happy mother's day

I am blessed with not one but two amazing moms in my life. My mom and my newly minted (but long time loved) mother in-law.

If you know me then you know the rocky relationship that has been life with my mother. We've never quite managed to see things ever the same way. Through it all though she's done a lot for me and I can't thank her enough. I think now that I'm gone she actually is starting to miss me though.

and secondly my mother in-law. Who never ceases to amaze me with her love and devotion for all SIX of us kids. I honestly don't know a stronger woman. She's truly an inspiration to me as a wife, and one day mother.

Hope all you mom's had a great day as well. I had to work :(, but it turned out to be an okay day at work, we got a lot done and then I visited Lea. I'm off tomorrow, followed by two days of work down at our Charleston store. I am very much looking forward to getting out of town for a few days and maybe even my toes in the sand.  

Til next time!

So here's this weeks recap.. thus far.

Work, work, work, work...

Tomorrow is my last day of work after SEVEN straight days of working. Dear HP, I adore you, but am tired. I have two days off, then back to work again for a full weekend. It's graduation weekend here in town  and also Mother's Day. Shoppers will be out!

Work has been the story lately (in case you missed that memo), so any cooking and cleaning has gone OUT THE WINDOW, as has my extreme couponing. Both of those are top of my agenda for next week. My sweet husband subscribed to the Sunday paper to hopefully help my couponing by having them delivered to the door weekly.

We've started a new contest at work, our prize a precious new gold monogram bracelet. I LOVE IT! I wear it most everyday at work now, and am determined to bring it home in 5 weeks. Basically you win by having the most monogram sales, and adding on labor and rush fees. On the flip side of that I'm in charge of the June Contest, I am so excited about my idea. I just need to think of a prize

My best friend Ashley started a blog.. which inspired me to open up this thing and write a post! It's much over due for one.

Well the work fairy visited us this past week, and it seems as that my rather quiet life has returned to the real world. The world of dresses and fancy tops, the world of work. I must say, I have enjoyed actually wearing REAL clothes this past week. With Easter, graduations and Mother's Day work has picked up for sure. I honestly can't imagine that it's finally really actually truly Spring and Summer here. It makes the days like today even harder to put those clothes on and head in to the store.

After a usual morning at work, I am spending this Saturday evening at home, alone.. conquering those TY notes. They have been staring at me for SIX WEEKS now, and I will get them all done tonight if it keeps me up all night. I hope it doesn't I have a 9am meeting for work, then a full day of work, followed by another full day of work. I have laundry in the machine, and the dishwasher will probably get started here soon. My last item on my housecleaning agenda is the get the floors swept and mopped. I honestly never realized how much I was doing on my "lazy days" around here. Can I just say, I miss it already?!!

Life as a newlywed is still wonderful. This week we made our first big purchase, a king size bed! We had them all on our honeymoon and were simply spoiled by the space and comfort. Once we got back home and had been sleeping in Paul's old bed a few weeks, we knew we had to upgrade. So we did. So far we are LOVING it. The space the cushy mattress, and my favorite part. The gorgeous garnet and gold new bedding and throw pillows. I feel so married now.

Well we made it through Hump Day.

It's been a pretty quiet week at Casa de Perry. The usual cooking, cleaning and laundry. We had another amazing family dinner Monday  night at the inlaw's to celebrate English's  birthday. You can definitely tell we're in the middle of birthday season in our family. We average at least 1 a month between January and July.

I had a day away from the house yesterday so I feel totally behind on my cooking and cleaning. It's crazy how one day gone can get you off track. I've gotten so into cleaning and cooking I'm not sure how I'll manage to get it all done once the real real world sets in. I also guess now I know how my mom felt. I actually had a rather productive day of getting my tires balanced and rotated and some shopping at Sam's and some quality time with Dad too. I stocked up on some staples, green beans, ketchup, peas, and potatoes. You can tell I live with guys, we're a meat and potatoes house for sure. What I wouldn't give to get a little variety in there.

I also managed to pick up a great copper tub from my parent's house that I noticed this weekend while I was over there. My plan is to polish it up nicely, put a vinyl P on it, and some white hydrangeas in it and set it in front of our fireplace. This house is shaping up quite nicely, now if I can just get to the bottom of the dirt, dust and clutter. It will come soon enough I'm sure.

OK! So I know I'm really slack at blogging. Crazy how you plan to do something and then well.. it just doesn't get done.

Anyways, we're begining our 4th week of marriage this week, and all I can is.. Where did this past month go? Last week I was finally able to make some headway on the enormous pile of exchanges and returns. I'm convinced Belk didn't update their registry because I ended up with sooo many duplicates it's insane. Thankfully I had a nice lady help me twice and she made the whole process very easy. The other unfortunate part of that is I was lacking several gift receipts, which almost lead me to keeping all those duplicates. To say she was nice, is an understatement, she saved me from this madness.

