Ughh! Crazy days to say the least.

So this is the first week Robert's been gone with his job. He's in McKenzie-West TN auditing Bethel College but staying in Paris because according to him it's the closest place with a hotel decent enough to stay in. It's about 20 minutes from the college. Any whoodles, he's gone Monday thru Friday night. I don't like posting these things on facebook because I know lots of people on there and they know where I live or could figure it out. Here on the other hand, besides a few girls who maybe read my blog, are good friends that I completely trust rather than facebook friends/strangers. Everyone else who may possibly read this doesn't know a thing about me. :)

Of course, odd things decide to hit me all at once within a day of each other. So here it goes...this is long so prepare yourself.

Monday morning I decided to start my work day at 8am rather than 7am. Go figure right! Well, I decided this because I was going to be in Nashville any ways for a Predator's Game and I was just going to stay in the area. Well on my way to work, there was so much traffic. I had forgotten how horrible traffic was right before 8am. There's never traffic before 7am. Any ways, right before getting into downtown I noticed all these cars in front of me slamming on their brakes. Luckily I saw it ahead of time and had the time to slow down. I guess the car behind me did not. I looked out my rear view mirror and saw him coming as I also heard squealing tires. He tried swirving to the left to get to the emergency lane, but obviously didn't have the time and HIT ME! I saw it all and of course I tensed (I know you aren't supposed to do this, but I did as I didn't think about that). We are okay and it was nothing too major.

His car was no longer drivable and mine was okay all besides the bumper. My bumper is dented heavily and is no longer attached. The guy who hit me-his radiator went out. It was leaking juice everywhere. We caused a huge traffic pile up on the interstate obviously! So get this, I find out the guy who hit me is a COP! Yep a cop. Pulled the badge out and everything! I was so relieved that it wasn't me who hit him. Could have been bad if roles were reversed. After making sure we were okay and talking about what happened he then tells me, "We don't have to file a report for this. Things will go quicker and it won't take too long and you can be gone. This will then not get on both our driving records. You can trust me. I'm an officer." Yeah huh! An officer my booty. I did not feel comfortable with this at all and I told him this. When another police man arrived on the scene the guy who hit me tells the officer that we were thinking about not filing a report. I looked at him and gave him the eye because I NEVER agreed to it. Any ways, the other officer said, "Yes, we will file a report." I was so happy to hear those words. The guy who hit me said, "oh you do things differently in this county." So with all that said, a report was filed and it's done. His insurance will pay for my damages! I found out later the reason he didn't want to file a report was because police officers who actually cause an accident get suspended for a week without pay. Because it's going on his record he'll get suspended now. Oh well! I don't want it to come haunt me later.

Okay, so with that wierd incident as if it couldn't get wierder, on Tuesday night I decided to leave my girls with my mom. I work from home Wednesday's so I didn't want to have to wake them up super early to drop them off to then come all the way home again. I left girls and went home for the night. I decided to let Zorro-my maltipoodle dog sleep with me. My pro-tec-tor. ha! If you know Zorro, you know he's not big at all. Nor scary. So we went to bed and I fell asleep. Around 11:30pm Zorro wakes me up barking. I wake up to hear 2 men talking....outside my freakin' bedroom window! I am so scared by this point that I call my neighbor who doesn't answer and then call another neighbor who tells me he's at his girlfriends house 6 minutes away and that he'll be over asap! I then call the 911 b/c I don't know any other number to call and they transfer me to Wilson county who then forwards me to Williamson County. They never answered. I'm so scared because I still hear these men talking. Well about 10 minutes later the men are gone and there's police outside my door along with my neighbor. They look around to find nothing. They noticed though that the gate was wide open. We never leave that gate opened because we let Zorro out back there. So someone had obviously opened it. So after a while, everyone leaves. At about 12:30ish or 1am, Zorro once again wakes me up to again these same men talking!!! Again in my yard. I am really freakin' out by now. I call the police once again and they arrive 15 minutes later. Again nothing. They looked all around. The gate was propped once again but nothing. I think the police were annoyed with me and I bet they were thinking I had made all this crap up, but the gate said it all. I don't care what they say. After awhile they left again and well I went to bed with a huge knife next to me and that was the end of that.

The next morning I couldn't focus on work at all so I took 1/2 the day off. My nerves were everywhere. As I'm getting off work, as if the car accident and then intruders in my yard wasn't enough...I hear an ambulance and fire truck in my neighborhood. Hoping all was okay, I looked out my window to notice they had parked in front our friends house. My stress climbed again! Remember the art blog? I made those paintings for my friend who is also my neighbor. I ran to my phone to notice I had just missed a call from her. I was praying to God hoping her baby was okay who was born early last week (I posted a picture of her in the blog before too-Emelia). We finally got in touch with each other and she told me she had started hemorrhaging. She just randomly started bleeding a lot!! I felt so bad for her as she's already been through so much. She asked if I could go sit with her mother-in-law Patsey to take care of the baby since it had been a long time for her. I think it was meant for me to get off early that day so I could help her out. I sat with Patsey for about 2 hours and just enjoyed cuddling and playing with little Mia.

