running an errand for my dad and navigating charlotte

first and foremost, i am in desperate need of a gps system. i know where absolutely nothing is, haha. my dad sent me on an errand today - and i circled the airport twice trying to find it. i would like to clarify that "marsville" is not the same as "morris field" - so it was partly faulty directions from my pops, haha. i didn't mind running the errand at all, but when i got into the woodgroup facility, i had to walk through a warehouse to a man in the "stain department" - and by department, i mean a little closet, with one man in there. i am standing there with the two pieces of wood my dad gave me - and the guy in the closet, we can call "goober" for this story takes a phone call as soon as i walk up to his door. the goober leans back in his chair, props his feet up on a stool, and carries on a 5 minute conversation with a buddy of his, need i remind you, i am still standing their in the "stain department" waiting to give him these two pieces of wood. finally, he gets off the phone and doesn't bother to apologize, just says, ok, can i help you? how strange. regardless, i give him the wood, tell him my dad's name, and then he says, "do you buy chance know his number?" i'm thinking, what daughter doesn't know their own dad's phone number - like i said, goober fit really well for this guy. i hope my dad gets what he wants from goober, because i wasn't convinced of his customer service skills.

i am getting more and more settled in. i have most rooms in working order. i promise to send/post pictures this weekend. i leave for atlanta tomorrow, be home friday.

made it home, moved in, and one happy girl

i got home last night about midnight. already had a false alarm at my townhouse. sorry again holly that you got the 3:40 AM wake up call. hopefully no more of those. i got moved in today thanks to edie, david, dusty, crystal, mom, dad, uncle dean, aunt paula, my sister kendall and her boyfriend kevin, dena, scottie, jamie, and jennifer - wow... i couldn't have done it without any of you. i cannot thank you enough for your help, seriously it means so much that so many people care about me and wanted to help. also, thanks to mom and pop - my wonderful grandparents for making the trip to charlotte to see the place - that meant a lot. thanks holly for coming and going to eat with me tonight, to get me out of the house for a little. i have the most amazing friends and family - thanks to everyone. i am truly blessed.

i am so exhausted from moving, so i am going to bed now. i'll update with some pictures later.

p.s. the heels won today, woohoo!

stuck in memphis

i hate my job at moments like this. i am stuck in memphis, tn and desparately need to get home. i am moving tomorrow, i've only been talking about this for months, and now i am stuck in the airport. the idiot, hispanic, us airways attendant has got to be the biggest moron there ever was. if he comes over that intercom one more time to give us an update - which means we've been delayed again, i'm going to scream. this airport is retarded. please pray that i get home, will update later.

Can you always trust what the pilot says?

So, today I had to fly to Memphis, TN for a two day visit. After getting up at the crack of dawn - try 5 AM - I got on the plane and fell asleep as usual. Then I wake up about the time the pilot says we are 3rd in line to take off. so we're off, and then we're not... we start taking off, speeding up, and then the pilot makes a sharp right turn, in a plane may i remind you. please note: this is the 2nd time this has happened to me... not cool. the pilot comes over the speaker and says, "we got a message not to take off. i'm going to talk to maintenance and we should be on our way soon." now i'll admit that i'm kind of asleep during this time, but the fact that no one was coming to look at the plane, freaked me out. i'm thinking, i want off of this plane, ASAP. of course, they do not give you an option of getting off the plane, so the pilot waits about 5 minutes and says, "ok folks, we have been given the clear again." since i'm typing this email post the flight, you can rest assured i made it here safely, but i was nervous. we didn't have any problems, but if they would have let me off, i would have gladly taken another flight...scary! i'd like to thank God for protecting me today, seriously.

so, my dad, my brother, and one of the guys that works for them started painting my townhouse the colors i chose. i hope lots of state fans come to visit my house and see my pretty carolina blue office, go heels!!! (haha) i move in on saturday, i cannot wait, woohoo! i'll post some pictures for everyone to see.

always sign up for free drawings, this weekend crystal and i went to the southern women's show. we registered for everything. i won a pampering party from mary kay for me and four of my friends - complete with a facial, mineral make up makeover, and a hand treatment. so, crystal, holly, kendall, natalie, and i are being pampered monday night, woohoo.

so, as if winning the pampering party wasn't wonderful, i get a call from another vendor at the show telling me that i didn't win the big prize - a rainbow vacuum - but i did when a $100 gas card, what are the chances. i promise i'm not normally that lucky, haha.

p.s. the gas crisis is a bit ridiculous, but holly and i found some around midnight in charlotte. the best idea is to go super early or really late, so you miss the people out and about during the day... and the ridiculously long lines, like 50 plus cars - we saw that in charlotte.

everyone have a great weekend.

