When I was a little girl I had a specific fear. Like most bizarre phobias do, it had snowballed from a scene from a Lifetime movie. The plot was based on a man who would lure young, beautiful girls onto his boat and when he was finished with them he'd tie a cinderblock to their leg and let them sink to the depths of the ocean. Lately I'm the young girl and my life is the cinderblock, only I'm still trying to decide if there is only one man trying to axe me off or a few.
    I've been dealing with a ton of emotional baggage, my face broke out from stress, a fever blister showed up only to be gone one day for another to take its' place only to be finished for another to take it's place, I keep one red eye because my last contact has a tear in it, my allergies caused my sinuses to be clogged, I have little to no motivation to go to work and leave the sanctity of my home, I was asked to do something that I feel drastically underprepared for and my husband is stressed to the max himself. I'm drowning in things that I can't control. Add the fact that I need to be in control at all times and you've got yourself one psychotic, emotionally-driven gal.
     You know how sometimes it just happens that way? It's bad bad bad bad bad bad then finally out of nowhere it starts getting good? Yeah I'm somewhere in the 'bad' stage waiting on the 'good.' It, for sure, forces me exercise my patience and my faith- both of which I should get better at.
    Well that about sums it up. I'm just waiting for better days, and traveling in between. In all honesty, that is the only thing that makes my life seem fun. Everything else is incredibly mundane, but I know we all go through periods of that. So in short, I hope you weren't prepped for a great story of heartache followed by a solution, I wish I shared more of those- my only advice is to have a great person as a friend to help when times are tough and do something fun when you're down. That's as deep as it gets, sorry ya'll. For now, here is a bunch of recent pictures of Graham and me at Walt Disney World. My gosh, I love and miss that place.

Graham is 30, flirty and thriving

Happy 30th birthday Graham. It's silly to think you've lived three whole decades. I am grateful for each one of them as they have molded you. To think of each phase as you have grown in your own way: your bug eyed baby stage, sweet little slugger stage, teenage years with an afro stage, young missionary just trying to figure it all out stage, devoted and adoring boyfriend stage, and this latest hard working, intelligent and genuinely funny adult stage. There is no adequate words to express my admiration and love for the man that you are. You are so full of life, so determined, so faithful. You see people in a special light and appreciate them for who they are. You serve effortlessly and tirelessly. You inspire me to want to do better and be a better person. You make me laugh when no one else can get through to me. When the world seems to be crumbling, I know I can turn to you and that you alone will help me. I hope you know that I could not do it without you at my side. You are exactly what I wanted in a spouse, you truly do complete me in all the ways that a person can. I hope this year is filled with more of your laughs, your triumphs and your happiness. I want the world for you, as you deserve it. I love you, I love you, I love you 30x over.

New York City Pt. III

    Halfway between our 4 day trip, we knew we were gonna step it up a notch and see all that we wanted to see in two days time!

    Saturday morning we met up with our friends the Hills . Together we toured Little Italy and ChinaTown. For any who may not know, those are sections of Manhattan known originally for their influx of immigrants from those respective places who built up the areas to mimic their homelands. I imagine it's far different now from the startup, but you certainly can still see the influences in those areas. ChinaTown had many pop up shops filled with chinese trinkets and stores whose only lettering was in chinese. Little Italy had a plethora of Italian ristorantes; we ate at one & we were pleased to have carbonara, braised short rib and risotto. I wanted to lick my plate clean!

    Graham's only real point of interest was the 9/11 memorial. It truly felt like a sacred place, everyone was respectful and fairly quiet, considering it was a tourist spot. Everyone who lost their life during that event had their name etched into around the huge squares symbolizing the spots where the towers had once stood. There were small flags and flowers to celebrate their birthday or, from my understanding, if visited by family. It brought back my own memories of learning about the horrible acts of terrorism at 9 years old. 

    After we parted ways from our friends, we walked a few blocks down Wall Street. Graham is a business man and it was so much fun to see! We saw the NY Stock Exchange building, passed many other points of interest, but Graham really wanted to visit the Charging Bull. His current work has a bull as their logo, and it just seemed to make sense. This statue had a crazy long line, with those waiting to get pictures from the front and the back ;) We bypassed the crowd and snapped a quick picture by his thrashing head. 

    Then we caught a subway down near the Brooklyn Bridge to walk across it. It wasn't freezing, but chilly enough that I was beginning to dread our 30 minute expedition to get to the other side. However, we ended up trying to make plans for that evening and it let us on a wild goose chase to find a booth that sold half-price tickets to Broadway shows. By the time we found it, selected a show and bought them we didn't have the time to cross it. We decided to walk towards the bay and BOY did we get a sight! Both bridges and the glorious lights in Brooklyn caused a wonderful scene. It was also quiet and romantic, uncommon for the area. 

