a birthday...the big 2.9.

happy birthday to me. 

my email inbox:)

today i turn 29. and i'm still getting used to it. heck, i am still getting used to being 28! but nothing made me feel older than getting the email above from OurTime.com. You know, the dating site for men and women 50 years and up? but someone is "interested" so that's amazing! haha  well-played spam email. well-played.

currently reading: emily giffin's one and only

source: my instagram

it's a must read if you live in the south.

actually, 

even if 

you don't. 

the one and only is (so far) a tale i can get behind. being the wife of a sports grille owning, all basketball and SEC football loving man, i can relate to the fandom emily writes about. one of my own best friends has a father is somewhat of a legend in our little city of brentwood, tennessee for our high school football program. so i get it. i really get it. 

what I love about this story is pretty much the same "what" from ms. giffin's other novels. it deals with a lot of regular life stuff peppered with dilemmas. not dilemmas that couldn't actually happen. not dilemmas that seem to hit like a thunderstorm every hour. not the kind of book that reads like a reality show episode, packed to the guilds with drama, drama, drama. 

it's real enough for me to sit and laugh and be able to actually pluck out my own heart and drop it into the story's main character. what would i do? would i believe this person? act that way? tell the lie or be up front in this situation? 

i'm able to do that in every single one of her novels because she draws from the every day while making it interesting, resonating, and completely fun. i don't feel like i'm on the phone hearing a dull account of someone's life. i feel as if i'm eavesdropping. and that's way more fun...and not frowned upon in book reading circles. 

i'm three fourths of the way done right now, and that's only because i have been on a trip and have tried my best to be social and talk to living breathing people rather than read the whole time. i could've. i've always tried to savor it, as i often do with her novels, since i know i will have to wait another year and a half for the next. (that's also why i waited to start to read it.) 

on an writer's note (as opposed to a reader's) i truly commend her honesty on the subject of how often she cranks out books. i asked her about it when i went to her event at our library a few months ago, and she simply said she preferred not to have the pressure, that having that extra six months helped her regroup and figure out what she was going to write about next. and seeing her crazy book tour schedule, i really understand. it would be exceptionally difficult to unthink about the novel you were promoting day in and day out. 

i'll surely write about the ending (not the ending but my overall feel) of the book when i finish, but i have a good feeling about this one. i say go ahead and pick up a copy...a hard copy  if you dare.    

**i've totally enjoyed the weight of a good hardback book, not gonna lie, since i use my ipad (kindle and ibooks) quite a bit. 

later bronco fans!

(the team mascot in the book) 

moving out

we moved.it was a month on august 1st. but i'm just now getting around to writing about it. why? duh, because moving is freakin' hard and time consuming. and when i have had free moments, i tend to sit down very little...but write and read and research often.  (i can trick myself into sitting down when i read though...two birds.)

so, this post is dedicated to our first home in tennessee (as homeowners and a married couple). we bought it before we got married in june 2012, gutted it completely, and moved our stuff in right before the wedding. it was a long summer. at the same time, we opened two new locations of my husband's restaurant, jonathan's grille, and both went to real estate school. oh yea, and i was writing my first novel...and songwriting.

i loved and still love the finished project. and i am so glad to have spent our first two years together (married at least) there. we lived a few blocks from west end avenue right next to vanderbilt university (go dores) and we could walk to baseball games in the spring--this year, the baseball team won the college world series, so we feel it's fitting that we all went out with a bang.

west end avenue was a mecca for my life (besides yoga, which is closer to where i live now). vanderbilt asthma, sinus, allergy program, VASAP, was just a quarter mile. and if you don't know me, that's where i go to get all my monthly shots/post-op appts for exactly what the name of the program suggests. and before you say it's tennessee...no, my body doesn't care where i am. i went to the er in los angeles for the same thing :(. but that's another post.

west end avenue also holds an amazing starbucks that mase and i frequented when we were wanting a date but not a date-date!

i met my grandmother at the panera that was connected to the chipotle...lots of small meals and long talks and cups of coffee there. of course, there are plenty of other locations for those two places, and we have taken full advantage, but you know how you attach yourself to a particular location? well, the memories won't leave me anytime soon!

in short, 134 acklen park drive, you will be missed. here are some photos from charlie's last walk around the neighborhood.

hey, mom, let's go. why so sentimental?

acklen park drive

charlie and i looking at vanderbilt

our little complex. 

i had my white picket fence!

i always intended to do some more landscaping...but oh well.

done.