Sayonara, Summer!

Happy Sunday, y'all!

It looks as if the weekends are going to be the only time I can find to blog so therefore, I'm doing my first ever Sunday Social link-up with Neely over at A Complete Waste of Makeup!! 

I always see tons of bloggers do this link-up and it always looks like so much fun, so I decided to join in on the fun myself this week! 

 

I would give y'all an update on my week/weekend...but literally all it has consisted of is going to class, going to the gym, and reading my life away. But that's ok, because that just means that this upcoming week won't be nearly as stressful! ;)

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This week's questions: End of Summer Wrap-Up

 What was your favorite trip/vacation/activity this summer?

Hands down, no question, without a doubt...CALIFORNIA with my two best guys. It was 11 days of pure bliss and I honestly do not believe that I'll ever have another trip as great as that one. It was the first trip that just the 3 of us had taken since my mom passed 8 years ago, and it was much needed. We had the absolute time of our lives, and I can't wait to go back one day! 

Favorite outfit look of the summer/clothing item?

AE Chambray shirt, Old Navy Khaki Shorts, Lucky Brand Cyrah Thong Sandal, e.l.f. Matte Lip Color, e.l.f. Cream Eyeliner, Tommy Hilfiger Tote...

Summer by hwishall0512 featuring a chambray shirt

 What is one thing you wish you had gotten to do this summer?

Go to the beach. I was out of school for an entire 3 1/2 months (May 3rd-August 21st) and the ONLY time I made it to the beach (which is only 2 hrs away from me) was when I traveled 3,000 miles across the country to California. So sad. 

 
Favorite Song of the Summer?

Mmm...this is a hard one, but I'm gonna have to go with Kissed You (Goodnight) by Gloriana. Love. This. Song.

Oh, and I can't forget Dark Side by Kelly Clarkson. Either one of those, for sure. 

 

Favorite movie/tv show of the summer?

Well I didn't make it to the movies much, but I DID finally see Magic Mike a couple nights ago...so that easily takes the cake. 

  I mean...C'MON.

And for the tv show....THE BACHELORETTE!! Duh. 

Too cute for words. Love 'em. 

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That's all I've got for today, ya'll.

Hope the rest of your Sunday is nice and relaxing, as it always should be!! 

xo,

 

weekend wonders + a bunch of other stuff

Good morning, loves!

Hope this post finds y'all having a fabulous start to the new week! :)

Today is gonna be a complete random mess of a bunch of things..just try and stick with me!  

First up: weekend recap.

So if you haven't already figured it out, I work at an ice cream/shaved ice/sno-cone shop. It's actually my dad's shop and because I am such an amazing and selfless grateful daughter, I work for free...and I work everyday. Mon.-Sat. from 12-8 and Sun. from 1-6.

Sorry it's a little blurry...but there it is! Pretty cute, right?

 Anyway, because I work so much and so late..that doesn't leave too much free time for this chick. So Friday night, Jordan (being the best best friend that she is) agreed to wait until 10:00 to eat dinner so we could go out after I got off work. To make it even better, my sweet daddy (showing his gratitude) offered to pay for our meal! How sweet :) Love him so much!

So we got all dressed up and headed to Greenville around 8:45 and decided to try and eat at Mellow Mushroom. At 9:30...there was a 30 minute wait for TWO people. Seriously?! And I was worried that we were gonna get funny looks from people for eating so late...psh. Yeah, right.

So instead we took our cute butts to Olive Garden, our true favorite, and had a wonderful dinner! If you've ever made the mistake taken the time to look at the nutrition facts for Olive Garden, you know that their dishes are most definitely not healthy. So normally, J and I just get soup, salad, and breadsticks...but since it was girl's night, we chose to treat ourselves (and vowed to start a very vigorous workout this week) and divulge in this goodness....

J's chicken parmigiana on top, and my chicken scampi on bottom.

I used to get chicken scampi every single time that I went to Olive Garden, until that fateful day a year and a half ago when I chose to look up the nutrition facts..and I hadn't had it since. Until Friday night, that is. Promise that this isn't gonna become a regular thing, though ;) 

Funny story: J and I always joke about whether or not people think we're a couple when we go out to dinner. And we especially made a joke about it Friday night when our waitress asked if the check was together or separate and we both said separate and I handed her my dad's card. I find this especially funny because I'm about 5 inches taller than J and about 40 lbs. heavier so it would make sense that I would be the "man" in the relationship and pay for dinner...which I did. And did I mention that halfway through dinner I told her to try some of my chicken and because we're so close..I just stabbed a piece with my fork and reached over the table and she just ate it. Normal for us, but probably didn't look so normal to the table sitting across from us. Whoops, sorry. ;) 

We finished the night with this bad boy...

Sonic banana split -- delish

Moving on!!

Saturday morning, J and I reunited once again for a mini shopping trip. Since I work all day, my mornings are reserved for any errands that I have to run, which requires me to get up super duper early every day. Anyway, I had been needing a new pocketbook for a while now so I headed to Marshall's and found this little beauty...

