Happy Friday!

Hopefully by the time you are reading this, I will be (or on my way to be) sitting by the water and soaking up some sun and having fun.  I plan to spend most of my week off and on the water, and enjoying every minute of it, whether it be the lake, the pool or the river.

I will take a vacation from the blog next week and will return the week after!  I'm sure I will have plenty of stories to share!  I can't wait to spend time with family and friends!

Have a great weekend!

From a small town

I moved from a small town in Upstate NY to the South.  Recently I found out that our local newspaper was finally online (not sure what the hold-up has been over the last few years).  Reading through it, I started to laugh and it got me to to thinking. 

You know you're from a small town . . . . . . 

• when the local newspaper has a Police Blotter in it (never seen one of these in the papers here - do you know what one is?  I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't)
• you know who half the people are in the Police Blotter (or the Obituaries section) (Is it bad that I even check to see if I know people?)
• you go to the grocery store or Wally with your mom while you're home and it's at least an hour trip because you or she will know at least 3 people in the store while you're there.
• everything is a 5 minute drive.  Church is at 8, we leave at 7:55 and make it on time, party at 1, we leave at 12:55.  You can get everywhere in 5 minutes!
• every class reunion is held the same week in the summer, when the local festival is going on in town, to make it easier for people to come.
• the mall is a minimum of an hour drive.  I'm not kidding you, to get to a mall my mom has to drive an hour, though she usually just adds on another hour and goes to the better mall (2 hours away).
• when the big news in town is that McDonald's is closing down for renovations and won't open for like 6-months.

To add to that a few more that are specific to my hometown, but I'm sure I'm not the only one:

• There's a place for the Amish to park their horse and buggies at Wally.
• You regularly yield for the horse and buggies while driving there.
• Your teachers know you and all of your siblings/cousins (and sometimes call you their name)
• When you say you're from New York, everyone immediately starts talking about NYC.
• When you say no, you mean Upstate or Northern New York they say, oh so like Poughkeepsie/Albany.  Umm, no, there's like a whole state up there, trust me it's big.  NYC isn't the whole state, it's just that little part in the bottom right.

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Moving to a 'big city' was a real eye-opener for me (and KC).  I love where we live now but I do miss my hometown some days.  A small town has it's perks, but mostly I miss my family that lives there, they're what makes it fun and a great place to visit.  Anyone else from a small town?

Dream Job

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While I was away at a Wedding in KC's family this weekend, I was admiring the photographer and realized how much fun she was having.  So I started thinking, if money, location and education were not a factor, what would your dream job be.  (I should say that this is nothing against my current job, which I do like, and I am so very happy to have a job!)

Only problem was, I couldn't come up with just one, so here are my top dream jobs (in no particular order).

1. Photographer - I would love to be able to capture people, their feelings and their memories.  There are so many different things you can see in a photograph it's amazing.   When I read photography blogs I get goosebumps at the gorgeousness of their photos.
   
2. Event/Wedding Planner - As I was trying to blog last night a friend was over at our place printing her envelopes for her wedding invitations (Outer, Inner & RSVP) and it made me think how much I enjoyed planning my own wedding.  With the Luau Shower not too far away, I'm working on planning out the food, decorations and everything that is going to happen.  I have a knack for paying attention to detail and keeping things organized (which is to my advantage for the most part).  I think this job would have endless possibilities and would never get boring.
   
3. Invitation/Stationary Designer - I don't think that I have shown my invitations around here, but I absolutely loved them.  They set the tone for the wedding and everything was carried throughout the whole thing (remember that attention to detail I mentioned).  As my friend has been planning her own wedding I've been helping her to tell her designer what she wanted and how she could explain it to him, most of the time I just wanted to do it so she could send him an example.
   
