Ok, its no big secret that I love television. I do I'll admit it, and because of that I'm reluctant to start watching some new shows, because then I will start to like them and have to watch them. Case in point, MAD MEN. Ok, I unfortunately didn't watch any of season 1 (note to self check out and see if they are available on Netflix). I think it was on the same time as some other show I liked and didn't want it to interfere.



But since its won such acclaim I thought I should really check it out. So I did and now I'm hooked. I love it and can get enough.



#1 - I love the 1960's, the history, the clothes, the decor, everything.
* The actor that plans Draper - is totally hot. I mean come on take a look at that piece of man meat.

* The costumes are unreal. I can't believe having to wear a dress like that every single day.

#2 - Its so interesting to see the change that this boiling over during that time period and people openness or in some cases unwillingness to accept it.

#3 - It makes me appreciate how far women have come in the past 40 years.

#4 - I can't get enough of how much people smoke and drink.



I love it and highly suggest you start watching it Sunday nights on AMC. Check, check, check it out...

Background on the show:
Mad Men depicts the society and culture of the early 1960s, highlighting cigarette smoking, drinking, sexism, and racial bias as examples of how that era was so radically different from the present. Smoking, far more common in 1960 than it is now, is featured throughout the series; almost every character can be seen smoking multiple times in the course of one episode. In the pilot, representatives of Lucky Strike cigarettes come to Sterling Cooper looking for a new advertising campaign in the wake of a Reader's Digest report that smoking will lead to various health issues including lung cancer. The show presents a culture in which men who are engaged or married frequently enter sexual relationships with other women. The series also observes advertising as a corporate outlet for creativity for mainstream, middle-class, young, white men. The main character, Don Draper, observes at one point about Sterling-Cooper, "This place has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich."

(pulled from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Men)

As of this past weekend, Brent and I have been together for 4 years. Granted the actual date of this is still under debate, but as in most of our disagreements... I'M RIGHT!!!! (I believe the counting starts on our first date and he thinks it starts when he asked me to officially be his "steady"girlfriend, that would be mid November.)

And as of this weekend, I have officially lived in Pensacola for 2 years. Its crazy how time flies.

If you care to read up on the story of us. Please feel free to check out one of my first posts, about our Courtship Story we had created and handed out at the rehearsal dinner.

http://leavingandloving.blogspot.com/2008/07/our-story.html

Yes, its true... We met on Match.com, it really worked for us...

This weekend the hubby came home, and I couldn't have been happier. I think I actually squealed when I hear the back door open and I jumped into his arms. It was wonderful to be back in his arms.

Saturday we started the morning with a relaxation yoga class which was wonderful, then off to a friends for homemade pancakes, then we started on our way to go see the Rocker (movie was ok). On the way to the movie, my mom called. My phone was about to die and she asked me to call her back when I had a chance she had something important to tell me. Those words made me realize this way a call I should take, so I asked her to go ahead and tell me.

Well, she found a lump in her breast in April but with work, the wedding, and the craziness of life she didn't get it looked at until last week. She is going in for a biopsy on Sept 2nd. She waited to me until Brent got home to be here with me. So needless to say, I broke down, there in the movie theater parking lot, in the pouring down rain of the lovely TS Fay, I broke down. Brent didn't know what was going on, just that I was losing it.



So I suppose I should back up, I have a fear of breast cancer. My grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was in middle school. We're sure she knew something was wrong a lot longer than that but she didn't want to go to the doctor. When she did, they told her she had about 6 months to live. She lived about 6 years after he diagnosis and past away my junior year of high school. And my life was forever changed by her death, but that's an entirely different story for another time.

My mother is a wonderful woman that is truly my hero. I have a young mom. By the time she was 24, she was married, divorced, and mother to 2 kids. She raised us well, with the help of my grandmother, sent me to Catholic school, to dance lessons, girl scouts, etc. She worked hard and has dealt with so much. She just turned 48 a couple of weeks ago. It breaks my heart to think that this is one more hurdle that she has to overcome.

So to anyone and everyone out there in the blogosphere, please send us some positive vibes. And I strongly encourage everyone and anyone to donate to the cause. I donate regularly to various breast cancer foundations, have a breast cancer license plate, walked in a 5k with Mandy last year, and chose to donate to Susan G. Komen instead of giving out favors at our wedding. I think its so important for we as women to take a stand help fight for the cause...

Brent is on his way back to P'cola as I type. I got a text a little before 2pm. He should be home around 7pm. Problem is he'll be driving back up to MS during the affects of FAY. She's suppose to greet us all this evening. Hopefully, we won't get too much rain.

Or if we do... well Brent and I will just have to stay indoors all weekend... wouldn't that be a shame....

It appears they are finally taking action on the "underage" girls on the Chinese gymnastic team. Thank God, I mean seriously those girls in no way shape or form look 16. As a 28 year old that regularly gets asked if she's old enough to drink don't take it to personally ladies if you aren't underage (which you totally are)...

http://en.epochtimes.com/n2/world/underage-chinese-gymnasts-ioc-fig-3151.html

FYI - Last week I was at Target and the cashier (an older gentleman) saw my ring and said " Oh girl, are you really married...."
I responded, "Why yes I am. Just got married in June."
He said, "Wow, you look young. I thought maybe you just graduated high school."

Me: "No, I'm 28 years old...."
Him: "Wow you don't look it"
Me: "Yes I get that all the time...."
Him " I bet you do, you don't look that old"
Me: " Yes, I know."
Him: "You're really 28?"
Me: "Yes, sir. I'm really 28."
Him: "I'll be..."
Me: "Yes, everyone saw I'll be so happy when I'm 30 and people still think I'm in my 20s."
Him: "Yes you sure will..."
Me: "Perhaps, but I'll be 30 and I won't be happy about that..."