    Keeping up with our schedule we made our way back up Manhattan. Listen to me when I say we kept the subways hot. I'm still not sure if I actually like it, a bit of it felt more difficult to figure out than I thought necessary. Although, hearing locals play tunes is always a favorite of Graham's. While searching for the exact spot for our upcoming show, we checked into Yelp to look at highly rated restaurants. We popped into a tight squeeze with no room to get to the bathroom, that was banging Missy Elliot and Biggie Smalls. They were dubbed the best sliders in town, no small feat for a multi-million population so we order 4 of them, a basket of fries and a cinnamon toast crunch milkshake. I don't really like cinnamony things, it's just not who I am, but THIS ONE. Oh, This One. Heavenly, sheer heavenly.

    As soon as we walked out we saw the bright letters saying STOMP. We had purchased two seats to see eight incredibly talented percussionists make music with the most insignificant things. My favorite was when all 8 lined up with a metallic lighters in each hand, flicking and lighting to their own beat. Graham liked when they used the trash cans like clash cymbals whilst jumping and dancing. It was very good entertainment because it was so ingenious and full of ingenuity, not to mention the tickets were reasonable!

    We tucked into our hotel for one last night and just enjoyed our room. Every night we would leave the curtains open, and sometimes a window, to just take in the splendor of the Big Apple. The night was very cloudy and the top of the Empire State Building was covered. But the clouds mixed with the bright lights below made for a pretty view. It was hard to turn away from that place in the morning! But onward we trudged, waiting for our flight that afternoon as we drug our luggage with us through the subway. 

    Our last stop on the entire whirlwind journey was to see Central Park. Originally I had planned for us to visit it twice but time was short and we eliminated the first excursion, that made us really want to come by before departure. As we were rolling our suitcases up the stairs there was a older Asian man with a pad of paper and charcoal. I had pleaded with Graham all during the weekend to get a sketch of us, but either it was priced too high or we didn't have a way to carry it. He finally agreed and we got our  artist to drop down his $60 tag (which I wasn't even thinking about paying) to $20, which felt reasonable. I posed in a still frame, eager to see the final product. Overall, I loved it! Graham's looked a little unlike him in areas, but it was because he posed with a smile different from his usual one- we were asked not to use teeth. But it's framed up in our apartment right now, cause it's sweet a pie to me, a great memoir.

    When our sketch was still rolled up with a piece of tape, and our arms were loaded down with our traveling belongings we walked into Central Park. After a bit, we parked it onto a bench, it was perfect because it was a gorgeous spread of the area. We played around taking a series of pictures of us individually and collectively, some of our best to date, I think. It was a relaxing ending, even if we had to ward off scam artists a time or two!

    NYC was just fun! It surpassed all the expectations I had lined up and I'd happily return.

New York City Pt. II / Kings of Leon

    The main reason Graham booked our NYC tickets was to bring his favorite gal to see her favorite band ;) My go-to music for the past several years has been Kings of Leon. They're an alternative rock band with serious soul! I remember reading up on them years ago when I first got interested in them- they're a family band, 3 brothers + a cousin, Southern and they described their music as 'dixie rock and roll' and I knew it was love. I've religiously listened to them with a serious fangirl following. All attempts to attend their shows had been foiled and I was terrified something drastic would happen and I wouldn't be able to mark if off my bucketlist.

    Fast forward to this trip. We had two tickets in hand and ya girl picked up a band t-shirt. Madison Square Gardens was a gigantic arena, we were up on the second tier. By the time the curtains came up, my heart was thumping- is that normal? 

    They had the most incredible set list- from their earliest songs to, of course, their most recent album WALLS. I feel blessed to have went to during this album's tour- it was GREAT. I'll contribute that to the fact that they know how to make soulful, fun music. A few personal favorites, new and old, they played included: Reverend, Supersoaker, Waste A Moment, Use Somebody, Muchacho, Closer.

    I've been to shows were I only know a banger or two and it's so boring during the lesser known songs. But, boy, I knew ALL the songs so it made it super gratifying! I stood and swayed and sung. I even got emotional a time or two, because that's who I am as a person. It was such a surreal evening, a real dream! 

    Oh, and I just found out (like today) they are touring in ATL in May and I MUST go! Anyone else have plans to attend? I won't begrudge them belatedly announcing it because I am really hoping to see them again ;D