FINALLY, the transformation of the bonus room over the garage in our new house is complete!
When we decided to put in an offer on the house, we knew this room would eventually become my office, because if I was going to be working from home, I needed the larger office of the two of us (this is, of course, before COVID, so we had no clue Steve would be working from home, too). The more I kept thinking about turning this massive room into justan office, the less sense it made. I mean, I LOVE a good spacious, open room - but this one would've been overkill. I thought, "Well, I could just do like a sitting area on the other side.", but we've got places to sit and relax all over the house, one of which is a library, which is what I'd likely use my seating space in an office for (reading). So I started thinking about what else I could do. Suddenly, it just clicked. We didn't have an extra room in this house for me to convert to a closet - which had been on our list of "wants, not needs" - why not just treat this massive room as two rooms, and build a closet/dressing room from scratch? So, now that we had a plan, I couldn't WAIT to get started!
The room needed a total transformation. It was used as a bedroom by the previous owners. So fully carpeted, ugly green walls (sorry, I guess I should say "not my choice of color walls" - what's ugly to one person...), dated curtains, etc. I have a Before shot without the carpet. We'd already pulled it up before I thought to snag one.
So, first up was the flooring. Before you ask - we did the floor before the painting, because I had the hands available to help with ripping up carpet, removing the doors and tracks from the closet, and get started on laying the floor. It took a few oopsies to get down the installation, so it was slow-going the first couple nights, but once we got the process down, it went super fast. I did most of the full boards myself, and had help from a friend for the boards that needed to be trimmed down before being installed. The final result was SO much better than the carpeting.
Next up, painting! As you can see in the pictures above, the green was pea soup, and just NOT in my palette of acceptable wall colors. Since I now knew I was doing two rooms, I needed something neutral that would work for both rooms. Grey fit the bill. Once I got the walls painted, I started putting my office together. That meant unpacking all of the Oz boxes, and starting to arrange the shelves. By this time, Christmas was getting close, so I got to put up my Oz tree while I worked, as well. I took a picture of the final room, so everyone could see how pretty the wall color was, with the Oz stuff able to shine.
The only thing that was missing was the perfect chair. Lo and behold, a few months later, I found that, too!
Now, it was on to the big project (I know, like reflooring and painting aren't big enough, right?!): the closet. Now, I'll start this with a little backstory about me. My whole life, I've had fanciful dreams about what my house would be when I "grew up" (still waiting for that part to come). When I was little, I knew my house was going to have a spiral staircase, and a rotating door to get into the kitchen. Each room was going to have its own theme - one of which was a beach, with a hammock. As I got a little older, in my teenage years, it was the dream of having a house on the lake. We would pass them all while we were on boats in East TN, or North GA, and I would just fantasize about that being mine one day. As I got into my 20s and 30s, the one thing I knew I wanted was a room I could turn into a closet. Well, here we are, I'm pushing 40, and two out of three ain't bad! I'm on a lake, and I have my "room as a closet"! For these pictures, I am just going to show you progress pictures, with captions under each.
So first was putting clothes into the already-existing closet, and purses wherever they were out of the way.
Next came building the shoe rack.
Harvey appreciates shoes as much as her Mama.
I quickly realized I had enough room to fit two more shelves, so I put those on order while I continued to work.
Next up was the a-little-bit-of-everything rack. I also realized I had room for another jewelry shelf, so I put it on order with the additional shoe racks.
Coming along!
Jewelry rack, with rack #2 underneath it.
Two more racks of shoes makes it complete!
The vanity table was a nightmare to try and figure out. I searched and searched for tables that would fit around that floor heater, to no avail. Finally realized I had enough depth next to the shoe rack to use a desk, instead. It's worked out great. I have hair accessories in the left drawer, makeup in the right, and my extensive perfume collection and vanity mirror up top!
I added the bench next. Harvey approves. It has storage inside of it, so all of my boots are stored in there.
Then came the rug... I'm certain this is additional approval she's showing, here.
Then hung the mirror. This mirror was actually a stand-up that I converted to a wall mount, and I love how it turned out!!
Artwork was up next. I found a Canadian artist on Etsy that I fell in love with, and asked her to customize a few of her pieces for me. I'm saving those as a surprise in the video below, and will credit her at the bottom of this blog. Her artwork is exactly what floats around in my head, and what I would be sketching for myself, if my health conditions hadn't taken away my ability to do so. She's fantastically talented, and I encourage you to check out her stuff!
