Pretty Woman

Anyone who knows me knows that Pretty Woman is my favorite movie.  I have seen it literally thousands of times.

I first saw it when I was maybe 8 or 9.  Obviously this was a lapse of judgement by my parents.  However, I didn't know what most of it meant, so although I was far too young to be watching this movie, I wasn't damaged or learning bad things from it.  One example is that there is a scene when Julia Roberts' character is trying to get Richard Gere's character to pick out a condom.  When I was younger, I thought she was offering him a lollipop like you get from the bank.  When you're innocent, they look the same, I promise.

As I got older, I did understand the premise of the movie.  I still think it's a good movie, even if it's not exactly, um, wholesome.  I can quote each and every line from Pretty Woman.  I have many favorite scenes which I quote at random times, even if it doesn't fit the context.  There's a scene where Vivian (Roberts) is trying to determine what Edward (Gere) does for a living.  She says, "I bet you're a lawyer".  Edward questions why she thinks that and Vivian says, "You just have that sharp, useless look about you".  Doug used to work with someone who had a sharp, useless look about him, so we called him SU.

Oh, by the way, all those people who know that Pretty Woman is my favorite movie, can also quote many of the scenes because I've made them watch it with me several times.  Vivian goes shopping in her prostitute clothing and a store on Rodeo Drive turns her away.  The following day, after cleaning herself up by shopping with Edward's credit card, she goes back to the store that turned her away.  She holds up shopping bags while she speaks to one of the ladies and says, "You work on commission, right?  Big mistake.  Big, huge.  Well, I've got to go shopping now".  I LOVE that scene, because it shows that you shouldn't judge people just by their appearance. 

At the end of Valentine's Day, the limo driver tells Julia's character to look out the window, it's Rodeo Drive and asks her if she's ever been there.  Julia replies, "I went shopping there once.  It was a big mistake.  Big, huge."  When we saw the movie in the theaters, both Doug and myself knew what Julia was going to say and also knew it was referring to Pretty Woman.  Everyone else looked at us like we were crazy, but I like that Doug and I shared a moment from PW.



Driving and Ellery

I would like to preface this post by saying I have become a much better driver as I have gotten older.  Therefore, my insurance company cannot change my premiums based on this post.

When I started driving in September 2000, I had a fairly craptacular vehicle.  It was a good vehicle in that it was built like a tank and was therefore very safe for a new driver.  It was also pretty much free, since it was 14 years old.  However, it was not a "cool" vehicle (see previous sentence).  When I would drive to school, I tried to stay under the radar so that I wouldn't be the laughing stock of my school.  Unfortunately, one day in December of 2001, I did not stay under the radar.  While I was pulling in, another senior walked towards my car and then acted as if I had hit her.  She claimed that she flew up and over my car.  After the police came out, looked at the fact that the road dirt and dew were completely intact, it was determined that I had never touched her, much less hit her with enough force to go over my car (which I knew).  In February of the following year, she accused someone else of the same thing.  Her dad was/is a lawyer.  'Nuff said.

In the summer of 2002, I was borrowing my grandmother's car while she was in Mississippi visiting my cousins.  She had a cooler-literally, it had air, which is important during the summer in Florida- and newer car. I was stopped third in line at a light.  When the light turned green, the first car went, the second car went, I went.  Then, the second car inexplicably stopped, but I did not.  We weren't going very fast, but the hood of my grandmother's car accordianed quite nicely.  The person I hit turned out to be like 86, which is such a surprise in the old people capital of the United States.  I was at fault, but the lady was an idiot to stop in the middle of the road.  That was such a hard call to make to my grandmother, telling her I trashed her car.  She told me that cars could be replaced, but I couldn't.  Very true.

I haven't gotten in any other accidents since then.  I have, however, gotten expensive speeding tickets.  I am definitely not proud of this fact, but the truth is the truth.  I got 3 in the course of about 5 months.  One was for going 109 in a 70.  The policeman asked me where I was going in such a hurry and I told him that my grandmother had had a heart attack (the truth) and I wanted to get to the hospital.  He told me that if I had hit something going that fast, my parents would be picking me up in Hefty bags.  I slowed down to 90 the rest of the way.  I was young and dumb.  I have only gotten two others since then.  I'm a much more careful driver now that I am a mom.

My final driving issue was that I was driving my car without oil in it.  I didn't know that it had such low oil, but I did know it had an oil leak (from running over a median and cracking my oil pan).  I was driving about 110 miles back home from college.  When I was about 25 miles from home, my car started making a sound like someone had dumped a jar of pennies in my engine.  I immediately pulled over and when the car went to the mechanic, I had blown the engine.  Oh lucky me.

