Here I am

I know it has been a full month and you've all be wondering about me.  (One sec, just choked laughing)

Anyways, just continuing to settle in here in Music City and every day I believe myself more & more when I say, "I live in Nashville, Tennessee."

Lots of updates on what I've been getting into to come including:
- 34 hours in Columbus, Ohio
- The Nashville Bucket List, which will include introductions to my friends
- The CMA's
- Apartment Updates

And I've got a busy 2 weeks coming up with lots of fun events that I want to keep a secret for now.

That's all from me, y'all!

Extremely Exciting Update

Not too much to report from Music City the past week or so.  I did celebrate my first birthday in Nashville - let's hope over the next year I'll get some friends to help celebrate my NEXT birthday in Nashville.

This past weekend I did do some exploring.  I've been hearing about Southeastern Salvage practically since I moved here.  Deciding this was finally the time to go, everyone I told on Friday looked at me with big eyes and an "are you sure you're going to go alone?" look.  Are you kidding?  I lived in Shockoe Bottom & shared a parking lot with Have a Nice day Cafe.  Give me a real challenge.

Southeastern Salvage is awesome.  It's a home decorators' dream & I can see many more trips in my future.  After some gawking, I left with these great patio furniture cushions for $9.  Obviously they're orange and look great on my patio (which is in dire need of some plants, flowers & a cafe table.)

                               

I also (finally) framed these great prints I got as a birthday gift from my brother from Etsy.  No, he didn't pick these out on his own, I sent the direct link to them once I saw them a year ago in Martha Stewart Living.  I think they're a great addition to my dining area and hopefully I can find some sort of cool/antique buffet for this room as well.

I will constantly be in a phase of "fixing up" my living space.  Maybe once it looks something like this I'll be satisfied....but even then, I'll probably find more to redecorate :)



The Life Goal.



Celebrity Sightings: RIC > DET > BNA

Being someone who follows celebrity gossip faithfully, I never seem to "run into" celebrities (except for that one fateful day last May in NYC when I ran into SJP and I'll never forget it as long as I live)  Leave it to me to have a celebrity on BOTH of my flights back to Nashville this weekend!

Celebrity Sighting #1: RIC > DET, Timothy Busfield

Who? Umm that guy from Field of Dreams obviously.  He was one of the last people on the plane and sat down right across the aisle from me.  In pretty close quarters, I stared when I heard his voice knowing it was familiar.  Then my face turned red and looked back at my book realizing he's not that big of a deal.  But still, pretty interesting.

Celebrity Sighting #2: DET > BNA, Lauren Alaina

Yep. The runner up from American Idol.  THAT Lauren Alaina.  The second I saw her, I knew it was her, even though she's not quite famous yet.  Unprepared for what to do, I immediately texted my American Idol dealer, Courtney.  It went something like this:

Me: Lauren Alaina is sitting across from me!!!!!!

AID: Whaaaat? Where? Why? How?

Me: Flying through Detroit to Nashville. I'd feel like an idiot if I say "I know you" though.  That's embarrassing, right?

AID: You should say, "Just so you know, I hate Scotty. You should have won."

At this point in the texting back & forth, I'm pretty sure her mom and manager both realized I was texting about her and all proceeded to get up and go wait for the flight across the terminal.  But alas, as we were boarding I was presented with another opportunity to celebrity stalk.  Lauren seemed to have lost her boarding pass and was having a pretty major freak out attack over it.  I stood around and watched it all happen, missing my zone boarding completely, which forced me to have to check my bag.  When you're in Zone 2 and board during Zone 4, apparently there might not be space left for your bag.  Rats!

Lessons learned: Pull myself together.  I mean, what if that had been Taylor Swift or George Strait?  Do I plan on just watching celebrities when I run into them or take this to the next level and request them to be friends on facebook? Pretty sure I need to lock it up before I run into a REAL celeb and need to put my Celebrity Friend Plan into action.

Let's go PRE - DA - TORS!

The great thing about not really ever having any plans is that when someone asks you at 4pm if you want to go to the Predators pre-season game that night, it doesn't take too long to say YES!

Last night I headed down to Bridgestone Arena with some newly made friends and enjoyed watching the Preds dominate the Caps from the 7th row.  Not too shabby!

