Category Archives: Friends

The lives of my friends.

The Pioneer Woman Comes to Town

Pioneer Woman Shirt

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go the Pioneer Woman‘s book signing. It was originally going to be at a tiny bookshop (Blue Willow Bookshop) but the they weren’t going to have space in their 1200 sq ft store for all the ladies that came out to see the Pioneer Woman. It was moved to Georgia’s Farm to Market. It was an adorable local grocers that had dining room tables all over the place and teas, coffees, snacks, and foods to consume.

We got there a little after 11:00 and got our cookbooks and found our seats. The PW answered questions at 1:00 and then the cattle call began. The 500 or so women were broken into color groups and we were called by color. Mrs. Oswalt and I were part of the “PETAL” group.

Barbara and Meg

While we waited our turn, we drank coffee and looked around at all the interesting teas, coffees, herbs and foods to see. We also talked to these ladies. They were in the “LIME” group.

Sandra and Monica at the PW Signing

Sandra and Monica were on hand to converse with us. We talked about which recipes we thought we might try. Monica brought sticky notes and tabs so we could mark recipes.

Barbara, PW, and Meg

Then (several enjoyable hours later) Mrs. Oswalt and I met the Pioneer Woman. I told her about the dark chocolate cranberries we ate and she seemed genuinely interested. She truly was friendly and sweet and made an effort to speak to every single person who came. She also gave everyone who came to see her a T-shirt.

We got our cookbooks signed and then he seemed strange to leave after being there for so many hours. The cookbook has pictures of every step of the way, which makes me want to give some of the recipes a chance. The food looks delicious and the photos in the entire book are of her ranch and family. You should probably buy it.

P.S. Sandra and I made the enchiladas and guacamole in the book. It was hard work and my fingers burned from all the cutting. They were tasty!.

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Christine's Birthday

Christine @ art show

Ms. Faller’s birthday was on Sunday, and I am running a few days behind on appreciating her. She is only a baby, she turned 24; and since I turned 25 a month ago, I can call her a baby. I always find it interesting how certain people make their ways into each other’s lives. When I met her 6 years ago, I would have never thought she would have become one of my nearest and dearest friends. Christine became friends with Kim at Fish Camp. Kim lived caddy corner to me in the dorm. Christine was around and I thought she was a hoot. We both got into CARPOOL the same semester and having a friend on nights and at meetings brought us closer together. Christine is always entertaining, and always thoughtful. I know she is someone I will always be able to count on.I love and adore her and am lucky to have her in my life.

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OMG – Taylor Hicks??

My dear friend Michelle invited me to share her birthday gift with her last night, tickets to Grease. I love a show and was absolutely thrilled to be asked. Upon our arrival there was a life size cut out of Taylor Hicks that claimed we could meet him! We thought this was hilarious and kicked ourselves in the butts for not taking a photograph with the cardboard version of the man. Apparently Mr. Hicks now travels with Grease. The show started and I asked Michelle, “Which one is he?” and she consulted the Playbill. This consultation revealed that Mr. Hicks would only be on stage for ONE song – Beauty School Dropout. This idea was hysterical as well, because everything involving Taylor was incredibly comical last night.

When Taylor Hicks finally came on stage, he descended from the ceiling in an ice cream cone. At first we could not decide if Taylor would even get out of the cone, because he was belted in. Slowly the cone came down and he undid he cone seatbelt and sang to dear Frenchie. Frenchie exclaimed, mid song, “I voted for you!” Really?? At this point Michelle and I were lucky there was no floor space, because we would have been rolling in the aisles in hysterics.

Taylor once again appeared on stage after all the cast had bowed to botch the words of the theme. THEN came back at the very end to play his new single for the audience and plug his show at the Warehouse Live on Monday. The entire audience was looking around, because when has anyone EVER seen a performance after a musical? The audience was in awe while Michelle and I were (yet again) in hysterics.

Michelle and Meg @ Grease!

After the show we decided we had no where else to be, so we needed to get in line to meet the man, only to prove that it had happened. First we scoped out the line and hilarity from the balcony. We talked to strangers about how strange his appearance was.

OMG TAYLOR HICKS!

Ladies love Taylor. The line was entirely ladies. So how many of these people only came to see Grease because of him? And how many of these people are just American Idol fans who just wanted to have a picture with one? The whole thing was fascinating. We wound up going down and trying to take pictures with our IPhones and I attempted to Tweet Taylor’s picture. We did not stand in the line because you had to buy Merchandise to do so and well that wasn’t going to happen.

Grease was also adorable, it was just overshadowed by the ridiculousness that was Taylor Hick’s involvement in the show. Thank you Michelle for inviting me, I had a blast!

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JMO and His Branding – jmoswalt

JMO recently decided to move therealjmo.com to jmoswalt.com. Now he can officially say he is jmoswalt across the board (Twitter, email, Facebook, and website). He has put a lot of time and energy into the new blog pulling in all the lessons he’s learned from making his previous blogs, the CARPOOL website, this blog, and the skills he has picked up in his new career path at Schipul. I have learned more than I knew could be known about the blogging world from JMO and a lot about putting yourself out there and not being afraid to fail.

Anyway, check out JMO’s site. Look how his posts are now one per page. Look at the bottom of each post there are related posts suggestions. Look how you can click any link in the old blog and it will bring you to the new blog. Look how you can choose text or video or choose the title of any previous post from a master index. Look how my boyfriend rocks, what can yours do?

Side note: The picture above is a perfect example on how I’m continuing to fail so I can learn to be good. Picture editing interests me. But alas, I know how to do very little with the software. I have been frustrated with pictures not turning out as I hoped. Look above for me, please be witness my attempt, I promise to produce better soon.

P.S. It is impossible to speak of JMO without including 348239040234 links -the number may be an exaggeration

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Vela Pree Kids

Last week I hung out with Devin and Christian a bit. Sandra has done good by these ones. One day was hard work, I can’t even begin to comprehend how it would be to hang out with these kiddos everyday. Sandra Vela Pree is a spectacular mother.

Devin
Pree Babies

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