Last Saturday one of my best friends got married. I'm so happy for her. She and her lovely new husband have gone through sooooo much to be together. This was just the perfect day!

My happy place...

I love driving my car. Seriously.

:-)

New Year's Eve

This was a great New Year's- spent with my baby and friends!

Christmas. A week away.

I hate the holidays. Hate them. No, I'm not a scrooge, I just have this thing where I don't like being obligated to get gifts. It seriously makes me loath the coming of Christmas day. I love giving them, I'm totally fine with that part. I love picking them out, wrapping them up and seeing the recipient (hopefully) enjoy them. If I could do just that part I'd be fine. As it is, that's not the way it works. I'd really just like to go away for the weekend and come home to Christmas being totally over with. That would be nice. This year more than ever though. I'm just too poor to give the people I love anything but maybe a hug and I'm hating every second of it. Yeah, I know the season is about being together but it's become too commercial to not feel that if you don't have something to give back you're kind of a shmuck. And I WANT to give, but I just can't so I'd like for next Monday to just be skipped over entirely.

My girls!

How I miss them! March cannot come sooner. Laughing, scrapping, eating, drinking.... good times will be had by all!

It's amazing to think of our friendship. Waaaay back when I started scrapping, if someone would have told me I would travel the country, going to crops, meeting strangers and spending weekends scrapping with them, I probabaly would have laughed. But here I am, with numerous crops under my belt, and some of the best friends I've ever had in my life.

Brighton, day by day.

This is mostly just a bunch of rambling, but it's mainly for me anyway. :)

Wednesday night, flight overseas: my right contact got all dry and fell out. I had to wait 20 minutes for the stupid seatbelt sign to be turned off so I could go put it back in. I was so afraid I'd be stuck one-eyed for my trip! Luckily after about 4 minutes I got it. Phew!

I got in thursday morning, bright and early. The sky was clear and it was chilly, but nice. Meg met me at the airport and it was like in all those movies where you see your friend from across the crowd, instantly you're both grinning from ear to ear and you just run to each other (in slow motion of course) and hug. It was so great. I have really missed her! We took the train into Brighton so I got to see a lot of the countryside, and it gave us a lot of time to talk since it's a 25 minute trip. As soon as we pulled into the station I was in heaven. All the hustle and bustle, just the whole vibe was different than anywhere I'd been in a long time. LOVED it. From the train station we walked to her flat, had breakfast (the bacon over there is AMAZING) and then took a walk along the beach and through Hove. That night we went to a show for this scottish band. They were really great and even played two encores. Very cool.

Walking through Hove to the beach:
































Friday was mostly just me and Megan hanging out at the flat and seeing more of Hove. We went shopping for food and had some Starbucks. She also told me all about her wedding plans, showed me the pace where they'll be getting married and we looked at some of the bridesmaid dresses that she and her sis found. We are all going to look SO good! Later in the evening Bob's friend Adam came into town from London. He was staying the whole weekend for the engagement party. The four of us met Kenneth and Clem at a pub later that night. I had the most amazing hard cider ever - two bottles and I was well on my way to being tipsy.






Saturday was awesome. We slept in til about noon and then got ready to go into Brighton. She took me to this place called the Laines, and I swear to god it is JUST like what Diagon Alley would be like, but without the cool wizardy stuff. The shops were all close together and there were people EVERYWHERE. It was sooooooo frigging cool. All you fellow HP fans would have been in heaven! They had every shop you can imagine - clothes, vintage, antiques, jewelery, restaurants.... a-mazing! From there Meg and I met the boys and some of their other friends at the studio where they practice. Good times. Pizza, beer, and goofing off. I got to meet a couple more of Bob's friends who were all so cool and down to earth. They all really made me feel welcome.

From there we headed back to the flat to get ready for the party. Poor Megan was so nervous to be meeting more of Bob's family and friends, but she did beautifully and was adored by all. Everything went smoothly, and drunkenly. The night ended with french fries and on a very high note.

We were all VERY buzzed by this point of the night: that's me and meg (duh) and left to right: Adam, Kenneth, Bob and his bro Chris at the bottom.

