Spontaneous.

So two nights ago I got the idea to finally chop my long, long, super long, locks off. (Did I mention that they were long?)

I always knew that when the time had come to chop all of the length off that it would be a spontaneous kind of deal. I am not a real plan-it-out type of girl with that stuff. If I think about it for too long, I'll end up not doing it.

So the scoop is:

I've been growing my crazy mane since my high school days. I used to babysit the worlds most precious girl named, Emily. She was four at the time and right after I had left home to go to art school (where the High School students lived in dorms and only breathed, ate, and slept art) I found out that Emily had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.  I was nothing short of devastated. I had never heard of something happening to someone so little, or so innocent, and it threw my world completely off.

Some of you might wonder how close a 17 year old could actually be to a 4 year old, but let me tell you something, kids are amazing. I have always felt connected to children with their wide-eyed view of the world. Emily and I would call each other our "bestest friend" and she would sometimes hold up the communion line at church to make sure that I saw her waving to me. She was just that kind of girl. Sweet and she absolutely loved any and everyone.

Wanting to help in some way, I found out about Locks of Love, where generous people donate 10 inches or longer of their hair to children, adults, whomever it may be, who cannot grow hair on their own, or have lost it from radiation treatments. I decided to start growing my hair then and have since been growing it as long as I could manage.

I could have probably donated years ago, but by that point I had worked so hard at growing it that I had felt some silly attachment to it.

Then two days ago I remembered why I had started growing it in the first place. And that was all I needed to make the appointment.

After remembering the real reason for growing out my precious locks, getting it all cut off was surprisingly easy. It was so freeing to know that I had finally done what I had planned to do all of these years. While it may not have helped Emily directly, I know that it will go to someone who needs it and will love it more than I ever could.

I donated over 12 inches and I couldn't feel happier.

It has been over 3 years since Emily passed away, and it still brings tears to my eyes thinking about her wonderful spirit throughout her short life. Her smile was one of the greatest gifts she could ever give anyone, and I know that everyone who knew her felt the same.

So goodbye, long locks. (Please excuse the poor cell phone camera quality, this was as I was walking out my door to go the appointment)

And hello, short hair.

I know you will go to someone who needs it, and that makes me happier than anything else.

Christmas Cheer!

I have made it back from my marathon Christmas celebration this weekend, and have finally gotten most of my stuff put away and organized!

I hope everyone had an amazing holiday and had as much fun as I did!

So this will be a smorgazboard of updates from the last week. So many updates that I had to make up a word for it.

Uh-huh, yeah.

I'm not sure if you all know, but Matt's family has an amazing cookie recipe that has been passed down in the family. It is the Butter Cookie recipe. And it is delicious (when I say delicious, I mean, President Truman would ask for these cookies personally when the recipe was first originated.) When Matt asked me to marry him, I received this recipe, along with all of the hardware to make it.

Now, I can't tell you what's in the recipe, or how to make it. But I can tell you that it involves a cookie press (difficult, difficult piece of equipment for this job) and about this much butter:

Don't be afraid. Just be ready to unzip your pants a little to be able to fit into them later.

Paula Deen would be so proud.

Side note: I need to meet Paula Deen at some point in my lifetime. She is only one of the greatest women. Ever.


So you mix all of your secret ingredients together and then you put your dough into the cookie press and start pressing out lines of cookies. This proves to be much more difficult than one might imagine.

See those air pockets. Yeah. Those aren't supposed to be there, but gosh darn it, I just couldn't get any better ones.

But be warned. This recipe (should you ever receive it, or one like it) makes about a million cookies in one batch. No really. See for yourself.

Oh, so many cookies. Mmmmmmm.

Now, on to the actual Christmas events. I first went to Wilmington with Matthew to celebrate his birthday (Christmas Eve baby!) and we had a delicious lunch of prime rib, yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, green beans, and gravy. I will not go into detail of this meal because simply listing the ingredients has made my mouth start to salivate. 

After that I headed to my folk's house in central NC and we celebrated our Christmas on Christmas Eve. That way we could head out bright and early to go see the rest of the family in a different location in NC on Christmas Day. 

I don't have too many pictures of the loot, but there was a tear jearker one involved. 

This was drawn by my brother. My younger-holy-cow-how-did-he-do-that brother. This simply took my breath away.

If you haven't seen pictures of me and Mr. Fiance, this is all you need. It's like looking into a mirror.

Scary good. It even tricked my cat, Squirt, into giving the picture version of me nose kisses.

