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)