It’s A Sad Day

My heart hurts for my hometown.  I’m so blessed that all of my family living in Tuscaloosa is safe when so many other people’s families are not.  This tornado picked up not only homes, but people.  A senior at UA, also a Phi Mu, lived in Forest Lake and her body was found by Checkers at the corner of 15th and Hargrove Road, a good 2 miles away from Forest Lake.  There are numerous stories like this involved in this tornado.  Please pray for the victims of this storm.  It will take my city years to recover from this and it will be something that the residents will never forget.  It’s a sad sad day in Alabama today.  Over 180 deaths have been confirmed in Alabama alone, that number is sure to rise.  Prayers are needed!  I couldn’t keep myself from crying all morning just thinking about Anderson and Lydia.  I don’t know how I could make it had anything happened to those babies.  I thank God that they’re ok. 

#81 - CHECK!

Number 81 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to help host a baby shower for someone.  I got to mark that item off the list this weekend when myself along with my sister Lindsey and aunt DeLane hosted a couple’s baby shower for my other sister, Jennifer, and her husband.  The shower was at DeLane’s house in Tuscaloosa and we had a great turnout with great food!  Jen got lots of great gifts for Baby Cooper and got to spend a lot of quality time with family and friends that she barely ever sees since she lives all the way in Tampa.  Here’s a few pictures from the shower:

I am loving these baby converse shoes!!!

       

This is an Auburn little man hat that my aunt gave Jennifer.  This was  huge thing for DeLane because she is an AVID Alabama fan, as is the rest of our family. 

I am loving all of these little onesies that Lindsey got for Cooper.  I particularly like the crab.  Lindsey likes the alien one the best.

Heart my hubby :)

Melanie’s Bridal Tea

Today several ladies from my church hosted a bridal tea for my good friend Melanie.  Some of my long time readers may remember that Justin and I hooked Melanie up with Justin’s best friend Wade last year.  Well, they got engaged soon after and now all the fun parties are happening!!  Their wedding is July 9th at Melanie’s parents farm in Blount County.  Here’s some pictures from the tea:

This is Mel with her sister Alicia (left) and her soon to be sister Melissa (Wade’s sister)

 

 This is Maddie, Mel’s Maid of Honor 

This is Ellen, Wade’s mom.  Ellen threw me and Justin’s Tool & Gadget shower at her house when we were getting married.  She’s such an awesome person and Mel is looking forward to being her daughter!

These are all the hosts of Mel’s shower, including my mother-in-law, Debbie (she’s the one wearing blue).

I heart me some Mel :)

  And this is Mel with Ellen and her own mom Cathy and grandmother Rosalind, who she was named after.  I had a great time and the future Trimm’s got a lot of great stuff!!

On an unrelated note, I got a lot of feedback on my last post about the formatting in blogger.  It seems like everyone gave me the same response and that response was to get Windows Live Writer.  So due to all the people that said they were using it, I downloaded it and am using it right now.  Gotta say….I LOVE IT!!  It is so much easier than having to force things to format in blogger when it doesn’t let you do what you want it to do.  You don’t have to worry about html codes with Live Writer either, which is awesome.  I highly suggest everyone that blogs download it! 

Well, tomorrow is THE day.  April 18th.  The tax deadline.  This past Saturday was my first Saturday not to work since the end of January (with exception to the one Saturday that everyone in the firm has off after the March 15th deadline).  It felt incredible.  This week is also my first Friday off, actually, the entire firm is closed on Friday, so everyone is off work.  YAY!!!  My sister, Jennifer, comes in town next weekend because it’s her baby shower weekend so I’m really looking forward to seeing her!  I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!

Fellow Bloggers...HELP!

Can someone tell me what has happened with Blogger to where I can no longer make paragraphs?? In my previous post on #25, when I clicked on publish post, there were a few paragraphs and now it's all jumbled into one. I noticed sort of the same thing when I did my pictures of Europe post. How do I make paragraphs???

Update: Ok I managed to fix it, but it was a pain to do. I used to be able to write blogs under the "Compose" tab and just hit enter and it would make a space. It does that now, but if I have to change tabs to the "EDIT HTML" for whatever reason, when I change back to "Compose" tab, it's deleted the space. I'm so confused. It didn't used to do this. Has it really been this long since I blogged? Anyone else had this issue?

