Birthday Bliss!

New post on Agape about Birthday Parties! If you're not following that one already, please do so-- I can use all the support I can get!

Birthday Girl

Me and Vivi-- too bad I don't have anything to fix the red eye on this computer!

Violet blushing over her new outfit

Vivi on her big girl bike!

A better look at the adorable outfit Jeremy and I got her for her birthday!

This year's cake (without a small chunk thanks to Jeremy...)

Julian goofing around with the leftovers-- Juice Box Hero!

Happy Birthday, Vivi!

Happy 2nd Birthday to my amazing goddaughter! 

Sushi Sushi!

We would normally never go somewhere this expensive but, in an effort to have the best birthday ever, we hit up Nori Nori, the all you can eat sushi buffet which was AWESOME! I'll save the strict review for Yelp, but I highly recommend this place for your group sushi needs!

I normally have really horrid birthdays-- everything from people picking fights to folks flat out not showing up when they said they would. I was, as always, cautiously optimistic about my birthday...

A lot of folks showed up, which meant a great deal to me since people don't usually come in droves to my birthday, and everyone seemed to really enjoy mingling with everyone else-- I had lots of different groups of friends, and it warmed my heart to see everyone getting along :)

Best Birthday Ever. 

Birthday Celebrations!

Our friend Rob got tickets to Gaelic Storm at the Variety Playhouse-- it was AMAZING! 

Definitely a great way to start my birthday!

Something new?

Not really, but here I am anyway! I've gotten down to business watching some of my Netflix queue, really trying to get through some of it since it's QUITE large. Over 100 titles on instant play, and that's just the actual queue. The DVD section is completely out of hand, probably around 400 discs. Insane.

I watched "Surrogates" this morning, it came out last year or the year before and has Bruce Willis in it, and it was really quite good. I mean, there was a little social commentary, but it wasn't really heavy handed and the story moved along really well without getting distracted by the subplots.

Now I'm watching "The Alphabet Killer" which is a thriller with Eliza Dushku. No reports yet, I'm only about ten minutes in ;)

As noted, we had an extremely long week last week and as a result have just kinda puttered around this weekend. I got my comforter washed (which was badly needed) and the bedclothes and some general stuff, stayed up on a cleaning/organizing binge whereupon I discovered that an entire magnum of Benadryl spilled in my travel bag and ruined the $100 gift certificate to Savage Pizza from one of my after school families. I'm going to go talk to them and see if they can pull anything up or give me a break, I would hate for the family that gifted it to me to have wasted their money! I know I need to put those things in zip loc bags, but I forget and then something like this happens, just about every time!

I don't have any pictures from recent events, but hopefully Michael will get some up and I can steal them from him. I feel awful because we've been SO busy recently I didn't have time to mail Ana's birthday present! We miss her SO much, and wish we could have gotten them there on time, but I'm sure she'll be excited anyway-- everyone loves a late birthday gift, it always feel like you birthday all over ;)

That's about all the news that's fit to print, and a little that isn't. I'm off to figure out what to get for Jan for her birthday since EVERYONE's birthday is in September! Della, Pops, March, Jan, Jeremy, John, Ana, Peanut, it's crazy!

Ciao for now!

Oh, AND...

Welcome to the world James Lewis! Born September 9, 2010 at 6:28pm 7lb 1.8oz, 19.5''

Caq, James, and Lewis-- one happy family!

Vivi turns 1!!

Our favorite little "niece" turned one on February 26-- what a year it's been!!

Best Auntie and Uncle ever-- Jeremy made the cake and I decorated it!

Meg at the pizza table

Violet gets excited-- she knows something is happening!

Jeremy and Meg deliver the cake

Violet wasn't sure what to do with this thing

"Sooooo, what do I do with it?"

Jeremy and Michael try to get Vivi in to it

Julian tries to steal her cake

Trying it...

OK, maybe this?

Why yes!

Yeeesss!

Nomnomnom

She got pretty messy, and splattered cake all over!

Goin' to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis, TN...

This week... it's been long:
-Jeremy got reeeeally sick with a stomach virus this week
-Trying to save my computer from falling in the floor, I smashed the screen
-Discovered Sony's extended warranty plan
-Became $200 cheaper
-Have to figure out how to transfer all my stuff off my hard drive to the external one since the computer is perfectly fine, it's just the screen. Blah.
-I have also consequently fallen behind on CafeWorld. No worries, Donna, I'll get you yet!

