mountain living

My best friends and I 

took a much needed vacation 

to Chattanooga, TN. 

It was a short trip 

only 4 days, 

but it was just what 

we needed to recharge. 

We spent our time there going to 

Ruby Falls, Lookout Mountain Incline Railway, 

and Rock City Gardens. 

It was a nice, lazy vacation! 

playing catch up

Since my unintended blog break,

Not much has changed in my life.

Still, I thought I would write an update post.

My big news is that

I finally found a job!
Hallelujah!
{insert a choir of angels here}

Source: gocomics.com via liz on Pinterest

I am still underemployed;

but I am super thankful!
I know a lot of people are hurting in the job department right now.

It is my first "grown up" job.

I have benefits, a retirement plan, paid sick/vacation days,

and all that good stuff.


Oh, and I have my very own office!!
Please ignore the mess in these pictures.
I did not feel like putting everything in place
just for these quickly taken pics.

I am waiting on the maintenance people to come
and hang all of my frames on my office walls
{that is what is in those boxes}
and then I will have to post pics
of my completely decorated office!


My roommates and I took a trip to
Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure.

 

The highlight of the trip was
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!
It was just AMAZING!

 

If you are planning on going,
the early admission is totally worth the price.
We got into WWOHP an hour before the park opened.
My roommates and I actually rode one of the rides by ourselves.
I mean we were seriously the only 3 people on the ride!
How cool is that?!
To put that in perspective,
we went back at the end of the day,
because one of my friends wanted to go through
Hogwarts Castle again.
It was wall-to-wall people.
And the lines for all of the rides
were 3+ hours long.
Yeah, we did not go through the castle again.

I also
loved, loved, loved
Seusslanding!
If you have read my blog for any length of time
you know I am slightly obsessed with Dr. Seuss.
So, I naturally loved Seusslanding.

This part of the park is obviously geared more for children,
but I loved the architecture & decor.
They even had shrubbery shaped into various Seuss characters.
Just awesomesauce!
 

The roommates and I had a caricature drawn of the 3 of us.
The guy who drew it was super nice & funny!
I joked that he was going to make me look
like a chipmunk & of course, he did.
But it was a fun souvenir to have from the trip.
It now hangs in a place of honor in our living room!

I received a sewing machine for Christmas
and have been {slowly} teaching myself to sew. 
I have completed lots of throw pillows.
I have the sewing square things down pat!

I am also working on my very 1st quilt. 
It is a queen-size quilt.
Now that I am getting into it
I realize that starting out with a queen size
might have been a bad idea.
But "go big or go home" right?!
It took my roommates & I 5 hours to lay out the pattern.
They have threatened me with
bodily harm if I do not finish this quilt.

Whew!
This post was longer than I thought it would be.
If you made it all the way through
You Are a Trooper!
So, that's is what has been happening in my life lately.

Anything new & exciting happening in your life?

the loot

Finally, the last road trip post . . . promise!
I actually did not buy a lot of souvenirs on this trip.

I did get postcards and magnets from

Texas & Louisiana.

I also got this super cute mask from one of the shops

in the French Quarter.

On our way back to Georgia 

we stopped at an outlet mall in Mississippi.

This is where I got into trouble;)

I bought two new pairs of Chucks!!

The mall had a Carter's outlet.

I called my sister to double check the dude's size

and she just laughed when I told her where I was at.
Her advice: try not to go overboard.
I think I showed considerable restraint;)
However, Mr. Nash did score some goodies!

 Too true :-)

 a baseball & fish on his butt . . . just adorable!

I hope y'all enjoyed my road trip recaps.
Maybe it was not too boring for you.
Overall, we had an absolute blast!
And are already planning our next road trip.
We are leaning towards NYC or somewhere in the NW.

new orleans

On our way back to Georgia

we detoured to New Orleans 

and spent a night there.

Our hotel:

 I thought this was pretty awesome
because I played clarinet in school.

 The entrance to the parking garage for the hotel had
these murals painted on the walls.

 The view from our hotel room.

We walked from our hotel to the French Quarter.
Here are some pics I took along the way.

the ranch pt 3

My favorite part of the entire trip was the

2-hour trail ride we took through the

"mountains" on the ranch.

In Georgia, our trail rides are going down dirt roads.

This was definitely a new experience on the back of a horse for me.

But it was exhilirating!

The horses were navigating cliffs that were

narrower than my FOOT

and going up & down some pretty steep hills.

My adrenaline was working overtime. 

I keep repeating the mantra:

trust the horse, trust the horse.

I had a really fantastic horse in Ronan.

He was a little bit of a bully and he did not 

like following so he would

try pushing other horses out of the way. 

But I like a strong-willed horse!

All of the following pictures were taken while I was on

horseback!

That's all I'm saying;)