I am getting ready to get a new SUV, but I currently have a fairly new car, so I haven't had any car trouble recently.  I'm sure once I get my SUV, it will take me a little while to acclimate to a bigger vehicle, but I can assure you, I will not have any accidents or speeding tickets!

Roommates

My first experience with a roommate was on a trip to Europe in 2000.  I went with my 3rd cousin, who was in her mid-60's.  She was notorious for snoring and the advice I received before I left was to fall asleep before she did or I never would.  As I have mentioned before, I have to have the tv on when I am going to sleep.  Well, between her snoring and my tv watching, we had several tense nights.


When I first went to college, I lived in a freshman dorm that was built for 2 people per room.  All we had was a giant room with two beds and two desks in it.  I met my first roommate at freshman orientation and it seemed like we would get along great.  When we actually started living together, we quickly realized we were complete opposites.  She liked to party, I didn't.  I wanted to be in bed early-ish, she came rolling in at 3 am.  By the time our 18th birthdays rolled around at the beginning of September, we were no longer roommates.

The roommate that I had after that was very strange.  She was 6' and slept in our tiny, and I do mean tiny, bathroom.  She had a perfectly good bed, but instead chose the bathroom as her sleeping area.  She was only my roommate for about 6 weeks and then she dropped out. 

When I returned from Christmas break, I had a new roommate.  She and I were roommates for the whole semester.  She was anorexic and would be throwing up at all hours of the day and night.  Since the bathroom was in our room, I heard it all.  It wasn't fun.  Also, I had a boyfriend and she wouldn't let him come in our room to pick me up.  He had to wait outside until I was ready.  She didn't feel uncomfortable with him around, she just thought that girls and guys should not be in a room together.  She was waiting for her wedding day to kiss her boyfriend (who was gay).

When I transferred to a different college, I moved into dorms, but they were like apartments.  There were 4 people to an apartment and we each had our own room.  2 people shared bathrooms and we all shared the kitchen and living room.  I definitely liked this arrangement better.  If we all wanted to hang out and chat, we could, but if we needed to study or wanted time to ourselves, we could go to our own rooms.

My first year at the new college, my 3 roommates were a freshman, a junior and a senior.  The freshman's room was right next to mine and she came and went at weird hours, but I guess that's what freshmen do.  The junior and I became good friends.  We are still friends now.  The senior and I didn't really mesh.  We didn't dislike each other, but we weren't really friends either.  The ironic thing is, I saw her the most.  I had early classes and she was working, so we would see each other in the mornings.

My second year, my 3 roommates were, a French exchange student, the junior (who was now a senior) I had roomed with the previous year and another senior.  The French exchange student, whose room was right next to mine, was interesting.  She had a lot of parties and got drunk a lot.  One night, when the other 3 of us were asleep, she came in quite inebriated.  She thought that my room was hers and she tried opening it.  When she realized that it wasn't her room, she muttered "oh, sheet" in her thick French accent and went on her way.  The other two were graduating in December and my internship, which began in January, was near home, so we all moved out at the end of the semester, leaving the French girl by herself.  Both of those girls were in my wedding, one was the maid of honor.

Now, my roommates are an amazing husband and an adorable little boy.  They are probably the best roommates I've ever had, but I will always remember my past roommates.

We Are Snowed In!!

Overnight, 10 inches of white, fluffy stuff fell in our area.  The people up north laugh at 10".  In fact, a family member from Pennsylvania told me she doesn't even have the driveway plowed until the snow gets almost as high.  There are currently flurries, but I doubt that they will add much to the amount we already have.  However, the amount of snowfall we have is the third most they've had in this area in an overnight period.  The number one amount is 17".  That's a lot for a southern state!

We woke up and let the dogs out so that they could run around in the snow.  Hattie is definitely not a fan of snow.  Waveland thinks that it is absolutely wonderful.  However, Waveland convinced Hattie to run around in it with her.  I have a video, but I can't get it to load.  I will work on it though.

The entire area is shutdown today.  The only things open are emergency facilities.  It is very similar to Christmas and it's a little eerie.  Even if we wanted to go anywhere, we can't since there are no plows here and Doug and I don't know how to drive in this much snow.

Doug obviously stayed home, since his work is closed.  I think we will go have a snowball fight and/or build a snowman in a little while.  Maybe we'll take Weston out and take pictures, so we can have pictures of him in snow.

Snow Day(s)!!