Tonight:

We're hanging out watching Food Network with Jeremy's parents and sister, Ana's (ostensibly) in bed, and we had a really fantastic day spending time with our amazing little niece! I know she's got more energy than possibly even Julian, but I would feel so lucky if we ended up with a smart little girl like her. She's got an hilarious little "Oh..." followed by a look when she's disappointed or disgusted by something, and has spent the whole day inquiring about mine and Jeremy's whereabouts whenever we're not in the room. Today we went to the store for snacks, and while playing with my phone, she called Jenny-Lind who called back and got to talk to Ana for a few minutes.

This afternoon, I got her a little necklace and bracelet (since she'd been asking Jan about her bracelet, and trying to take mine that Dill got me in Italy, and since the Christmas present I got for her is waay too big!) from Claire's and she's lost the bracelet, but that's more the fault of her wrist being so darn tiny!

I started to get ahead of Sallie Mae on Jeremy's loan stuff, and looked in to a new hard drive for my computer (external, my computer is fine... except for that whole smashed in screen that happened the other day... thank goodness for extended accidental warranty coverage!), and added a few people to my family tree on Ancestry.com-- there's some pretty cool stuff on there!

Tomorrow should be fun, we're going to chill out most all day and hopefully I'll get some pictures of us with Ana (since my camera is here!!) and then we're going to Bdubs and a hockey game for my birthday! Whee!!

That's about all for now, I'll try to update when we get back from Atlanta!

Or something?

So I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted in Memphis, which was sad, but c'est la vie. I got pictures with some of my favorite people, so that was good :)

Friday was good, I wandered around campus and ran in to a bunch of professors and friends, walked a WHOLE lot which was probably good for me since I kept bouncing from place to place with friend after friend! I do miss that about Rhodes-- if you're ever bored, all you really have to do is just walk around campus and you'll run in to a good number of people!

Thankfully, the sick went away pretty quickly after Wednesday night. My stomach was a little rocky for a few days, but I powered through-- nothing's gonna keep me from Central BBQ!

Friday night we went to dinner with Jan and Marc and then helped them pack, showed Jan all the stuff I picked up for the boys, and hit the hay!

Saturday morning I got up early and went in for an early lunch with Sophia at Central, then headed over to help out with Bid Day and ended up getting tons of balloons for them at Party City! It was great to see the girls again, and my friend Mary ended up going AOII!! I was SO excited! (still am, in fact) After that, I headed back down to Southaven and chilled out for a while before Wayne and Amanda came over. My back went out so we missed going to Sophia's birthday party and seeing Megan (my globe-trotting Watson Fellow friend; because two Megans are better than one), but it was really great seeing those two, especially Amanda since she lives in Seattle now!

Sunday we got up and had to head back home since there had been some issues while we were gone. Jeremy's birthday ended nicely, even if the True Blood finale was the worst season finale ever, and we went home to start our work week!

Here are some pictures, surely there will be more after this weekend's race and general friend hanging outs.

Balloons filling the Panda!

Me and my Grand Little Jill!

Me and the balloons in the Panda

Me and my Rose Buddy, Lissa!

Leapin' Lizards!

Pictures of Julian's 3rd Birthday Party-- we got there a little late because we had to pick up the pizza, but we still had fun!

Emma Kathryn Parry

Born Thursday, March 26 at 930a, 8lbs even! No pictures of her or Austin yet, but I'm so excited for Pat!

*adds to list of baby presents to send*

Baby Girl Parry!!

Wow! Pat's baby girl is here now, too! First Vi, then Austin, now BGP (who very possibly may be named Jane), Krystal-- you're next!

Austin Masters

My friend Kim (whose wedding we went to last summer) had her baby boy this morning!!

Born March 25, 2009 at 745a-- 7lbs, 7oz and 20 inches long.

Auntie Meg can't wait to meet him! I'm so very excited for them, I know Nick is just so excited he can't stand it!

In other news, my room is littered with baby things. I need to get Violet's stuff (oh, and Meg and Michael decided on Violet Genevieve) to the K's and Cy's stuff to Krystal and now Austin's stuff to Kim and Nick! WHOO Babies!

Jeremy's Coming!!!!

First off, Happy Birthday to Valerie!!

I'm headed to bed because Jeremy will be here tomorrow!! The reservations picked up for Valentine's Day last night... 14 in an hour and a half. Seriously? You waited until the day before? Wow.

Jill said that if we get many more, they'll need me, but if they don't get more than like two more than I can have the night off. I could really use the money, but I'd really rather spend time with Jeremy. I know I'll be seeing him for the rest of my life, but right now I'm lucky if I see him once a month!

Anyway, for your random quotient today, this is my re-vamped more random "25 Random Things" meme from Facebook. I decided that the first time around a) made me sound like a mean person and b) wasn't actually all that random. Voila:

1. I think Jack Black is a comedic genius

2. I went to Japan with our band and drill team in high school for nine days, during which time I marched in the local Cherry Blossom Parade, performed (danced) at a famous, historic castle on a mountain top, and played with monkeys.

3. I. remember. everything. I even remember picking up a 12 pack of Cokes and the bottom falling out and they all rolled in to Scott Boulevard (which turns in to Ponce). I don't know how old I was, but since my brother wasn't born I'm going to go with five.

4. When my mother was 9 months pregnant (two weeks to due date) with my brother, I choked on hard candy we'd gotten at my after school program-- she had to stop in the middle of Ponce de Leon so she could give me the Heimlich maneuver. 9 months pregnant.

5. I stayed involved with Girl Scouts up to high school, at which point I switched to Venture Crew which was kind of like a co-ed boy scouts; it was focused more on the orienteering and outdoors stuff.

6. I still have the recommendation letters that Suehyla and Shrader wrote for my fine arts scholarship. Even though part of me feels like I let them down, reading those letters somehow makes me feel like I haven't.

7. In the same folder as the rec letters is a letter Kelly Goad wrote me our sophomore year of college for my birthday. They're all part of an ultimate collection I've labeled "Things that Make Meg Happy" that I look at when I'm feeling down.

8. I like making presents and cards for people-- especially people who have done something extraordinary for me. I've been told it's creepy and weird, but I don't understand what's so creepy about being appreciative.

9. I hate Dickens. Hate him. But I did my senior paper on Bleak House and have contemplated writing a paper on every topic I can possibly think of related to the book. It's just that brilliant.

10. I used to want to study some combination of psychology, neurobiology, and genetics-- ultimately studying the nature vs. nurture question (graduated high school with honors in science). Emory rejected me, however, and that's how I ended up at Rhodes with an English degree...

11. I hate chick flicks. Seriously, the chick-flickiest I get is "When Harry Met Sally" or "Love Actually"-- I hate watching women, especially strong actresses, fit themselves in to a generally whiny and irritating persona.

12. I used to be extremely messy, but somehow I am now verging on type A when it comes to cleaning and organizing.

13. I was going to be named Maureen, but my mother's family pitched a fit-- Maureen was the name of her mother's next sister who died when she was 2 of influenza (most likely, it was 1929) and they were convinced it was bad luck.

14. I was also supposed to be named Re(a)gan, but since Reagan was president at the time, my parents didn't want everyone thinking they'd named me after him.

15. My father is a pretty well-known photographer in Atlanta, and salesman at a well-frequented store. I have had people (in Atlanta and Memphis) recognize me from pictures on his desk.

16. I danced for 15 years, including performances at Seven Stages, and a Fernbank Museum of Natural History (aka, Big Fernbank) fundraiser, and even helped teach a class for little ones.

17. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of movies, tv shows, and actors. I can place almost anyone and I freaking rock at six degrees of Kevin Bacon. You don't want to play me at Scene It-- I will slaughter you.

18. In case you couldn't tell, I'm a bit of a night owl. This was a problem at Rhodes because the birds would start singing at 130a like it was 6a and I would freak out and run upstairs to get ready for class... and realize it was only 130a.

19. I have had mono, the flu, and a sinus infection all at once. I do not recommend it.

20. I really hate Tom Cruise. I love Top Gun (who doesn't), but I hate Tom Cruise. His performance as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder, however, may be the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life. I can't listen to Flo Rida's "Shawty Low" without seeing it in my head.

21. When I was in "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" in high school, I was the female half of a two-person cast-- our first performance for an audience, I forgot to resurrect Aslan. Luckily, five year olds don't really think about that kind of thing.

22. In high school, I would sit at lunch with Scott and a few other friends and together we would work on crossword puzzles. Yeah, you heard me. What about it?

23. I love comic books, love them. My mom grew up on Batman (who is totally better than Superman) and so I was raised on it as well-- my favorite, though, is the X-Men. I wanted to marry Gambit when I was little.

24. I have always been berated by people from North of the Mason-Dixon line about how racist the South is, but was SHOCKED when I went to Ohio to visit Tim to hear people say things that I have never in my life heard here. I was also severely disappointed at the amount of [reverse] racism in Memphis, I've never been so disgusted in my life in either case.

