this is halloween. this is halloween.

Well, it's Halloween. 

Which means I am currently either A) in a candy coma 

or B) about to be in a candy coma 

or C) already in a candy coma, but so out of it I don't realize I am in said candy coma.

Man, being a kid. It's so cool, yet not-so-cool. When you're a kid you can actually go trick-or-treating without being judged. You get lots of candy, but you have parents and adults telling you you can only have 4 pieces of candy or else you'll get a tummy ache! Boo, tummy aches, amiright? Then you grow up and you are the adult and HA! You can eat all the candy you want. Best part of life ever! Except your metabolism is not what it was when you were 5 and only eating 4 pieces of candy. Now you are 25 and eating 44 pieces of candy and tummy aches and weight gain and all that good stuff comes with Halloween (so that's why adults just have parties and drink on Halloween...)

So, Happy Halloween!

May your candy selection be so good that you don't even care about metabolism and other silly things.

I know I don't care.

^^I ate my third mini Milky Way bar of the morning as I typed that up there. 

In honor of this candylicious holiday, I will now take you back for many a Flashback Fridays: Halloween edition.

A painted pumpkin before Pinterest made it cool. It's like my parents invented Pinterest or something.

Forget about Emily the Bunny in this one. Let's talk about how punny it is that my brother, Joseph, was Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors. Ha! Bible humor, the best. I don't think Emily the Bunny came from a Bible story...

Looks like this was a year Young Em needed to eat some more candy in order to fit in her Belle costume.

The year was 1993. The costume was Snow White. But my mother made me be a Snow White with a white turtleneck. Do you remember seeing Snow White wear a turtleneck under her dress in the movie? No, you didn't. Because it would have ruined her outfit and then the Prince might have never fallen in love with her and then the dwarves would have never found her after she bit the apple and life as we know it would have never happened. But, that Snow White in that picture. She had to wear a turtleneck so she didn't get sick from the cold. I classify this in the why my life was hard as a young child file.

This Madeline didn't need red hair to be a sassy. Brown hair, don't care. Pooh-Pooh to you, Mr. Tiger in the zoo.

There you have it. The Golden Years, when surviving off of a sugar high was just another day in the books. Childhood, you were good to me. Candy, be good to me today.

Happy Halloween!
Linking up with Karli!

on levels of pumpkin carving

There are a lot of things I can do well.

There are also a lot things I can not do well. 

The older I get the more I realize just how black and white that list of can and can't's really is. 

I can teach ballet.

I can't dance ballet anywhere near the level at which I used to dance.

I can wash the clothes.

I can't remember to get said clothes out of the dryer.

I can eat an endless amount of chocolate.

I can't eat an endless amount of green beans. 

I can cook.

I can't find the want (or need, really) to cook. Thanks for the sushi rolls, Harris Teeter.

I can mop the floors.

I can't get off Instagram in order to have the time to mop the floors.

And so on and so forth. You get the picture. I added a new can(not) to my list as of last weekend. Are you ready for it?

I can carve a pumpkin.

I can't carve it any better than a small child would carve it. 

But wait, don't even look at Jack the Jack-O-Latern's baby face. Look behind Jackie at Rick's face. His focused, determined, don't-mess-with-me face. The face I see anytime he works on a puzzle. Or cooks a new recipe. Or, at my demands, tries to get the Wii to work. 

That is the face of a dude who can do a whole heck of a lot of stuff. Like finish puzzles, and produce delicious dinner creations, and make a Wii work.

Oh yeah, and carve (etch? with a wand?) a mighty sweet lookin' pumpkin. 

Pumpkins of the Lowcountry, I promise I'll try to do better next Halloween.

People of the Lowcountry, enjoy coming to our doorstep and, based off of the pumpkins, assuming a father and his young child live there.

I can (and did) choose a pretty rad husband.
I can't ever get on my husband's (or his pumpkin's) level.

p.s.- I also watched Hocus Pocus for the first time ever this past weekend (like, no way! Shut up! Jaws on the floor) and all I have to say is Ehhhhhhhhhh. All I know is that if 6 year old Emily had watched that PG movie I would have been asking a lot of questions about virgins...

