Happy (Belated) Birthday Laurel!!

Many of my favorite people are having a birthday this week!  But of all these favorites, only Laurel has tolerated my nonsense since 1999.  This nonsense may or may not have included marching band, begging for her to braid my hair on a moving bus (why did she always say yes?!), math class, boy drama, vacations with my crazy family, more boy drama, taking shots until someone pukes, road trips, way too much boy drama, and even bingo!  Laurel, you're awesome and so I'd like to publicly wish you a happy birthday since I can't be in Maryland to celebrate!!! 

I tried to find some embarassing pictures of us from "back in the day" --- remember mulch sales in high school?!  we were literally selling dirt.  oh, memories. --- but it was during B.C.P. (before camera phones) so I don't have electronic copies unless I want to go through old scrapbooks and take pictures with my iPhone.  Luckily for everyone, I was more focused on getting Starbucks this morning instead of reliving high school (read: crying).

One Year in Atlanta (part 2)

Shortly before I moved to Atlanta, I had the following conversation:

"I'm moving to Atlanta"

"Really?  Why?"

"I took this great new job!"

"Have you ever been to Atlanta?"

"I've flown through the airport..that counts!"

I honestly had no idea what to expect.  Ok, that's a total lie.  This is what I expected:

source:  http://www.movies-wallpapers.net/Movies/Atl/Atl-12.jpg 

Luckily for me, Atlanta offered more than just it's name to this (terrible) movie.

One Year in Atlanta (part 1)

Source: http://banglesandcrow.typepad.com/

It has been approximately one year and six weeks since I arrived in Atlanta with my brother ready (and scared) to take on Hot-lanta!  It was my first big move away from my friends and family.  To give you some perspective, before I moved in 11th grade I had gone to school with the same group of kids since nursery school.  While most of my friends went to schools far from home, I went to college about 20 minutes from my mom.  Then after college I moved within an hour of my dad's home.  While I thought I was *really* independent, I got a reckoning within about 2 days of my brother waving me goodbye as he got on a plane and left.  But enough of the sentimental talk....lemme give you the 4-1-1 (ha-ha, aren't I hilarious) on the last year of my life: