photo 411.

so, it's monsooning outside right now. 

i'm talking serious rain business up in here.

i may or may not have had a slight panic attack (or multiple) on my way to work this morning. i mean, you put me on a highway (which i hate) with big tractor trailers (which i hate) surrounded by flooding roads and waves of water consuming your jeep (which i obviously also hate)... 

you're going to get me and a heart attack.

but i'm at my desk. and i am safe. shooooo-weeee!! praisethelordhallelujah!!!

anywho, today we're linking up with the beautiful, and hilarious, erin at shades of gray and a pinch of pink for a fun link up to give you all a little look-see into my life... with photos, duh.

here are the 10 items to add pictures (and some words too, if you so chose)...

1. Your Little Tyke Self - you as an infant/toddler/child
2. Your High School Self - duh
3. Your College Self - if you didn't go to college get creative
4. Your Right Now Self - a recent picture of yourself
5. Your Furry Friend - your real pet or what you'd die to have as a pet
6. Your Manly Friend - boyfriend/husband/gay bff/celeb crush
7. Where You Once Lived - a place you no longer live in
8. Where You Now Live - wherever your butt currently resides
9. What You Love - self explanatory
10. What You Miss - could be anything!

let's get started!!!

1. Your Little Tyke Self - you as an infant/toddler/child

that would be me on the left, pitching a God awful fit, and my sister posing like the diva she is. this was pretty typical little julia and ashley right here.

 2. Your High School Self - duh

cheerleading just about consumed my high school career, obvi.

3. Your College Self - if you didn't go to college get creative

my college self had fun.

4. Your Right Now Self - a recent picture of yourself

dats me.

5. Your Furry Friend - your real pet or what you'd die to have as a pet

eeeeek!!! i want a mini piggie!!

6. Your Manly Friend - boyfriend/husband/gay bff/celeb crush

they can all be my manly friends. mmmm hmmm.

7. Where You Once Lived - a place you no longer live in

the Delta Zeta house at WCU. so many good memories!!

8. Where You Now Live - wherever your butt currently resides

sorry blog stalkers i'm not sharing a picture of my current house (i kid, i kid about the stalking part, sort of) but i am currently residing in the beautiful appalachian mountains!

9. What You Love - self explanatory

my amazing family.

10. What You Miss - could be anything!

cullowhee, my western days, and my DZ sisters.

join in and share your photo 411!

my weekend and favorite olympian.

oh monday, we meet again.

yuck yuck yuck.

today is like any other monday- except i forgot my key card to get into the office building and then realized i had also forgot my key to my office door. so i was double locked out at 8am and just plain grumpy.

but here we are.

and because i just don't feel like going into details about my weekend and because it was all over the place andddd because i generally prefer pictures anyways... that's a majority of what you're getting today.

i spent my weekend doing a whole lot of catching up with friends and a whole lot of nothing else. amazing, i know.

here was my friday night in a nut shell.

1. yes, that happened. that man thought he was elvis... so naturally we had to have a dance party with him.

2. a few of the girls and yours truly.

3. when you see a dune buggy parked on the side of the road... you get in said dune buggy and take a picture while making vroom vroom noises... obviously.

i know all of these photos have such amazing quality because i have the best phone known to man (or the shittiest), but just try to look past that and bask in their awesome-ness instead.

saturday i finally made it over to bele chere!! even though i was ridiculously late and missed almost all of the free concerts that were going on... 

we still had so much fun!

and this was somehow the only decent picture i came away with from my night, but oh well, it's a good one.

see the guy above? well that would be my best friend matt. we always tell people we are cousins when we go out because everyone just assumes we are dating. which we are not... we're not cousins though, either.

he was in town from charlotte for the weekend... 

and when you're in ingles grocery shopping at 2am and you suddenly lose matt... always check the toilet paper/paper towel aisle.

you may just find him sleeping there...

in other news- i hope you all have been watching the olympics!

don't forget to keep an eye out for manteo mitchell! i mentioned him in another post a while back and hope you guys are looking for him! i went to college with this hotty totty and he definitely deserves some bloggy lovin!!

here he is on tv at the opening ceremony!! 

do you have any favorite olympians? he's obviously top on my list!

