{Louisiana.Bride}

Meal Pinning Mondays

2012-02-13T16:07:00.001-06:00

Guess what? It is Monday, which can only mean one thing, it is the first post for Meal Pinning Mondays! Yay. Yes I know I am posting this a little late in the day, but I was dead tired last night.

This week I am pinning both what I am cooking this week from my meal planning, and also what we had on Valentine's Day (we celebrated Saturday).

Valentine's Recipes

Pomme Frites with Spicy Mayo Dipping Sauce

Source: bigflavors.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: mandysrecipebox.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: whiteonricecouple.com via Taylor on Pinterest

We also had two of the best ribeyes I have ever eaten that we purchased at the meat market across the street, and fried onion straws. I went crazy unhealthy for VDay, and Jeremy enjoyed it big time. That baked brie dip is TO DIE FOR!

Dinner this week
Kitchenaid Yeast Rolls (but made whole wheat)

Source: lickthebowlgood.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

PW Corn and Cheese Chowder

Source: thepioneerwoman.com via Emily on Pinterest

I had to healthy this one up as much as I could, so I found some fat free heavy cream.

Skinny Taste Stuffed Cabbage Casserole

Source: skinnytaste.com via Emily on Pinterest

After the amount of cheese we are consuming from the chowder I decided to leave it off of the cabbage. We are in dairy fat overload this week!

Okay, now it's your turn! Show some love and link up:) The html code for the MPM button is on the right sidebar.

just an idea...

2012-02-10T21:31:00.001-06:00

Monday I plan to start a new blog series called Meal Pinning Monday. The premise of this is that I have meal planned for years, spending hours scouring the internet and various cook books I have acquired in search of new recipes. There are only a few recipes I make more than a few times. It is rare I repeat recipes in a month, except during spaghetti squash season which could be dubbed Spaghetti Squash Lasagna Month at our house. Once Pinterest hit the scene recipe hunting became much easier, new foodie ideas are constantly crossing my screen from the other pinners I follow, and the random things I have managed to find.

Anyway, with the recent popularity of meal planning these days (like I said, I've been a planner forever) I thought it would be great to post what I had pinned and planned to cook for the week. Others could also link up, and we could get inspiration (or Pinspiration as pinners call it) from everyone else's great Pinterest food finds. I mean, who doesn't love to look at recipes. Someone tell me I am not the only one reading cook books for fun ha!

Here is the button:

I will have a code on Monday so you can add it to your post when you link up. Hope y'all plan to join it, I would absolutely love it!

{fill in the blank friday}

2012-02-10T21:11:00.004-06:00

www.thelittlethingswedo.blogspot.com

1. I started my blog because I was engaged and all of my bridesmaids lived far away. I did it so they could see what I was wanting to use for decoration and get their input.

2. One thing I love seeing on other blogs real stories, great recipes, and affordable fashion. I also love to make new bloggy friends, there aren't a lot of bloggers that get together in Louisiana.

3. Something I love about blogging the encouragement I get from a lot of the awesome women I was friends with before blogging who blog and the ones who I have met through blogging.

4. A favorite blog post of mine is probably our trip to Italy, it contains all the memories I do not want to forget.

5. Something my friends in real life know about me that I've never before mentioned on my blog is that I am horrible at math. I can do basic, but I seriously hate math...so therefore I am not that great at it. If I know how much money I have I am good to go ha.

6. My new favorite blogs to read are a few food blogs and one weight loss blog I found on Pinterest, I can't exactly remember the name of them right now, I literally found them this week. But I would love some of my IRL friends to start blogging, it would make my day.

7. Some things I tend to avoid doing on my blog are talking bad about my husband, I may make jokes about him (ones that I make to his face-he gets even don't worry) but I am not mean or share things that don't need sharing. I wouldn't say something that we didn't think was funny.

Have a lovely weekend!

It has got to be better than mine-being intelligence tested for the 4th time.

The joys of a school psychology graduate student husband.

And in case you were wondering, I act like an ADD 5 yr old after a few hours of testing.

Our Love Story

2012-02-08T21:30:00.000-06:00

Hey y'all! Today I saw a lot of bloggers doing this great Valentine's Day link up with From Mrs. to Mama and thought I'd link up. I've never gone very in depth with out love story so who knows, maybe you will learn something new. It is so funny to call it a love story, I am just not the mushy type at all.

1. How long have you and your significant other been together?

4 years as of March this year.

[before Jeremy left for Africa in 2008]

2. How did you meet? {What's your "love" story?}

We met in a Sensations & Preceptions class at ULM in 2007. We are both Psychology majors. Towards the end of the semester a few of us who would be seniors were registering for our university capstone class and I suggested Jeremy {who I didn't know was a semester behind us} take the class with us under Dr. Palmer. Since I had to catch up with him in front of Starbucks he swears to this day I was stalking him. But I wasn't, I was being nice. The spring semester we took Palmer's class on positive something or another which was basically us watching a ton of videos by Joseph Campbell and do a presentation about religion. Well needless to say my panic attacks set in and as a means of preventing from presenting (Jeremy and I were set to present the same day) I asked his friend who sat in front of me for his number and text him "If you don't go first I will kill you." Romantic right? Well he went, and I still didn't present, I lied and said I didn't have my flash drive-that professor seriously gave me panic attacks. That night Jeremy text me some cheesy mess, and long story short we were supposed to be going on a bunch of psychology group outings that turned into everyone backing out but us dates. After he took me to the Emo concert that everyone else backed out of he asked me out in April. He ran off to Africa for 3 weeks in June, and we were engaged in August.

3. If married, how long have you been married? If not, is this the guy you hope to marry? {do tell}

We have been married over 2 1/2 years. It will be 3 May 30, we were married in 2009...quick courtship I know haha.

4. If you are married, where did you get married at? Big or small wedding? If not, where would you like to get married? And will it be big or small?

Small. It was right about 100. We were married at Twin Oaks Plantation in Natchez, MS in front of the chapel in the garden (that still had its original Tiffany glass windows). We didn't have a formal dinner, just drinks, dancing, and h'orderves.

[wedding photography by Jennifer Lizenby]

5. Do you have any nick-names that you call one another? Do share!

Not really, I call him all sorts of things like Learch. Mostly it is only babe. He sometimes calls me what my immediate family and friends call me...Emma. Oh wait I do call him Jer sometimes, but my sister calls him Jer Bear.

6. Name 3 things you love most about your honey.

He is a good Christian man, hardworking, and his height will hopefully enhance the Cater genes. Ha! But really, he loves my dogs and family, what more can I ask?

7. Tell us how he proposed? Or your ideal proposal?

He took me out to the park and we had a picnic, of BBQ (my favorite none the less) and chocolate covered strawberries. Afterwards we went walking and he proposed. Sadly his reason for marrying me at the time sucked, or his wording did. His sister had been arguing with him about dumb junk and he praised how I dealt with it. Not exactly romantic, but I agreed.

[at evening church after we were engaged 8-23-08]

[engagement pic by Two Suez]

8. Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose petals?

I'd say both. I've scene flowers, champagne, and strawberries over the years. But honestly that is a rare occurrence. I think flowers are a waste of money most of the time. I love them in my home, but it cost and it dies...no bueno.

9. Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a movie in and relax on the couch?

Pop a movie in and relax on the couch. I've told Jeremy several times my favorite dates involve Johnny's pizza and a movie in bed.

10. Tell us one thing you'd like to do with your significant one day. If you could do anything? Go anywhere?

We have both traveled abroad seperately and this past Christmas we finally got the chance to travel together to Italy. From here I'd like to go to England again[to live], Jeremy would like to go to China, and our together idea would be the holy land tour.

[at the Saint Angelo Castle in Rome with the Vatican in the background]

11. Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine's Day.

Cooking. I want to do steaks with some yummy side I don't normally do and a fun appetizer and desert. I have only decided on the steaks for now though. By Saturday I will know what I want. We are having to celebrate on Saturday since he has class till after 8 on weeknights.

12. Are you asking for anything this Valentine's day?

No, my birthday is this month so I go light on him for V-Day. We usually just do cards, although last year Jeremy pulled a Mike (my dad) and didn't sign the card and gave it to me in a WalMart bag. Aren't we so romantic.

13. Give us one piece of advice of keeping a relationship strong and full of love.

To know that divorce is never an option. My parents taught me to not use the word. Life is hard and you have to realize that like life there are ups and downs in relationships. You just have to work through it and not give up just because it is tough. You will get back to a good time, even if it take awhile and a lot of work.

14. Show us a picture of what love means to you.

Jeremy flipping me while we were swing dancing for our first dance. Not the most romantic thing I know, but it is a true depiction of us. No posing, and Jeremy giggling while I screamed in fear ha! We spent a lot of time practicing for that, and a much more dangerous flip had to be taken out because I was so dizzy by the time we got to it I could never land on my feet. Also, my Mom and Nanny are in the picture, along with a lot of our friends. I really believe you can't have a successful marriage without loved ones supporting you, I know my Mom & Nanny are our biggest cheerleaders.

[humpday link ups]

2012-02-07T23:59:00.000-06:00

It's Wednesday y'all and that means the week is half over. Horrible I count this down, but as long as the husband is in graduate school have I to because it is the only time I see him. So without further blabbering here are the two linkups I am participating in today: What I Wore Wednesday & Oh How Pinteresting Wednesday.

This week I am pinning desserts I am loving-and contemplating on making for Valentine's Day. I've been having trouble choosing, so your opinion is totally welcome!

Source: cookiesandcups.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: williams-sonoma.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: bonappetit.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: bhg.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: jennysteffens.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

Source: rosas-yummy-yums.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

.................................................................................................

Now for WIWW!

Black cardigan - Target

Gray ruffle sleeveless top - Old Navy

Skinny Jeans - Old Navy

I totally forgot what shoes I was wearing:)

Being an intelligence test guinea pig for Psychology grad students:)

Shorts - Old Navy (yes it was hot in NOLA this past weekend)

Jean Jacket - Old Navy

Fun Tee - Mental Floss.com

(An apple a day...still leaves you 2-4 servings short of your daily fruit requirements)

Burlap Toms

Strip Blazer - American Eagle

Danskin v-neck - Walmart

Jeans - Gap

Necklace - Forever 21

knit fuchsia ruffle mini dress - some random store in NOLA

white tee - Target

skinny jeans - Old Navy

wedge boots - Target

Happy Hump Day Blog World!

[customer service]

2012-02-07T20:08:00.001-06:00

I really need to brag real quick about a certain company's customer service...Tiny Prints.

I was able to participate in their Christmas card promotion and ended up not orderin cards until the last minute. Then I paid extra so they would be in before we went to Italy.

Friday rolled around...the day the cards should have been here, and they weren't.

So I called and quickly got the nicest girl EVER on the phone who fixed the problem and told me they would be delivered asap. No problem at all, it was Christmas rush season, I totally understand getting lost in the mix. I was just so grateful that they refunded the money I spent on rush shipping. The sweet woman apologized, and when I said "Don't worry abou it, y'all are super busy, it is totally understandable.", she was stunned. She asked if I was sure. I told her I was positive she dealt with less than nice people all day and the last thing she needed so close to Christmas was me fussing over not getting cards that I was so lucky to get to receive. Let's be honest, when your husband is in graduate school spending mucho money on Christmas cards is just not necessary, had I not gotten to participate in this promotion I would not have had cards. She was such a sweet lady. I just hope the nice things I said to her gave her some relief, I know what it is like for people to blame you when it is not your personal fault (working at a high end restaurant will do that).

Well, to my surprise I came home Monday to a nice letter and a $50 gift card to Tiny Prints apologizing for the card mishap. I am truly impressed, a company that really cares about its customers is hard to find.

Just thought I'd share.

Life Well Lived: Looking Your Best

2012-02-06T22:03:00.002-06:00

The topic this week on BlogHer's Life Well Lived is looking your best...as if you couldn't tell from the title. This topic actually falls into my New Year's Resolution to put more effort into my look.

I'm not going to lie, I got a little lazy in 2011. No Makeup Saturday turned into No Makeup Everyday. Which isn't a bad thing, but then it crossed over into my clothing and was then "put in as little effort as possible at work". I wasn't a total slouch, but I could have done better. So I resolve to have cute hair, make up, and clothing this year without going broke in the process...because us graduate wives don't exactly have money to blow. The bookstore gets all my extra dimes.

Back to the point: this week's questions.

Do you have a favorite blogger or YouTube channel for hair tutorials?
Do you create your own?
What's your best tip for finding the best tips?

Now let's hit these up one at a time.

Do you have a favorite blogger or YouTube channel for hair tutorials?
I don't actually have a favorite YouTube channel, I just tend to search for whatever I am looking for at the time. It takes a lot of video watching that way, but it gets good results. There is a blogger that has become popular on Pinterest that has great tutorials...

The Small Things Blog

Source: thesmallthingsblog.com via Emily on Pinterest

This particular pin will link you to her tutorial on how to flat iron to get volume. She has a ton more of great styles, but she is a hair stylist so it is a given. Here are a few more of my favorites from The Small Things Blog:

Source: thesmallthingsblog.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

Knotty or Nice Turorial

Source: thesmallthingsblog.com via Kathy on Pinterest

Source: thesmallthingsblog.com via Samantha on Pinterest

I just love her hair, makes me want to go blonde and go to beauty school so I can figure out what to do with this mop. Or get bangs again, maybe I'll just get bangs again.

Do you create your own?
I haven't created my own video tutorial, but I did do a review about this product.

What's your best tip for finding the best tips?
Pinterest. It has become my secret weapon for finding ways to mix up my look. As much as I love fashion I just can't afford to update my closet every month, but thanks to all the great tutorials and fashion pins I can change my look without spending money. Which by the way is a big deal when your husband is in graduate school and you have been exiled from Ann Taylor Loft (not literally-but according to the husband I am).

Changing your hair style with easy little do's is the best way to try new looks without having to chop, dye, or spend money. In my opinion Pinterest is the best free style consultant around.

In case you are wondering I plan on trying the Knotty or Nice look tomorrow.

What are your favorite hair tips & tutorials? Do you wear your hair the same or change it up often?

Check out this week's main post about Looking your Best at BlogHer to see other blogger's LWL bloggers answer this week's questions.

Make sure you check out the current sweepstakes at Life Well Lived to win a Kindle Fire!

Italy Day 5: Hodge Podge of a Roman Free Day

2012-02-03T18:22:00.001-06:00

Today (Saturday) the entire group headed out to Florence and Hadrian's Villa. I desperately wanted to go, but the cost of travel just wasn't worth a day trip in a bus. So instead of blowing money we hit the streets of Rome with no real agenda and enjoyed ourselves at a much slower pace.

Aqueducts in the middle of town close to the train station.

We had to stop by the train station to exchange more money. While we were there I thought I'd take a picture of their Christmas display. I loved how they wrote their Christmas wishes on paper and stuck them to the tree.

Saint Maria Maggiore Basilica.

I really had no clue this was a "big deal" place to visit until the next day when some of our group was talking about wanting to go there.

My lack of Catholic knowledge just left me admiring the art and architecture and having no idea why this saint is important.

Beautiful door handles.

This thing looked really similar to the one we saw in the Vatican a few days later. I have no idea what it is though, if someone knows leave a comment telling me.

Crypt of Santa Maria Maggiore.

This prayer was written in several languages and placed in front of the urn containing her relics.

The container holding relics of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Ceiling of the church.

Once out we wandered past a sculpture/bronze whatever they are called of Caesar...Julius or Augustus I will never know.

Next stop was to tour the the Victor Emmanual Monument that we walked past so many times. The exhibit contained art and artifacts from the 1700s to present day. I will admit the older stuff was much more interesting, I just wasn't a fan of modern installations.

Death mask of Cavour. So so cool. I have always wanted to see a death mask so when I came across this I nearly flipped.

Be amazed, this is the pen and ink well used to sing the armistice at Villa Giusti on November 3, 1918 signifying the end of WWI. My little history loving self just stood here and stared.

From the top of the building. Great views of the city, you could go higher but they charged 8 Euros.

At this point I realized I was lost, and furious. I had been trying to keep up with Jeremy and Luke in this massive building and they were walking in opposite directions. In my efforts to find Luke I lost Jeremy. I seriously walked all over this balcony and didn't see a soul I knew.

After exiting the balcony I walked for another hour through this building and its wide array of exhibits. About the time I hit the modern exhibit with its weird soap bar lined wall installation and camping tent in the middle of a white room I was furious. I paced up and down halls cursing under my breath while wondering what was the point of having a bloody bust in an old fridge was.

Finally I went back to the top of the stairs to find Jeremy and Luke describing me to some lady. The exact lady who, when I realized I was unable to find the guys, wouldn't let me backtrack though the museum to find them. They of course accused me of running off, how someone runs off when they are looking for you I will never know.

Colosseum from the top of the VE Monument.

Ancient Rome.

This is hands down my favorite picture from the trip. All over the city were these beggers who were completely covered in clothing. You couldn't see a spec of skin on them! As you walked past they would bang their cups on the ground while dangling their rosary from their hands. The first time I saw was I was kind of shocked. After a few I began to see the beauty behind it. Yes it is sad, I caught a lot of flack for taking the time to set up this picture...not that I told her to move, I just moved myself around. Something about this woman kneeling in a wet street in the center of Rome while people rushed past focused on their own lives is just so intriguing. How old is she? What color is her hair? Is she homeless? Or is she trying to make a profit off of the tourists like the street performers? Does she have children? Or is this even a woman? There is just so much mystery in this woman. I could literally stare at this picture for hours just wondering about her.

Gelato shop by the Trevi Fountain.

Should we start counting how many time I went past this fountain in one week?

Lovely Italian parking job, I would love to know how they get out because it looks like this on both sides.

Obama at the wax museum. This dude was so creepy I was giving him the one over and Jeremy pushed me towards it and I seriously yelped.

I wish I could remember the name of this monk, but this mixture of wax people makes no sense at all.

Walking back past the VE Monument. We did that a lot!

Back in Ancient Rome.

Walking into Chiesa Dei Ss. Luca E Martina. The church was just recently reopened to the public and lies in the hear of the Roman Forum. The foundation of this church is dedicated to the Roman martyr St. Martina and dates to the 7th century. This church was restored in the 13th century by Pope Alexander IV.

The church floor was elevated and a new unvalted wood ceiling was added in 1618.

There is a ton more about this place on their website www.accademiasanluca.it

The crypt.

Outside the church in the Roman Forum.

He just won't take a decent picture.

Here my friends is where it got interesting, as if it weren't interesting enough. Behold the Basilica Di San Clemente, also known as the lasagna church. This is a "modern" church dating back to the 1200s, if you can call that modern. The modern church is built upon an early Christian Basilica dating to around 350 ( I think I wrote my dates down right), which is built upon a mystic church from around 1AD that was dedicated to the ancient Persian god Mithra. The lowers level, unlike the two upper levels teaches about Mithraeism and contains an ancient Roman house with a fresh spring flowing through it. Which you can still drink from. I didn't taste it because it smelled musty down there, but I did bend over the railing and stick my hand in it.

Sadly this was yet another place we couldn't take pictures. I was amazing though, I walked close to the tour guides so I could hear the history without paying the price :).

That evening we met up with the group and ate dinner, where I actually got my hands on a salad and some chicken. We also found a great gelato place after dinner that was very inexpensive. I came to realize quickly that the closer you were to tourist spots the higher the price.

February photo a day

2012-02-01T16:41:00.001-06:00

In case you haven't seen the photo a day challenges floating around Twitter and Instagram here is the list for this month. Sorry for the screen shot, I thought I had it on my phone. Happy hump day:)

What I Wore Wednesday

2012-02-01T06:36:00.001-06:00

It's Wednesday again, yay the week is almost over! Our computer cord went out so I'm posting from the phone. If you want to know where any of my clothes came from comment and I'll let you know.

