Gives Me Hope...

Has anyone seen this website? A friend of mine on facebook had it posted, and I've just sat for an hour reading short testimonials about what gives them hope. It's a great website, especially around the holiday season.

Check it out! And be prepared to get teary eyed...

http://www.givesmehope.com/

Unemployment...week 3

A poem about being unemployed (can you tell I'm bored these days?):

'Twas the Monday after Thanksgiving when my bosses said to me,
"Meaghan, we can't afford to keep you on any longer. We have to let you go-sorry!"
I freaked out a bit, filed for unemployment, and then went into action.
Afterall, my unemployment checks are only going to be a fraction
Of what I was making before I was fired.
Surely, I can find a job soon and get hired!

I have applied to lots and heard from none,
Looking for jobs at the time of year is not fun!

To keep my spirits up, and stay in the Christmas mood,
Will bought me a tree to decorate so I didn't sit and brood.
I also helped decorate the McDonalds' office and Will's dad place,
Upping my tree decorating number from uno to tres.

I've wrapped lots of presents and put them under our tree,
Too bad I can't afford to buy more and spoil my family.
Being unemployed around the holidays is rough
I am trying to think of it like Christmas vacation- then it's not so tough.

I apologize for my lack of blogging as of late.
It's hard to be upbeat when I'm in such a crappy state.
Here's hoping 2010 is a better year.
I'll find a new job with a great salary and have nothing to fear!

Let Go...

...Laid off...company cutbacks...position eliminated...unemployed.

Anyway you put it, it sucks.

I'm now another unfortunate victim of the economy. My boss called on Monday morning with the news- they just couldn't afford to keep me on when no income was coming into the company. I have known for awhile that it a layoff was possible, but I was pretty shocked that I got cut with no warning. She called at 9:30 and that was that. My last check is in the mail.

I'm trying to remain positive. Since Monday I've filed for unemployment, submitted countless resumes and applications, and have had a couple interviews. I'm hopeful that my unemployment will be short and sweet. I am trying to land a serving position to hold me over until the first quarter, when companies have bigger budgets and hopefully a plethora of new jobs.

Let's pray for a Christmas miracle kids- I need a new job! STAT!!

Hey Wingards! Come see how good we look!

Hey Wingard family! Check out this video, circa May 1987.
Andy has been downloading all of our old Betamax videos to digital format and he sent me this gem last week. Hilarious! We make 1987 look good...

How I Spent My Tuesday Morning...

My life here in Nashville is rough. A never-ending cycle of concerts and activities are just a few steps from my door. I had an early wake-up call this morning. A couple people you may have heard of, Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood, were putting on a free concert literally 2 blocks from our loft, so naturally I made an appearance. I grabbed a pumpkin spice latte and meandered down to the corner of 5th and Broadway, where Good Morning America was broadcasting live. A 6:30 AM alarm clock meant no make-up for me, so I made sure to stand behind the cameras, but it was cool to be down there. My personal opinion? Carrie is WAY too skinny! She looks much smaller in person than she does on TV. She needs to chow down on some barbeque or something. Brad did a great job of keeping the crowd entertained during down time between the live filming. And man, they both can sing! I love when people perform live and sound the same as they do on their albums. Proof that they are legitimately talented.

The CMA Awards are tomorrow night, and Will and I both happen to have the day off. He doesn't know it yet, but I plan to walk down to the "red carpet" and do some country music celebrity stalking tomorrow afternoon. He can always have a few beers at Legends and wait for me.

Have a good week everyone!

Happy Birthday Cari!

For Cari (who is always cold), what could be better than getting one Snuggie for her birthday?

Getting TWO Snuggies!

Apparently great minds think alike. We drove up to Bowling Green on Friday evening to celebrate Cari's brithday with Sue's family, Will's dad, and Cari's boyfriend Curtis. Will and I got her a Snuggie, mainly as a joke (but also knowing that she would love it) and found out, seconds later, that Sue got her the exact same thing! It was hilarious. Only Cari would be truly delighted to be the proud owner of 2 bright pink Snuggies.