Which leads on to some other big news around there..  all that exchanging turned into two very nice gifts for me, some more serving pieces of our china and some gift cards that will be used at a later date. I was able to get this...

a want of mine since I first laid eyes on one years and years ago. I have a sentimental attachment to the original we have at my parents house, and knew my kitchen wouldn't be complete without it. It's precious beyond words. 

The other "big" gift to self was also for the kitchen.

another staple from the parent's kitchen. The only thing I really know how to make with it is chicken salad, but I'm sure as these years go by I'll find other stuff. I just feel like our kitchen is coming together with all these appliances. 

Now all that's left on that wish list is a cabinet mount toaster over. Never realized how much I did use ours til I didn't have one here at home. 

In other news around our home. I'm taking up EXTREME COUPONING. Ever since moving out I knew budgeting would be an issue and a must. So one area that I know can be a huge loss of money for families is in their groceries. I made some small victories today at the store, and am excited to see what the future can do for us.

Faster than I realized we're starting our THIRD week of marriage. To recap you all we had an amazing first week of marriage in Ocho Rios, Jamaica at The Jewel. I can't thank my sweet and wonderful mother in-law enough for that. We had a whirlwind 2nd week of marriage settling in to "our" home and now after a full weekend we're nearly almost through week 3.

Our weekend consisted of a sweet sleepover with my "seestor" Emily on Friday night. I am so blessed to have gained a wonderful little sister by marrying Paul. Emily has been such a blessing in my life I really have no idea what I would do without her! A HUGE bonus to moving to L-town has been having her so close. I've loved all the extra quality time with her. I got to work some last Saturday morning and enjoyed catching up with my work pals, again I am so blessed with an amazing group of women to share my days with. I've also really enjoy the extra break. After that Paul and I took a trip across town and he got himself a new set of golf clubs. It was well deserved since I've been getting most of the wedding gifts lately. A guy can only get soo excited about new pots and pans and towels. Of course we had our usual Saturday night outing down town to Yoghut and loved it. I once again returned to work Sunday for a full day there and finally started to feel back in the swing of things. We celebrated Robert and Emily's birthdays that night at dinner. Robert was 18 the week before our wedding, and Emily turned 16 while we were in Jamaica. Family dinner nights are always one of the high points of my week, they just relax me so perfectly.

2 weeks!

It's hard to believe that just two weeks ago we were here... 

and by this point in the evening we were well into our wedding reception celebrating with our family and friends. I still can't believe it all actually happened!! Our wedding was certainly nothing short of spectacular, more than we ever could have imagined. 

Anyways, we had a wonderful first week of marriage in Jamaica at The Jewel. *In an odd twist of fate, this was the EXACT same place my best friend Ashley and her husband went to on their honeymoon, EXACTLY two years prior to when we did. One other small detail, as she was putting on veil the day of the wedding she coincidentally wore the EXACT same hair comb in her hair as well. If God wasn't at work when he brought us together then.. well.. Ashley is proof and point that best friends can lives hundreds of miles away, not see or speak to each other for days (weeks even) and yet still manage to pick up right where things left off even closer than before.


Back to our honeymoon. Like the wedding, the honeymoon was.. AMAZING. It was a wonderful all inclusive adults only resort  in lovely Ocho Rios, Jamaica. We got to the resort after a lonnng day of traveling and were greeted with cool towels and drinks. From the lobby we were escorted to our suite where we proceeded to order room service and crash for a late afternoon nap. After that we cleaned up some and got to seeing what this place was all about. We had a great first night dinner (I only had apps) at the Coral Cafe and then saw what else our resort had to offer us honeymooners.. There were several upscale restaurants for us to dine at, bars at every corner, and a few other fun little places we could grab a drink or a snack. They had two swim up bars, but we never got in the pool to try those out. We also had our fair share of activities which we participated in throughout the week. We had lots of pictures to share, but somewhere between the camera and the computer several files went missing. I'm heartbroken to say the least.

Our second week of marriage consisted of getting the house in semi liveable conditions as well as adjusting to living together. For Paul with me, and for me.. with Paul, and realizing I can't run to Columbia every chance I see fit. I also began to try  my hand at cooking!  Our friends Nate and Ryan did an excellent job of cleaning up the place while we were gone, but once hurricane Paul and Amanda's Wedding Gifts landed wellll.. I think you get the picture. All things considered I've done a wonderful job of finding homes for most of our lovely gifts. A huge chunk is still out in the den just waiting to be either used, returned or found a home for. There's a HUGE stack of tissue, boxes and bags waiting by the garage door to be taken to the dump.

And so that's my 2 week summary of married life.