25. I think that 80's music is a cure-all genre. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, or what you believe in-- Rock of Ages comes on and you just don't care anymore. Know why? 'Cause we ALL want rock'n'roll.

Twofer

Spent the day catching up on laundry, have my delicates (knit dresses, nice shirts, etc) to do tomorrow since they have to hang up to dry, but just about everything else is done! Yay!

I'm almost done with Season 1 of Bones, and I'm not really sure why I didn't like it in the first place. I absolutely love it now, especially the episode "The Man in The Wall". It's about the rap industry and I find that geeks + the rap industry (at least in TV) equals hilarity and awesomeness. Don't believe me? Check out this one or the NUMB3RS episode with Three Six Mafia-- both are classics, and actually give the rap industry its due through the geeky main characters.

I did pick out a china pattern, I went with the Mikasa Cameo Platinum-- I thought the little details added enough cuteness without being overly done. I liked the Parchment one E liked, but it was just a bit too much, I think. With a simple design, it won't take away from whatever I'm serving, but it will be enough to stand out on its own. Plus I don't have to be paranoid about whether or not the raised dots will come off... I also picked out good silverware, Oneida "Jackson" which is quite reasonably priced for the quality you get with Oneida (fun fact, they were originally a small company of silversmiths out of Pennsylvania, I believe Quaker) and they've got a little bit of the curve from the plates.

Work was slow tonight, only one table, but it was a really fun couple from the neighborhood who came in and had a couple bottles of wine and talked to us for like three and a half hours. We talked about airline stuff, dentists, cars, silly things we did when we were younger, living in Atlanta, living other places, college, just about anything you can think of. I don't expect this week to be too busy, since Valentine's Day is Saturday. I brought Jon the cards I did up for Amy (one from him and one from Carter), and though I forgot to take pictures of them, they'd be easily re-doable. I need to remember to send Valerie's card tomorrow-- though at this point it'll be late, so I might just wait and let Jeremy sign it for himself!

That's about all for now, I'm going to pop in some Six Feet Under (since I have seriously under-used my Netflix potential for the month) and keep plugging through my room. I won't have my chest of drawers or vanity back up for another month or so because I'm going to sand them down and re-paint them before I bring them up. I haven't decided what color I'm going to use since I'd like to keep them around for my kids and obviously I don't know if I'll have girls or boys! I'd really like to do red, but that's a given, so if anyone has suggestions other than red let me know and I'll gladly post pictures of the finished product.

New House

One more day of moving and then we'll be in with the new and out of the old. There's still a ton of stuff to do at the Avery house, which I'm not too thrilled about, but c'est la vie. I have my own room now, which is sooooo nice. I also got one of the many chest/storage/table type things that mom has and it's supporting the TV and housing all of my subject/reference books that have now been happily divided in to genres-- Art, language, linguistics, sociology, psychology, theatre, and literature! We still have to pull in my chest of drawers and my vanity, but everything's kind of falling in to place. The room is strangely shaped and the window is like two feet off the ground, so I'm not really sure what the architecht thought they could do with it, buuuut that's ok. The only big problem is that the heat vents are in the ceiling and it blows directly on my bed and dries out my sinuses.

My birthday came and went without notice; I canceled the movie outing for tomorrow to Emily's dismay, but I just don't even want to deal with it. My mom didn't even bother to look for a cake at Publix since the Market didn't have one when I went yesterday.

I'm happy that I have my own space now, it'll make life easier, but I really want the next six or seven months to be over with so that Jeremy and I can get on to wherever we're going to be and start our own lives.

Sorry this update's not too cheery, but it's been a silly week. I really miss Jeremy and I hope he gets to come up for Valentine's weekend. I also hope I make enough money this week to do something to my car and also to get to go down to Savannah to see Sara! Jeremy might come up, but it depends on when Jan and Marc are getting down there for the conference, if they go Friday or Saturday.

I'll try to have something better to say soon, but for now... I'm going to put some clothes up and try to get back to sleep.

Taxes... ARGH

I really severely heinously dislike taxes. I do my stuff online at HR Block and there's a little window in the upper corner that reads out your refund as you plug in the numbers. I started on one and as I put in my W-2s (a total of $11,000 for the year) and my 1099-R (401k distribution), my refund went from over $1,000 to $800 and then when I plugged in my $1,000 in medical expenses for the year... It went down to $323!!!