FYI - I joke with my hubby that he won't have to trade me in on a younger model because I don't look my age....

With the hubby out of town, I've been focused on the post wedding madness. I finally received my thank you postcards. So those are a priority for this weekend, I'm about 25% through them so far. The image above is the one we've used for the Thank You card. We took a couple "Thank You" pictures, but I didn't really like any of them.

As I said earlier, having the wedding in a small town in where there aren't many options and getting my 3rd choice of photographers, I am "happy" with the pictures. I would like to see if some altering or treatments could be done to them to make them look a little better. I question some of her choices on the composition of some of the pics, by oh well.

I gave her a lot of direction on what pictures I wanted and pointed out certain places I wanted pics to be taken. So I think that helped alot. People where I am from tend to want very "traditional" pictures, so that's what she's used to giving them. She was supposedly very excited to get to work with us...

I bought frames today for our pictures. I found some great ones at TJ Maxx, Hobby Lobby (50% off), and Target. I found 3 frames at TJ MAXX that look alot like the Vera Wang ones we registered for, but off course only cost about 25% of the the real thing. They'll start going up on the walls this weekend.

I'm so excited, Brent might be coming home next weekend. Luckily, there is another WSO at Columbus with Brent that came from NAS P'Cola. He has been there a couple of weeks so has been able to help him out so much. Seeing how Brent is the only WSO in class (since he was suppose to go to Randolph AFB) he was kinda clueless on what was going on. Anyway, the other WSO is trying to come home to P'cola next weekend and asked Brent if he wanted to go. Hell Yeah he wants to home. I'd be up there in a second, except I need someone to watch the dogs, and we just had someone watch the dogs last week when we were gone for the wedding. Our next door neighbors said they would, but Charlie is seriously a handful and I don't feel like I know them well enough. Granted they watered our yard for us while we were gone but, coming in the house several times a day, is a little different.

So this weekend, should be interesting. I have some yard work to do, I started it the other evening, but its been raining here like crazy so I had to stop. I'm going to cut down alot of the vines that have covered our side gate, cut back the crazy plants that grow in our back yard, and weed. I would mow the yard, but we're paying the neighbor boy to come over ever other Saturday to pick up the dog poop and mow the yard (b/c I didn't want to do it. yes, I'm kinda lazy). After Charlie leaves with Brent for Randolph, the poop situation will be easy.

In addition, to the yard work I need to do a serious amount of laundry and clean our house. Its times like this I really miss Brent, he actually likes to clean its totally crazy.

So to give myself alittle enjoyment this weekend I do have some shopping to do.
1. Go to Michaels they are having a sale on all seasonal items - I stopped during lunch the other afternoon. I loved the green hydrangeas, I bought 1 stem to see how it would like in this large wicker vase I have in the corner of the living room. So I think I'll need to buy at least 5 more to fill it. Also, shopping for frames for wedding pics and seasonal decor. I have my eye on some mini squash to go into my glass jars from the wedding.

2. Pier 1 is having a sale - tons of awesome pillows are 50% off. I only buy pillows on the cheap - because Charlie likes to chew the corners on them.

3. TJ Maxx and Tuesday Morning - oh I haven't visited you in a couple months since before the wedding.

I'll admit I like read all different types of books. My likes can drastically vary from biographical or historical to girlie and down right trashy. It all depends on my mood and the time of year. For the fall and winter I tend to read more serious books and during the warmer months it has to be care free and fun loving books.

To make these even worse, I've started reading 2 books at a time. One for work (when I get a lunch hour out of the office) and one for home (weekends, poolside, travel, etc.) This actually started because I kept forgetting to bring a book back to work and I'd go out to lunch with nothing to read .... oh the horror.

So recently in the past week I have finished 3 books. One I started on our honeymoon and read at work a Nora Roberts book Considering Kate. It was ok, a nice love story but nothing too great. 2nd book - Certain Girls by author Jennifer Weiner who I LOVE. I've read all her books, while this isn't my favorite it is a continuation of Good in Bed (which was wonderful). I bought this book for our honeymoon but didn't start reading it until we got home. I almost completed on the plane ride to Illinois this past weekend, but started to cry on the plane and decided to stop. I finished the next morning, lying in bed at 7:30 trying not to wake up Brent. I bawled my eyes out. Brent thinks I'm crazy for wanting to read/watch things that make me cry. My 3rd book I picked up at Target in Illinois for the flight home Something Borrowed by Emily Griffin. I'll admit, I've seen her books for quite some time and read good things about them, but for one reason or another I haven't been interested in reading them. Well I decided to try her out and it was fabulous. I honestly couldn't put it down. I finished it yesterday after dinner (haven't had any lunches to read on this week). I loved it and I'm going to pick up her 3 other books this weekend to start. I loved her writing style, even though she did use some words too frequently which kinda bothered me.

Side Note: My favorite Weiner book is In her Shoes, I thought the movie did a HORRIBLE job of capturing the book. And there is a PUG in the book, no pug in the movie (2 thumbs down)

So next up for the 3rd installment is the cake. Since we were having cupcakes to keep costs down and the cake wasn't really going to be that big of a deal, we had a small 3 tier cake that would feed generally 40 -60 people. My inspiration was from the one and only Martha. See image. However, since "W" was an ever running theme in the wedding, I added a W to the cake and green colored ribbon that I bought for $1 from Michael's in their discontinued ribbon bin. We added green and white hydrangeas to the tiers. Overall I was happy with the outcome. However there were a couple of problems.

1. The dark ribbon began to show the icing seeping through. I didn't want fondant b/c to me it can taste gross.

2. The baker didn't add the flowers exactly like I would have liked.

3. The icing they painted the W with didn't match the cake exactly.