Link up at www.thepleatedpoppy.con

When it's hard to remember what's important

2012-01-29T07:07:00.001-06:00

Source: thenester.com via Emily on Pinterest

This is extremely difficult for me to remember these days. I want nothing more than to buy a house, decorate it the way I want, and live at Target. But in this graduate wife phase life is all but that. Money in budgeted strictly, thank goodness we got to go to Italy and our savings allowed for it. The strict budget means that even thoug I hate the couch pillows I am stuck with them. That new nail polish is not a need so it is pushed to the side. There is no sense in buying a house, even though it would be cheaper than our rent, because we could possibly move in a year. We might even stay, but it depends on where Jeremy gets an internship at. Then a year after that we could move again. I hate having to find a new job, and dread the idea of changing again in anything less than 2 years. In 3 years of teaching I've taught at three school. Not because I wanted to trust me. I was transferred in district my second year, and almost transferred again that same year. My graduate internship kept them from sending me to kindergarten. I can only teach 1-5. then this year Jeremy came to school 5 hours from where I worked and lived and I followed, and found another job. I'd kill for career consistency. However sour my mood is toward the hardships of being a graduate wife I have to remember that the life I have now is something I wanted in college. Financially I've reached every goal I wanted to so far without the help of anyone else. In a few years Jeremy will be back in the real world and making more than they barely pay as a graduate assistant and we will be settled. Until that day comes I need to be grateful for this assistant ship that pays for graduate school and then a little on the side, it is saving us for a lot of graduate school debt. [this possibly explains my contempt for being grouped in with college students, at 27 & almost 26 we just don't fit in with college kids anymore. I teach and he is working on a specialist, none of that says count me in on all college happenings. I'll end that rant there.]

[top 10 reasons you aren't sleeping at night]

2012-01-28T04:15:00.000-06:00

...and why it's bothering me too.

It is 3 am. I am awake yet again. I say yet again because, well, I have never been a good sleeper. Ask my mom. I promise she would say this "She never even slept though the night as a baby, she just eventually quit waking me up." That my friend is a direct quote from the woman, she often tells it to soon to be moms who are convinced you can convince every baby to sleep. Ha!

So now that I am an adult and have rationalized why it is I never sleep I have compiled a list of things that are causing me...and probably you too, to lose sleep.

#1 Extra light in the room from electronic devices.
These kick my booty big time. My alarm clock is currently hidden behind a photo of my dogs, it helps a little, but is by no means a solution. I also have to deal with light from the DVR box, my humidifier, and the lap top I am typing on this very minute. If you own a Mac you know the tiny little light on the charger gives off enough light at 2am to guide ships in safely at night. Can these things be fixed? Sure, I could put electrical tape over everything, and I probably should over the humidifier and DVR; but I need to know what time it is every morning so I don't miss work.

Solution: Eye Mask. The $10 eye mask I bought at Bed Bath & Beyond has been the biggest lifesaver, especially when staying places that don't have black out window treatments like I do.

#2 Gotta potty.
Having to get up during the night to use the restroom is one of my biggest problems. Hence why I am awake now.

Solution: Stop drinking liquids by 7pm if you go to bed early or 8pm for later sleepers. Don't drink tea before bed, and if you do drink tea in the evening make sure it does not contain dandelion-it's a diuretic.

#3 Too much caffeine.
I've made the mistake a few time of seeing a coffee shop or really cool coffee drink while on a road trip and not paying attention to time drank that sugary caffeine filled drink right up only to wonder later why Tylenol Pm isn't working for my sleeplessness. Sometimes on super tired days of school I will drink Diet Coke to give me an extra boost, or sip some of Jeremy's sweet tea mindlessly at night before bed. All of these contribute to poor sleep and I usually don't know I've done them until it is too late. I've never been a huge Coke or tea drinker so this isn't a huge issue to cut out, but coffee is.

Solution:
Cut out all caffeine by 2pm to ensure you have given your body a chance to regulate it out. In the event you can cut out soda or drink caffeine free sweet tea, go for it!

#4 Sleeping with a chainsaw.
Not literally, but is you significant other a loud snorer? That is a doozie. Growing up my father's snoring in the other room would wake me up often. Luckily Jeremy rarely snores, he has to be sick or really tired, but it has never been something that disturbed my sleep.

Solution: Ask your partner to try products to alleviate snoring like Breathe Right or other over the counter items. If it continues as them to see their doctor, without being offensive. We all know how people that snore don't like to admit it.

#5 Noise
Some you can help, other noises you can't. If you like in a metropolitan city you probably experience different noises that people living in rural areas. My dogs wake me up to go to the bathroom some nights, and as much as I hate it I would rather not clean up poop at 6am, so I live with it.

Solution: Turn off your cell phone at night and shut your bedroom door. That alone will cut out a little noise. Try turning your cell phone to airplane mode and using sleep apps. Rain and thunder sounds always put me out. There are a lot of great ones out there for free, I prefer Magic Sleep. The full version is free in the Android market and you can get a lite version in the App Store.

#6 Loud neighbors.
This is a much bigger problem for apartment dwellers than homeowners. But either way it is a nuisance. You can't exactly control who moves in next door or the fact that it sounds like total war through the wall. The college party animals are the worst for young couples renting apartments who aren't ready to buy a house but still have to get up for work bright and early.

Solution: Politely ask them to turn it down. This can cause war, so be sure you are a considerate neighbor before marching over to give them a piece of your mind. I've been in a few wars with college dorm neighbors and it was not pretty. Be graceful and sweet, you catch more flies with honey. Be sure to explain why you need them to quiet it down.

#7 You married a bulldozer.
The person you are sleeping with tosses and turns all night leaving you wide awake and covered in bruises from the surprise sleep attacks. I can't say I've been there, I am the bulldozer. Jeremy luckily sleeps really well and rarely notices that I am up and down and all round in this bed. I have woken up with my body completely across the bed [instead of down like you're supposed to] and all over him.

Solution: Find a way to move them without them knowing it. Jeremy does this to me all the time. Buy a body pillow, this is what helps me a lot. My mother jokingly says that I sleep in a nest because of how I arrange my pillows, but it is what keeps me from moving all night long.

#8 Work stress.
Stressful work situations follow you home? They sure follow me. This year is not as bad as last year luckily. Last school year I would wake up in the middle of the night panicing because I was creating scenarios in my head about how things would go wrong. It was very menacing.

Solution: Create a mindset that work is work and when you leave the building you leave the mental baggage at your desk. Journaling is also great, getting your thoughts on paper will help release some of the built up anxiety. Reading is another great option, but make sure it is a light hearted book, you need perking up, not worry and suspense from fictional characters.

#9 Family Stress.
This can not always be avoided. Loved one, or not so loved ones, get sick, pass away, or cause drama that you yourself can not avoid. At the same time, don't be the family stress. Kids schedules can also put a time strain on your family with all of the added activities and after school programs children are enrolled in. Relationships are hard as well, you didn't get married under the pretense it would be flowers and sunshine all day long, they wouldn't put that "for worse" clause in vows if we were promised marriage was a piece of cake.

Solution: If it is something you can't control, realize you can't control it. You alone can not be the mender of every family situation. If relatives are crazy and constantly coming to you to fix their problems you have to learn to decipher what is a need and what is pure drama, and weed it out. Learn to say not to people. Like I said for #8, journal, this releases a lot of energy. Do yoga, it is very relaxing and I can always forget whatever the problem is when I as relaxed as I am doing yoga. Hit the gym, or go for a walk-exercise is the best medicine. Last but not least, pray about it. Prayer can do wonders.

#10 Financial woes.
Student loans can throw a huge kink in your financial ball and chain. Unforeseen events will almost always occur as soon as you think you have a nice cushion in your savings. This summer I had our whole graduate school savings plan worked out to a T, until my car was totalled and Jeremy's bit the dust, which led us to purchasing two cars and going from one very low car payment to two much higher ones.

Solution: Make a budget. Knowing what expenses you have monthly will help you in the long run. Know where your money is going and what you have left over, eating out will suck the money right out of you and you won't even know it. If you have $200 left after bills and you spend it all on play you won't have anything saved up for a rainy Murphy's Law filled day. Knowing what bills you have, and having it written down will help out a lot. If you can pick up a side job here and there for extra money go for it. I have started tutoring to help compensate what Jeremy is paid as a Graduate Assistant, and hope to get on as a summer school teacher. Extra savings never hurt anyone. Plan ahead and you won't hurt so much when something does happen.

So tell me...

What is keeping you awake at night?

Fill in the Blank Friday

2012-01-27T06:45:00.000-06:00

Since this week's FIRBF really matched up with what I've been blogging lately I thought I would definitely join in. You can link up at The Little Things We Do. If you are visiting from The Little Things We Do check my posts about Italy to see what I've been talking about!

1. My favorite place i've ever traveled to is Italy, it has been the most exciting thus far. England was great-but Rome took the cake .

2. Spain is somewhere I'd love to go someday.

3. I pass the time on a plane (or bus, or car ride or train) by sleeping, reading books, playing on my iPad, talking to Jeremy or whoever I'm with, or watching movies if that is an option .

4. My three must-haves when I travel are a camera , snacks and a pillow

5. My favorite travel companion is my husband Jeremy .

6. The craziest thing that ever happened to me while traveling is missing a train to Naples & the tickets were on the train with someone else, getting lost in Rome, and when that crazy guy tried to mug me - same trip so they count as one:) .

7. The most exotic food I've ever tried while traveling is mutton. I really haven't had anything too off beat when I travel. Then again I eat a lot of stuff .

8. If I could live anywhere else, I'd live in England. Hands down. I would move there tomorrow if Jeremy were up for it. And I am seriously attempting to convince him to move once he is done with graduate school .

9. I have been to nine states in the U.S. (not counting airport terminals or drive though and eat states- if so add 3)

{What I Wore Wednesday}

2012-01-25T00:00:00.000-06:00

It's Wednesday and you know what that means! Only 3 days of work until the weekend, and its time to link up for What I Wore Wednesday again! I had a few good days this week, but until I uploaded I had no clue I wore my school shirts so much this past week.