Halloween...Family Guy Style

The Family Guy characters...

Brian the Dog:



Peter and the Chicken:
Meg: The Result:
We had such a great time dressing up for Halloween this year! Will (as the Chicken), Colin (as Brian), Lee (as Peter) and myself (as Meg) went to see The Avett Brothers play at The Ryman and then hit up a couple honky tonks. Everyone (at least those who watch Family Guy) loved our costumes. Those who don't know Family Guy for some reason thought I was Waldo. All in all a highly successful group costume!

Cha Cha Butchee, Cha Cha Cha Butchee...

Roll Call!



The annual Wingard girls shopping trip is just a few weeks away! I figured most of my aunts and cousins read this, so I thought I'd pop a blog up here to see who was planning on coming, and to see where everyone would like to shop. It's more fun than an email, afterall!

After being here in Nashvegas for a year, I have a pretty good grasp of where things are, but if I know ahead of time where everyone would like to shop it should save us some time. As far as stores, we have all the basics, plus several outlet malls and Opry Mills (like St. Louis Mills).

Also, while we have plenty of space for everyone to stay with us, we don't have plenty of beds. So, just like at Leslie's- please bring air mattresses, pillows, and blankets!

As far as Saturday night activities- we live just a couple blocks away from the honky tonks so I thought we could walk down there and check out the scene. Even if you're not into country music, the bars are still entertaining.

So...who's coming this year?? And where shall we shop? And eat (since I know that's an important part of the weekend, as well!)?

Happy Birthday Ella!

I can't believe my little niecey-poo turns 3 years old today. It seems like no time at all since we were first meeting her in the hospital:

Celebrating her 1st birthday at (where else?) a Mexican restaurant:

Her 2nd birthday party last year:We sang "Happy Birthday" to her a week early, while we were all together in Houston:

She is getting so big! I love you Ella Bella. Hope you have a fun 3rd birthday!

My Hero

Wilson is officially gone. Our smoke detector beeps no longer. Last week Will bravely climbed 23 feet into the air to switch out the battery. These pics don't do it justice, but it was s-c-a-r-y. No safety nets were used-just Will, the extension ladder, and a long way down. I tried to climb up, but my fear of heights didn't allow me past the first few steps. Thanks to Will, though, our place is blissfully silent.

Unfortunately Will has been cooped up in bed since Thursday with a rather bad case of the flu. I did my best to stay away from him and stay healthy, because Ale and her family came to visit for a couple days. By Friday evening, though, I was hurting as well.

Ale left on Saturday morning, and Will and I have been laying in bed sick together ever since. We've been downing Gatorade and water like they're going out of style, and alternating between freezing and sweating, all the while coughing so loud and obnoxiously that our poor neighbors probably want to move. While it sucks being sick, it's kind of nice to be able to lay together and have nothing to do except try to feel better.

Mawage.

Mawage is what bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...

Well, it's official. I now have a sister-in-law. I will do my best to highlight the weekend without going overboard on details.