See that small-ish stack of purses in the first picture? It turns out to be way more that it looks like when you start color-coordinating all of them...
I built the purse shelves from some scrap lumber that my neighbor had. Cut it down (actually I didn't cut it down, but...), painted it, added brackets, and mounted on the last free space in the existing closet. The shelves need to be a little deeper, for how big a lot of my purses are (you'll see in the video), but I made it work. Lastly, I added a small laundry basket next to the sweaters, and the dressing room was complete*!
*Confession, I want to change the curtain "door", and I might add more artwork on the other side of the shoe rack, plus I need lighting - but complete for now.
So, finally... here it all is together. I've rearranged the clothes in their sections a couple times already, and probably will again. My OCD-tendencies and anxiety result in a lot of rearranging in any project I ever take on. Currently, the dresses for example, are by strapless, sleeveless, short sleeved, then long sleeved - and by color within each of those. I might change it to just color-coded, period. We'll see...
ENJOY!
As far as where everything came from - the desk was from Amazon. Chair came from Wayfair. Closet is all IKEA, other than the bench (Amazon), and the rug (Overstock). The artwork is from BrookeJadeStudio. I'll add the image here, so you can see all 4 drawings better than you see them in the video (I wanted Allie to be the feature, there).
So, the only thing left is to get at least one more bookshelf or storage cabinet for the office, so I can display the rest of my Oz stuff/spread out what's currently on the shelves, and have a place for all of my supplies, craft stuff, etc. The big projects are complete, and it's on to the next room!
So, a year ago, I promised you guys a wedding blog. Either I forgot I said that, or life got so busy it MADE me forget that... but somehow, that never happened.
Here we are, a year+ into our marriage, and I am finally going to write it. Now, a recap for those new to the blog: Steve and I have had quite a journey over the last 9 years. We became friends on Twitter, over our love of the Atlanta Braves. When I became single a couple years later, we started talking more often, and our relationship developed. We met for the first time in person in Atlanta, June 2013, when we attended Chipper Jones's number retirement, and have been together ever since.
Steve likes to tell people he proposed 493,876 times - he probably did, but in his version of the story, I turned him down all those times. Truth is, we planned our wedding in October 2013 in a hotel room in Halifax, NS. We knew I was going to move to Canada, so we agreed the wedding would be in Atlanta. Atlanta will ALWAYS be home to me, and is the foundation of us getting together, so it was the perfect location. Little did we know, our immigration journey was going to be a long and bumpy one. November 2018, I FINALLY moved up to Canada on a visa. We got married in a quick justice of the peace ceremony in December so we could put in my permanent resident application. I didn't want to let go of the wedding I'd been planning for over 5 years, so we decided we'd still have the Atlanta wedding, and that would be the day we actually celebrated as our wedding anniversary.
I spent 5 months planning a wedding remotely, and let me tell you - I could not have asked for better vendors than the ones we used. I'll add all of their links at the bottom of this blog, because they deserve any and all business I can bring them. The ONLY part of the planning that was stressful for me, was not being able to see the venue in person. I am ALWAYS in hostess mode, and not knowing exactly where everything was, and how it was laid out (I was given floor plans and pictures, but it's never the same as seeing it in person) was killing me. Having a ridiculously patient venue staff was much appreciated, because I know I can be a lot, at times. I also was stressing over our wedding portraits, not knowing the scenery available to us at the venue. The portraits were EASILY the most important part of the day for me, because we had waited so long, and worked so hard for this moment. Our photog, Katie, was incredible, and made a point to visit the venue months ahead of the wedding to tell me what she saw for pictures. We had a bit of a kerfuffle getting an officiant, and I'm glad we did, because James ended up being the perfect choice for our special day.
I was blessed enough to have my Mama and sister do the flowers and cake for our day, so there wasn't any stress there, since they know me so well. My only stress with that part was making sure they knew how much I appreciated their efforts.
So, the day before the wedding came, and Mama, Gordon (stepdad), and I met at the venue to do a walk through of the venue, and make sure we had a good plan for setup the next day. Our wedding was a small affair, just family and close friends, so there wasn't a big event to prepare for, and seeing it all in person calmed me a lot. Again, the venue staff was so accommodating, and patient with all of my questions.
