vacation. I'm so jealous of the people who stay at home all day. Well, sort of.

The problem with housework is that I have ADD. I have a hard time finishing one project before noticing that something else needs to be done and leaving to go do it. Make sense? No, doesn't to me either. Let me explain. I had every intention of making a list of things that needed to be taken care of and I didn't even get around to making a list. I went outside to water the garden (15 min. tops). It was then that I noticed some vines sticking out of my hedges. I was only going to trim a few vines! What ended up happening was a 30 minute knock-down, drag-out with some overgrown weeds that needed to be put in their place. Anyway...while putting up the hedge trimmers, I was grossed out by walking into a spider web (nobody looks cool after walking in a spider web) and decided that all them had to die. This led me to my front porch (eventually) where the exterior of my house grossed me out even more. Cannot believe I let it get that dirty.

After making the problem worse (and more apparent) by trying to sweep the dirt off the wall with the broom I was using to exterminate spider webs, I was forced to get the scrub brush, dish detergent, and hose. Two hours later, the front of my house is incredibly clean and oddly enough, lemon-y fresh!

It was around this time that I realized I hadn't done ANYTHING to clean the interior of the house. Sucks because that was my initial intention. Sooooo, after Jeremy got home, we took a break then he mowed the back yard while I tackled the mildew-breeding ground that is my bathroom. It may not be lemon-y fresh, but I'm a pretty big fan of clorox scent too.

All this stuff obviously needed to be done at some point anyway. It's all accelerated by the fact that my friends, Mike and Steph, are coming down from Virginia today.

Aren't they adorable? They're from Vegas, but Mike has some sort of military contract job in VA and Steph is visiting, so they're going to visit us. I'm so excited. We had soooo much fun when Mike and Brian came down in January, but it's going to be even better with a little more estrogen in the house. And since I don't want them to think we're icky slobs, major cleaning needs to be done. Wow...that makes it sound like I'm an icky slob when I don't have people over. That came out wrong...You know what I mean though. I have a level of controlled chaos in my home. This doesn't mean I have to subject anyone else to my chaos. People could get hurt :)

Well, back to cleaning. Interior this time, Jewel. INTERIOR.

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NBC...you're dead to me...

Ooo...that rhymes.

Dear NBC,

If you needed help with your programming schedule, all you had to do was ask. Obviously no one there is capable of making an intelligent decision that pleases your consumers. That's why your ratings have dropped tremendously.

First, you got rid of Conan. Do we need to address this subject again? He's more popular than ever thanks to your bonehead decision to keep Jay Leno around. Seriously? President Obama was funnier than him at the White House Correspondents dinner....and he's not even a comedian! But hey, it's ok. Conan has a new show and you had to pay him millions of dollars AND he's on tour right now. Good one, NBC.

Second, you got rid of Law and Order. HELLO??? Why? I LOVE Jack McCoy. No....really. I would have 10 million of his babies. Well, maybe not, but I still adore him. How dare you remove my weekly fix of Sam Waterston from the airwaves! So what if the ratings were down. It's probably because you screwed with the schedule and put Leno in PRIMETIME! Yeah, who's the genius who came up with that one, NBC? That really worked out well.

And now I see on Yahoo that you're canceling Heroes without a freaking finale!!! SERIOUSLY? I might agree that the writing has gotten rather poor lately and it was all downhill since the first season, but at least finish it up. What's the point of even starting a season if you have no intention of finishing it?! This must have come from the same guy who decided that Leno would work in primetime.

In conclusion, I hate you NBC and you're dead to me.

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Cell phone providers are modern day vampires...

Seriously, why do they have to be the only carrier of the iPhone right now? I hate them. I didn't really hate them before, but I do now.

Why you ask? Well, I'll tell you. As I went to pay my bill online, a surprisingly large number popped up in the payment section. Since I pay a ridiculous amount of money to them every month anyway ($150 for 2 phones/550 min.), I was caught off guard when I saw that I owed $345...wha Wha WHAT?!

