10 Years of being an Aunt.

Today marks the day.
10 years ago I watch a baby be born for the first time.
I was 14 and I'm so happy I was there to be able to see my nephew come into the world and take his first breath.
There were 5 of us in the room-not including his mom, my bro, and the doctors. So there was a room full.
And we cried, and cried, and cried.

2003. I don't have a pic from the day of birth on hand right now, but this wasn't too long after.

I love that boy so much it hurts.
I hate what he's had to go through so far in only 10 years of life.
To be honest, becoming an aunt is kind of what sparked me wanting to be a mom.
Not right away, of course, but you get the picture.
He lived with us for the first year and a half of his life & so we all took part in helping him learn and grow.
I loved it.
He's grown into quite the little boy.
I'm hard on him sometimes but it's only because I want him to be appreciative of what he does have. I just hope that he can see that. He still tells me he loves me so, even though I don't feel like he does sometimes, I'll take his word for it.
It's been a slightly rough road for him, but I hope that it only continues to get better.
If all else fails he'll have Aunt Sissy here, to lay down the law to him. :)

July 2013

Happy 10th Birthday the best nephew, ever! ♥
I'm so ready to see him this weekend & have CAKE!

& In other news.
My daddy was picked for the gator hunt this year! :)
My brother was picked last year and he took my daddy & my hubs with him and they nabbed a 5'10 Gator.
Even though you get to take a couple of people with you, one the person drawn gets to kill the gator. So, that gator is my brothers (which he just got back from the taxidermy a couple of weeks ago,..as seen on my IG: @bnba) 
So I reallllly hope they get another this year! It'd just tickle the hell outta my dad, cause it would be his gator!
And if things work the way we think they do, my HubbyLove should hopefully be drawn for it next year!
Now comes the part of them figuring out what days they want to go.
Hopefully it won't interfere with us going to Nopi again!

My on & off friend texted me last night...you know who I'm talking about....
So, that resulted in the fact I am now going to see A7X & The Deftones, with her, in October.
This is good, right?

Anywho, for the rest of today, alls I'm gonna do is try to get rid of this headache and get my FOOTBALL post ready for Erin & Erin's link up tomorrow! Then do some dishes & get and much of supper ready as I can so that when hubs get home we can grill it and eat!
Oh & I might throw some Pinterest in there,
can you believe I haven't been on Pinterest in probably over a week,..maybe close to two.
WHAT?!


Lata lovelies!
♥♥♥
Brandy

WIW, and I'm back...again.

Well, hello there!
Jumping right in...
Part of my 30 before 30 was to reach a goal weight.
So, hubs & myself have set a goal.
We kind of want to lose 10 lbs in a month.
So, we'll see how we do.
Honestly I would be happy if I could lost over 5.

I've been eating SO much lately, so this past weekend & beginning of this week I've had to really be mindful of what I'm eat, or really more so how much & how often I'm eating. I don't quite know why, but it's just like all I can think about is food. There were literally a couple of days last week where that's almost ALL I thought about.

We slacked a lot on our walking, so we're hoping to pick that back up this week.
As far as other working out. It's pretty nonexistent right now.
My target areas, other than my belly, is my arms, thighs, and back. My question for anyone is do you have any good suggestion for arm exercises. I know there are TONS on Pinterest, I have a quite a few pinned that seems like they'd be good. But if you have one that you have actually tried and saw results, let me know. :) Puhhh-lease!

Last week: 165.1
Today: 163.8
Down 1.3 lbs


In other news...that's now really news...
We're housesitting, so I'm back at my computer. And then we now have internet again at home. So my point in this is that I can get back to blogging!
I am a week and a half behind on reading.
So, that's what I'm about to do while I wait on Doug to get home from work.

Oh & can we talk about how excited I am for Bad Grandpa! What is that you ask? Well, yours truly here is a huge Jackass fan, I L-O-V-E Jackass probably more than I should. There is a new movie coming out called Bad Grandpa & the trailer was just released today & I am so ready for October 25!