Let me also mention that this crazy, talented brother of mine drew this in 2 DAYS. How on earth??

Snoopy also got a great gift as well:

These winter cold spurts are just proving too much for poor ol' snoop-dog. So he got himself a nice fancy jacket! How cute!

So yes, back to when we went to be with the rest of our family on Christmas day. It was so much fun! I rarely get to see the rest of my family, so it is always so nice to spend time with them. I cannot believe how fast the younger ones are growing! Here's a few pictures of them opening (tearing into) the gifts :)

The adults then played dirty Santa, and I must say, I got my gifts stolen the most. BY FAR!  :)

I really did have a blast. I always wish we could stay longer!

On an ending note to this crazy, long, picture filled post, the snow was a lovely surprise this year. I have never experienced a white Christmas and it was a wonderful cherry on top of the sundae for me. (Mmmm, Sundae's!)

(Not sure why that turned out so blue! Oh well!)

Hope everyone had a Merry, wonderful, magical Christmas!

I'm off to go make myself a Sundae, and to take care of one very sick man of mine :(

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

We have flakes! It has begun to snow. Snow-age if you will!

Merry Christmas to you and yours! I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and gets to spend it with their family and friends. 

I'll start updating more after all of the holiday festivities start to die down. 

Promise. 

Love,

Me.

The place I call home.

You know the saying, "Home is where the heart is"? Well, home for me is where the water is.

Luckily, the water is right outside my doorstep.

Good gracious. It's sunsets like this that make me appreciate my teensy, tiny, rather expensive for it's size, apartment.

It has been raining all week, then all of a sudden the clouds broke up and the sky cleared just so we could all witness this beautiful ending to the day.

And then it got cloudy again.

Boo.


But the real reason I am here is to talk to you about these:

Doritos 3rd degree burn flavored chips.


HOLY MOLY. These things are HOT! I mean, I am definitely a wuss when it comes to spicy things, but geez.

Now, I may or may not have been warned about these by my wonderful fiance', and I may or may not have waited until he was not around to try them anyways. I also may or may not have been reduced to insta-tears after one bite. I can neither confirm nor deny these things.

But I can tell ya that they are hot. Feel the burn all the way down your throat, hot.

Gives me the shivers.

I'd much rather be eating these:

The end.


Also, while I'm on the topic of everything. (Wasn't I on the topic of everything?)

I got a little motivated and did my hair up real nice today. I'm not sure what came over me, but I was bored and felt like spending oh, you know, 20 or so minutes on my hair. (Really, what was I thinking?)

I've done this style quite a few times last year, and it was a hit every time.

But, boy, did I underestimate the power of small towners. I got SO many compliments it made my head spin!

It's a fishtail braid, and it took me quite a few tries to finally get it right my first time.

I honestly believe that people here have never seen such a thing. And I'm not gonna lie. That makes me a little happy.

Here are some of the things people said about my hair today.

"Oh my, that's just lovely, how in heavens do you do that??"

"Now, what do you call that kind of style? Is it a type of braid or something?"

"Well lookie there! That's a real nice thing you got going on with your hair there!"

I love hearing things like this from strangers. Especially strangers in the grocery store line who come up and touch your hair to feel its structure and softness.

Have I mentioned that I love small towns (probably once.... or twice... at least). I feel like the big city girl in this town.

"I think it's time we go our separate ways."

"What's that you're yelling, Bertha?....You're here to stay, whether I like it or not?? Well that's just not fair!"

Do I sound crazy yet?

Good.

Because I feel crazy.

My sweet, precious, super old, super rickety Honda is in the shop.

AGAIN.

So now I am left car-less.  The check engine light came on yesterday and I can't be havin' that whilst traveling all over NC for the holidays.

This is frustrating for a few reasons.

1. I have not yet made friendships close enough to ask people to help drive me to and from work and other miscellaneous errands everyday.
                - This duty will fall to Matt for now, and is not a good solution as it is difficult for him to just pick up and leave work, at part of his busiest time of day, to pick me up from work and take me home, then head back to work. Which, by the way, are on opposite ends of town. Actually, they aren't even technically in the same town.

2. I feel that Bertha (my Honda) has been to the shop one too many times (she's probably having a love affair...), and that this may be her last time.
                - This is not a good solution because I cannot afford a new vehicle. It simply is not possible right now, and I don't appreciate being cheated on with the repair shop. Really lowers one's self confidence.

3. I need a reliable car. The end.


I guess I should have seen another incident like this coming. Bertha's been having transmission trouble for quite some time now. I should have treated her better.