Here's my problem. Ok, we went over our minutes. I get that. But charging us 45¢/min is absolutely ludicrous, especially considering that when we switched plans (not carriers, just PLANS), we lost 9000+ rollover minutes. Yeah, that's minutes that I paid for and never used, just gone down the drain. So, that's why I'm pretty upset when they charge an insane fee for going over a small fraction of that. AT&T, I'm not amused.

There are a couple of things that have made me happy lately. First, I sold my camera: YAY! Can't wait to buy a new one, but right now I really needed a new work wardrobe. So I took some of that money and put it towards clothes. The greatest thing about this is that it was Jeremy's idea for me to go shopping for myself. How great is that? Absolutely LOVE that man. My friend, Kari, and I went out shopping on Wednesday. She was shopping for cute dress to wear to a wedding, so I tagged along. Thank goodness we didn't make it to the mall because I spent about $300 at Kohl's, Target, and the Dress Barn. Came out with some really great pieces though. Got 2 pairs of shoes, 5 pairs of pants, 8 shirts, necklace, and earrings. Not bad, I think. Simply cannot wait to do it again!

Jeremy's planning on selling some of his extra music equipment to give us some extra money to put towards some small renovations on the house and just to have a little cushion in the bank. If everything sells, it'll give us around $6,000 (part of which goes to a new camera?). So keep your fingers crossed for us!

Yet another thing that made me happy is a call I got from my new employer. They wanted to know what day I wanted to start. Turns out they want me to start on a Monday instead of the previous Thursday. This will give me a 5 day weekend in between switching jobs. LOVE IT!

We've also got some friends who might be coming into town. They're in Virginia right now and we're trying to make plans to meet up somewhere. More than likely they'll just spend the weekend with us. It'll be great because they're so flippin' funny! Our plans were foiled by the snow last time they were around, so hopefully everything will go smoothly this time. So excited!

Ugh...it has happened again. I get on here to write about one thing and I just start rambling on and on about an entirely different subject. Oh well. Maybe next time I can stay on topic ;)

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It's picture time!...

Every once and awhile I convince my family to take group photos. So difficult to do because they are all impatient and usually several leave before we even get started. This was again the case this past weekend for Mother's Day. I did manage to get a few of them together. A couple of my cousins were missing, my little brother was gone, and my uncle left about an hour earlier. Oh well, I'll have to photoshop them in later or something. But without further ado, here's the latest Eubanks family photos...

The Eubanks (minus Kevin)

Grandma & Uncle Mike

Grandma and her daughters, Karen and Cheryl

Cody & Aunt Karen

Jason, Mom, and Me (Derek had already left by the time we got to these)

Mom, Grandma, and Me

By the way, my mom is wearing the necklace and earrings I gave her for Mother's Day. Every girl needs some pearls. I gave Grandma and Aunt Karen a grape tomato plant each, along with some other plants. Nothing like the gift of food!

Jeremy stayed home and did some yard work (looks fantastic!) Later that night we went out to eat with his parents at the Village Steakhouse. Love that place even though it is on the pricey side. Jeremy's gift to his mom was a James Taylor songbook to help her learn to play some of his tunes on guitar. A thoughtful gift I think. He's learning so well :)

And since I'm a mommy to my cats (don't judge), I went out on Saturday and got a replacement cell phone cover (for FREE, thank you AT&T) and a new video game (again, don't judge) as gifts for myself. All in all, a great weekend!

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A just for me day....

Lately, I've had the urge to get out and do some more photography. It might be that Levi's photoshoot inspired me. So, since I took yesterday off anyway, I figured it would be a good time spend the day doing nothing but stuff that I wanted to do. One of the first things I did was join Kari and her two girls at the park (right after I made a headband to match my outfit, of course!) While we were there I snapped a few pics of Charlotte and Audrey.

Oh, and one of the owl they have there at the nature center....

