Tags: taylor swift

Atlanta: The Return of Aunt Pookie

Posted by Gretchen on Posted in Family, Foxlet, Travel Tagged , , , ,

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, it’s been quite a couple of weeks ’round these parts! Just a few weeks after our last visit, Penny and I made a return trip to my sister’s in Atlanta to participate in a whole slew of big honkin’ life events. As if the fact that Penny is 11 months old weren’t enough of a reminder of what a cruel thief time is, try throwing my nephew Alex’s first birthday AND my eldest niece Mia’s first day of Kindergarten into the mix!

WHEN DID SHE GET SO GROWN?! ::sob::

 
 
Penny had a grand ol’ time helping Alex with his smash cake after he started slowing down, hehe. And it also really helped whet her appetite — literally — for the donut smash photos that I took of her in preparation of her own upcoming big day!

More of those will be comin’ at you later — I am chomping at the bit to share them all right now but trying my darndest to save them for her actual birthday (just 2.5 weeks away!!!!).

Other great things that happened during this trip included plenty of quality time with my best gal (obvs), quality time with my best sister, working out 7/9 days I was visiting (ARE YOU NOT IMPRESSED?!), and even getting to spend a day at the pool!

 
 
Oh, right, and also that little thing where me and my 50,000 besties saw Taylor Swift perform. The show was PHENOMENAL — such insanely high production value! Whatever you might think about her or her music (obviously, I’m a big fan, but I know she is somewhat polarizing, lol), you cannot deny that she is a stellar performer.

 
And as a bonus? My Fitbit logged over 18,000 steps and more than 8 miles on the day of the concert! Gahahaha.

It was a great trip, and thankfully at the end of it I didn’t have to say goodbye for too long — my sister and her family will be coming up here in just a few weeks for Penny’s birthday party & baptism! I admit that I’m kind of glad to have all that solo air travel behind me… for the time being at least. Penny is a great flyer so far, and she very rarely gets fussy, but she is just sooooo busy and nosey and energetic that it’s pretty hard to keep her contained on flights nowadays. She doesn’t fall asleep too easily these days anymore either — except, of course, for during the final 10 minutes as we’re descending, lol. Thankfully, we had our row to ourselves on both flights!

 
Anyway, after so many weeks of being up, on the go, and busy as all get out, I was looking forward to at least a modicum of calm before Penny’s birthday but, as always, life has other plans. Alas, after successfully avoiding it for 30 long years of blissful, wise, toothy bliss, I finally have to have my wisdom teeth removed. Two of my wisdom teeth have erupted (turns out I only have 3 of them — #soevolved) but they are all impacted, and one started giving me some serious jaw pain last week. So my surgery is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

So if you’re not already following me on Instagram, I imagine that my Stories will probably be pretty entertaining that day, lol. See you on the flipside!

Friday Fun: Songtime

Posted by Gretchen on Posted in Dear Diary Tagged , , , ,

Happy Friday, friends! We made it through another week. Granted, this was technically a short week for me, but I maintain that “short” weeks often feel much longer than a regular week (because life just likes to me a dbag like that, haha) so it’s still a victory to make it to the end. I don’t really have a whole lot for you today, so I thought I’d just have fun with today. Longtime followers of this blog may know that I occasionally like to make a fool of myself on the interwebs by putting my very poor guitar skills to use and singing covers of songs.

You might also know that last week I impulse purchased a ukulele, which was pretty much the best decision I’ve made in a long time. It’s super fun, and has me wanting to continue with the aforementioned self-foolery. So, I recorded another song, and for those of you who are truly bored and/or have headphones at work, feel free to take a listen! I’ve still only actually owned this uke for a week, so don’t judge my skillz (or lack thereof) too harshly.

I’ve also re-posted the other songs I’ve recorded so you can see how far I’ve come in both quality of songstressing and hair length, hahahaha. They’re posted in reverse chronological order… with a special bonus at the end from my senior year of high school, when I sang at my graduation with the a cappella trio I was in. And yes, I attended a private school in Canada for my senior year of high school. Matthew Perry went there too. Not at the same time. OKAY!

Stay, Stay, Stay by Taylor Swift

The Happy Song by Kate Micucci

The A Team by Ed Sheeran

If I Die Young by The Band Perry

Say Goodbye by Ben Powell (Yep, THAT Ben Powell. My brother wrote the song for his own high school graduation in 2001, and then we repurposed it a cappella style in 2005. :))

I’m kind of thinking that I want to make this a semi-regular thing, assuming that I continue to get better/less lazy at it. If you guys aren’t interested in me continuing to post this sort of sillyness here on the blog, just let me know, but I’ll probably do it for myself anyway. So, that being said, if you have any specific song requests or recommendations, I’m going to start keeping a list! 🙂

Again, happy friday all! And don’t forget that there’s still time to enter the Pure Protein giveaway — the winner will be drawn on Monday!