Family "Heirlooms"

I'm a big fan of heirlooms.  I think it's special to have pieces of furniture and other things, jewelry, china, etc. that were worn or utilized by family members, whether it be only one general ago, or many.  I have my eye on many items my parents have.  Some they purchased through the years and others have been passed down.

One item I especially want is this old nightstand/chest thing in my mom's room.  It's not very fancy or nice quality, it's actually quite beaten up, but the story behind it is wonderful.  When my mom was a teenager, her grandfater decided to get remarried or something along those lines and her mother (my grandmother) was so mad she wouldn't talk to him.  He had some stuff in his house that she wanted, so she loaded my mom and my uncle (who was about 8, I think) into the car and drove over there when she knew the house was vacant.  My conservative, straight laced grandmother kicked in the window of the basement, dropped my uncle down in there and ordered him to come upstairs and unlock the door.  They entered the house and my grandmother stole the things she wanted out of the house, including the chest which has since had a new top put on it because the other one rotted.

The whole time they were breaking, entering, and robbing, my mom was thinking "my mom's gonna get arrested, I've got homework to do and I can't drive a car."  

So I want the chest because of the awesome fact that mom helped loot it from my great grandparents.

M and I went to dinner at my parents house on Sunday.  My parents have decided to spend 2 hours every Saturday purging their attic and cleaning it until it's in decent shape.  This started this past weekend and during dinner my parents asked me if I wanted an "heirloom" punchbowl.  

I say "heirloom" because it was passed down from my grandmother to my mom, but that's about the extent of it.  My grandmother had a neighbor who got too old to run errands and such so their children were going to put them in a nursing home.  My grandmother offered to take their grocery list once a week, buy their groceries and the could reimburse her when she returned.

One day, when Sisi (my grandmother) came to get the grocery list, the lady asked her to pick out punch bowl.  Sisi asked what kind, and I was secretly thinking the lady was waaaaay to old to be entertaining and had no use for a punch bowl.  

The old lady told Sisi to pick out one that she thought looked nice and gave her some money.

Sisi returned to the old lady's home with the punch bowl.  She (the old lady) handed it right back to my grandmother and told her it was a thank you gift for being so sweet and buying their groceries every week.

So when Sisi passed away, my mom couldn't part with the punch bowl, not because it had any sentimental value, but because of the sweet story behind it.  So now I have the same dilemma before myself.  Do I just let my parents donate this punch bowl to Goodwill or let it be sold at a garage sale, or do I take it because of the nice story behind it and let it gather dust in my shit cabinet in the kitchen?  I mean, I don't have a punch bowl, but I generally don't have a use for one.  Maybe if I were throwing lots of showers and such.

 Thoughts?  Do I let it go or take it?

Beautiful

So I don't know what the weather is like where you live, but I'm writing this while sitting in my backyard.  It's a perfect 78 or so degrees, the sun's still up and shining, and there's the slightest breeze.  It could not be more perfect!  This winter was particularly rough.  Excessive amounts of snow and down right frigidness.  It was also a very emotional winter.  I don't do well with cold and darkness in general, but added to unhappiness at work, I was just straight up unpleasant to be around most days.  

I am so grateful for such a beautiful day/week.  It's nice to be able to enjoy the earth rather than being cooped up at a desk or bundled up inside.  

I hope that each of you gets to enjoy the sun this weekend if you aren't already!

Wee Bit Wednesdays

I've been such an awful, awful blogger lately, but I'm just so exhausted that I don't have the energy to put forth an effort.  I will tell you that M and I toured the Belle Meade Plantation on Sunday.  I thought I had been there on a field trip in elementary school, but during the tour nothing looked or sounded familiar, so I'm going to guess either a) we did and I tuned the whole thing out because I was busy chatting with my besties, or b) we never went.  I thought it was interesting and the old Antebellum style house was beautiful.  After the tour, which I had bought a groupon for, we did the wine tasting at their winery.  I had a great time, and I think M actually enjoyed it, too.  I'll leave you with some pictures before Wee Bits.

 

{one} scruffy or clean shaven?

Depends, on myself-clean shaven.  If we're talking about a guy, some scruff or a beard is hot, but being clean shaven can be, too.

{two} what’s your favorite sundae topping?

Too hard to pick just one, so either chocolate sauce, whipped cream or a cherry

{three} do you own slippers?

Yep.  We have hardwoods and it's approximately -239408 degrees in our house all times.  I have two pairs.

{four} did you ever have a tree house?

Unfortunately, no.  But I often climbed the tree in our front yard.

{five} how you do relieve stress?

Umm...watching tv, drinking, listening to music.

{six} what’s your favorite dr. seuss book?

Hands down The Lorax

{seven} have you ever taken dance classes?

No.

{eight} which do you use more: the thesaurus or the dictionary?

hmm, neither?  I have a pretty expansive vocabulary.  But if I have to pick one, probably the thesaurus (which makes me laugh and think of FRIENDS.  Joey sends a letter to the adoption agency for Monica and Chandler, but tries to sound smart by using a thesaurus to change a bunch of the words, he ends up signing the letter "baby kangaroo tribiani" lolllllll.

{nine} what’s your favorite form of exercise?

Used to be running in college, but when I do exercise, I guess the elliptical machine

{ten} what’s the longest you’ve ever waited in line?