Those were two wierd days for reals that I had to share! I haven't stressed in that way in such a long time...2 highly eventful days in a row with 3 incidents. Hay ay hay! I need a relaxing day so bad! Which won't happen in a while as I'm planning my mom's 50th birthday party for this weekend. However it will be fun so I can't complain. I do love my life but this was just an eventful 2 freaky days!

Babies everywhere oh my!

Three of my friends all had babies within a day apart. Seriously! I thought it was interesting. They are all so cute and it makes me crave one again. JUST KIDDIN' PEEPS! I'm okay with my one year old for now. :) I just love the newborn smell and how small and itty bitty they are, however I don't miss the waking up every 2-4 hours. Any ways, I haven't met 2 of the babies yet, but I hope to very soon. All mom's are doing well.

Introducing all three babies in the order they were born....

Ben and Laura May's son:

Grayson Benjamin

Born September 19

Weighed 9 lbs, 1 oz, 21 in

Laura's got a blog..check it out!

www.lbmay.blogspot.com

Jason and Kim Aldridge's little girl:

Sloan Elise

Born September 20

Weighed 6 lbs, 6 oz, 19 in

Dustin and Amanda Smith's girly:

Emelia Grace

Born September 21

Weighed 9 lbs, 3 oz, 21 in Aren't they precious?! I think it's neat how they all were born within one day apart. So many babies!! I love it!!!

And HE got a job!

I'm a really excited girl right now! My hubster, this cute guy right here (ignore the plain ugly tree and bare window behind him-I don't have very many pics of him on my work computer), just got himself a job and he starts today. Yay! He is now an Auditor for Crosslin & Associates. An accounting firm located in West End, right across Centennial Park.


Robert's been ready to go back to work. He's been a stay at home daddy since May and it's proven to be a little more difficult than he thought. Kuddos to all stay at home mommas. Not to say he was bad, but he's not cut out for it. But I have to say, he did a good job regardless. He fed, dressed, played and met their needs. The girls will miss him. Arianna is so attached to him it's ridiculous. Everything is daddy this, daddy that. Avonlea is somewhat the same. Anytime I take her out of her crib on Saturday/Sunday mornings and she see's him, her eyes light up! Honestly, deep inside, it hurts my feelings a little. Don't take me wrong though, I love the fact that they are so in love with their dad. I'm happy they have a dad who loves these girls so much. He's a wonderful dad and in some ways too, I'll miss him being with them. The girls will now be going to complete strangers and it makes me a bit nervous. I think any mother would be nervous to leave their children with complete strangers. It takes a while to warm up to a person your children are not use to.

So back to Robert...as an auditor for Crosslin & Associates he'll be traveling a lot! I've kind of prepared myself for this already. When he was in school and also had a full time job, he was gone Monday-Thursday until 10pm at night. He would barely see the girls then too because of his heavy workload. I mean I was practically a single mom to two little girls, one being a recent newborn. It was tough. So with that said, I've done it and will probably be doing it again. His job requires 40-50% travel. That's actually a lot. Now traveling could be local, but gone until 10pm at night. It also obviously means overnighters. There could be times in the year he's gone up to 6 weeks at a time! Crosslin has several big companies they audit in other states such as NY, TX, Ca, DC, etc... However, they'll pay his flight home every weekend if he wanted to come home Friday-Sunday. They also said I could go with him, but that I'll have to pay my own way. He gets mileage reimbursement for every audit job and food per diem. Obvioulsy they'll pay his hotel. He'll maybe be in his actual office 2 times a week, because he'll be auditing other companies at their actual location. For example, some of their audits right now are Meharry College, Union college, city of Nashville, MTA, Nashville Electric and so on. So he'll actually be driving to work in the mornings to one of these locations and audit. Fun job huh?! To me absolutely BORING, but it's what he wanted to do. :)

He also gets a $2,000 bonus for taking his CPA. Yay! And when they asked what he wanted to get payed, he told them and they said, okay, we'll do it. Obvioulsy they really want him and didn't want to lose him. He went through 6 interviews in one day!!! They took him to lunch at Jay Alexanders and then later in the day they offered him the position. He was there from 10:30 until 3:30pm. He had no idea he'd be there that long. What company does this all in one day??? He had the interview Wednesday and he accepted Friday. I'm so proud of him. Truly I am. All his hard studying towards his CPA this summer has payed off. He's got one more to take the end of October and he'll be CPA certified/ready.