Sunday was hangover day. We all slept in, including two more additions from the party, making it 6 people sleeping in a one room flat. Everywhere you looked or stepped there was a body or blankets. I wish I had taken a pic. The guys all met up at the pub for a couple soccer matches and Meg and I chilled at the flat. Finally we met them up there for a bit, then she and I went home for burgers and to watch some Breakfast Club. Later we went out again for one last hurrah before everyone had to head back home to their respective cities.

Monday was another Brighton day. We went to this really cool restaurant/market called Bill's and had a fantastic lunch. Then we went to Brighton Pier. Here are a few of my favorite pics from the evening. Once again, we just walked around and talked the whole time. It was so nice!

Tuesday we were going to go to London, but we got up too late. Instead we took the train to Arundel. Sooooooo beautiful! And I love having to take the train! It's so relaxing. I went for a whole week with no road rage! And one of my favorite things about the train? This little phrase. Every time you get off the train this very posh sounding english woman would repeat it over and over. It cracked me up every time.

From the train station we walked down a small footpath to the castle/town. The day was perfect for it.

Omg, then we stumbled into this cemetary. It was amazing in the fact that there are graves there marked as long ago as the 1300s!! As you walk all the way around this chapel you eventually come to a dead end. It was the CREEPIEST place I have been to in a looooong time. Everything was sooo quiet and muffled. It was very eerie. At the end of the path there is a life sized statue of Christ on the cross and two women weeping beside it. All of a sudden, as we had reached the end and were thouroughly creeped out, a flock of birds flew out of this tree a few feet away. All you could hear was flapping wings and a few caws. We had to get out of there.















After that we went and ate at his cool pub called the Black Rabbit and then barely made the last train back to Brighton. It's a good thing we didn't end up going to London that day, cause right as we were getting off the train we heard about a big disturbace at the Tower Bridge Station, which was the station we would have been at. Turns out it was a bomb scare!

Wednesday, my last day there, was when we finally made it to London. By that point I was too exhausted to really enjoy it. We walked around for about 5 hours. First thing after we left the train station, we walked across London Bridge, I did my best not to jinx us by singing the song. Then we strolled along the Thames to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. Then we took the subway to this amazing shopping area called Camden Town. I bought a cute scarf (pink goes good with green!). Meg bough her sis a cool cell phone charm.

Sad, sad, sad was it that I had to leave the next day. We ended up just hanging out at the flat that evening and having dinner in, which was really nice. I miss it there already! Megan is coming home next month and will be in NYC til June, so late next summer after she goes back I'm planning on going to visit, and this time my Brian will be able to come too!!

My blog...

This blog is going to be for me to drag on about my two favorite things: travel and scrapbooking. Here's a little taste of each:

A picture from my trip last week to Brighton. It's kind of a random photo, but it's one of my favorite ones. It was taken it on Brighton Pier.

Here's a recent project that I've done. I was in need of killing some time at my boyfriend's one evening, so I made a clock. The pictures are from my trip to Scotland last Spring.

Annoying....

For some reason, my other blog (altered state of mind) would not let me post anything. I've tried for weeks with no success, so I'm finally breaking down and starting a new one.

I was tagged by Breanne right around the time I couldn't post on my other blog, so that's how I'll start this one. :)

A)Four jobs I have had in my life
-Mortgage company processor
-Chick-fil-a
-Benihana Steakhouse
-BP

B)Four movies I would watch over and over
-Shakespeare in Love
-LOTR
-Pride and Predjudice (A&E miniseries, not that new crap movie)
-Bridget Jones

C)Four places I have lived
-Nashville, TN
-Cedar Rapids, Iowa
-Mentor, OH
-Claridon, OH

D)Four TV shows I love to watch
-Project Runway (I'm so glad for reruns!)
-What not to Wear
-Futurama
-Absolutely Fabulous

E)Four places I have been on vacation
-Scotland
-Wilmington, NC
-Brighton, England
-London, England

F)Four Websites I visit daily
-Scrapdawgs
-MySpace
-Scraplove
-Lonely Planet

G)Four of my favorite foods
-pizza
-breads
-potatoes
-bananas

H)Four places I would like to be right now
-back in Brighton
-hanging out with my Brian
-on a plane flying to somewhere beautiful
-back in Brighton

I)Four friends I am tagging
-sadly I don't have 4 friends on here yet that I can tag.