A tale of two cousins....

It was partially a gross weekend in Nashville. While we had one beautiful day, we had rain & mud another which = Nicole being as lazy as humanly possible. So, over the weekend some, I've done a little work on something special I've been putting together for the Twin Cousin (also, no, Emily you do NOT get to see this until you get married, so....I get to be a total tease until August-ish!). What happens when you mix a creative mind with a design degree? A ton of freaking ideas.

And in working on this, "Something Borrowed" came on - one of the ultimate favorite movies. I suppose it's because I was working on this specific project, but the moment in the movie prior to the wedding, girls had their obnoxious dance off & curled up on the floor together in a Strawberry Shortcake blanket & discussed how they'd always been there for each other, my mind immediately went to us while watching.

Everyone that doesn't know us laughs when I use the phrase twin cousins, but...if they really knew us, they'd realize just how fitting the title is.

I'm completely rocking Fievel pajamas and Em is rocking pearls & pajamas. Don't hate how adorable this is. Also, fabulous hair has apparently always been a trait. 

As kids, we were always the two cousins that were always together. At a family reunion trying to hunt one of us down? Just ask where the other one was.....(although chances are we were found in the coat area hanging out, talking shit about people. We learned that pretty early on! Or maybe we were catching our siblings giving underage cousins liquor & telling our parents on them. God we were awesome together, even if our siblings wanted to kill us!) 

Or maybe we were on stage knocking down some tunes at karaoke, in our best party dresses with Emily's crimped hair? (Can we talk about how my mom didn't know how to do my hair as a child? If i needed it crimped or braided, one of my aunts had to do it!) 

no one has ever sang material girl quite like two small children at a family reunion. 

I've often said we were more like sisters than cousins - we knew how to fight with each other, we knew how to argue, we knew how to have the best time together, and we knew how to be ridiculous. And at the end of the day, we knew the other always had the others back. (Read: I can totally call her a bitch, but I will cut you if you attempt this!) 

this was a pretty infamous night. "we're running low on cranberry juice already?!'

It's funny that we're states away from each other, but it never feels that way because we spend so much of our time talking/texting/tweeting/fb-ing and have basic twin cousin telepathy brain sharing. 

I mean, who else can I send fabulous gems to like this?

don't hate on our love for Frozen. 

Who else can I be this dramatic with when my flat iron dies?

The answer to that is no one! Love this girl more than life. And I'm so excited to finish up what I'm working on for her! 

5 on Friday time...

Not sure how Friday crept up so quickly - although two days ago I was whining about how long it was taking to get here. I've got my vacation itch, and I just need time to fly by!

It's that time again...

one.

I am still compleeeeeetely bitter about my Once Upon a Time finale, as most of my friends know. Whyyyy must they make it so hard for my faves? And why must they make me want to punch Emma in the face on a regular basis?  Oh how the ending looked oh so happy for a brief shining moment...

I'll let my bitterness subside since two weeks from now, we meet those two (and of course by those two, I mean Lana and Sean)! Hooray for being a nerd, it means I love the shows that do all the good conventions! ;) 

two.

speaking of my shows, I was also totally gutted by Grey's Anatomy this week, but in a much better way. I couldn't have come up with a better send off to Cristina than that, and I ugly cried the entire last 20 minutes. Shonda Rhimes is such a genius. Cristina's "Don't let what he wants eclipse what you need. He's very dreamy but he's not the sun. You are." speech to Meredith was one of my favorite things she's ever said on the show. (And I burst into tears when they had to dance it out once last time!) I was a little sad she didn't have more of a goodbye with Owen, but....it was super fabulous to have an actual Farewell show without her dying! 

three.

the shopaholic in me isn't sure this is a great thing, but Middle TN is now about to have TWO H&M's! which will mean there's one 5 minutes from my house and one 5 minutes from my house. Is my paycheck prepared for this!? 

four.

a week from today we leave for the beach, so the book nerd in me started picking up a couple books I wanted to read while lounging on the beach...this year I really wanted something funny, so one of the books I picked up was "Dear Girls Above Me",  written from a guy's perspective when two ditzy girls moved into the apartment above him. 

five.

tomorrow is laundry day & crashing at my sisters for the night to hang out, which means tonight's my last weekend night at home trying to get stuff together. therefore...

Happy weekend! 

