Life is Crazy!

So, I have not written in a while, but that is obvious. I have been really busy. For starters I traveled out to Seattle, WA to visit with my in-laws then they came back to Virginia with me for ten days.

I had a really crazy time getting to Seattle. First I missed my flight then had to get one for the next day, and that flight did not leave until 7pm so I flew overnight. I also had two stops on the way there. Taking off is not my favorite thing so that meant I had five take offs in the whole trip...Yuck!! On the way back I ended up getting to sit in first class which was awesome. I had no idea it could be so different. Maybe one day I will get to fly first class again.

In two weeks my husband and I move from Virginia to Kansas. Lots to do before then. We still have no idea where we will live, but it looks like there are a lot of cute houses there. Also many of the houses have basements. I have always wanted a basement, so I am hoping it works out that we get a house with one.

I need to figure out why I can never upload pictures anymore. I am getting concerned that it is my computer. I really don't want to have to buy a new computer right now. :(

It's Almost Fall

The weather was wonderful today. The high was 68 degrees and it was a bit overcast. That is just my kind of weather! Maybe I am weird, but I don't really like summer. The heat really gets to me, and I get so I don't want to hardly leave my nice airconditioned apartment. My husband actually got out of school at 10:30am. We ended up going to a place called All Fired Up, and painted pottery. I did a teapot and Tim did a snowman (he loves snowmen!). I will have pictures later. They keep them for a week to fire them and before they do that the colours look kind of dull. This coming Thursday I am headed out to Seattle, WA to visit with my inlaws and attend Tim's bestfriend's wedding. I am really looking foward to it, but sad that my husband cannot get the time off to come.

A couple of weeks ago we went to a Jimmy Buffett concert in Bristow, VA. I LOVE Jimmy Buffett, and his concerts are so much fun. Once again I can not post any pictures. I got a cute outfit for the concert, but I guess I will just have to post the pictures later. :(

Love this Dress!

I admired this dress at Modcloth for months. Decided I would not buy it, but kept going back to look at it. Then it sold out, and it came back and sold out again. Finally it came back in stock and I gave in. I love it and believe I will wear it A LOT, so I think it was a good purchase. I have started wearing flowers in my hair more often. This one is really big and I like it. However I must apologise for my hair. It was looking really dirty that day. I have no idea why it was clean. Oh well, that is not a big deal.

This weekend I am going to Gettysburg with my husband. I am hoping to get a lot of nice pictures. Not sure yet if I will take outfit pictures. I may just take landscape pictures, or just enjoy the sights and not worry about pics. We shall see. I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season

So, hurricane Irene hit a little over a week ago. We were without power for about three days. Which is not bad at all considering how many people are still out, and all the people with damage. My heart goes out to all the people living in North Carolina, New Jersey and Vermont as those states seemed to take the worst of the damage.

I have an outfit to post. However blogger is acting crazy and not letting me upload any pictures, so I guess I will just have to try again later...

It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy

As some of you may know from my previous blog my husband and I have been living in Virginia for the last 4 months while he attends Army Command School. We have known all along this would only be a six month assignment and then we would move on to a new duty station.

We have been anxiously awaiting the orders to come. I will admit I was dreaming of places like Germany, Alaska, or even Hawaii. Well the orders finally came and they were to Ft. Riley, Kansas. My husband is very happy because his family is originally from Kansas and we will be living only a couple of hours away from some Aunts, Uncles and cousins. I am happy about living closer to his family. Especially since for the first four years of our marriage we lived close to my family. It seems only fair. However, I will admit that I am having trouble adjusting to the idea of living in Central Kansas. We are pretty isolated out there. I'm sure that once we find a place to live and most importantly when I make friends I will like it just fine. Speaking of friends; I believe they are really what make you like or dislike any place that you live.

I have already been looking into volunteer work to do on post, and if I am not pregnant by the time we get settled in there I plan on finding a paying job as well. Probably only part-time, but I am really starting to miss work, and my profession. I worked as a pharmacy technician for ten years and I do miss feeling like I am helping people on a daily basis.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! I am going to see Jimmy Buffett in concert, so I am pretty excited!!

