Wonky and Woot-tastic Wednesday

I know, I know. I've been gone for a month AND this post is a day late. I did actually have all this typed up but I wasn't home to add the pictures so I thought it would be better to just wait, get the pictures in and post it a day late so y'all aren't cheated out of the full WWW experience.

Wonky:

   - I was standing in the shower. I had just shampooed my hair and rinsed it out REALLY well and was moving on to the next step in my shower routine when I froze. My razor was gone. I had thrown it away the night before because it was getting dull and for some STUPID reason I didn't replace it in that moment. I had no razor. I couldn't shave the little stubble that had reemerged under my arms. What was I to do? I seriously stood there, looked at my stubble, looked at where my razor should have been, and looked back at the stubble. I'm fairly certain it was mocking me. My brain was working furiously to navigate around this problem and failing miserably. I looked around trying to find something that would substitute as a razor and came up with zilch. Seriously y'all, I stood there for several minutes before I was able to move on to the next step in my shower routine: washing my face. Is that normal? Probably not.

   - It's sad that I am better at driving than the majority of the people on the road when I'm driving a standard, in traffic, with a hedgehog that has temporarily forgotten it is nocturnal. Prim was climbing ALL over me and I was still able to do the speed limit and stay in my lane AND keep my hedgehog from falling in to some crack only a hedgehog could find.
   - I really really need a laptop. It would make posting on here much easier.
   - Tornadoes
Woot-tastic:

   - Saturday I went to the Dallas Farmer's Market with Mom, Dad, Maegan and AJ. Sadly there weren't a ton of local farmers out but we enjoyed tasting different fruits and veggies and looking at some pretty flowers!

   - Holidays are so much fun! And I don't just mean Christmas and Thanksgiving. Any reason that gets us off work, out of school, eating good food and chillin' with the family is AWESOME! Especially when the weather is nice enough to spend the whole day outside watching a certain 2 year old little boy splash and play. This Memorial Day Maegan, Andrew, AJ, and Ryan came over and we played in the water (well, AJ played, we watched from a safe distance), played bean bag toss (which Maegan and Dad are not very good at) and grilled YUMMY burgers!

   - I LOVE working in my herb garden. When I'm finished I always smell like Basil, Mint, and Rosemary! Who needs perfume when you have an herb garden? I also have some peppers, tomatoes and squash growing in my vegetable garden! YAY I haven't killed any of my plants... yet. Now if only my dog would stop peeing on my Basil...

Well that's it for this Wonky and Woot-tastic Wednesday! I hope you had a great hump day and I'm sorry this post was late!

Julie Anne With Haiti's Jewels

A while back I mentioned on here that I was supporting Haiti's Jewels. I still am and have sort of become a lunatic with the task. I have sense become a retailer for Haiti's Jewels, gotten A LOT more stuff to sell AND, because I needed a place to send people, so I don't have to carry it around in my purse all the time (it was going to be difficult what with the two hedgehogs I have in there already), so I created an online store!

 Half of my profit is going into a savings account to go towards mine and Ryan's wedding, not to mention simply by purchasing this beautiful, one of a kind jewelry you help the local economy in Haiti flourish. Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and is one of the poorest countries in the world.

For those of you that aren't reading my constant string of spam on Facebook and aren't entirely sure what Haiti's Jewels is, allow me to enlighten you! Haiti's Jewels is a small jewelry business located in Haiti. A girl named Sophie went down after the massive earthquake and began teaching local villagers how to make one of a king jewelry out of glass, stones, shells and other materials found around their villages. Often times one employees paycheck goes to provide for 5-10 people. With this job they are able to afford simple things like uniforms for school, or a wheel chair for their dad. Haiti's Jewels is a wonderful business working hard to make a difference in the lives of many Haitian villagers!

The more you buy, the more things I can get! I have my eye on some ADORABLE wrap bracelets but I have to sell enough product to be able to get them. Unfortunately I have to buy my first order in bulk, which is going to be about $250 (up until now I have been buying things off my cousin but she doesn't have the bracelets that I want for y'all!). SOOOO get out there and share this with your friends. Facebook it, tweet it, pin it, tumble it, tattoo it on your forehead (ok, don't do that) but you get the idea! Click HERE to visit my store!

That concludes this Southern Soapbox! Thanks for reading and thank you for your support!

And Then There Were Two...

So, when I got Prim less than a year ago I had NO intentions of getting another hedgehog. None. I swear. Hedgehogs are solitary animals and don't need or want the company of another hedgehog. They really don't even need you other than to feed/water/clean their cage but they "tolerate" (some better than others) you holding and petting them. Not to mention I didn't want to have to worry about giving two hedgehogs attention every day to prevent them from going back to wild. With that said, I did not look on Facebook or craigslist for hedgies. If I looked I would find one that NEEDED me and I would be over run with hedgies. BUT a friend of mine messaged me on Facebook and said she knew of a person selling her hedgie online. Usually when someone is selling their quillbaby online it means they are clueless. So I asked if it was a boy or girl and she found out that it was a girl. After asking the owner several questions I quickly realized that these people were clueless. They had Ivy in a cage that had wire on it, which they said she would climb and fall off of. Did they consider this a problem? No, they considered her stupid, and actually said to me "Ya, she's dumb. She climbs up there then jumps off." She wasn't jumping. She was falling. Who's stupid now? Anywho, they had her on shavings, which can be very bad for their quills and respiratory system and when I asked what they were feeding her the lady said "Um some kind of cat food. I'm not sure what the name is." How do you not know what you're feeding your animal?!?! THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW SHE WAS NOCTURNAL! I totally understand this not being common knowledge. I didn't know this stuff before I had a hedgehog but I researched it before I got one! It's not hard to do.