TH, only $30!

I reallllly wanted this beauty by Steve Madden because it was the perfect bag for summer and only $40....

 But I know myself all too well and this bag would be beige by next week. :(

Sunday: Went to church, went to work, and came home and enjoyed every bit of this yummy-ness...

Hibachi shrimp and grilled veggies = Heaven in a box.

   Next up: my sweet girls.

For those of you who follow me on Instagram..you've probs seen this picture. But when I was loading up the car for work on Thursday, I left my car door open while I went inside to get something else and walked back out and saw this...

 This was after I had already told her to get out 3+ times...anybody else see the sheer disappointment in her face? Broke my heart :(

Later that day/night...we had a terrible storm and after I got home, I was about to give sweet Daisy her insulin shot and when I opened the door to the garage..she charged right in! She hates storms. Therefore..this was the scene in our kitchen for the next 45 minutes...

Daisy not lying on the sheet I layed out for her, and Rue guarding the kitchen to make sure she stays put and doesn't infringe on her territory. 

Sweet sisters, right? I know. I raised them well. 

 Moving on: my mom.

 My mom loved to read just as much as I do and she had acquired quite the book collection before she passed. I needed a new book to read after finishing NS's "The Lucky One", so I grabbed one off of our bookshelf Friday and when I sat down to read it later that day at work, I opened it and found this...

 This may not seem like a big deal to some people, but to me it meant so much. I used to see her handwriting every day, and over the past 8 years I've only seen it a handful of times. So when I do see it, it just makes me feel really close to her, especially knowing that I was about to read one of her books. Love you mama, miss you so much.

 Lastly: blogger help.

I am once again in need of some blogger help. Everyone know those cute little twitter, facebook, pinterest, instagram, and email buttons? 

HOW/WHERE DO YOU GET THEM?

Please help a sister out. I'm desperate. 

Have you stuck with me this far?! If so, praise you! ;)

Be sure to come back tomorrow for my Bachelorette recap!! 

And I promise, promise, promise to FINALLY do my birthday weekend recap sometime this week..so keep checking back for that as well! 

Have a fab Monday! xo

pain, ER, and kidney stones...oh my!

Happy, happy Friday my lovelies!

Hope y'all are already having a fantastic start to the weekend!! 

This post was supposed to the start of a fun weekly Friday post that I plan on doing from here on out, but something much more...interesting?...came up and I just had to share. 

But, make sure you come back next Friday to see what this post was really supposed to be about! ;)

I'll give you details in a minute, but just because I dislike when people make me wait for something..I'll go ahead and tell you the gist of what happened.

I was in the ER last night for 5 1/2 hours with kidney stones.

Translation: I wanted to die for about 3 hours last night. Worst pain I have ever and I hope will ever feel in my life. (They say childbirth can be equivalent on the pain scale, so I guess I'm all prepared now for the future)

So let me give you the lowdown on how it all played out.

Warning: This may be quite the wordy post. But I promise to throw in some random pictures at the bottom for entertainment ;)

 So, I'm currently taking 'drama' as a class here at school and we have to go see 3 plays throughout the semester, one of which was last night. Everything was fine and dandy until I got up at intermission to use the bathroom. After I got back to my seat, the pain hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn't still still for squirming and trying to find a comfortable position. I ended up having to leave early because I felt like a distraction to those sitting around me. (Sorry, you guys!)

I miraculously made it back to my car and drove home. On the way, I called my sweet nursing student roommate, Steph, and told her that I thought something was seriously wrong because I'm generally a very pain tolerant person and I'm hardly ever sick. She was at dinner with friends but went ahead and left to come to my rescue.

**she will be receiving a complimentary roommate of the century award, no worries friends!  

When Steph got to the apartment, I was lying on my bed writhing in pain and she told me that it sounded like my kidneys and gave me one option: go to the ER. I normally would have put up a bigger fight about not going and wasting my time..but I was in so much pain (about a 7/8 on a 1-10 scale) I couldn't even think straight. So off to the ER we went at about 10:30pm!

We got there and naturally, had to wait forever. At about 12:30am, I was sitting in the waiting room, pain had escalated to about a 9/10, and I closed my eyes to try not to think about the pain, and it just stopped. Instantly. And no sooner did it stop than I was out like a light. I dozed off for about 30 minutes and woke back up to the triage nurse telling me there was blood in my urine sample and that it was most likely a kidney stone. I had mixed feelings about her saying that, though. On the one hand I was glad that it was actually something and I wasn't just overreacting, but I was also super scared because I was afraid of when it might start up again. 

I ended up having a CT scan of my renal area and an ultrasound of my kidneys. The ultrasound didn't show anything, but the CT scan did. I had one larger kidney stone in my bladder (the one that was causing all of the pain) and a bunch of little ones in both of my kidneys (not what I wanted to hear, obviously). So, they gave me a strainer to catch the little boogers when they pass and sent me on my way! I got to sleep around 4:30 this morning, and missed both of my classes today. I'd already been up to 5:00am once this week and still went to class but it wasn't happening again.

