almost forgot.

{Shopping for Seminar...this was not a keeper}

I have a new friend here in Tupelo that found out I live in Tupelo because she saw my blog and asked a mutual friend to introduce us! While eating lunch this week, she mentioned me having a blog and I had to stop and think for a minute.... I do? OH YEAH!

{Lunch at Ajax in Oxford, MS...southern comfort}

Perhaps I should neglect no longer. I read blogs and occasionally comment, but when it comes to maintaining my own, I'm dropping the ball! I allowed twitter and facebook to rule my social media life, and I finally reached the point where I had to stop cold turkey. Let me blanket this in an enormous {ME PERSONALLY ~ NOT JUDGING YOU} I felt like there was something wrong with me if I knew what your best friend's cousin's mom was up to the second I woke up every morning but hadn't so much as cracked my bible. So, for me, something had to give. Something being facebook & twitter. Not sure if it's a Lent thing, or if I just need to step away long enough to get my priorities back in line and my addiction subsided. Again, this is my thing... I do not judge you. How could I? You can't judge other people when you're addicted to freaking twitter and facebook...at 29.

{Snuggling on the couch with Lola}

It's been 2 weeks... I miss twitter the most. Besides keeping up with my friends, I kept up with the news on twitter as well, so I feel out of the loop at times. Thankfully, Justin is a news junkie so he keeps me posted on all things Kardashian. Just kidding...kind of. It does crack me up that after 3 years of marriage he still tries to break Pop-Culture news to me. Guiliana is my homegirl... you can not get anything past me!

Speaking of JF... these pictures have been all about me. Which, I suppose it's my blog and it is a lifeLESordinary and not alifeJUSTINordinary, but I'll share some web space with him.

I was tempted to not share this, because I didn't want every desperate housewife to harbor jealousy in their heart over my husband. Really, if he knew I posted this picture to the blog he might start alifeJUSTINordinary for the soul purpose of getting me back! We love face-time on our phones and when you pause it, it freezes your face and I'm savvy enough to snap a picture to remember that face forever!

Alright, alright... here's normal Justin by the Christmas tree with Stella. It's funny that I posted a picture of me with Lola & Jf with Stella, because usually Stella is my baby and Lola is Jf's baby. Now I feel a little bad, so I'll leave you with an incriminating picture of me. I have no shame...

{Sexy.Sweaty.Bangs!}

and I'm really pretty when I get finished with my workout.

It's January, right?

This picture was taken on our 3rd Anniversary (December 1) and Of course by now it's mid-January, but it's taken me that long to recover from the holiday season! Our business triples around Thanksgiving and we don't look back until New Years! Justin and I are extremely grateful to do what we do, and the people we have the pleasure of serving with, but I think we both agree that the holidays last just long enough.

The week before our anniversary it hadn't even crossed our minds that our anniversary was approaching. Which is humorous to me, because we work around high school/college aged kids that calculate the seconds they've been in a relationship and celebrate reaching month by month milestones. (I could do an entire series of posts dedicated to the nuances of deep southern relationships. They, at times, boggle my mind and it's like a different time here!)

I'm thinking, that because we both forgot, this year was the best anniversary yet! No anticipation, no major plans and no expectations to meet or not meet. I do love that we have the luxury of taking off the entire day together for our anniversary and it doesn't go unappreciated. It's a nice time to get away after Thanksgiving/Black Friday and before school gets out for the holidays. We went where we wanted to go, ate at places we loved and enjoyed stuff that we like to do. It was nice.

I'm reminded of our vows that we took 3 years ago. Do any of you newlyweds ever look up and think "3 years? Really? Feels like 50!" Not in a bad way, but can I get a witness? To recap, our vows are taken from Ruth 1.


16But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.

17"Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may (K)the LORD do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me."

I never wrote about or recapped year 2. It was a tough year and our work circumstance and living circumstance left us in a strained place. Thankfully, we were in the strained place together. When you work a stressful job together as a married couple half of the job is figuring out how to separate the two and learning that you always have to work on the art. Year 3 came and we both realized we had a LOT of work on our hands and we set out to get in front of our pain and resentment that our circumstances had caused. We did and now we're perfect. JUST KIDDING! Do y'all ever read blogs and think, "WOW, this person is a good fiction writer, because that can NOT be real life?" I mean really...perfection seeping from every corner of their little space on the web. That's too much for me!