• The weather was fantastic! It poured on Friday, but the rain led to much, much cooler temperatures for the actual wedding on Saturday. When I arrived in Houston, it was in the upper 90's. By Friday the temp had dropped significantly, and Saturday it was actually cool! Whew! They really lucked out in the weather department. No rain on their wedding day AND cool temperatures.
• Mom, Dad, Will, Ale, Francisco, and I missed the wedding rehearsal at the Cathedral. Not intentionally. We were the first to leave the hotel, but we got stuck in Houston rush hour traffic, in the rain, and with faulty GPS directions we were the last to arrive. We got there in time to hear the priest say, "OK, we're done here. Next wedding rehearsal." Needless to say, Andy was NOT happy with us, but there really wasn't much we could have done about it.
• Fortunately our lack of practice wasn't noticeable. We did a fine job during the ceremony. The biggest mess-up goes to the priest. He accidentally prounced Andy and Sandy "Mr. and Mrs. McGowan" at the end of the ceremony. This was followed by confused looks on the bride and groom, an "Oh, sh*@" mumble under the priest's breath, some name "help" from the audience, and a quick adjustment to the name.
• Ella and Sandy's niece Emma served as flower girls. We understand now why the church asks that the flower girls be at least 5 years old to participate. Ella was all. over. the. place. She doesn't handle not being the center of attention very well, and she snuck up next to Andy and Sandy whenever possible, carefully dodging and ignoring Molly's glaring death stare eyes following her. I'm sure the pictures will be cute, but we were soooo mad at her for misbehaving. And on purpose. She kept looking back at Molly, giving her "what are you going to do about it?" eyes.
• When welcoming everyone to the reception, Sandy's dad joked that he was learning about a whole new side of my brother. "Apparently he goes by some other name, Andy, and I guess his last name is now in question, too." (Sandy's family all know Andy as Will, so they had to get used to him being called Andy all weekend.) At that point, someone yelled out "Witness Protection!"
• The reception site was beautiful! Sandy had the tables decorated in city themes- each table was labeled after a city that they traveled to together. Mom and Dad sat at the London table, and the wedding party sat at the Bali table, where Andy and Sandy are honeymooning right now.
• Shaughn's best man speech was very emotional. I was great about not crying all day- I got teary eyed during the ceremony, but I didn't lose it until I heard Shaughn's speech. When sharing stories about how great of a brother Andy is, Shaughn talked about his accident and how when he was in the ICU, many nights he woke up and saw Andy there, uncomfortably sleeping on 2 chairs pushed together. And about how Andy pushed Shaughn to come to Houston, move in with him and Sandy and go back to school. It makes my eyes water just thinking about it. Shaughn told me later that the speech he had typed out and planned to give was nothing close to what he ended up saying. I told him that sometimes you gotta go with your heart.
• It was so fantastic to see everyone having a great time at the reception. The food was great, and the dance floor was full the whole night. I've truly never seen my brother so happy. Sandy is a great match for him, and I'm so excited to have her as my sister-in-law.

Here are some pictures that I especially loved from the weekend:

Sandy's almost ready!
And Andy's enjoying a hearty breakfast:

The cathedral was HUGE! But very pretty:

Ella and Uncle before the wedding:

And here's Ella again, right by Uncle's side as he escorts his bride down the aisle:

"I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. McGowan"

The whole family:

On the party bus, admiring their new hardware:

Kissy faces:

My favorite pic of all the siblings:

Shaughn's speech:

Me and my Willard (who was quite a hit at the reception, I might add!):

Mom and Dad:

Seeing the bride and groom off!

All Things Music Edition.

(Quick shout-out to Leslie for adding a playlist to her blog this morning. She was the inspiration behind this post!)

(And on a COMPLETELY unrelated note, another quick shout-out to Leslie's husband Ben. He graced our trivia team with his presence a couple weeks ago while he was in the area for business meetings. Undoubtedly his random knowledge of useless facts led our team to an all-time high score of 2nd place!...minus the time that I wasn't there and the team got 1st place...which I don't count...because it's my blog and I don't have to count it if I don't want to. (Seriously, who else would know that Cindy Crawford was the supermodel who was featured shaving kd lang's head on the cover of Vanity Fair?) Incidentally, we have yet to match our score from that night. (We aren't that great at trivia.) He also came up with a fantastic team name...The Savage Egg Reapers...which was mistakenly read as The Sausage Egg Reapers by the trivia host. A little late, but Ben deserves some recognition. Nicely done, sir. Nicely done.)

(And now, back to the All Things Music Edition...)

I love, love, love music of any kind. Some genres more than others, but seriously, I love everything from hip-hop and rap to bluegrass and country to rock and roll to cheesy pop and dance music to latin to broadway tunes and classical. My i-pod looks like it has multiple personalities. I can't get enough of it.

I have been working on making some playlists for Andy and Sandy's wedding weekend, so I've had my i-tunes up more than usual the past few weeks. I'm in charge of rehearsal dinner music, a "girls' night out" mix, and then background music for the hospitality room at the hotel for relaxing in between the ceremony and the reception.

