First Came Love

London: Getting There

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 00:31:00 +0000

The Saturday that we flew to London was the shortest Saturday of our lives (we lost 5 hours due to the time difference). We left home at 4:30 a.m. heading to the airport for a 5:50 a.m. flight. Check in was uneventful and I still couldn't fully believe that by the end of the day we would be in London! In London!!!!

Decked out in glasses and ready to go, here we are on the 5:55 a.m. plane. We got to see the sun rise which was lovely! (Instagram pictures)

After landing in Newark, NJ, we boarded our plane within about 40 minutes. It was time for the longest flight of our lives thus far. 7 hours and 55 minutes if I remember correctly.

The flight was not bad at all. There was tons of food. I felt like the flight attendants were coming around with drinks, snacks, or a meal the entire flight. And, my favorite part, there were so many movies and TV show options to watch!! I watched The Vow, which I've been wanting to see for quite some time now. And I also caught some episodes of Friends and New Girl, even though I've seen them all many times! We were about 1 hour away from London when I decided to watch one more show and that's when THIS appeared.

SCANDAL! Scandal is hands down one of the best drama television shows I've seen in a long time. Maybe the best period. So I re-watched the pilot and by the time it was over, we were in London baby!

This is where just having our carry on was great! We hopped off the plane, made a quick stop at the loo and headed toward the train. Isn't the girl icon funny? Is that hips or a skirt on the woman? LOL

We took the Heathrow Express which will get you from the airport to central London in about 15-20 minutes. We arrived at Paddington station and purchased our 7 day Travelcard. This gave us unlimited access to the Tube in Zones 1 & 2 for 7 days.

So, listen up, here is my first tip on money-saving tips for London: If you purchase your Travelcard (or oyster card) from a rail station (you'll know it's from the rail station due to the symbol that you see on the bottom left of the card) you can take advantage of tons of 2 for 1 deals at a good number of attractions--the eligible attractions change throughout the year so just check online and you'll also get a brochure when you purchase your Travelcard). We had to get a Travelcard to get around on the Tube during our stay so it cost us not 1 red cent extra, we just purposely purchased our card from the rail station in Paddington when we arrived. We used it to get into the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, and the Winston Churchill Museum 2 for the price of 1!

Now, back to the story. After purchasing our Travelcard, we headed to our hotel, the Lancaster London Hotel. The hotel was PERFECTLY located one block from Paddington station. We walked from Paddington and were at the hotel in about 5-7 minutes. It was dark and I didn't have the camera out for a picture of the hotel that night, but here's a picture from the next day:

We checked in and headed to our room! It was about 11:00 p.m. London time. One of my favorite things about our hotel were the yummy cookies that were left for us each night. I'd never had Walkers cookies. We had four different types and they were all yummy!

Second favorite thing: warm towels! We'd never stayed in a hotel room with a towel warmer.

Next up was charging my cell phone (using my trusty adapter) and unpacking my snacks and clothes!

Around midnight we realized that we were hungry! So, we stuck with the safest thing we knew--ordering pizza. And it was pretty simple, dial 6 and the pizza people brought the pizza and soda to our room.

I didn't get to take a picture of our room before we started unpacking, but here is a picture from the next day, it was pretty spacious as was the bathroom! And check out all the windows!

The bottom picture is the room when you walk into the door and walk through the hallway leading into the room. The top picture is standing in the opposite side of the room. Oh, and here is a picture I snapped of the bathroom on Saturday night after unpacking.

So, that is the short version (although it doesn't feel so short when you type it out) of how we got to London!

Stay tuned,

p.s. During our trip I became a total Instagram fan! It was an easy way to snap pictures of what was going on and share them with friends and family! So throughout these posts you will see some of those Instagram pictues.

London: It's in the Bag(s)....

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 06:03:00 +0000

After many, many, many (and I mean many) hours of going through the pictures from our trip, I have finally been able to tag and label them for blog entries! So, let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start!)---> Sound of Music reference!!! Love that movie! Before I could get to London, I had to first pack.... so this post is all about my packing challenge: 1 week in Europe in 1 carry on suitcase.

Early this year I was motivated to pack for the entire trip in a carry on suitcase. For me, it was going to be a new challenge. I can fill a carry on suitcase for a weekend trip down the street, so trying to fit an entire week of clothes in a carry on for London was going to be something new for me. Thanks to Pinterest, I stumbled upon this article and this article and these women inspired me--if they could pack for a lengthy trip in one carry on, then surely I could!

