“Naga… Naga… Not gonna work her anymore, anyway.”

Remember that scene in the movie Office Space where Bob Porter and Bob Slydell, {“the Bob’s”}, come in to “make some room for entry-level graduates and farm out some work to Singapore”? Well in the movie Peter Gibbons, {played by Ron Livingston}, goes in to talk to “the Bob’s” when he discovers that they are planning on firing his 2 works colleagues Michael Bolton and Samir Nagheenanajar. Bob Porter tries to pronounce Samir’s last name and ends up saying the below quote.

“We're gonna be getting rid of these people here... First, Mr. Samir Naga... Naga... Naga... Not gonna work here anymore, anyway.” Then “the Bob’s”, {and me}, erupt in laughter. I love this movie. But this movie is not the reason for this post, {though I could write an entire post about this epic piece of what my friend Sarah calls “fart humor”. Whatever. It’s a great movie and if you haven’t laughed your arce off lately you should rent this movie! I digress, moving on.

Last Saturday Griff went with some of his training partners to Dallas for the North American Grappling Association Southwest Championship, or NAGA. {see the correlation between the abbreviation and the above quote about our friend Samir?}.

North American Grappling Association is one of the largest grappling tournaments held in the United States. This tournament was a qualifier held in Dallas for the Championship later on in the year. Needless to say Griff was in his element. He loved it. So much so that he has decided to compete in the upcoming Gracie Cup in San Antonio on October 30th. I am super proud of him and can’t wait to watch my man in action! Hieeeeeeeeeeee-ya!

One of Griff’s training partners Bill won gold in the 160 lbs. Gi Division defeating a Judo black belt with a arm bar. He also competed in the No Gi Division and won silver.

Another of Griff’s training partners Kat, won silver in Gi Division and bronze in No Gi Division . Don’t mess with this chick boy, cause she’ll have your ass! {She’s the one wearing the blue gi in the picture on the left and the one wearing the white shirt in the picture on the right.}

Griff with some of his training partners, John, Kat, and Bill. {Look at the size of Bill’s belt! Whoa!}

They left super early that day and got home pretty late but they all had a blast!

I love Fall!!!

While my favorite love of Fall, {the cool weather}, hasn’t shown itself yet, I’ve begun to get our house into the fall mood. Now it’s no secret that I HATE cold weather, {One of the many reasons I live in the South}, but I do LOVE those couple of weeks in the fall and spring where the weather is cool and crisp and the sun is shinning! I can’t wait for those days to get here.

In the meantime I have begun to decorate our house in fall decor to get us into the fall mood. Like the window ledge over our kitchen sink. I scored big time a the Dollar Store and snagged the fall leaves and pumpkins for 50 cents or $1. I purchased the large black finials are from Hobby Lobby a few year ago. The black sparrow too! Cept he was a major find for like $1.99! I just L-O-V-E deals!

Here is our mantle that needed a little sprucing up as well. Just a touch, don’t want to go too over the top. Griff just might kill me, seeing as my Christmas decoration fetish has now creped over into fall. Whoops. Love you babe!

Here is the bookcase in the living room.

And the entry table.

I am currently working on some other decorations that I hope to have finished soon. {I hate waiting for paint to dry!}

Dining Room

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now and I am just getting around to doing it. While the dinning room is not completely finished I wanted to let you guys see what we’ve done so far.

Here’s what the dinning room looked like when we moved in. Complete with vine grape boarder wall paper and floral curtains. Ick!

This paper was a b*tch to take down because the previous owners were morons. Instead of using wall paper paste to adhere the paper to the wall they used something like wood glue that made these lovely yellow lines all over the walls. So when you tried to peel the glue off the plaster came off with it. Thanks previous owners. {Oh, and did I mention that the previous owner was a handyman and had his own business?} We tried everything to get these lines off, sanding, Goo-Gone, Goof-Off, and scraping. Finally my Dad suggested painting over the lines and see if you can notice. Genius! Thanks Dad, worked liked a Charm. You couldn’t see the lines at all once they were painted! Thank God, because I was tired of scrapping.