Back to me. Year 3 was a year of settling and a year of peace for Lesli & Justin. It was amazing to me how peaceful and loving our relationship felt the minute our lives were settled. The tension, anxiety and frustration started to fall away. Now, having to go through the process of buying a house with my husband being 5 hours away was less than peaceful, but nothing lasts forever. He returned and we had a new lease on life in our marriage, our business, our town and our new/old cottage.

I still have unsettling moments where I think hideous resentful thoughts like, "I do this ALL for you and WHAT thanks do I get?" It's not pretty and I'm not proud of those thoughts, but I feel it's important that I be honest. After all, I am not a fiction writer and need not try and convince you that I am the perfect sexy wife married to the perfect sexy husband.

I'm happy (albeit begrudgingly) to be reminded that I made a covenant with God that where he'd go I'd go and where he'd stay I would stay. Covenants are a powerful thing and not something I'm willing to mess with. Thankfully, I have the next 60+ years to work on getting this right and I have a partner who is willing and ready to work with me. To put it simply... grateful, settled, peaceful.

PS~ Some of you commented to me on twitter that you had a problem commenting. I just did a test comment and commented as a guest instead of logging into any of the services. I put my name, email and website and it sent me the comment for approval. Sorry, if you've had something to say and couldn't say it. I appreciate you reading and being a friend!

2p.m.

As I live and breath, I NEVER thought this day would come this summer. Would you believe that it is easier to buy a restaurant/start your own business in this great country than it is to buy a house? We learned that the hard way, and perhaps I'll take the time to write that story out, because it is WILD!

In an effort to NOT jinx us anymore than we have already been jinxed because we are sole-proprietors, I've refrained from sharing this info and picture until now. This is our cottage that we are closing on today at 2 p.m. Not a great picture of the house, but I wanted to get Justin and the sold sign in the shot.

The next time you see our little cottage it will look much different! My neighbor is the project manager and lists and time-lines are already on paper and we have a team of 5 that is ready to get to work!

The same as this blog didn't turn into a wedding blog, it will not turn into a design blog, but I will be tracking our progress and sharing updates. This has been a long time coming and it thrills my soul that in a matter of hours I will be settled.

the best is yet to come.

In 6 years of blogging I RARELY talk about my job in specifics, but Justin and I recently made a giant step in our career and I felt it worth sharing.

In July 2008 Justin entered into a program that we believe would most help him achieve his dream of owning his own restaurant. {I hope you can figure out by the pictures what the restaurant is. Due to google concerns I will not be writing the name out.} This program moved us to Norman, OK for a couple of months, Austin, TX for a couple of months and in January of 2009 to Tupelo, MS.

Here we are in front of "our" restaurant on President Obama's Inauguration Day. Our challenges were large, but with a combined 19 years of experience; we were so ready for the task. {No, that isn't a mistake. Justin's first day on the job was his 14th birthday. I only brought 5 years of experience to the table.}

We wore many different hats in the restaurant ~ boss, manager, counselor, mother, father, friend, milkshake spinner. At times it was emotionally exhausting and other times we were both overwhelmed by how obvious that this was more than our career ~ this was our ministry.

In July we got an Extreme Home Makeover! I never realized that Justin was wearing the same outfit! He looks great though, and so does our face lift! Goodbye red tile!

In May we were called in for our final interview. I got to go, so I made sure to dress us accordingly. Justin wasn't as thrilled to be taking the picture, but he's really good about indulging my need to match. Everyone we met commented on our coordinating styles and it made my heart proud!

All our hard work payed off ~ we are NOW bonafide restaurant owners. Life is good and they way things have been going lately I can tell that the best is yet to come.

Gretchen Wilson is stuck in my head!

Our neighbor is a huge Mississippi State Fan and we've been itching to get out of town for some college baseball, so it was decided that we'd scratch this itch at Super Bulldog weekend in Starkvegas with Mississippi St. hosting Tennessee. His girlfriend suggested that we buy seats in the stadium, but he would not hear of it! It was decided that we'd sit out in left field on trailers. I couldn't quite picture it, but this is what we rolled up on!