So here's what went down. I checked the weather six days before the trip to figure out what type of clothing I would need to pack.

So much for the 70 degree weather that my research told me I could expect in London in the month of May (or so I thought. More on the actual weather later). It had been so long since the weather was in the 50's here that I couldn't remember how cold the 50s were. I pulled out a few pairs of shoes, a few turtlenecks at varying sleeve lengths, scarves, and a few jackets thinking that would have me covered. I then laid out different pieces on our guest bed to play around with some outfits and the end result was this.

The flip flops were for walking around the hotel, two pairs of tennis shoes, and boots for the cold days.

Before I finalized everything I checked the weather again the morning before take off:

Um, so the weather was creeping up on me. From the 50s and now to the 60s and 70s....hmmm..this can't be good for my attempts to pack as lightly as possible. So here's what I ended up with as far as clothing and accessories:

4 pair shoes (pictured above; wore the boots on the plane)
2 long denim skirts
2 medium length denim skirts
1 medium length floral skirt
6 cotton maxi skirts
6 white shirts of varying sleeve length
1 blue/white stripe shirt
4 color short sleeve shirts (gray, yellow, black and orange)
3 turtlenecks (1 long sleeve, 2 short sleeve)
8 white camisoles (I wear these every day year round)
3 light jackets (denim **wore on plane**, brown, khaki)
3 pair of tights
7 scarves
3 hats *wore 1 on plane*
3 belts
Undergarments & 2 sleeping shirts

This sounds like a ton right? I know, I know. But, I fit it all! Layer by layer pictures...

(picture above) I laid 7 wash cloths (one for each day) over the clothes to keep them flat and to be a buffer between the clothes and shoes.

(picture above) the plastic bag on the left contains non-liquid toiletries.

IT CLOSED!!!!!

And to give you perspective on how small this carry on is, I laid a yard stick next to it. Dimensions: 21.5" x 13.5" x 9.75"

Here are the clothes laid out in the closet in the hotel closet.

The verdict. I definitely packed more than I needed. I did an outfit change one day where I went from a medium length skirt to a longer skirt at night with colder temperatures. The scarves for layering were great, but I didn't need 7 scarves! I wore all four pair of shoes but I could've done without the Dr. Scholls shoes (the gray shoes) and stuck with the boots for cold weather (Sunday/Monday) and the tennis shoes for the remaining days (which were HOT!). I also wore the flip flops in the afternoon when my toes needed some air (they were so thin that I put them in our backpack on the warm days). I initially brought the flip flops for walking around the hotel, but that never happened unless we were leaving, but they were great for afternoon when my toes needed some air.

I'll point out what I actually wore each day in each upcoming post. I will say that the layers were necessary. On the warmest days (mid 80s), a short sleeve shirt was necessary, but on the coldest day (mid 50s) I wore a long sleeve turtleneck, tights, boots, a scarf, hat and jacket and was still a little chilly.

The Day Pack.

Our day pack was UH-MAZING for both the flight and for our daily outtings. For the flight to London the backpack held

the snacks for the entire trip

wet wipes
pen/pencil

Advil

band-aids

lotion

hair ties

hair pins

folder with copies of all of our tickets/passports (another folder with the same thing was in my carry on as well)

Kleenex (2 extra packs were in the carry on)

empty water bottle

2 umbrellas

3 empty ziploc bags

London books (1 small book, 1 map)

1 rolled up duffle bag

1 rolled up reusable bag

1 money belt

1 comb

Really, if you are in need of a good size backpack that will hold EVERYTHING and still feel light, this bag is for you.

these snacks were all in the backpack

(above) side pocket and note umbrellas on the left of the bag

(above) top pouch (notice water bottle on the right of the bag)

(above) duffle bag that rolls out and is huge! Here is a picture of it filled in the store. Blue duffle.

See the duffle bag behind the snacks in the picture below?

ALL CLOSED!

Clearly, it was much lighter when we carried it each day. But for the trip there, it held so much!

The verdict? I could've brought way less snacks. We had so much food on the plane (to and from London) that the snacks moreso came in handy during the trip and even then I only ate 2 of my 10 breakfast packs and a few other things. So I could have paired down here as well. But the snacks did come in handy and helped us only have to pay for 1-2 full meals each day, depending on the day.

