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The 3rd anniversary of the 32nd birthday
Equals 35. Sigh!
Saturday was my birthday and I decided I wanted to go out and have fun. Normally birthdays in our household are celebrated with gifts, cake (sometimes decent looking 😉 ), and a nice dinner out. Matt and I have never done much in the way of parties for birthdays, aside from his 30th birthday. I took him out and his friends got him WASTED! And I got him to dance! 😮 I didn’t want a party for my bday but I thought having a few friends join us for dinner and dancing would be nice. I asked my friend K and her husband M along with one of Matt’s friends and his new girlfriend.
After being unable to get reservations at a new restaurant called Stanbury in downtown, I decided on a new place called Mandolin for dinner. {Funny little side note but the space that Mandolin currently occupies was once a place called EVOO. This was mine and Matt’s first official date spot. It’s since changed hands several times but I’m hoping Mandolin is here to stay for a while.} I was able to get an 8:30 reservation for Saturday night. I knew K&M would be waiting since she said they were going to go to the bar and get drinks first but I was surprised to see J&A sitting at their table when Matt and I walked in around 8:20. About 10 mins later the host came and told us it would be a few more minutes as our table was eating dessert. About 10 minutes after that, we were told they were paying the tab, and a little after 9 we were finally seated. Matt bought me a birthday cake so I brought it with us to the restaurant to share. I didn’t even think about the fact that they would charge a cake cutting fee. Anyway, they politely waived our fee since we’d had to wait. How sweet! *insert slight eye roll here* I must say though, Mandolin was great! The atmosphere was really nice and the food was delicious. Definitely a place Matt and I will go again.
Thankfully once we were seated, our orders were taken, and our food arrived pretty quickly. I must say the food was DELICIOUS! I had the Foie Gras appetizer and then the Chicken and Dumplings for dinner. SO. YUMMY! Everyone really enjoyed their food. After we ate cake, we all headed downtown. The suggested bar was a new spot called Coglins but the line out the door was a huge turn off. I mean, come on, it was my birthday. Who wants to stand in line? Not me! We headed a block over to The Hive. It was busy but not stand in line busy. Drinks were consumed and some dancing was done. In the end J&A and Matt and I stayed till almost 1 before heading home. AHHH! Overall, it was a great night and I had a lot of fun! I’m so glad our friends joined us!
~k
PS. I bought a new outfit for my birthday. I got a shirt, necklace and jacket (not pictured). I’ve had the shoes for a while and they are still fantastic!
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365 Challenge – Week
I combined weeks 1 and 2 since week 1 was short. Anyhoo, on to the pics. We had a few nice days last week so during my lunch walk I took a few pics. I also took a few around the house this weekend. Including one of my new purse. 😀
I think the rain drops on the pine needles are my fave. Followed by the plate pics. We had some great light filtering through the kitchen yesterday afternoon. Here is a link to the purse I ended up buying. I made Matt run to Triangle Town Center on Saturday and they had this bag in a creamy light mushroom color. So much better than the weird yellowish brown color. It was also ridiculously on sale. 😉
~k
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365 Challenge
What is a 365 Challenge you ask? Well it’s when you commit to doing a certain thing everyday for a year. In my case it’s a photography challenge. The goal is to help me get better with my camera and take better pics. Now, with that said, I’m only 13 days into my challenge and I haven’t quite taken a pic a day. Guys, let me tell you, this is hard! So instead of giving up on the idea I’ve decided to stick with it in a less rigid fashion. I WILL take 365 pictures this year but some days I make take 2 and a skip a few days of actual photography. I feel like this will still help me accomplish my goal without completely burning me out.
Part of the problem too, is my lack of confidence in stopping the car to take a pic. I am much more confident to do this when I have someone with me, but being on my own tends to be quite difficult. Not to make excuses, but as a child I was pretty shy and still am to a point. It takes me a little while in new situations to warm up. Stopping to take a pic definitely puts me outside my comfort zone. Hopefully this challenge will also help with this as well.
I’m going to try and do these posts on Mondays starting today.
New Year’s Eve at the stroke of midnight. 
This is from my lightbox and probably my least favorite pic of the bunch. 
The Raleigh Acorn. This is our NYE “ball.” It was in the park across from my tattoo artist. 
My tattoo boutique. 
I liked all 3 of these and I couldn’t decide. 
A little memento from this football season and my pic for the 6th. 
Some glittery sticks beside the fireplace. 
Some wires in the parking garage at work. 
The holly bush beside our house. 
The tree in our yard. 