Mother's Day

It's 3:00 on a Sunday and I've got to be at a friends house at 6:00 for a Season Finale OUAT party - and all I can think of is if I can squeeze a nap in before having to get ready. Sigh. I'm lame.

But, I at least DID have a super busy morning, so I earned a nap. That's what I'm going to tell myself anyway. Mom wanted to do breakfast & the zoo for mothers day, so my sister suggested 9am.  Getting up at 7:30 on a Sunday isn't really my favorite thing, but I sucked it up.  Paige had to work, so it was just Mom, Sam, Kadin and I today.

We let Kadin get a french vanilla coffee - and that was on top of his cinnamon sugar french toast. This meant we had an INSANELY hyper 12 year old for the day. From the restaurant to my house to drop off my car, his mouth literally never stopped and I had a hard time keeping up! (We contributed to his sugar high even more at the zoo, when we let him get the largest icee they had so he could get his free refills) 

As we left, Kadin informed us he was the "Leader of this family", so he wanted to drive. Clearly, someone was dreaming! But, we did let him be the leader at the zoo :) 

with the sis & the mom!

We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day today - even if it did get pretty hot after walking around for a few hours. Mom really wanted to see the kangaroos, and that she got:

The kangaroos are so adorable, and just come over and chill and pretty much let you do whatever. This particular one they said was very lovingly hand raised and was one of the best ones they had with people. She was all over the place, going person to person, eating carrots. Mom & Kadin were both ecstatic! 

Sam & I have a family membership at the zoo, so we know it in & outs and go pretty often, but we hadn't gone in a little while....so we ended up exploring a little more. I was a little bummed they were working on the Tiger exhibit and only had one, super far away that you really couldn't tell much of and couldn't really get a photo of because he was so incredibly far back. 

Thinking ahead, my sister picked up some purple beaded necklaces for us to wear, as a small little nod to remember Granny today.  

my little love bug!

I'd say it was a pretty successful mothers day! This might be the first year we didn't go play baseball thought - seems every Mother's Day we all wind up outside, playing baseball with Kadin screaming at every base "THIS IS THE BEST MOTHER'S DAY EVER!" Hopefully the zoo lived up to that today! A little more pic spam...

this kangaroo was beyond adorable and kept turning and posing for me every time I seemed to have my camera in my hand instead of my cell phone. I really didn't shoot a ton with my camera, but he sure sensed every time I got it out! 

still my favorite exhibit. the gator exhibit reminds me of home!

Mom, Kadin & I all rode the carousel - and as Mom and I got up and picked out the animals to ride, Kadin sat in the chair behind us! "Nah, I'm good, I just want to ride it on this". Soooo...Mom and I were the kids all excited about the animals, and Kadin was very chill in his seat.

Because riding the carousel is what every 30 year old does with their Mom on mothers day, right?!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mama's! 

Deep breath...

I don't know how time has flown by & May has crept up on me like this.

In two weeks, it's the annual girls weekend at the beach with the bestie...where the long weekend will be spent staring at this:

(with bottles of wine in hand, of course. Here's to us being the obnoxious ones doing our Tammy and Loretta sing alongs!) This year we changed it from Pensacola Beach to Orange Beach, AL. PB has quite the...interesting...festival going on every Memorial Day Weekend, which also meant it was a hot mess getting anywhere in the town last year! 

We haul back to GA after the beach so Rita can go do a half day at work Tuesday....and then we're off to Knoxville so we can go see this concert:

I haven't seen Dolly in a few years, so I'm super excited -- and Rita hasn't ever seen a full Dolly show! So, our road trip playlist will be heavily on the Dolly side this year. Maybe our beach sing along will change this year? 

And then I get to haul ass home -- so I can re-pack and catch my flight to Orlando! 3 weeks away is Spooky Empire....where we'll finally get to meet these two:

There's other folks from Once Upon a Time there we might check out - probably at our VIP party - but our priority lies with these two. And of course, since the voice of Ursula is going to be there, I'd be super bummed if I didn't get to see her! 

I have two weeks to get ready. I have zero idea what I'm wearing to anything - which is soooo unusual for me. I do, however, have important priorities together - I have my nail polish picked out! 

The House that Built Me

Occasionally, a song comes on the radio that really hits a nerve.

