graciefabulous

I finally broke down, as did my Accord, and bought a new (to me) car. It was time.

I will say of course it was very nice not having a car payment, but the few hundred dollars a month I was putting into maintenance and attempted “band aids” to a problem that couldn’t be diagnosed, really turned into more of a scheduled car payment than I wanted on a paid off car.

As some of you know from previous entries, I’ve wrecked my fair share of cars – at one point, I was involved (not responsible for) in accidents that totaled out 3 cars in the course of 18 months. I’d been very lucky with my Accord in that it was not involved in a wreck  - just took another turn toward death. About every 4 – 5 weeks, it would just die and not one single mechanic could figure out why. When it died one night in the rain going 70 mph down the highway, that was the last straw.

I’m now about 6 weeks in to owning this:

An Acura MDX, gently used.
I am really enjoying it so far, it’s nice to be able to go Sam’s and buy everything we need and not have to borrow someone’s truck to bring it home, or to go furniture shopping and not have it take an entire day and driving back and forth across town to borrow a truck and drop off our purchases and then take the truck back… it pretty much doubles your time.

It will also be awesome to actually jump the curb to tailgate instead of parking in the lot and carrying everything over the river and through the woods and then back again after the game is over.

I have grand memories of going to South East Arkansas throughout all the summers of my childhood, but especially for every 4th of July. We would head out on the 6 hour drive crossing corner to corner of the state {before 540 was built}, each time stopping in Russellville for hamburgers and fries, stopping in North Little Rock to see my grandpa for the 10 minutes he could handle children in his house, stopping just south of Pine Bluff to buy an inordinate amount of fireworks, stopping in Star City for milkshakes – the best in the state, and finally making it to Dermott at some point in the late afternoon and always in time for the fish fry.

On the day of the 4th we would spend the entire day at the pool, drinking red kool-aid and then seeking air-conditioned comfort and playing duck hunt on the original Nintendo. My cousin (who also was allotted an inordinate amount of fireworks) would lay out all of our loot and trade items as if we were bartering for gold and precious gems, then we would make our younger cousins and siblings come in and buy fireworks from us – knowing full well they’d all get lit in the same spot in the middle of the street in front of our uncles house no matter what.

Going into the evening of the 4th my uncle would roast a pig for everyone, and in return everyone would bring an ice chest FULL of beer – PBR and Budweiser being the beers of choice. All of us kids would line up for the assembly line of mosquito repellant application with the last step being a heavy spray of pretty much straight DDT, more than likely personally bottled by one of our mothers as the truck drove by each and every afternoon.

Once it got dark and our sparklers and pop its and smoke bombs and snakes ran out we would sit in awe as our drunk fathers and uncles would commence to blowing things up, tying things together and blowing them up, throwing firecrackers at things to blow them up … I remember one particular blowing things up event when a police cruiser drove over and stopped on top of an already lit pile of explosive, yet not yet exploded – I’ve never heard a louder mixture of yelling and laughing – unfortunately the police cruiser did not explode.

As we enter into the week of the greatest summer holiday, I hope you can have only as much fun as I remember growing up a total and complete redneck child.

I always try to go to the lunches that support the research of various cancers, those that support pound puppies, the ones that are in favor of a political candidate I support – however Friday was a new one, even for me. I was invited to attend the Poultry Festival Ladies Luncheon – or rather the Ladies of Poultry, which I like better because it sounds like it should be a calendar – next year for sure.

Poultry Fest is a big deal around these parts, since more than 1/3 of our local economy thrives on chicken and their by products. It consists not only of the Ladies Luncheon but also of booths and games and a midway feel of events all weekend long. Instead of a key-note speaker, there was a fashion show, all of the fashions were from the downtown Rogers establishment of Stevette’s and moderating the show was none other than Stevette herself. If you’ve seen the movie “The Sweetest Thing” you can equate this to the store where Christina Applegate and Cameron Diaz perform a costume montage. I must admit that I have lived here for 20+ years and I have NEVER heard of Stevette’s…

One of the finer outfits was this – a full on Rodeo Queen get-up with sequins Razorbacks on the chaps and the back of her shirt, I’m heartbroken to say I have no picture of the back of this.

*note that is NOT me in this wonderful outfit

I have now officially turned old.

