Wise sayings often fall on barren ground....

"I want to put a bunch of stuffed animals in the back of the car in the window. It's a new thing." -Billy

Amy Chamberlain: Billy, maybe instead of going back to school for Construction Management, you should go to a school for comedians.
Billy: I already am one of those, babe. -Billy and Amy's dialogue after Amy spent all day with us at Habitat.

For my first master's class, I am taking a marketing class in which you learn a bunch of terms for processes and behaviors that are essentially common sense. Regardless, it is a breath of fresh air from the past six years of life in school and career. Buzz marketing and word of mouth are two of the most influential ways to get a product some attention, so I would like to promote the following companies / products:

- Bare Minerals Makeup: My skin has looked better than it ever has over the last year, and I attribute it to my mom giving me some of her Bare Minerals products that she didn't want.
- Hollywood Video: Great customer service, selection, clubs / promotions
- StoryPeople: creative, heart-touching, funny, and unique pieces of art

That is all I can think of right now, but I want to spotlight good products and companies from now on. Maybe I will add another box to the sidebar.

B and I are headed to Charlotte this weekend. I am the Project Manager for a joint NA-YGN field day event with the Charlotte chapter. I ended up with a wopping six member from Lynchburg attending..... geeeeez. We will also be spending the day looking for housing in Charlotte. I just absolutely love Charlotte; I cannot say enough positive things about living in Charlotte.

In other news, I must give President Obama a shout out... Obama Signs Sweeping Anti-Smoking Bill and Michelle is still as awesome as ever.

PLEASE DO NOT BUY A NISSAN

At the end of 2007 I bought a 2008 Nissan Maxima. Overall I have been satisfied with the car (other than the color - silver ugh); however the Nissan/Infiniti customer service is a WHOLE other deal. I cannot begin to go into the troubles I have gone through in dealing with the Nissan network. The customer service rep I had to deal with today was disrespectful and had a piss poor attitude (note that today was the first time I have been able to speak with someone... the dealership said I had to contact Nissan directly to handle any of my issues and Nissan has only had automated customer service lines until mid way through 2009!!!

Please speak with me before you even think about buying a Nissan!

I highly recommend Toyota, Honda, and Ford.

No Camera

It is really difficult to find the motivation to blog without pictures to complete the story. As mentioned before, my camera bit the bullet during a downpour while camping.

Anyway, I will do what I can with words...

June 6th Weekend:

We went to Raleigh for Seth's birthday weekend. Friday Goose got sick so we were worried about the trip, but after a lil diarrhea and vomit, he was fine! I got to go with my mom Saturday morning to a Garden / Art showing. It had some really awesome stuff that I would have splurged on had I had a house... donkey painting, crazy face sculptures, pottery. However I ended up buying a piece of pottery to put a plant in for my friend, LeAnne. I bought "baby tears" to go in the pot. She bought a place a year ago, and I have never bought her a house warming gift!!! Now if I can remember to give it to her...

After that we prepared a feast for Seth's birthday... complete with a giant cookie cake and PJ (aka panty-dropping juice, purple Jesus, and a host of other names)!!! I mentioned PJ as a joke, and my mom jumped all over it, "Purple Jesus?? Ohh that would be funny!" Hahaha...

Anyway, as usual we (Seth and Billy) embarrassed ourselves in front of Butch's son Zach, and his friend, Johnny. However we had a blast and Zach is super cool. Let's see... Seth's 4'10" AWESOME friend, Alyson, punched a couple of bikers, Billy told everyone he was WestSide Certified and faked a dislocated shoulder, Seth was OOC and tried to give dap to every brotha in the club, Zach and Johnny beat everyone at beer pong (Seth and I finally took them down though).... great night!

The weeks are pretty hectic with Billy and I both working full time, taking summer classes, caring for Goose, and trying to maintain a social life. I finally found a running buddy; although with our schedules we can only run MWF. It has been a great release and I enjoy her company... she is hilarious. This weekend we had back to back cookouts. The first was for a co-worker who was turning 40 - great guy! We gave him fireworks. Best selection of beer at a cookout EVER! After that, one of the guys in the Voyager program with me (Rolando) had a cookout. Best selection of meat EVER!

Goose has a habit of sitting above my head and slapping me in the face with his paw wake me up when he wants to go outside in the morning. This weekend I wasn't budging, so he pressed a little harder and scratched me. Everyone this morning has been asking why my face is all scratched up... hahaha. That damn dog.

From my camera phone...


Ehh the scratches didn't come out... ohh well.

I guess that is all... I will try to keep the updates so I will have our summer documented even without a camera.

CHARLOTTE YOU ARE GETTING CLOSER.... T-62 Days!!!!

HELP ME PLAN BILLY'S 25th BIRTHDAY!

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(Relaxing camping + wonderous views) - (one camera + one finger) = Memories

Before I provide the camping recap, B and I finally made it to a Hillcats game. AREVA has a skybox, so we enjoyed Yuengling and all you can eat hotdogs, hamburgers, and peanuts!!! Most of my teammates from work were in attendance as well.

We finally [barely] made it camping!!! We drove to Loft Mountain in the Shenandoah Valley via our waterproof map Butch hooked us up with over Christmas.

I am an over packer, so we had all of the essentials (minus a great book and card... UGH)... B got his fire started immediately (after visiting a campsite near us, introducing himself and saying, "Give me 5 minutes and I will have a huge ass fire going... that's what I do." Then he proceeded to go out collecting firewood every 5 minutes and return with whole trees (and Goose carrying a limb bigger than his body). We had trees sticking out of our fire, and I had to listen to how much bigger our fire was than everyone else. The boy is tooooo much.

B hooked me up with eggs and bacon the next morning...

B tying up our SUPER AWESOME AND COMFY hammock. Everyone must have one of these. Goose was helping...

We went hiking...

Goose sizing up his first stream to cross...

He did it!!!!

One of our friends we found along the way...

... and anther one!

Goose hiding under my legs because he is scared of the waterfall...

Burgers!!!

Our view from the campsite... seriously, Loft Mountain has amazing tent sites. Highly recommend it!

Hammock love... Goose chewing on sticks (what he does best).

Unfortunately I do not have any pictures from our final day because we had a really bad thunderstorm our last night there and my backpack with my camera in it got wet and the camera got ruined :(. B also sliced his finger to the bone, so I was nursing my baby back to health.

This weekend we are headed back to Raleigh for Seth's birthday and more Butch and Mom fun!!! YAYAYAYAY!!! Bike rides, garden parties, martinis and more!

Speaking of garden parties, we have bags fun of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, snap peas, string beans, and a little bitty carrot from our garden!!!

T MINUS 75 DAYS UNTIL WE MOVE BACK TO CHARLOTTE!!!