What else? Troy also carried a carry on and our camera backpack on the flight to London. So, at the airport going to London we had 1 carry on each, 1 backpack each, 1 travel pillow each and a blanket to share. My carry on also housed my ziploc bag with liquids, a dual voltage flat iron, my hair bonnet, extra documents as I mentioned above, my cell phone charger, and 2 adapters.

So, there you have it, my packing challenge overcome. Now, as for the the trip back....sigh. I'll save that saga for the post on the trip back home. Luggage caused a big kink in our plans coming back to the states. But alas, that's enough for now. So much more to share so please stay tuned and leave a comment!!!

Packing challenge done and done!,

p.s. one side note, my carry on did not fit in the overhead bin on the United flight to London so our luggage actually flew in the bins in first class. Troy and I joked that we are so blessed and fancy. We didn't get to fly First Class on an international flight, but our luggage did! :-) BUT, I will say that I flew to Miami in April with this same carry on filled to the brim and it fit over head on a Delta flight so I think that United just has small overhead bins and, as such, we probably won't fly with them again unless the price difference is huge. Because I lightened the load of the carry on for the trip home, it fit in the overhead bin with no problem.

I Heart London

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 May 2012 00:41:00 +0000

So, I have a really good reason for not posting the past week--we've been in London!! We spent a week in London and it was super fantastic!! We have a ton of pictures (over 1600) and lots of stories and experiences! Please bare with me because I am so behind on entries--Troy's birthday, Charity's graduation, the birth of our nephew--and I want to walk you all through day by day of our trip.

I am designating blogging time each and every week until I catch up! I'm so excited to share it all with you all. London is absolutely lovely! We also spent a day in Paris. Paris....well, I'll tell you more later. But I will say that I (well, we) enjoyed London WAY more than Paris! Please stay tuned!

Cheerio!,

Siri

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 19 May 2012 02:25:00 +0000

Today I asked Siri for the telephone number to Wolf Camera. Her response:

"But Shunta, you're already holding a pretty nice camera." HA! That Siri, such a jealous robot. At least she helped me find Wolf Camera.

Still laughing at Siri,

Hi, It's Me....

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 May 2012 02:49:00 +0000

So, since the last time I spoke with you all (1) we've celebrated Troy's 30th birthday, (2) found out a friend of ours is expecting (a baby!), (3) our friends the Airlines gave birth to their first born child, and (4) my BFF Charity graduated and obtained a PhD!!!! I tell you, 2012 is the best year ever! So, I'll have pictures and posts as soon as I catch up on sleep, work kept me super busy this week so I am in need of catching up on some missed hours of sleep. This post is being drafted from bed as we speak.

Goodnight folks,

As If I Needed Another Project...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:56:00 +0000

After living here for a little over two years, I finally thought I'd show the outside of the house some TLC, starting with the flower boxes which were gross! I thought they'd be a nice touch for this weekend's birthday party festivities!! That's right, Troy's 30th Birthday Celebration is this weekend!!

After I finished the second box it began to rain, so hope to finish tomorrow as well as spray the windows and clean it up a little. Updated pictures to come!

Green Thumb Grant,

Tiger Tiger Woods Ya'll!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:31:00 +0000

I'm in Miami this week/weekend at a conference for work and yesterday I had a first time encounter with the game of golf at a golf clinic! Check out my fancy golf gear from one of the conference sponsors, Mercedes Benz!

What's the verdict on golf? I'll stick to putt putt! While I loved the feeling when I actually hit the ball far and high, that only happened about 10% of the time so...

More from me later. Sending this post from my iPhone in the hotel. I wish blogger would make an app for the iPad.

Four!!!!,

Weekendings

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:31:00 +0000

This weekend we finally completed all of our London shopping!! I plan to do at least three detailed blog entries about all of our preparations, recommendations, etc... and of course plenty of pictures once we return, so stay tuned for that!

A few other projects are underway that I/we worked on this weekend.

Troy's 30th Birthday Party!

I went shopping this weekend to find napkins to spark some creativity on the color scheme for Troy's upcoming 30th birthday party! I tend to start with fun napkins when coming up with a color scheme for a party. Random, I know. But so far it's worked every time!

Of course I'll have a full and detailed entry after his party at the end of the month.

Storm Door. We went shopping to price storm doors. I really want one for our front door and hopefully we'll have decided on one and purchased/installed it prior to Troy's birthday party!

I'm at it again...