Cue Gretchen...I am a redneck woman! This totally reminded me of the rooftop bleachers in the outfield at Wrigley. If the rooftop bleachers were on the roof of a beat up truck! Of course, I loved the junker charm of it all and was amazed at the creative efforts that people went to to ensure the maximum tailgating baseball experience!



We had our trailer all to ourselves and it was a perfect day for baseball. The high was 75 and ever so often a breeze found us. Funny how times change... I used to BAKE at baseball games. This day I came armed with my hat to cover my face, 30spf sunscreen and an umbrella! Somehow, I managed to still get some sun! Pretty wild, huh?


These are our neighbors! I'm pretty sure you've met their fur-babies, but here are their pretty faces! Aren't they cute? We adore them! The boys both share a major love of modern warfare, which affords us girls lots of magazine reading, gossiping & trash tv!

It's hard to naturally photograph tv watching and magazine reading, so I'm so glad we finally got a picture together!

~Jersey Boys~

I am STILL listening to Jersey Boys 1.5 weeks after the show. When I see shows I get crazy obsessed with them and by the end of this one I was ready to run away with Frankie Valli. I haven't been able to find the soundtrack in town, so my Pandora radio has been keeping me happy. Funny enough, it switches back and forth often from Jersey Boys Soundtrack, Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons & the Glee soundtrack! FUN!

So, as you may remember from 2 posts ago... I'm not going to link back, because you can scroll down easily enough, we bought my Mom tickets to see Jersey Boys on her birthday. She'd been wanting to see it for a LONG time and I grew up listening to this music, because she grew up listening to this music, so I was more than happy to take her.

She arrived Saturday afternoon & we got prepared for dinner with friends. Craig came over and grilled delicious steaks for all of us and the neighbors and we watched the Olympics and had a great time. So glad Mom got to meet our little Tupelo family!

Sunday we woke up early so we could get on the road to Memphis and grab a bite to eat before the show. Except... Mom woke up and was horribly sick. I mean horribly. No one else was, so it wasn't the food, but I heard later she got it from the nacho club girls! We kept trying to wait it out, but she was just not getting over it. Poor Thing.

At 11am {show started at 1:30, Memphis is 85 miles away} I knocked on my neighbors door and said ~ if you can be ready in 15 min and put your make up on in the car the ticket is yours. All of you women that have video game loving husbands and other half's will love this. She said, "Oh, I really hate to leave Spencer on Valentine's Day." He barely looked up from Call of Duty and said ~ Babe, you should go! Call of Duty was his PERFECT valentine's day.

I took no pictures, because we were literally RUNNING to our seats and my neighbor did NOT want to be photographed due to the timely nature of her getting out the door and to the show.

All THAT said to say, we.loved.every.last.minute. If you are remotely familiar with their music {which you are} and you are close to a showing ~ go see this show! You will be singing Sherry for WEEKS to come! Just watch this video so you can get the idea of how it all works.




ps ~ I cried real tears at the show thinking about my poor sickly mom not getting to go. life is not fair.

I'm pleased to tell you...

That this here post is coming to you straight from my desktop in the 2nd bedroom by way of our new air card! After our laptop died we hooked up our desktop, but have been waiting on our "people" to send us an air card. It arrived this morning! I can do a LOT on my iPhone, but we live in the sticks and I'm still on the vintage {edge} network, so my phone Internet is sloooooooooow. I was so happy to be able to look up recipes online for my girls dinner tonight. Thank the good Lord for myrecipes.com.

In MUCH bigger news...

I am also pleased to tell you that after 2 years and 1 month of wedded bliss I took the plunge of changing my name. I know you're all thinking... why did it take you so long? Do you not really love Justin? Were you keeping a door open? Because and that's not it and no way. We haven't actually been physically stable in one place for long enough to get ALL my info switched over and we left Texas the morning after the wedding. And really, the only place it mattered was my email and at the bank. Did y'all know that my bank allowed me to use my {illegal} married name on my account? Is that against the law?

One of my 2010 goals was to get it all change and changed I did. It took an ENTIRE day. I had no idea that changing states and changing license and changing names literally took an act of God.



So, after 7 years of long blond hair...



