A Hair Raising Experience

Get ready for some fun! I'm debating about doing something drastic to my hair and am trying to get some ideas. So I bought an InStyle Magazine (one of my favs!) and in it, they had this super cool website. So I played around with it.

What do ya think?!?! (if you click on the picture, you can see it up close)







I was so sure I wanted to go short, but I really like my hair long. What's a girl to do?!

Post your ideal look!

Take Me Out To The Ball Game!

What a fun mid-week treat! My roommate's boyfriend had tix to the Braves game. Not just random tickets where you need binoculars. We were 26 rows from the field, right behind the dugout. It was really cool!!

Here's some pix from the fun night:





OK...so none of those are about baseball! Woops! We had a little too much fun with the camera. Here's some baseball moments:



But perhaps more entertaining was the people sitting around us:

The "Glimpse-Into-The-Future" couple. I joked with Amber that that would be her and Brandon 20 years from now. Of course, they both told me to shoot them if they did end up like that!


The Drunk Couple. They were disgustingly drunk! Slobbering all over each other. There's one at every game.


I didn't get a picture of him because I was too busy joining in the fun, but one of the ushers would run through the row and high-five everyone every time there was a homerun hit. There was at least 3 hit last night!

It was such a fun night! Thanks Brandon :)

WHAT?!

Date this picture was taken: SEPTEMBER 15. (Yes, September!)

This is just wrong!

Very Vera

Talk about craziness! I went to the Vera Bradley outlet sale this weekend. It started Thursday. Mom, Mandi, and I went down to the Cobb Galleria after work. By the time we got down there (Atlanta traffic!) we had about an hour to shop. As we walked in, we were handed trash bag size pink bags to shop around with. There was rows and rows of quilted patterned treats otherwise known as Vera Bradley heaven. Now, I'm not a die hard VB fan, but this sale was unbelievable. We decided to all split up and meet back by the concessions. It was like a scene out of a movie! People dodging each other, swiping merchandise off the table. After we had shopped as long as they would let us, we headed to the checkout and headed home.

On the ride home, we talked about going back later. Yeah..a little obsessive, but we figured out that we needed to go back with lists of stuff to buy mainly for gifts and such. So we planned to go back Saturday morning. I had plans of meeting Cindy Saturday afternoon. So, we met at 8:45 am in order to get down there and have about an hour to shop before I was going to head out. That was the plan...

When we got down there this morning, we noticed that there was a line outside the door. Ugh...luckily it moved fast. We finally got inside the building and as we were approaching the door we were funneled outside again! And when we walked outside, we sunk a what we saw:



I felt like I was at 6 Flags in line for a roller coaster. Those zig zag lines! Well, it wasn't quite as bad as it looked. Total amount of time in line from parking lot to inside was about an hour. We finally got in and the mad dash began.



Today was the last day of the sale, so the selection was pretty much wiped out, but somehow I still managed to buy a whole trash bag full! Anyways, you would've thought that each vera bradley piece was a drop of water in a barren wasteland. Grown women were running and snatching up pieces as soon as they were put on the table. So once again, we all split up and decided to meet at the check out. Well, unlike Thursday night, we had to wait in line. And this is where we ended up spending most of our time.

The line was definitely entertaining though. There were people who had brought their own shopping carts because they knew how much they were going to buy. But probably one of the most intriguing things was the people who bought dog carriers (Yes, VB makes carriers to carry your precious pooch) I'm talking about 5-6 dog carriers. I finally asked one lady why she had so many. She was actually buying them for her mom and mother-in-law who indeed had that many dogs. Another lady I asked (who had 6!) said that she was buying them for her daughter who was going to put her Webkins in them! Then there was 1 girl we overheard who simply bought one because it was so cheap! What she was going to do with it is beyond me! (They were cheap by the way: $9...down from $97!)

So 2 hours later...we finally made it out, then had to brave the traffic out of the Cobb Galleria. So... another hour later, we finally made it home.

I unfortunately, did not get to meet Cindy (sorry!) We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We just thought we'd be in and out of there like we were Thursday night. WRONG!

But it was definitely worth it. We had a good time.

Peepers!

Are you a peeper?! Do you read my blog and never leave a comment? Thank you, thank you, thank you for finding my life interesting enough to read about. But I want to know who you are!! Please leave me a comment!! For the longest time, I thought that only my handful of friends read my blog, so it would mean a great deal to me to read your thoughts!

Thanks for visiting!