Y'all, I spent almost $200 on food for just the two of us for only 4 days. -_-
Then I came home & saw this, made my day.


And I'm out.
I don't really know what else to talk about at the moment, I'm kind of blank. So I'ma go do some blog reading. Hopefully I'll have something better to talk about tomorrow.

Lovins.
♥♥♥
Brandy

List Progress Report (link-up)

Do you have a bucket list, summer bucket list, 30 before 30, 101 in 1001, or any other general list of goals?
Link up with Stephanie & Betsy to share your progress and see others progress.
It's a once a month link-up that will be on the last Saturday of every month.
This is the first one.
It's live now and will be live for 5 more days! Link up! :)

Stealing Stephanie's idea of bold=completed, italics= in progress.

I'll talk about my My Summer Bucket List first.

Cookouts- We've had one cookout, but if you count any of the times we've grilled supper, we've had several. ;-)
4th of July- How vague? haha. It was good, that's actually when we had the cookout, at my mother-in-laws, and then we did our own personal fireworks.
Family time- Definitely been happening, and still is.
Concert- One Direction, baby. You can read about that here. I am still wanting to go back to that night. And I'm seeing the Biebs, again, in 2 weeks. 
Movies- since I've made this list we've only been to one movie and it was "Grown Ups 2". Great movie. If you liked the first one you'll probably like this one! Hoping to get a few more in. I really want to see The Conjuring.
Doug's Birthday/My Birthday- Were both successes.
Drink & Relax- I've drank more in the past year or two....I don't know if that's good thing or a bad thing. I'm going with slightly bad since I've gained weight instead of losing. But it's whateva! I feel good...(other than the weight thing...)
Celebrate- check! :-) Today is actually my besties bday.♥

So yea...I think that's about it so far for that one. Falcons practices just started this week, so I'll have to check their schedule and see if I can make it to one.

Now...
Onto my 30 Before 30.

Get a job- will always be in progress until I get one.

Grow as a photographer- Is another that I believe is always in progress. I'm still working on figuring my camera out more and more.

Have a wild encounter- I already know prices of one I want to do, I'm trying to get info for another and then I can make a decision as to which I want to do (or which one I want to do first ;-) )

Build our savings account to a certain amount- I still don't have a goal amount. But call me Suzie Saves-a-lot. I'm a saver (well, most of the time.) So, this is another that's always in progress. I'm doing the 52 weeks saving plans as well as my own systems, read more here.

De-clutter-..I'm not even going to really put this as in progress just yet. I'm starting with my spare room, which contains about 28 boxes (IOW-the whole room is nothing but boxes) of my childhood, basically. I have an idea of what I want to do to start out with nd with my net being kind of down right now it'd be a great time to get started...so hopefully there will be more on this next month! :-) That is the room that will be my scrapbook/craft room, so it kinda needs to be done, as of like a month ago. :-p


So, yeah...nothing fully completed on my 30 Before 30 yet, but it's cool!


♥♥♥
Brandy

I still exist.

We are in limbo with our internet so I'm practically internet-less.
I'm only able to do this because I came to my mother-in-law house so I could do a couple of things.
It's midday Thurs., so I figured I'd type it up & schedule it to post Friday.

It sucks. I don't like being totally disconnected. It leaves me with far too much time for thinking if I have absolutely nothing to do.

But what happened was...
Basically we upgraded our net.
In less than a week (4 or 5 days to be exact) we had apparently use almost 6Gigs of net..
UM, NO.
We returned it and went back to what we had.
ANNNNDD now that one isn't even connecting.

They are supposed to be checking it out in the next couple of days.
Sending trucks out to check the towers (I'm assuming) or whatever.
So, we should hopefully know by Sunday what's going on.

That being said.

I'll probably be sporadic over the next week-ish.
If it's not resolved then I'll probably actually be kind of absent.
(I will at least have a few days of net access next week, we're house sitting for a few days.)


I'm still here though.
:-)
Thanks to everyone who is still around.
You're awesome!