Sorry there are no pictures of her. It's dark outside, and in case you haven't heard, we had a bit of a spat. A lover's quarrel if you will.

What's a girl to do?

Welcome to the flower shop!

So I promised pictures of the actual flower store, so here ya go! This part of the job is a little more interesting. I get to walk around more, thus keeping me warmer. I am so tired of being cold!! Is it summer yet? Whew.

This is just one section, this place it pretty big!

My little working area. You can't see it too well, but check out those boxes. That's my work cut out for me right there! (note: it may not look like much, but what you don't see is the 40 million boxes stacked up behind the counter and in the back room. Just a'waitin' for me!)

This is my favorite part! The huge sparkling, lit up balls. The smaller ones actually spin slowly. It gets very beautiful when the sun goes down.

Close up ;)




Alright, alright. I didn't get off work to go talk about work!

Let's talk about how expensive school books are!! Good gracious, I am going to have to spend close to 500 dollars for just 3 classes! Thank goodness the grant will help pay for all this, otherwise we would be in some trouble! Anyone else think the price of books is ridiculous? I wish there was something we could do! I even ordered them from amazon and I am saving a lot, but not enough!

On another note, my best friend, Katie who is living in Alaska, is coming to NC for ALL of January. She is bringing the sweetest, most beautiful baby girl, ever, and I can't wait to finally meet this little girl, love of my life! I literally cannot express how excited I am to see her, and to meet that sweet girl!!

ALSO, in breaking news, my other best friend in Rhode Island is coming to visit in January, too. It's like all the stars aligned to have the people farthest away from me, come to me all at once! How wonderful!

Sorry this post is so scattered, my brain is scattered, so that's what ya get friends. Scrambie eggs.

Got the rainy blues.

Annnd, I'm sick.


I am sorry friends, I have been the worst blogger ever these past few days. I'm not even sure what type of sick I am. My left tonsil is swollen to the size of something it definitely should not be, and I feel extremely icky. That's the best way to describe it. Icky.

I don't have too many body aches (besides the usual ones) and the only other symptom is an on- again, off-again fever.

All of you genius diagnosis-er's (yes, I am aware this is not a real word) come on and let me in on what ails me.

Besides all of that, I should probably update and let you all know that I finally, finally, got a job here in tiny town. I am working for a silk flower company that ships worldwide (apparently, who knew?!) I am working in both their warehouse as an office assistant and will also be running their retail store a few days a week. It's not a glamorous job, but it's a job, and it will pay the bills until I am out of school! Woohoo!

So here are a few pictures of my office. YES, my very own office! This is a first people, mark it down in the history books!

The owners also sometimes bring their adorable taco bell dogs to work! So, so small and cute! I can hardly get any work done when these guys come around. I was only able to get pictures of one of the pups, and I do mean pup, this guy is a baby!

Dawwwwwwww!

That's all I got of the work life. I will try and take a picture of the actual store and post that later on.

At last, I will leave you with my latest food genius. I give you:

The homemade chicken and dumplings. Amazing. I will probably be making this again very, very soon. As in, tonight.

Small town Holiday Fun!

This past Saturday I finally drug Matt's behind out of the house to the local Holiday parade and flotilla. Granted, he only had to walk a block down the street, but still! I felt some minor form of achievement.

Such a lovely, small town parade. Have I mentioned how much I love small towns?

It was SO cold out that day! That's when all of NC was getting the crazy early snow. All of NC, but us, of course. But what else can you expect, living in coastal NC you won't typically be seein' much snow round these parts! (Sorry, my small town, southerness just came out.)

With the police leading the way, the parade gets going!

In good parade fashion, the participators threw candy for the little ones. The kids were eating this stuff up!

These guys were just too funny. Mini- 18 wheelers!

Ahh, this brings back the high school memories. Parades were the bane of my existence. It was always too hot, or way too cold. I wouldn't have minded this parade, I don't think. They only had to walk less than a quarter of a mile! Sheesh. What a life.

Oh yes, the real pride and joy of the small town parade. The souped up tractors. It's just not a real parade without them.

But everyone knows the best part is when Santa comes along. You can't help but to love that sight!

This past week in an unnamed superstore (get real, there's only one here.) I saw Santa fall backwards in his chair.


True story.


He was okay though.


We also went to the annual flotilla on Saturday night. Again, luckily, we only had to walk out our front door and two steps to our right to get there.

Such a fun, extremely cold, time.