Well, needless to say, I rescued Ivy the day before we left for an eight hour drive to Mississippi. I had already planned to take Prim, and was already getting Prim's things ready but now I had to run, pick Ivy up, get extra bowls/cage/travel carrier etc for Ivy AND come back to do more laundry and pack. It was a long night.

Ivy is VERY friendly and pretty active! She rarely balls up or puffs and it took me forever to get a decent picture of her because she kept moving around!

I'm pretty sure that between the two of them they had more luggage than I did. I brought two large pop up kennels that are made for 70+ pound dogs, 5 fleece liners, a sprite bottle full of water from home, two kinds of cat food (one of them is Prim's and the other's is Ivy's) 4 water/food dishes, 2 wheels, 2 travel carriers, an endless supply of blue surgical towels, paper towels, a ton of hedgie bags, clorox wipes, 2 thermometers, and two car carriers. That's a lot of stuff for such little critters. Prim and Ivy both did very well. Ivy rode in Mom's lap on the way there and on the way back and Prim rode in my lap and my Mammaw's lap on the way to Mississippi and in my lap on the way home. Ivy did get car sick at first, when she was in her carrier but did much better after we took her out and Prim, of course, slept the entire time.

Ivy saying "Cheese" in Mississippi.

Prim in my lap in the Wendy's drive thru. The ladies FREAKED out when they
saw her and practically threw our food at us lol.

Well that's my prickly Southern Soapbox! I have another exiting post to explain why it is that we went to Mississippi for 4 days! It was very exciting!

This week is FINALLY over!

I try to avoid cussing on here, as I know my family reads this (and are probably the only ones that do but anywho) and I want to be sensitive to those that don't appreciate that language BUT, with that said, It's been one hell of a week y'all!

Monday, of course, was the Boston Marathon bombing. That was completely tragic! Three people died and over a hundred people were injured. I was out planting my garden when I happened to look at something on Instagram. Someone had posted a picture that said "Pray For Boston". I got on Twitter, because that's a reliable source for news ya know, to figure out why we were supposed to be praying for Boston. Nothing was entirely clear but it was obvious something major happened. I came inside to tell Mom to turn on the news and when she did.... it was shocking to say the least.

Tuesday Obama's gun thingy fell through. Bummer (note sarcasm).

Wednesday was the devastating explosion in West, Texas. Pete Delkus was getting asked by people in Arlington if there was an earthquake. After looking into he later reported that the "earth shake" was from an explosion in west Texas, which I later learned was West, Texas.

Thursday night there was a shooting at MIT, which then turned out to be the two suspects involved in the bombing. The police ended up killing one of the suspects and apprehended the second on Friday!

CRAZY week!

I'll leave you with a verse from a rather fitting song. I have always loved this song. I loved it when I was younger because I got to say "ass" and it was ok but it's SO true! It's from Toby Keith's Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.

Ohhh Justice will be served 
And the battle will rage 
This big dog will fight 
When you rattle his cage 
And you'll be sorry that you messed with 
The U.S. of A. 
'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass 
It's the American way

Well, that's my Southern Soapbox recap of the week! Here's to hoping we have a GREAT weekend! We need it!
 

Green Thumb? We'll Find Out!

I'm attempting to start a garden. I've never really grown anything before and the two plants I've had, I've managed to kill. One of them was a cactus. So, ya. This should be interesting. Mom had tried a garden several years ago but, for whatever reason, didn't keep it up so now I'm going to find out how long it takes me to kill these poor little plants.

As you can see, we had a LOVELY weed garden going on! So far I've only cleaned out the bed closest to the camera and will do the other one if I need the space. Since we live in Texas and the "soil" (if you can even call it that) isn't really diggable, unless God himself were to come pick up a shovel and do it, we have to do raised beds. When Mom made her first attempt at a garden dad put these together so I just cleaned them out and put new soil in that I can dig in all by myself. I think next year I'm going to have a bigger garden and will probably end up changing thedesign up, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it!

We are starting out small, with just a few vegetables and a few herbs. I got tomatoes, green and red bell peppers, squash, onions, carrots and spinach to plant for now and will definitely add things in the fall and next spring! I plan on adding green beans, peas, snap peas, broccoli, potatoes, asparagus (maybe), and okra. Oh, I'm also TRYING to grow some strawberries but I just planted those seeds, so we'll see if they make it.