I'll have A LOT of catching up to do with reading once I have more time! So If I comment on a post a week after it was posted, you'll know why! :)

OH! And ATTENTION anyone with a 30 Before 30, or 101 in 1001, or Bucket List or ANY kind of list that you are doing.
My girl Steph is hosting a once a month link up to talk about progress, or updates, or anything involving your list. The first one will go live tonight at 7pm (central time) & will be live for a week! So, go visit her & link up! Share your list, talk about progress, and see what great things and goals other people are striving towards! :)

TGIF & shit!

Lovins!
♥♥♥
Brandy

Love/Hate it!

I had no idea what to even talk about today since my days have been pretty mundane.
So, lets talk about a few things that I have a love/hate relationship with...

Love when my favorite song comes on the radio in the car.
Hate that it always seems to happen when I pull into the driveway.
So what if I own the song, any opportunity to hear it is amazing. You're not going to not listen! And I will ALWAYS sit in the car and listen to it. You know what makes it even worse? When that song is finally over and another amazing one comes on, making it impossible for you to leave your vehicle.

Love cooking. Mmm, food.
Hate cooking. Ha, I'm kidding. Hate the aftermath.
I always make a mess of sorts. Not kidding, if I ever cook for you or with you, I will make a mess. It could range from one small spill to slinging noodles across the room & then dropping meat on the floor, then spilling some sauce on the counter. But in the end I have a good ass pot of spaghetti cooked! Don't worry any sling-age, drop-age, or spillage is discarded. haha 

I'll be like, "You want some chocolate miiiilllk?"

 

But then I remember...

Love cleaning. Who doesn't love a clean house?
Hate well, cleaning; having to actually muster up the energy to clean it.
I'm a tad lazy sometimes. And a lot of it is so. damn. tedious. So there are times when you just decide, nope not today. But then you realize two months later that, yeah, you should probably do the laundry and wash the dishes...and maybe clean the toilet. And should you wait that long in between cleaning, you should probably not tell anyone. haha. I love when I get in a cleaning mood, it helps immensely!

Love makeup. I likes to look prettyful.
Hate Putting it on.
I love that it makes me look presentable, I really do. Even though most days I don't even bother. (And I'm pretty sure I look like a zombie, or like I'm on drugs.) But, again, it's so. damn. tedious. One the days I do wear it, I usually try to do the minimum I can to make myself look presentable. Don't get me wrong, I still like to play dress up once in a while, that doesn't count here. I'm talking about day-to-day. And then you have to find the right kind of product for you & your skin. Right tone, right consistency, right color eyeshadow, right kind of eye liner. Do I want lipstick? Maybe just a gloss? How long will it all last, all day or am I going to have to reapply or touch-up at some point? How do I even put this on? Why do I need to contour? And then taking it off. Gotta find the right stuff that works for you & your skin for that too. The entire process of applying and removing has basically turned into a science! That I have yet to master. But I'm not giving up. Also, thank God for Emily, I love her Beauty Broadcast videos AND she does hauls & comparisons to help you see various products for various prices. Check her out, she's awesome.

Love blogging. Having a place that is mine, to say what I want.
Hate several different aspects.
Mainly not having anything to talk about. I know it's my blog, my journal, my diary for my daily life. But there are times when I'm just like, ehh...nothing exciting happened today, or yesterday...or will tomorrow. So whats the point. But then sometimes I feel the opposite. So it balances out, most of the time. And then there are those "why didn't I think of that" topics. Then the unspoken competitiveness. No, it's not a competition or popularity contest, but ladies, lets be honest with ourselves. There is a hint of it. Say Blogger A says, "hey this is an awesome thing, if it suits your style, you might like it too." and you say, "Hmm, maybe I'll think about thinking about it." Two days later Blogger B says, "hey this is an awesome thing, if it suits your style, you might like it too." and you are immediately go into a latte-fueled panic trying to find where, how and how much. Just, no. That's just one example of one area, among many others. And it's okay, I can admit that I'm guilty of it, but it still irks me. What you don't ever annoy yourself? I'm not crazy!

