Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Freedom!

From my desk I can smell the cookies baking for afternoon social.

Miley Cyrus is Partyin' In The USA behind me on the bookshelf CD player.

Sunshine is streaming through the windows and somewhere not too far in the distance; Sylvester our house cat is lickin' his chops at the possibility of noshing on Tweety bird - my residents were so original in naming our beloved pets nes pas?

I'm at work but to be perfectly honest- work here on the weekends is more like hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's house than working.

So far today I've made countless pots of coffee and enjoyed a warm bagel and conspiracy theory conversation while my residents devoured sugary donuts and buckets of the afore mentioned coffee.

I've led chair excercises and given trivia quizzes.

I read a bridal magazine while covering a lunch shift for the concierge and assisted a resident who volunteers to call Bingo.

I've made 6 dozen M&M cookies and poured countless glasses of milk and pink lemonade.

I've typed a months worth of daily Activity schedules and sent pertinant emails.

I've wiped the counters in my room and the surface of my desk and organized my paper work so that tomorrow I can complete it all and put it all to bed so that Monday I can spend the day "playing" with the residents on the holiday and leave that night for my six days off knowing that everything will well taken care of AND that no one will call me to ask me questions!

Its been a good day and its not been a bad 6 days but once the next 2 are over and my 8 day stretch is complete- I'll be happy to have the next 6 to decompress, wedding plan, and enjoy the annual festival in my home town that is always sure to bring about muc debauchery.

For Now...

Happy Weekend!

Miss Amber Lane

Welcome Baby Camrynn Chapman!

Welcome to the world little baby Camrynn Curtis Chapman!

After 21 hours of labor and one c-section later for Momma Kara, our friend Chris became a daddy! We journied up to Hamilton after my doc. apt (more on that in a bit) to visit the blessed child. Of course I left my camera at work so all we had were our cell phones so we could only snap a few pics.

Ben had the baby's face covered up here but I love this picture because this is the very first time Boo has ever held a baby! He was kind of tense but he looks pretty stoked to be doing it which of course makes me a little warm and fuzzy!

Speaking of fuzzy....

Here is the proud papa with his brand new son. The picture is blurry but I just couldn't leave it out. Ben has known Chris since elementary school and I have known him since middle school and we just couldn't be happier for him and Kara!

Afterwards Boo and I visited the Hamilton Sonic. There are no Sonics terribly close to us so this was Ben's very first visit and only my second!

We didn't want to eat in the new car so we sat outside at one of the picnic tables and enjoyed the perfect end of summer weather!

All we can say is- Yum!

It was a good night!

My earlier doc appointment- not so great. After height and weight checks the nurse took my bp and it was outrageous because I was so nervous about being in the doctor's office- when the doc came in he asked me about it and I told him its always high when I first come in and then it gradually gets lower the longer that I am there. So he took it again and it had dropped 20 points but was still high - especially for a 25 year old. So he checked my heart and noted my elevated heart rate which he said confirmed the anxiety I complained of earlier and merited one prescrip for performance anxiety meds.

Because my bp was still a little high though I am supposed to have the nurse at my work check my bp twice a week for the next couple of weeks as a test to see if the high bp is a result of anxiety or if I am actually hypertensive. That and I have to have labs run- yippee. Talk about giving a girl high blood pressure- make her fast for 12 hours and stick her with needles- yikes.

And I thought I was just going in to meet and greet to get set up with a new doctor. Nope instead I'm being treated for anxiety, tested for high blood pressure and on the schedule for at least 2 more appointments in the next few weeks.

Fun.

Anyhow. Work beckons and I still have 3.5 days left in my 8 day stretch (remember when I told you it was 7...miscalculated- it is 8!). I hope everyone enjoys their long weekends. I will be sure to enjoy my long 6 day week/weekend once the end of this non-stop work fest ends on Monday evening!

Ciao for now!

Miss Amber Lane

Show us your life- school pictures

It's Show Us Your Life Friday at Kelly's Korner- and today we are featuring School Pictures!

My mom has all my actual school pictures so I tried to find ones I already had on my compy that correspond with certain grades (apologies to my followers who may have already seen these last month)- because getting pictures from mom is a torture session- she'll invite me over to go through pictures and take some- but then when I see ones that I want she tells me she can't bare to part with them!


Preschool:



2nd grade: I was off to a tea party




3rd grade: Christmas with my cousins. Notice how big track suits were back then - swish!

4th grade: I was wearing a hot pink onsie and a green floral headband - I was stylin. Meg and I were experiencing some major pink on pink crime here. This was one of my most awkward stages.

