Where's the palm tree?

Every time I tell someone that I work in retail, I inevitably get asked, "Have you ever had anyone steal anything?!"

My answer as of Monday morning was "No."

This woman didn't just swipe a tiny jar candle or a car jar.

This chick took the giant palm tree:

She walks in with a kid in a stroller and two older girls (maybe 7 and 8ish?) in tow. She asked me if the giant snowman ...

was for sale.

Me: "It is, but we're not allowed to sell the holiday props until after Thanksgiving. And unfortunately, it has already been claimed by another customer."

She responds, I suppose, but it wasn't memorable. She went towards the back of the store, and I moved on to help two other ladies who were trying to pick out some candles for a coupon. As I was ringing one of them up, or helping them somehow, the woman yells at her daughters to hurry up because they need to leave.

You know how some people stick in your mind because they just give you a super weird vibe? As she was walking out of the store, the woman just stared at me. Her face was super red, and she looked oddly guilty and weird. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but I remember being slightly weirded out by her as she left.

Anyway, after the ladies I was helping left, I looked over and the palm tree was ... gone. It was just gone. I mean, you can't misplace a 2.5-foot tall palm tree.

When my manager got off the phone, I told her it was missing. After scouring videotape footage, we saw her.

She wheeled the stroller around behind the display, picked up the palm tree, looked at it for a few seconds, walked around to the front of her stroller, picked the baby up out of the stroller and put the palm tree inside the stroller. During this whole time, her oldest daughter was moving things around in the back of the stroller.

Who does that with their children watching. Not only watching, but helping her!

So now when I get asked if I've ever seen anyone shoplift, I can honestly say that I have. Go figure that she'd take the palm tree.

The Ace, new friends and the Sox

David and I went to Baltimore last Saturday. He took me to my first Red Sox game! It's much cheaper than going to a game in Boston. :)

When we first got into town, I had to visit the Ace. The Ace of Cakes.


I watch "The Ace of Cakes" on the Food Network all the time. It's about this baker in Baltimore named Duff (he's the Ace) who runs Charm City Cakes. It's a super fun show, and I definitely wanted to see the bakery while I was in the city. We drove for about 20 blocks or so once we got off the highway and found it right in the middle of the hood.

They black out the windows with paper so you can't see inside since it's such a tourist place, I would imagine. Anyway, you should watch the show. :)

Unashamed of my mini photo shoot outside of the bakery, we headed back towards the ballpark and the inner harbor to meet up with David's friend Becka from college at Ithaca.

I experienced the most delicious dessert I have ever had at Pizzeria Uno. Sadly, I don't have a picture of it, but they baked this chocolate chip cookie in a wrought iron pan. It was super moist and they put ice cream and whipped cream on top of it. I'm fairly certain that and the pizza we ate contained more calories than I should've eaten in a month, but it was totally worth it.

So I made a new friend in Becka. I totally get why David's stayed so close to her since college. She's awesome, and we all had so much fun hanging out that day! Her sister, Emma, came and joined us at the end of lunch and then we walked around the city, killing time until the game.


We had so much fun! It was beautiful on the harbor that day. It was hot, but the breeze felt wonderful. Becka spotted a carousel, so of course we had to ride. David stood with the dads and took our picture.


Then it was GAME TIME!


We changed into our Red Sox gear. As an aside, I would like to point out that there were far more Red Sox fans than Baltimore Orioles fans there. I felt kind of bad for them considering it was their home. The ballpark was beautiful! We sat behind home plate in the third section above the field. It was far away, but the vantage point was actually quite good. We could really see all of the action!


Obviously, the Red Sox won! We had a fantastic day in Baltimore! It was so much fun spending time with David's friends, seeing the Ace and watching the Sox beat up on the Orioles!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered — They're yours!

The invitations have been mailed! Hours and hours after starting to address and assemble them, the invitations are finally sent!

Our guest list definitely grew and grew and grew. 244 people (not including children) and 127 invitations. We originally planned on 180-200 people. Ha! I know everyone won't come, but we'll definitely have more people than we planned. :)

I'm SO excited to start getting the RSVP cards back and finally have confirmation that people are coming to see us get married!!! I'm stoked to start my little collection of RSVP cards. :)

(That wasn't a plug-in to send in your RSVP cards, because I'm doing that now. If you got an invite, please let us know if you're coming! :) Thanks!)

We're getting married in 46 days!

"I wish I could have known you better."

Along with "I love you," these were the last words that David's grandfather said to me.

Me too, Pops. Me too. I wish I could have known you better, too.



From the first time I met you, you made me feel completely at ease and like a member of the family. You told me your stories from the war days. With such pride and a heart full of love, you told me so many stories about David and the times he spent with you growing up.