Not entirely sure, but I've waited at least an hour and a half for several different roller coasters.  All totally worth it :) 

 

Trashy TV

In general I'm not a huge TV watcher.  My old job was 8-4:30 so when I would get home and wait for M,  I would usually watch Without a Trace because we don't have cable and there's hardly anything but news on basic TV around that time.  Since this week's orientation at my new job, we've gotten done at all sorts of different times.  Today I left work about 3pm.  This gave me time to run to Target (ahh, love) and to get gas.  I still got home super early.  Earlier than usual so I have no idea what's on TV at 4.  I'm purusing the chanels and have these options: Nancy Grace, the news, America's funniest home videos, Ghost Whisperer (which I like, but I missed the beginning so no thanks), and Maury.  I opted for Maury.

Today's episode is about older men who are dating younger women.  The drama comes in to play with whether one party is cheating on the other.  

So I'm sitting here watching these classy, fine-upstanding, Americans and wondering to myself if there are genuinely people like this in the world.  And since I assume the answer is yes, I have to wonder how people can be like this.  

And on top of that, if these people are truly experiencing all this classy drama, I wonder why in the hell they would go on national television and air their dirty laundry for the world to see.  It just genuinely amazes me.  I know many people liked watching Jerry Springer because it was fake and who doesn't like staged violence and cursing?  But if something could be real and you're willing to show everyone, that's pretty sad, don't you think?  I kinda want to make up a fake story and write to Maury just to see if he'll have me on the show!

Does anyone know anyone who's been on a show like this or Rikki Lake?  I think that'd be interesting.

Wee Bit Wednesdays

{one} do you wear holey jeans? if so, do you buy them that way?

I have recently worn a hole in one of my favorite pairs of jeans, so currently yes.  I do not buy them this way, though.

 

{two} do you get a full 8 hours of sleep per night?

Sometimes.  I get up at 6:45 every morning and I'm usually in bed no later than 10.

{three} what’s your favorite way to eat an oreo?

As the crust to a cheesecake.  I hate oreos by themselves.

{four} do you wear shoes in your house?

Sometimes.  I typically wear slippers because we have cold hardwood floors.

{five} who would you call first if you won the lottery?

M.  Then probably my parents

{six} have you ever been in a food fight?

Not really.  At my friend's high school graduation party my friends got into a cake fight, but I only semi-participated.

{seven} do you snore?

Evidently I have on occasion.  Most commonly when I'm drunk.  I do talk in my sleep pretty regularly, though.

{eight} do you know how fast you type?

Very.  I don't know the number since I haven't taken a typing speed test since I was a sophomore in high school.

{nine} can you do a headstand (without using a wall)?

No.  I can only do headstands in the pool, and then it's a handstand.

{ten} how do you like your popcorn?

Ever so slightly burnt with lots of butter and salt.

Need more hours in the day

Sorry I haven't posted in ages.  I took my netbook with me to Louisiana hoping that I would have some down time to blog during the wedding festivities, but I hardly had time to breathe.

 I won't get into too much detail about the wedding, just because there was so much in such a short amount of time.  We drove down Thursday, partied it up that night (I had a liiiiiiiittle too much to drink) and crashed.  Friday we woke up, did Bridesmaids luncheon festivities, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, and all the bridesmaids + KJ and I crashed a hotel suite in Baton Rouge.  Saturday we woke up, got ready, went to the wedding, then the dessert reception followed by clean-up, a dinner break, and the after party, which was a blast! 

There just wasn't time to squeeze in anything else.  I didn't even take my netbook out of my bag to check my email or facebook. 

Turns out on Thursday night there were some pretty bad storms in Nashville.  M said he'd never experienced such high winds and there were confirmed tornado touch downs in the area.  Our trashcans blew into the neighbor's yard and several of our shutters fell of the house and broke in half.  The neighbors down the street lost their trampoline to the ditch on the side of the road, which has yet to be cleaned up (which doesn't surprise me at all considering their Christmas inflatables were up well past Christmas.)  The Captain D's a few blocks down lost it's sign.  All-in-all, I'm very grateful a) I wasn't here and b) that M and Sally were ok.  We wanted to repaint the shutters anyway, so the winds just helped us out!

I also got a phone call Thursday from a fruit basket delivery company double checking my address.  Turns out my new employer had mailed me a fruit basket.  Isn't that so sweet?  It had fruit and chocolates and popcorn!  

Yesterday was day one at the new job.  So far I love it!  Everyone is so friendly and welcoming.  The orientation at my last job was so generic and brief.  Orientation with Aegis is in depth and really explains how every part of the company works together and includes in depth tours of the drug testing labs.  I've now seen more urine that I wanted to.  I had lunch with my manager today, which was nice.  We got to know each other a little bit.  He's really nice and I love the two other girls I'll be working with.  Their super friendly and helpful.  I also met the president of the company today, which was a bit intimidating, but he's exceptionally friendly as well.  I have a cubicle that has a computer with two monitors, so that'll take some getting used to.  So far I'm extremely glad I decided to leave my job at the state and pursue this opportunity.  

I'll try to get back into posting regularly once things calm down.  Our security at work is pretty top notch, especially over the internet, so I doubt I'll be able to blog at work, yet again.  I'll figure something out!