I muttered these words out loud to no one in a boutique dressing room the other day. No sense in naming the store and embarrassing them by letting people know old people shop there…

Sex and the City 2 opened last week and although my plans to have a repeat of the fabulous watch party we had for the first one failed miserably… I still immensely enjoyed going the midnight showing with 2 fabulous ladies.

Let me start by saying if you only watched the series on TBS you do not really have the level of appreciation I think is needed to truly enjoy the movie. There I said it. Our midnight movie looked more like a late night rush meeting – everyone in gym clothes with blankets and snuggies in tow. {Ewww – really? You bring a blanket to the movies?} As we were walking out I actually heard a group of girls say it was cheesy and that they didn’t get 90% of the puns… pure blasphemy!

2 years ago, we have a fabulous watch party in Denver – every seat in the movie, in which every theater was showing SATC, was donned in a cocktail dress and a minimum of 3 inch heals… I was at best disappointed in the turn out here in Fayetteville.

However, I cannot complain about the movie – Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda completely delivered – the fashion was outrageous (to be expected), the adventures were wild and the story actually kept with the theme from the previous movie on most all parts. I feel like it ended in a way that most likely will not be made into a 3rd – and I’m ok with that. I’m contemplating re-watching the entire series and writing about the crazy antics of which I can relate to the stories of my friends and the way we were/are!

No, it’s not just a holiday – it’s a place!

Some things I learned on my trip to Boston and Worcester:

• I will NEVER complain about traffic again
• Hooked on phonics is a big, fat lie
• {from watching stellar gymnasts} if you stumble in your routine, as long as you pop up and throw your hands up in a solid finish, everything is OK!

Starting with the last point, I went to Worcester to attend the Tyson American Cup – fitting since I work for Tyson. Ha. I couldn’t touch my toes if you had a gun to my head. So you can only imagine my amazement at the flips and twists and other feats of gravity defiance displayed by some of the worlds best gymnasts.

Moving on, the host town of TAC was Worcester, Massachusetts – claim to fame is it’s the second largest city in Massachusetts … really, it’s on their website. I can tell you the place is not to be pronounced war-ches-ter and as I was warned, I will warn you too, you will apparently get shot by saying it that way. Thus it was one of my quieter weekend. I had to strictly refrain from saying things such as “hey y’all” and “jeet yet” and “those biscuits and gravy are so lip smackin’ good, they’ll make you slap your mamma.”

Worcester (pronounced /ˈwʊstər/) is a city in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named afterWorcester, England, the city had a population of 182,596, making it the estimated second largest city in New England.^[1]a[›] It is the county seat of Worcester County.^[2] Worcester is located approximately 40 miles west ofBoston.

Thanks wiki, for that lesson. As we just learned, Worcester is 40 miles west of Boston. To partake in this 40 mile adventure you must travel on the MassPike – a 4 lane wide parking lot. It took me 2.25 hours to travel that 40 miles = ridiculous!

The gymnastics meet was awesome and I got the added bonus of feeling tall for once in my life.

I did this last year and was quite impressed with myself and the results- so I’m at it again… NO SHOPPING DURING LENT!
We’re a week in and I have been quite tame AND haven’t killed anyone yet, so I say that’s a win for us all. I’ll be the first to admit I have a problem, and MZ will be the first, second and third to agree with me. You see I like to shop online and since one can not try things on through the internet {yet} I tend to over order, especially if there is a coupon and free shipping both ways involved! It’s compulsive while watching TV: I sit, I read blogs, I shop for what I see on blogs … I repeat I repeat I repeat

Hi, my name is graciefabulous and I’m a shop-a-holic.

It was great and fun filled and VERY busy holiday season which might explain why I’m just now getting around to posting anything about it. The other reason is that I was in such a tizy taking down everything that I forgot to take pictures of anything! Very Very sad – I know!

We had 4 trees in total – our big tree, the little tree in our bedroom, the Razorback tree and of course there had to be a tree in the Bears room…. I had a great time decorating the whole house and I’m having a hard time adjusting to not having bare corners.

I hosted 2 events in the same weekend – Holiday Bunco and the annual Cookie Swap party; and no – I didn’t take pictures at either – I don’t know what this world is coming to.

We’re both looking forward to a couple of low key months which should be just enough time to recover from a great holiday season. Then hopefully it’ll be patio season!!!