5th grade: I had literally just gotten back from a month in Australia the night before and the next day had to hop states to go visit my brand new nephew Devin. Here I am with him for the first time. You can't really see it but I am wearing a tshirt that spells out, "down under" in eucalyptus leaves and koala earrings- G'day mate!

9th grade: I don't have any junior high pictures on my computer but I know I do have some at home I'll have to work out that one because those are... fun. Here I am with a group of friends after Young Life one night.

10th grade: The next 4 pics you will see were all taken within the same year- this a very clear depiction of how my hair magically changed to blonde and my brunette days were no more....

Homecoming game 1999

Homecoming dance 1999: Sitting outside the restaurant where we had dinner. I'm in the middle with my then-boyfriend Ronni. Notice who's over to the left there? Yup, that's Bennyboo!

Spring break in Tennessee 2000. Before blonde, my hair turned red as though by "magic"!

Summer right before the start of junior year 2000: And then she was peroxide blonde. This was when my friend Jen and I discovered bleach.

Senior Year Spring Break: Gatlinburg : Strawberry blonde.

2002 High school graduation party- back to blonder!

Hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane! When I get home today I'm going to look to see if I have any ACTUAL school pictures but I thought this would be a good start.

I'm so glad women are like fine wine and we only improve with age!

Thanks for stopping by!

Miss Amber Lane

Feathering Our Nest

I don't know if its the crispy weather we are having in Southern Ohio right now, or if its knowing that in just 10 short months I'm going to be a Mrs....but I'm in the mood for a major home re-boot.

As I've mentioned before we live in a very "vintage" town home in a historical ( all be it in need of some tlc) town. We are up against a leaky basement, teensy kitchen (read: no counter space) and very modest closet space. We also do not have a defined dining/living room space- just one "great" room where everything kind of rolls on together. That is my biggest source of discontent.

Our main living space is a living room, rolled into a dining room, rolled into an office. The living room area its self isn't so bad its cozy and mostly complete but the rest is an un put together mess. Especially Ben's "office" area. He insisted on the biggest honkenest desk from ikea imaginable and it is just stacked with boxed collectibles, paper work and his junk. And because its such a prominant peice of furniture- the eye is immediately drawn to it. So I've come up with a plan to rearrange things to give us a much more practical living space.

How about some pictures to help you visualize? I've never posted pictures of our living space before so for the first time officially welcome to our home! I warn you that these pictures were taken with the house "as is" I didn't run around picking up empty glasses or run the sweeper just for pictures so sorry- we're only human!

Our Main Living Area:

TV area: I mostly like this space- its comfy and lived in as Boo is clearly demonstrating for you. If we we're going to leave the living space on this end I would begin looking for a more eye-catching peice of wall art to put on that far wall. (As you can see I pulled out the fall decorations today and began rummaging---I'm impatient)

I also want new curtains- those sheers are boring and let in too much light!

This is the "dining room" - More fall and decorative stuff sitting out on the table (A post about all my thrifty finds to come!). You can see how the table is literally at the end of our couch!

This is Ben's desk area - the desk takes up so much space and has nothing on or around it to catch the eye. Except for these things: Nerd paraphenalia that I prefer to hide anyway:

And all together now:

This is just to show how the "dining room" runs right into the "office". I know it looks a mess with all my hodge podge on the table but the point I'm trying to illustrate is how close together everything is with no clear division.

And the rest:

Side yard door directly to the left of the desk

On the wall opposite the desk....say hello to Bryndel Bear who's nap I was interrupting!

And a shot further into the hall.....

SO what is this plan I speak of? Well that brings me to the sad part of the story. I'm seriously considering relenquishing the guest bedroom- which serves more as a closet/dressing room for me than anything- and changing it into an office.

My guest bedroom/dressing room:

To give us more down stairs space; I would leave the bed but put it up against a wall (seriously we probably use it 4 times a year) I would move my dresser and chest into our mostly-furniture bare bedroom, throw away the beat up desk I spray painted bubblegum pink and use as a vanity( see picture below) and move all my hanging clothes from the cramped closet in the spare bedroom and into the cramped (although slightly more spacious than the guest room) bedroom closet. Ben would move his hanging clothes to the guest room closet ( cause lets be honest- he rarely hangs his clothes) his antique pretty dresser would become a (functional) accent peice in the hall or guest room and then (after all this blah blah blah) the giant honkin' desk would come to live in the spare bedroom - thus giving us more space to set up specific living room and dining room space downstairs. I would move our TV area to the space where the desk is, trade our teeny dining table in for a larger one and set up a dining area where the current TV area is....WHEW!