I'm working on a frame project (which I also hope to have completed before Troy's birthday party). I've purchased all of the frames (thanks to an excellent BOGO 1/2 off home sale at Target a few weeks ago), and now that I have my mock up to live with for a few days, we'll be ready to start hanging the frames in no time!! Then I'll have to FINALLY print out some wedding pictures of family and friends to go in the frames. Only took me four years... aw well! I'm really excited to show you all how it turns out! The wall gallery in our room is done, as far as the frames being up, but I am waiting until we get back from Europe to finish that wall so that I can add a good bit of our London and Paris pictures to the wall gallery in our room. I'm sure we'll add at least one to the living room gallery also. Updates on both galleries to come!

Welp folks, those are just a few ways that I/we spent my/our weekend. Shopping, cutting up newspapers to do a mock up on the wall and now a little bit of work. I'm posting this blog as a work break, but now it's time to get back to billing some hours!!

More to come!,
SG

To Quote Ice Cube...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 01:48:00 +0000

"Today was a good day!" (Not everyone is going to get that! ha!) But anywho, as I've mentioned, 2012 is going to be the best year yet! So much to look forward to! Welp, one of those things is the birth of little Baby Airline. Our friends Eric and Sonja are expecting their first son, due one month from today! I'm going to be an auntie...AGAIN!

So, why was today a good day? Well, Sonja invited me to come with her to her ultrasound!!! Not only did I see little Blueberry's face in 3D, I also heard his heart beat! Sure, may not be a big deal to you, but it was a HUGE deal to me!! I. heard. his. heart. beat! Amazing. Tears were shed from my eye balls.

p.s. I call the baby Blueberry (1) because he was the size of a blueberry when I found out that he existed and (2) Eric and Sonja are keeping his name a secret until he makes his grand appearance so I can't call him his real name yet (i.e. I don't know it!).

So anywho, today was a good day! Blueberry is perfectly perfect! Six pounds and one ounce and growing just right. I'm so excited for him to get here so that I can love all on him!! I'm going to be an auntie!

I heard his heartbeat ya'll,

Upgrade

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 03:45:00 +0000

Our new camera arrived last week! With the London/Paris trip slowly approaching, we decided that we needed a new camera to capture all the loveliness that we are expecting to see! With that in mind, we went with the Canon EOS Rebel T2i for our new family camera. We have a lot to learn, but we tested it out this weekend on a trip down to Atlanta to visit the family and celebrate my mom's upcoming birthday.

Troy and I hope to catch a class before London so that we can get the most out of the fancy new camera. I will say, even with my simple "no-flash, point & click" pictures (like the one above!) this weekend, the quality is one million times better than my usual iPhone and small digital camera pictures!

See...

Miyah loves her some Uncle Troy...but hey, I can't blame her! He's so lovable!

Also, Miyah is crawling ya'll!!! I could not believe it! She is crawling (fast!!) and puling up. That means, most likely, the next time that I see her, she will be walking. Oh goodness, what's next, college?! Too fast! But anywho, as you can see from the last picture, I took mom to Ici Paris, the same spa we visited last year for her birthday, for mother-daughter massages! It was great!!

We ended the day with dinner at Flip where I had the one-of-a-kind Krispy Kreme milkshake!

Oh, and speaking of delicious sweet things, mom also requested my famous lemon cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing. My friends request that I bake this more than anything else so I actually hadn't baked them in over a year to give them a rest. This camera (we've named the camera Lea after the fabulous photographer who did our wedding pictures) took the best cupcake pictures I've ever taken! And again, this is just on a basic "no flash" setting. I have not even come to understand all of the personalized settings.

making the icing...

So, I realized, mid-baking, that I was out of piping bags and cutting a hole in a ziploc bag to use my piping tools failed, so my bootleg attempt to ice the cupcakes was just cut a hole in a Ziploc bag and squeeze the icing through the hole...

After chilling in the fridge over night. Packed and ready to go to Georgia...

Also, let me just say this--this was my first time making cupcakes with Gretel, my stand mixer. WOW!! So much easier!!!!!! I almost didn't know what to do with myself when I wasn't personally mixing things with a hand mixer! So great!! Stand mixer = yet another major upgrade!

Yay for the upgrade (and double yay for an excellent Saturday),

Miyah Comes to Visit

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 01:49:00 +0000

Now it's time for me to play catch up and dish about some of the funnings that have been going on. The first weekend in February Troy and I kept our then- 5 month old niece. This was our first time ever having an infant in our home overnight! So here's a summary of what went down...