USA, USA, USA!!!!!!!

oy, friday.

dear God:

i thank you so much for everything and everyone you have blessed me with. i ask that you help me get through the next couple of months at work and keep reminding me that it is all going to be okay. love you bro.

dear bele chere:

i've missed you in my life. your appearance only once a year is not enough. 

and for those of you who have never heard of bele chere- it is asheville, nc's most fun, and free, music and arts festival! the streets of downtown are shut down to traffic and overflow with music, performances, incredible food, local breweries, and so much more! it lasts all weekend from sun up to sun down and has more culture than i could even begin to explain. oh and here is a cool little side note- bele chere means beautiful living. so appropriate.

dear rooms:

never again will i let you talk me into going out on a thursday. i'm dying today. but we did take some cute pics, per our usual.

 

dear kristen stewart:

boo you whore!!! you stop it. stop it right now.

i find it funny and somewhat ironic that i typed your name into pinterest and this picture popped up. coincidence? i think not.

dear work:

i'm sorry i'm being super unproductive today. but it's friday, and that's all the justification i have... or need. maybe next week we can play catch up? ... maybe.

 

over and out,

j.

okay day.

here we are again... 

linking up with neely and amber for another round of it's okay thursday!!! they're actually celebrating one whole year of their linkup! go show them some love and join in on the fun!

it's okay...

to want to run around barefoot all day, err day.

via.

that i waited in line at bojangles (of all places) for 20 minutes just for a free ice water. hey, i had just got done running in 90 degree heat and was dyyyying. had it not been free i might have pitched a fit.

that i do not use capitalization at all in my blog posts. not completely sure why- takes too much time? i hate pushing two buttons at once? i don't really know. but you should probably just accept it... unless i talk about an Uncle Jack and his horses... then i WILL use capitalization...

via.

that i had a slight panic attack last night and frantically searched the internet when my friend tori asked me if lil wayne died. someone jokingly told her that he did and so of course her and i were freaking out. we love him dearly. even though his latest music video featuring skeletons in a movie theater is pretty much the weirdest thing ever considering what happened in CO... even down to the 12 skeletons that directly coincide with the 12 victims. 

that is not ok weezy f, not ok at all.

via.

that it's thirsty thursday and the asheville tourists have a home game tonight... and i really really wanna go, but then i don't, but then i do, but then i don't, but then i do, but then i don't... you see the pattern here? do i suffer through work tomorrow because we all know i can't resist $1 beers and hott baseball butts or do i be a responsible grown up and catch up on pretty little liars instead? oh the decisions...

peace out girl scouts,

j.

legitimately.

so last night i legitamitely fell out of bed.
and i really just had to google the spelling of "legitimately" because i knew that la-jit-a-mit-ly was just not right ... did you mean legitimately? why yes, yes i did google, thank you.
and the more i look at that word. the more i think it looks like a lizard or a dinosaur name and not a legit word.
and i have ADD.
anywho...
last night i ... fell. out. of. bed.
think about it- how many of you have actually ever fallen out of bed? and i'm talking recently done so. not when you were 4 and your side rails were taken off. i mean current episode.
that's right- not many of you, if any.
but i did.
i was about an hour and a half into my awesome sleeping when i woke up to my body hitting the floor. i seriously felt like i had been picked up and tossed on the floor. ouch. 
i guess my dreaming of being chased by someone in my room and having to frantically make it out door resulted in my sleep walking, or running, or jumping, or whatever... and landed me straight on my ass.
talk about a wake up call.
i'm now officially afraid to go to sleep for fear of what i may do.
out of control people, out of control.

that's all for today folks,
j.

80s style and beautiful views.

success.

that's all i gotta say about this weekend.

it was one big success. our 80s block party went off without a hitch.

although i wish my hair would have been bigger. i wanted it to look slightly decent enough for pictures, so i ended up looking more like farrah fawcett meets sandra dee at the end of grease.

oh, and guess what...

ETHEL DID NOT CALL THE COPS!!!

i know, we were just as surprised as you are. she actually behaved and kept quiet. we are so proud of our nosey little neighbor!! 

i guess the fact that we ended up taking our party to the local water'n hole (yes, that trashy ass bar i mentioned in another post) probably helped keep ethel's anxiety level down. but we made it till almost midnight at our house! high fives to us!!

why we ended up at the trashiest bar in town, i do not know. it probably had something to do with wanting to dance like fools in public in our ridiculous gear... which we succeeded in doing so. the best part was all of the locals swooning over our outfits. they legit wanted to know where i got my dress at. sorry bud- only one left in this ol' town... and it belongs to me. forever.

rooms and i. rockin our outfits.

my friend jared and i. yes, our make shift photo booth was hung by our curtain rod. you love it.

we jump at any opportunity to have a photo booth, just fyi.

some of my favorite girls.

everyone actually dressed up!!

thank God for self timers.

sunday was spent poolside- recovering and listening to a local band play at the tiki bar. it was just what we needed. 