Oh, by the way, if you're having a difficult time leaving a comment. Email me and let me know so I can try to fix it. (stacibrown@hotmail.com)

Spoken like a true 6th grader!

So, here's what I wore to school today. Nothing out of the ordinary.


One of my students, we'll call her H, said to me today in the middle of class...in front of everyone:

H: "Ms. Brown, you look holy today"

You can imagine my utter surprise.

HUH?!?!?!

MB: "I'm sorry, H, what did you say?"

H: "You look like a nun...holy. Ya know, because you're wearing a lot of white"

MB: [internal thoughts] "You are the weirdest kid ever!"
[actual comment] "I'm not quite sure what to think of that H"

What's the weirdest thing someone's told you?

Labor-free Weekend

I know it's been forever since I've written anything and the only reason is because I quite possibly live the most boring, uneventful life on the face of the earth. So to further prove my point, here's a recap of my labor-free weekend:

Friday PM:
~Met my friend Amanda and Lydia at Bennihanas. Yes, we went all out! Lydia had a little "aversion" to our chef. She cried the whole time he cooked our food, but once he left, she was fine. It was pretty funny :)

Saturday AM:
~Graded a lab I had my kids do. Most of them did pretty well on it. There are a few parts I'm going to have to review tomorrow in class. We've got a test on Thursday. I'm trying to put the fear of God in them for this first test!!



Saturday PM:
~Went to a 2 yr. old's birthday party. Staci Thornton's little boy turned 2 and they had some friends and family over. (For those that don't know...we're practically family!)
~Met K-dogg at the movies and saw The Nanny Diaries. It was pretty cute. Fairly clean, too.

Sunday AM:
~Went to church. I've been going to Mountain Lake Church for about 3 weeks now. So far, I like it. We'll see!
~Went to the mall and used my Victoria Secret free panty card! Looked for other stuff, but no such luck.

Sunday PM:
~Got a mani/pedi and eyebrow/lip wax. WAY overdue!


~On the way home, got 2 movies: Catch and Release and (I'm a little embarrassed by this) High School Musical. C&R was cute. Nothing to rave about. OK...why HSM?!?!?! It's coming to the Fox around my birthday and I thought it would be fun to do: get dressed up and go to the Fox! So I thought I'd better see it to know what it's about. I have to admit that I liked it!


Monday AM:
~Slept in till about 9:00. That is about 4 hours later than usual!

Monday PM:
~Called around and FINALLY found the comforter I wanted. It's by Nate Berkus. I called around to 4 different Linen's N Things and finally found it in Roswell. I've still got shams and pillows to get. One step at a time!



~Went grocery shopping! This has got to last me a while.




So ya see! You're not missing much!

Some of my FAVORITE people in the whole world!

The latest picture of my niece and nephews. I love how all the boys are looking away and Brooke is the only one looking at the camera!

Brown & Blue!

I did my very first swap and my package came in the mail yesterday. My girl did a really good job of picking out stuff that I loved!! Take a look:

If it's not 1 thing, it's another!

Alright, I know I haven't posted in a few weeks, so I thought I'd go ahead and update a little. However, I wish I wasn't having to write this post. If you recall, I posted a few months ago about my little lizard friend. As if that wasn't bad enough, I began hearing another little scratching noise a few days ago. I dismissed it at first thinking, "Oh no, not again!". The noise persisted. Well, on Saturday night I got hot about 2:00 am and got up to turn on the fan. As I laid back down, I heard it. At that point, I wasn't sure if it was in the wall or not, so I got a little nervous. I mean, I kept envisioning that little sucker crawling on me in the middle of the night. Eeek! So I literally stayed up ALL night dozing off a few minutes at a time till he began scratching again. By about 6:00 that morning, I had decided he was in the wall. I mean, if he was in my room, why would he be scratching the wall?? (I try to think very logical when it comes to rodents!) Last night, I felt more comfortable going to sleep b/c I had made up my mind that he was in the wall and couldn't "get me!" So, today, I called my little brother Clint, the bug man (He works with ALL Exterminating). He came over and not only confirmed my fears, but intensified them!! He agreed that little Mickey was in the wall, but the bad part was that little Mickey wasn't a mouse...but probably a RAT! He made this decision based on the size of his droppings found in my garage!!!!!!!!!! So little Ratty hangs out in the wall at the head of my head at night and during the day, heads outside to escape the heat of the wall. Clint put some poison in the attic and tomorrow he's dropping off 2 traps for the garage. Why do all the little critters think MY home is the place to be?!?!

Back to business!

