Friday...finally.....

I don't know about you but I'm so glad that today is Friday and that I do not (unlike many others at the office right now) have to work this weekend. And I'm also excited for this Friday in particular because my sister Amy and her friend Charity are driving up this afternoon from Pensacola and will be here the entire weekend, and if I remember correctly, I believe this will be Charity's first trip to the fabulous city, I like to call Nashvegas! AND today also happens to be the birthday of one of my closest friends, Caron. Our friend Tam is playing with his old high school band in Murfreesboro so I believe we are grabbing dinner and then heading to the show. Should be a great night and a good start to the weekend. I am sure I will have pictures to post on Monday.

What month is it??

I could have sworn that it was October yet when I stopped by my local Walgreens to pick up some pictures this morning I was greeted by pre-lit Christmas trees, a Santa and a snowman. Huh?? I didn't know it was December already?

You would think that after spending 5 years of my life in the world of retail (where holidays are set up 3 months in advance) that I would be use to seeing Christmas decor now. Clearly, this tells me that I have been out of the "retail" loop for a while because seeing Santa in the window just totally caught me off guard. So I did some math and figured that the actual day of Christmas, December 25th, is only 69 days away...that's just a little over 2 months. I might have caused myself to panic because that means this year is almost over and I have no idea where it went, not to mention all the things that I wanted to accomplish or the stuff that needs to be done before the holidays...OK, somebody grab a paper bag ....deep breath in...deep breath out....

Trip to the ATL

So this weekend I once again headed out of Nashville and drove south to see my friend Lauraine and her family in Atlanta.(Alpharetta, GA to be exact) I have known Lauraine for a little over 10 years as we used to have cubicles side by side when we worked at Bellsouth in Indiana. We've been friends through the years and it was so fun to be able to spend some quality time with her and her husband Russell and their daughter Briana. Lauraine and I got one-on-one time, aka shopping the malls on Saturday thanks to Russell who stayed home with Briana. It was so refreshing to be able to catch up with her and just hang out. They took me to a delicious restaurant called Roadhouse (think Logan's or Outback)for dinner and then we made a Cold Stone creamery run for dessert later in the evening. For a weekend of traveling, it left me feeling refreshed and relaxed. Below are some pictures we took this morning:

Briana, Lauraine and Me

Briana, Russell and Lauraine

Briana, her great Halloween artwork and Lauraine

The Kingdom

Last night I went with my friends Caron, Michael and Tam to see the movie "The Kingdom". I had heard from reviews that it was an intense, action-packed movie and it definitely lived up to that description. If you haven't heard of this film, it's about a team of U.S. investigators set out to find the perpetrators behind a deadly attack in a Middle Eastern country. The opening scene showed a timeline of how the U.S. began it's involvement with the Middle East...a three letter word called OIL...all the way through present day, post 9/11 and the current war on terror.

We always rate the movies we see by using Caron's infamous 10-scale (10 being out of this world and 1 being horrible) We unanimously gave it a 9. While this movie was intense and a little hard to watch (violence wise) I thought the cast did an amazing job and the directors did an excellent job of capturing both sides of the story. They showed glimpses of what the different cultures look like and I appreciated that. I was still pondering this movie on my drive home and it became very clear to me that we, living in America, really do have it pretty good...I don't have to be fearful that if I'm stopped at a stop light and a car pulls up to me that it could be a bomb. I can't even begin to grasp what it would feel like to not feel safe enough to walk out the front door. And I don't want to seem naive as I do realize there are probably those living in America that wish us harm but I just couldn't help but feel extreme gratitude for living in the U.S. and for the troops that are fighting to keep us safe.

Has FALL finally arrived?

Let's hope so! After the heat and humidity blast last weekend, it was so refreshing to wake up this morning and feel the 45 degree temperatures. I mean, it is after all October, folks. And I should not have been so surprised to hear people at work today say that it's cold outside...excuse me?!? Did you just say "cold"? I don't think I'll ever get used to the Southerner's complaints of temperatures below 60 degrees. This is why I can say that I'm proud to be from the North. We love the cold! Fall and Winter are probably my favorite seasons.

The leaves haven't changed too much down here yet but hopefully soon. This picture is from my friend Amy who was back north over the weekend. I love fall foliage.