i got the keys

so, i closed on my townhouse today. my dad and the painters start painting tomorrow, woohoo. i move in on saturday - i cannot wait. not much in the way of updates right now, just wanted to let everyone know that i did get to close.

god has truly blessesed me, and i am so thankful for all of my friends and family and all the encouraging and congratulation messages today!

estimated wait time 120 minutes

so, i came up to charlotte yesterday to visit with holly and bayley. we had gone on a little shopping adventure and then planned on going to a nice dinner at mccormick and schmick's and then to downtown charlotte for a night out like old times. well, after we finally got on the road to dinner ( i was driving ), we had quite a little setback. so, i make a u-turn to go the right way on tryon - and i see something in the road. you know you don't have a lot of time to make a decision on whether or not you are going to hit the something or not. since i thought it was a cup, i thought i'll just run over it to keep from swerving in the other lane. well, if i could make that decision over again, i "probably" would. i hit a rock and by rock, i mean a small boulder. immediately i had blown out my tire. so, i try not to flip out, and we pull into the first parking lot that looks "somewhat" safe. we get out of my car to look at the damage, and oh my gosh there is literally a tear in my tire about 3 inches long - it looks like someone took a knife and slashed my tire all the way through. so, lucky for us holly has AAA, so we call them. the guy tells us the estimated wait time is 120 mins. we are screwed. holly gets off the phone, and says, "i just want to make sure i'm reading this right... 120 mins as in 2 hours." Correct. so we call darrell and wendy (holly's parents) to get the number to a tow company. one didn't answer, the other answered and said, "we can probably get someone out there." can i elaborate on this comment for a minute... how is it that someone can "probably" send someone out there. i told the man that "probably wasn't going to work!" who in there right mind runs a business on probably. i was so annoyed, but needed to get help, so i simply told the man that i would be calling someone who would definitely send someone to help us. i'm sitting here, with two of my best friends, in the middle of charlotte, thinking how are we going to get this situation fixed. we then decided - mainly because bay kept scaring us - to call the police to have someone sit with us until the help arrived. two nice officers came from the charlotte police department, and they probably thought i was an idiot. i would like to say that i truly did think it was a cup. i mean, would i really have run over a rock, on purpose? negative. so, shockingly after about thirty minutes, the AAA man shows up and puts the doughnut on my car. we then headed to downtown to fox and the hound because our nice restaurant had stopped serving dinner. we still had a good time considering a small setback, but i'll think twice before running over things again. $160 later, i have a new tire and we are back in business.

3 days to closing, a week exactly to move in!!!! can you tell i'm excited.

big people on airplanes

so, yesterday i flew home from florence, sc to charlotte on another little turbo prop - 10 rows, and cramped quarters. so, i sit down in my seat, 5F (window) and all these people pass me and i'm thinking, yes, i'm going to get these two seats to myself. just as you think that, you see the 400 pound guy heading your way. you are thinking, no, please don't sit beside of me, please don't, plop - he has 5D - no middle seats, so no 5E. i am not trying to be mean, but as uncomfortable as he now is, imagine my discomfort - i've got a man, that i have never spoken a word to in my life all up in my personal space. i mean, really this is so not fair. his arms, legs, and whole body are totally on the part of my seat that i paid for. i managed to scoot over as much as possible, to the window to give him some more room, but no matter what i tried, he was still all up in my grill. i'm wondering at what point do they make someone buy another seat. i know this man didn't mean to be all up in my space, but at the same time, maybe it is time for him to purchase two seats. all of this, while i look at the only person on the plane that got those two seats to himself, a 12 year old boy who is skinny as a rail - i'm thinking, please come sit with me and provide me some personal space and breathing room? all the joys of air travel.

today, i have lots of work to do. and i'm going to see my great, great aunt in the nursing home. she has no idea who i am, but i go in hope that she at least feels comforted by the fact that people, whom she thinks are total strangers, are coming to visit her. my mother and i are heading there while my grandmother is out of town - she normally takes care of her during the week. i'm kind of afraid of the mess we may run into, but hopefully it won't be that bad. i'm sure i'll have a story to tell.

i'm excited about this weekend. so, friday bayley is coming to visit holly and i in charlotte. we are going to have a great weekend, and i can't wait for her and holly to see my townhouse. saturday is the apple festival, i'm excited about that - hopefully i will make it this year - maybe holly and bay will want to make a quick appearance with me. sunday, crystal and i are going to the southern women's show - i cannot wait. we had so much fun last year - don't worry this year we will not be persuaded to do the zoom whitening, haha.

alright, that is all for today. 6 days til closing, 9 days til moving day!!! i can't wait!