Teal zipper cardigan - Old Navy

Pink cami - Target

Khakis - Gap

Necklace - Old Navy

Jean Day

Jeans - American Eagle "Artist"

School Spirit Shirt

Black longsleeve - Target

[Mossimo has the best plain long sleeves for layering]

Church

Blue Ruffle Silky dress - Old Navy circa 2008

Faux Pearl bracelets and necklace - Burlington Coat Factory

Red vintage style pumps - Target circa 2008

(this was my engagement pic outfit)

Skinny Jeans - Old Navy

White Tee - Old Navy

Burlap Toms

Leather bracelets found in Naples

Purple Tank - Target

Attempt @ making duty day/tutoring day cute-ish

Spirit shirt

black mossimo long sleeve shirt - Target

Gray khakis - Old Navy

Owl headband - Claires (since I had on my Who Dat? shirt lol)

Lunarlon Nike Running Shoes - because they are crazy comfortable

Can I just throw in I am so excited that my hair is finaly getting "long". It was so short when I started doing WIWW last year.

Happy Hump Day:)

Italy Day 4: Back to Rome

2012-01-24T20:51:00.001-06:00

Be warned, this is a long post, but we are kicking out day 4 at one time. Shocker-especially since it took 4 posts to get through the pictures of Pompeii.

Friday morning we woke up bright and early-like before daylight bright-in hopes of catching our train back to Rome. Like we predicted, Pompeii was a bust. We had two trains we could be on-one there, and one back. It was just too risky. So we left the hotel before getting breakfast and headed to the train station in hopes of exiting this horrid city.

At this point it was 7:30 am, and our train had been cancelled. The next train didn't leave until 12:45. Out of the 11 people only 4 were willing to wander around Napoli while waiting on the train. I say 4 because I was happy as a lark just sitting on my luggage in a train station, when I say I was in pain people I mean PAIN. So was the whole group, which is why so many people opted to babysit the luggage.

So off we went into the ghetto abyss that is Napoli in search of the Roman Market, which supposedly has been an operating market since ancient Roman time. Once we found the market we realized it was far to early for Italians, it was only 8am and hardly anyone was out. Well, except the school children waiting on their tiny buses.

However, to the left was an old Catholic church, and considering how many of those we had ventured though it wasn't going to hurt to tour another one. As soon as we walked in we sat our exhausted butts down on the nearest pew and just looked around. (Normally we wandered around when we walked into churches) Not two minutes later mass started. One of the guys wanted to leave, but it was just too much of a chance happening to be in a church service in Italy, in Italian. Plus the other girl in our group was Catholic and she wanted to take communion so I really pushed for us to stay. It was just too cool. Italian Catholic services are very different from American Catholic services. This was the first mass I have been to that didn't play music. An older woman got up and read scripture and then passed around the offering plate before the priest got up, read scripture and then preformed communion.

This is the only picture from Napoli that day-it is of the church we went to-I was afraid to go around flaunting my camera after the events of the night before.

After Katie had taken communion we walked out of the church-which might I add had the creepiest crucifix of all the churches we went into this trip-and onto the coast in hopes of finding the "nice" neighborhood. I use the term "nice" loosely.

On our mission to waste time we came upon a Rembrandt exhibition, I think I still owe Daniel 3 euros for that one. We all walked into this one dark room with the solitary "Painting of a Seated Old Woman", noticed her eyes looked funny, leaned forward...and set off the security alarms.

On our way back to the train station we hit up several street markets and bought several things very cheaply. But I will get into where to shop in my last post. The glorious McDonald's that would accept my buy one get one Big Mac coupon was right inside the train station so as we headed back towards the group I had a little stop off at the best McDonald's I have ever consumed. After that we got on our train (not really ours, but they let us on) and proceeded to be pushed to other seats by people who didn't seem to understand that due to the strike there were a lot of people sitting in seats they weren't actually supposed to sit in. Yay.

Once back in Rome we checked into our hotel and chilled out before heading back to Barberini to for attempt #2 at seeing the bone church.

We made it to the Crypt of the Capuchins, but weren't allowed to take pictures. You can click on the link to see pictures of the bone church and a description of it. In short, it contains the bones of 4000 monks which also includes a few poor men, 2 nephews of a pope, and a pope's niece. But only the niece's heart because women weren't allowed to be ~~buried~~ displayed here. It was a whole new level of creepy. Standing in a room surrounded by hundreds of skulls and other body parts

On the way to the Pantheon .

Hadrian's Temple

The Pantheon

Inside the dome

Vittorio Emanuel's tomb inside the Pantheon. The Pantheon contains severals kings and the painter Raphael.

At this point I noticed a guy with a very professional looking camera so I stalked him and took the pictures he was taking:)

This picture is one of the copy cat stalker photos I took.

Below is the tomb of Raphael. Above is the information alongside the tomb.

After leaving the Pantheon we headed out to find dinner somewhere near Piazza Navono.

There were several little characters in picture frames that depicted different scenes. It was very interesting in person.

Piazza Navona

Sandwich shop in Piazza Navona.

One of many chocolate makers.

In person these horse shoes and wrenches looked very realistic.

The restaurant we decided to eat at...it was very expensive. I didn't want to order, but I was starving.

Food Network is against powdered Kraft Parmesan cheese...but this restaurant was all for the powdered cheese lol!

The smallest 14 euro lasagna ever. I could have eaten two of them. And this was all I got people. No salad, and bread cost money.

Jeremy got Osso Bucco. He was much less in shock over the prices apparently. It was so good though, best peas ever.

Ferris Wheel in Piazza Navona.

If you bought a donut they put Nutella on it. The small one is the average size Nutella we buy at the store...and the big ones really contained Nutella. I could have died.

Donut as big as my head. Literally. That Nutella in the background is not the regular size, it is the jumbo size.

I am not sure what it is, but I want it.

Neptune's Fountain in Piazza Navona.

I just loved this woman. There were many street performers, but she took the cake. If a man gave her money she insisted they kiss her hand and she acted very bashful. So cute!

More of Neptune's Fountain.

Wandering the streets.

Fish market along the way.

More street performers. Loved these guys too. They were very cute and reminded me of Snow White's Dwarfs for some reason lol.

I quit taking pictures at this point, but we stopped at a few liquor shops so people could buy lemoncello. We tried several versions of "lemoncello" done in other flavors like white chocolate and melon. I could have covered ice cream in the white chocolate and the melon tasted like fresh cantaloupe but with alcohol in it. We then met up with the group again at the over priced restaurant and had gelato. Perfect reason to ask price before ordering. 3 small scoops per cup was 9 euros. We got it for 1.50 at a place by our hotel. Avoid the tourist trap people!

After dessert the group split up so everyone could go on a haunted tour of Rome, but we were in way to much pain and just exhausted so we opted out. Other than the group leader we were the only ones to ditch on it. I am glad we did though because we didn't bring an umbrella and it poured down our them, then they missed the last bus (I think), and ended up taking a cab back to the hotel. They had fun, but I was glad to be in my warm bed.

On our way home we passed every major landmark in Rome. Most we had seen, but I was very happy to see the place where Caesar was murdered and the Roman Senate. But more on that in the post where we saw it during the day.

For the two of you who might still be reading at this point I hope you enjoyed it. The next post will cover our adventures in seeing landmarks not on our list of things to see as a group...in the rain.

Italy Day 3: Napoli at Night

2012-01-22T07:59:00.000-06:00

I told ya'll before that Napoli at night did not feel like a safe place. One of the younger guys on our trip didn't go out with us the night before because he had read that this was one of the most crime heavy places in Italy. There are a couple of factors that play into that though, #1 the mafia is legit, and #2 the current economic standing of Italy has caused a drastic rise in crime. I laid in bed in Rome the first night and watched the news, not understanding a lick of what was verbally said, until suddenly I recognized they were talking about a fight that broke out between police and I am assuming a protestor who was either badly hurt or killed in the situation...and it occurred in Barberini. Right where we were a few hours earlier. I was nervous. The goal was to never end up in the midst of a protest from that point forward, luckily we never saw one...and we didn't go looking either.

Once our train arrived back in Napoli we came up the stairs to hear and see a full on Italian concert. None of that American influence mess MTV flaunts all over the television. Earlier that day there wasn't even a stage, now there was a full on performance, it was great by the way, with people dancing and enjoying themselves. While we were standing in the crowd a girl came by handing out coupons for McDonald's. Oh praise the Lord! Foreign Micky Dee's is pricy, and I just got my hands on a bogo Big Mac and something called a Bacon Burger-it was full of bacon. My life goal from that point forward was to eat McDonald's. Heck let's just be honest, I have a goal to eat McDonald's in every country I visit...and British Micky Dee's sucks.

We then trudged through the bad part of town back to our pretty bed and breakfast in the ghetto to meet up with our group who had just spent the day wandering the coast near Sorrento. After hanging out in the apartment for a bit, and trying some buffalo mozzarella with prosciutto and bread that Monroe had brought back-The ham and bread were great, but the mozzarella was a little off, we wandered back out into the streets as a group of 8 to enjoy the night.

I'll be honest with you, I was in a mood. A big mood at that. I wanted so desperately to have fun, but by this point we were all tired and personalities were starting to clash a bit due to the tiredness. I didn't help the situation. I was sick of spending over $10 euros for dinner every night-with 2 people that is crazy. It is essentially 15 bucks a plate every night. I wanted to go much cheaper. Plus I was sick of the food. We had bread for breakfast, sandwiches or pizza for lunch, and pasta or pizza for dinner. To get actual meat was just way to far out of my price range. I was just cranky.

So as you can imagine finding a restaurant this night was a chore. The first one we went to had a sign that said American and French menus. That alone through me off the ledge, I had read somewhere that when they start in on the touristy English menus you will be paying much more. And I held that menu and looked that waiter in the face and said forget it, it costs too much. He argued back in English, and I think poor Jeremy nearly died. But like I said I was hungry, tired, sick of carbs, and still in pain. We were all in pain from the walking up and down ancient streets. Not a good combo.

We did finally make it to one restaurant and everyone ordered, except me. I just couldn't stand the thought of carbs again and a salad here was as much as a real entree. I had hit my spending ceiling and could take no more.

Jeremy ordered the pasta in the pic above, I tasted it and it is the one pasta dish we had that I think was amazing. Who knows what it was though, I sure can't remember. It is nothing I have ever heard in the states at least.

After dinner we walked the very dangerous traffic filled streets towards the castle. We crossed the 4 lane highway at one point, and I was convinced we could die.