It sounds like a good idea in theory- its just making it happen that's going to be the challenge. Its also a little sad because the extra bedroom has been the one place that is completely under my control. I painted it a buttery yellow and have allowed it to be a girly haven complete with pastel pink curtains and ribbons and the whole she-bang. If that room is messy its completely my fault for not keeping up with it- and if its clean (which it usually is) then thats all my doing too. If I give that room to Ben it will become his space- meaning that no space in our house will be just mine and means that my girly, froofy, shabby chic days are numbered. But in honesty the whole room isn't as functional and as cute as those first two pictures lead you to believe.

Case in point:

The desk. My computer is on it but not hooked up to the internet...or power supply for that matter. I mainly use it as a vanity.

My clothing rack is just taking up space on one wall with nothing else on it.

My closet is literally that small....on the right side there are shelves for folded close and on the left there is duct work.....the closet in our bedroom is somewhat biggerbecause there are no shelves or duct work.

Overall though- I feel this is the best decision to give us more space so that we can spread out and organize (which I love) so I'm thinking I'm probably going to have to take one for the team here give up the room and get on with my life.

The first thing I'm going to do here is try moving the upstairs rooms around- and stop using the guest room as my dressing room. If we can make that transition work we will proceed with the rest of the move. If not- we're stuck.

We'll see how it goes.

Wish us luck- or better yet if you have suggestions please share!

Looove!

Miss Amber Lane

NOTE: I've been working on this post for awhile- as of 9/12 the bedrooms have been rearranged and the spare bedroom is anxiously awaiting the desk to be moved into it. So far its working out really well! Stay tuned for pictures of the transition coming this way soon!

Oh and....

Went with Meggy to her final dress fitting on Friday night and fun with veils and necklaces....
(Disclaimer: pleas ignore the shiny face, glasses, and super slicked back hair)

I'm seriously considering that blingy, sparkly choker (the cross below is my everyday necklace)

I also used to think I wanted my veil to be very low, like at the nape of my neck.

Not anymore! I loved the look of it up high- all I could think was, "How Bride-y...I love it!)

Isn't it funny how things change?!?!

Scattered Thoughts

1. I am ridiculously perky for a Monday! Especially considering that this is day number one of a 7 day stretch. I've literally been bouncing around work today! I guess that's a good thing though- I'm going to need my perkiness to get me through!

2. I am in love with the weather today! Its in the low 70s and breezy and makes me giddy for fall! Summer is my favorite...until labor day and the pools close...then its fall all the way!

3. In celebration of the crispy (although I'm sure short-lived) weather today I bought three very cute light weight cardigan-type sweaters today on my lunch break!

4. While I am just now at the beginning of a 7 day work stretch I can't be to glum because I will have next Tuesday-Sunday off whilst only using 1 (that's right) 1 vacation day. That is phenom!

5. Next week while I'm off it will be wedding week extroirdinaire! We are having our cake tasting, florist meeting, and engagement pictures all next week AND one of my favoritest people in the world: Miss Rachel Ann and her fiance Brett will be visiting me mid- week and more wedding fun is sure to ensure- aside from just plain fun in general!

6. Probably bordering on TMI here but I HATE Vicky C's pink cheeky panties- they are terrible and they droop- they are totally not meant for flat bootied girls such as moi.

7. Ben is doing some work out of the home this evening for some extra cash and I hate to say it but I am super excited at the idea of coming home to a Boo-less house! I'm not making dinner- I'm picking up a small pizza sub from Penn Station and watching whatever I want on TV, then I'll spend some time cleaning without Ben there to ...well let's be honest...get in the way!

8. I spent 45 minutes of my work day working a jigsaw puzzle- on the clock- tell me that isn't an awesome way to spend your day with the over 80 set?!?

9. Bought my engagement picture dress this weekend- its a little black dress but I'm styling it up with some super cute red peep toe pumps and a red belt...allthough our photographer actually mentioned shooting in the woods to me today and I'm thinking- seriously? Boo and I are not woods people- I will however play along and bring a pair of flats just in case he really does convince me to trek through the wilderness.

10. With the pools closing this weekend and me working right on through the sad occasion- I am resuming my fall/winter tannnig bed habit --- tonight.

Well, my work day has come to a close and I am on my way right out the door. I have been planning to resume Kelly's Korner Show Us Your Life but just haven't found the time and also don't feel as though I have much to say that's interesting- my bridal shower hasn't happened yet, most of my close friends haven't had children yet thus no baby showers, and we're so busy paying for wedding things that we haven't taken a vacation but once the topic is something I'm more familiar with I'll jump right back on the band wagon.

For now though, I'm jumping in the car and going home!

Much Love!

Miss Amber Lane