Holy Crap, it's 2011 ... and some other things

So, I know it has been a while, I do ask for your forgiveness. Married life is busier than I thought it would be. Nicholas has been working out of town for half of 2011 already and has to go back this upcoming week too. So I have been a “single mommy” to our two what-used-to-be-precious-puppies-but-are-now-crowned-POA’s. I will not “explain” the POA, I am sure that you can figure it out, especially those of you with children! Needless to say, I have not had a full 8 hours of sleep in almost three weeks, at this point I would settle for 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep!

Hm, what has been going on, we had our Christmas party, which was a hit, we went up to TN for a few days in winter and bought some fantastic wine, that is now all gone! What else, oh yes Christmas was mostly uneventful this year, it just all went by way too fast!

Oh but I do have two new things that are going on: 1) I have figured out that I am a Josh Groban fan, so yay! (and my lovely husband cannot blame anyone but himself! My lovely husband and I were at Target waiting in the check-out lane and Mr. Groban’s c.d. was on display right by the register. Now, okay long story long, we bought the Noel c.d. because I’m a Christmas music CRAZY PERSON, I play it start of November through January, and well because it was only $6! I enjoyed the voice a/k/a Josh Groban so when I saw “Illuminations” I picked it up, looked at it and put it back down (I’m being super tight with money… kind of), my wonderful husband then picked it up and told me to get it if I wanted it, so I got it! I am incredibly ashamed to say that I played it on the way home then it sat unwrapped in my new car for TWO WEEKS without being listened to! (Josh, I’m so sorry, it will never happen again!!) Alas, I finally listened to the whole thing and LOVED it. Amazing music, beautiful voice, very personal lyrics… win, win!

And 2) Thanks to my generous bosses and one lucky Bride-To-Be who got about an 80% discount on my second wedding dress, I bought a piano!! It’s magnificent! It’s a Yamaha and it is digital! You see, the piano I (still) have is the one that I tortured while learning to play; I, unfortunately, am not one of those gifted individuals that can play by ear, so I have to bang out the notes as I read them. This method can be hell on a piano, nonetheless Betsy has stood by me for almost 20 years now (Holy crap! Have I seriously been playing piano that long?! Okay, maybe not 20 but our friendship is definitely nearing that mark! (It’s actually 16 to be exact)). But back to Betsy; yes good, solid and dependable Betsy… dependable to NEVER be in tune. She is the piano equivalent of me! She refuses to be in tune... EVER and constantly requires copious amounts of money to be lavished upon her whenever you want her to act “sound” even somewhat decent. So, I am sorry dear Betsy but you have been black listed! Do not worry though, the sentimental pack rat in me did not give her away or have her meet her end at the trash heap, no no, she is safely tucked away in my guest room!

Sometimes I wonder why Nicholas married me?! He’s a very laid back, go with the flow kind of person, I, am not. I am a planner, type A, control freak, who researches all the places to see before going to Europe for the 4^th time within a span of 8 months. I plan meals two weeks ahead, I hardly ever grocery shop without coupons and I like writing lists. So, with that in mind here is our culture schedule through at least May!! So far I have us down to see the following: Billy Elliot the Musical, Amos Lee, Bugs Bunny at the Symphony, Chess, Celebrity Autobiography, Avenue Q, Doug Benson (comedian), Kathy Griffin (if you do not know her then why are we friends?!), and Momma Mia. Blumenthal Center thanks us for our patronage and our bank account (as does Mr. Shearer) requests that I culture myself with You Tube only in the future! All those shows on top of a New York trip, San Diego trip, our regular tropical vacation, hopefully a trip to somewhere in Europe and a must trip to Michigan this year, we are going to be busy little Shearers!

Nicholas has started writing again! I cannot wait to read the finished product, I have been good thus far and not asked him anything about the plot line yet because I want to be totally surprised :), but hurry up honey, I am not a patient person! I think I might have prompted a bit of this because I am itching to get into a company doing what I do that is more focused in Public Relations (hello! What was I getting my Masters in? hehe) and/or the entertainment industry, which means moving to New York or L.A. (I have no desire to move to Atlanta). But it is nice to see him writing again because I know he enjoys it!

I also rang in the New Year not eating carbs. That lasted two weeks, not bad for me, and then I fell off the wagon in a BIG way and ate very poorly for three days straight. But good news is I lost 8 lbs, gained 2 lb. back but now I’m down a total of 9 lbs thus far! Yay, me! Only 25 more lbs to go :) (on a side note, I probably won’t actually make it down 25 more pounds because the last time I was even close to that weight everyone started talking to me like I was anorexic or something lol … but it’s my goal so I’m going to try!) The girls at work are start South Beach Diet in two weeks so if I post something “bitchy” you know why!

Okay, sorry that’s all for now. This was a boring one (well, not for me, I got to talk about Josh Groban (which btw if you have not You Tubed him on Nevermind the Buzzcocks, DO IT!! So funny!) Hopefully next posting will be a bit more entertaining for you!

Love and grub(es?) ;-p

Halloween and other festivities!