The prep on the wedding day is a bit of a blur, because it was so crazy. But I have this weird trait, as a SUPER anxious person, to go into calm mode when things are hectic (especially in a party setting, maybe it's the hostess in me?). So I just adjusted with the little curves the day threw at me. I simplified my makeup, was fine that the cake was melting in the heat, didn't care that I forgot some of the decorations in the car, etc. All that mattered to me was that Steve and I were getting our day, finally.
We started with a first look. I love the whole "first look is the walk down the aisle" concept, but since the portraits were so important to me, this gave us a chance to knock most of those out pre-wedding.
Then we came to the ceremony. As my readers know, my Daddy passed away in 2014. So, I knew I needed to have my Mama walk me down the aisle. She means just as much to me as he did. I have been so blessed with the parents (David, Jan, and Gordon) that God has given me, and having them all there, even with one in spirit, meant so much to me. We walked down to Haley Reinhart's version of Can't Help Falling in Love with You, as a nod to my Daddy. He was known to call and sing Happy Birthday to his friends/family as Elvis, so that was my way of including him in the moment.
We had an unplugged ceremony, and I think our guests felt restricted from that, so we have hardly any pictures from the reception (I'd hoped we'd have selfies galore). But the day was PERFECT, and we have amazing memories to last a lifetime. We could not have asked for a better day, and both still comment on the day when we look at the pictures. I mean...
PERFECTION.
If you're looking in the ATL area for wedding vendors:
I was shocked, when writing my last blog, that it had been 9 months since I'd written last. I said I was going to write the post about our wedding, next.
It has now officially (tomorrow) been one year since that blog, and not a draft has been written.
I guess life has changed a bit, huh? So, I am still going to do the wedding blog, maybe even tonight, but want to just do a general catch-up blog, first. I have a blog that I know is coming soon, but posting it without catching everyone up first would not make any sense, since none of you know what has happened in the last year, unless we're friends on social media. Brace yourselves - this is going to be a long one.
My last blog was July 2nd of last year, and I was discouraged about us finding a house. Exactly 18 days later, we did just that! When I was still in the States, and not sure when I'd be able to move up, we would talk about where we were going to live. My joke was always "well, we'll have a house on the water, for sure." Knowing that would never be the case, because the housing market up here is so expensive, that waterfront property was out of our reach. We'd been looking in an area that had big yards, because we had a precious pooch, that needed space to run. As all of my readers know, we unexpectedly lost her in 2017. But we stayed in the same area, because it was still the area we loved. On July 19, we got a text from a friend for us to take a look at a house in a different area, that we'd not had any desire to look at. His advice "I know it's not where you're looking, but trust me." We looked online, and it was a lakefront house. We called our realtor, asking her to add it to the 3 houses we had lined up for viewings the next day. When we showed up at the house, as we turned on the street, I was already saying "Ughhh... I hate how close the houses are to each other." When we parked in front of the house, and got out of the car, I instantly said "Wow... I love the outside. Look at that door! It looks like a lakehouse. You don't even notice that it's close to the neighbors."
I was in love before I knew I was in love.
As we walked through the house, more and more got better. So we came to the moment we were "dreading". Going down to the basement. Every other house we'd looked at that we'd loved the main floor(s), the basement had killed it. For those not familiar with our relationship, we met on Twitter and became friends from both being Braves fans. We both happen to be big sports memorabilia collectors, so we were in need of a big basement to display everything. We walked downstairs, and I won't say we were blown away by the basement, but we could definitely see it working for us, plus it had my much desired downstairs guest bedroom. I love a guest bedroom where your guests feel like they have their own space at the end of the day. We walked down to the lake (even though there was no need - IT'S A LAKE, I'll take it), and by the time we got back up to the house, we looked at each other, and just knew. By early afternoon, we had an offer in on the house, and by that evening it had been accepted. We were under contract for our house!!
This was it the day we saw it first.
And this is the view from our backyard.
So, our closing day wasn't until October 1st. Lots happened between then, most important: MY BIRTHDAY. I kid, my birthday used to be a big thing... but now that I live up here, the multiple friend celebrations can't happen. Our most notable thing between July and October was our visit to Newfoundland. Steve is from there, and his sister/her family live in St. John's. So we decided to go over Labor Day weekend. I am going to post some pictures, but NONE of them do the beauty of this area justice. I hope to get better with our "good" camera, and go when we can spend a good amount of time for me to capture the magnificence properly. We had SUCH a fun time with family, and I was sad to leave.