Going into this game, pretty much the only thing I knew about hockey involved Al Michaels and 5 simple words: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gfD134ED54
(I mean, my parents grew up in the mid-west, this is the type of sports history I got growing up)

I wasn't 100% sure how to dress for this event.  It's inside...but there's ice.  Older Bro Brad suggested I bring a sweatshirt.  I'm still trying to control my laughter.  Instead I went for a sensible Fall friendly outfit and figured I'd take a chance with my feet freezing off.  They didn't, whew!

Anyways, it was super fun and I'm definitely a fan.  I mean, I won't be watching the games on TV or anything, but anytime I can get to another game, I'll be a fan again then.



Some pics from the 7th closest seats in the arena:









Bookworm Wannabee

Today was a special day for the life of any "new resident."  I got a library card. 

I love to read.  Lotssssssssss.  I was excited to see that I work only 1 mile away from the Green Hills library branch, however I barely believed I was at the library when I pulled up to this:

That's right, I'm in the South.  We apparently have architectural competitions for everything - including libraries.

This library is the bomb.  Lots of books that seem to always be in stock, books on tape (to help with the 10-hour drives to Richmond) and...MOVIES.  You don't understand.  Richmond City library barely has ANY movies.  I know exactly where I'm going should I not feel well or get injured....

I went back and forth picking a book.  I'm going to be flying this weekend and will more than likely get stuck all weekend in the Atlanta airport while flying Delta, so I originally was looking for something "fluffy" with a cover that had pastels (I judge books by their covers) but ultimately decided on South of Broad by Pat Conroy which takes places in beautiful Charleston.  Evidently I'd like to torture myself since the inside cover (yep, also read those) that has phrases like, "family struggles with shattering effects," "lonely and isolated" and "a prison-escapee father."  Weeeee!!!!

Hokey Pokey

For everyone that was worried about my emotional state following my attempt last weekend to meet up with the Hokie group to watch football, I'm happy to report that attempt #2 was a success!

As I cautiously drove around the blocks near Corner Pub-Midtown, I noticed a car with a VT magnet parking in the Cathedral parking lot behind the bar.  I immediately parked near them and then met Bill & Linda.  I asked them if it was okay to park there and they said "We think so!"  I wasn't totally convinced, but then Linda told me that they had visited church there once before so it was okay.  Welllllllll....I guess I can go along with that.  At least I had a story to tell the tow-company through my tears should I need it.

I met some great people - I should have known I needed some Hokies in my world to start making some real friends!

The other real success comes in the form of the fact that the Chicken Fingers were DELICIOUS, (Chicken Fingers + College Football = Me.)  and I'm now a firm follower of Sweet Water.  I had heard about this "brew" before but now being 4 hours from Atlanta, it is in abundant supply here.  My current favorite is Sweet Water Blue (Allison Ox would go bananas over this stuff!)  If you're reading this, try this stuff immediately!

That's all from me, y'all!

Scavenger Hunt: Epic. Fail.

The day I moved to Music City the Living Social deal was a Scavenger Hunt through Downtown followed by drinks & dinner at an "undisclosed location overlooking the City."  I was immediately interested and had visions of being on The Winning Team.

Shocked that I didn't ultimately talk myself out of it, I was greeted by some great Living Social peeps when I was asked "are you meeting up with some friends?"  I love every time I get to respond and say "Nope, I don't have any!"  I was super lucky to get put in a group with four other women who took me in as one of their friends.  One was even FROM Nashville, I started to wonder if a trophy was involved...

Well - The Scavenger Hunt was hard.  Especially for the girl who has only lived here for two weeks.  But the fail really came into play when one of the more "concerned" women in the group thought she heard gunshots (they were fireworks) and JUMPED on top of me, in fear.  I then toppled to the ground (with her still on top of me screaming.)

The end Result: I scraped up my elbow & hand, have quite the mini-gash on my foot (blood was involved) tore my jeans and have a pretty hearty bruise forming on the side of my leg.

Things like this happen to me.  A lot.  Somehow I'm lucky enough to tell about it!

There's a hole in my foot.  Ouchie.

That's all from me, y'all!

Welcome to Fabulous NashVegas!

Hello Friends & World! 

I've been contemplating for a couple of weeks now whether or not I would/should blog about my experience living in Nashville.  Will it really be that interesting?  Do people really want to know?  The jury might still be out on the answers to both of those, but after an epic fail tonight during my Living Social Scavenger Hunt, I just can't keep these stories quiet any longer.

I hope to entertain you all with the insanity of my new live in Fabulous NashVegas!