We had a beautiful sunset yesterday. -
2013 – A Year End Book Review
Several months ago Matt bought me a Kindle Paperwhite just because. I replaced my old regular Kindle. Since then I have been reading up a storm. I LOVE the Kindle Paperwhite. It is small, compact, easy to read in the dark and well I have a cute case. 🙂 Since I’ve read so many books this past year I thought I’d do a year end review. I like to find free or cheap books on Amazon. I still have quite a few sitting waiting to be read that were free.
These are in order from newest to oldest.
1 Here (On the Otherside) Swank, Denise Grover
2 Redemption (The Chosen #4) Swank, Denise Grover
3 Sacrifice (The Chosen #3) Swank, Denise Grover
4 Hunted (The Chosen #2) Swank, Denise Grover
5 Chosen (The Chosen #1) Swank, Denise Grover
6 Takedown Twenty: A Stephanie Plum Novel Evanovich, Janet
7 Angels of Bourbon Street (Jade Calhoun Series: Book 4) Chase, Deanna
8 Jade Calhoun Series Boxed Set (Books 1-3) Chase, Deanna
9 Haunted on Bourbon Street (Jade Calhoun Series: Book 1) Chase, Deanna
10 Night Marchers Gober, Rebecca, Nuckels, Courtney
11 Dentelle (#3 The Guardian Series) Bowhay, Heather
12 Linked (#2 The Guardian Series) Bowhay, Heather
13 Amethyst (#1 of the Guardian series) Bowhay, Heather
14 Collateral Damage: A Matt Royal Mystery Griffin, H. Terrell
15 Honeymoon For One Keniston, Chris
16 One Tiny Miracle… (Harlequin Medical Romance) Marinelli, Carol
17 The Isle of Devils Janacek, Craig
18 Death by Honeymoon (Book #1 in the Caribbean Murder Series) Skye, Jaden
19 Hot Summer (The HOT CARIBBEAN LOVE Series) Powell, Judy
20 Uncharted: An On the Island Novella Graves, Tracey Garvis
21 Longboat Blues Griffin, H. Terrell
22 Life’s a Beach Then You Die (Max Fried Mystery) Jones, Falafel
23 The Shortcut Sabol, William
24 The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls: A Novel DiSclafani, Anton
25 Murder Key (Matt Royal Mysteries) Griffin, H. Terrell
26 Blood Island: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries)Griffin, H. Terrell
27 Going Under Walden, S.
28 Summer Secrets Freethy, Barbara
29 Alone – Book 8 in the Chop, Chop Series Cronk, L.N.
30 Not Quickly Broken (Chop, Chop Series – Book 7) Cronk, L.N.
31 Gone (Chop, Chop Series – Book 6) Cronk, L.N.
32 The Other Mothers (Chop, Chop Series – Book 5) Cronk, L.N.
33 The Other Brother (Chop, Chop Series – Book 4) Cronk, L.N.
34 Pon, Pon (Chop, Chop Series – Book 3) Cronk, L.N.
35 Day-Day (Chop, Chop Series – Book Two) Cronk, L.N.
36 Chop, Chop (Chop, Chop Series – Book 1)
37 Ryan’s Return Freethy, Barbara
38 The Last Call (The Bill Travis Mysteries) Wier, George
39 LOVE, LIES AND HIGH HEELS CONRAD, DEBBYHere are a few of the highlights: I started out 2013 reading the Chop, Chop Series. This series spans 8 books and chronicles the lives of a boy and girl from highschool to death. Clearly I got hooked because I read all EIGHT books. I did enjoy them but I must say they are heavy on religion. Not normally something I would pick up but still a good read. If you are looking for a good series this is definitely one to pick up.
Going Under. I read this on our trip to Jamaica. I was surprised to find it set in Raleigh however, I was NOT prepared for this book at all. It’s about a teenage girl determined to discover the truth behind her friend’s suicide. What the girl discovers is a secret club that has teenage boys drugging and raping girls. While the rape scene isn’t incredibly graphic, it still haunts me. I would NOT suggest reading this book. While it was a decent storyline, it bothered me.
The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls was on the list of top summer books on Yahoo. I took a chance, and spent $12.00 for this one. I really enjoyed this book. It was very well written with an interesting storyline set in 1930’s North Carolina. It wasn’t overly exciting but def worth the money.
Ohh, The Shortcut. I made it about halfway through this one and well, the writing was TERRIBLE. So bad in fact, I (and quite a few others) wrote a review on Amazon. The terrible grammar wasn’t what sent me over the edge, though close. The story itself was interesting enough until I realized it was about aliens. Whomp Whomp Whomp. I don’t do aliens and I sure as hell wasn’t going to suffer through anymore awful writing to find out what happened. You’ve been warned!