#25 - CHECK!

I actually completed number 25 back in February, but due to busy season, I lacked the free time to blog about it. Number 25 on my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days was to pay off my car. HUGE ACCOMPLISHMENT!!!

I bought my sweet little 2005 Acura TL when I lived in Nashville. In college, I was leasing an Acura RSX and when I got to my firm in Nashville, I realized that my client where I would be spending a good 7 months out of the 12 in a year was located in Murfreesboro, a 45 minute drive from my house in Nashville. Naturally, I immediately started looking for a car to purchase because they charge you an arm and a leg for going over the standard mileage. I came home one weekend to set out to find a car and found my Acura. It was January 2007 when I bought her and she was two years old. She is now seven years old and still kicking. Justin allowed me to use part of his bonus to pay off the loan a year early so that we wouldn't have any payments. I was so excited when I got the piece of mail saying it was MINE!!!

I plan to hang on to her as long as I can before I purchase another car and I will say that when I do purchase another car, it will NOT be a luxury car. Too many places can't change my tires or do a rotation because it's a luxury car. That's frustrating. Not to mention any work that has to be done to the car is ridiculously expensive. It was cool to have such a nice car for a while, and it still is cool, don't get me wrong, but I have no desire to spend that much money on another car. A car gets you from point A to point B. That's it. When we purchase another car for me, it will be something that we can either pay for the full thing in cash or pay for a good chunk of it and have a very small payment for a short period of time after. I'm so glad to be knocking things off my list again. It's been too long. Here's some others that I will be knocking off soon:

• Watching Fireproof with Justin - I can do this now that I have more free time


• Getting my wedding dress stored - It's seriously pathetic that she's been in my closet for almost 2 years. Gotta do something about this ASAP.


• Attending a church service at The Basement - Again, now that I have my nights free again, I can do this too!


• Serve breakfast to the homeless with the SMUMC ladies - We get three volunteer days at work where we can volunteer for a whole day and not use paid time off. Since the breakfast only takes a couple of hours, I can go to work right after and do this more than once.


• Host a party at my house for someone - Justin and I along with Trevor and Tiffany Lobdell are hosting a "Stock the Shed" shower for our friends Melanie and Wade on May 14th at my house.


• Go to my high school reunion - JULY 16TH!!!!


• Help host a baby shower for someone - Me and my sister Lindsey along with my aunt Delane are hosting a baby shower for my other sister Jennifer on April 23rd in Tuscaloosa.


• Obtain a door wreath for every major holiday - I have all but Easter, which I plan to buy this weekend!


• See every episode of Andy Griffith - I'm picking this back up since I wasn't able to do it as much during busy season. I think we only have 2 1/2 seasons to go.


• Take Anderson to the Atlanta Aquarium - My mom and I are taking both of the kids sometime in June on one of my Friday's off.

So I get to knock off a lot very soon!!! My first Friday off is next week and I plan to not do much at all....and it's going to be fabulous! I am planning on going to a Pure Barre class that day (something else I'll have to blog about later) and then that night Justin and I are going to dinner with my mom and step-dad and my sister Jennifer and her husband since they'll be in town for the baby shower we're throwing for her that weekend. We're planning to eat dinner at Chuy's at the Summit. I have heard people raving about this place, but I haven't been yet so hopefully it's as amazing as people say it is.

What I'm Looking Forward To...in Pictures

It's almost that time guys...only 6 more days until the tax deadline. We are way busier than I figured we would be this year and work has certainly taken over my life since Justin and I got back from Africa. I think I've reached that capacity where working 60 hours is getting to be useless because my productivity is rapidly declining. Only one thing is keeping me going right now (well, other than God of course). Let me show you things that I'll get to see come April 30th. This is Oxford University Harry Potter fans...this should look familiar. It's the halls of Hogwarts :) This should also look familiar. It's the dining hall where the students at Hogwarts eat. All of this is actually a church in Lacock. And this is Bath. Bath is the city where Jane Austen (my FAVORITE author) lived for a brief time and wrote some of her novels. A few of them are even set in the city. I am SOOOO excited to visit here! This is the Jane Austen Center, which is actually her house!! April 30th isn't getting here fast enough.