After playing chicken with the cars we made it to the coast. I was expecting some sort of beach, two nights of trying and we couldn't find a thing. This is as close as we ever got.

Back to the castle.

Marina.

After our long search we finally found the "nice" part of Napoli. As nice as Napoli gets. There was a Zara store in here is the only reason I give it that.

The hanging Christmas tree.

The teenagers were doing it so we did too. Not the best angle.

Zara whoop whoop. I wanted to go shopping, but never once got to. We did go through street markets, but real stores were a no go. This was indeed a very fast paced history oriented trip.

The one nice street in Napoli. Literally one.

After that the pictures end for the night, and for good reason. I went from casually walking with the group to constantly worrying someone would grab me. And they did a few blocks later. I literally thought "I need to hold onto my purse and camera" and a block later had a reason to think that.

As we crossed a street the guys crossed first and I was at the head of the girls. I know we weren't supposed to stall, we were told to just walk no matter what. But I just couldn't, as Jeremy crossed the two men on motorcycles reved their engines and threatened to hit him. The bike seriously stopped right at his leg. I just couldn't do it so I paused. Worse decision of the night! The biker drove through our group, shoving his hand into my chest, and gripped my purse and camera strap. He then floored it, while still holding onto me.

It all happened so fast I couldn't react past pulling back on my purse and camera, I was wearing them cross-body and he was about to take me with him if he pulled again. The guys weren't facing me, but the girls got the full view. Luckily the biker let go, he was going to wreck himself if he pulled me any harder, crotch rockets just don't have the ability to balance while carrying human dangling at its side.

In case you are wondering he didn't get anything. If he had he would have had a Sam's card and some Bath and Body Works lotion. Jeremy was carrying all of our money for that very reason-but I will get into how to carry money when I post at the end about travel tips for Italy.

After that the guys decided we, the girls, should walk on the inside of the street, while they walked beside us. I think they were a little creeped out because they were giving up directions to walk on certain sides depending on how many people were in the street and if there were bikes involved.

One block later though we realized that the Vespa behind the motorcycle from earlier was following us. Seriously following us. As we came to every new street block he would pull up, stop, and watch us for a second, and then speed away. We assumed he was just making the blocks, because every block he was back watching us again. This went on for probably a mile. Even to the point where when the last person stepped though the tiny doorway to Napoli Centrale Colby noticed him watching us go into the B&B. That freaked me out far worse than the mugger. We went from walking a casual pace to nearly running back to the hotel.

Funny enough, when we got back inside Jeremy asked if I wanted to go out and get McDonald's like I had planned. I obviously answered no, and he offered to go alone. I vetoed that one as well. There was no way I was, or was letting anyone else go out into the streets that night again. Had we not just been stalked back to the hotel then maybe, but that guy stood a good 1/2 mile between me and my Big Mac and I wasn't going to risk it.

So I went to bed hungry and dying to watch tv in English. I was left with Teen Mom and a few granola bars to get me though the night.
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Next post: Train Strike...change of plans.

Italy Day 3: Pompeii completed:)

2012-01-20T19:10:00.001-06:00

I told you Pompeii would be a long series of posts. I just couldn't bare the idea of summarizing this crazy awesome trip in one tiny post. There was just too many unplanned adventures for that.

So to continue our unplanned adventure to Pompeii we began here, at the Via Di Castricio, on the road that leads out of the main city and into the colosseum.

On our way in there was a man sitting with a guide badge, I thought it would be no trouble at all since he only said hi as we walked in. Turns out 4 Americans without a map looking all around trying to figure out where to turn with only a small fragment of time left before this massive outdoor museum closes invites Italians looking to make a quick buck. For some odd reason they think that we are overflowing with money since we traveled to Italy. Needless to say 3 college students and a teacher are not at all in the land of milk and honey.

Gorgeous pine trees. I think these were called umbrella pines, and if I heard correctly they are the type of tree that gave Dr. Seuss the idea for how the trees are shaped in his books.

The open field before the colosseum. I swear I learned what this was used for in the documentary I watched, but I can't seem to remember it now.

Pompeii's colosseum. Even here without all of the pomp and circumstance of Rome's grand Colosseum they still managed to have the gladiators fight lions and other animals.

It took forever to find the entrance. We could have walked up any of the staircases on the outside, but they were all blocked off.

Looking down one of the entrances to the ground level of the colosseum.

Finally we found the way in.

The sign at the end of the entrance, who on earth knows what it said. There wasn't even an explanation in Italian-I would have asked Christina to translate the next I saw her if it did.

Inside the Colosseum.

Not nearly as large as Rome's.

The way out.

View of where we entered from.

Walking back into the city. You can enlarge the sign and read it if you like.

After leaving the colosseum we headed to the left of the main road to the far wall of the city. There they had the amphitheater and many statues.

To exit the city we had to turn back to the right, so we trudged through the old streets and searched for the exit. It was really easy to get turned around here, especially for someone like me who shouldn't be allowed to leave my house without a gps.

Anyone figure out what these flowers where? Well at this point, seeing as there were so many of them I ran across the street and picked a few. To my surprise they weren't lavender. Lavender would make sense right? It was all rosemary. I was absolutely stunned.

Considering how much I cook I couldn't get over how much there was. I wanted to stuff my purse with handfulls of the stuff. It's $3.99 at WalMart here! I wanted to make bank. But Jeremy talked me off that ledge due to the fact that customs would probably not like me very much with a purse full of rosemary.

Can you tell we were around the brothels again, tons of nudes.

View of the surrounding cities from the hilltop in Pompeii. We couldn't ever figure out how to exit exactly so we wound up on a hill above the city and walked it until we finally looped back into Pompeii.

Pompeii from the hilltop.

A shot of the main road in Pompeii from the hill.

You can slightly see the Mediterranean Sea in the background.

Sunset in Pompeii.

After much searching I finally found the bodies I had wandered all over this city to see.

The only thing I was disappointed in is the fact that I was hoping to see the one of the woman holding her child. Either it was in a part of the park we never found or they just didn't have it on display.

Finally back at the train station with time to spare before the train strike. In the next post I will cover night life in Naples. It was interesting, the stories from this night deserve their own post. Are you as surprised as I am that it is taking 4 posts to get through day 3 as I am? Hopefully you all are enjoying it, other wise I might lose followers with all the picture overload posts.

WIWW

2012-01-18T18:47:00.004-06:00

I know it has been forever, but as part of my resolution to dress nicer for work here is my What I Wore Wednesday for the past few days. Needless to say only two were work, and one work day was duty/tutoring...but you get the point. Join in @ www.thepleatedpoppy.com

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This is what duty day looks like.

School Spirt Shirt // who on Earth knows lol

Long sleeve white shirt // Target

Cargo pants // Target (good old cargo pants)

Topsiders // Shoe Department

Observations all the time

Black top // Target

Gray Khakis // Old Navy

Purple wedges // SJP Bitten (before it were bankrupt)

Surprise I Ironed!

Pink striped ruffle button down // Old Navy

Khakis // Gap

Leather bracelet // some shop in Naples

Bowling Double Date

Emery Shirt // 1st date @ Emery concert

Jeans // American Eagle

Shoes // Burlap Toms

Church

Black dot mini dress // Thrifting

Black leggings // Target

Gray ruffle flats // Payless

Italy Day 3: Pompeii continued...

2012-01-16T08:15:00.003-06:00

Let's pick up where we left off...in the streets of Pompeii in what appears to be a very heavily business populated area.

There were several stores like this one up and down this street. After doing some research I found out that stores like the one above were actually restaurants. The pots in the bar are where the food was cooked and held.

How do you like that handless umbrella, luckily there was no lightening or I would have been fried to the ground with that metal stick.

Another restaurant.

Another restaurant, love how the bar still has so much detail 2000 years later.

Walking into a bath house. This quite possibly could have been a regular house too. Or a brothel.

Bath house foyer.

This little front desk looking thing would make me lean more towards bath house or brothel before home though.

Who knows what would have been in all of these rooms, but naked people were painted everywhere. Which only means one thing in Pompeii, you're in a bath house or a brothel. And there were a lot of brothels according to the guide we spoke to.

Courtyard of the bath house, brothel, or some guys home. Only the super rich had homes like this so it is hard to tell without a guide to point it out.

Guess what this is? These purple flowers were covering all of the hillside and they smelled amazing. I was seriously taken back by how pretty they were.

Names of business and homes are still painted on many of the walls.

Courtyard of a home. A rich person none the less, remember those who weren't wealthy lived in apartments above businesses.

Vineyard behind the home.

Now let's see how many can guess wat those purple flowers are correctly. I was surprised by it myself, I had to go pick one to find out. In the next post I will finish Pompeii and tell you what the flowers are!

Italy Day 3: Pompeii

2012-01-13T16:50:00.001-06:00

Now I know I have been MIA this week, but it has kicked my butt massively. I started English Language Arts tutoring for the iLeap this week, the LSU game kept me up too late, and duty on top of tutoring is tiring, and I am just slap wore out for no good reason at all. So consider this my apology for a 7 day break from blogging, I just didn't have it in me :)

Now back to the Italy trip.

We left off day 3 arriving back in Pompeii to bad weather. Hence those fashionable plastic ponchos below. Tickets for this weren't bad at all, but when you consider that we had paid for tickets already with our group and had to buy them again since we did this spur of the moment without our group leader knowing we had left Napoli we ended up paying 22 euros for an 11 euro ticket. Not to mention the train ride we paid for that was probably already paid for. All of that was so worth it considering we had until 9pm to arrive back in Napoli before the train strike went into effect and we would be unable to leave Pompeii or arrive back there for 24 hours.

See that lovely yellow polka dot umbrella at the top of the picture? Shortly after this picture I held it up, let my camera fall to my side...and suddenly noticed I was holding only the wooden handle. The umbrella literally broke off and I was only holding the handle, it was hilarious.

Walking into the city of Pompeii. In case you do not already know, the exact year that Pompeii was destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius was 79 AD. It just blows my mind to be standing somewhere so ancient. Somewhere that existed for years before Christ was born, and was destroyed nearly 80 years before his birth. I love ancient history, and this trip really gave me a chance to see what has always interested me.

Outside of the city.

