My old co-worker from Chicago, Morgan, has had quite a whirlwind of a life the past few weeks. She was married in Mexico just a couple weeks ago, and then a couple days ago, flew unexpectedly to New Zealand. Her sister, Torey, was working over there (I imagine in much the same fashion that Will and I wanted to go to Australia for) and she was involved in a car accident and suffered head trauma. They had to remove part of her frontal lobe to reduce the swelling in her brain, and she is now heavily sedated. My heart goes out to Morgan and her family. Shaughn's accident was by far the scariest thing that I've ever experienced, and I hate to think that another family is going through the same emotions, especially half a world away.

Normally I wouldn't write about this in my blog, especially since most people don't know Morgan, but after Shaughn's accident, I'm a firm believer that God answers prayers, and the more prayers that are being said for Torey, the faster she'll recover. Please keep Torey in your thoughts today, and say a little prayer for her speedy recovery.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/toreyphelps

Shopping weekend!

This weekend I drove up to Indianapolis to attend the annual Wingard girls shopping trip. It's been a family tradition for a long time- all girls 21 and older are invited. The weekend is always full of shopping, laughing, talking, eating, and drinking. Last year I was too far away to come back for it, so I was happy to make it this year. Leslie played hostess, so I was finally able to see her house. I love how she decorated her place in St. Louis, and this house did not disappoint. It's so cute!

Only 8 of us went this year- Leslie, our hostess, Pam, Erin, Faye, Lisa, Tanya, Mom, and me- smaller than usual, but still a good size. I felt a tad out of place since I was the only girl on the trip this year who is not married and childless. Good thing I have a cute little niece that I could talk about! My favorite part of the weekend isn't really the shopping (I'm not that into shopping, really), it's the night time. I really love being able to sit around with my cousins and aunts and share stories. I don't see them often, so it's nice to catch up and hear what they've been up to.

I was also able to meet the newest addition to the family- little baby Drew. He is adorable! And such a sweet baby. We took turns holding him all night on Saturday, and he was content to sleep in the arms of whoever was holding him.

I am proud of Leslie's willpower in not letting Gracie join the girls for the Sunday round of shopping. She was so sweet all morning, I would have had a hard time saying "no". Apparently she was very much looking forward to having a bunch of girls in the house. Sunday morning she was up and downstairs bright and early cuddling with her Gram while we all layed on our air matresses. She told us all about the sleepover she had been to before, and the unicorn movie she watched. And she chimed in with giggles when we all laughed about a story from the night before. I'm not sure that she understood what the story was about, but hearing her cute little laugh just made me laugh that much harder!

Gracie is a big American Girl fan, and Leslie had told her that I wanted to watch the "Kit" movie with her on Sunday morning. Unfortunately we didn't have time to watch it, so Gracie let me borrow her movie this week and bring it back to her on Thanksgiving. What a sweetheart! It was so cute the way she explained it to me. "Here, you take this and watch it, and then when we go to Gram's house you can give it back to me and we can talk about it". Maybe she got the idea from Leslie's book club??

We looked at a lot of Leslie's scrapbooks- she is SO good at making them! I wish I had the time, energy, materials, and creativity to make pages. They are such great ways to remember events. I'll stick with the blogging for now, though. I learned an interesting new word, too- "scraplifting"- stealing other's scrapbook page ideas. Well, I took it to another level- I "bloglifted" a picture of all of us from Leslie's blog and put it on mine. :) Thank you Leslie!

Ben, Bryan, and Luke were troopers, letting a big group of girls come into the house. I was terribly impressed with Luke's spelling ability- what a smart little boy!

Overall, it was a great weekend, and definitely helped get me more into the holiday spirit. I'm really looking forward to going to Decatur on Wednesday and dun, dun, dun, introducing Will to the extended family. It sounds like it's going to be a big group this year- I hope he's ready!

See most of you readers on Thursday!

First night alone in Nashville

I'm all by myself for the first time since we moved to Nashville. Will is at his first official McDonalds function in Indiana and won't be back til tomorrow.

I must be living in the South now. I'm drinking beer while watching the Country Music Awards on tv. I have been enjoying more and more country music over the past year or so. Maybe it's because I moved to the country music capital, but more than likely it's because it's starting to sound less and less country to me. :) I mean, if Hootie has a country song out now, it can't be that bad, right?

I must admit that living in Nashville there aren't a lot of other music options. Literally every radio station here is either classic rock or country. I am not opposed to classic rock, but it is not that easy to sing to in the car. So I have several country stations programmed now and have genuinely enjoyed belting out my new favorite tunes.

My main motivation behind watching the CMAs, though, is so I can learn the faces of all the country music celebrities. That way, I will recognize them if I ever run into them in Nashville. I'm such a sucker for celebrity gossip, country or otherwise. I like that I'm living close to it. :)

The reason for this blog is to share a funny story: I love the "status" updates on facebook. I updated my status earlier this evening letting everyone know that I am, in fact, drinking beer and watching the CMAs. A few minutes ago, I logged back on and saw that both my Aunt Faye and my cousin Tiffany are doing the exact same thing. I guess the love of country music runs in the family! (Side note: Faye is drinking scotch, not beer. I personally don't think that's country enough. Beer, whiskey, or moonshine are the only acceptable forms of alcohol to be drinking while watching a country music awards show).

