She's Baaaack!

I'm back... did ya'll miss me?

I really did enjoy my time off work (and away from the blog). Are you wondering what I did?

I visited Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History. (Any of you that watch Real Housewives of Atlanta, this is where Cynthia & Peter got married last season.)

I visited the Georgia Aquarium, the largest aquarium in the world!

And my favorite stop - CNN's World Headquarters Studio Tour. They don't allow pictures in most parts of the building. I was two feet away from Wolf Blizter as he was live on-air and I have no evidence!!

This escaltor ride took forever.

The main news room. Lots of researchers & reporters were texting  away.

Empty news room... most researchers come in at midnight to prepare for the morning news shows.

I could never be brave enough to leave my kid ALONE on a COMPUTER in  a CNN NEWS ROOM!!!

I read Black Like Me, an amazingly eye-opening book about racism that I highly recommend!

And finally, we attended Marty's cousin's surprise proposal lunch. This one definitely will definitely go down in the history books. Sweetest thing I've ever seen in my life!

That's pretty much it. I'm already daydreaming about my next two blocks of time off. Currently in the works are a (possible) trip to Miami in April and definitely the Bahamas for our 3rd anniversary in June!!!

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Give Me a Break!

Hey ya'll!

I've been a little slow with the posting lately. Just haven't been feeling that inspired and motivated.

I'm on vacation all next week. I'm not going out of town (*tears*), but still, I'll be away from work so yayyyy!!! Anyway, I figured I'd use that time to regroup and figure out what's next with the blog. Over the past couple weeks I've been posting random stuff just for the sake of keeping the site updated. Not cool.

I should be back before April Fool's Day. Yeah, that's way longer than a week... I know. Don't judge me. And I'll probably still be updating my Facebook and Twitter, for those of you who follow me.

Smootches!


 

Material Girls

I was reading a recent post by Charli at Man Wife and Dog when I got the idea for this post. She featured a list of six questions, one of which was "What damage was done by the woman who broke (your man's) heart before you came along to fix it?"


I haven't thought about this story in 8 years since it was first told to me. Let's see if I can remember the details.


So apparently Marty had a certain way that he treated his girlfriends before I came along. He was a big spender. He treated them to expensive nights out on the town, dinners, gifts, and he probably even paid a bill or two. Of course, these ladies loved every bit of it.

Image by Carlos Davila on GettyImages.com

From what I remember, the problem came when Marty purchased his mom a designer handbag. I can't remember if it was a Coach, Gucci or a Louis Vuitton, but it was a very pricey one. I guess his girlfriend at the time was upset that she'd never received that kind of expensive gift from him.


And that was his "ah-ha" moment.


He realized that these women, in his mind, only clung to him for what he could do for them financially. So he ended that relationship and vowed that he would close his wallet to his next girl...


... me.


As it turns out, the timing was perfect. I'm not, nor have I ever been a material girl. I actually would have formed a very different (negative) opinion of him had he spent large sums of money on me when we first started dating. 


Don't get me wrong, he still paid for our dates and outings, but we didn't do anything over the top or expensive like he did with the previous chicks... at least not in the beginning.


He's still a big spender these days, but I'm glad he didn't use money to get me. 


Do you know anything about the last person your significant other dated before you?


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Why Aren't Women in Lorain, Ohio Getting Married?

This article ran in the New York Times last week and focuses on a small Ohio town where low marriage rates and single motherhood are the norm. But the most interesting parts of the article discussed why people in this town (mainly women) have zero desire to get married.

Image by Natalie Miller on GettyImages.com

The article interviewed a number of people and noted the following reasons:

• Major trust issues (based on past experiences) with the opposite sex
• Can't afford to stop receiving government assistance programs that only aid (children of) single mothers
• Too many potential mates are caught up in the criminal justice system
• Most men are either unemployed or underemployed
• Too concerned with working and making ends meet to worry about dating/marriage

Yikes. This is a pretty bleak outlook to have on marriage.

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Obsessed Much?

This post is totally off topic but...

Are you a fan of Adele?

Image from Wikipedia

I think I might be.

I first started hearing about her around this time last year. Her second album, 21, was released in February 2011. I didn't pay much attention to all the hoopla. I only purchase (download) one or two cd's each year and I wasn't going to waste $12 on a CD by some chick I'd never even heard of.

But the hoopla didn't die down. It seemed like everyone was listening to Adele but me. Then I read an article that said her album was the #1 for all of 2011 (selling more than 15 million copies).

So I broke down and bought her album around Christmastime. And I pretty much haven't turned it off since then.

I listen to it on the way to work.
I listen to it all day at work.
I listen to it on my lunch break.
I listen to it on my way home from work.
I listen to it while shopping.
I listen to it while cleaning the house.
I listen to it while blogging.
I listen to it in the shower.
I listen to it in bed.

Obsessed much? Lol.

Of course, like everyone else, my favorite song is Someone Like You. But my other favorites include Turning Tables, He Won't Go, Take It All, I'll Be Waiting and I Found a Boy.

Are you an Adele fan? What's your favorite song of hers?

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