I also HAD to get screeched in while I was there. I am now an honorary Newfoundlander. I'm going to post the video of that moment first, but I HIGHLY recommend you watched them in order, because the guy that did the ceremony was BORN to do this job, and it was one of the best experiences of my life.
The moment of being declared an honorary Newfoundlander (last of the series - video 5)
Pre-show (video 1)
Cooking the Newfie steak (video 2)
Most of the ceremony, plus kissing the cod! (video 3)
The shot of screech! (video 4)
So then, October rolled around, and we moved into our new house! We have done SO much work on the house since we've moved in, and even hosted a couple of parties in November and December, even though the house wasn't anywhere near ready for company. We got the fabulous news that Steve was finally going to get his hernia surgery that he'd been waiting on for almost 2 years at the time. The week before his surgery, COVID became a thing in North America. THANKFULLY, since it was so new, it did not delay his surgery. 2-3 more weeks, and he would've been on another indefinite end list. That being said, it has been our life since then. He's thankfully back at work (but from home), but we've been mostly at home for 5 months now.
Yes, it sucks at times - my Mama & Stepdad were supposed to visit us end of May/first of June, and got cancelled - but you know what? We're healthy, and have income and a roof over our heads. I say we're good.
I am grossly behind on updating this blog, and there has been a lot to talk about, but no real time to stop and do so. There have been more immigration steps, house hunting, wedding planning, our illnesses, cat illnesses... and suddenly it's July.
So, I'll do my best to catch everyone up with where life is now, and where it's been since I last posted in November (NOVEMBER??? 9 months ago, really?!).
So, given the position I was put in with suddenly being without a job, I had no health insurance after the first week in October. As I've spoken about a little in this blog, I have several health issues - some life-threatening, and some chronic pain-related - so not having insurance just flat-out isn't an option for me. That put us in one spot: we needed to get married as soon as I moved up, so I could be put on Steve's health insurance through work/put in my PR application with immigration so I could get a health card.
We got married on December 18th (took us a month to get all of the paperwork in order), in the lobby of our apartment building by a Justice of the Peace. While she was fantastic, I'd been planning our wedding for 5+ years at this point, so the idea of giving up what I'd been working on/dreaming of for us really upset me. We decided this would just be the "official, but not official" marriage, and we'd go on with the actual wedding in the Spring, and celebrate that as our "official" marriage, and anniversary going forward. It's what would've been the wedding if I'd still had my job when I moved up, so it only made sense.
That being said, above all else, this is a shoe blog. I bought these heels 3 years ago, and literally never even opened the box they were shipped in; saving them for our wedding day. I decided to give them a trial run on the "official, but not official" day, and thank goodness I did. They're PERFECTION, but too small, and I would've been in trouble if I'd had them on for the "official" wedding. But look how pretty!!!
Review: 6" heel. Fits SMALL. I'd for sure recommend going up a size. Keep in mind, I'm used to having my toes squished, and being uncomfortable for the sake of fashion. These were unbearable, and I only wore them for about an hour, if even that.
Since December, we've been house-hunting like crazy. The market is out of control right now in Halifax. People are listing for $50,000-$80,000 above what their house is worth, and getting it. It's been incredibly discouraging, especially since we waited this long to be together, and now are still waiting to start our life here on our own. We're getting glimmers of hope here and there in the last 2 months, so I'm trying to stay positive and know our house is coming soon.
Other than that, we dealt with health issues (both us, and Gus - our sweet, 18 year old cat), and *I* dealt with wedding, Wedding, WEDDING. That'll come in another post. It was almost 6 years in the making - it's earned a solo post.
I am still holding off on a job search, in hopes that we'll find a house soon, and I can get us through the move before taking on the stress of resumes, interviews, etc. We'll see if that plan changes in the coming months, if no houses come about.
So, until next time (i.e. THE WEDDING), it's good to be back, and I'll see you all soon... I hope!
It still doesn't feel real. I've shed a lot of tears over the past couple of weeks. We've been to her house twice to collect/clean out memories. But somehow, my brain is just not really registering that the last of my immediate family on Daddy's side is gone.