The Guardian series is next on my list of good reads. This series borders on Twilight but they are NOT vampires. The characters do however, have mystical powers set in modern day Washington state. This is definitely not my usual reading style but the books were well written and at the end of Book 3 I still wanted more. Unfortunately this seems to be all the author has written to date. 🙁
The Chosen Series is another good read. Again, I didn’t really know what the books were about and was not prepared for mystical parts. With that said, I clearly liked it and read all 4 books. I think the 1st was the best but it leaves you hanging to the point you want to keep reading. I really liked the author and picked up the On the Otherside Series a few days ago. I just finished Here last night and started on There.
In recent months I’ve been drawn to more paranormal books. I have no idea why. I think it started with the Guardian series. Since then I’ve read about witches, angels and even shapeshifters but NO vampires! I draw the line there. 😉
Happy New Year!
~k
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The Iron Bowl
If you saw yesterday’s post then today’s should be no surprise. So what is the Iron Bowl you ask? It’s only THE biggest game of the year between Auburn and Alabama. It is a very long and deep seated rivalry. Obviously they are much better when Auburn is victorious! 😉
Last year Alabama rolled over what was possibly the WORST Auburn team in history. No seriously, we sucked! I think our record was 2-8.
After a rough season, our coach was fired and a new one hired. Gus Malzahn was the offensive coordinator when Auburn won the National Title a few years back. Gus was brought back to revive the team. At the start of the season I really didn’t have high hopes. I figured we might go 7-3 possibly 8-2. Not great but anything is better than last year.
We started the season okay with an unfortunate loss to LSU but kept moving. When the day came for the Texas A&M game I told Matt, “I just want to score points.” And then something happened. Auburn pulled out the win in the last minutes of the game. Holy cow! We WON! Then came the Georgia game. The AU/UGA game is also a rivalry game. I was on a work call that afternoon and barely paying attention. I didn’t figure Auburn would win. Then a miracle happened. A long pass down field…..to UGA…..they tipped the ball……right into the hands on and Auburn player! TOUCHDOWN AUBURN!!!!!!! Matt and I were jumping up and down screaming! It was just so unbelievable!
Auburn headed to the Iron Bowl ranked #4 at 10-1, Bama ranked #1 at 10-0. Damn! Again I told Matt, “I just want to score points.” The game was close going back and forth. For some reason I had a feeling Auburn was going to win even though the score was tied with a minute left. I didn’t feel like going to overtime but Bama had the ball. A play was run and the runner out of bounds. Bama fought to get one second put back on the clock and bought out the field goal unit. Mind you, Bama hadn’t made a field goal the whole day. At an impossible 56 yards, they send out a freshman kicker. And then it happened…………..He missed!!!! Oh wait, the Auburn guy in the end zone caught it……….and he runs, right up the field. TOUCHDOWN AUBURN!!!!!!!!!!! Holy shit! We just won on an even more unbelievable play than against UGA!
After numerous screams, fb updates, and texts we got ready for dinner. I was still shaking for almost an hour after. The. game. of. the year! By far.
And that my friends it the glory of the Iron Bowl. (My heart rate may be slightly elevated just thinking about it. :))
That was my Saturday!
~k
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Hiatus
I promise I haven’t forgotten about the blog. I have a half written post regarding the wedding I photographed a few weeks ago. Work is crazy busy and I haven’t had time to finish that post or even think about blogging anything else. With that said, the next 2 weeks are going to be crazy with the release of our new system migration. I am currently working on that project on top of trying to keep up with my regular work duties. This is a side project I volunteered for/got thrown into. I am really hoping that this will lead to new and different opportunities so I am trying to do a really good job. (Which seems to be the case since our COO told me I was doing a good job and thanked me for my help last week! 😀 )
I promise as soon as this migration is complete and running I will pick up blogging again. (I blog at work for those wondering why work affects this. 😉 I’m not sure why but I seem to blog better at work. )
~k
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Happy Birthday Matte!
Last Sunday was Matt’s 35th birthday! Ahhhh! He’s getting old! 😉
Since he checks the bank account daily I told him on Wednesday of that week that he could no longer look at the bank account. It’d be nice to be able to buy his gifts without him knowing what I got. He’s been playing golf a lot lately with one of Patrick’s friends and has started collecting golf course poker chips. While I was at Michael’s a few weeks ago I found a coin display box so I picked that up. I figured that would be better than poker chips laying all over the counter. Then I had to decide on a big gift for him. I feel like lately we’ve spent a lot of money on me and I wanted to do something nice for him.