After that, I went shopping (one of my true favs) and got some things for the house. Bought some beautiful pink hanging plants called Dragon wing begonias:

They're absolutely gorgeous and they have a glitter quality to them. Love love love these! Speaking of flowers I love, I also got some orange gerber daises. So pretty :)

These should add a little bit of color to the front porch. By the way, my garden is getting huge! Finally had to get some stands for my tomato plants because they were falling over. We did have our first casualty of the garden today. One of the marigold plants in a container died (or is dying). I suppose I have to get a few more when I go for a resupply at Barnes Farms.

Ok, enough blogging for today. Back out to finish trimming hedges, which I should probably not be responsible for since they look kind of jacked up. Later folks :)

Post-edit: Trimming has ceased due to an unfortunate encounter with nature (i.e. my wrist encountered a wasp) and the hedge trimmer's encounter with the drop cord (I cut right through that sucker.)

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Levi—One Year Photo Shoot...

On Wednesday it was once again time to take pictures of the too cute for words Levi. Seriously...too stinking cute. He wasn't exactly interested in having his photo taken that day. There was way too much interesting stuff going on around him and sometimes it's just time to play. We managed to get a few good ones though. Here are my favs:

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Fix-it Friday #53

It's Fix-It Friday over at iheartfaces again :) My favorite day of the week to blog because I always know what I'm going to post! Here are my edits for this week. Now it's your turn to head over to iheartfaces and do your own!

Original:

Basic Edit:

Cross Processed Edit:

Black and White Edit:

Digital Painting Edit:

Hope you enjoyed these and have a great weekend everyone!

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I've got sunshiiiiiinnnnneeee...

Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot!

Yesterday, I posted about starting an etsy store, so here's a preview:

Can't wait to do have more stuff to add to it. I've even got Jeremy in on it. I told him I was going to teach him one of the following: photography, sewing, crocheting, graphic design, or painting. Then I just decided that teaching him to crochet would be easier than anything involving the computer or artistic skill. And he went for it! I know, I was shocked too. His first crochet lesson is Sunday when he's finished with his online classes. One of which he finished last night :)

Yesterday I went in to discuss benefits and sign my life over to my new employers. They said they were excited for me to join them, but it can't compare to my excitement! I'm gonna have a huge office, my own department, a ton of creative freedom, and they're even willing to buy a new Mac for me to use! (For the record, I'm NOT a PC) The increased pay isn't too shabby either!

Another part of the process was doing a drug test. I know, luckily I kicked my cocaine habit months ago ;) Anyway, I just want to point out that there is nothing more uncomfortable than handing a complete stranger a cup of warm urine. AWKWARD!

As I was typing this, I also got some FANTASTIC news! When I put in my two weeks notice, I proposed to my supervisor that I could do what I do now from home. That way they won't be in a bind to find someone else quickly and it keeps my grandma happy (it was pretty obvious she didn't want me to quit...she also says that she's gonna pray that I don't sell my house so that I don't move further away, but that's a whole different post.) What else does this mean? Extra moolah! Never complain about that.

Speaking of extra jobs, I have another photo session this afternoon with Levi. Seriously, this kid is cute as hades. He's the little boy featured on the right side of my header. Flippin' adorable. He just turned a year old and it's time for more photos! I'll post some when they're complete...or done at all. Hopefully the weather will hold out and we'll find a good spot in Greenville.

So, if you can't tell. Life is grand right now :) I'm a happy girl!

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Etsy!

I bit the bullet and opened at Etsy shop! So excited :) Only have 3 items now, but here it is:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/cocoberrybaby

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Let's just start over...

I want to be perfectly clear...I hate my furniture. I HATE it. There are certain pieces that I like, but even they need work. All of our stuff is an accumulation of pieces we've collected over the years that we've been married. I've never been able to go out and buy all the stuff I wanted all at once. It's going to happen one day. I swear it! I'm going to have a yard sale one day, but instead of putting items in the yard, I'm going to let people walk through and make offers on anything they see. That's how much I hate it all.

And another thing...I want to completely rip out the disgusting (and I mean disgusting) carpet in the former office and bedroom. Thank you previous owners for leaving us with a pile of crap. Everyone may comment about how pretty this house was when you had it, but I know what it is REALLY like. Polish a turd and it's still a turd.