three airports in one day

so, i started off my morning at the charlotte airport, and finally i have made "status" with u.s. air so i don't have to pay for my checked bags - that is 30 dollars a trip i will save quintiles. so, then i ask if this means that i will get moved up to first class some, and the lady says, "if you pay the $50 upgrade." what is the point? i could have done that without having status, haha. then i travel to reagan airport in d.c. - nothing major to report there. i drove to bladensburg, maryland - and the doctor had a meeting with some drug reps before our appointment. i got to sit in while these two drug reps tried to sell crestor and nexium - that has got to be the worst job in life. those poor guys got all of 7 minutes of his time, and they even brought him sushi. dr. poochikian interrupted the guys, took a phone call during their spill, and signed some documents for the nurse - all during this precious 7 minutes. can you imagine if that was your job? then the doctor used me as his way out of the meeting with the reps - it was very interesting to say the least. i then came back to charlotte to fly to florence, south carolina. so, i'm waiting at my gate and a gentleman has a seizure - it was very scary. he had no idea who he was, how old he was, or where he was. i felt bad for him because he was at the airport by himself, everyone was staring at him. hopefully he is ok. then i get on the smallest plane i've ever been on, seriously, it had 10 rows, and that is it - a little propeller plane - and we are 9th in line to take off, so i get to hear the roar of those propellers for at least 20 minutes, fun times. we arrive in florence to an airport that is about the size of a walmart, no navigation at hertz, and one very small baggage claim track. i love these places though because the employees at the airport can tell you where anything and everything is because the town is so small.

alright, well i need to do a little work before going to bed, so i'm going to stop typing on this thing. just thought i'd update you on my travel fun for today. 7 days to closing, 11 days to move in!!!

who knew costume shopping and wigs could be so much fun

so, i had my walk-though on friday - my townhouse was 100% ready! aside from a few minor things, the house looked amazing, if i do say so myself. i cannot wait for everyone to come see the place, and to start decorating. i have got to stop buying stuff, it is truly out of control, haha. i was telling holly and crystal yesterday that i haven't been shopping for clothes lately because i've been obsessed with home decor/furniture, haha. once i get high-speed internet back, i'll start uploading pictures with these entries, but for now this will work.

saturday, holly, crystal, and i went to mooresville, not to be confused with morrisville, and shopped for halloween costumes. crystal had "committed" to being a devil - so she bought a red wig with horns - this thing is hilarious. holly tried on several costumes, but the one that i think she should be is jane jetson - isn't that an awesome costume?!?! i love it. i haven't quite decided, but i think that maybe i'll be a pink lady from grease or a girl from the 50s in like a poodle skirt... so with all of our halloween shopping fun, i think i've decided to have a halloween party. i think the plan will be to start the night at my house, and then head downtown to show off all of our costumes. so, if anyone wants to come to charlotte for the weekend of halloween, let me know. you are welcome to come - the only requirement is that you dress up! i haven't finalized anything yet, but details to come soon. last night, in the exciting town of lincolnton, crystal, holly, and i piled into the car and drove to mcdonalds to get a mcflurry - and crystal had the red wig with devil horns on, this was absolutely hilarious.. i wish i knew how to upload the pic from my blackberry, but i don't. we've all decided that wigs are fun - so who knows we might all be in one on halloween. yesterday was a blast.

today was spent mostly relaxing. i finished an entire scrapbook today, isn't that impressive. i had four pages at the beginning of the evening, and now i have well over 20 - super productive today!

tomorrow smarts another fun week of travels for me. i got to bladensburg, maryland and florence, south carolina this week - you wouldn't believe the airline miles and hotel points i'm racking up.

the countdown to move in has officially begun. 13 days to go!!!

"i'll call corporate on you!"

anyone who knows me well enough, wouldn't be surprised to learn that today i wanted to call "corporate" on someone. my builder for my townhouse is full of crap. he takes absolutely no responsibility for things that he does wrong. if i can take constructive criticism, anyone should be able to. today, the private inspector went out to my townhouse to conduct his inspection, and even though the builder promised to have it completed, it was no where near ready. as in... no appliances were hooked up, the floors were still covered, the fireplace wasn't working, the air conditioner wasn't hooked up, and the painters were still there finishing up. the best part is that the builder blamed it on me... that is a new one on me, because last time i checked, i didn't go to school to be in construction management - much less building a house. you know, if i get into my townhouse on september 23, it will be by the grace of God alone. please pray!

in the way of an update: my dad is feeling much better. i wouldn't say he is back 100%, but he is doing more and can actually move around like normal now. thank goodness.

i traveled to virginia today for work - that wake up call at 4:31 is for the birds. i mean, as my alarm clock went off this morning, i thought who in their right mind, would get up this early... i could have just taken a shower in the dark, because it was nearly impossible to keep my eyes open. i have a coworker at my visit today - and that was no fun. he paced the floors and interrupted me, so i will not be volunteering for people to come with me in the future. this was after he didn't print directions to the starbucks where we were meeting, so i had to go pick him up and take him to starbucks. he even interrupted me to inform us that he was going to the bathroom to get a tissue - who does that??? ah the joys of bringing someone along on my visits - this fun will continue!