Chicago...

...is my kind of town! Will and I drove up from Nashville for the weekend to visit friends and to go to the Bears/Titans game. It felt sooo great to be back in the city again! I haven't spent any time here since we moved to Denver last September, so it was especially nice to get back. I didn't realize how much I missed Chicago til now.

We got a great hotel rate at the Wyndham downtown thanks to our friend Megan, who works there. While we didn't get in til after midnight, I was way too excited to be "home" again and insisted we got out for a little while. We headed over to Fado, one of my favorite bars in Chicago, and had a couple drinks before we hit the hay.

Saturday was a busy day for us. We had so many people we wanted to see, and not a lot of time to do it! Megan's parents were in town, too, so we met them at a bar to have a couple drinks and watch the Michigan State/Purdue game. A few more friends joined us, and it really just felt like old times. It's funny how you can go away for a year and come back to see everything exactly the same as you remember. That is comforting to me.

A somewhat unfortunate (but deliciously sinful) part of the weekend was the caloric intake. I miss Chicago food! After the game, Will, Shelley, Abby, and I headed to Portillos to indulge. You can not find Italian beef like Portillos anywhere else on the planet. So yummy.

We then made a quick trip up to Wrigleyville, our old hood, to drop the girls off and to stop by Strange Cargo. I also miss that store! You can create your own t-shirts there, so I had a new Bears shirt made for the game. I wish we could have spent more time up in the old neighborhood, but we had to get back to the hotel to get ready to see some more friends.

We met up with some of Will's old college friends in Bucktown for dinner at Bluefin. Ahhh, sushi. We have eaten sushi exactly twice since we left Chicago, so it was especially delicious. I hope we can find a good sushi spot in Nashville! John and Erika just had a baby 3 months ago, so we were able to meet Zoe. It's been a while since I've been around infants, but man, she is super tiny! And extremely adorable. John, Erika, and Zoe are hoping to move to Nashville soon. They don't want to raise Zoe in the city, and want to be equidistant from their families, so they've decided Nashville is a good spot. Their condo is on the market, and I'm really hoping that they sell it so they can get down there and be our neighbors!

After dinner we said goodbye to the baby and the Rohrichs and met up with the girls. My old roommate Mark came out for awhile. Again, felt like old times. :) I thought I called it an early night since we had the game to go to the following morning, but in typical Chicago fashion, we didn't get home til about 3:30. Where does the time go when you're out??

In the words of Elvis, on Sunday we woke up to a "cold and grey Chicago morning". Perfect football weather! Well, in my opinion, it could have been about 20 degrees warmer, but good football weather, nonetheless. We layered up and hopped in a cab with John and Erika to get to Soldier field. Will had won 4 tickets in an auction, and decided to give the other pair to the new parents. We figured they could use the break and might enjoy being "single" again. Erika did surprisingly well considering this was the longest amount of time she had spent away from Zoe since she was born. The game was a ton of fun. Our seats were AWESOME. About 12 rows up on the North end zone. The Bears ended up losing but it was hard to be upset about it since that put the Titans at 9-0. And since the Titans are now my #2 team, I was happy regardless of the outcome. We froze at the game, though. At one point it was actually snowing. Brrrr.

I convinced Will to walk back to the hotel from Soldier Field as opposed to taking a cab. I really miss just walking around the city. It is a gorgeous town. We grabbed some hot chocolate and had a nice little stroll back along Michigan Avenue. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing in the hot tub and then gorging on Giordanos pizza. Another treat for us. Yummy.

Sorry for a long blog, but it was just so great being back in familiar territory. We both decided that we need to make an effort to get back more often. Over the weekend we agreed that if we could transport the city of Chicago to Denver's background of mountains, we would never leave.

I'll try to post pics as soon as my friends post theirs from the weekend. I really need to buy a new camera! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Man, it's amazing how bad I've been about blogging since we've moved!


Here's a brief recap of the past month:


Moved to Tennessee, underwent extensive cosmetic surgery (our rental apartment, not myself), flew out to Vegas to see Mr. Jimmy Buffett, continued the extensive cosmetic changes to our apartment, went home to see Ella and the family for Ella's 2nd birthday, returned to Tennessee and was able to finally(!) move into our place, saw the Titans reach 7-0, and then 8-0!


