onward and upward

For a multitude of reasons that I don't particularly feel like hashing out here and now, I've moved my blog across the internet to a new home. Current and future updates can now be found conveniently at:

www.livelovelyke.wordpress.com

Here's a new era!

are a'changin'

Miss Sarah Jeanne Noah is getting married. In two weeks from today, she will no longer be Sarahnoah-all-one-word, instead she will be Sarahnoahbradshaw, which is almost equally as fun to say three times fast.

Several weeks ago, we "showered" Trey and Sarah in South Austin, then ventured to San Antonio for a bachelorette party full of dancing to amazing nineties music, burritos as big as our heads, and trying to keep members of our group from falling into the murky waters of the Riverwalk. All in all, I'd say the weekend was a successful tribute to the end of Sarah's "single" life, and a grand sendoff into the world of old married people. Welcome aboard, Miss-Noah-Soon-To-Be-Mrs-Bradshaw, it's a wild and delightful ride!

in real life

Hurricane Hermine is rearing her swirly head above us right now, which I am absolutely okay with. I love an occasional string of stormy gray days, days that allow you to guiltlessly hole up inside the warmth and comfort of home.

Today, I allowed myself to believe in Autumn. It's been far too oppressively hot to even fathom the change of season, but as it poured on and on, I lit my Leaves candle, put on some comfy pants, and threw myself into making a beef and butternut squash stew.

And I thought, as I allowed myself to fall deeper and deeper (get it? Fall? Bahahaha!), that I would finish up tonight with a last hoorah to summer, and ventured into my first and final raspberry and blackberry cobbler of the season.

Now I know that next week, the temperatures in Austin will soar, and I'll be sweating profusely on my way from the car to the apartment, but for the next few days, I will allow myself to believe that leaves will turn and pumpkins will be carved and football will be played and we will huddle around mugs of cider as the wind and rain howl outside.

folding chair next to mine

This is a post for Kate LePree Green, soon-to-be-officially-christened "Kate LePree Green, RN." Way to freakin' go, girl. Your accomplishment, even if it hasn't been posted yet through the Board of Nursing, is cause for one crazy celebration! I know I speak for the rest of the amazing group of people that we work with when we say:

CONGRATULATIONS!

WITH the exclamation point. :)

a candle in gelato

I cannot put into words how incredible my twenty sixth birthday was, but I will try. Oh, will I try.

Friday morning saw me tearfully clutching the score sheet of my CEN exam, searching and (finally) finding the word "congratulations" at the bottom of the page, punctuated not by an exclamation (which I think would have been more appropriate), but by a period. Just a "no big deal, we knew you'd pass" itty bitty dot at the end of the word. And just like that, the weight was lifted -- the anxiety that had been sitting heavy on my shoulders for the past few weeks, with all of the hours spent studying cranial nerves and AV blocks, the multiple trips to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Starbucks, melting away at the assurance that, come Monday, I will have three more letters tacked on to my nametag, assuring the world that yes, I am certified in emergency nursing.

Immediately from the testing center, I met up with Jimmy for a quick lunch (out of all the restaurants at our disposal on a Friday afternoon, nothing sounded quite as delicious as Chick Fil A), I ended up perusing the racks at Nordstrom in search of a cute dress for that evening's upcoming celebratory happy hour, which I found along with a few other unnecessary0but-necessary purchases. I got my eyebrows threaded, and visited my birthday present at the apple store, got my car washed (and a free wash for next time), and headed home to get ready for the celebration.

And Friday night found us siting in the back corner of the patio at Trudy's relishing in cold drinks and good company. Later, we made a game-time decision to continue the night at Highball for bowling and (later) karaoke. It was an amazing night full of ridiculous laughs, wonderful friends, and pure, unblemished relief.

And when I got home on Friday night, I found these on the counter:

He picked each of the flowers out himself. *Swoon*

Saturday morning, Jimmy and I slept in and woke up slowly before heading to Magnolia Cafe, anticipating long wait times and stifling heat. We were pleasantly surprised by the results of the cool front that had moved in over the past few days, and that we secured a table in less than twenty minutes. French toast, a buttermilk cherry pancake, and the Texas Benedict (eggs benedict with sausage and biscuits instead of the standard ham and english muffin? Smothered in chipotle hollandaise? Accompanied by homefries and strawberries? For that, a resounding and mouth-watering enthusiastic nod of the head) served as the fuel that would power us through the rest of the amazing day.

