Things I've Learned About Charlotte - Part Two (Thank You, Kristina)

So my good friend Kristina read my blog and made some additions to the list via Facebook comment. They are definitely worth sharing.

9. Charlotte has great restaurants!

10. Everything in Charlotte is at least 15-20 minutes away, sometimes 30 -- no matter where you live or where you're going.

11. Try driving downtown. Ha! Good luck.

12. The light rail is super fun to ride.


I have yet to try #12 but maybe one day I will figure it out.

Things I've Learned About Charlotte (So Far)

1. People do NOT know how to drive. They think that I-77 is North Carolina's version of the Autobahn.

2. There's fantastic shopping around every corner!

3. You can go from a good neighborhood to a shady part of town in the blink of an eye.

4. I love to drive on the highway at night here. For some reason it's much more enjoyable. Probably because all the people in #1 are all at home having dinner and watching TV. They should stay there.

5. The dog parks are MUCH nicer.

6. I'm going to have to start saving half of my paycheck to pay for gas. Seriously.

7. Road names change without warning for no apparent reason. This is very frustrating when you're trying to get to work and you forget that Tyvola Road changes to Fairview Road but you forgot because you zoned out listening to a good song on 106.5 and for a split second you freaked out because you don't know if you missed your turn or not. Or something like that.....perhaps.

8. Even when you think there's nothing to do, there really IS something to do.... AND it's not lame!

So, that's my list so far. More positives than negatives so hopefully it'll keep going in that direction. :) Happy Monday!

Stylin'

As you can see, I spruced up the blog a little bit. Made a cute little blog header with actual pictures and text and stuff. :) Yay, me! Maybe you guys will come visit it more now.

I've been sprucing up the house too. Finally got a lot more pictures hung up, cleaned out my closet a little and made several trip to Goodwill. And, honestly, I feel much better about it.

In other news ...... I have a job! Double yay!

I am now gainfully employed at Varji & Varji. A wonderful Aveda concept salon and spa. We are talkin' high class people. I don't know if this girl from Clemmons can handle it all (Who am I kidding? Of course I can.)

I think I'm gonna need a whole new stylin' wardrobe for this venture. Wink, wink.

PS -- Pictures from the Utopia farewell party, as well as the new house, will be up soon. I promise.

Have a fantastic week!

Ahhh....

It's always nice to sleep in your own bed if you haven't seen it in a while, isn't it?

Well, as of this weekend, I'm officially in Charlotte. Pretty much everything made it down here in one piece. The dogs are lovin' a much bigger place to run around in, even though we don't have much of a yard.

This past week was kind of hectic with work but I managed. It was nice that Friday ended with a little farewell cake in the break room. Chocolate with whipped frosting... yum!

So this week I'm gonna take it kinda easy. Organize some things in the bedroom and in the office and then do an interview (hopefully, two!).

No matter what I end up doing, at least I can crash in my own bed at the end of the night!

Lots of "new"

I'm sure you've noticed that it's been awhile since I blogged about anything. That's because LOTS of stuff has been going on.

Where to start?

Well, I guess it started when Tim had a meeting a few weeks ago with an OG director and said she needed him to go to the Pineville OG to help straighten out the restaurant. He says, OK and then calls me at work, "So...... what do you think about moving to Pineville?" And I say, "Sure! I love Pineville. My parents used to have a house down there. Nice area." He says, "Great. I gotta start down there by the end of the month."

Oh crap.

Seriously? Why do all my moves have to be done with such haste?

Well, anyway. Here we are about two days from the movers showing up and packing up all our stuff (hello, deja vu) and making the trip with three doggies down to our new rental home on Allegiance Drive. (Email me if you want the actual address for directions, driving times and such so that we can have some visitors.)

Somehow in all ths mix, some drama happened with the family (surprise surprise) and ... long story short I ended up looking for a new car last week. Well, not a new new car but a new used car. You know what I mean -- it's new to me. So, my search ended Saturday with a cute Saturn at Carmax that I couldn't pass up! And, of course, it's green. Ha!

So, with all this new stuff going on, hopefully I'll be able to find a great new job at an Aveda salon and spa or something down in Charlotte. Not too worried about that part though. Charlotte is full of opportunity and I know I'll get some awesome references from Chris and Lauren. You know, one of those "you'd be stupid not to hire Olivia" - kind of references. :)

With all this being said, to all my Charlotte friends, I'll be seeing you guys soon!! Keep a lookout for us!

Happy Birthday, Gabrielle!

I hope you had a wonderful day!

Topsail Island favorites

More pictures (and stories) to come later when we're done unpacking!

Picture time!

I finally got some pictures put up on Shutterfly. You should be able to view an album from my trip to Kauai last month and the Utopia Golf Tournament. Still working on some other ones but at least you'll have something to look at in the meantime. :)

View pictures at: livvielane.shutterfly.com

Makeovers, Kidney Stones and 500 lbs of Ice

I knew when I got up this morning it just felt like it was gonna be a long day. It's like... my spidey senses were tingling or something.

