spears guest house...

 We're in South Carolina this week for my best friend's wedding (YAY!), and we're having a fabulous time! We arrived on Sunday in Charlotte, drove to Greenville, and now we're in Cheraw (where the wedding will be held). The fiance's mother rented out a B&B house for the wedding party to stay at (we're so grateful!!), and the place is absolute adorable...

I might just have to add more photos later, it's so stinking cute! :)

arts gala dinner...

My boyfriend Garrett entered an art competition last month, and he won!! We are all so proud of him, and we were so excited to be able to attend the grants showcase dinner this week. It was a lovely event full of talented people, yummy food, and beautiful art displays.

I'm so incredibly proud of this talented man -- good job hun!! So proud to call you mine! :)

entries of an insomniac...

You know when you're plagued with insomnia three, maybe four nights out of the year? Last night was one of those nights. I'll be running on about 3.5 hours of sleep today...should be fun, right? Or, as my friend Sarah would say, "Beast the day, Lauren!"...Still not entirely sure what that means, but it always encouraged me. Thus, it will be today's mantra.
The wonderful thing about insomnia is that your body's exhausted, but your mind is as spry as an elderly person with fresh prune juice (lack of sleep people, work with me). In other words, you're constantly thinking about something which is what's keeping you from sleeping.
For example, have you heard today's youth (high school - college) talk today? They've conveniently began using the F-bomb as the most commonly used adjective in the English language. I say conveniently because if they didn't have that word as part of their vocabulary, the number of words they spoke would significantly decrease from about 15K to about 1,500. Let me give you a few examples I have heard in the last week:

Girl talking to girlfriends: "And I like put the f*** book back onto the f*** shelf and, like, made him f*** read the f*** book so that I, like, could see his f*** face when he read the f*** book and I was, like, 'f*** man! See what I was f*** talking about?!'"

Dude talking to dude friends: "Aww!! F*** man!! F***! F***!!! Did you f*** see that?? I totally just f*** you!! HA! F*** (X3)!!!

Now, I've been hearing this everyday, and every time I want to go up to the person (we'll call them f-bomber) and ask them to give me, $20: $1 for every time they dropped the f-bomb in the previous sentence they just spoke. I know they would just give me death glares, but I'm still tempted to try it one day.
I also pity these people. Five years from now, when they're at an important job interview, they'll have no words to say except "yes," "no," and "f***." Thus, their interview will end up sounding like:

"How did you hear about this position?"
"Yes."
"...OK, what is your background?"
"No."
"...What could you bring to this company?"
"F***."
"...Thank you for your time, Mr. Smith."

Ahh, wonderful -- and we wonder why this generation can't hold a job higher than a Mc. Donald's cashier.
The thought of when these people have children has also crossed my mind. What will they say when they're teaching their children how to speak/how to survive?
"You take the f*** cherrio in your f*** hand, put it up to your f*** mouth, and f*** chew!"

I weep for this generation and the next. Read a book people. Learn some words.