I love the holidays.


I'm going to go drink my hot chocolate and make some chicken and dumplings for dinner.

Paula Deen would be proud.

Nutella Nuggets of delight.

Well, friends, I have survived Thanksgiving number 2 with Matt's family. We went to Wilmington on Monday to celebrate thanksgiving with our family and friends there because Matt had to work on Thanksgiving (boo!) It was absolutely delicious! It was really fun to catch up with his parents, and our friends, a lot of whom I haven't seen in a long time.

So now we are back in our humble abode in Beaufort. Matt is on vacation until next week so we will see how long it takes for us to kill each other.

I kid, I kid.


So this morning I got inspired and decided to make breakfast. I know, try hide your shock. It's hard to believe I am capable of doing anything pre-coffee.

These are my Nutella Nuggets of delight. Or, if you will, nutella croissants.

Simplest things I have ever made.

Start by pre-heating the oven to 375 degrees.

Then unroll your croissants from their tightly wrapped tube and break them apart into their individual triangles. (No easy feat if you are someone named Jennie who has never successfully, until this very morning, unraveled croissant rolls and kept all of them in one piece. Why was this always so hard?)

Then assemble your ingredients. It is very simple and goes as follows.

Yes. Nutella and Cream Cheese. 2 parts Nutella, 1 part cream cheese (just to thicken the hazelnut- and my midsection- up a bit.)

Then spoon the mixture onto the croissant triangles - careful not to overload them too much, as I wanted to do.

(Insert great picture of nutella mixture spooned onto the croissants here. I, in my full chocolate drunkeness, deleted this picture I had taken for your viewing pleasure whilst trying to upload it to my computer.)

After this, roll the croissants up, making sure to tightly close the side openings so the mixture won't spill out onto the cookie sheet during baking.

Then bake at 375 for 10 minutes. But I have to warn you, my stove is ancient. Like, 25 years old, it blew up in my face, see previous post about that, ancient.

It doesn't even have a way to let you know that it is pre-heated, it's that ancient.


So cooking times may vary.


Then, take a break (you are working so hard) and lick the remainder of the nutella mixture from the bowl..

No, there is no shame in actually doing that. Not even when your fiance' walks into the kitchen and stares at this mess of a woman huddling in a corner, scraping the bowl with crazy in her eyes.

After the rolls are nice and golden brown, take 'em out. They be done.

Now your only job is to devour them. Enjoy, but be careful, the insides are HOT!

Home again!

Ol' Bertha (my 96' Honda Civic) decided to buck up and made it home! Woohoo! I was a little worried there for a while!

So now that I have officially stuffed my face, I shall share the magical pictures with all of you in bloggyland.

Oh. My. Word.

This food was just too much. I seriously enjoyed every bite that I stuffed viciously into my face.

And for dessert, you might ask?

This, my friends, is nutella pie.

The following words are my best words to describe this:

asdcnajskenfjklasencjkla  snckanjkwenrasuri238490c j wkvsmx jkmxzncM,mcvsd Q!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can we say delicious?

.............DELICIOUS!

So delicious, that my wonderful mother made me an entire pie to take home to Matt. It took some sheer willpower not to devour that pie in the 165 miles by myself in the car.

Even Sherman took part in the traditional after-dinner nap.

And, I caught a rare moment where all of our animals are co-existing on one piece of furniture together!

Very sweet.


I suppose I should roll my overstuffed self off the couch and get my day started. I've got lots of errands to run- and no money to run them with. What else is new?

Until next time.

Eat your hearts out.

Happy Thanksgiving!!


I have so much to be thankful for this year. Times have been tough on everyone, and I hope that we all take a moment, at some point today, to stop and think about the many, many things we all have to be grateful for.

I first and foremost could not be more thankful for my family, Matt, and my wonderful best friends, who have all helped to get me through a very difficult time in my life. It has been a hard road I have traveled on lately and I am so blessed with such amazing people surrounding me, that are there catch me when I might trip up a lot a little bit.

I am also grateful for a roof over my head, both in Beaufort, and for my parents in Raleigh.

I am thankful that the house in Wilmington sold, helping to ease the financial burden on my family.

I am thankful for the opportunity to start graduate school in a field that I am passionate about.

I am thankful for having a job interview on Monday, for a job that would allow me to be part-time and go to school full time.

I am thankful to have the opportunity to volunteer at the Aquarium, I have learned so much after just one session!

I am thankful to be able to spend this holiday with my family (and, let's get honest here, my cat!)

