Georgia on my mind

This Thanksgiving Nate and I took a trip down South to see how Thanksgiving is celebrated in Atlanta. Turns out it's pretty much the same, except they have about 30 degrees on Ohio in addition to being the home of Nate's two brothers. We drove down Wednesday night and Thursday morning just in time to catch Thanksgiving dinner at Aaron and Bonnie's house. We had a great time and I learned that I can function on less sleep than I previously thought. Thanks to Nate for driving. It was at least my car? We had a good time checking out downtown, bowling, eating, moving watching, coveting Aaron and Bonnie's exercise equipment, and catching up. Thank you to our wonderful Georgian hosts!

Nate checking out pictures with Sadi and McKay

Nate helping Jackson with his church shoes

Nate, Aaron and Ben

Bonnie, Liz and Jenn

Nate, Ben and Jenn at the bowling alley

Aaron wearing some of Bonnie's old pants. It cracked me up. PS-Bonnie is skinny and just did a triathalon, so don't feel too bad.

The lake by their house was so relaxing that I tried out a yoga move or two...and realized how bad I still am.

Sitting down to dinner: Jenn, Sadi, Bonnie, Jackson, Liz, McKay

Potpourri

My happy face after I found a new hairdresser.

The photo we had to show to the marshall to prove we weren't breaking the law (intentionally).

The best photo from the Christmas card shoot.

Nothing says love like dishes and a bad rhyme

"I love little baby ducks, old pick-up trucks, slow-moving trains, and rain..."

Any guesses on the artist? If you are fortunate enough to be a Harrison child, you should know the whole song...or at least a derivation.

This cover is nice. I'm sure Tom T. Hall is a good man, but he looks a little "teethy" in this picture. Anyway, why does he get my spotlight this week? My mom purchased/was given a tape of Tom T. when I was still employed as her young dishwasher. I had my choice of Tom, Enya or OMD, so I had myself a listen every once in a while despite the lame lyrics. Not convinced?

"I love honest open smiles, kisses from a child, tomatoes on the vine, and onions".

This is from just one song. I digress yet again. Last week, I was washing my dishes; as I was scrubbing the sink, I found myself singing this song. Luckily, Nate was close enough to hear some of the choice lyrics. It's not like I don't give myself away as a geek enough...
My urge to sing "I Love" made me wonder if I had some type of memory association with washing the dishes/cleaning my sink. And no, this isn't the first time I've cleaned since then, so my theory isn't incredibly strong. Do you have any activities that remind you of songs, or vice versa?

Another treat to chew on:

"Four hundred hogs comes to eight hundred hams
And that's a lot of money for a hog-raisin' man
Four hundred hogs comes to sixteen hundred feet
The market's up and there are people a-waitin' on that meat"

Feliz Halloween!

Blog-wise, Halloween is a bit unfair. If you post even a day after...it seems SO after. I have no excuse...but my makeup did take a while to remove. Same goes for Nate's mustache.

This year Nate and I attended the law school's "Fall Ball". We both had a great time, but the event really could've been titled "Thanks for paying for the alcohol!". I'm happy to help where I can, especially if I get to meet the happy/intoxicated. Because the ticket price was a bit steep, we both felt dedicated to getting the most out of the get together. For me, that meant avoiding people except Nate and enjoying the music. For Nate, it meant coercing me to meet his friends and enjoying the music. It's fun being so similar. I especially enjoyed the wet dance floor (I'll say because of water?). Once everyone else became dehydrated, there was quite a bit more room for us to dance like teenagers. My form hasn't really improved since then, but I care less about being judged.

Not the exact cats that triggered the asthma attack, but they probably looked similar

After our official Halloween night in Toledo, we took it on the road with Alana and Joe. There was a party in Chicago to attend (yes, I realize how that sounds)...how could we stay home?

A few of the firsts:

-my first trip to Chicago

-my first trip to the Cheesecake Factory

-my first migraine at a Halloween party

-Alana's first asthma attack at a Halloween party

-our first emergency trip to Wisconsin(where Joe's parents live) because of said asthma attack

-Mine and Nate's first trip to an all hispanic worker McDonald's while dressed as a Mariachi Band member and his leading lady. It wasn't until after as I was staring into the bathroom mirror and realized how bad that may have looked.