Halloween has come and gone and we survived!! Let me clarify, Nicholas survived! See, we bought a 5 lb bag of assorted chocolate candies for the SWARMS of trick-or-treaters in our hood.... we had 4, count em (yes, all on one hand 4!) so of course being the hero in every situation, Nicholas took it upon himself to personally eat 99.9% of the left over candy so that I would not completely ruin my chances of seeing my feet again this year!! What a wonderful guy, I tell ya!

Our two lovely girls did in fact dress up this year!! They are so super excited to show you their costumes! So, without any further ado... I present Miss Emma and Miss Bella!

Little Miss Emma had a bit of a problem with her "hat", but she was a good sport the entire time! Emma LOVES to dress up, Bella HATES to dress up! She's our tom boy -- what can ya do?! So Emma was a banana split and Bella was a unicorn with a princess on her back! Nick picked out the unicorn for her after discovering she goes into fits of "get it off, get it off" when he puts a toy on her back and she can't immediately grab it. Quite amusing! 

We are now gearing up for our "honeymoon-of-sorts" to TN here in a week or two courtesy of Nicholas' friends Ham and Mindy - so that should be fun! Then of course Black Friday shopping, I'm trying to convince my friend Stephanie to come out with me so that Nicholas does not threaten to divorce me! Nicholas and Black Friday crowds don't love each other!!! We shall see!

News crews.... just another day!

Remember that house I was telling you about that I bought last year?! Well, what I did not share with you is that this particular house sits right on the outskirts of the historic district, meaning less than a stones throw away from us are some super nice older homes (not super nice as in millions of dollars but super nice as in really well taken care of older homes! like 1910's old). My quiet little neighborhood had some local media coverage early last week! See for yourself.....Crane hits Home. 

You cannot really tell from my front porch at 2 a.m. what is going on, but if you click the link above you can see what happened in the daylight.  Thankfully no one was hurt!! But the house... well the house is .... well a hot mess! I did have an inner debate as to whether I should run across the street and give them my business card though -- been in the legal field WAY too long, I think!

After the excitement of them having to bring in two more cranes to get this 50 ton crane off our poor neighbors house we tried to figure out what to do with the rest of our week!

I do so love to play fat kid like nobody's business so we intended to travel north to Raleigh for the State Fair on Saturday. Nicholas could not wait to try the Krispy Kreme Burger... oh yes, you heard me the Krispy Kreme burger! I told him that if he ate this thing that he would immediately be put on the master cleanse before he did irreparable damage to the ticker!

It doesn't even look the slightest bit appetizing to me.... ugh! NO THANK YOU!

So instead we went to the Country Corn Maze, here Nicholas though he would partake in some deep fried Snickers! But alas! God was watching out for Nicholas' heart that day and the stand was closed!!!

For those who have never been (which was me on Saturday!) you pull up in the sketchy looking lot and get on a tractor pulling a hay cart and benches and they take you around to this wonderland of corn! We decided to forego the corn and pumpkin launchers and head straight for the maze. Being the smart cookies we are we chose to the movies/tv trivia and only got lost one time in the maze and made it out in about 46 minutes, wooo hooo us!Later that evening our big town of G-town had a downtown festival complete with actual fireworks... it was a nice night to sit out on the patio of Tequila's and partake in a fishbowl or two!

Who knew we could afford fireworks?!!

Then onto to Sunday.... the Renaissance Festival! Now, I've never been to the Renaissance festival before -- it was ... different! Had way too many beers saw some crazy acrobatics and spent WAY too much money. But we did meet Ingrid and Joe halfway through so we had a good time!

Stay tuned... the girls are super excited about Halloween this weekend!

May I Have This Dance....

So, one of the things that Nicholas and I did to help make our reception fun was to take dancing lessons at Fred Astaire. We were assigned to a lovely Russian girl named Kate! Everyone joked that she had a cane and would be super strict, in actuality she was firm but incredibly sweet and very patient with the two of us who never practiced!! Sorry, if I am about to offend anyone - but I do not like it when the married couple just does a slow back and forth high school dance for their first dance, zzzzzzzzzzzzz, how boring, so we took nine dance lessons and came up with 90 seconds of what, I thought, was a pretty good form of entertainment! Our guests, however, might have thought differently!

What our first dance ended on was a dip, what our first dance was suppose to end on was a kick! But I chickened out and we took the entire second half of the first dance out! After our dip from our nice sweet first dance song we were to change up the flair with one song I can never remember the name of from Ghostbusters! You know that one that got the Statue of Liberty dancing down the street! It was really fun and fast and cute and Nick got to do his little twirls ... but another day, another dance!


I would recommend Kate to anyone that would like to go have a good time! Just call over there and tell them we sent you and they will fix you right up with a free introductory lesson!! You will not regret it! Our only major problem was I wanted to lead and I'm not allowed to! So girls, you must FOLLOW - this is the one place in the world where it is okay not to lead! :p

It's The Great Pumpkin....

So this weekend was pretty relax and laid back!! We are stalking our photographers smugmug page in great anticipation of more Charlotte reception photos but in our "down time" from doing that we decided to buy ourselves some pumpkins and take to carving them!