4. Website/Blog Designer - When I started my blog (on WordPress) I wanted to badly to make it my own, I decided to move to blogger for a bit more flexibility.  For now I'll be hanging around blogger because it allows me to customize things a bit more than WordPress and I'm not sure I want to commit to my own maintenance, etc.  I do like playing around with the look and would love to be able to create templates for bloggers to use.  (I say that and my own blog is someone else's template :-) )
   
5. Special Needs Children's Teacher - This is something that I've wanted to do since I was young.  I remember helping out in the classrooms at school and being a 'lunch buddy' to a student once a week.  It was one of the most rewarding things I did in grade school.  I just wish I had stuck with it a bit more.

Looking back at my list, I'm surprised by a few things.  They are not related to my current job (like at all).  Many of them are 'art/design' oriented, did I mention that I can't draw a lick and my whole house is brown.

What I'm not surprised about is that, none of them are 'fame-oriented'.  While I would love to be a famous actress/athlete/singer, being the center of attention would get to me quickly.

I'm sure I'm not the only on that day-dream about other jobs!  What are your thoughts?

**  This picture makes me laugh because when things are crazy at work, a co-worker and I will just say to one another "I love my job".  Gets us through the day! **

Dear (Clothing) Stores

Dear (Clothing) Stores,

Hi, I'm Lauren, and I just wanted to let you know that I do like shopping at your stores.  To tell you a little bit about me, I don't pay full price and I'm a lot little picky.  I am not really a shorts person, so I tend to gravitate towards wearing capris for the summer.  Now to put it in a nutshell, I have big legs.  I work out and try to stay as fit as possible, but my legs don't seem to understand.

As I've shopped your stores recently, my calves seemed to have become a problem with the latest styles.  I have been able to find one pair of capris all summer that would allow my calves to fit in them.  The rest?  Well they're the skinny crops and I can't even get them over my calves enough to pull them all the way up.  And I'll tell you what, anyone with calves can attest that, not only does this style not fit, but it's not particularly flattering on our body leg type.  I can understand that this is what's in fashion right now.  I know that Skinny jeans don't work for me, but that's fine, I wear flare/boot-cut instead.  I also know that if I need to go up a size, then I will, it kinda sucks, but I get it.  Well I don't need to go up a size, I just need you to make the calves of your pants a little bit bigger.  It too hot to wear pants, and I'm not the biggest fan of my legs in shorts, so I need to have capri pants.  It would be nice if you carried some capris that a 'big-calved' girl like me can purchase so I'm not sweltering in jeans all summer!

In closing, I would appreciate if in the future you considered that I would like to wear capris too!

Sincerely,
Big-calved girl that wants to wear capris

Dear (Shoe-Shopping) Stores

Dear (Shoe-Shopping) Stores,

We haven't formally met, but I'm Lauren.  To tell you a little bit about me, I don't pay full price and I'm a lot little picky.  I am a visual person and would prefer to go try things on in the store before I purchase them.  To speed up the process, I sometimes peruse your website to see what you have and if there's something that I might like.  Now, I am rather appreciative that you actually have a website that shares your merchandise, so please don't get my wrong there.

I have been perusing for a while today and came across some shoes which I love and MUST HAVE.  I was excited because my sister and I, we're going shopping tonight!  Then I see it, two ugly little words:  "Online Only".   But, but, but no, I want need them, I have to have them!!

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I already went through this once with a different chain and I visited 3 of their stores (that's right 3 of them) to find the ever elusive sandals that were the object of my affection, but they didn't have a single pair, anywhere.  I loved these babies, but they were no where to be found.  I haven't gone back there since.

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I'm not sure you understand what it's like for a flip-flop only kinda girl like me to finally find a pair of sandals that I want.  I know I'm picky, but I can't help it.  Can you please just help a girl out just one time.  I mean really, what did I ever do to you.

Please don't stop posting items to your site, but I would appreciate if you could have like an "Online Only" section so that I don't have to get my hopes up for my shopping trip (like Old Navy does).

Sincerely,
shoe/online shopper at your store