Here in North Alabama, we are supposed to get quite a bit (for the South) of snow tonight and tomorrow.  For me, this is quite exciting.  As I have mentioned before, I grew up in Florida and we don't see much any snow down there.  Therefore, when it snows, I have a child-like excitement.

We are supposed to get 8-10" beginning, well, now.  It is actively snowing as I type this.  Doug and I went out looking for something to go down snowy hills on, such as a snow tube or a flying saucer, but unfortunately, we couldn't find anything that would work.  If we decide to go down hills, we may use cardboard boxes or a laundry basket.  It's called Southern improvisation.

Doug probably won't have to go to work tomorrow and possibly not on Tuesday either.  He has the ability to work from home, so that will be helpful if the snow storm shuts down the area for a couple days.

I'm a little sad that Weston is too little to play in/enjoy the snow this winter.  Next year, when he's 18 months and can play in it, it won't snow here.  Such is life.

Today, while we were out, we stopped at Wal-Mart.  We noticed a sign that, although shouldn't have surprised me, did.  I'm not someone who wants to save all of the animals, but I HATE hunting and think that it is completely pointless.  I understand animals are food too, but I still think that hunting is ridiculous, especially if you're not going to eat it, but hang it on your wall, or shoot just for the fun of it.  I mean, raccoon and squirrel?  Seriously?  *Stepping off my soapbox.* Anyway, this is the sign we saw.

My, How Life Has Changed

In a little more than 2 years, a lot has changed in Doug's and my life.

2008

• Doug and I lived in an apartment.
• Both of us had to have jobs just to pay the bills.
• We drove 45+ minutes to and from work.
• We had a Great Dane.
• We went to the movies about once a week and spent Fridays at the park letting Hattie run and throwing a football or playing catch with a baseball.
• We spent the weekends watching football, hanging out at home, sleeping in until 11 on Saturdays and going to church on Sundays.

2009

• Doug and I lived in a 2 bedroom, 2 bath house with a small yard.
• Doug worked and I planned our wedding or laid on the couch with morning sickness.  My working was not vital to our livelihood.
• Doug drove 15 minutes to work.
• We had a Great Dane and a Labrador.
• We went to the movies twice a month, due to the theater being pretty far away.  We also didn't go to the park much, because there weren't any.
• We spent weekends watching football, hanging out in the backyard with the dogs and sleeping in.

2010

• For several months, we lived in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house with a huge backyard.
• For the last part of the year, we lived in a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house with a sizable backyard.
• For the first half of the year, Doug worked and I gestated Weston.  For the second half of the year, I took care of Weston, which is a full-time, but unpaid (financially) job.  Again, it was not necessary for me to have to work.
• Doug drove 5 minutes to work.  After we moved, Doug drove 25 minutes to work.
• We had a Great Dane, a Labrador and a baby boy.
• We went to the movies several times previous to late June.  In fact, we went 3 days before Weston was born.  We have gone to two (2!) movies since Weston has been here.  One was a children's movie.
• We spent the weekends during the first half of the year going to Babies R Us 45 minutes away, shopping for baby things, going to church and enjoying the last few months of couple hood that we had.  We spent weekends the second half of the year getting up before the sun, going places just to get out of the house and entertain the baby, and going to church.

Our life has changed so much in 28 months.  Sometimes I mourn our old life where we could do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted.  We could stay up very late because there wasn't a little one beckoning us at 6 am.  However, that said, I also wouldn't trade being a mom for my old life any day.  Seeing Weston smile and watching him discover and learn new things everyday is SO much better than any Hollywood movie!!

Blue Water

When my brother was younger, he was a very creative little guy.  He thought up an answering machine/voice recorder on someone's door, so that if you came to someone's house and they weren't home, you could leave them a message.  He also created all sorts of things with Legos and could think up solutions to all kinds of problems.

When he was about 6, he found a lizard that was dead.  He decided that he could heal the lizard by putting him in blue water.  He took a jar, put water and blue food coloring in it and then put the deceased lizard in it.  After several days the lizard was obviously not being healed or revived.  However, one time when my brother looked at the jar, the water happened to move, so he thought that his miraculous blue water was working. 

Shortly after the lizard incident, our uncle passed away.  My brother's first instinct was to put our uncle in blue water, which would clearly able to bring him back to life.  He was heartbroken when my parents explained to him that not only would the blue water not work, but that it also didn't work on the lizard.

I miss my brother's innocence.  He is now a married, 20 year old, Army guy.  He's now tough and like most people his age, thinks he knows everything.  His innocence is long gone, but I still remember that sweet little boy with so much hope for his blue water concoction.