I also decided to do an herb garden! I got these from Calloways, but Home Depot has some really good looking herbs too! So far I have basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, spearmint, and peppermint!

Like I said, I'm starting small this spring but in the fall I want to add broccoli, peas, and snap peas and next spring I'm thinking about doing green beans, potatoes and okra along with what I'm already doing. Hopefully nothing is dead by then.

Here is my first bed. It has my tomatoes, red, green, and orange bell peppers and my squash. The second bed will have my carrots, onions and spinach in it!

I started out by placing everything where I wanted it and then started planting!

Now we just wait and see. Hopefully nothing dies!

Well, that's my Southern Soapbox! I'll post pictures of the second bed another time! What do y'all plant in your gardens, or what would you want to plant?

Spring, is that you?

Yes, I cheated and neither of these pics were taken recently.
Nor were they even taken in Texas.

Dare I jinx it? Yes, I dare. We had some BEAUTIFUL weather this weekend! We have some rain on the way, we need it but I'm really going to miss the beautiful sunshine! It was in the upper 70's all weekend and today it's going to hit 90! Supposedly on Wednesday it's supposed to rain (or so they say. I won't be holding my breath) and then go down to the low 60's. BOO! BUT then it will come back up to the 70's again! YAY! Now that I've completed my weather forecast for the week, let's discuss how amazing my weekend was!

I thought this was funny, and true.

Like I said, the weather was AMAZING (and yes I will keep putting adjectives in capital letters), so I drove around all weekend with the top down on my car (and you can tell because I've got a bit of a sunburn, and a tan line where the seat belt was)! I had lost the keys, and they're still God only knows where, but Dad and I went to get a new set so I'm back in the saddle again! Of course, since I was going to be driving Maizy around with the top down I had to get her all cleaned up. Am I the only one that feels like my car goes faster when it's clean? Probably. 

 Mom had gotten me this little "stuffed" hedgehog toy and while I was cleaning out my car I figured out how to hang it from my rear view mirror! It's not actually made for that, but I made it work anyways. They're "Snuggamils" and are made for ages 4 and up, so I meet that requirement, at least most of the time I do. Ok, some of the time. I also have a sock monkey hanging from my window. I call him my Vincent Van Gogh sock monkey because Jixer chewed off one of his ears. I'm not allowed to discuss how I got the beads (just kidding Mom. I think Maegan gave them to me, no indecency was required).

Brett's R1, Luna.

Saturday was fun, but Sunday was, by far, the best day of the weekend! I spent the entire day with Ryan. We had lunch and coffee, got toys for Jixer and Rebel, which they both destroyed in less than 20 minutes, AND THEN (drum roll please) our friend Brett took me out on his motorcycle again! This is the third time he has taken me out but both of the other trips were only about fifteen minutes long around his neighborhood. This time we went out for about an hour! My wrists were really sore towards the end but other than that it was AMAZING! I'll admit, I was adamantly against Ryan getting one, and I still am concerned for his safety, but I totally get it now. I have now "mastered" leaning in on curves and am much more comfortable sitting back there. It does make me want to write someone about fixing the terrible roads though! They're SO bumpy!!! I'm really looking forward to the next time Brett takes me out (Brett, if you're reading this...hint hint nudge nudge).

The above picture was taken last year (minutes before Ryan wrecked Brett's R6), before I had ever been on a bike, so don't freak out that I'm not wearing a jacket or anything. It makes me look like an alien with really fat cheeks.

Well, I hope y'all had as wonderful of a weekend as I did! That completes this Southern Soapbox, see y'all Wednesday!

Fashion Friday: The Eyelet Skirt

Spring is in the air (for now)! I have several different skirts that I have been DYING to wear but every time I actually shave my legs it turns cold again. Maybe I should stop shaving (ew) so spring will finally stick around. Anywho, on to the outfit!

                             
Minus the jewelry and the pair of sandals, I own this entire outfit. I just haven't gotten to wear it yet because I keep shaving my legs the weather keeps getting cold.The skirt is SO cute and if you wanted to you could take the belt off and use it with other outfits (you just have to cut a couple of strings, no biggie). I would totally wear this with wedges or flats, depending on what I was doing/where I was going. We all know I love my heels, but I understand that some of y'all prefer cute flats and this could totally work for that too (although heels are almost always better, just sayin'). The shirt, skirt and bracelet are from Kohls, the purse is from Avenue, the wedges are from Steve Madden (and are on MAJOR sale!), flats are from DSW, and the necklace is from Delias so EVERYTHING in this outfit can be easily obtained if you live in the states. If you don't, well that really sucks for you and maybe you should consider moving. The best part about this outfit? The purse is the most expensive thing and is listed for $40, but I actually got mine on sale for $25.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to wear this tomorrow for Ryan's birthday dinner but I have to shave my legs to wear it. So, if there's a sudden change in the forecast you can bet that my legs are as smooth as a babies bottom!

Well, now that we've thoroughly discussed this outfit and my uncanny ability to change the weather, that's my Southern Soapbox! Hope you liked it!