All of the stone roads were very slick with the rainy weather, made it quite difficult to walk around. Especially with the incline walking in.

Most of this post and the next will be pictures and just a few explanations about what the picture are. And there are a lot of pictures of Pompeii.

Whenever you see a hole, like the red one in the bottom of the picture, it is either in a home or restaurant and was used for cooking. This one was in a home. (I watched a documentary about Pompeii after going since we didn't have a guide. We had paid for one...but with the group)

This is possibly a bathhouse because of the pool area at the bottom of the picture.

Road between buildings. This city was very well laid out, unless you were rich you didn't live in an open area. Most lived in apartments above the businesses.

View of the city from a hill in Pompeii.

Part of the forum. If you remember from the Ancient Rome post this is where citizens hung out and discussed politics and whatever was going on in town.

I loved the brickwork all over the city.

I thought taking a picture of the inscription on the monument below would help me read it better, fail.

Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

I thought it was really cool how the street were lower than the sidewalk.

I did not expect mosaics to be in this good of shape after all these years. The place was buried in ash, but still...I thought it would be a little less spectacular.

This is a home, the arched hole in the wall was used for baking/cooking.

Like Rome, Pompeii had potable water everywhere. Even in the times of Pompeii a water system was in place that spread water throughout the city.

Like I said, I did not at all expect to see paint and mosaics. Then again I had no idea what to expect. I knew about the bodies, but I did not know the whole town would be uncovered and preserved to the point that it was.

Our little group wandering around. We got to Pompeii at about 1:30 and stayed past closing until they sounded an alarm at 5, and we still hadn't seen everything.

We stop here today on a street view with Mt. Vesuvius in the distance. I could completely imagine being a resident in Pompeii, standing in this very spot, and seeing the smoke rise from the volcano. At the time the people had no clue what a volcano was. Many stayed in their homes in hopes of riding out the problem, and others attempted to escape by boat. Tragically people were buried alive with pumice that exploded from Vesuvius before all of the other volcanic problems were underway.

In the documentary I watch they discussed how they had found the bones of several people who had chosen to hide in a "safe room", many had on so much jewelry that their bones were green. But one woman was found to be pregnant, they know this because of the small pelvis found within her pelvis. Can you imagine being those people?

Tomorrow we will finish up Pompeii with a ton more pictures. And maybe a bit more history. If you have missed any posts you can click on the Italy label below and see all of the posts.

Italy Day 3: Mt. Vesuvius

2012-01-06T22:19:00.000-06:00

Day 3 in Napoli began with no real plans. There were 4 of us who were not going to the various small towns on the coast so we had to come up with something to do. First off though was waking up Jeremy.

As soon as my alarm went off I heard the guy in the hall bringing up breakfast. It was quite the usual-croissants, coffee, toast, jelly, and juice. I have still not figured out what kind of fruit that juice came from. Some speculated apricots. Interesting enough Jeremy didn't hear the guy come in at all! How he sleeps through things I will never understand.

After breakfast we met up with Luke and Katie and headed off for the train station to get a decent map. I think we spent all of Napoli searching for a good map. Yes, we looked like tourists, but we needed it badly wandering the streets...especially at night. While walking into the train station Katie mentioned something about a train strike for Friday {it is currently Thursday} and it would prevent us from going to Pompeii as a group as we had planned to do after the great Rome train catastrophe. This somehow sparked an idea that no one really discussed. Next thing we knew we were in customer care asking about the strike and what all it would entail. What if we couldn't get back to Rome Friday? We found out it the local train going from Naples to Pompeii lasting from 9pm Thursday to 9pm Friday. 24 hrs, no trains...except the national train.

We quickly decided we should hall butt to get tickets and go to Pompeii while we had the chance. Turned out to be the cheapest tickets of our lives, 5 Euros round trip to Pompeii. NO discussion necessary, we got on that train.

Standing room only on the way there, we eventually got a seat when we were about 1 town from Pompeii. It was about a 45 minute ride.

There were tons of graffiti everywhere. I am convinced anything running through Rome was spray painted. Cars were spray painted. Churches were painted. So it was no surprise the train was as well.

Finally we arrived in Pompeii!

As soon as we got off the train we headed to the "information center". A lady approached us about taking a private car to Mt. Vesuvius for 15 Euros a piece, so we agreed. It was too good to be true, but considering J, Katie, and I had signed up to hike it to begin with before it got cancelled we were willing to give it a shot. Yet another unplanned, spur of the moment adventure we had that day. The whole day was a fly by the seat of your pants adventure.

After driving off with our private car, and 2 Australians we were off. Off up a very nerve racking road with very thin lanes, the type the driver honked before we went around them...at a very fast speed. The view above is Napoli from the side of the mountain while we were driving.

Once we got to our destination we quickly found out that all of the rain and bad weather of the day had made it unsafe to hike the volcano. Something about rocks sliding. We asked if we could risk it, why not we had risked the whole day, but we were denied.

Mt. Vesuvius

The broke down looking shop where you bought your tickets to hike.

See that very stereotypical man in the red jacket, he wouldn't let us go up.

It was very foggy, and stayed that way the whole time we were there. We at least got to walk around since it was too dangerous to hike up to the summit.

Stray dogs must be the national symbol of Italy.

Our little adventurous group:)

Another view of Napoli. I haven't decided if it is Naples or Napoli. It is spelled Napoli everywhere, but when talking to a lady in Pompeii she called it Naples.

On our way down, to try to distract us from the fact we just paid 15 Euros and got nothing for it, or driver stopped at the Giovanni Apa factory that makes cameos and gave us a tour. They get all of their shells and coral local in Sorrento.

A lady making a cameo. Very impressive to watch.

After convincing Jeremy to let me buy a cameo we left for Pompeii. Only to return to rain. We sat in the train station for a few minutes, being fed snacks by our new Australian friends, before we decided to get a sandwich and wait out the rain some more.

Funny thing was that I wasn't very hungry so I wanted to split a sandwich with Jeremy. There were no knives to speak of, so after he ate his half I took over mine. This caught the attention of a Pompeii Ruins Tour Guide and he started picking on me about it. He asked if we were splitting the sandwich between all four of us, or if it was only our day to eat and the other two could eat tomorrow. Oh he had jokes! We talked to him a few more minutes to find our he had a wife from our Southern neck of the woods and managed to squeeze out some free advice. Which is very hard to come by ha! He showed us a map of the ruins/city and told us to tough it out. It apparently rains often and we shouldn't let it get in our way of seeing Pompeii, it could clear up at any minute, or stay nasty all day. So we bought ponchos and headed off the see the ruins come rain or shine.

The next post will take you through Pompeii, I will want you ahead of time, it will be quite lengthy.

Italy Day 2: Napoli

2012-01-03T20:09:00.005-06:00

Welcome to day two! Yes I know it took long enough. This will be a long post, but day two will be contained to one post. Thank you decent internet connection! We begin day 2 waking up in Rome headed for Napoli, if only we knew the adventure that would await up ha:)

The view from our hotel balcony. It was lovely in Rome at night, very cool. It felt safe enough that I kept our balcony door open...I did not do the same in Napoli.

Cute little chair to the right.

Apartments to the left. Afterwards I headed downstairs for breakfast which consisted of Cafe Americano, bread, pineapple yogurt (ananas) and juice. Loved it day one, after 3 days I was done for!

This is our little group waiting for the train to come up on the screen. For some reason trains don't show up until the last minute on the screen.

I just love how this picture of platform 28 turned out.

More of the train station. Shortly after this someone from our group said we needed to take off because our train would be at platform 9 shortly. We followed along thinking our group leader had given the direction, wrong. We got to the platform, and waited, and waited. Elle was no where to be found. A few of us wanted to walk down but for some reason whoever went didn't see her. I talked to one of the workers on the train about the fact that we had tickets, but the tickets were with our group leader. He didn't have a dern clue what I was asking. It is illegal to board a train without a ticket in Italy, it would have been a huge risk. Next thing we knew the train was taking off and we were left making a quick decision, which happend to turn out wrong. You see, since we couldn't find Elle we stayed off the train hoping she was looking for us as well. Instead she had boarded hoping to find us there, knowing about the risk of us boarding and hoping to find us before the ticket clerks did. The train pulled off, no Elle. Elle pulled off in the train, no group.

We then went to the customer care center and tried to get these people to understand that we had tickets but missed our train and could they contact Elle. Nothing. Come to find out later Elle was panicking way worse than we were. I think being in a group of 10 people who were quite the jokesters made it a bit more lighthearted, even though we were probably freaking out inside. Finally something went through, the train conductor was calling customer care about us, they would fix it but it would cost 11 euro a piece. Way better than the 98 euro I was told by the man working the train earlier. We eventually got it exchanged for no fee at all PTL!

Then somehow Elle got a French woman to let her use her phone to text us, we had been having a problem with her international line and no one could contact her at all.

By this time we were all sitting on our luggage in the middle of the train station. One of the ladies from our group thought it was funny so she decided to take a picture of us. That didn't go over well with the clerks in Customer Care, they threatened to call the cops. Immediately after that a store clerk starting fussing us because we were sitting in front of her store. Again, no bueno.

But the all in all cake topper came while we were still sitting on our bags hoping to God we could get to Napoli and a cop came up and told we had to move. We tried to explain our situation, but he didn't care. He was friendly, but could care less. Shortly after that we got our tickets exchanged and after about 2-3 hours we finally got on a train headed for Napoli.

Bar in the train station. Everything that sold food and had a bar was called a bar in Italy.

Finally we had made it to the train station in Naples and found Elle. It took long enough! The above picture is from inside the hotel building. The whole building was not the hotel, it contained a food store, bakery, apartments, and the apartments that were part of Napoli Centrale Bed and Breakfast. I wish I had gotten a picture of the huge doors out front, when they opened there was only a small space to step through and over to get through, but when completely opened cars were driven though it.

Napoli Centrale

Dead as a doornail Christmas tree out front.

The courtyard at the hotel, full of tiny cars. The apartment Jeremy and I stayed in, along with another couple and the guys, was up the stairway through that open doorway.

Detail from the windows out front.

Our hotel room.

Out the window/tiniest balcony ever.

Down the hall of the apartment.