I became a legal resident of Mississippi. That doesn't make me any less a Texan, does it?



{Ps ~ Of course I planned to look much better than this at 8am, but by 4 I was a little worse for the wear.}

~Harper~

When we first moved to Tupelo almost a year ago {gasp!} I found an instant friend through this blog, Shanda. It was so nice to be in a new place and already have a built in shopping buddy, going out to eat buddy & wine drinking buddy!

Not long after we met the Lord saw it fit to bless Shanda & Brett with a baby! Our shopping and wine drinking turned into shopping for nursery furniture!

Ladies ~ you have to see how good Shanda looked! Here she is 2 months almost to the day before Harper was born! Yes, I realize I might look more pregnant than her, but that's a compliment, because she looked amazing!

{Labor Day Party September 2009}

[holly, christina, brittany, ME & shanda (harper)]

If Justin and I are good for anything, we are good for food! So last night we loaded up the car with Chick-fil-A Sandwiches and sides and Chicken Spaghetti for a later meal so we could distract Mom & Dad and get some Harper time!

And without further adieu... Miss Harper Eden.

Little Miss Princess stayed asleep our entire visit, but woke up just in time for pictures! Right as her Daddy snapped this one she exploded into her diaper. Does that mean she likes me?


Now she's looking at me like she's not so sure about me. Or maybe she's thinking she needs one of my flowers to put on her headband. She'll have to ask nicely.

All this picture taking can wear a girl out! I would have taken more pictures, but that would have meant that I would have had to hand her off to someone else. I did let Justin hold her for a minute.

Shanda & Brett ~ we LOVE her already! She is simply beautiful and we can't wait to see her again very very soon!

Hair DID!

If you do not follow me on Twitter then you might not know that I got my hair cut, and I felt I had to share this with y'all after the last hair debacle that I suffered.

My neighbor suggested a while back that I visit her hair girl and I stalled until I could stall no more. I love a good choppy, angled cut, so that's what I asked for and that's what I got! I didn't realize that choppy and angled meant GOOD BYE to 4-5 inches of my hair! WOW ~ it had gotten longer than I realized!

Please excuse my photographer, he couldn't be bothered with standing up, so you have to live with the most flattering angle possible of me!

From the front, from the front...

To the side, to the side...

To the back, to the back...


I love it! I think she did a great job and everytime I look in the mirror I'm like whoa, I look like a different person! I'm so excited about my new fall do!

For the record, I've seen the "bad" hair girl a few times outside of our restaurant. She walks by, gives it a look and then a major hair flip and looks away like she's dissing us with her body language. I'm so fine with her diss... WAY more her loss than mine!

PS~ If you've ever wanted to hear what my actual voice sounds like, go to WWW.FourFatChicks.blogspot.com! I posted my first ever videoBlog!

babysitting

I haven't babysat an actual child in a few years, unless you count going to work every day and then it's more like baby sitting really big children. I kid. It's not always like that.

Last week however, we did babysit two little furbabies that belong to our neighbors. It's not always easy for dogs to get along especially when 2 of them are older {Lady(lab) & June(dachshund)} and 1 of them is a spoiled rotten diva {Lola}, but these 3 are the best of friends making each of our homes 2nd homes to these babies. It goes without saying ~ we LOVE our neighbors!


I do realize that more than likely no one will find this as cute as me & their mama, but this was my best attempt at being a mommy-blogger! Trust me, I look at every one of your child's pictures and I think they are all really cute!