i was then taken (as a surprise) up to a friend's property wayyyy out in the middle of nowhere to watch the sunset. it was breathtaking to say the least.

although i was scared i was going to fall off the side of the mountain, be chased by the huge cows lingering around us, or end up in some version of wrong turn. that's my crazy imagination for you.

it was a good end to the weekend though... and made me appreciate just how beautiful of a place i live in.

and now it's back to work, back to reality, and back to pulling my hair out because of the piles of work on my desk. 

have a great monday, friends!!

j.

letter linkup. the usual, ya know.

dear God- please give me the strength and patience needed to make it through the next couple months of work. i know you're there, i just need a little reminder sometimes. thank you for my continuous abundance of blessings, by the way. i know i don't say that enough.

dear work- uh, reallyyy??? you just dropped the biggest bomb of all bombs on us yesterday. all of the social workers within DSS have to be trained for child protective services so we can serve as back up workers when needed now? wtf? oh anddd we have 3 full weeks of pre service training out of the office? ok, cool- you take over my full case load for me for those 3 weeks. i signed up for adult services for a reason homie. ok end rant. i really do love helping people and i really do love my job... but i'm a little overwhelmed.

dear colorado- wow. my heart goes out to all of the family and friends affected by last night's shooting. it is so incredibly sad that now we are all going to be skeptical about going to the movies. such a devastating event. many prayers being sent that way.

dear ethel- we're sorry in advance for our 80's block party that's about to go down tomorrow night. you might want to go ahead and get yourself a hotel room. oh and you can call the cops all you want- they already know about our little shin dig.

dear 80's outfit- you were $8 at the consignment shop and you may be the best thing i have ever purchased.



have a wonderful weekend bloggie friends,
j.

pinteresting on hump day.

for some reason as soon as i thought about today being hump day, i immediately started singing the humpty dance... you know which one i'm talking about... ok, and if you don't here ya go...

you're welcome for that amazeballs flashback.

anywho, now it's time to get some pinterest action going on.
link those little booties up and then follow me here.

  

via.

via.

via.

via.

via.

via.

do the hump.
j.

charleston.

pretty sure this weekend's trip just confirmed my love for this place even more.

i simply cannot get enough of it. it's safe to say that it is the one place at this point in my life that i could just pick up and move to. i'm not (at least not right now) haha... but i am planning more frequent visits, that's for dang sure!

not only had it been 2 years since i took an actual trip, it had been even longer since i took a trip with my parents and brother. it was long overdue and much needed. the older i get, the more i cherish times like these as a family and the times we spend together.

instead of a crazy long play by play post you're going to get an overload of pictures instead... courtesy of le' phone.

1. crossing the arthur j. ravenel bridge for the first of a hundred times on our trip. one day i will brave up and run the whole thing. emphasis on one day.

2. momma and i at dinner our first night there. we went to red's ice house on shem creek for some incredible sea food to start the trip.

1. beachin' it saturday and sunday with little brother.

2. isle of palms beach.

3. sandbar at sullivan's island.

4. awesome lime green beach house off isle of palms.

charleston is full of history! it would take an entire week of vacation to explore all of the historical landmarks and to learn about the culture of the low country. we have taken tours on previous trips and always dedicate one day to learning something new or visiting a new landmark. our last trip we went and toured fort sumter... but this time since we spent a majority of our days off sullivan's island and isle of palms, we took a tour through fort moultrie.

saturday night was spent downtown with these lovely ladies: amber and holly... we ate dinner at a great little place called social and then ended up at the rooftop bar for drinks. we grew up together in the mountains of nc and have not seen one another in years! it was so incredible to spend time catching up with them! 

 1. downtown with my little brother. i made him suffer through shopping with me. i promise that kid is going to make the best boyfriend with all the training i put him through!

2. my precious daddy at dinner sunday night.

walking the streets of downtown sunday before and after dinner. the steeples, cobble stone streets, water front park and fountains, and harbor view are some of my favorite things about this city.

although, as much as i love charleston and the south carolina beaches... nothing compares to the mountains of western nc. i took this picture as soon as my mountains came into view on monday evening! they are home, they are beautiful, and they are where my life is. they also keep me safe from crazy beach storms haha.

it didn't hurt that when i got to my house yesterday evening i had these pretty babies waiting on my doorstep along with a sweet little note welcoming me home.

no, you're not going to find out at this point who they are from... but let's just say i'm one happy girl right now. and if things keep going the way they are... you will get all the juicy details soon enough!

back to reality. oops there goes gravity. (couldn't help myself)

j.