i wish the weekend could get here a little sooner this week.

happy birthday to my brother Jamie (yesterday) and to one of my 2nd mommas - Edie Carpenter (tomorrow)! have a great rest of the week!

a low key weekend is just what i needed

so, i got home from philadelphia on thursday evening to find my dad in a bad way - he hurt his back, so i played nurse for a few days, with the help of my mother and sister. everyone please pray that he can get back to work soon. hopefully he'll be back to normal in no time, as in, time for me to move, haha! such a loving daughter, i know.

friday night i met up with my friend valerie at bbq-king. we had such a good time catching up, as her little boy davis is starting to carry on normal conversation, and warming up to me. he has always been mostly shy around me because i haven't been around a lot. hopefully now that i'll be living closer to home, we will get to hang out more often and he will become more comfortable around me.

saturday, i convinced my sister to ride with me to value city furniture in charlotte to look for a queen bed for my guest bedroom. we found a few i liked, but i didn't decide on one yet. i then took her by my townhouse - which is almost ready. i cannot wait, seriously, how much longer can it be??? the hardwood floors are down - they look great. another thing we noticed is that my security system has been installed - this will be the most important part of my new house, as i will be living by myself. as many of you know, i get nervous that someone will get me in my sleep. at least i can fall asleep knowing that an alarm will go off - but my dad pointed out that i probably wouldn't here it due to my sound machine or as crystal calls it, "the round of applause."

today, i'm relaxed and have done as little as possible. i spent the afternoon with the family. i rode with crystal to gastonia to take dusty something and then we went to texas roadhouse - that place never gets old.... seriously, it doesn't.

alright, well i know this blog wasn't very action packed, but i thought i'd update it every couple of days. i'll be off to richmond and virgnia beach this week!!!

i hope everyone has a great week:)

Could it get any hotter outside?

So, my day began at 4:47 AM - yeah, you can imagine how thrilled I was when the alarm went off, especially since the last time I looked at my clock it was 2:15 AM. I get nervous that I am going to sleep through my flight, which I have done, just once, haha.

I got off to D.C. with no problems, woohoo! Got to my site a litte early, and headed to Linens and Things. I have been trying to find these euro shams that go with my comforter for my guest bedroom - you would think these things were laced with gold, as hard as they have been to find. Well, the store at the Pentagon didn't have any, so they called the store in Mt. Laurel, NJ - where I am staying tonight. Believe it or not, they had two of them - and the store is one of the few that is closing - so I got an added discount, woohoo.

I should go back and speak of my experience from D.C. to Philadelphia, PA. So, they tell us the flight is on time, and we board a bus to get to the plane... this is where the fun begins. We then sit on this bus for literally 25 minutes, in the 90 degree weather. I mean, one of the worst things to me is being hot, and the air conditioner was conveniently broken on this bus. To all my Carolina friends, imagine the P2P when people were standing on top of each other - but then add everyone's luggage to this, and no air. What you get is this: completely irate, hot, rude airline passengers. Everyone is screaming at the bus driver, the poor guy drives over to the shade in hopes to alleviate the sweating and screaming from all of us. So, once we get on the plane - which I must add - was much cooler than normal, so U.S. Air, I appreciate that.... a gentleman, who could very easily be a pro basketball player sits behind me. I am sure most of you know where this is going... This "gentleman" (I use that term loosely now) had his knees in the back of my seat the whole time - I should have just sit on his lap. Thank goodness that the flight was only about 25 minutes long, or I would have had to go postal on this guy, haha, jk.

In other news, I locked in my loan rate today, woohoo. That leads me to believe that it really might happen this month. The loan can only be locked for 30 days - so we are moving in the right direction. I cannot wait to get moved in, and have no fear, my wonderful friend Crystal is planning a housewarming party!!! I will make sure she has all of your names! I can't wait for everyone to visit and see the new place.

Alright, well I'm going to get some dinner before the premiere of Top Model comes on. I hope everyone has a great night, and I'll update at the end of the week.

Weekly Travels, Townhouse Updates

So, I thought I start blogging, as if I don't stay on the internet enough. I thought it would provide some entertainment to everyone who knows how much I travel for work. If I could just bring some of you with me just one time, you'd probably do nothing but laugh at me and my craziness. Also, I thought this would be a good way for me to update everyone on the status of my townhouse.

So, this week, I travel to Springfield, VA and Hadden Heights, NJ - never been to New Jersey before, so that should be interesting! I went to Boston a few weeks ago, and I felt like a fish out of water with my thick southern accent.

So far, the closing date for my townhouse is still set for September 23, 2008. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if it was Thanksgiving before I get into my house.

Alright, hope you enjoy!