The Good

Miyah is just lovely! I love being an auntie so much and being able to be a part of her life since day 1! She only cries when she's hungry or you try to get in her nose and de-clog it.

My BFFs are the BEST! Charity and Regina visited and we took turns on Miyah duty while the other two of us worked on cooking a big family dinner! Troy also pitched in too! It really was one of the best weekends of my entire life! Family, friends AND food. Doesn't get much better than that.

The Bad

Having to wake up at 3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. But seeing Miyah made it all worth it! She is just so precious!! Have I mentioned how much I love being an auntie? So really, no "bad"....but there was some ugly! More on that below!!!

3 a.m. doing happy baby pose! Literally. It's my least favorite yoga pose.

7a.m. wide awake

The Ugly

The poop!! And LOTS of it. Miyah is teething and I am told that means runnier and yuckier poo. Well, there were many encounters with yellow poo and that was NOT my cup of tea. I changed a lot of diapers!

And here is a picture of Charity cleaning poop off of her skirt because the poop sometimes escaped the diaper!

You see this picture below? It was taken on Sunday morning just before leaving the house to head to Sunday School. Well, literally 3 minutes later in the car, those nice white tights were filled with yellow poop. And I had to change her as soon as we arrived to church.

But who wouldn't love this face? Even with all the poop!

So grateful to be an auntie,

p.s. speaking of being a proud auntie, I must brag some more on my niece Mekala (remember her from this post and this one) she's been chosen as her high school's representative in a Medical Conference to be held in Atlanta this spring and I am just so proud of her!! Have I mentioned how much I love being an auntie? Just making sure we're clear on that...

Guess What We Just Did?...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 05:09:00 +0000

I'll give you a few hints...

Any guesses? :-) Welp folks, we just booked our tickets on the EuroStar which will take us from London to Paris later this year!!! The Grants are going to London and Paris!! We're super excited and it's just one of the MANY amazingly exciting things we're looking forward to in 2012!! And I have so much to share with you so stay tuned!!

I can't wait to share every thing that I've learned so far! I hope that it can be a help to anyone out there looking to travel to Europe in the near future! For now, I'm off to get some rest.

Au revoir!,

picture sources: London's Tower Bridge, EuroStar, Eiffel Tower

I Am Alive...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 02:30:00 +0000

I promise. And I am still a blogger. I have fun post ideas dancing in my head and they are on the way. I just have to make it through this week and I will be somewhat back to a normal schedule and can get back to writing!!!

Forgive me?
SG

Music To My Ears!...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 05:25:00 +0000

Gretel's First Spin!!

I love her!,

365 More Days....

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:45:00 +0000

of being a "twenty-something!" Today I turned the big 2-9! I am so grateful to see a new age! I'm enjoying a little couch time (while Troy hangs curtains in the living room) to share with you some details about my stupendous birthday weekend!

I'm SUPER excited about my birthday gift from Troy...

YES!! That's right folks! I'm FINALLY the owner of a KitchenAid Stand Mixer!! I've wanted one for years!! Her name is Gretel!! And she looks so nice in the kitchen. I'll have more pictures later, but here's one I snapped on the iPhone after setting her up on Friday night.

Then, if Friday's fun gift wasn't enough, on Saturday my BFF's spoiled me with some quality time, a beautiful cake, and birthday decorations! I came home from Publix and to my surprise Regina had decorated the living room.

And Allison brought cake!!! Which I love! Check out the Celtics green!

Us girls then headed to a private yoga class at my yoga studio which was a very light class just to ease them into the yoga practice that I oh so love! All smiles afterwards.

After a good workout of course you need food. So off to PF Chang's to pick up our to-go order and head back to the house to eat and relax.

Regina enjoyed the balloons as you can see in this picture. Balloon volleyball.

After lots of movie and tv-watching, some games, LOTS of laughter and lounging around the house we finally headed out to dinner before calling it a night.

It's been a great weekend and I'm so blessed that these three ladies took time out of their busy schedules to celebrate with me. As for Gretel, thanks to a gift card from Charity, I plan to get the ice cream maker attachment to Gretel soon!!! I had just pinned it on Pinterest this week! That Charity, she knows me so well!!