When I think of my childhood, I think of two things. Home (Atlanta), and East Tennessee. Mostly Rockwood. From the point I almost drowned at the lake house, to the piano lessons, to the Honeybee Tree game... SO much of my childhood memories are connected to my Nana. "Mean Jean" as she was referred to by our whole family. Which, if you knew her, was the silliest nickname. Given she didn't have a mean bone in her body. Smart aleck? Spunky? Funny? ABSOLUTELY (this runs in the Smith blood). Mean? Not even a little bit. I cannot think of one time in my childhood that Nana even scolded me. I'm sure they're probably there... I just don't remember them.
It's funny how you remember the stupid little things you'll miss when you lose somebody. I used to love to play in the flour canister when I was little. I loved how soft the flour felt between my fingers. I think I even had a little song/rhyme that went with it, but I certainly can't remember it. There might be family members that do. I also loved Nana's tea pitcher. It had this mixer built into the lid that you pumped to mix/stir the drink inside. Think like a TNT detonator. That's how I treated it, as I pumped it every time she made tea. Even in adulthood.
I'll never get to taste that tea again, or pump the mixer handle.
We went this past weekend to sort through as much as we could. Decades worth of memories/clutter is overwhelming. You want to take everything. It meant something to her, therefore it means something to us. But obviously, keeping everything isn't an option. So you have to somehow think realistically.
I'm lucky that I just had to go through this with my own stuff 3+ years ago when I moved out of my apartment and in with Daddy, planning for my move to Canada (ONE DAY, AMIRITE?!). So I was able to shut off the Katie "BUT IT MEANS SOMETHING" brain, and only take the few little things that I knew I would treasure. Plus one big thing. Nana's house (not Nana herself; the house visits) to me was always about the piano. Even when I got older and didn't sit down to play it. I would plunk out a quick Hot Cross Buns or Chop Sticks, just to reconnect to my youth. It's now in Daddy's house, and will eventually be in mine & Steve's home. I plan on reteaching myself to play the basics, then progressing from there and actually doing what I should have done in my youth, and becoming a piano player - not just a piano plunker.
This might be the view I'll miss the most. Oooh, baby baby! Buh-buh-buh-baby!
Most of the cousins know this view the best. It's just missing the lower branches to help you climb up to the top.
I remember when the branches of this tree were so low I would try and hide inside of them during hide and seek.
Mama's tree
I didn't have the pic of me & Liz as kids in front of this tree handy for this then-and-now photo-op. But once I find it, I'll be sure and add it. 30 years later...
It's been a while. A full year since I posted a shoe blog, and almost 8 months since I posted ANYTHING. A lot has happened. Namely, two surgeries for kidney stones that took about a month 1/2 of my life. Life in general, then a couple of crazy work months. And here we are.
The last couple of weeks have been the hardest hit on my anxiety I have ever had in my life. Not my emotions - that was (still is) easily my father's death. But my anxiety. I am going through something I have only shared with a small handful of people, and it is completely consuming me right now.
The thing is, I have learned over the years to be a high-functioning anxiety-ridden person. Anxiety makes people uncomfortable, awkward, annoyed, etc. It's easier to hide it than it is deal with the consequences of the real world (ESPECIALLY in a professional environment). I'm great at smiling/laughing/joking when inside I'm screaming. It's something I've - in a very obtuse way - written about before. I DO consider myself to be an emotionally strong person. The more I've thought about that over the years, it's because of that wall I've learned to put up. So when "normal" emotional situations present themselves, I can deal. When anxiety situations present themselves, I go into that same "strong" mode, but my brain NEVER shuts up. Ever. I can do 8 million things to try and silence it. Usually at home, I'll have a TV show playing on the computer while I play a computer game. Right now, I have a TV show playing while I write this - and yes occasionally am having to pause the show so I can clearly think through a thought. All the while, my brain is saying "What about...?" "Did you think about this...?" "What if...?" And if there is silence around me? Forget about it. I'll likely end up making myself throw up from the stress.
People that don't have everyday anxiety don't get this, and never will. Everyone understands anxiety. Everyone can have anxious situations. But for it to be all-consuming, where it can make you physically ill... not many people in your day-to-day will get that. They'll tell you to think about other things, or find a way to distract yourself. Which as you can see in my above paragraph, I certainly try to do. On "small" anxiety days, it sometimes works. In times like these - it barely touches my thoughts.
SO...