Here's why I'm growing increasingly pissed off as I think about this. This is what we moved into:

1. No insulation—What?! Are you kidding? It doesn't help that you lied to us about how much you spend on gas and heating this house in the winter time, but the fact that paid $15,000 to renovate the kitchen instead of paying $800 to insulate the floors blows my mind. Priorities, people. Priorities.

2. Paint job—Horrendous (seriously! Did you run out of paint in the living room, or did you honestly think a 2 inch gap of white between the molding and the wall color looked good?) Not everyone may like the colors I've chosen, but at least they can't complain about the paint not covering.

3. Giant cracks in the plaster—look, I know this house is somewhere around 110 years old, but really people, finding a giant hole in the dining room on the day I move in does not make a happy Jewel.)

4. Carpet—*vomit* do I really need to mention the carpet again? It's the reason the doors on those rooms stay shut until we can find the time to refinish the floors. Thank God the rest of the house is hardwood.

5. Electrical work—Who puts a breaker box BEHIND a refrigerator that's framed by cabinets? Morons. Not to mention it's against code. It's an enormous pain in the butt to pull that mammoth of a fridge out any time there's an issue. I'll say it again....Morons.

I will give you this. You had really pretty furniture that covered up most of these problems. Unfortunately, I can't afford to buy new furniture right now because our money goes into fixing all this crap. So again....Thanks.

Don't get me wrong, with all of its problems, I still love this house. I like the layout, the renovated kitchen IS nice, and it's incredibly spacious. But putting make-up on a warthog doesn't make it pretty. And now thanks to this horrible experience, I doubt we will be purchasing another home for a while. I think my husband is committed to being a life long renter.

On a brighter note, I finished the elephant yesterday. We've dubbed him Elliot. Original, I know.

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Just another boring Monday...

Another busy weekend that flew by WAY too fast. Spent most of Saturday driving around. Went to Jeremy's old church to get some barbeque and tomato plants they were selling (but I got them for free...let's not kid ourselves.) Then I went to get more compost for my garden from Jennifer and John's house (also delivered some barbeque.) From there, it was on to the Plum Tree Market Place to get more plants. The Barnes sell plants there and it's really interesting if you've never been. I highly recommend it. Got lots of plants for my grandmother, and a headband and grape hull conserve for myself. Finally....headed back to the house.

Forgot to take a photo of it, but I spread some of the plants around in my little flower bed. They're getting big, people! I might be a gardener after all! I'll set my self a remind to snap a pic when I get home.

After working in the yard and getting burnt (doesn't take much for me), I was on the road again, this time to deliver the plants to my grandmother. Tomatoes, cantaloupe, marigolds, and spaghetti squash <----can't wait til my own start producing :) Anyway, after helping her with some stuff around the house, I forced her to order my fav, Greg's Pizza. Seriously, I pity all of you who haven't tried ANY of the food from there. SOOOOOooooooo gooooooooddddd. While I was there, she wanted me to take a picture of the flowers in bloom. This one is her favorite. All I had was my phone, but it's not too bad.

I'm going to steal a vine of it to put at my house, she just doesn't know it yet. Well, after getting treated for my sunburn with aloe and my mammy's secret "talking the fire out," I was back in the car. This time the destination was hell Walmart. I was inspired by the headband I bought at the market to finally open up my sewing machine a year after I bought it. I have all these beautiful fabrics that I purchased that have been sitting on the shelf. So, I went to Walmart and bought elastic since I was determined to make one that night.

It's so hard to believe that I used to be able to make purses a couple of years ago, because I can't make anything now. Seriously, I had to watch the dvd that came with my sewing machine to figure out how to thread it. It was pitiful. My hard work was not in vain, however! Here's what I've made so far. Not too shabby, I think. In fact, I'm wearing the green one right now :)

Maybe the skills are coming back. I'm going to make an attempt for a camera strap tonight. Of course this will have to be right after I finish my crocheted elephant (I'm so close!) Maybe I'll have a photo to post of it tomorrow. You never know.

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