Can I just say how much I enjoy making playlists? I've always thought I'd be great at making movie soundtracks. I love how you can always find a perfect song to match your emotions, or thoughts, or heck, even the weather. For instance, it's a dreary, rainy, chilly day here in Nashville. My soundtrack of choice today? I and Love and You, the new album from The Avett Brothers. (I can Not. Get. Enough. Of this album. If you haven't heard of The Avett Brothers, I suggest downloading some of their stuff. They're fantastic. I've been following them for years and they're finally starting to get the recognition they deserve. I'm also really excited to go see them play at The Ryman Auditorium on Halloween. Talk about a good time! WOO HOO!)

But, I digress. As I'm working on these playlists, I'm open to suggestions from my peanut gallery of readers. When you think "rehearsal dinner" or "relaxing in a hospitality room between a wedding and the reception" what type of music do you imagine? Any songs in particular jump into your head? Just curious...

And...I'm totally side-tracked right now. I have too many thoughts going through my head. I leave for the wedding tomorrow afternoon and my brain is running in a million different directions. I'm making mental lists of what to pack (don't forget the bridesmaid dress, don't forget the bridesmaid dress), doing laundry, trying to clean on my lunch break so there's less to clean when I get home on Monday, scrambling to finish last-minute work so my co-workers aren't left in a tight spot while I'm gone, etc...

Speaking of which, lunch break is over. Off to a webinar.

And PS- I realize that this blog was not-so-much all things music. I'll try harder next time to appropriately title my blogs. Random ramblings are hard to title.

Things I'm excited about today...

In no particular order:

1. Finally, it's starting to feel like fall here in Nashville. Today is the first day in about 2 weeks where it hasn't been around 85 degrees, muggy, and raining. Bring on the 60 and 70 degree weather- I'm ready to bust out my sweaters!


2. My girlfriends just got back from a weeklong trip to Ireland (and I'm jealous I wasn't able to join them!) They visited several of the same spots that Will and I went to on our trip, so I'm reliving our vacation through their stories and pictures. What a beautiful country- I can't wait to go back!


3. I can't believe my brother gets married in less than 2 weeks! I am sooo excited to get to Houston and see my family. I have gone far too long without a visit, and I am ready to party with them! I am not excited about the amount of stuff I need to get done in the next 9 days before I leave. So much to do, so little time to do it...


4. I am also extremely excited to see Ale, Francisco, Ale's Mom, and to finally meet my little Chilean niece Isadora. She is cute as a button in the pictures I've seen of her and I can't wait to hold her and squeeze her chubby little cheeks! Look at how precious she is!


5. The Titans, not great so far. Da Bears, doing well. Football season, always awesome.


6. Spray tanning. Look like a golden goddess, but without the nasty side effect of skin cancer. OK, not gonna lie, I've never done it, so I don't think excited is the right word to use here. Apprehensive is better. Has anyone done this before? I have some leftover tan lines that won't exactly match my strapless bridesmaid dress, and I think spray tanning would be the quickest, most effective way to deal with the problem. But with my luck, I'll end up looking like Ross in that episode of Friends. No good. If anyone has any advice/words of wisdom about this area I'd love to hear from you!

Blogger's block

I haven't been in the mood to blog lately. Have any other fellow bloggers shared that sentiment? It's not that we haven't been up to fun and exciting things. As a matter of fact, we've been doing lots of fun and exciting things, here in Nashville and out of town. I just haven't had the urge to sit down and write about them.

And today, I fear, isn't the day to write about them, either. I had every intention of filling in my eager followers with grand stories of, among other things, all things sports-related. Stories like going hiking in one of Tennesse's many state parks, returning to the city where my love of stadium nachos began and taking in a Cardinals game in St. Louis, cheering on the Predators at their first pre-season game of the hockey season, catching the Bears games at our new neighborhood watering hole (and where other Bears fans seem to congregate as well, making the atmosphere that much more fun to watch the game), and attending the first (official) home game of the Titans season.

