Allergic to My Hometown

You know its time to move when you have an allergic reaction to coming home.

Let me just explain. Yesterday upon arriving back home my whole face breaks out in big red bumps all over! I have no idea what it could be, but its so weird. Except for the occasional zit, my face is usually pretty clear...and it was perfectly clear yesterday morning and all through the afternoon when my sister and I were driving home. When we got back home I ran to target to pick up some things, while I was there I noticed one big red bump on my face and by the time I got home my whole face and neck were covered!

I have no idea what it could be! I took some benadryl, because I am assuming it is some sort of allergic reaction, but I'm not sure to what. Maybe sunscreen? But why would it just now be appearing? What do you guys think?!

Moving on...

I have LOTS of informational pics from the past few days. Food, fun, fashion, etc., etc.

Lets GO!

Friday night my sister and I hit the town of Charleston for sushi, finally! We went to a restaurant called Tsunami.

I totally wanted to rock out the new shoes, so in true Jenny style, here is "what I wore"

Love the shoes, do not however enjoy the way they make my feet feel after walking in them all night!

Here we are at the sushi place, capturing the mood of the lighting:

My sister is new to the whole sushi experience, so I decided it would be best to share a plate of a few different rolls.

I started out with a salad with ginger dressing:

The came the Sushi! We got the white tuna roll, the great california roll, and the super vegetable roll:

Notice me in the background, ready to dig in with my soy sauce and chopsticks :)

After we ate we decided that since it was our last night at the beach we just HAD to get icecream. So we stopped at a frozen yogurt place called Fresh Berry.

It was so good we forgot to take a picture until we were almost finished:

The next morning I woke up and had my usual vaca brekkie:

All-Bran Flakes, Banana, Skim milk, and Coffee.

After eating a quick breakfast it was time to pack up and hit the road.

My sister and I drove the 5 hours back home. On the way we stopped for lunch at a subway (sorry forgot the pic).

When we got home I rushed to shower and get ready to go downtown for The Blue Plum Festival. It is a festival that we have every year downtown. They block off all the roads and all the bars serve drink outside and they are bands all over the place. It is sooo much fun and even though I was tired, there was NO WAY I was gonna miss it!

My friend lives really close to downtown, so we parked at her place and walked down. Which was good, because there are literally 1000's of people there and finding a parking place is like finding a needle in a haystack!

Some pics from the night:

The guy in the picture is one of my best friends, Ben. I was so proud of him, because he ran in the festivals 5K earlier that day, and clocked in at 21:50! I thought that was pretty impressive, def. better than me!

We pretty much spent the whole night talking about running and he agreed to start training to run a half marathon with me! Its in September and I am so excited. I am even more excited that I have a "running buddy" now.

Well, that is it for the pics...for now.

Tonight is wedding night with a few of my girlfriends! Should be fun.

Hope everyone is having a relaxing and fun Sunday!

Lots of Love <3 Ems.

Diaper Shower and More Fun Adventures

One of my very best friends (and boss at Rave) had a diaper shower last night. She is nine months preggers with her third baby girl!

I told her that she absolutely CAN NOT have the baby while I am at the beach. I leave on Saturday and will be gone for a whole week. Oh I hope I don't miss it.

A bunch of the girls from work got together to throw her a little "diaper shower" last night after work. Here is the whole group. I know I have said this 10000 times, but I just LOVE the girls that I work with. I am so blessed :)

And even more showed up...who is that kid in the background?! CREEP!

We provided cake...

And diapers...

And got my manager drunk...just kidding guys, she had one drink :)

After the diaper shower ended, some of the girls decided "hey, we are all dressed up...LETS GO OUT!" So of course we did. We partied for Tanya, because she can't. ;)

Here's the party girls I went out with, Tina and Kelli

And here is them later on in the night...

And I got to break out the LITTLE BLACK DRESS!

We danced until we just had to sit down, its what we do...

Last night was a blast! I woke up this morning with my legs and feet KILLING me from dancing all night and craving something along the lines of...

OATS! Duh!

Today is going to be the definition of RELAXING SUNDAY. I plane on heading down to the pool shortly and spending the rest of the day:

• soaking up the rays
• catching up on my celebrity gossip
  
• listening to the new albums that I downloaded (Dane Cook, The Dream, The Sounds, and Steve Martin's new bluegrass album...quite the variety...I think my ADD comes out in my music choices as well)
• catching up with my sister on her weekend
• planning my Charleston beach trip activities...6 days!!
  
• going for an evening run

Let's get this day started! I have a feeling its going to be good.

Which also reminds me...I have been getting the weirdest feelings that something exciting is about to happen. It will just hit me at random times. Do you guys ever get feelings like this? I just feel like something is on the brink of happening. We shall see my friends, we shall see :). Ill keep you updated on that one.

Hope everyone else is having a relaxing Sunday!

Lots of Love, <3 Ems.