So with all that said, I'm a proud wife. I'm extremely happy for him and I know he'll do a great job. His goal is to one day be a CFO or Controller and I'll know he'll accomplish it. Way to go babes!!! I love you.

Happy Friday!

Art for fun anyone?

I love to paint when I actually give myself the time to do it. I would do it more often if I didn't work so much. To be completely honest, I'd love to do children's art work for nurseries and sell them.

I decided to paint 2 paintings for one of my dear friends whose expecting the end of this month. This meant a lot to me and I wanted to do something special for her. She's having a little girl. She's been through so much and has suffered through several miscarriages.

So in order to make the perfect bird on canvas, I bought pretty scrapbook paper and I then used a friend who has a cricutt machine (on my wish list) to cut a perfect bird. I would not have been able to do it otherwise. I had to get creative.

Here's the first

and the 2nd
and the two together

When I get the chance to stop by her house I'll take a picture and post it later. She loved both! Yay!

DC Trip

We finally got our computer cord and I can share our DC experience! Anyways....

As I've mentioned before, DC cannot be seen in 3 days. Our main objective was the Restoring Honor Rally put together by Glen Beck. We planned around this. Robert is a huge Glen Beck fan and well we decided spontaneously to go without girls. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency in Bethesada Maryland-about 10-15 miles out right on the metro. Nice and clean hotel. I was so happy we decided not to take a car as parking was $22 a day at the hotel..not to include $20 a day to just park in DC. Ridiculous.

When we first arrived at the airport we took our very first marc train out to Union Station to get on the metro. This was a bit overwhelming at first but we very soon figured all out.

Here we are getting on the marc train/metro for the first time! Fun experience, especially for people watching.

We arrived at Union station here and I was amazed and blown away by the fact that it was practically a mall train station!! Never knew this. I guess I expected little eatery places, but not shops. You can spend 1/2 a day there. You literally see people from all parts of the country. I heard many different languages.

After walking around for a while and eating our dinner at Union Station, we headed to Betheseda. Once we arrived in Bethesada, we had to go up this escalator to get to our hotel. It's seriously the longest escalator I've ever been on. Apparently this is quite normal in a lot of the metro stops. I'm sure people thought we were wierd because we couldnt' stop talking and laughing about it.

-Our First Full day- got on the metro and went to the smithsonian metro stop. Here we are standing at the mall. I was a bit surprised with the mall. I always thought it was paved sidewalks, gorgeous and fancy. Well not so much. Its gravel sidewalks all along the sides and patches of grass throughout. Of course people always come out here for different gatherings and stuff so I kinda understand the grass thing. Any ways, I was still in awe. Just being there and seeing the monuments was amazing in itself.

The first day I decided to wear flip flops-not knowing and took my purse, again not knowing. BAD IDEA! My feet were burning by the end of the day and were extremely dirty from the mall. We walked so much and we weren't going to take a cab for $40 to take us a few blocks away. We're way too cheap for that kind of stuff and that's just a lot of freakin' money.

Here's Robert with the capitol behind him at the mall

Me, with the washington monument behind me

Walking the mall-never knew it was a 3 mile loop. It seems like everything is so close, but literally far away.

Here's Robert in front of the Restoring Rally Banner-day before big day.

At the Washington monument looking at the Lincoln Memorial as its being prepped for Saturday's Rally. I thought it was absolutely gorgeous and I wanted to run badly through the pool like Jenny from Forest Gump. :)

So while there, we called Robert's old coworker whose been living in DC for the past year, any ways, he gave us a tour of the USDA/RD Building where he works. As boring as that sounds, the building was built to be a prison. So it was actually quite neat.

Robert wanted to feel important and get his speach on...so he did.

After this, which I have no pictures to share since it wasn't allowed, we went to the Holocaust Museum. I highly recommend this so you know the history behind Hitler and the nazi camps. The average time to get through this place for any normal human is 2 hours. It took us 4 1/2 hours! I had to read everything and see everything. I didn't want to miss anything. Of course a lot of this I blame on the crowd of people. I also probably cried 10 times. Hitler deserves Hell for what he did to all those jews. Extremely sad. I was overwhelmed and well words can't describe my emotions. I'm so glad I had the experience to go...however I don't recommend parents to take children 13 and under. Too much graphic pictures and videos of horrible nazi's and german dr.'s experimenting on children. Some horrid stuff! There were so many little kids too who I'm sure were pretty disturbed or for that matter traumatized...I mean I was. I will just say this, the very stop to the museum is on the 4th floor and when you get of off the elevator, your eyes immediately fall on a huge wall-a picture of dead bodies of children, women and men. No joke, my eyes teared up and I knew there was so much more to come. The cool thing about this place is that you get a passport of a jewish woman or man. You learn whether your jew lived or died. Sad too. Mine died, Roberts survived.