In the short time I knew you, I grew to love you like a grandfather. I saw in the first moments I spent with you how much you loved your family, especially your wife.

I'm glad your passing was peaceful today, but you are already missed. I know how much David loves you, and that makes it hurt even more. I'm so sad that you won't be there to see us married in October. I know how much you wanted to do everything you could to be there celebrating with us on that day. And on that day, you will be in our hearts. We are honored that you wanted David to wear your ring. Every time we look at it, we will remember you and how much you meant to everyone you knew.

I love you. I miss you. And I wish I could have known you better.

Smelling sweet

I'm working at Yankee Candle again. But this time, I'm one of the store managers! I'm still in training right now, and there's a lot to remember. I had no idea there was so much involved in being a manager. It's going to be great experience, though, and I'm really excited about it!

I'm at the same store that I worked at in college — The Streets at Southpoint. You should come visit me sometime at the store and smell all the nice, new scents! :)

The company is encouraging employees to find out people's favorite scents, so they have a small hutch in each store with the employees' favorite candles on it. So there is a Lemon Lavender candle up in our store with my name on it. :)


Do any of you have a favorite? :)

I'll be in training for another week and a half or so, so that means I'm working a lot of closing shifts. Closing the store is much more complicated than opening it, since you obviously have to count the money in both registers and make sure everything adds up and is ready for the next day.

Come visit me at the store! You know you want to. ;)

A beautiful start

Our new house is absolutely gorgeous! We're so blessed to have such a wonderful home!

I haven't posted pictures yet for two reasons: I wanted to get things straightened and set up a bit, and I also just realized my camera is broken. The screen on it is shattered, so I'm taking it in tomorrow to find out if it's worth it to fix the screen or if it would be more cost efficient to just get a new one.

Anyway, all of the web sites online have taken the photos of the house off since it's off the market. So Google maps is all I've got at the moment ...


That's our beautiful house!! :) If you can't tell, it's a pale yellow color. I wasn't crazy about it at first, but it's grown on me — I LOVE it now!

We were afraid we wouldn't be able to close on time because our mortgage lender was not cooperating! The night before we were supposed to close, they wanted "one last thing" that we provided for them at 9 a.m. the next morning. At 11 a.m., the closing time, we were at the attorney's office with our Realtor, and our packet of information hadn't arrived yet. No one bothered to call and tell us it wouldn't be on time.

Anyway, after about 45 minutes, we finally hear from our contact at the lender. He wanted "one more thing." So we drove to David's office, picked up the info and drove it over to the lender's office. We kind of tried to rush him along a little bit, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry.

At 2 p.m., there was still no packet. The lender said it might be by 2:30. We gave up about 2:45 and headed to the courthouse for David to close a case. At 3:15, the lender called for "one last thing." As David tried to explain to him the misleading meaning of "one last thing," the lender was still very unsympathetic.

It turns out that was actually the one last thing, since they got the closing papers at 4:30. We booked it down to the attorney's office and were able to fill out the paperwork by 6 p.m. Go figure! It was a day full of "We're closing!" "We're not closing." "We're closing!" "We're not closing." But in the end, everything went well, and we were able to get our perfect home!

I have been a painting fool in the past week! I have painted the large guest bedroom, primed and painted the small guest bedroom, painted the guest bathroom and primed the downstairs half bath.

Today, I tackled the impossible master bedroom! I am exhausted, but I finally made it through the walls in that room. The bedroom is huge, first of all. But second, the ceiling vaults from a standard 8-foot ceiling to a 12-foot ceiling. There's also a ledge about 11-feet high that I had to paint. We're still not sure what we're going to use to decorate it. This photo is similar to our ledge (this is not our house, just something similar) just to give you an idea what it looks like:



The room looks beautiful in the gray-blue paint to match our bedding set:



I'm so excited to set everything up! There are tons of boxes everywhere, and we're still not sure where all of our furniture will go, but we'll figure it out. As soon as I get a working camera, I'll take a few more photos of the rooms that are set, clean and ready to be seen! :)

I can't wait until after the wedding when I can live there, too! It's hard setting everything up all day and then leaving in the evening. :) David's staying in the house before the wedding.

We can't wait for you all to come see it!

A quick thank you

I know that I've made a big deal about this on Facebook, but I thought it deserved a blog post as well.

Nicole and Kelsey threw me a lovely bridal shower on July 18! We had 10 people there, I think. Nicole's parents were in town, so her mother was able to come. Her sister-in-law also had just arrived back in the States from a while on the mission field.

Despite already committing the day to her friend, Lindsey was able to come as well, since she was already up this way.

David's mother was there, despite getting some sad news regarding her father's health on the way there.

My mom, grandmother and one of my aunts (Karen), also came!