For his big gift I debated over a few things. In the end, Golfsmith didn’t have the thing I thought I’d buy, a range finder. With that taken care of, I headed back to the golf clubs. He’d been eyeing one and I knew where it was. Ya’ll this is key. I kind of knew what it looked like. I didn’t actually know what it was. I knew he had the big one, and I knew he had a hybrid. I ended up asking a sales guy for help. I explained what I was doing and what I thought I needed. As it turned out, the one I picked up randomly was the one the guy thought he probably needed. (You see how bad this is right?)
What was more exciting was the fact that this club was on sale. 🙂 So I get to the checkout counter and the club doesn’t ring up as the sale price. I tell the cashier the sign says X amount. He asks someone else who agrees it should be on sale. Then someone notices that this club is a Tour model. I like at him and I’m like “I have no idea what that means.” Just as this is happening the guy who helped me walks up front and verifies the price should be the sale price X. Woo hoo! I pay and ask for a box.
Now that day I was in Matt’s car so yeah. Golf club + box + small ass car don’t mix. I end up having to stick it in the backseat. I get home, send Matt downstairs and stash the club under the guest bed.
Sunday morning I wake up early to wrap his gifts and a little while later he gets to open his presents. He opened his golf club and lo and behold, I got the right damn one! What!!!! HAHA! So I’m super excited that I’ve managed to actually buy him the right golf club. But what’s even better is I beat Golfsmith! Matt said he never bought the Tour models because they were never on sale, or not as much. Hehe! So I scored the best model for the sale price of the regular one. This meant it was like $100.00 off. 😀
After presents we got up and got ready and headed to brunch. Then we came home and I made homemade carrot cake. And that, in a nut shell (or really long post) was Matt’s birthday!
Love ya hon!
~k
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A little shout out!
I decided to send a friend a little gift a week or so ago and I looked and looked for the right thing to send. In the end I settled on a Red Carnelian necklace. This stone has a special meaning and I thought it would be perfect for her. I searched high and low looking for just the right one when I came across Esty dealer PortsofCall. Robin was AMAZING to work with. I messaged her to see if a chain could be included since the item was going to be a gift. She happily met my request saying she would include a necklace free of charge if I bought an additional pendant. Seeing as she had some amazing pieces I thought that was a great deal and picked out an Amazonite Gemstone for myself.
Last week when my order arrived I was shocked to see not only did she send my pendant but she included a silver chain AND a Dichroic Glass Pendant Bead. I could not be more pleased with my experience with Robin and her shop!!!! If you are looking for natural stone jewelry you should definitely check out PortsofCall! Oh and her prices are amazing!
Amazonite Gemstone 
Dichroic Glass Pendant Bead During my wedding planning I heard numerous girls talk about the wonderful sellers they had encountered on Etsy but until I dealt with Robin, I had not had one of those experiences. I will definitely purchase more items from her in the future!
~k
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That one time when…
You go to get in the shower and realize there is a HUGE, GINORMOUS cockroach in between the shower curtain and the liner! Of course this leads to screaming and a breakdown.
At this point, I’m standing in the bathroom dripping with water yelling for Matt to come upstairs. When he finally gets in the bathroom I proceed to show him the gigantic grossness that is a cockroach in the shower. I sit on the counter while he tries to get it out of the shower so he can kill it. Ugh! Super gross! I HATE cockroaches! EW!
With that said, I will NEVER, EVER buy another shower curtain liner that is not clear. Can you imagine if it hadn’t been see through? ICK!!!
~k
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Root rot
A few months ago our landscapers decided they needed to do some “drastic” pruning around the neighborhood. Well the bush under our deck was one of the victims! Needless to say I was LIVID to come homeland find our bush hacked to pieces.
After a few emails to the HOA, it was agreed that the landscapers would replace our bush. I did some research and decided on a fragrant tea olive bush. I must say I was a little annoyed when the new bush was finally planted. It was no where near the “mature” bush I was hoping for.
The past few weeks here in Raleigh have been crazy with rain. Almost everyday we’ve gotten rain, ranging from light showers to downpours with flood warnings. The other day I went around back to check on my gardenias and noticed the tea olive looks terrible. At this point I think it might have root rot from all the rain. Who knows really. All I know is that Matt and I will most likely have to replace this bush AGAIN in the fall or early spring.
~k