After the museum we went to a fish market. I don't believe I've ever been to a fresh fish market.

We then hopped on the metro and went to the Arlington Cemetery. I definitely recommend a stop to see this place. Amazing to think of thousands of soldiers who died for our Country. Soldiers from the Revolutionary War, World Wars, to the Persian Gulf War. Several Presidents are also burried here and other important figures.

We then walked over to the Iwo Jima Statue.

Took pictures of DC. I thought the view of the city was spectacular. All three buildings..the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and the Capitol.

-Day 2-

Restoring Honor Rally
Lots and lots of peoples

The rally was unforgetable and the main reason we decided to go to DC. Glen Beck put together this rally in hopes that people would come together to honor our Country and try to go back to it's original roots as it has obviously strayed away. Speakers such as Sarah Palin and Aveda King were there. We opened in prayer, sang together, listened to different speakers, and closed in prayer. Different religions came out and spoke. Becks speech focused on America's need to turn to God. The rally was very nonpolitical. It was far from it, despite what the media may have said. Sarah Palin did speak, but only to honor soldiers because her son is a soldier. Because our country is becoming godless the rally was very appropriate.

After the rally was over we walked over to the White House. There were too many people so we decided to come back (we never did).

We then went to H&M!! I love this place and can be there for hours. It's so affordable and funky. I know you can't really see it, but look hard enough and you'll see the red letters.
I wish we had this place here locally. It was 2 floors.

After my purchase at H&M (you'll notice one of my buys the last day in DC in a picture below) we walked over to the Ford Theater. This is where President Lincoln was shot. You'll notice a line below to get into the place. We waited a while.

Met up with Don-Rob's old coworker again.

and a friend I worked with who just moved recently to DC....

This was the home Lincoln was rushed too after he was shot and then died later.

His room where he was shot. It's obviously haunted. I'm not sure why my camera took like this, but I thought it was a bit wierd. So I dedicate this picture to Sarah. :) I looked hard to see if I saw any ghosts. I see nothing! :(

We then walked into the theater where it all took place. Where the chandelier hangs over window is where Lincoln was sitting with his wife when he got shot.

Here we are outside Theater (notice 2nd day I was smart and wore tennis shoes, even though I felt absolutely ridiculous).

After this, we walked over to the Bell Tower (Old Postal Service). We had heard from numerous peeps that we could get some great shots of the city...and so here they are....

My friend Trey walked over with us

We then walked to the mall again! With H&M in hand and notice no purse, but a backpack instead! I'm so glad we brought it too.
We headed over to the American History Museum. I loved it and we didn't even see it all. I really didn't take much pictures in there except this because we had so much fun doing it. You pick a famous president speech and read it at the podium. I was actually pretty good. Because i have such a loud mouth, people actually stopped to listen to me give my speech. I was a bit embarrassed at first, but I got over it quick. My secret service men looked out for me.

Day 3

Welcome to Mt. Vernon-beautiful place!

George Washington with wife Martha and her kids (interesting fact I didn't know-he never had any children of his own). Esta where are ya? I think youra little underdressed-put some bronze makeup and you should blend right in. oh and take those tennis shoes off!

Resting place for George and Martha-beyond that black box/hole are more family

View from their back porch

Front of home.

Their outhouse-yes three potties. Who wants to go potty with me! lol. I thought it was funny.
It was obviously built that way for a reason. They may have gone in groups back in the day. Who knows!

This thing/art I guess was beyond me. How the heck does an artist know how to do this? Any direction you moved, he looked at you. Left, middle, right, there he was starring.

Truly amazing. I wish I could do things like this.

Anywho, this place took all day because of metro and bus driving just to get here. For dinner we ate at an Irish Pub. No pictures. :( I was too tired and not thinking about it. We didn't get to our hotel until past midnight. As sad as this sounds, we rarely stay out that late anymore.

Day 4-Last day-same day we flew back home.

We got a tour of the Capitol.
This is inside the dome. Only place we took pictures really.

This one's for you Kristy-Helen Keller. You've shared several of her quotes and I know you love her. :)

Oh and you are probably thinking..why the heck would a Hellen Keller statue be in the capitol...well each state can place a significant figure from their state in the capitol and this is what Alabama chose. Tennessee was Andrew Jackson.

Another view of the capitol

We had a great time in DC and we were sad to leave and not have seen more. But we are due for another DC trip next September so we shall hit up what we missed.

We saw a lot! And saw some good friends. We did miss our girls, however it was a much needed trip for both of us. If that opportunity comes along, I highly recommend it.