Buffett in Vegas was so much fun! First of all, Cari (Will's sister), Will, and I all needed a well-deserved break from working on our place. Cari has been so wonderful during all the renovations. She is an ER nurse and spent every day off helping us for about 12 hours/day. We seriously wouldn't be living here yet had she not helped us. Our trip to Vegas was for Cari's 40th birthday present. She and I are both huge Buffett fans, so we had a great time. I convinced everyone to sport coconut bras, grass skirts and funny hats for the party. Will and Curtis, Cari's boyfriend, were great sports (and secretly I think they truly enjoyed sporting the coconut bras). We went to the official Margaritaville Street Party before the concert and were treated like celebrities! We had a bunch of people come up and ask if they could take our picture. I was actually surprised that we were among some of the dressier people at the pre-party. I mean, it's Buffett! In Vegas!! Why wouldn't we dress up?! When else can you look absolutely ridiculous and get away with it? :)
The highlight of the day was definitely getting on "Buffett cam". For every show, they send out a camera crew to film the people out and about having a good time tailgating as it's such an important part of the Buffett concert-going experience. The camera man filmed Will, Cari, Curtis, and I in our get-ups, and we were SOOOO EXCITED!!! when we saw ourselves on the big screen during the concert! What a great present for Cari. She keeps saying that the concert was the greatest gift she's ever received. She has a great brother! :)


The following weekend I went to see Ella, and to check out Molly's new house. It's so weird that she is living in Aunt Mary's house. I really like how she's decorated it...though the kitchen needs some work. Ella is getting so big! She's quite the talker now. It's amazing how extensive her vocabulary is. She was cracking us up all weekend. She is very big on retelling the story of how her cousin Connor got put into a time out for throwing away the chicken nugget. She told that story over and over again. Not sure why that particular event is sticking with her, but it was so funny listening to her! I love watching her grow up. It really just makes me melt when she says my name- so cute! I bought her the cutest little Daisy Duck costume that she wore trick-or-treating last weekend- though I hear that she wasn't a fan of wearing the head part of the costume. Not that I blame her- it looked a little small!







And as always, it's great to get to see Kelly and to go out with the siblings. We had a lot of fun Saturday night...and judging by how I felt Sunday morning, probably a little too much fun!



We have been lucky enough to get to go to several Titans games since we've been down here. Will's dad has awesome suite tickets in the McDonalds box so we have great seats every time. The box is right next to the visiting team's owner box, so it's been fun watching their faces as the Titans win. Having access to those seats is a great bonus! And though I am a Bears fan through and through, I have enjoyed watching the Titans. How awesome that they're 8-0!

So that's what I've been up to since we've moved. It is really nice to finally be done working on the apartment and actually be living in it. Work has been an adjustment. I'm not sure how I like working from home, but it's getting easier to stay focused now that Will is working again.

Hope everyone voted yesterday! Regardless of who you were rooting for, it's pretty evident that history has been made.

Progress!

Just wanted to share a quick "before" and "after" shot of the apartment. I took these on my cell phone, so it's not the best quality, but it does show a huge difference in the place! We laid the floor in the bedroom and the den, so we are down to finishing touches in 3 rooms. Our last big project is the bathroom- that's going to take some work! We have to lay flooring down in the kitchen, too, but we're getting closer to being done! Hopefully we'll be moving in by Halloween weekend.

The living room "before"- note the awful maroon color on the walls, and the painted cement floor that is Christmas green.

And, the living room "after"- we kept the cement floor in here because of the occasional water that comes in when it rains hard, but we painted it brown, which helps it look less like cement, and more like a real floor.

Like I said, we still have a lot of work to do, but it is so nice to finally see real progress on the place! I'll post more pictures once we are completely done.

Dear Meaghan,



Didn't we just have one of these heart-to-hearts just last week? Another reminder for you- never, ever agree to move into an apartment that needs to be renovated before you can live in it! EVER!!

Love,
Yourself

Well, week 2 in Nashville and we are still staying at Will's dad place. Last week, we decided to rent the walkout basement apartment that is below Will's dad's office for a very cheap price. At the time, it seemed like a great decision. Cheap rent = saving lots of money and being able to buy a place once the economy turns around. We did not, however, plan on having to completely renovate the place before we could live there!

The apartment has real potential to be a cute place. But there is just soooo much work that has to be done. The previous tenants have not done much to take care of it- it smelled musty, was terribly dirty, and had at least a couple years' worth of "stuff" sitting around in closets. And the I took last week off so we could dedicate whole days to renovating. We have put in more than a few 12 hour days and finally we are starting to see some progress. We have ripped out carpet and linoleum, and painted EVERY surface of the apartment, most ceilings included. We've caulked, replaced baseboards, scrubbed the fridge, cleaned out drawers and closets. And the annoying part of the whole thing is that we don't even plan to live here long! It's a LOT of work to put into a place we plan to only live in for several months. Oh, and the main room was painted an awful, awful Maroon purple. Seriously? Who paints a room that way? Ugh.

It rained really hard all last night and this morning we walked in and found huge puddles of water in the main room and bathroom. Sigh. It never ends. The minute we get kind of excited about the place when we can see progress, we end up taking a couple steps back. We think the gutters were clogged so the water had nowhere else to go. I hope that is all it is!

OK, I'm going to keep this post short because I feel some bitching coming on and a blog is no place to bitch. That's what phones are for- to call my mom and bitch instead. :) Seriously, though, we are doing our best to be patient and make the best of the situation. Will and I take turns reminding each other (when one of us breaks out into a frustrated and exhausted tantrum) that financially this is a great decision, and we are really helping his dad increase the value of the property by doing this. Hopefully my next post will be a happy one from my cute, cozy new basement apartment!