Today was prom for West Forsyth High School (right down the road from work). I was anticipating having to do makeovers for the better part of the afternoon and then just collapse into bed at about 8:00 tonight.

Not so much.

My sister calls me at work at about 10am very upset and crying. I asked her what's wrong and she says, "I think I need you to drive me to the hospital." Oh. Crap.

That, my friends, was the start of my long day.

I scurried around the salon and spa, calling coworkers and managers to see if anybody was available to do the makeovers on my book and to work the front desk for the rest of the day. Not much help there. Finally about two hours later one of the other front desk girls gets my message and shows up so that I can leave. Thank you, Ginger. I love you. :)

So now, I've got that off my plate. Off I go to pick up my sister from her aparment and then turn around to drive her to Forsyth hospital. When I get there, she looks like her picture should be beside the description of "pitiful" in the dictionary. Seriously. I think I almost developed sympathy pains. No bueno.

We get her checked into the emergency room and it's the "hurry up and wait a minute" game. First they take BP, weight, ask symptoms and all that jazz. We think she might have kidney stones but we're not sure. Extreme pain around the lower back area, nausea, fever.... all kinds of fun stuff we tell them. Another thirty minutes goes by and then they take 3 vials of blood. A little while after that we finally see a doctor who orders a CT scan to see if there are, indeed, some kidney stones. Well, lo and behold, about three or four hours later they finally give us results and, yes, not just one but THREE kidney stones. One's very close to passing through and the other two are taking their sweet time. OUCH. I'd be crying too. (Honestly, it was a little reminiscent of a funny story about my trip to the hospital in Louisiana after a night at the driving range. Except my sister actually had kidney stones. I didn't. A few select people who I think still read this blog might laugh at that part. Feel free to leave a comment, folks. Anyway...I digress.)

So we're on our way to Walmart to fill a prescription for pain medicine to get her through the weekend, when the beloved BF calls.

Tim: "Hey. Whatcha doooooin'?"
Me: "At Walmart. Waiting for Gab's medicine."
T: "Ahh..." (pause) "Have I told you how beautiful you are lately?"
Me: (Slightly suspicious, but grinning) "Ummm... no. Not in a few days."
T: "Well... you are the sexiest thing on the planet."
Me: (Increasingly suspicious) "Well, that's pretty darn sexy."
T: "Yeah." (longer pause) "Would you be willing to do me a favor?"
Me: (Ha. I knew it!) laughing "Sure. What is it?"
T: "Would you go to Costco and pick up some ice?"
Me: "Um. What? Aren't you at work? What do you need ice for?"
T: "We're about to run out....at the restaurant."
Me: (exasperated) "Oh, Lord. Yes, I'll go get ice. But it's gonna be a while."

Fast forward thirty minutes when we pull up to the OG.

T: "Hey. This is Jason. I gave him money for ice. He's gonna go with you."
Me: "OK. whatever."

Pull up to the Costco.

Closed.

Jason and I look at each other like, "Ohhhhhh Fudddggggggeee." (Like in the movie A Christmas Story, you know.) We decide to drive over to the Quality Mart gas station.

We approach the counter and say, "We need 500 lbs of ice."
Dude: "Whaaaat? Did you say 500?"
Us: "Yes."
Dude looks at me: "Is he f'real?"
Me: (laughing) "Yeah. He's for real."
Dude looks at Gab: "Seriously?"
She nods and he still says: "REALLY??? He needs 500 lbs?"
Jason: "Dude. It's no joke. We NEED it."

Ten minutes later we are rung up, the guy is still shaking his head in disbelief, and we're loading Jason's Ford Explorer with 50 bags of ice. We figured 400 lbs was the best we could do given the circumstances.

Needless to say, I definitely got a free meal at Olive Garden tonight.

And now, with only an hour left in the day, I think that I can go to bed without wondering what more could happen. Hopefully some sweet dreams.

Good night.

The 1st Annual (Maybe) Utopia Earth Month Benefit Golf Tournament

Whew.... file that under long blog titles.

Anyway! On Monday, Utopia hosted a benefit golf tournament to raise money and awareness for Earth Month. We had a few employees play but Monica and I decided to ride around and be the "water girls" and hand out refreshments. I'm sure you can only imagine the fun we had riding around in the golf cart the entire afternoon. And, by the way, Oak Valley golf course is beautiful. I highly recommend it.

Chris and Lauren are still calculating the totals but I think we did great for our first golf tournament.

Here are some pictures from that day. Enjoy!

Over 150 participants

Ginger being Ginger

Our beautiful raffle basket and water conservation info

Joleen takes a break from attempting to golf

Lauren, Monica, Ginger and Me