What a Day!!

I have been neglecting my blog as of late. Sorry about it I have been super busy. Then yesterday I was about to sit down and do an entry then we got an earthquake!! It was a 5.8 which is pretty high for this part of the country. Luckily no one was seriously injured and no major damage was done. This Sunday a hurricane is supposed to hit us. It will be my first experience with a hurricane. Living in TN all my life I never had to deal with them. Maybe it will not end up being too bad.

This is the outfit that I wore to the wedding I talked about in my last blog entry. For some reason that day I could not upload any pictures. The dress is from Talbots and the shoes are from Kohls. The young girl with me in the pink dress is my sweet cousin Maggie. She was my flower girl in my wedding!

I have several more outfits I have been taking pictures of, so hopefully I will be more regular with the outfit entries!

Wedding Bells are Ringing!!

I have been out of town again for another wedding!! This one was in Kansas City, KS. It was my husband's uncle who got married. Unfortunately my husband could not get the time off from school to come too. He was very much missed, but everyone seemed very grateful that even though he was unable to attend I made the trip anyway. We had a wonderful time. I got to spend an afternoon in Lawrence, KS with my inlaws. This is the town where the University of Kansas is. Everyone in my husband's family went to this college. When I say everyone I do mean everyone. Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins you get the idea. The town is a really nice size not too big and not too small. What I really love is the main street or Mass Street. It in the historic part of downtown, but modern stores have moved into many of the buildings. There are a lot of stores you might find in a local mall like Buckle, but there are also lots of really fun boutiques. My mom in law and I went to one boutique called Nomads and she was way too generous and bought me two whole outfits! I will make an outfit post with them soon.

The wedding itself was very fun. The ceremony was very simple. Just the bride and groom. However the reception was HUGE!! There was dinner, dancing, drinks, a band, and a photobooth. I partook in all but the drinks. However, I may have had a bit too many cupcakes! The photobooth was especially fun I had never been to a reception that had one. For some reason I cannot upload any photos, so I will do that later.

I feel so blessed to be able to share in so many happy events with my friends and family. I really am a lucky woman.

A Love Story

This weekend I had the pleasure of being a bridesmaid in my friend Laura's wedding.

Let me tell you a story: Ten years ago I was at cookout with some of my friends. I called my friend Laura and asked if she would like to come and join us. It took me a while to convince her she would have a good time, but eventually she joined us. While he was not the person giving the party my friend Brad was also there. I was about 21 at the time of the cookout and had known Brad since I was 16 because he was a good friend of a young man I dated back then. Brad noticed Laura instantly and thought she was very pretty. Some of us were about to go out riding on the fourwheelers and Brad asked Laura if she would like to ride with him. By the end of the evening they had exchanged phone numbers and began to date.

Several months passed and things were good. However, Laura had plans of moving from Tennessee to Florida. This caused a rift. They loved eachother, but neither person would budge on the moving issue.

They broke up and Laura moved to Florida, and Brad stayed in Tennessee. Laura loved FL, but I always believed she missed Brad. She had heard that he had moved on and that upset her, but she decided it was time to move on herself. At the time she did not intend on moving back to TN.

She met a man and they started dating. Unfortunatly he was not a good person, she realized this and broke up with him. Only to find out that she was pregnant. She had no desire to reconcile with this man, so she packed up and moved back to TN.

She did not call Brad to tell him that she had come back, but they ended up running into each other at a local store. They began talking regularily, but only as friends. Then after she had the baby they began to date. I can't remember how long they dated this time, but I think it was a couple of years. I'm also not sure what happened but once again they broke up.

Laura decided it was time to really get her life together. She had been living with her parents and working full time. She decided to back to school and get her own apartment. It was hard but she got her degree and found a teaching job. During these years she also met another man. He seemed like a good guy. After a while they became engaged. I knew Laura loved him, but I just didn't feel that it was right. When she called her wedding off 10 days before I was relieved. While I didn't say it to her at the time I still felt like her and Brad were meant to be.