Love food. Um, duh! Healthy, unhealthy, doesn't matter.

Hate a couple of things. 

One being the obvious, weight gain. WHY can't I eat half a pizza, a bag of doritos, some ice cream, candy and a piece of cake and then have about 3 mountain dews at 1 am and not gain weight? And the other being, why do I get full so quickly sometimes?! It tastes so good & I want just one more little bit, but I might puke if I try it, but I really want it. First world problems.

Am I right or am I right?

What are some things that you have a love/hate relationship with?

Happy Friday Eve!

♥♥♥

Brandy

Plus two.

Two point four to be exact. We'll get to that later.
First I'm gonna recap the weekend...what I can't do that on a Wednesday?
Well then it's a good thing I'm a rebel.

Friday we didn't do anything.
Saturday was great. Even though we really need to be tight budgeted, we always have a date night for our birthdays. So, since Chili's decided to be a dick & take what I eat off the menu, we picked Applebees. We stopped by the mall to go into Rue 21 where I was actually able to find a pair of pants! So thanks to this sweet girl, I got a new pair of pants & actually a new tank top, an entire outfit, for my birthday. Thank youuu, Jess!!♥

I really need a full length mirror...

After that we went to Applebees for an early supper & then off to to the movies. We saw Grown Ups 2, & it was actually good. I have a broad sense of humor though. Not sure if that's the right word. Brain fart. My sense of humor spans over a wide range of things & I'm pretty easily amused most of the time, so I definitely laughed., If you liked the first one, see this one. I won't tell too much about it. Except that Taylor Lautner is in it. & Stone Cold Steve Austin is in it (which almost prompted a loud squeal from me, because I did not know he was in it.) I got a bit too excited.
I'm a huge SCSA fan. (Random fact about me.)
Anyway we were out of the movies by 9. We stopped at the store, got some tickets & beer & went home and sat on the porch for a couple of hours, just drinkin' and talkin'.
So, it was the perfect date night.

Sunday was okay. Woke up and just kind of hung around for a few minutes. Met another new turtle friend and released it. I was finally getting my veggie soup that I requested. (In our house, when it's your birthday YOU get to pick what's for supper. I picked veggie soup, but we had some chicken that needed to be cooked, SO I agreed on BBQ chicken on my actual birthday & then Sunday would be a good day for the soup.) And then I had talked to my cousin who informed me of some bad news about my great aunt. I posted on Sunday but avoided this subject and instead stuck to doing a Sunday Social. And I think for right now at least, I'll continue to avoid it. I have been trying to not think about it too much right now, I don't quite want a breakdown. Maybe in a day or so, I'll talk about it.

But that's why I've been MIA for a couple of days on here, & sporadic on the bird & IG. I've just kind of been keeping to myself & spending some time with family.
But, like I said, I'll get into that in a couple of days maybe.
I've also done a lot of thinking...about my 30 before 30. I'm still having things pop up in my mind that should have been on the list. So anytime something pops into my head I'm trying to jot it down or make a mental note or something.
There are a few places I'd like to start. So, we'll see. :-)

For today..I suppose I will weigh-in. I didn't do it last week (via the blog) because it was my birthday week & that's a valid enough excuse. I did, however, weigh-in for myself. There was no change, which I'm okay with.
This week there was.
But that is probably due to the fact that (1) I had not one, but TWO, birthday cakes, & (2)I've eaten a lot of yummylicious food in the past week.
So, that brings us to the 2.4 thing.

Last week: 162.3
Today: 164.7
Up: 2.4

So not cool seeing that number. (So not cool seeing the any of the 160's again, at all) But, oh well.
The only thing I can do, is do better.
It's no secret that I love food, THAT won't change.
However, I've been feeling funny lately. My arm has been hurting.
I know that the food+lack of doing,..well...anything, is the cause.
Or maybe I'm sleeping funny. I'm a paranoid person.
Whatever the reason, it's enough of a jolt for me, I'm kicking myself in the ass.
That along with some serious talking that my hubs & I did the other night (about himself) gave me a small boost.
I'm still so glad that he's on board with me. We both have various reasons for this, but they are pretty much the same for both of us.