Our bedroom with the balcony door open.

The street outside our hotel in Naples.

Part of the Castle in Napoli.

This is what most of the streets looked like, very little walking room. And don't let this pic fool you, there were a lot of motorcycles.

Butcher

By the time we got out and wandered the rain was too bad to take many pictures. We went to Museo del Tesoro di San Gennaro and viewed a lot of ornate robes and objects relating to the saint. No pictures though, as was the theme of everything, they weren't allowed. We also went into the Cathedral dedicated to him and saw his crypt. I wrote in my journal that there was a jar full of bones there, but I can't remember. This is why I journal when I travel, I have no memory. The Cathedral was very beautiful and ornate. As were all of the churches in Italy.

Statue in the foyer exiting the Museo, yes I got fussed at for this.

After wandering in the ran around the museum district we went in search of a pizzeria that was rated in the top 10 of Napoli, El Presidente. When we got there they were closed, all of us jet lagged Americans were eating really early. We started to walk away, but they noticed how many people were with us and let us come in. It was the most amazing pizza I have ever had, I got the Margherita with ham and olives. When you order olives on something in southern Italy they do not come sliced as they do in the States, they were whole. The best whole olives of my life!

Jeremy's calzone looking thing. I can't remember what it was called, but it had sauce and cheese on top and it was filled with a ricotta mixture that had an egg taste.

We also thought that for 5 euros we would be getting a slice, the waiter said slice. We got whole pizzas, and 95% of us ate the whole thing. I ate all but one slice.

Naples at night.

After dinner we came back to the hotel and relaxed a minute before going out that night, Oh the above pic is just the old wall in the hallway, I thought it was neat.

After we went back out we decided to walk towards the Mediterranean sea. On the way we stopped at a bar/cafe that was serving drink and coffee...and had seating. Oh glorious seating! We grabbed a few drinks, I had Persecco, and sat outside watching the crazy traffic.

Naples traffic is something else. If there is one lane there are two cars in it with motorcycles weaving in and out, cutting lanes. It was a sight to see, especially when the Vespa's decided traffic wasn't moving fast enough and hopped the curb and drove down the sidewalk, passing right past me.

After we finished up we walked closer to the sea and had pastry at a shop in the marina. I thought I'd follow the crowd and have another drink, but didn't want anything strong, so I attempted to order sweet wine. Big fat fail. She gave me dulce vino, sweet wine alright, tasted and burned just like brandy. Yuck. I drank that 5 euro mess anyway, I wasn't wasting money. I only managed to down it by taking bites of my pastry in between. This is perhaps why my journal is so heavily misspelled this night. Never again. This my dear is why I don't drink.

Again, we attempted to get closer to the sea. We saw a ship, but not water. Then we realized we were trespassing, and Italians don't play, so we went home. A really long walk home through what looked like something from "Slumdog Millionaire". I got back to the hotel, closed my eyes, and could have sworn this hot muggy city by the sea was some ghetto American metropolitan slum.

Several day later I described my experience in Napoli to our guide Christina and compared it to the Bronx, she seriously agreed. Italians don't even like ghetto Naples.

But this was not all Naples had to offer us.

Next post, Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, and why you should never wear a camera out at night in Naples.

Italy Day 1: Ancient Rome

2012-01-01T18:00:00.003-06:00

Welcome to Ancient Rome. Finally, right? Be prepared because today contains a lot of pictures...and this is technically the 3rd post for day one. It is looking like we may not finish this post series until 2013 ha! Today's post begins with our group meeting up with our guide for the first time and being taken through the Forum, Colosseum, and the other things that lie in that area. I can tell you what everything is, but only the names of the big things. I seriously learned so much that by the time I journaled it I had forgotten names...but I sure can tell you stories.

The picture above is of the basilica, but not what the type of basilica you think of concerning the church. In ancient Rome the basilica was use as a place to hold meetings. It wasn't until the early Christians had come in to Rome that you began to see this building transformed into a traditional church. The entrance was even changed. During pagan times the entrance was at the far end of the flat stone filled area your are looking at. The during the early church it was moved to where I was standing so that when one walked in the view you saw was down a long "hallway", much like Catholic churches today, to the view of an alter and crucifix.

This area is the original forum. This was simply a meeting place for locals to get together and debate politics and discuss whatever was going on in town. Christina, our guide, pointed out that with every new emperor of Rome the forum was added onto or moved so that it was fitting to what the new ruler wanted.

Walking through the Forum.

This is the bank of Rome in ancient time. It actually had no doors, but was never once was robbed.

This brick pattern is why people today refer to the thin bricks on houses as Roman brick.

There was an excavation being done in the Forum that I think pertained to Nero.

I can't remember what this building was exactly, but it contained a brief history of Nero and several pieces pertaining to him.

Christina teaching us about this building and Nero. Behind her are busts of Nero.

I loved the ceiling in here.

The busts in the Nero exhibit. This is where my Nikon died, so the rest of the post are phone pics.

Here we are walking towards the Imperial Palace on Palatine Hill. Above is the Temple of Vesta.

This area also contained the House of the Vestal Virgins that tended the flame within the Temple of Vesta. Below are statues of the senior vestals The Vestals were young girls chosen by patrician families to serve for 30 years. Once their service was complete they were basically the most free women alive in Rome and even had the ability to pardon criminals.

Imperial Palace where it is believed Augustus was born.

I think this was a temple, but neither Jeremy or I can remember exactly. I do know though that it was buried all the way up to the top dome. Actually all of ancient Rome was buried because Romans thought that it was dirty and so they proceeded to build modern Rome on top of ancient Rome...hence the fact everything there as been excavated.

This was built to commemorate a war between the Jews and Romans.

The side pictured is of the Jews fighting, the opposite depicts the Romans.

Walking down the path to the Colosseum.

Jeremy at the Colosseum. Bad pic I know, I couldn't get a good focus.

I thought this was really cool. Christina told us that Rome has a huge problem with locks, also known as Lovers Locks. All over the city you can find places where couples have written their names on locks and locked them to various things. Supposedly the city has to cut the locks off frequently.

In the Colosseum. While here Christina told us something very interesting. (a little back story on her-she is an archeologists. way cool) Even though people have made it "common knowledge" that Christians were persecuted within the Colosseum there is no historical or archeological proof it occurred right here. Yes, it happened, and gladiators were killed here, but Christians were not executed here. Don't get me wrong, Christians were persecuted in Rome, but the thought that they were killed within the Colosseum is false. In fact the gladiators who were killed here were once acquired as slaves and could win freedom...eventually they were celebrities and people wanted to be gladiators.

Now, even though it has been proven Christians were not murdered here the Pope still has Easter service at this very spot by this cross.

From here you can see the cross where we were standing in the bottom right corner. All along the ground level was once technically underground. There was a stage on top of it with trap doors where they could release tigers and other animals to the games, as a total game changer. This whole area was once flooded to allow for a faux naval battle.

Our group taking pictues...we did a whole lot of this.

Jeremy and I, ratty as every at the end of the day after having flown 13 hours with no real bath. My hair was so greasy.

View from the upper level of the Colosseum.

That is all for day one in Rome. After we left Ancient Rome we went out to eat at a place that spoke horrible English and gave us our first glimpse of how Italians do not like to split checks, and charge the dickens out of your for water.

The next post will cover our adventure of catching a train to Napoli. Boy was that something.

[year in review: 2011]

2011-12-31T13:17:00.001-06:00

2011 was quite an odd year for our little household. Here is a look back at what we did:

January

Joshua turned 1!

We missed a lot of school due to the freezing/snowing weather.

Packing began as soon as the new year began. Jeremy was accepted into NSU for the School Psychology program so we packed up most of the house and I moved my little double antique bed into our room. We had two roommates move in to help with rent. They are nice guys, but after living alone for so long before getting married I am not suited for roommates.

We moved Jeremy into the most run down dorm room ever. Since I couldn't move with him until the summer it was easier to put him on campus. Poor Jeremy.

I missed more work due to the weather.

And held down the fort in my bedroom. I seriously lived in one room for 5 months.

I began my last semester of graduate school...which also happend to be my last semester teaching in Morehouse plus the end of my internship with Teach Dealta.

We celebrated Pop's birthday with a Caramel Cake gone bad. Well, it was still good, but before the icing was spread it turned into a rock ha!

February

I don't have a pic from Jan., but I started trying to memorize 2 new verses every month as part of the Siesta Scripture Memory Team on Beth Moore's blog.

I entered my 2nd month of eating as little meat as possible. I only broke the meat-free man-free rule when in town with Jeremy.

I turned 25 on the 25th and was very surprised by my present. I new I was getting a new Vera Bradley purse, but had no clue Jeremy had bought an iPad for me. People rarely surprise me with gifts, and it seems Jeremy has set out to break that rule...against my wishes:)

March

I went to visit Jeremy in Thibodaux during my Spring Break with the intent to find a job.

Lucky for me I got an interview! I was told I wouldn't get a job easily here, so that was a big deal.

April

I completely packed up to go to Thibodaux for my interview only to have my current principal decline to let me take a personal day. She said a lot of nasty stuff on top of that too. Ugh. So I came home and unpacked. Sadly.

I assume guilt set in with someone because I was able to leave after Leap testing that day to drive 11 hours total for an interview. It sucked massively. I didn't get home until almost 1am and had to work the next day. But I ended up getting the job!

The Mississippi River flooded much more than usual. It even made national news. However, it didn't crest until May...and everything in that picture above was under some serious river water.

May

I graduated with a Master's of Arts in Teaching. And with KDP honors might I add, I never had honors in undergrad or high school. Lazy much ha!

I convinced Jeremy to let me toss out couch and we moved to south Louisiana on our 2 year wedding anniversary.

June

We met RJ and J Paul from Swamp People haha!

& we took little dude to the aquarium in New Orleans. I also managed to talk Jeremy into going to Italy and applied for a new passport:)

July

Some nut case ran into the back of my car at a red light in Tennessee. It was totalled and forced us to buy new cars {Jeremy's lemon was already in the works of being replaced}. That was totally not in the game plan.

We did a lot of wandering in the country while at James and Sandy's in TN.

Mom, Laura, Joshua, and I visited my cousin's new baby. Josh was not a fan of his Mom holding a baby haha!