That heavy intro aside (I promised y'all I was going to be more real going forward - this is me being real) - I decided to distract myself today by dressing the way the-artist-formerly-known-as-Katie would. Heels, matching outfit, and purse. I had a new dress to wear, and perfectly matching Betsey heels and purse.
And about halfway through the day decided to blog the shoes, as I would have back in the day. So, here they are!
(I specifically direct you to Smile Amazon, because YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE)
Review: 4" heel. Fits 1/2 size small. As you all know by now, a 4" heel is nothing to me, so these would be UBER comfortable, except the heel part of the shoe is SUPER tight, so rubs a blister on the side of my foot if I don't remember to stretch it out a couple times during the day.
This dress** is so simple, but I love it SO much. It's very Parisian, to me. In fact, it makes me think of the last two episodes of Sex and the City, when Carrie first gets to Paris:
As much as I hated how cheesy they ended the show (even though I loved the actual end result), I was (AM) obsessed with those last two episodes, because EVERY. SINGLE. OUTFIT. was perfection. That was most of my (and plenty of other women's) obsession with the show, was the fashion. Then the hilariously brilliant writing was a bonus. But OMG, those last two episodes. They could not have been any more perfect, fashion-wise. And I'm sure they went all out, given they knew they would never have to worry about budget again (until the movies came around). PER.FECT.ION.
**Sidenote: that one picture of my dress took me sitting in the grass to set up my camera on my tripod/adjust angles/self-timers, etc. for maybe 2 minutes: and resulted in an hour+ long allergy attack. The joys of being allergic to outside, y'all.
Anyhoo, I know this blog has been all over the place. But that's just where I am right now, so I'm sharing it. See y'all... I dunno when. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in another year.
I know what you're thinking. "Didn't she already do this blog?!" The answer is no. No, I didn't. I did the first Oz trip. But guess what??? ONE WASN'T ENOUGH.
So one thing you should know about me (or if you know me and are reading this, you already know this about me) is my birthday is usually a big deal every year. A month-long event. While I know this sounds incredibly selfish, it's never been about me drawing it out as much as possible (though don't get me wrong - I'm a Leo - the attention was never turned away). It was more that I had different groups of friends, family, co-workers, etc that I would celebrate with, so it always turned into weeks of celebrations. Well, this year I knew would be different. Everyone in my life is incredibly busy, as am I. So knowing I'd likely not have many celebrations, I decided I needed something different than the usual party at my house or going-out celebration on the actual day. After thinking about it, I decided a trip back to Oz would be fun, and after a few e-mails back and forth with my bestie, Kelly, we decided to go for it!
Now another thing that you should know, and likely have learned, if you're a regular reader of my blogs is I. LOVE. ROAD TRIPS. Hopping in the car and letting adventures happen is one of my most favorite things to do in life. I usually do these type of trips alone, because most people I know hate road trips, or can handle them but want to "hurry up and get there". I was worried about bringing up my fun road trip idea to Kelly until I remembered - she's used to long drives, given she has family in Nebraska. So I tossed it out there: what if we found quirky roadside attractions on the way to and from and stopped to take pictures? She was down with the idea, so I started researching.
The very first attraction I found while searching put my excitement level to warp factor 7.
A TRAIL OF STATUES OF ALL OF THE POPEYE CHARACTERS!!!!
Popeye was one of my favorite cartoons growing up. Mainly, I think, because my family used to tease me that I WAS Popeye (not sure why that didn't upset me, given I used to cry when people would tell me I looked like my Daddy, because I thought they meant I looked like a boy) because of my deep, passionate love of spinach. So the idea of reliving a piece of my childhood was very exciting for me. It was an instant "Add to trip" click. More research turned up a Buried Giant, Giant Concrete Teepee, and World's Largest Wren. We added them to the "if we have time/feel up to it" list.
So stop #1 was Popeye and his friends/enemies. I brought my Nikon and tripod, so we could get pictures with all of the statues with both of us, rather than doing individual pictures with them. We set the timer for 20 seconds and for it to take 5 pictures, so we could switch up poses and hopefully get 1 shot we both liked in the group. Two things you learn while doing this: 1) 20 seconds is either REALLY long, or my camera counted to 142 before starting to snap. 2) You run out of pose ideas very VERY fast.
Poopdeck Pappy
Castor Oyl
This is where the crazy lady was yelling at us from inside the hospital (see below). We got out of there as quickly as possible.