A couple more years went by, and Laura got a better teaching job, and bought a house. I think for the first time in her life she was feeling settled and happy. She had her son, her family and friends, her career and her house. She was very content. What better time to run into Brad at the county fair! They talked and were friendly, but she didn't think much of it. Until he sent her some text messages. Then he asked her to go out to eat. She was still very cautious. Then one afternoon he came by her house to visit, and sat and help her son with a school project for hours. She said it was then she knew she was in love with him and always had been.

That visit was in January. They became engaged in April and were married this past Saturday (July 23rd). As it turns out in all those years Brad had never told another woman that he loved her. Laura is the only woman he has ever said that to. Through all the years of their non traditional courtship I always felt that they were supposed to be together. I had no idea when things would come together and the time would be right, but I knew it would come.

I am so happy that they found their way back to eachother. I know they will have a life full of love and happiness. Here a few pictures. I could hardly get the bride to stand still long enough to get a shot of her!!

"Of Thee I Zing"

I recently said to my husband that I would be happy when the trend of substituting Zs for Ss in words was over. I'm sure you know what I am talking about. One good example is the meal plan website we subscribe to "Emealz" what would have been wrong with just using an S?

Well I came across this book that was just released. It is called "Of Thee I Zing" by Laura Ingraham. The book is a look at popular culture and the decline that American have taken. In the way they behave and the way they dress.

Everyday I look around me and I am saddened by what I see. Young children riding their bikes and talking on their cell phones at the same time. Or they are supposedly outside playing, but what they are actually doing is playing a game on a D.S. What happened to imagination? I could play outside for hours and hours as a child and nothing electronic was ever involved.

Another thing is common courtesy and good ettiquette. Both of those things seem to have become totally lost in popular culture. Why can people not seem to be nice or have any patience? If it takes more than three minutes to check out at the grocery they are getting huffy and complaining.

This lack of manners is what inspired my blog title. I really try to have good manners and proper ettiquette. Also I try to be nice to people. I hear so many people say that they just say what they think, but I really believe that is just an excuse to be mean to people. I try not to say things to hurt other people's feelings, and if I do not like someone I just ignore them. Not go out of my way to make their life miserable. Now don't get me wrong I am honest with my friends. Just for example if I was helping a friend pick out a dress for an event. I would not tell her that something looked good even if it didn't just because I am scared of hurting here feelings. However, I would try and say it in a nice way and suggest something that might look better.

Of course I am not always succesful in not hurting feelings and having good manners, but I am really trying to be a good example. Join me if you will in my quest to put a little couth back into our society. I intend to read more books on popular culture and ettiquette and will share my feelings about them.

Yellow Dress

I saw this dress on Shabby Apple's website and I just could not resist. The color and the print just make me feel happy. I am going to have to have it sized. All that was left was a large and it is a bit to big on me. I wish that my sewing skills were good enough to do it myself, but they are not. However for now I compensated for the largeness by adding a belt. The belt came from Kohl's and the sandles I don't know...

Hello!

Hello everyone!! This is Rachel from "Life According to Rachel". Something happened to my other blog. Still not sure what, but try as I might I could not seem to fix it. I really think it was somehow hacked, but I cannot do anything to it at all. I hope that the people who followed me before will follow me now too! It has taken me the last several days to come up with this title, and I like it a lot better than the other. As I was thinking of titles I realized that one of the things that really gets to me is people having bad manners and using bad ettiquette. However, I tend to be a bit on the strange side and often contradict my own beliefs, so I thougtht that "Ettiquette Eccentric" was a pretty good description of me. I do have some work to do to the blog. I want to have a good picture for the header. Maybe this weekend I can take some. Also I have no idea about background. This one was an already made one, but still I thought it was pretty.

Ok, well I will blog more tomorrow. I am reading a new book I can't wait to tell you all about!!