Finally! I'm back online...for good hopefully. I had the Geek Squad come today. They were supposed to be here at 2:45. They called me at 2:45 to say they were running a little late and that they would be there at 3:45!!!! Are you kidding me?!?! This has been a week long process and up until last week, I was pretty pleased with the ole Geek Squad. Well, they didn't get here until 4:15! I was livid!

He was a nice man, but boy did he like to talk. He fished around in my computer and basically told me that it was my cable. Wonderful Comcast...extreme sarcasm. Then on top of that, my desktop is basically infested with viruses. He downloaded some stuff and hopefully it's fixing it.

I was supposed to watch Evan at 5. Luckily, my roommate was home and could stay with the "geek" while I headed off to Mandi's. I go to my car and the "geek's" car is in the way. I thought I could go over the bushes and out my creepy neighbor's driveway. No such luck. So I ran back in to move my roommate's car and thought I could back out on her side. I backed my roommate's car out and pulled it into my other neighbor's driveway. I 'bout ripped my mirror backing out and realized that wasn't gonna work either. So I ran back inside and asked the "geek" to move his car.

It all worked out in the end.

Ever have one of those days?

Contest

Thought Provoking Question

This question was posed to me the other day and I wanted to hear your answers:

If you were a toy, what would you be and why?

(Sorry, I've been out of the loop lately. Stupid internet problems. I only get internet for a little bit each day. Geek squad is coming Tuesday. Hallelujah!)

You wanted to know!

My friend Amanda tagged me to answer the following questions. So, here goes...

1. What’s your favorite piece of furniture in your house & why?
I'm not particularly attached to any of my furniture (it's mostly cheap,
do-it-yourself type stuff), but I do like my couch. It's big, soft, and comfy.
2. Why does X stand for a kiss?
X marks the spot! (Of course in my case, "the spot" hasn't seen any activity in
years!
3. What’s your guilty pleasure website? You know, the one you might be embarrassed to tell us you visit every day!
Match.com
4. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
a teacher...go figure
5. What did you do for your 16th birthday?
It was so awesome! My parents threw me a surprise party at my friend Bethany's
house...er...I mean mansion! It was a blast!!

Family

My sil Tera sent some new pics of the kids. I don't get to see them that much, so I LOVED seeing these pictures!!

The Past

Today I went to a family reunion. It was my dad's side of the family which, other than my aunt and 2 cousins, I haven't seen in decades. I am around my mom's side of the family much more and see them pretty regularly, so when we have family reunions, it's only been a few months since I've seen them.

But today, was very different because it kind of took me back. Like I said, I hadn't seen some of these people since I was a kid and some of them, I had never met! But the ones I knew, it was kind of like a trip down memory lane:

I saw Claudia and Nat and remember me, Mandi, and my 2 cousins swinging on their wooden swing in the back yard and breaking it!

I saw Jane and remember how me and Hannah ended up locking her daughter Lorraine in a van.

I saw John & Mary Lou (I think that's their names!) and remember how we used to play Nintendo with their grandsons, Gabe, Leon, & Jesse, when they came to visit from California.

Of course, everyone is all grown up and married with kids now which were running around everywhere. But one thing that was neat was when each family introduced themselves and how they were part of the Brown family. Then they started talking about old stories. It was so neat.

I never got to meet my dad's dad, Boyd, but it was so neat to see his only living sibling and one of his cousins. What was he like? It's so weird for me to think about that because all my life, I've only had 1 grandfather and he has been a huge part of my life, so when I think of "grandfather", he's all I know. But how would've Boyd changed my perception of the word grandfather? What would've I had called him?

There was so much history represented there today. One day, people I haven't even met yet will be sitting around talking about me after I'm gone (Lord willing)! What will they be saying?

What will your relatives say about you?

"Start the car!"

Have you seen the Ikea commercial where the lady comes out and tells her husband to "start the car" because she got such a good deal that she thought they made a mistake?? Well, Amber and I had the same experience today.

Everyone knows that teachers spend a lot of their own money on their classroom, so when we find a good deal, we usually take it. But this deal, is beyond my realm of comprehension. Even if you're not a teacher, you will appreciate it. Staple's was having a sale today...and boy, do I mean S-A-L-E!

We got everything you see below for not $200, not $100, not $50, not $25 (do you SEE how low I'm getting?!?!) not $10, not even $5.



We got all this for:

$1.86!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everything was 1 cent!