We headed up north to the outlets (buying two new pairs of sunglasses to replace my absolute favorite pair that recently snapped in half) and to IKEA, where we threw elbows in attempts to make it to the Home Office section. After much debate, we braved the check-out with a brand new seventy-eight inch long white desk to go along one wall of the West Wing. And my some miracle, we fit all seventy-eight inches of it into Jimmy's Honda Accord and I promised Jimmy that I would never again make him come to IKEA on a Saturday.

And then, the baby. Some girls on their twenty-sixth birthday dream of a bouncing little bundle of giggles and smiles little tiny onesies. Me? Not so much. After hours of labor (literally, working...in order to pay for the freakin' thing) and discussing name options (Jimmy, of course, wants to name it "Kevin Garnett"), we brought home the newest member of our family, a beautiful, functional, uploads-pictures-like-you-wouldn't-believe twenty-seven-inch iMac names Maela.

And the festivities reached their pinnacle at The Duchman Family Winery and Trattoria Lisina in Driftwood. We sampled amazing wines and incredible food, topping the evening off with honey lavender/cinnamon/hazelnut gelato with a candle.

I know you're not supposed to tell what you wished for, or it won't come true, but I'm also not very superstitious, so although it sounds lame and incredibly cliche, I wished to always feel as full of joy as I did in that moment, celebrating the advancement of my mid-twenties surrounded by people I absolutely adore.

carrying this torch

In three days, I will test for my board certification in emergency nursing. I have been putting this test off for three years, and I have finally plunked down the money and set the date for the day before my twenty-sixth birthday. That way, I will (hopefully) start off the second quarter of my (hopefully) hundred years with a few extra letters on my name tag and the weight of finally quitting the excuses and taking it will be over, once and for all. Hopefully.

And Friday afternoon will find me in a (hopefully) celebratory mood, drinking a margarita and eating chips-with-green-salsa-and-ranch at Trudy's with good friends, gearing up for a Saturday of furnishing the West Wing (our guest bedroom -- not named after the political location, but instead from the catch-all location of forgotten-but-still-important items on Beauty and the Beast) and (hopefully) purchasing our soon-to-be brand-new iMac. Yes, the next time I post, I will (hopefully) be sitting at our new desk on our new computer.

You know when you say a word so many times that it sounds foreign, and you're convinced that it has no meaning? That's a little how I'm feeling with the word "hopefully" right now.

For my birthday, my wonderful parents bought me a sewing machine. The idea came after working on my Carnival costume with my mom during a weekend home, when she decided that at twenty-five-soon-to-be-twenty-six, I needed the means to make my own projects -- costumes and curtains and pillows and whatnot. I couldn't have agreed more, and now my basic-but-with-a-few-fancy-frills sewing machine is sitting on our kitchen table, soon to be moved to the new desk in the West Wing.

My amazing Aunt Beth took me under her wing this summer at the lake and taught me some basics of sewing and quilting, and our dining room is now the staging area for Quilting Project Number One. It seems to be coming along, though we'll see what happens when I go to put it all together. That grand experiment will coming soon, after this test is over and done with.

My friend and former co-worker, Meljan, graciously took me on a photo walk around Austin's very own South Congress last week (when I should have been studying, yes, I know) to work on shooting with my prime lens. He made a earth-shattering discovery about why some of my low-light pictures turn out blurry (no follow through! I should know this from basketball. Oh wait...), and we had a great time wandering around amongst the kitsch and the funkiness and the particular culture that is South Austin.

So, here's to birthdays and milestones and certifications and breakthroughs and general arts and crafts and Austin and to the bison and sweet potato shepard's pie I made earlier this afternoon that's baking off in the oven.

And to an evening of studying like you wouldn't believe.

My very first bobbin!

All coming together