Christina & Ken's Tupelo Visit

From the bottom of my heart & soul ~ thank you for your prayers...I felt every one of them. I am overwhelmed by the love that my friends & blog friends have so freely given me and my family during this time. Truly, this is what it means to be blessed, indeed. The funeral was Friday & it was a perfect tribute to Zach's life and so moving to all who were in attendance.

~~~~~~~~~~

It seems like with all that's gone on in the past week that Labor Day weekend & Christina & Ken's visit was over a month ago! The week has flown by almost as fast as their visit!

We love having them here or being there, because they are our twin couple! This means the guys enjoy hanging out together, because they can watch TV in silence for hours on end and the girls can talk until there are no words {never} and shop until we honestly drop.

I don't remember to take pictures of every minute of every activity that I do during my daily lives, but I had to take a picture of this. For all of you women who are counting every last calorie & spend time thinking about input/output, but are subsequently dating/married to the man who is basically a bottomless pit. Christina & Lesli ~ THOSE GIRLS, MARRIED TO THOSE MEN!

BOYS- GRANDS Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls

Reduced Fat Cinnamon Rolls - GIRLS

It's disheartening that both of these rolls had to share the same table. You don't realize exactly how wonk-wonk the RF rolls are until they are next to the king of all rolls. I digress...

I've been bad, in recent years, about taking pictures of big weekends or nights out, so I purposely tried to be better this weekend! I thought we got a lot of fun shots. I've already shown you the half marathon, so here's Saturday's pictures!

Every time I take pictures with Christina I reconsider my decision to quit tanning! Did y'all hear that Doctors are pushing to make tanning illegal to teens under the age of 18. I recently heard that tanning put you at much risk for cancer as smoking! Can you imagine turning your nose up to tanners like people do to smoking? Thank the Lord for spray tans!

We spent Saturday at the mall and shopping in the area, then went out for the typical PreMarathon carbo-load dinner at our favorite little Italian/Pizza Place in town. We had to take this picture immediately, before Christina's hair grew 2 inches outward and mine frizzed into a million strands!

It was, and still is, hard to believe that that same weekend 2 years ago we were celebrating their WEDDING! Like our weekend together, time has flown by, but Justin & I are already counting down the minutes until we can hang out again! We love you guys!

Sunday Funday {maybe}

This SUNDAY is the marathon & I sent an email to the race organizer on Monday inquiring about registering, and he promptly informed me that the race was full. Holy crap. I've been training for 16 weeks {feels like 16 years} and now I've waited too long to register.


I twittered about my world crumbling beneath my feet & then thought on the bright side. Maybe this was the Lord's way of telling me I'm not ready. Maybe I could just run the route and not "race" the route.


After a couple of emails the organizer put it together that I had met a member of the running club & he called that my pre entry & now I'm in. Promise ~ I didn't even get pushy! Thank the Lord I got in!


I made a decision a few weeks ago to run the 14.1 Miler instead of the full, because I didn't feel physically prepared for the full. The Tupelo "half" marathon is 14.1 miles. My work schedule has been insane lately, as I'm sure you can tell from my lack of posting the past two months & my job is different than a desk job. When I travel I work anywhere from 50-60 hour weeks and I'm on my feet all but an 1 hour a day during that time. So, add that to my running schedule, and my legs & feet couldn't keep up.


I'm ready for Sunday! I've been having some discomfort with my hamstring in my left leg, and I've promised myself that I will not injure myself just to finish and run the risk of not being about to run & exercise for any amount of time.


So, now you're up to speed as to where I am mentally & physically for the marathon. Thank you to ALL of you who have wished me luck & sent me words of encouragement! I will be thinking of your words when the going gets tough!

Sassy little skunk

Justin & I live far enough away from the middle of town that once we get home from work we are usually home for the night. The grocery store is a good 15 minute drive, so I have to be out of options usually to make the trip. I didn't realize how in the COUNtry we lived until yesterday.

I mapped a new running route online {@ http://www.mapmyrun.com/} yesterday & was excited to try it out. The run I mapped on Saturday took me through a neighborhood where with each new house I felt as if I was running through the pages of Southern Living. It was a little later than I like to run, especially in brand new territory, but it was only 3 miles, so I figured I could surely make it home before dark.