August

I started a new job teaching 4th graders and Jeremy began his 2nd semester in the SP program. It was a huge adjustment.

September

Mom, Laura, and I went to a Beth Moore Simulcast together. Mom and I had been before, but this was the first time to take Laura with us.

October

Jeremy and I ran in the Jazz Half/5k Marathon. J finished in the time frame he wanted to and I surprised myself with my time finishing dead center of the women's group. I was convinced I would be dead last.

November

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family and Jeremy studied for finals a lot. Heck he studied a lot the whole semester.

December

Jeremy ran his first full Marathon in Baton Rouge.

The dogs boycotted Christmas pictures this year.

And we went to Italy. This was neither of our first time to travel overseas, but it was our first time to go together.

Not a single thing this year went as planned or expected, but it ended on a great note. Well almost ended, we still have a few hours.

Italy Day 1 continued...

2011-12-29T17:27:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we left off eating pizza across from the Trevi Fountain.

After visiting Barberini, the Spanish Steps, and Trevi Fountain our group began walking towards the Victor Emmanuael II Monument.

This is the first of many pictures of the Colosseum and the Victor Emmanuel Monument. Above is the VEM. It is absolutely massive. I thought it was huge on the outside, once I got inside I quite literally got lost. But that is a story for another post.

I can't remember what this is called. It is across from Il Vittoriano, but is not considered the Forum. But then again we zipped past the "unimportant" landmarks and hit all the major ones. I was very surprised to find out Ancient Rome was smack dab in the middle of town. Busy streets surround it. While walking down the sidewalk it is a very odd feeling to be standing next to something so ancient on the right while Fiats drive by amongst hundreds of motorcycles to the left.

I just couldn't get over the detail here. Even the broken buildings and columns are still beautiful. It is very strange to touch marble and stone sculptures from the 1st century AD and even further back.

Looking down into the Forum.

This column just amazed me, along with many others throughout this trip. The idea that details could stand the test of time...and a bunch of Italians burying the city just blows my mind.

Jeremy in front of the Il Vittoriano (Victor Emmanuel Monument) which was built to honor the first king of unified Italy. Supposedly the Italians hate this building, it is too Western. Our tour guide Christina called it the Wedding Cake, which after that I was unable to think of its real name.

Walking across the road to this was where Elle threw out there that we should "walk with conviction". Which even though I continued to walk like a scared American who was taught to look both ways, I can say I tried my hardest. I is just so hard to step out into fast Roman traffic without looking. When we did look the cars would rev their engines and kind of jump forward letting us know we were about to be squashed. My apprehension to step out in front of cars is what led to my unfortunate incident in Napoli a few days later.

Wandering towards the Forum and Colosseum.

The streets look oddly clear here. I promise you it was crazy 90% of the time.

First sight of the Colosseum! I was stunned to see it smack dab in the middle of a busy street with Italians walking by paying it no mind. What was ancient and stunning to me was apparently everyday and mundane to them. I promise though, one day in Louisiana and they would be begging for something from even the 1800's.

This was about as Christmas-y as Rome got.

Today I will leave you here, almost through day one with our group waiting outside the Colosseum to meet Christina. I thought we would finish Day 1 today, but the pictures seem to be too much for the blogger uploader all at once. Next we will hopefully finish up Ancient Rome with the Forum, Colosseum, dispel a myth about Christians in the Colosseum, and why an excavation of Ancient Rome was needed in the first place.

Post catch up:
Italy Day 1: Barberini

{2012 New Year's Resolution}

2011-12-29T10:45:00.000-06:00

I decided today to flip back through my failed attempt at Project 365 that only lasted until we moved. Something about moving down south, and moving back in with my husband, ruined my ability to eat healthy all the time. I also noticed I gave up dressing even slightly cute. There just doesn't seem to be the same amount of care put into how people look down there. Heck, I have barely seen people using fancy plates for food. It is almost like I have moved to another country. A really bizarre lazy country. So below I have compiled a list of things I will work on this year, starting the minute I am back down in bayou country.

{12 Resolutions for 2012}

1. Walk the dogs every, run, or do some sort of outdoor physical activity. I have got to get in workout mode again, 26 is creeping up quick.

2. Eat less meat. I went meat free for nearly 5 months. I need to work more veggies and white meat into my diet and cut the processed foods way way out.

3. Make an effort to dress nice for work everyday. Wear more makeup. Care what I look like. And last but not least use the ironing board everyday without fear of the mice that have been brought in doors due to the sugar cane harvesting. {I am about to buy a gun and start shooting them, we have tried everything!} The school I am at now lets the teachers dress a bit more casual than I did in North LA. I need to care what I look like, because when I do I feel better about myself.

4. Read at least one new book a month.

5. Blog more.

6. Spend more quality time with the husband that does not include both of us side by side watching TV with the computer and an iPad in front of us. We need to eat dinner together at the table. It has been easy to act lazy since he does not get out of class until after 8pm several nights a week. We also try to start a devotional time together that never makes it past a day or so due to our schedule, that needs to change.

7. Be more proactive in making friends. I am the type who can easily come home after work and do what I need to do, cook dinner, and go to bed without ever contacting anyone from the outside world. I need to put time aside to have friends over for dinner and hang out like we did more of in Monroe. I know for sure I will sink quick if I don't find a good friend {not an acquaintance} soon.

8. Put up laundry when it is done and don't let my lack of energy keep me from doing it. Because the good Lord knows how much I hate hanging up clothes. I am also going to do what I saw another blogger mention where I put my hangers on backwards and as I wear things turn them around. Whatever is left after a certain amount of time will be donated.

9. Get more involved in church. Jeremy has always been really good at this, as soon as he found a church he got plugged in and is now the youth pastor. I admire his ability to sacrifice time, it is something I struggle with. I was involved with the women's bible study, but the time issue let that crumble for the whole crowd. I need to give up more of "my" time, and get over losing it.

10. Give the pups more attention and teach them a new trick. Poor Ellie has been pushed to #2 since I got married. I definitely need to spend more quality time training the pups, especially Maddie. Since we moved Maddie's ability to go outside has slacked. Without a doggie door she won't ask to go out, she just goes. Yuck!

11. Try new recipes and ingredients!

12. Make a photo book of our Italy trip.

Italy Day 1 - Barberini

2011-12-28T14:49:00.001-06:00

Without further picture editing I bring to you the insane amount of pictures from our Italy trip last week. I have realized upon editing 670 pictures that my initial idea of blogging by day is just not going to work. Instead I will break in down into manageable bites. But be prepared...it is still picture overload.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

We landed in Rome's FCO airport. This should have been the foreshadowing of how the trip would pan out. Jeremy and I met up with Velma and Monroe, easily passed through customs (or whatever the heck that was), and wandered out to the front door where we were to meet our group.

But they weren't there.

I remembered something about taking a train, so we then lugged our bagage (or should I go ahead and point out that I had only a backpack to carry while the whole group lugged bagage, but more on that later) to the train terminal...but changed our minds. Monroe called Elle, but the number didn't work. We called again...didn't work. After a bit more phone fun we decided to go back where we started and just wait. Well by that time they were all there...and we hopped in our private death mobile to our hotel.

When we got to the hotel we were early and a few of the rooms weren't ready. I was dying for a shower and the girls let me take a shower in their room. I now regret not washing my hair, by the end of the day I felt like a death trap. Once everyone's luggage was shoved into someone's room, since we didn't have all our own, we trekked out into the streets of Rome for the beginning of our adventure.

No one warned me ahead of time about just how intense the streets of Rome are. We weren't riding around on this trip except to take trains to other cities. I seriously walked up hill or down hill on old cobblestone in Nikes and was in big time pain all the time.

The picture above and below are of the Four Fountains. This is at a 4 way stop in Barberini, if you can call it that. Good Lord Italians freak me out with their driving. Anyway, all of the fountains in Rome are potable, unless stated otherwise. So we all made sure to have water bottles and just refilled them up as we progressed through the city. I drank out of a lot of fountains!

Spanish Steps. Somehow we got started off at the top of them. We were already exhausted, remember we had all just gotten off of about 13 hours of flying and from what I hear no one slept worth a crap. We slowly made our way down the steps. Slowly.

Almost there.

I should rename every post "Jeremy Goes to Italy", because from the looks of it I was barely there. I need to hire a photographer to follow me around ha!

Finally...the Spanish Steps!

The opposite view. All of my blog friends would appreciate this view. Prada. Missoni.

Had I had 3G I would have tweeted this pic right on the spot. Oh I so wanted to go into those stores but we were on such time crunch. I told you this was an educational trip and not so much of a holiday.

We then continued our walking towards the Trevi Fountain...all on our way to Ancient Rome.

Trevi Fountain

It was beautiful. Since it is tradition to throw a coin into it to wish that you will one day return to Rome I tossed a penny. I was not about to chunk a Euro, 1.44 American is a little steep to throw away. Ha!

By this point our group was starving. Well, some of us. Across the street was a cute little pizza shop so we stopped in, grabbed some grub and went to the first Italian potty of the trip. Oh was it a site to see. Luckily this one had toilet seats, most didn't. The sink was cool though, instead of hand handles you had to operate it with foot peddles. I kind of want those for my home now.

We will end today with my greasy makeup free jet lagged self eating pizza across from the Trevi Fountain. Oh how excited I was to see pizza, who knew that by the end of the trip I would be searching for anything leafy green and meat. It was carb overload for real!

Next post will finish up Day 1 with Ancient Rome, the Colosseum, and walking with conviction.

(We've only made it about 5 hours into the trip!)

Buon Natale!

2011-12-24T09:46:00.001-06:00

I've waited as long as possible, and needless to say some of you may not have received your Christmas card from us yet. You see, I ordered them so that would arrive before I left for Italy and needless to say they didn't get here until we were out of the country. So Wednesday I began addressing...and yesterday I found a few that had missed the trip to the post office. But anyhow...

Merry Christmas!

Sorry for the poor quality, it was scanned in. Boo.

Have a wonderful holiday and eat lots of goodies!! I know I will:)

ps. 89 more pictures to edit and I can start the Italy posting. I told y'all there are nearly 700.