Over and out. 

advice on driving

You know lately I had been thinking Life, what should I blog about?

There's only so many episodes of Heros I can watch in one night and there's only so many ballet terms you'll try to read before getting bored. That wasn't leaving me with a lot of content to use in blogging.

Today, friends, I taught a great petite jete combination! Nothing like some entrechat quatres to get a Thursday going!

On last night's episode of Heros...hashtag: 9 years late to the Heros game.

Last Friday Life stepped in to help me and man, I am so thankful for that. You see, last Friday I was on the way to teach my second class of the day when Life put a bug on my dashboard. A bug! Yuck! I mean, I know my car is dirty and I know that ants crawl on the outside, but an inside car bug? No. So I went to smash it. Obviously. 

Instead I smashed into a curb. And gashed my tire. And lost my hub cap. And slowly chugga-chugged along into the nearest parking lot. And then ran back across the road to pick up my hub cap. Ain't nobody got time to be buying new hub caps. A kind woman in the parking lot informed me that my tire was flat.

Freaking fuh-lat. Yeah, kinda figured that when I Jackie Chan'd my car up onto a curb.

Luckily (remember now, there are two kinds of luck) there was a tire shop half a mile away. 15 minutes of driving 2MPH, 10 honks from other cars, 8 major freak outs to Freddie on the phone, and 1 traffic build-up on Mt. Pleasant's busiest highway later, I made it to Tire Kingdom. And yes, it was a beacon of glorious kingdom-ly hope in my darkest flat tire time.

The Tire Kingdom men joked about those darn curbs coming up outta nowhere and how they were going to talk to DOT for me to get them to stop putting curbs up in the middle of the road, yadda yadda yadda, basically I love the Tire Kingdom men for joking with me otherwise I probably would have cried and hidden in our apartment all weekend in fear that someone would recognize that idiot car that backed up Highway 17 on Friday.

But now I've got a new tire and fancy fixed alignment so recognize the idiot car all you want, people. I don't care. I've learned my lesson and I will not be killing anymore teeny tiny bugs on my dashboard.

...because hopefully the bugs have learned their lesson and will stay out of my car, thankyaverymuch.

When Life gives you a flat tire and embarrassing experiences make blog posts. Because laughing is more fun than crying and hiding.

I didn't manage to get any pictures of the experience. I know, pathetic. Pretty sure Life gave me this experience so that I would take pictures for your viewing pleasure. But instead picture this:

this is what my tire looked like:

for realsies. size and everything. 

and this is what my overall demeanor looked like:

and this is what makes me feel better about running across the street for my hub cap:

and this is what the men at Tire Kingdom wanted to look like:

and this is how I felt like the traffic looked like behind my slow-like-molasses car:

There. The End.

heart full of hope, belly full of candy

I haven't written my obligatory OMGFALL post yet and thought today would be an excellent time to do so.

Because oh my goodness gracious heavens alive, fall! Am I right? There's something so magical and mystical and beautiful and wonderful about fall. I tried for a long time yesterday to find the right words to describe what fall does to me and my emotions. After hours of word searching all I could come up with was that it makes me feel hopeful. 

Gag me. 

But don't gag me because that would mess up this full of hope thing I've got going on over here. 

Fall is when I want to give Freds all the squeezelicious hugs.

Fall is when I want to constantly tell my family and friends how I mega love the crap ton outta them.

Fall is when it's okay if things don't go as planned because it's fall, for crying out loud, and things not going as planned just isn't as big of a deal as last week when it didn't feel like fall.

Fall is when I can write a blog post and use the word fall 11 times and no one cares. 

Since I can't find the words to describe my euphoria (eufallria? eh? eh?), I'll just leave you with pretty fall pictures and we'll call it a day. 

The scenery.

The trees.

The colors of the...leaves.

Betcha thought I was going to quote Pocahontas and say wind, huh?

As a kid, jumping into a pile of leaves was almost as fun as getting to jump on hotel beds. Although, the leaves thing was a lot prettier and more colorful. 