I've been listening to podcasts on my run to give the old playlist a rest. Namely, I just started the sermon series ~Staying in Love ~ By Andy Stanley, Pastor at North Point Community Church in Georgia. {I'm only a couple of minutes into the 2nd sermon, but so far it's really good! You should listen as well!} Back to the run, I'm trotting along, listening to Andy, about 1/2 a mile in & I start getting TERRIBLE interference through my headphones. So, I take one out of my ear & the interference continues, and it's really more like rustling in the bushes like they hear on LOST.

I look to my left & find myself a good 3 FEET AWAY FROM A SKUNK! Holy Moly ~ OMG! After that I clocked my best time ever in a 3 mile run. No really, because I'm crazy, I kept on running & didn't head for home. Until I got to the very dark tree covered part of the road & I swear to gawd scary movie music started playing & that's when I headed towards my house with Justin on the phone for protection.

Lesson learned... just because it's on the map doesn't mean it's always safe to run in the COUNtry! Smelling like a skunk will just NOT do!

How does your garden grow?

I HAVE to blog today, because I feel so bad that all of you that have the current post picture in your side bar have to look at my in all my love handle glory!

Let's talk about the weather. How has y'alls weather been? Tupelo has been seeing cooler weather than normal, but dang I just had to walk Lola in the rain for the 9,000th time this month! Come on Sun... I MISS YOU! The bright side ~ I am getting lots of good use out of my leopard print rain boots. Justin LOVES them...right.

Since Summer is on it's way I decided that I wanted to grow my own herbs. Allie had the most FABULOUS basil at her house last year & I never have fresh basil when I want it, but usually forget to use it before it goes bad. So, Justin and I went on a mission to figure out how we could pot plant some herbs and get them to grow.

Lookey what I found! They had this little set at the Wal*Mart with Basil, Sage & Thyme. It reminds me of a step up from the Styrofoam cup planting that I did in Sunday School growing up. Did everyone do that or just FBC Texarkana? Anyway... I followed the directions and when it finally got sunny I set them out on the grill to get some good sun light.

I don't know which pot is which, but I know they are in alphabetical order... Basil, Sage, Thyme. For sure the middle one is Sage. I've never grown a thing, but figured I could surely follow directions. I believe Justin's exact words were, "Those are never going to grow." I don't believe it was lack of faith on my behalf but more lack of faith in the old Wal*Mart.

Then the rain came back and I had to move my three little pots inside, but look what happened to my little old Wal*Mart pot plants after only 7 days...

We have sprouts, people! Honestly, I am a little shocked that this much happened in 7 days. Sage looks to be a little on the slow side of the growing, but it will get there... I just know it! Why do I get Scarborough Fair in my head every time I think about my little plants. Parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme... Maybe I should start singing to Sage?

I am thinking this is my Basil, because it wants to be the best. I can't even wait until full maturation if only the sun will come back out to love on my little plants!

Happy Birthday to You, WOOF!

{LOLA on her actual birthday. I apologize for not putting bows in her hair for the occasion}

Saturday was Lola's 1st Birthday. Not the birthday of the 1st day we had her, but her actual BIRTHday. In the words of Allie, I'm an idiot savant, so I remember tons of silly things. Like for example ~ my 10 year high school reunion is being planned as we speak, and we are having it on the birthday of one of the girls planning it. Even after 10 years, I know that her birthday is October 16th. Such a silly waste of space, BUT it's the charm of me!

I'm admittedly crazy about my dog, but all we did to celebrate was sing a few times & enjoy a denti-chew. I know... such a splurger!

2 days after we brought Lola into our home, I called my mom in a panic! She was on her way to Kentucky & Justin was far away in Atlanta. Lola had her first flea and I was a basket case. I thought for sure she was going to die from the fleas and my house would be infested with them. I quickly got her into the Dr. & $100 she was good as new. If you're thinking of buying a puppy, let me be the first to tell you that they cost way more than their initial cost!

Less than 1 year later we're dozing on the couch enjoying a perfect Sunday afternoon and Justin says, "Hey, what's this on her back." Holy Hell... it's a TICK! ICK! I can feel the tears welling up, but I keep it together, because Justin is here and there is a good chance that from the 40 Days & 40 nights of rain we've gotten in Mississippi {Sorry to those of you in Drought mode} we've got a yard infested with nasty ticks & gawd knows what else.

There is an art to removing ticks, and you have to grab them by the head, not the body with tweezers, lest you run the risk of the ticks head breaking off into the body. Once the tick is removed, you can not flush it OR try to kill it in water, you need rubbing alcohol. We don't have any rubbing alcohol, so I drowned the little turd in WINE! It totally did the trick and made me feel very resourceful!

