It's Finally Here.

The night air is definitely beginning to have that crisp, Autumn feel. The sun is sinking into the horizon earlier and earlier each passing day. Small cities become ghost towns each Friday night as the bright lights beam down on the high school football fields. It's quickly approaching my favorite time of year.

This weekend, interstate travel will become increasingly difficult as the bulk of the state head East on I-40 with pompoms tucked in the truck, magnets on the doors and flags in the windows. The mission is simple - to congregate with friends who live in our neighborhood, attend the same church and whom we ran into at the grocery store just the other day all while enjoying some of the best traditions in the South. We will dress in our best shades of orange, ice down the cooler and head to our tailgates early enough to catch the Vol Walk and still be able to enjoy a few adult beverages and toss a little corn hole. We will get chills the first few times Rocky Top is played in our presence. Then just as we've made it to our seats - with all 100,000 of our best friends - we will sing Rocky Top in perfect harmony as our team rushes onto the field through the checkerboard endzone and Power T.

Ladies and Gentleman - It's Football Time in Tennessee! Happy game week and GO VOLS!!

Too Much...

I've been in a rut lately. I got some news today that will hopefully tied me over for a month or so until better opportunities present themselves. At least that is what I will tell myself until then.

I think this is just a weird time. It is still sort of that transitioning phase from college student to adult. Sometimes I still get the desire to have a few beers on a work night but then the weekend rolls around and I'm not looking forward to a night on the town. I blame part of this on being older and not "recovering" as easily and the other part on the expenses one entails when out on the town. This "expense" makes me miss college even more! Not because I didn't always pay my bar tabs out of my own pocket (Thanks, Mom!) but because college towns are so stinking cheap! Dollar drafts; two for one longnecks (and jager bombs. vom.); and who can forget, FREE beer. Roll back the time machine, will ya!

That's just what I plan to do this weekend. Roll back that ol' time machine. It's homecoming in the bustling town of Cookeville, TN. That means good food, great friends and CHEAP DRINKING!!

A Little Sprucin' Up

During this downtime at the new job, I have been thinking a lot about the house and projects that need to be completed. I believe I am going to attempt a couple of these projects tonight. I have stumbled upon a couple of really good blogs lately and one in particular has inspired one of my projects for this evening. Life in the Fun Lane is one of the better DIY blogs I have found, especially when it comes to anything white or having to do with distressing furniture. I plan on making one of these tonight:

These are called ghost lamps and her blog entry can be found here. Assuming it turns out as planned, I will be putting the lamp in my bedroom hanging off my oddly sloped ceiling where I plan to move my gigantic chair after I purchase a replacement. It is a bit premature to make this tonight but I'm in the decorating/creating mood and these just look like fun! Plus my good pal Tara is willing to assist. :)

I've also been tossing around the idea of painting. One of the main reasons I settled so quickly on this house was due to my not having to paint anything because I loved the colors. The colors are fine but I've since learned that I find myself saying "they painted; they did; they whatever" and I don't like it. It's my house now and I want to make it mine! Plus some of the colors are dark and make rooms look smaller than they really are. This whole idea will likely pass but I'll be picking up some paint samples tonight no doubt.

I still have one wall in the living room that needs a little character. I decided today to make a photo wall. I plan to do this in my room also but these things take funds and I'm close to fresh out of those! I'm really liking the idea of this type of arrangement: Image found here

I like that it's more compact and the images pop. If I stumble upon lots of perfect frames, I would love to put one like this in my den with old pictures of my grandparents and parents growing up:

Image found here

My next task will be filling the frames for the one in the living room. Either my camera sucks at taking quality pictures or Walgreens sucks at developing them. Probably a combination of both. Regardless I'm not really one to take pictures of landscapes or things that would make something like this more attractive. I'll have to work on that I suppose. Or maybe someone will just lend/give/not-know-I-stole pictures. Gotta love Facebook! ;-)

I will attempt to remember to take pictures of the house this weekend and share. It's still very much a work in progress but nevertheless, something to be proud of! Happy Friday!

Beat That...

I have recently established I have zero summer blouses. Everything I own is dark and gloomy. While bored at work, I shopped around on one of the only websites I can actually access, Banana Republic. Before I got this job, I wasn't sure what line of work I would be getting into or what the dress code would be. Here at TVA, we're business casual. Some folk rock jeans and Hawaiian shirts. I'm guessing they are IT of some sort. Us business services people know business casual. My point is when I moved and began making purchases for my house, I put EVERYTHING on my Banana Republic card (and paid it off of course) so I would receive LUXE rewards (large amounts of gift cards to spend in any Gap, Ltd. store) in case I needed to spruce up my wardrobe for some fancy job. Clearly this was not the case. Today I purchased 2 shirts.

This one:

And another one. I obviously got the very last one of the other shirt because it is no longer even listed on the website and I seriously placed my order 20 minutes ago. The original total for this order was somewhere around $90. I weasled myself out of shipping and an extra 25% off this sale item listed above. I ended up paying a whopping $1.35. Success.

Every now and then, you just gotta get right with the shopping gods. Happy almost Friday!

On the Job

So I started my job recently. Okay so it was yesterday. So far so good. Except for a few things. I am assuming I am not the only person this has happened to, twice, but when you begin a new job you are typically given someone else's old desk/cube/area (as I prefer to call it). and it generally needs some tiddying up. Upon my arrival yesterday, I was introduced to my team and my area. Since I am new and this is a government job, it will take some time for me to have "access" to the programs I will be using so I am basically constructively killing time until then. My team is great and I'm certain this will be a great job!

A few weird things did occur on day one, however.

Since I really have nothing to do, I was told to do some "housekeeping." You know, get my area in order and what not. Boss tells me, "whatever you don't want, just put in that empty cube over there." So here begins my cleaning. My area is much bigger than the area I occupied at Bill's. I even have the actual cube material on the "walls" so I can pin things up and such. Bill didn't allow anything on the wall which sort of made for a dismal looking area. Any who, I discovered a few things I didn't need and just before I walked them over to the empty cube, I took a closer look at the CD-Rom I was about to toss to make sure I didn't need it. Title: Girls Gone Wild.... Bible Edition. Excuse me? Is this for real? Not looking much closer, I speed walk this CD-Rom/DVD over to the empty cube and hope it is what it says and my finger prints aren't traced back to some kind of corrupt watching of porn here at Tennessee Valley Authority. Whew.

After that scare, it was off to be fingerprinted (probably so they can trace me to Girls Gone Wild.... Bible Edition.) My coworker drove me over to the TVA Police station and Officer Billings greeted me. Then he asked me if I had any tattoos. Random. Just met the coworker here with me and now we're getting a bit personal. I say yes, unfortunately, I have a tattoo. Coworker chuckles in a they-totally-didn't-ask-me-that-question-I-feel-like-I-should-leave-the-room kind of way. Then Officer Creeper asks me where the tattoo is located. Part of me wanted to make up something ridiculous like having a spider web on both knee caps or something but I answered and carried on. Coworker then proceeds to come back and tell my whole team about the question (and of course I am the only one that got that question). The way he described it made me sound as if I were a walking billboard for tattoo artists around the world. He clarified and I am no longer thought of as a devil child. In fact, I think they even like me. After his revelation I felt the need to disclose the Girls Gone Wild.... Bible Edition. Lucky for me, they knew just who it belonged to.

The new career looks promising even after the odd first day. Bright side----- LONG WEEKEND AHEAD!