Alrighty folks, thanks for tuning in on the birthday details. It's been a great one! So grateful to Jesus for EVERYTHING! He's given me such a beautiful life filled with joy, peace, and love. And for that, I owe Him EVERYTHING!! So, here's to this new year and seeing all the many ways in which He continues to develop me! I'm beyond excited about it!!

29 and counting,

Whistle While You Work...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:00:00 +0000

the frame project continues....

and I'm SUPER excited to finally have found a pillow set up on the bed that I like. I've been playing around with various throw pillows for months. I think, for now, we have a winner with these shams I purchased from West Elm this weekend.

I felt bad about tossing the blue pillows from the bed so they are on the ottoman in the meantime. Looks so much better. I also rolled down the duvet so the bed wouldn't be as puffy looking. Still a work in progress but I like it 10 times better than how it looked before.

Okay, back to work. Time to do some measurements on the wall!

*whistling*,

Namaste!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:52:00 +0000

I am officially addicted to yoga. I've been going for about four months now and I literally do NOT like missing my weekly yoga classes. It has become a high priority and my body actually misses it when I miss my regular classes. I love yoga so much that I've been thinking of ways to incorporate it into my work routine and guess what, there are ways to enjoy yoga at work! So passing on some of the things I've found!

There are so many cool ways you can incorporate yoga at work as seen above here. These websites here and here also give some examples. Whose with me?! Who will add at least one stretch or posture at their desk with me? (although, you may want to close your door before trying some of these!)

Speaking of postures. I am dreaming of the day when I have enough yoga strength to master these babies!

how cool do these look?!! my upper body strength is getting better and better with each passing week. So, in about, hmmmm...5 years I should be able to do this!

In the meantime, let's keep it simple with some yoga at the desk!!

whose with me?,
SG

Three images above can be found here.

Writings on the Wall...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 01:42:00 +0000

The next bedroom project is underway--the wall gallery! While in Charlotte for work on yesterday I made a trip to IKEA to pick up one of each size of the RIBBA frame. The goal was to make newspaper cut outs of each size and determine what layout I want and then go to IKEA next week while in Atlanta to purchase the exact frames that I will need.

I've become semi-obsessed with wall galleries thanks much to Pinterest and a few blogs.

Super cute right? Anywho, here's an iPhone sneak peak at what's going on over here:

It's coming along!

Yay for Projects,

p.s. all wall gallery pictures above can be found on my "Frame It" Pinterest album.

Blogger on iPhone ?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:39:00 +0000

This is a test of the "I just downloaded the blogger app on my iPhone" system. But to keep it fun, here is yet another picture of Miyah! I woke up yesterday morning to this text of her having sweet dreams!

Sent from my iPhone,
SG

I've Been Ghost...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:29:00 +0000

and I've been busy. But I'm working on getting better at making time for the blog. Forgive me. And look at my beautiful niece while you bear with me! :-)

9.15.11 the day she was born

Day 2 being on the outside

She's growing so much

pictures from the weekend

Isn't she PRECIOUS?!!! I'll upload some non-iPhone pictures as soon as I catch up with camera uploads, etc...

Forgive me,
SG

It's Like the First Day of School!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 03:26:00 +0000

BUT SO MUCH BETTER!!! Yesterday was my first court appearance all by myself!!! I had a short bench trial in Fort Mill, South Carolina and it was so much fun I must say! And, just like on the first day of school when your mom takes your picture with the lunch box in hand, Troy took my picture with my fancy case in hand! Because Fort Mill is about 2 hours away I left so early in the morning it was still dark outside hence the darkness outside the front door.

It was pretty much the most exciting day of my career thus far and I've had some pretty exciting days! Now I'm waiting to find out the judge's ruling. But, if I do say so myself, I think I ROCKED it!! I'll update the post once I find out the result!!

Loving Litigating & Lawyering,
SG

UPDATE: GOOD NEWS!!! A victory for me and the client!! We won!!

Wanna Know How To Paint Curtains?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 01:30:00 +0000

Well you've come to the right place! Recall, that I planned to paint curtains using a stencil from Cutting Edge stencil. My right hand is sore and my legs are too, but the curtains are done and I'm excited to show you how it all went down!

Materials:
2 packs of IKEA Vivian Curtains [each pack has 2 panels]
Cutting Edge Stencil [Missing Link Allover Stencil]
Acrylic Paint [I chose silver]
Fabric Medium [to keep paint from being all crackly when it dries]
Paint Roller
Drop cloth for floor
Painters Tape [to hold everything down]

The pictures will speak for themselves from here on out...