OK...now that you've picked yourself up off the floor, here's the breakdown:

30 pencil sharpeners
90 pencil boxes
45 packs of pencils (8 in a pack)
49 folders

We had to estimate the original prices b/c they weren't on the receipts, so here's what we estimated:

30 pencil sharpeners at .99 (this one we know was accurate) = $30
90 pencil boxes at ~.99 = $90
45 pencils at $1.49 (this was accurate, too) = $67.05
49 folders at ~ 0.10 = $4.90

Estimated total = $191.95
Plus 7% sales tax of $13.43

Grand Total of $205.38

$205.38 - $1.86 = a GRAND SAVINGS OF $203.52!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



The funny thing was that they only allowed you to 15 items in one purchase, so we would get our maximum of 15 items, drop them off in the car and turn right around and go back in!! That's why there's so many receipts. The guy in the checkout got to know us real well.

I know it's not the most polite things to brag about money, but this is unheard of!

Next week they're having their 5 cent sale!! Can't wait!

A Day in the Life of Camp Rocks

Last week was one of the craziest, hardest, funnest, hectic, and worthwhile weeks of my summer. Camp Rocks is a week long summer camp now in it's 6th year. For more information, see Cindy's blog:Camp Rocks

I've been going to camp since I was in elementary school and have loved it! There are so many facets of camp that, when put all together, make for one unforgettable week. One of the fun things about camp is that all the staff goes by bird names. It's from the passage in the bible where Elijah was fed by ravens. My name is Daisy...as in Duck.

Cindy directs the camp and I am sort of her like her right hand WOman during the week. I'm also the Activities Coordinator. That means I schedule all the kids in their classes. I wanted to document the week in pictures because trying to explain it to someone is nearly impossible. Unfortunately, I didn't get all the pictures I wanted because I was running around like a crazy person, so here's what I did end up with:


Each morning started at 7:30 with staff devotions and then a quick meeting to go over the day's schedule. Then it was off to a yummy breakfast made by our world famous chefs Darrell and his sister.


Then it's off to Morning Watch. This is a time where all the campers have their own, individual quiet time. The whole camp spreads out on the games field. It's really a sweet time.


After Morning Watch, it's flag raising. I've got some fond, and crazy, memories of doing flag raising myself. It's a solemn time of honoring and praying for our country, but when you get tickled, there's NOTHING you can do to compose yourself. Trust me I know. Our kids here did a really great job.

Then it was off to Cabin Capers. This is a time where the kids get to clean up their cabin to get it ready for inspections. Since I wasn't a counselor, I didn't have a cabin, so I had a few minutes of free time.

Then the cabins were off to Bible Exploration. This is a time where the cabins have a time of exploring God's Word together as a small group. I; however, used this time to prepare for my first class: Nature Projects.



This was some of the things we did in Nature projects. We planted seeds, learned about how to read the weather, went on bird, trees, and insects walks.


After 1st period, we "lined up". We did this as a way to take a quick head count and to make any announcements throughout the day. Kids lined up by cabins, then headed into a delicious lunch!

After lunch, it was the counselor's favorite time of the day: kickback! This is like a rest hour. Of course, I was running around getting ready for my next class: CILT. CILT stands for Campers In Leadership Training. It's a 5 year long intensive training course that prepares campers to become leaders. I went through it and loved it!


Here's my kids working on some of their lessons and assignments.


After 2nd period, it was the camper's favorite time: Free Time! Just as the name implies, kids had free time to go swimming, play games or whatever they want. Cindy and I worked in the Tuck Shop. This is the camp store where campers could buy snacks and trinkets.


Then it was time for 3rd period. I "taught" a class called Potpourri. This class was actually the result of some quick thinking! We were short staffed and needed another 3rd period class, so Cindy, me, and Amanda (Cindy's daughter) all tag teamed to teach this class. We did crafts, decorated the camp and played games. It turned out to be a pretty cool class. Here we are playing cards.





After 3rd period, it was time for Cabin Time. This is a time where each cabin does something fun together. Cindy and I used this time to get ready for the evening activity. Each night was something different. This night was the 4th of July. We had a county fair and staff parade. It was SO much fun!!




After each evening activity, there was a message and time of worship. This night was lit sparklers on the beach and Brandy (Chickenhawk) brought the message.

Then it was off to bed...for the campers, that is! Cindy and I usually had to stay up and prepare stuff for the next day.


Here are some favorite camp activities:








Remember my cool new water shoes?! Well, Darrell (Rooster) got me some Jibitz...very appropriate for me at camp!


And so, another year of camp in the record books. It was a great week, but I'm glad to be home :)