She's totally a toot nanny & after spending a week with Sid I now realize just how neurotic she is. Justin thinks it's because she's a puppy, but I kind of think she'll always be this way. Either way, I'd pick her out of the litter every time.

{Read about the 1st day that we ever brought Lola Home ~ HERE.}

Have you hugged your hair girl today?

If you took the time to follow my hair journey on twitter, you probably know by now that it did not end well.

This isn't a great picture, but this is the cut I asked for...The Long Angled Gwenyth, and this is what I got...The Rachel. Which is basically what I already had after much over growth, and was trying to get rid of the bulky top layers!

{Please excuse my looks in the 2nd pic... I was headed for the gym}

If you look closely, you can see the random high-lights that she ran through my hair. I asked for a few light blonde high-lights (I know it looks good on my dark hair, because I've done it before). I told her I didn't want bulky high-lights, so she took that to mean that I wanted a partial high-light but only high-light a couple of strands at a time.

Ultimately, my hair looked like this... 1. Up Close ~ I ran golden orange high lights through my lovely black hair. 2. Far Away ~ I had stringy grey hairs popping up all over.

Neither of these were the look I was going for. I should have know things were going to be horribly wrong when she said, "Oh, I don't think we'll be able to put blonde in your hair." Umm...trust me... I've had every color from blonde, black, red & purple in my hair... you can put blonde in my hair.

I sat there for 3.5 hours of my life and this is what I got. A very basic trim & bad, bad, bad color. I have gotten bad color 3 times in my life. Once was at a salon in Austin, and I called and they fixed it perfect ~ didn't charge me a dime and gave me a glass of wine. The other was in Lexington, and when I went back they messed it up worse for free, so I gave up.

I called yesterday after giving it a couple of days and asked them what they charged to fix. Just being polite... never want to assume that they fix for free, and she said she'd charge me the cost of the product ~ $10 & since she was so booked I'd have to dry my own hair. I lied and told her my hair cut was fine, because I didn't have 3 extra hours to sit around and let her chop away aimlessly at my hair!

I had to hold back tears the entire time I was drying my hair, because I was humiliated and so so so frustrated. I spent $118 on the trim and bad color, $15 on a tip for her, $10 to have my eyebrows waxed, $2 on a tip for her, $10 more on the "fix product" to make my hair look like it did 3 days ago before I ever walked in. So, in total I've spent $157 in the last week at this salon for what I could have done at home for $11.84 at wal*mart. Oh, I probably would have had to pay $12 at Master Cuts for that FABU trim she gave me. If you know me personally, you know how much of a luxury it is to get my hair done and how it pains me to WASTE that much money. I've had a sick pit in my stomach for the past 3 days... do you know how much shopping I could do at TJ Maxx for $157? ARRRGGGGG!

I am so so so angry. I can't even imagine if any of you came into my restaurant and ordered something and I gave you something else and them made you just pay cost to get what you asked for. I am thinking of writing them a professional & polite letter letting them know how they hurt my feelings and how embarrassed they should be for treating their paying customers that way. I am definitely going to wait until I can calm down enough to not form tears when I think about it.

What would y'all do? For now, I just want to say that if any of you got here by googling ~ Belle Ame Salon Tupelo, MS ~ DO NOT WASTE YOUR PRECIOUS TIME OR YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY! I will NEVER go back to that salon under any circumstances and I will NEVER recommend Belle Ame Salon Tupelo, MS to ANY ONE I come in contact with.

{If you are interested in seeing what my hair looks like now, scroll back to the previous post}

Headed to the HairPort!

After a little consultation, I finally pulled the trigger and booked a hair appointment in Tupelo! It's a little salon right up the road from my work and it's in an old cool looking building, so I figured it would work for me!

I'm a little nervous, because I haven't found any pictures of color I like, so I'm going to have to explain myself away and hope for the best!

This is my current hair, and I apologize in advance for it being so hard to see, because of the black on black, but hopefully you can get the idea. It's a little bit past my shoulders in length and major major overgrown everywhere else! I'm going to get them to run a few highlights through to give it dimension & shape up that cut! I'm embarrassed to admit that i have NO idea when I got my last hair cut... OOOPS! Sorry, Ali!

Anyway ~ I am writing to inform you that I will be ~Twittering~ my entire experience beginning at 2:30pm central time if any of you are bored at work and need something to keep you entertained!