P.S. That sucks major butt that the joke didn't really seem to work. I think you are supposed to try and say it fast...and when you do your supposed to get tongue twisted and say "he smelt farts", I swear to you it's funny when someone does it without knowing! WOW I have no idea why I even posted that. LAME!!!

It's Friday!

Please watch this video as many times that it takes to get you PUMPED about the fact that is Friday. It should only take one. Unless you are a SUPER stiff, then maybe two.

I had some requests to see my SUPA-CUTE detailed back shirt actually on. And since I did party it up last night and broke out the new shirt...and had to wait HOURS for my friend to get off work, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to snap a pic!

I just love it. And those little red "dots" on my back are not birthmarks, even though thats what they look like. They are hearts. haha.

Me making the MOST serious face ever. Seriously?! I think that I was concentrating more on getting the front of the shirt then on actually smiling. haha

I'm feeling pretty good about my day/night yesterday. I worked hard and played harder! FOR REAL! Here was my day;

• 9-1030: Job Interview at a Preschool...totally rocked it!
• 11: Quickly came home packed up a Sammie and an apple for lunch and headed out the door.
• 12-4: Work shift #1 at the ol' Rave
• 415: Back home, quick snack, quick change into gym clothes, out the door!
• 430-530: 7 mile run at the gym. No pain in the knee. Kicked the treadmills ass!
• 545: Back to work at Rave for shift #2. Kept my sweaty gym clothes on, just piled on the deodorant and Love Spell. rocked it out.
• 6-930: Rave shift #2. Sold some clothes, took out the trash, swept the floors like a pro, gossiped with my manager/best friend.
• 10: Home for a quick dinner of mac and cheese and broccoli and carrots:

• 1030-1230: Showered it up, prettied it up, waited for the Britt-ster to get off work.
• 1: Roll up in the club. Rock star parking, no lines. Thats how we roll.
• 1-3: Danced the night away. Techno style.
• 3-9: CRASHED OUT!

And now I am sitting here with a lovely cup of coffee and some awesome blogs to read. WHEW!

Hope everyone is having an awesome Friday...and if your not, watch the video again. :)

Lots of Love <3 Ems.

Shake It Like a Polaroid Picture

Oh man! This weekend has just been crrazzzyy! I feel like I have pretty much gone non-stop. But I kept getting invites to do things, and if you know me you know I am always up for a fun time and when one of my friends wants to go out, I rarely say no.

Last night my friend Tina wanted to go out on the town, so of course she didn't have to twist my arm. Do I feel some pics about to go down?! I do think so.

We met up with some friends at a local bar downtown.

We laughed sooo hard at this picture because Josh failed at every attempt to take a decent picture. This was his worst shot. haha he is actually pretty cute, but he looks like a creep-o in this picture. Here are several more attempts.

Then I had to show him just how a great picture is taken:

As the night went on several more people showed up to hang out and I saw a lot of old friends. I tend to put the camera away after a few drinks though, because things tend to get a little difficult to keep up with after that. haha.

P.S. Aren't the little Polaroid cool? My friends told me about this program that you can find and download here. I just love it! Its so cool, this little camera pops up and all you do is drag and drop your pictures into the camera and out pops your Polaroid from your camera. Of course, you have to wait for the picture to develop. No shaking!

Today is a catch up day for sure, after that wild weekend. I woke up and fixed up some blueberry waffles with sliced banana and strawberries and maple syrup.

Then for lunch I was craving something just warm and good and comforting. What did I come up with?!

Grilled Peanut Butter and Banana DUH!

And just to show the ooey gooey goodness of the sandwich I present to you evidence #1

mmmmm

Also, this morning I was surfing the web for some owl tattoo ideas and check out what I found!

Its the tattoo that I described! An owl with the text "carpe diem", except I want "carpe noctem" and I want it a little smaller...and def somewhere less noticeable than smack dab on my arm. But other than that, thats it! I kinda thought it was an original idea, but guess not. haha. I still like it though...what do you guys think?

Ok Now its time for cleaning, running, tanning, and shopping with the sis. Then I gotta get up early to substitute teach for a Kindergarten class. AHH!!!

Hope everyone is having an awesome, relaxing Sunday.

Lots of Love, <3 Ems.

Confusion Control

Good Saturday morning! How is everyone this morning?! Wild night last night? My night was pretty fun. One of my friends owns a vintage clothing store called Betty Janes. And they had a fashion show last night at this local club and it was sooo much fun! They got really crazy and threw out T-shirt and stuff. I totally picked up a yager shirt that my friend Brad threw out. haha. Here are some pictures from it:

The stage all set up

Theres Brad!

My friend Aaron

We were also celebrating the return of my friend Ben back to the states from his 4 month adventure back packing through South America. I just love this guy.

Josh is happy that he is home too.

OK NOW FOR THE STUFF YOU GUYS WERE WONDERING ABOUT!! I know that if you have just started reading this blog, you were probably SUPER confused by my last update. SO I will get you peeps back up to speed.