I was also going to tell the blogging world about Mom, Molly, and Ella's trip to "Nashvittal" to go dress shopping for Molly's wedding, and about Ella's first honky tonking experience.

I was going to share the stresses of getting ready for Andy's wedding, which is just 19 short days from now. And let you know that Molly and Kelsey moved their wedding date up to January 2nd. Apparently the Wingard kids like to fire out weddings in rapid succession.

I planned on letting you know that zumba is still my exercise drug of choice, even if I have somewhat failed to attend classes as often the past couple weeks. (All the above-mentioned sporting events seem to fall on zumba days. Replacing exercise with stadium nachos and beer is a good trade-off, no?)

On the home-front, I was going to share with everyone the fact that that stupid smoke detector is STILL beeping!!! And that I'm starting to feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway. (You know how he turned that volleyball into a person and talked to it, and then freaked out when he thought he lost it? The smoke detector and I have a similar relationship. It chirps and chirps and chirps at me all day long and drives me crazy. But sometimes, when I haven't heard it chirp for awhile, I start to freak out that maybe it officially died on me. Inevitably, the chirping returns. Anndddd, we are back to square one.)

I would probably also let everyone know that we are hunting for the perfect entertainment center to house the 56 inch television (that we don't have) so we can watch endless amounts of movies (since we don't have cable.)

Yup, I was going to tell great stories about all those things, but I'm just not in the mood. Maybe sometime later this week.

Home sweet home

Sometimes it can take awhile before your place of residence feels like home.

I had my "Eureka! I'm home!" moment around 1:00 AM this morning. I frequently get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, and have to turn on the bathroom light to avoid stubbing my toe, taking out the shower curtain, failing to put the lid up before going (OK, eww- for the record, I've never failed to put the lid up before going...at least when sober...), etc...

Last night, however, I stumbled out of bed in the darkness to use the restroom, and successfully found the toilet paper without needing to turn the light on!

Going to the bathroom in the middle of the night without needing a light= home. It's the little things that make my day.

Guilt.

Will complained to me the other day that I don't use my nice, shiny, beautiful KitchenAid mixer nearly enough. Translation: "Make me cookies, woman."

The problem? I'm attempting to count calories and eat healthier. Quite frankly, the temptation of having baked goods in the house is far too great for my mediocre will power to handle. I've avoided baking cookies for that very reason. But today, the guilt of being a bad house-girlfriend caught up to me, because Will is right. I really don't use my mixer as frequently as I promised I would when I squeeled with excitement as I opened said-mixer on my birthday a few months ago.

The solution? I made Will a batch of chocolate chip cookies this evening...with oatmeal.

Oatmeal equals healthy. Good compromise, no?

In no particular order...

• So our beeping smoke detector? 2 weeks later...and it's still beeping. I've learned to tune it out.



• Hello, my name is Meaghan, and I'm addicted to zumba. Zumba is like a latin music dance party/aerobic workout and it has you sweating and gyrating in no time flat. It's also like a drug. You become addicted and HAVE to zumba. All the time. I go to 3 different YMCA's in the course of a week, just to zumba. Zumba reminds me of my younger years, when I was shaking my thang in the clubs of Madrid. Sigh. To be young again...



• Speaking of young, Will and I went on an "urban" hike yesterday. We were big into urban hiking when we lived in Denver. On the weekends we would just wander around the city, exploring different parks and neighborhoods. Yesterday we had every intention to spend the day sunning on the boat, but the weather chose to not cooperate with us- 70 and overcast, while not great boating weather, is perfect for urban hiking. We walked from our place to Centennial Park, then meandered through Vanderbilt's campus before heading back downtown. It was move-in weekend on Vandy's campus. Is it just me or have college freshman grown younger? I remember moving into my dorm at SLU freshman year. I felt all grown up. The "students" I saw moving in yesterday resembled 8th graders to me.



• And while I'm on this soapbox- we saw moving vans being unloaded yesterday at the dorms. Moving vans!! What?! And no, these students were not moving into apartments- they were moving into on-campus housing, which, I'm willing to bet- comes furnished. I'm usually not into the whole "When I was your age" argument, BUT...When I was your age and moved into my dorm, I packed darn near everything I owned into several boxes that fit in the back of my mom's car. Ugh. I'll stop now because I'm at risk of sounding like a bitter old lady who is jealous of all those freshman who are at the beginning of what will turn out to be some of the greatest years of their lives. Moving on...



• Want to play a fun drinking game? Will and I invented one on Saturday night. When watching Pineapple Express, take one drink for every person who takes a hit of a doobie for each scene. If you've seen that movie before, you'll understand why Will and I nearly cleaned our fridge of beer over the course of a 2 hour long movie. And PS- James Franco makes a hilarious burn-out. Hard to believe it's the same guy from the Spiderman movies.



• I've been too busy chasing zumba classes around the city to have done much else the past couple weeks. But I did want to share a fun video that I found on YouTube. The stuff you can find on that site! In honor of the Vandy kids returning to school:

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

Life in a loft...perplexing issue #1

We wondered this when we moved in...and now we are experiencing it firsthand.

How does one go about changing the batteries in a smoke detector that has been beeping (annoyingly, I might add) since Saturday morning?

In a home with typical 8 or 10 foot ceilings, a step ladder would do the trick. In a home with 18 foot ceilings, however, this issue becomes a bit more complicated.

To be continued...

Dear Coffee,

You are delicious. I am enjoying my 2nd cup of the day. I usually keep the coffee maker in hiding in a cabinet so as to not clutter the countertops, but I busted it out on Sunday morning...and it's not going back to the cabinet anytime soon. There's nothing like a cup of coffee to make your morning a little bit nicer.


We bought a table last night! Technically it's a poker table for our game room, but it is going to serve as our dining room table for awhile. We could have bought the dining room table that we have had our eyes on, but the poker table was a steal of a deal, so we couldn't refuse. Will is picking it up today, so we should have fun assembling it this evening. I'm so looking forward to eating our meals on a table (not the ottoman that we are currently eating all our meals on!)


Now it's back to saving again until we can afford to buy our next piece of furniture. We're pretty excited about this bed from Z Gallerie- maybe in a few months we'll be ready to actually buy it!

We bought art!

Real art! Like one-of-a-kind, from an art gallery, art!

OK, if we're going to get into technicalities, we had a gift certicate to use from moving into our place, so really we didn't buy the art. But we are still excited.

Will's favorite phrase now is "I like our art." I hear it about 7 times a day. But I like it, too, so it doesn't bother me to hear it over and over again.

Slowly but surely the place is coming together!

To my big brother:

Happy (30th) birthday to you, Happy (30th) birthday to you!

Happy (30th) birthday, dear Andykins...

Happy (30th) birthday to you!

You're growing older...but not up! May you continue to be a positive role model of maturity and wisdom for your niece as well as your own future children.

And don't stop having fun! :)

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY BIG BRUDDER!

Mawwiage...

Mawwiage is what bwings us togethaw today. Mawwiage,that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam...

LOTS of wedding schtuff to report on this blog! First of all, a big Congrats to Molly and Kelsey, who became "officially" engaged this weekend!

The ring:

The couple:

And another big congrats to Colin and Jackie, who tied the knot over the weekend!

Colin gets a lot of lip from Will for living in the middle-of-nowhere Iowa, but really, Pella is an adorable little town. Its city center is charming and reminded me a lot of Bruges or Gent in Belgium. The town is actually meant to look more like Holland, complete with windmills, tulips, and a molengracht river running through it. The weather was perfect, the humidity was low, the bride (and groom) looked beautiful and happy, and the groomsmen were well-behaved...for most of the weekend, at least!

Some pics from the weekend:

Exchanging rings:

My handsome boy toy cleans up well!The groomsmen Jackie went with a black and white theme and yellow accents- it was really pretty. And her dress was gorgeous!Hey everyone, come see how good we look!

The bride and groom!

Will and Colin have been great friends since highschool