Wish me luck!

Memphis in May

{UPDATE: Shopping trip cancelled due to husband... I mean BOSS taking back my morning off! Wife... I mean employee is not happy, but hoping we can recreate this day next week.}

I take my weekends/days off when I can get them, and I managed to finagle a few hours off tomorrow morning & sister decided to hit to road! I've recently come up on one of the best problems in the world to have & none of my clothes fit! Which could only mean one thing... I MUST go shopping!



I am up early this morning, because I've searched every corner of TJ Maxx Tupelo & now it's time to move onto Memphis! They have fun treasure chest that this town has never seen!

My plans are to hit up...


Forever 21 ~ I am currently accepting bets on whether or not I'll walk away with more jewelry than actual clothes. So bad at that!

Marshall's ~ I wasn't a huge Marshall's fan until I moved to Lex and that was what I had on my side of town. Typically I can find good clearance items, but I'll probably find the exact same things that are in my TJ Maxx... except at a higher price.

Target ~ This is a case of always wanting what you can't have. I completely took having 1 or multiple Targets in my town for granted until I didn't have a Target in my town. Would love to stumble upon a Super Target, but am not going out of the way.

{Pardon my incomplete sentences... I Love to Twitter!}

Also, I will be connecting with a NEW bloggy friend, LeAnna. She grew up in Tupelo and is a total Jillian Michael's Personal Trainer. I fully expect her to meet me and call me a lazy fat ass! Look... this is LeAnna and her husband Todd at The Cotton Bowl. I'm thinking if she likes college football enough to travel to the bowl game we.will.get.along.famously.

Blog readers might be strangers, but they aren't that strange.

I, like most of you, read blogs through the Google Reader. One of my favorite things about google reader is that it picks an assortment of blogs that I might be interested in. Really, if you're a blog lover and keep up with more than a couple of blogs you should really look into Google Reader. I won't even get mad atcha if you want to just read this blog from reader and never directly hit again. So, in the past few months that I've used google reader I've started following numerous blogs that belong to people that I've met only through the crazy little thing called the world wide web.

The thing I hate about google reader actually has nothing to do with google reader at all, but I HATE when people that I've been following through reader make their blogs private because they are worried about all the creepy people lurking in the blog reader world. No, I am NOT going to email you so I can be invited to your private blog reading party unless you are my REAL LIFE FRIEND, because that's where blog strangers start to get the creepy wrap. Call me naive, but I think that if all of us blog readers got together to share a glass of wine and all our stories, we'd find out that we're really not that creepy after all.

If you'll remember in December, I posted that I was moving to Tupelo, Mississippi, and blog lover Shanda mentioned she lived nearby and liked to eat and shop there. Since I hate eating and shopping I never contacted her again. The End.

Only kidding! We met at the mall a week after I have arrived and have found time to see each other at least once a week since then to share meals or drag the stores! It boggles my mind a little to think about how people randomly come into your life and you share many similarities. She and I love the wine, love to shop and love to goss... we are both newly-wed to husbands that err on the conservative side of life... hers is a preacher and mine went to seminary. See, all us blog readers are more alike than we probably think.

While Justin is my other half, it goes without saying that women need other women...be it in person, through google reader or over the phone. It's amazing how developing a relationship with a good girlfriend can make you feel settled and at home. Today marks my first month in Tupelo and I can honestly say that it's a pleasure to be here.

Lesli & Shanda

SuperBowl Supper 2009

forget the superbowl..."UUUUUUUHHHHHHHHH!"

I swore when I moved to Lexington that they had the best local television commercials I had ever seen, and that was coming from a girl who grew up in east Texas. Not actual good quality but ridiculously bad homemade videos that get me every time... kind of like Hands on a Hard Body. Oh, but then I moved to Mississippi and after three weeks, THESE are the best commercials I have EVER seen. Justin drug me out of bed the other night for this one, and I've never been less mad at him in my entire married life!

Please take one minute out of your blog reading to view this jem of a commerical. Especially Andy and Ali, this stuff is made for the two of you!

Best.Line.Ever. "And once again it's on and I got tha hook up. UUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

-EDIT: I think I should rephrase. I love Hands on a Hard Body and the filming and editing are fantastic. I was comparing the characters of that movie to the characters of this video.