It’s really no secret I loathe today’s country music, so I really don’t listen to the radio much. There’s an occasional song I discover that’s amazing, but in today’s country – that doesn’t happen often. But it DID happen with Miranda Lambert’s “The House that Built Me”. I don’t care much for most of Miranda’s stuff (I still say Tammy Wynette must be rolling over in her grave at stuff like “Fastest Girl in Town”…sigh.), but this absolutely has to be the best song she ever cut.

My Granny lived in the same apartment complex my entire life. A few years before she passed, they moved her to the bottom floor to make it easier to get around. But most of my life, she lived in the same apartment. My sister and I loved going to Granny’s, running up the stairs to the door – grabbing the wobbly rail in the stairs with Mom yelling to slow down because of that wobbly rail, carving drawings in the little wooden peephole.  The apartment never changed. The back bedroom my sister & I “claimed”, and where we spent so many nights playing together  - but rarely actually slept in.  Because at bedtime, it was ALWAYS one of us in the other end of the couch in the living room with Granny and the other one on the floor.

When Granny passed away in 2010, we had the week to clean out the new apartment & sell her car. The man who moved into her old apartment was the man that bought it, and as Samantha & I went over to give him the paperwork, we were overwhelmed with emotions as we opened the door.  How was it that 26 years later, it had the same significant scent? That the rail in the stairwell was still wobbly? That our drawings were still carved into the door? I’m not sure how we composed ourselves as he opened the door and we were greeted in the kitchen that we spent so much time in. I immediately felt like the 6 year old again as I looked at my sister, and half expected Granny to come walking in and get onto us for playing with her lipstick stash she always had in the other room.

sitting on those steps for the last time with my sister

It was beyond overwhelming to leave that apartment for the last time, to walk down the stairs for the last time. I’ve never been so thankful for it to be just me and my sister. Samantha & I had to run an errand and as we got in the car, “The House that Built Me” came on the radio, the first time I had ever heard it.

“I just had to come back one last time. Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam, but these hand prints on the front steps are mine. Up those stairs in that little back bedroom is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar.”

It was like I’d been hit with a ton of bricks, and literally had to catch my breath.

It came on the radio this morning as I was about to pull in the office, and I literally had to pull over.  I have no idea what about it hit me today.  But this is the sign of a seriously good song. THESE are the songs artists are going to be remembered for. 

We Are Nashville

4 years ago this week, my beautiful town looked like this:

The 2010 Flood dropped water on Nashville that we hadn't seen since 1937. Who would've thought a few rainy days would accumulate so quickly? 

I took Paige to Atlanta to see Martina McBride the first day of the flood, and when we left it was bright and sunshine. By the time we sat down at the shows, my mom had text me "Do NOT come home overnight, it's flooding, 24 is partially shut down and part of the school is floating at my exit. Do NOT COME HOME." Listening to her, we quickly drove up to the GA/TN border to crash at my best friends house & assess the storm in the morning. 

It was probably not the wisest idea in the world to drive home the next day, but after getting some routes that were okay to get me home, we decided to take a chance. Nothing hits you more than passing the street you live off of and seeing people in canoes in a parking lot. The look of terror on the 12 year old next to me told me to get the hell home, and fast. (I'm very fortunate my home had no major damage and only had water in one area!)

What was unique about our flood was the lack of media attention. The President was on vacation in Hawaii. (Don't turn this into political bullshit, I have zero against our President, just making a point!) It wasn't featured on any of the news except local news. Many people had no idea how massive the flooding was. The Flood was one of the costliest disasters in US History- and it took days before anyone even noticed. 

And that's when We Are Nashville started. We didn't need the media attention. Because nothing banded this town together quite like the disastrous flood of 2010. Not a person in this town turned down the chance to help their neighbors. Businesses closing for a day of employees out to volunteer, churches banding together - there was nothing like it.

When Anderson Cooper came to town, other media outlets starting picking up on our story, and before we knew it, everyone was talking about how sad it was to see historic buildings like the Opry be flooded. But one of the very first things Anderson Cooper mentioned was they should have been in Nashville way earlier. Because they waited to come - what was the focus of their broadcast? What an amazing town Nashville is - and how the town rallied together.

I may be a Florida girl, but Nashville has been home for almost 18 of my 30 years. I love this city, and everyone in it - the flood just proved how amazing this place is.