1. Boys - A lot of you were wondering who Mike is. Well, to make a long story short Mike is a guy that I had been long-distance dating for about a year. We met when he was traveling through my town for his work. He is a motorcycle mechanic and he was traveling with a group of Motocross guys while they competed all over the U.S. He was here for about a month, we hung out everyday...he left, immediately bought a plane ticket to come back here when he was finished working, and then later I went to visit him in California. (reference here). We talked on the phone everyday and then about a month ago he just disappeared. I knew that he was going through a lot of stress with his job and some other stuff, so I just left him alone. Yeah, I was hurt because I liked him a lot. But I knew the best thing to do was just to let him do his thing and not bug him and just move on. Well, like I said...he came back into the picture about a week ago. Not sure how much he is back into my life, but I care about him so much that I know I want him to be there, even if it is just as friends. But we will see.
2. The Interview - My phone interview for the school in Charlotte was yesterday morning. I was soooo nervous!! But I think that it went OK. I really feel like I tend to ramble on in interviews and not really get to the point of what I am trying to say. I need to work on that.
3. Sam had asked me in a previous post to share a picture of my punk rock days. Most of my old pictures are on my old computer, but I did find one:

Thats me on the left, short black hair, gauges, and all! haha.

Sam also asked me where I grew up and where I have lived in my life. Unfortunately, there is nothing too exciting there. I was born in the place that I live now which is a small town in Tennessee and have lived here all my life. Which is one reason that I am SOOO ready for a new place and a change in my life right now!

Now its back to my favorite part of the day...oats and blogs...and COFFEE

I decided to call these my "banana pancake" oats. They have oats (of course), banana (duh!), maple syrup, and cinnamon. I wanted to make real banana pancakes, but the milk was out of date :(

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Anything fun going on for you?!

Lots of Love, <3 Ems.

Back to Blogs!

Man! Not having the Internet all weekend is rough! Especially when I want to read all of your awesome blogs! Lets just say that last night and this morning was def. spent catching up with everyone that I missed sooo much. I also want to thank everyone for wishing me good luck this weekend, it really means a lot.

So I left big JC on Friday afternoon and set off on the 5 hour drive to Nashville. I didn't really mind the drive there though, because it was SO pretty the whole way and I had my IPOD jammin' on shuffle. I snapped a couple of pics just so I could show you how gorgeous it was.

Not a cloud in the sky!

On the way there I saw a whole row of these old time-y bugs traveling together. I thought that it was pretty amusing seeing them all together in a little group. So I snapped a pic of that too.

I made pretty good time because of the weather and arrived in Nashville to meet my Aunt around 6. I don't know how many people heard about this, but there was a HUGE tornado in Nashville last week (which is pretty rare for Tennessee). Anyway, it hit about a mile from my aunt's house. I have never been in a tornado and I sure have not seen anything like the devastation from the aftermath! My aunt took me around to show me where it hit. I have never seen anything like it! It made me really sad about all the people that lost their homes and businesses. My Aunt told me that the volunteers have been great with helping out all week though, and there were still tents and things providing water and food.

I was shocked by all the damage that the tornado did, like I said I am just not used to that kind of thing at all. I don't think we have ever had a tornado, or at least a bad one, in East Tennessee.

Moving on...Saturday morning was the job fair. My Aunt and I arrived there early and ready to go. There were sooo many people there. It was kind of overwhelming and discouraging to see all of these people trying to get the same job as me. What would make me stand out from the rest?! But, I handed out my resume to a bunch of different schools and talked to a lot of principals and assisstant principals. So now all thats left to do is just cross my fingers and hope that the phone rings soon. I'm desperate for a teaching job right now!!!

I also LOVE the Nashville area. It is so nice and there is so much to do. Also, running is a HUGE deal there, so there are plenty of places to run and TONS of running groups to join. My Aunt told me that there is even one especially for teachers who run! Oh how I would love to move there.

After the stress of the job fair, my Aunt and I had a "girls" day to de-stress. We went to the hair salon, TWO different malls, to the movies to see Seventeen Again (umm when did Zac Efron get so freakin' hot?!), then out to dinner, and more shopping. Yep, by the time we got we were drained. But it was great spending time with my Aunt in an AWESOME city. Did I mention that I LOVE it there?!

Unfortunately, the drive back to JC on Sunday did not go as well as the drive there. It was pouring the rain the whole time! At one point it was raining so hard that I could not even see in front of me. Therefore, I missed my exit and ended up about an hour of track somewhere in Kentucky. I'm pretty sure that this would only happen to me. I was so glad when I finally got home and could relax.

All in all it was a great weekend. I'm really hoping that something comes out of it, but we will see. Thanks again everyone for your good luck wishes, thoughts, and prays. You guys are the best and I missed you all this weekend. I'm glad to be back!

Lots of Love, <3 Ems.