Fill in the blank Friday!

Hello everyone! I know it's been a few weeks since I've participated in FITBF but here we go!
prompts and photo from here.

1.   In the story of my life the actor who would play me would be... I honestly have no idea. I guess off the top of my head I'm going to say Isla Fisher, primarily because she brought a Sophie Kinsella girl to life and (as you may remember) I have a bit of an obsession with her books. Plus she's quirky, and I've always wanted to have red hair. 

2.  If I could change one thing about the world it would be stopping the highly illegal sex trades, especially those in places where women have no other options.

3.  Yesterday  it rained and rained. and rained. and I somehow made it home in time to get the remote and watch the season premiere of grey's anatomy! 

4.  My favorite comfort food is dark chocolate.

5.  My new favorite blog find is  How About Orange! They have really wonderful diy's, lots of free downloads, and just fun posts for crafty people. 

6.  If I could meet any blog friend (who I haven't met yet) in real life, I'd choose to meet I would love to meet ms. Samantha of Indie and Chic!

7.  My favorite breakfast food is french toast. and buttermilk pancakes with delicious maple syrup. and cereal with fruit in it. and I really love scrambled eggs with veggies and cheese. and coffee. and potentially monkey bread. I'm a big fan of breakfast.

"And we had to practice during freaking Hurricane Katrina..."

A good friend of mine who plays volleyball at the college level was telling me about her match last night and how the football players had to be there but, even though the match was close and the girls won in three games, the football players didn't quite supply the cheering the girls had hoped for.

Then she talked to one of the football players who told her about how they had to practice in Hurricane Katrina-like rains that night and how they were expected to start practicing again the next morning at 6am and she let him off the hook.

While I did not have to practice football outside, I have had to run from my car to a store to the car to a restaurant to my car (I drive a lot lately...) to the bookstore/coffee shop I've currently taken up residence at. Therefore, my drenched/dried/drenched/redried hair is safely tucked into a beautiful mustard-yellow hand knit cap that I got as a present from my friend Hanna last year. I've also had my eyes on this hat from miss indie for almost a year now, and truly realize that if I've been lusting over it for that long, it's very silly that I haven't broken down yet. Around the time I found it, I also started a pretty legitimate budget. Maybe I'll splurge soon. I'm sure my willpower is breaking down as we speak.

But, as I'm reading up on all sorts of things from how to start your own business to super foods, I thought I'd say hello! Go face the rain, if you dare, and get yourself a nice Chai tea latte or something of the pumpkin/autumn specialty drink variety that's out there and take a few nice moments to yourself today. You deserve it. 

songtime.

This was last weeks playlist, and I'm not sure why but I never shared it!


I remembered it last night, when I was in a coffee/book shop and "Uncharted" by Sara Bareilles came on. Then her entire new CD followed! I hadn't listened to it in it's entirety, and I really enjoyed it while reading up on some very random subjects. I'll share more about those later, but for now, I hope you enjoy a few songs this lazy, cloudy (in the Midwest at least) Wednesday night.

Happy autumn!

You guys, I have a button!

Yay! The lovely Kam of Campfire Chic posted a DIY on how to create your own blog button, and, after a few emails back and forth for yours truly who was experiencing technical difficulties, we successfully made a blog button for nae-say!

I'd been meaning to google how to do this, so it was super helpful that Kam was so gracious with her knowledge. Thanks again, Kam, and if you are a blogger, feel free to grab my button - the code is on the right side of my main page!

Please let me know if you do, so I can grab yours!

Song Saturday.

I heard this song just as I dropped off 3 teenage boys at their friend's house to play games or eat or whatever teenage boys do at each others homes on Saturday afternoons and a memory of a time I was with a friend listening to this song came back and I was a happy lady, even though it's quite a sad song.

Anyways, that's why it's this Saturday's song. The teen I've been hanging out with since 2 Thursdays ago woke up this morning wanting to go to The Original Pancake House and to get cupcakes from a shop he knows I absolutely adore. So, naturally, we did, and it was one of the most casual, happy, relaxed, and delicious mornings I've had in a long time. And seriously, with cupcakes this pretty, how could anyone be unhappy? Hope your Saturday is just as delicious. xoxo

and this was this morning.

The teenager I am hanging out with/house sitting for and I had a bit of a slow start to the morning; namely, neither of us really wanted to wake up. But we did and ended up getting ready and finished breakfast 10 minutes before we even needed to head out! So, we watched a bit of Saved by the Bell and then I drove him to school. I remembered that we need AA batteries so I thought, ah ha! I'll get them now, but it turns out that Target is not open at 7:30am. Shoot.

Anyways so I go home and realize that it's garbage day here. I go out the side door on the garage, which opens without me having to unlock it and I think "score! i'll just come back in this way." and also "Shoot, I should have been making sure that door was locked all of these nights..."

Turns out the door locks automatically.

I went to move the garbage down to the curb, came back up and realized my fate.

I didn't have the house keys.

I didn't have my phone.

I couldn't remember the security code to get into the garage.

It was raining.

I could use an expletive here, but I'll try to refrain. Just know that in the moment I wasn't so selective with the words I used.

I had been told that two neighbors knew I would be around and if I needed anything I could ask them. So I headed over to one of the neighbors homes and rang the doorbell. and knocked on their door. and did that head twisting to the side to try to see through the small opening in the window thing you see in movies or shows like Desperate Housewives. No lights were on. No movement was sensed.

Again with the expletives.

So I trudge through a couple other neighbors yards and got to the second house. At this point I am embarrassed, wet from the rain, and pretty much thinking that I would be outside until the teenager got home from school and I imagined starving and becoming delirious and having extreme thirst and some random dogs in the neighborhood attacking me because I had seen random dogs roaming the other day.

I get pretty dramatic sometimes.

But the neighbor answers the door! And after relaying my story and her extremely large dog jumping up on me multiple times (I am suspiciously scared of large dogs ever since one bit me in my bottom when I was little) I called the number of the person I'm house sitting for. She doesn't answer. So I call another number. No answer.

The neighbor woman and her friend give me some coffee, laugh a little, and then we start talking.

Turns out they are both writers. One even went back to school and graduated with a journalism degree recently. One has a fiction book deal. Both do a little freelancing on the side. Both are my heroes.

Here's the thing. This could have made me incredibly embarrassed. I could not have tried to ask for help and sat on the porch and pouted and gotten bitten by the random dogs and starved. But instead I asked for help, and made new, incredibly inspiring friends. After I got the security code, they hugged me and made me promise to keep them updated on my job search. They are so great.

And that is why I'm okay with sharing my embarrassing story of being locked out of the house. Some people are just meant to be in your life.

words to live by.

I love both of these designs and I always get inspired by The Notebook Doodles, where they are from. If you haven't, you should check out the notebook doodles blog or Flickr. The wonderful mingling of photographs and quotes never fails to grab my attention. You won't be disappointed, and you may even be inspired.