The girls did such a great job, and everything was so cute! They had everything laid out in pink, orange and brown, the three wedding colors! The punch was delicious, and there was a ton of yummy snacks!


I love these girls! I'm so thankful for my bridal party. They have been such a huge help considering I frequently need help deciding things about the wedding and trying to figure out what to do for certain things. Kelsey provides a unique perspective considering she just went through this herself last month. Lindsey got married a couple years ago, so everything is still very fresh for her, too. And Nicole knows me better than I probably know myself, so that's a huge help! Thank you ladies for all of your help and for the shower. I love you so much! And for the girls who weren't able to come, I missed you and can't WAIT to see you soon!

Anyway, there has been a lot going on the past month. David and I just bought a house, so there will be more on that just as soon as I can grab a picture!

Which house should we get?

David and I are trying to decide between two houses at this point. We're going back to see them both today, and we need to make a decision this weekend so we can move on one of them Monday.

Here's the deal with each of them:

David's favorite is in the Raleigh city limits, so it's closer to friends, family, jobs, etc. It's smaller than the other one, and our furniture won't fit quite as well. But the neighborhood is beautiful (it's a golf community with gorgeous homes), the home is on a corner lot and the equity in the home would be pretty good, we're thinking. It has brick on the outside, which is a huge plus. This house is a resale.

My favorite is in Fuquay-Varina, about 20-30 minutes south of Raleigh. It would be a longer commute to friends, family, work, etc. But the home is larger, and our furniture would fit very well. It's on a cul-de-sac lot that backs up to a wooded area and a greenway, which you can't actually see. The neighborhood is nice, but it's not amazing like the other one. It also doesn't have any brick. But this house is new, so there's a possibility we could get the builder to add a few features here and there (i.e. a refrigerator).

Any thoughts?

BY THE NUMBERS: Moving style

So in the spirit of Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette style, I think my move back to North Carolina can be summed up in a "BY THE NUMBERS" box, which is a graphic element the paper uses to pull out important numbers from a story.

BY THE NUMBERS

7
Hours it took to drive a 4.5-hour drive with the truck back to Raleigh

8
Total family members, including me, it took to move

9
Total hours it took just to load and unload the truck

16
Total hours from beginning to end that the move took, including drive time (8 a.m.-midnight)

10 x 20
Size in feet of my storage unit, which we filled to the door

26
Length in feet of my moving truck (and yes, we filled the entire thing to the door)


I'm so grateful to my parents, David, Nicole, my future father-in law, Uncle Rich and Cousin Bryant for helping me! I love you guys, and you all really came through for me. I cannot thank you enough for helping me!

Home, sweet home!

David and I are going to look at houses this weekend! We are so blessed that we're going to be able to get a house, especially since we'll be able to take advantage of the tax credit.

We're just starting the process, so we won't be buying anything for a couple of months. We definitely will want to buy it before the wedding, though, so I'll be able to jump in there and fix everything up in time so we won't have to worry about it too much after the wedding. We've got about 10 or so houses that we're interested in, so we're going to look at the first four this weekend. We've hired a Realtor, so they'll be working with us to find us the best deal and the best home for us.

Want to see the ones we're looking at Saturday? Here they are, in order of my favorite to least favorite:

1. 2204 Water Spray Drive — This one is immaculate. I love the stonework on the outside and sheer elegance of the house inside. When I picture the home I'd live in, it looks very similar to this one on the outside.

2. 3421 Opequon Drive — I love the stonework mixed with vinyl siding. Also, the kitchen is beautiful. This is, by far, the best kitchen of any of the ones we're seeing. It's very modern looking.

3. 161 Longbay Street — I like the kitchen and dining room areas. I think we'd have to add an island in the kitchen with this one, though, since the kitchen is a bit small. I've got a tiny kitchen in my apartment now, and I will never live somewhere with a lame kitchen again.

4. 3209 Octawa Trail — Imagine, if you can, that none of the walls are painted the hideous colors that the current homeowners have painted it, and you will see a unique, pleasant home underneath. The kitchen isn't huge, but it has an island, which is key. (I love black or stainless steel appliances, by the way.) I'm also not crazy about the outside color of the house, but I think I could get used to it. One downside to this home is that we'd have to spend a fortune in paint just to cover up their horrible choices. But I'm going to paint anywhere we live, so I guess it's not that huge a deal. ;) Check out the orange room. Orange? Seriously, guys? Ew.

Anyway, all of these homes are great. We won't really know for sure how we feel about them until we go in them, obviously. Our favorites could become impossibilities after we've seen the inside of them, and the ones we liked so-so could become favorites!

I can't wait to start looking on Saturday! It's definitely a buyer's market out there right now, so we're going to be homebuyers at a perfect time!