There is an over abundance of pumpkin patches in a 5 miles radius of our house ... last year there was almost none, this year I swear there is about 8. So after much debate I decided I wanted a small pumpkin and Nicholas got the normal large size.

Everything was going great until I realized I started with "T" and then proceeded to the other "t" in treat and worked my way in.. bad idea. The letters were so close together that my "e" fell apart!! It was a pumpkin catastrophe!!! So my ever-so-wonderful-handy-dandy husband found one of my bling pins from my bouquet and fixed poor pumpkin right up!!

We also went to use some of our many (thank you wonderful friends and family!) gift cards from the wedding!! Our first purchase? Espresso machine!! Now, this espresso machine is supposed to be super easy to use... yah okay! I need a masters in espresso making but I promise to have it down by the Christmas party!! Here is nick making a cappuccino ... he's much better than me!

Can you see my little one?! She was "daddy's" helper! Speaking of his helper, Nick and I are debating on what the girls should be for Halloween!

Last year Miss Emma was a lady bug and Bella was Bella because she doesn't like to dress up, which is exactly why she is being forced this year! Emma was just too cute last year not to dress them up again! I think Emma is going to be a fairy and Bella, since she loves to torment squirrels and/or cats is going to be one of those, or the headless horseman so she cannot yank it off!!

Any more ideas?!

Last time, I didn't get any cake!

So this is me today.... lovely huh?! I think it may have something to do with the weather or perhaps the lovely person who was mentioned on my facebook page! Either way, a game of tetris and some fritos would probably go along way today! Happy Thursday... that I thought was Wednesday! Oh but on the plus side I did score a free 11x14 print at Wolf Camera for free... get on their website and check it out!

Introducing our Blog....

So, Nicholas and I are official now... have been for almost a month (on the 19th!) we found out a few days after the actual wedding that his job was officially transferred and we are a true bon-a-fide married couple now! I told my friend Lacey that I was giving the blog a shot but that I feel incredibly boring and not quite sure what in the world I would ever think to talk about!! So here goes nothing... day one of blog experiment!

To catch you up.... here is what we have been up to recently!


1. I bought a house last year in August.... its a 1920's home with its little quirks and new "issues" we discover everyday!!! Now that Nicholas is here I definitely feel I should have gotten a larger house! - although this house is a lot bigger than it looks from the front... almost 2600 square feet - double the size of my last residence! Nonetheless, it is ours and what we call home!

That was our our first photo shoot with the ever so talented Dawn Mei... you will definitely be seeing more of her handy work if you aren't asleep yet!

2. Nicholas and I tied the knot on September 19th down in Savannah with a great group of close friends and family! We said our "I Do"'s in front of the Forstyh Park fountain and had dinner at the new hip Bohemian hotel on the riverfront! The only complaint I have about married life is I can't figure out how I want my new signature to look..... although I did get called Mrs. Shearer for the first time yesterday which threw me for a loop but in a totally good way!

What's that you want a few pictures... hmm well alright, if you insist!

 Our gorgeous wedding party on Bay Street!! Photo by Dawn Mei (see I told you that you would get more of her!)

 Perhaps my favorite ceremony picture! That's my dad in the wheelchair officiating!

 Best tasting cake I've ever had... and even though Nicole did a wonderful job on my hair - it just was not wanting to be curly that day - I think it still looks kinda cool!

 Smooches as husband and wife!

 The fountain we got hitched in front of!

And there you go! Are my girls just so lovely?! I'm such a lucky girl! That gal on the left is Ingrid, my Maid of Honor, who is getting married Nov 6th!!!! And the beautiful lady on the right is Loren who just got married herself and we are so happy for them!

Jamie swears our town home we rented in Savannah was haunted... I think she was bad in a previous life and it finally caught up to her.... but to each their own!! If you are heading down to Savannah anytime soon might I suggest homeaway.com in lieu of a hotel -- just stay away from East Liberty Street.... that's where the ghosts party! Right, Jamie?

3. We had a rocking wedding reception back home! Inclusive of a photo booth, via the best photographer on the planet! -- a few shots for your viewing pleasure

 Totally rocking those glasses! Later in the night I was styling people -- perhaps my new calling?! Move over Rachel Zoe!

 This is one of my favorites! Nicholas is such a goof ball and so laid back and this captures it perfectly! Good job Dawn!

 This is Connor, Nick's nephew and character extraordinaire!! Connor regularly auditions for commercials at RJ Gators and loves to remind his mom he's half grown-up!!

and a (very late) Michael Jackson impersonator, who I will post photos of once I receive them!I think everyone had a blast and I know I was hoarse the next morning so I consider the event a very good time!!! Thanks to everyone that came out to help us celebrate!


And NOW.... we are spending our week going through our mound of gifts (you guys are awesome!) and cleaning up after hurricane wedding and guests has now vacated the premises!!!

Stay tuned... we can't really be all that boring?! After all, we have a Bad Santa party in the mix and my friend Regina is starting a catering company so I'm sure we will have some material for ya???!