Sea Hag/Bernard the Vulture
Bluto!!!!!! (I geeked out so much I drove the wrong way in the parking lot)
Rough House
Professor Watasnozzle
Fun in the square!
WIMPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cole Oyl
Olive Oyl and Swee Pea
Alice the Goon
And the Piece de Resistance... POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN!
Now among the things that happened as we snapped these pictures: SEVERAL strange looks (you can't tell me we're the only ones that come to see the Popeye statues), a few fox whistles, a crazy person at the hospital yelling at us from inside, a stop for lunch at a "bar and grill" that didn't have a food menu - "we only have pizza", which I imagine was frozen pizza they would nuke if we requested, and a secondary attempt at lunch... until upon pulling up we realized we'd be shunned instantly because we have lady parts. This is a Man's World...
Chester, IL - you are interesting.
And so we moved on. Next up: the Buried Giant. Not gonna lie, the pics we saw of this beforehand didn't do it justice. It is MASSIVE. A really awesome sculpture. I would've loved to have been able to get pictures of it with no one there. But people have kids, and stuff.
So by the time we finished at the giant, we plugged in the address for the teepee, but got distracted by an outlet mall. Much shopping fun was had. As we got back on the road, we realized we were going to lose our light. So decided to go on to the hotel, and possibly hit the teepee/wren on the way home Sunday. Well, thanks to a random we-don't know-why traffic delay and a MASSIVE downpour (seriously, I was stressing - I don't see well at night anyway, thanks to my astigmatism - the rain made seeing to drive near impossible), our transit time got increased tremendously, and it became a matter of "What is our backup plan?" We had planned to try out a Mexican place in Manhattan, KS - where our hotel was - that night, but there was no way we'd be getting there before the kitchen closed. So we switched our plan to Party in the Room. Found a liquor store (That's a whole 'nother story. Good heavens.), got our wine, and hit the road again. This is actually the point the downpour hit, I got a bit ahead of myself. So, additional delay. By the time we actually got to the room/settled it was about 2 in the morning. We were exhausted. No party. Bed. Day one: 18 hours.
So on to Oz! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATYBUG!!!!!!!!
Last time I went as Dorothy. For my birthday, a Wicked Witch felt more appropriate.
I took a ton of pictures at the museum and winery as I did last time, but they're a lot of what you saw on the previous blog, just with a better camera. So, in an attempt to long-story-short this blog (lost cause), I'll skip that and just give you this:
They were so sweet to put this in the party room for me!
A birthday selfie is required.
So after finishing our day at Oz, we made our way back to Manhattan. Did a little shopping, then went to dinner at Tallgrass Taphouse for birthday dinner. Rooftop dining with perfect weather, craft beer, yummy appetizers... can't ask for much more.
Plus, you know, this girl. :-)
Back to the hotel to rest up for the drive home the next day. Or that was Kelly's plan, anyway. Our day had too much going on, plus I needed to research the alternate route we were taking home for must-see stops. Katie-brain does not allow sleep when that much is happening. That being said, I was EXHAUSTED, and was reading sentences 4 times without understanding them. So, I made myself to go to bed and decided to plan our drive home the next morning, as I knew I'd have time while Kelly got ready (I'm a fast get-ready person. She is not.).
So the next morning, I discovered our alternate route still led us past the wren and teepee. And also discovered we'd be passing the World's Largest Fork. TRIP. BOOKED.
Total time for Day 3 was 12 hours. We encountered the wren, teepee, and fork. Tried an antique mall, but it might as well have been called a glass mall, as everything was glasses, goblets, crystal serveware, etc. Tried to stop at Osceola Cheese, and the line to get to the cheese was insane. Had I been by myself, not gonna lie - I might've stuck it out: I LOVE ME SOME CHEESE, Y'ALL - but for the sake of Kelly's sanity/the trip home we skipped out and kept going.
So here are the pics from the last of the Katybug Birthday road trip. I have some pretty "Katie's future photography business" pics as well, that I will likely add as a gallery to this blog eventually. I just need time to go through them and pick my favorites, edit, etc. This blog has already taken me two days. I don't need to delay it further. You get what you get, and you'll like it. Please like it. Again, I'm a Leo, I need attention...
I hate birds. I was ok with this one.
It is GIANT.
I feel like this fork deserves a meal beneath it!
So, anyway - Happy Birthday to me. On to more adventures!!