So, there you have it. Now I'm gonna catch up on a few blogs & try to find something else to occupy my mind.

Lovins!
♥♥♥
Brandy

*I also haven't really responded to many emails in the past couple of days. Please don't take it personal if I happen to not get back to you right away.♥

Hey, Mr. DJ, keep playin' this song for me...

 

Click the pic. to link up!!
You know.. I was so excited to do todays Sunday Social because it's about music...and then I realized how difficult it actually was!

1. What is your all-time favorite song? I don't have just one all-time favorite...wow. Guns N Roses- Sweet Child Of Mine (& Paradise City, Welcome to the Jungle, November Rain, Patience...) Def Leppard, Pour Some Sugar On Me (among others), Linkin Park- Crawling, Queen- Bohemian Rhapsody, Framing Hanley- Photographs & Gasoline, Usher-My Way (Nice & Slow,etc..), Ginuwine- Pony & Differences, Alanah Myles- Black Velvet, pretty much anyhting MJ, Eminem- Beautiful, Jackyl- Back Off Brother, Miranda Lambert- Me & Charlie Talkin, En Vogue-Don't Let Go ....etc, etc, etc,....

2. Who is your favorite singer/band? Same as before, I don't have just one, so I'll just do currently (as in this month) Linkin Park will always be in this list, Framing Hanley (will always be a fav.), 1D, Ed Sheeran, FOB,Jessie J, Cher Lloyd, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert (will always be a fav),

3. What song reminds you of your childhood? Omg, really? All of them, damn. Billy Ray Cyrus- Achy Breaky Heart, Clay Walker-What's It To You, (really anything in the late 80's-early 90's country) Michael & Janet Jackson- Scream, (Really anything by Michael or Janet) AC/DC, Jackyl, Def Leppard, Bad Company, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Queen, The Rolling Stones, GNR! (you get the idea there right?)..The Spice Girls!..and then as I got a little older of course there is anything Britney,..umm..anything NSYNC, BSB, Five, Nirvana, early Marilyn Manson,...B2K (oh my damn), Usher( Slow Jam was the first song I ever slow danced to), oh All Saints- Never Ever, lol Juvenile-Back That Ass Up (HAHA! shut up!), Mo' Thugs-All Good, Ghetto Cowboy, BTNH-Crossroads...Savage Garden- Truly, Madly, Deeply...Jonny Lang-Lie To Me..Few thing I can tell you...One: When I say my music taste is wide ranged, I mean it. Two: When I say I've always loved music, I mean that too. Three: I am the quintessential 80's Baby & 90's Child. (& I fuckin' love it)

4. What songs put you in a good mood? It depends on what has gotten me down (if anything). But a few that I love Andy Grammer-Keep Your Head Up, Framing Hanley-Weight of the World, Jessie J-Who You Are & Nobody's Perfect, Anything off of Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory album, anything 1D, FOB-Sugar We're Goin Down Swingin', P!ATD- I Write Sins, Not Tragedies...um...lots of Up Beats stuff & or 90's stuff.

5. What is your music to rock out to in your car? Unfortunately, I don't have a working CD player, so whatever I can find on the radio, really.

6. What is the most embarrassing album or song you own? Not embarrassed by anything I have. No shame in my game.
It's crazy how almost overwhelming it is for me to think of this kind of stuff. Not becuase I go blank, but because I have a list in my head about that might cover the Great Wall of China..a few times over.

I asked my husband, "What are some of my all time favorites songs?" And he looked at me like I was crazy and said he didn't know...so I asked him, "well, what are some songs that when they come on I'm like 'yessss!' ?" He said all of them...
The man knows me so well...

Happy Sunday Funday, Lovelies.
♥♥♥
Brandy