Seriously? Really? I mean, I'm already insulted enough by the fact that I'd have to be making $6-7,000 to qualify for welfare or any type of assistance from the gov't to whom I have dutifully paid my taxes since I was 15 and now you have to tell me that since (with taxes and medical expenses deducted) I make $9,000 to live on for 12 months, you're not going to give me any of it back? Oh, oh, and lest we forget, the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) laws were changed last year, so since I'm not 25-65 it doesn't matter that I'm poor. Apparently they assume my parents are still supporting me?

ARGH!

People wonder what's wrong with our country, and I promise I'm not going to rant, but this has to give some kind of minor HINT as to what the deal is.

/rant

In the end I'm getting a fairly decent refund, it'll pay for the deposit on the wedding and hopefully a little more since it'll sit in a high-interest savings account until October, but it still just drives me up the wall that we (aka, the lawmakers) have such a skewed idea of what poverty is. We want people living in filth and dying because they can't afford medical care before we'll offer a helping hand. And, if you've paid taxes for almost 10 years and asked for nothing... oh, well! Wayne got fired and was making $275/week on unemployment. I work three days a week and don't make that.

/really end rant...

I didn't get much sleep last night, my brother was up and I finally had just been up so long I stayed up-- then I had an allergy issue and had to take a Benadryl so I don't think I made much sense when Jeremy called at lunch... I ended up sleeping until 2, so I didn't get any packing done, though it was raining so I wouldn't have been able to move it anyway. Work was really slow, though I did get the macadamia nut encrusted scallops and chocolate bread pudding (two of my favorites!), and basically the day ended up being pretty rotten which is kind of the story with my birthday every year. Except last year, I want to go back to last year. Jeremy made me some crazy brownie concoction, we got Papa Johns, watched Burn Notice, and he gave me my beautiful earrings (which have come off twice since-- both for surgery).

Apparently my birthday present is in the mail (from Jeremy) and he's more and more sounding like he'll come up for Valentine's day-- he says he won't if the weather is bad, but the weather was pretty rotten at Thanksgiving and he still came up. I'm also looking forward to going down to Savannah (at least, that's the plan) in a couple weeks to see Sara! I love both Savannah and Sara and haven't seen either in several years, so it ought to be a great weekend. Jan and Marc are headed down to Florida for a conference that weekend, so Jeremy doesn't know if he'll come up and meet us for Friday night or not.

Anyway, I'm gonna see if I can't get a couple bags packed up before I go to bed since I'm watching a House Hunters in Austin! Oooh, maybe I can use part of my refund to put towards my ticket to the best bridal party EVER this summer with Dill and Osso Buco by Casey! Yeehaw!

Happy Halloween!

It's my favorite holiday (next to New Years) today! It's also my little brother's birthday... it's scary, I remember going to the hospital hours after he was born and holding him and now he's 18! Yikes!

My family has always been in to Halloween; when my parents lived at the Highland Bakeries, they used to have huge costume parties that people got completely decked out for. My mom would stand at the door with baby Meg and greet people, and I would ask them to show me their belly button (as I had apparently just discovered mine). I'm fairly certain I was some form of kitty for the first few years of my life, then I was a witch, a gogo dancer, a 50's prom queen, a 20's lady (not a flapper), and various other things. Thankfully it seems as though I've grown out of my laryngitis on Halloween habit, that was rough to go trick-or-treating with. Who doesn't love a spooky holiday where you get to be so creative!

I've been really bored lately, but with only a few books to read it hasn't gotten better. I watch new shows on Netflix, and keep up with Valerie's blog (still want to steal Ana to come play with me!), but I'd really like to do some more scrapbooking. Sad thing is, it's all in Memphis! I'm hoping I caught Jeremy in time before he left and he can bring my drawers with him, because there's so much stuff in my scrapbooking bin that I need to get started and do maybe a page a day or something. I also need to get more card stock, just plain white, so that I can work on my AOII pledge scrapbook in what used to be my pledge binder.

Anyway, that's about all that's going on here, nothing entirely interesting. Jeremy's on his way down for the night, then we're off to Daytona Beach in the morning to get him moved in and clear out a space for the bike when Marc and Jan get there tomorrow afternoon. It's really exciting, but nerve wracking, too!

Off to Norcross (where the rich people still have money) to apply for jobs! Oh, and hopefully to vote!

Oh, and in the spirit of Halloween, I leave you Gwennie (Krystal's daughter) the Bumblebee!
All the way from Hiroshima, Japan!