How could they be mad at these faces??

Honestly, Nate

I have too many clothes. My mom started telling me this when I was under 10 years old, and she could still (and did as we packed up to move last year) say it today. Instead of complaining/burning excess clothing in secret, Nate recently suggested that we find a small dresser to put in the other room. That way that cats could have reign over a book case we would move by the window in our front room. Win, Win, Win.


Two Saturdays ago, after a trip to the farmer's market, Nate, Alana and I stopped off at St. Vincent De Paul's. Having grown up in Utah, I kept thinking a local soup kitchen started selling second hand furniture...but the one in Toledo just sells furniture and clothes...and hopeless pieces of computers no one will ever use. Seriously, it was like a graveyard. Anyway, I found the dresser I wanted. It was beautiful: it was actual wood, the drawers opened, and it didn't smell weird. Alana attempted to negotiate with the "salesperson", but she quoted $35 and took off. She had better things to do...like tell people she didn't know how to run the credit card machine. Deciding we could talk someone else down a bit from her quote, we held off.


Nate stopped by the following Monday, in grubby clothes and with only a loose grasp on correct grammar (he wanted to see if that would help his cause), he asked a different woman to check out a dresser for him. "$65", she says. Refusing to go upstairs to look at said dresser, she insisted that her manager wouldn't let her sell them for less than that.
Nate: "I would like to speak with your manager"

Woman: "he's not here"

Nate: "when will he be back?"

Woman: "5:00pm"

Nate: "how late are you open today?"

Woman: "4:00pm"


A good time was had by all. Nate left, planning on returning on Friday, cause the woman said so. I think it was just a day of the week that she was familiar with, but whatever. Nate went back on Friday, dressed up and with improved grammar. He said he was there to pick up a dresser, some guys showed up, put the dresser in his car and said "okay, you're all set!". He hadn't paid yet. He sat in his car. He could drive away. He could give his wife not only a dresser, but a free dresser. He could spite that crazy woman. His obstacles: we were scheduled to go to the temple that night, he didn't want to rip off a thrift store, guilt. What happened: I got a non-free, non-overpriced dresser. And Nate is awesome. So is my dresser.

I'll meet you behind McDonald's...

I'm going to assume this is referring to fireworks?

In Our Lovely Deseret

I remember when shopping at the Deseret Industries (DI)* was really embarrassing. In my fifth grade class, someone was teased because they were seen shopping there (it now seems obvious to ask how the teaser was to be able to see the teased, but whatever).

While being an adult has some definite drawbacks, I now enjoy the (social) freedom to shop wherever I want; with pride, even. Last week during my visit back to Utah, I made an impressive 2 appearances to the same DI location within a 4 day span. The first day I shopped with Ruth (my sister) and my mom. I followed my mom over to the book section and found all the church books anyone could want (or didn't want, in this case). I found some great biographies on some of the prophets, but my prize find was a copy of President Benson's biography. It's written by Sheri Dew and signed by the prophet himself, so it's not only valuable (to me), but also well written. I surfaced from the book selection with an armful of (heavy) books; maybe Ruth's raised eyebrows didn't say "you realize that a heavy baggage fee is $50, right", but they should have. I found a few great items of clothing, but we had to leave to get to a family party.

Not completely satisfied, I called Ruth the next day and asked if she was up for another visit to DI. I was in luck (or being indulged), so we returned and were in rare form. I found all sorts of work/play clothes without (much of) the guilt of a regular shopping trip. After announcing my total to Ruth's husband, Matt, he asked if they gave me the keys to the store. I've been wearing DI clothes for a week and have felt totally stylish, but my carefree DI spending reminded me of diet advice I've heard: just because you are eating low-fat cookies doesn't mean you should eat the whole box. I won't feel guilty. My box of cookies was a lot less expensive than most and I successfully avoided a heavy baggage fee by carrying on about 40lbs on my back while wearing a bad outfit. I earned my bargains.

*Goodwill or Salvation Army equivalent