The bottomless amount of Halloween candy.

I realize Halloween candy does hit a bottom and it's called two days after Halloween (because one day after it all the half off candy, holla!), however my stomach feels like a bottomless pit made for candy around this time of year. 

Spoiler alert (laced with sarcasm): I look sooo good in a leotard during these fall candy months. 

The reminder that Christmas and all good things are just around the corner.

Yes, I do realize Hobby Lobby has been reminding us of this point since June, but shhh. That kind of just makes me love Hobs Lobs even more...

The crafts

Apparently something in the fall air makes Ricky craft with me because TimeHop is throwing up all sorts of Ricky craft time pictures from fall's past. Can't say I hate having a handy and handsome husband. I also could never say that I abhor alliteration. 

My jams.

These two albums are kinda all that my ears and sweet lil' fall soul need right now. They go on repeat and I go in jammin' mode. 

Don't hate. Just jam.

I also love the carmel-y apple way my living room smells right now (thanks, FeBreeze), and the snuggly family goodness time I know is coming up, and food that Freds makes (but I love that during 'erry season), and I even love the cooler temps (even though I complain about being cold for 23 hours out of the day).

Hey, fall. I sure do hope you plan on sticking around. 

Why do you love fall?

And don't tell me you don't or your blogging privileges get taken away. 

Linking up with Amanda and Karli!

a west nile virus tale

Sugar and spice, and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of. 

Ever heard that saying before? Of course you have. Because you too are made out of sugar and spice and everything nice.

I used to think I was made out of those things. Those were the good 'ole days. But after this weekend I found out the horrible truth...

dun dun dun

This is my new saying:

Sugar and heat, and everything mosquitoes want to eat, that's what Emily is made of. 

I've known for a long time that mosquitoes love me. And not in the this-is-a-healthy-kind-of-love relationship, but more in the obsessive-I-want-to-eat-you-alive kind of relationship.

Let me set a scene for you. It's Saturday in Charleston, SC. High 70s, sun is shining, and Freddie and Emily decide to hit up the Francis Marion National Forest for some fall time hiking. Camera? Check. Comfy clothes? Check. Plethora of soda water to prevent having to drink lowly plain water (yuck)? Check. Bug spray? Not check, not check, warning warning. Warning!

There are more mosquitoes than trees in this picture. Mind blown.

We lasted exactly 2 minutes on the trails. 2 whole minutes! Where's my award?
5 seconds in and I noticed 1 mosquito on my arm. No biggie! Happens every time I step outside.
30 seconds in I noticed a village of mosquitoes taking resident on Freddie's shirt.
45 seconds in and Freddie noticed they are starting to swarm me.
1 minute in and Freddie insisted we turn around. He's swatting and batting and hitting and I'm just like Sure! Whatevs, Husband! Laugh laugh, giggle, giggle. Saturday Funday, eh eh?!
1.5 minutes in and he told me they are all over my butt and back.
2 minutes in, back in the parking lot, we ran for cover (the car), locked the doors (mosquitoes can open unlocked car doors, fyi), and got the heck outta there.

And boy, did we laugh! Because I mean, being attacked by thousands of killer mosquitoes is funny. So we laughed and laughed and yadda yadda we were dumb.

I noticed an itch on my neck that night. Followed by an itch by my eye before going to bed.
Sunday morning? My face looked like a leper and my body looked the Michelin Man minus the rolls plus the bug bumps.

Throughout Sunday the official bug bite count went somewhere from 7 to 22. 22. Freaking. Mosquito. Bites. 5 of which were on my face. 7 of which were on my gluteus maximus. All of which were very unsightly and massively scratch worthy. Dear Freddie, please don't stop sleeping with me. Love, Your Bug Bitten, Redneck-Lookin' Wife. 

Freddie's official count? 1.
One.
Uno.
Single.
Solo.

Sugar and heat, and everything mosquitoes want to eat, that's what Emily is made of.
Snaps and snails, and everything to make mosquitoes bail, that's what Freddie is made of.

And that, my friends, is the story of how I picked up every weird disease in the world. The End.