Each panel looked better than the one before since I learned a few tricks with each panel. My first panel took me 2 hours to paint but the fourth panel took me only 50 minutes. I let them dry about 2 hours each and then hung them. Tada!!

I was trying to be fancy with the camera by tilting it when taking the picture.
Day Time View.

Night Time View of Other Window.

I like how the squares on the curtains play off the squares on the duvet.

And the color of the curtains ties in with the ottoman at the foot of the bed!

And really, these pictures (and my not high quality digital camera) really do not do the curtains justice!! They look so nice in the room and bring us one step closer to slowly bringing this room together. Next up, I need to get some things up on the walls!

Off to ask Troy for a hand massage,
SG

Things to Come....

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 01:06:00 +0000

It's been a fun week. Vacation from work, trip to Virginia with Troy, I finally baked a cake from scratch for the first time this year (it's been too long!!), and we finally got the curtain rods hanging so I can start my curtain project. I plan to post on all of those things, but I tell ya' I really need a TWO week vacation so I can use the second week to tell you all about the first week!

What's more, to add to the excitement, I am sitting by my phone waiting for my mom or sister to call to say "the eagle has landed!" My sister is due on September 15th (Thursday!!) and I've been hoping that my niece, Miyah, would come this weekend. Well, that didn't happen so now I'm just waiting for the bat signal and hopefully it will all work well so that I can leave the moment she goes into labor and head to Atlanta.

So, yeah, lots of exciting things going on this way. I just need to find time to put together the video clips and pictures from Virginia, upload the pictures from baking/curtains, etc... so that I can sit and write a post.

Oh, I'll also add that I read The Help, all 530 pages, on vacation and it was so good!! Definitely a great vacation read! It was the first fiction book I've read since college! I read another short book also on child birth and it, too, was an excellent vacation read!

Okay, enough babbling on things to come. Just know there are good posts headed your way! I'm currently waiting for these painted curtains to dry so I can see if I should hashtag #winning or #epicfail as a result.

Alrighty, that's it!! Oh, and, if by chance, I have any readers who live in Dallas, TX. Please check out my girl Desiree's house which is now listed for sale!! It's GORGEOUS and you know you want to live there!!!

Okay, I'm done for real now. I have to go check on these curtains!

Enjoying the last 24 hours of vacay,
SG

p.s. for those who read this post, good news!! REGINA PASSED THE NC BAR!!!!!

How Many Posts Can I Make About Our Bedroom Makeover without Actually Showing the Bedroom?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 03:36:00 +0000

No more. "After" pictures are finally here! But first, an explanation on what has taken me so long and why I gave up and decided to go on and post now! I wanted to do a proper before/after entry last week but I've been waiting to upload old pictures of our bedroom. However, due to some technical difficulties (my computer is keeping me from accessing my external hard drive which has all old picures--appointment at Apple Store on Saturday) I'm having to resort to two pictures that I happened to have saved to shutterfly in order to give you a look at the "before" of our bedroom and a peek at a few "after" pictures. Once I get some better "before" pictures I'll update this post.

Okay, now! Where'd we leave off? Oh yes, we painted our room, got rid of every single piece of furniture and the mattress (and the TV) and basically started over from scratch. The only thing that stayed was the carpet (which is in our room because the master bedroom is not original to the house, so no pretty hardwood floors).

Here's what the room looked like when we viewed it in January 2010, days after being on the market. Gotta love staging:

Pretend that there are pictures here of the room right before we painted.

And here are a few "after" pictures thus far...

Isn't the paint color close to some of the inspiration pics?! I'll be back with more details on some of the plans for the immediate future, like my stencil curtain project which I hope to work on while on vacation in September!!! But, for now, we're loving the new room! And, yes, the plastic is still on the TV per Troy's request. The man is odd! But, I love him!!

Hope you enjoy the before/after. There's still so much more I want to do in here but the biggest parts have been done!! Whaddaya think?!

Finally some "after" pictures,

p.s. please hope that I can get access to my external hard drive. Otherwise, I will be sad for about 3 minutes. And then I will move on. :-)

IT'S HERE!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:34:00 +0000

The bed is up and the media console is next. . . I'm washing the new duvet as we speak and so excited to make the bed up once everything is finished!!! Stay tuned for sneak peek pictures!

Why does new furniture excite me so much?,
SG