One weekend Mom and Dad came to visit and they helped paint the room. {That’s Mom trying to scrap the hideous grapes off the wall, and Dad is doin’ some serious spackling, there was like a ba-gillion holes in these walls people!}

We picked out a gorgeous color for the walls. Ralph Lauren Regent Metallic paint in Bronze Statue. I love this color! It has bits of real copper that catch the sun light and looks just awesome!

Then Mom and I found these curtains from Target that I love. They are blue with threads of copper in them. Can you say gorgeous! One problem though, they were not long enough and they didn’t come in any longer sizes. Ugh! {I haven’t figured out yet if we have been blessed or cursed with large windows in this house?} Not to fret, I had a solution, or rather Dad did. Thanks again Dad for coming to the rescue! He suggested that we take the fabric from the cornice boards in the living room and add them to the bottom of these curtains. {“Give the curtains pants”, he said! Ha, I love that man!}

So I did. However seeing as I can’t sew or have a sewing machine for that matter, I used fabric glue to connect the pieces. It looks awesome! You can’t even tell that they are not “sewed” together. And if you can tell, shut your mouth and get out of my house because we are no longer friends.

Then Griff hung “our” chandelier. I have the word “our” in quotations because this is the chandelier that we bought and hung from the trees in the outside lounge area at our wedding. This chandelier, {or a version of it}, was the centerpiece of our wedding, it was in everything, from our personalized wedding logo, the announcements, the invitations, the napkins, the light that shown on the dance floor… you get the idea. He also hung a ceiling medallion that I bought at Lowes for like 20 buckaroos. Nice huh?

Here are some pictures from our wedding and the lounge area where you can see the chandelier.

While we are not totally done with this room, {blinds, accessories, and crown molding are still needed}, it’s pretty darn close. I love this room. The table, chairs and buffet were my grandparents and I am so lucky to have them. I remember Thanksgiving’s at this table and those are memories I hold close to my heart. I can’t wait to make many more memories with my own family at this table!

Louisiana Comes to Town!

Griff’s sister Noelle, her husband Brian, and their 2 cute kiddos, Renee and Charles, came for a visit this past weekend. We were SO excited to have them here and we took a TON of pictures. Unfortunately Griff’s Mom Toni was unable to make it. We missed you “T”!

Seriously, everyone swings on this swing! Brother–in-Law Brian, sister/sister-in-law Noelle, Little Miss Renee, and Uncle Griff.

Are bubbles like crack to all kids?

Brian and Noelle rented a car while they were here. A classy, upscale and very grandparent-esk, {not these kids grandparents}, Lincoln Towncar.

Brian decided it would be easier if we took the TC anywhere we needed to go because of the car seats. I wanted to take it cause, well because the TC is cool. But guess who rode bi*ch in the front seat? Ha! Well this was the plan anyway but once I got in the back with kids Noelle and Griff decided to switch. Damn. Oh well, at least I got a picture. Muahahahahah! We were on our way to a friends house to watch the Texas game. LSU was playing later so they all had their LSU shirts on but not me! I was representin’ my home state! Go horns!

Since I act like a kid it was decided I should ride in the back with the kids. Plus I can fit in between the car seats. See my shirt? Texas Fight!

I think I caught someone letting someone jump on the bed! It’s OK, that’s what Aunt and Uncles are for, spoiling nieces and nephews rotten!

This chair was her boat. She was captain of course! Look at my handsome husband!

Charles loves windows!

Sigh, we tried.

With Tropical Storm Hermine rollin’ into town about 5:30 this morning Noelle and Brian were worried if they weren’t going to make their flight at 7pm tonight. So they left for the airport this afternoon to try and get onto an earlier flight. I got a text message from Noelle at about 4:30 letting us know they made it to Houston and were on a flight to New Orleans. I'm super bummed I didn’t get to say goodbye to anyone and give those babies kisses, but we’ll see them again soon so I guess I won’t blame Mother Nature. Huh, Bitch.