I'm not kidding when I say this y'all.....but PRAY that this never happens to you or anyone else you know, for that matter. And if it already has, I am so, so sorry. I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on my worst enemy. It was unbearable, and nothing eased it. I mean, nothing.  

I've never had kidney stones before, and neither has anyone in my family. So needless to say I was little shocked and unpleasantly surprised to know that I had more than one. But hopefully the little ones won't be quite as painful as the one trying to pass last night, and please, please pray for me that after these are all gone...I never have another one, because I know that tends to be the case when you have a kidney stone.  :( 

Now, I just want to give the best roommate AND her boyfriend the biggest thank-you I will probably ever give to anyone. They stuck by me for the entire 5 1/2 hours and I am so, so grateful. I don't know many people other than my family that would do that for me and I will forever indebted to them because if it weren't for Steph and Coleman making me go to the ER, I would have lied in bed all night just hoping and praying it would go away.  (yes, I'm that stubborn)

Here's a picture of them:

love them so much

   And last but not least...

I BLAME THIS ON FRIDAY, THE 13TH.

Granted, my pain started on the 12th, but I got the "diagnosis" on the 13th. So there. It works. UGH! 

dun, dun, dunnnnn

Ok, maybe that was a tad bit dramatic. But, oh well. 

Here are some funny pictures I found on #WhatShouldWeCallMe  so I can leave you guys on a happy note! Enjoy them and your weekend! xo

 

WHEN I REMEMBER THAT MY BIRTHDAY IS APPROACHING

WHEN A BOY FLIRTS WITH ME ALL NIGHT, BUT THEN DOESN'T MAKE A MOVE

 

WHEN MY FAVORITE FRO-YO PLACE IS ABOUT TO CLOSE AND I DON'T KNOW IF I'LL MAKE IT THERE IN TIME

WHEN I'M IN A DRESSING ROOM AND SOMETHING ACTUALLY LOOKS GOOD

and one more...

WHEN YOU SEE YOUR FRIEND IN PUBLIC, BUT THEN YOU REALIZE IT'S NOT THEM

 

 Make sure you guys check out their website...hilarious and so true!

 

weekend wonders!

 Hey, hey, hey lovelies! 

I hope you all had a fabulous Easter weekend full of quality family time, praising the Lord, and eating some seriously good food! (I personally enjoyed beef brisket, potatoes, green bean casserole, asparagus, chicken salad, deviled eggs, rolls, and pineapple cake...YUM IN MY TUM.) 

I don't have much time to blog today (cue the tears), so I'm just gonna give y'all a recap of my weekend happenings!

Friday

Since it was Good Friday, I had the day off from school (serious Hallelujah), so Jordan and I took it upon ourselves to have a girl's day! 

We started out with a sleepover the night before (don't judge, sleepovers are still cool..always will be), then we got up the next morning and drove to Greenville for an early lunch at a local eatery....

This place is the bomb.com. Fo reals. I've only eaten here a couple of times because I often forget it about! But now that I've had their shrimp & avocado wrap w/ fruit salad on the side...I don't think I'll ever be able to forget it about again. Omg, it was to-die-for. 

After this, we treated ourselves (seriously "treated"..it was $10) to TITANIC-3D! Not gonna lie, it was not worth $10, the 3-D wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I've seen movies in 3-D before that were beyond awesome (i.e. Despicable Me, Toy Story 3), but this just didn't cut it. However, it was nice to be able to see it on the big screen considering I was only 4 years old when it came out the first time!

Yikes, I really am a youngin'. 

 After the movie, J drove me around ECU's campus because even though I've been to Greenville 9817348979 times and am an avid ECU football fan, I'd never driven through the actual college campus! It was super pretty..not as pretty as Carolina's though ;) Sorry, J! :P

Following our impromptu tourism, we went to my Aunt Terry's house so that I could interview her and my sweet cousin Darby for an upcoming child development research project that I have to do (bleh!)

Darby on top, Payton on the bottom -- love my sweet girls :)

 And any girls day would not be complete without a visit to the mall! J needed some new summer clothes and I was more than happy to put some outfits together for her :) 

just a few of the pieces she got

 Saturday was full of a lot of...nothing..followed by dinner with my sweet Daddy. Haha! I got up, showered, went to visit my lovely grandparents for a few hours, did some more interviews for my project, and then went out for dinner and some froyo with my Dad!

Sunday morning, Daddy and I got up and went to church for a lovely Easter service given by our Pastor whose main message was that often times when we complain and worry and fret over certain things, it's over the wrong things and we need to look at things in broader view before we jump to the conclusion that Jesus is out to get us, because that's far from the truth. I thought it was a great message! 

I'll leave you with the few pictures that daddy and I took after church!

with my sweet baby Rue

 Hoping you guys make it through the rest of this Monday! xo