I am so thankful to have that special somebody who always seems to have the answers when I am lost, has always been my shoulder to cry (and cry, and cry!) on, can ALWAYS make me laugh when I am at my crankiest (seriously, how does he DO that!),  and is always there for me- no matter how late it is, how annoying I am, how mad I am, and no matter how psycho a little off my rocker I am. I could not be luckier.

No matter how stressful things seem in my life, it never ceases to amaze me with how blessed I actually am.

Hope everyone has an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving, filled with gratitude!

Now, go eat your hearts out.

And I'm in!

Got my "official" acceptance letter for Grad School earlier this week, and let me tell you, I am ready to start. I am not good at this sit at home "house-fiance" stuff. I'm sure that when I have kids I would love to be a stay at home wife, but for now, I need to be doing something with my days.

So, like I have said before, I begin in January and I should finish the program in Fall of 2012. Woohoo! Then I'll find a job, and Matt and I will finally be able to settle down for a while.

I went a church-huntin' today and I ended up going to Parkview Baptist church. Pretty nice place, I have never in my life met more friendly, welcoming people than the members there. This place might be a winner. Wanna know how I know that after just one service? As the pastor was reading scripture from Paul  in Romans, he stopped dead in the middle of a sentence (after reading the quoted text of "you all") and said, " I'm sure glad to know that Paul was a southerner..."

The church, was in a laughter uproar, and I am thinking to myself, "Well, bud, you sure as heck ain't in Kansas anymore." And I couldn't help but laugh, very quietly, so that others might not here me, as well.

Now, everyone who knows me, knows I have lived in NC my whole life. This, in turn, makes me a southerner. But I have never seen a more southern way of life, until I moved here. And, I gotta say, I like it.  All of ya'll (see what I did there?)  know I am a country girl at heart. I grew up on country music, love riding horses, am practically obsessed with farms, farmland, green grass, etc. I've just never been in any type of city to lead such a life. So during his sermon, when clearly I should have been listening, I thought, what if I just re-invent myself to be that country girl that 1/9th of me has always wanted to be.

*Side note- the other 8/9ths of me have wanted to be any one of the following at any point in my life:

- a big, bad city girl, with a big, bad city job
- an athlete of some sort- gymnast, duh
- a foodie/wine-y
- normal- because, let's face it, that will never happen.
- A beach bum- okay, so this one isn't really that far off, during the summer at least.
- a foreigner- I could so live in another part of the world, if it weren't for missing my friends/family.
- a monk- I was like, 5. I didn't even know it was impossible for girls to be monks.
- and a blogger. Hence, the blog.


Thing is, I feel like re-inventing myself at least once a week. Is it possible to really get that bored with yourself? Rather than think about how depressing that is, I'm going to chalk those feelings up to me being in a place in my life where I can literally re-invent myself with no qualms or quandries. I guess it's a type of freedom that just takes some getting used to. Yep. Alright then. This goes down as one of the top 5 weirdest blogs in history.

Later ya'll. (heh)

More from San Diego

Welp, I finally got my pictures back! So I will commence the sharing :)

So, so pretty there! Most of these pictures will be of the giraffes Zoo, and the Museums.

I'll start with my favorite animal :)

The true gentle giant! I spent an embarrassing amount of time at this exhibit. Parents with their children were giving me the evil eye for moving around and getting in the way of their precious family portraits with the Giraffes, as I snap what is probably close to a thousand pictures.

What cuties. I don't think there is a single person on this earth who does not love Koala bears. If so, their heart is made of stone.

This exhibit was great, lots of interaction for folks like me who want to get just a liiiiittle too close.

The polar bears were so playful!! They truly love to interact with the crowd!

And, in possibly one of my favorite shots of the day, we have...the Meerkats!!

Just reminds me of watching animal planet, wondering if I will ever get a chance to see these things in real life! They really do stick the roles they are given within their family! Amazing!

 I also went to about 5 museums, and as I may have already said, the museum of cultural arts and crafts was my favorite. They had a Zandra Rhodes exhibit up, and let me tell ya, I have fallen in love. This woman is amazing!! The whole exhibit was beautiful with the colors and the lighting.

For more pictures, I have a whole facebook album up with about 45 Giraffe pictures and then 5 other random ones. (Just kidding! Geez!)

Okay, okay. I'll stop!


That's it for today, I suppose.  Now I've just got to figure out what I am having for lunch (sandwich) and what to make for dinner while we are stove-less. (sandwich)