Err I mean Knoxville here I come/I'm getting a haircut

It turns out they have decided to place the job in Knoxville, TN which is a quick 8 hour drive up to my family in Michigan and an even shorter 6 hour drive home to Raleigh!

I accepted the job offer officially today. I can't wait! I start technically on July 20th. I will be flying up to Chicago for the week to attend the quarterly sourcing meeting. Then I get to come back home for a week to pack up and move. And then I start work at the Maryville, TN plant on August 3rd. I will be working in the plant that makes Sharpies! I wonder if I will get a buzz? Haha, just kidding. I'm sure I will be in an office or at least a cubicle, but it will be cool to be working in a real manufacturing plant since those are few and far between in the United States now-a-days.

Me and my family are going to Knoxville this weekend to pick out an apartment for me and to check out the city. I am thinking that I want to live in Knoxville. I found a great apartment online today that is located near the UT Medical School. Apparently a lot of grad and medical students live there, so it might be a great place for me to meet people *ahem* cute, male residents *ahem* and I will have a roommate so I will not be as lonely as I was in South Carolina when I worked for Target.

Dude, today I went on my first appointment! The woman was straight up crazy, like one of those people who can't look you in the eye crazy. But, she seemed like she really liked the advertising opportunity and most importantly, her husband who she brought with her really liked it. And, they drove off in a new, pearly white Mercades, so I know that they have enough money...

Anyways, my dad just got home from teaching this evening so I am gonna chat with him! More to come.

Lets see, I still have to write about the crazy train people, pictures from Baltimore, and my internship at Target.

Edit: I have decided to get a hair cut tomorrow. A real big girl haircut with highlights and everything! Because everyone thinks that I look 16, I figure I can throw a little money at the hair dresser and hopefully they will do the job right haha. I only say that because highlights are expensive. Here is a picture of my inspiration and hopefully it will look good and I will post some pictures for all to see! Speaking of, I need a new digital camera...

Chi-town here I come? The short version.

Long story short:
This morning right before I was supposed to head to work, I got a call from Newell Rubbermaid. Offering me a job. In Chicago. In sourcing.

The back story: I had a job offer from Target (from my internship) and from Newell Rubbermaid. I accepted the NR offer, and a few months later they rescinded it due to the economy.

I think I might have my job back, but I will learn more tomorrow. I think I have to take it and just do my MBA slowly online. How can I turn down an opportunity like this?! I would get to live in Chicago for a YEAR! Brr.

More details to come later...

Jon plus 4 and Kate plus 4?

Another exciting Friday night in Apex. Let me back up:

Quick summary of Thursday Morning: Worked. Had fun. Was mistaken for a high schooler AGAIN. Did I mention this was one of my biggest pet peeves? After work, we went to a networking event at Koka Booth hosted by the Cary Chamber. Whole foods catered, it was delicious, and I looked cute, even with sweat drippin' all over! Then Michael, Maggie, and I went out all over the place in downtown Raleigh. It was fun!

Bar set list: Raleigh Times (artsy-hipster: so not my scene but it is fun to pretend), The Oxford (classy), Landmark (unsuccessful due to a cover charge- lame!), The Busy Bee (best drinks EVER), then ending the evening at MoJo's (mmm $2 burgers after 10pm)

Woke up this morning, ate breakfast, went back to sleep, had a lot of fun at work/hanging out with Noah, came home, watched tv and ate. What a lively Friday night! Oh, I also went to the Teeter to stock up on some lemons and watermelon to satiate my lemonade/watermelon craving of the evening. Thrilling.

On other notes, I want people to leave Jon, Kate, and the kids alone. I believe that Kate Gosselin is a good mother who really loves her children. Of course she has to be strict! She has 8 kids! Jon on the other hand, I have no sympathy for that dude. There are no excuses for cheating! For those of you who don't know, we saw Kate and the kids on Bald Head Island. She seemed like a good mom who took care of her kids. Yeah she needs help, and yeah she needs alone time. But seriously, give the woman a break! I'm curious to see what the deal is with this week's upcoming episode. For those of you out of the loop, they are supposed to be making a big announcement. See below for promo. Let me know how you all feel about this situation. I am curious to hear other people's opinions. I'm pretty sure they are announcing their legal seperation, or maybe the ending of the show, which would be bittersweet because I really have grown attached to their familiy... but who knows!

Jon and Kate article + video

Random thoughts on a rainy Tuesday night

This is a completely useless blog post. I'm painting my nails blue while watching the Bachelorette. Just made myself a peanut butter and banana milkshake. Must. Start. Diet. Tomorrow. Shelly fed me yummy leftovers at lunch, and then she had a plethora of desserts! Sheer deliciousness. Lots and lots of carbs.

It was a good day today. I made a LOT of phone calls and also learned that when people don't remember my name, they call me "Cutie" or "Beautiful" (via networking events). I made some good contacts today though! But I certainly am tired, thank goodness for Coffee and Diet Coke to get me through the days. What on earth is gonna happen when I have to start taking classes? Speaking of, I need to sign up for them. Katie's Pirate Booty is going to grad school!

I suppose I am gonna finish painting my nails. But before I sign off, I want to plug my new favorite social network: 20-something bloggers. http://20somethings.ning.com/ Its a great community for, well, exactly what the title suggests. I am loving being able to connect with people my age. Not that I don't love networking in Apex and Cary- don't get me wrong, it is a lot of fun, but this is a great way to meet people all over the world! All you 20-something's out there with blogs... Check out this network and join it!

Amtrak Adventures!

This weekend, my friend Casey and I took a train trip to Baltimore to visit our dear Meredith. What an adventure it was! I will try to break it down for you... I'm not sure how I can pack what we did over 72 hours into a blog post!

Friday: Got on the train in Cary. Train was 1.5 hours late getting into Baltimore. Woman sitting behind me sang to herself a good portion of the 9 hour train ride. Dropped off our stuff at Wolman Hall at JHU and cabbed it to the Orioles game. Stayed through the 8th inning. I got bored, because they were very obviously losing, and I wanted to see the end of the Wings game. Sadly, they lost. Gladly, I was drinking by this point (2 for $5 Bud Heavy's in the aluminum bottles). Gladly, we all continued drinking and bar hopped. Baltimore is a completely crazy town. The bars were pretty much empty by 11:30 pm because people were so hammered and had to go home/got kicked out of the bar. Luckily, we made it until 2. And I think we went to about 4 or 5 bars. Late night of choice: since there was no Jimmy John's, I had an absolutely delicious pastrami sandwich and I stood in line with all the other drunk people in Baltimore at the 24 hour deli/market. Mmmm. Fun night. Spent all day Saturday recovering.

Saturday: Recovery day. Woke up kind of early. Watched Weeds while everyone else slept. Went across the street to Tamber's and got brunch and pieced together the night before. We felt like we were all on Sex and the City. We got showers and looked pretty, then went down to the inner harbor. Ventured down there via bus, which was very interesting. So interesting, that we took a cab home instead. Drank Sangria and ate tapas overlooking the waterfront. Went shopping at the Inner Harbor retail "area" (heaven). It seems like all we did on Saturday was eat... Haha. We then took a cab to Mother's Federal Hill Grille and the three of us split an order of probably the most delicious crab dip I have ever had in my life, and we also split the "Heart Attack on a Plate" (Food Network Magazine's Best Burger of Maryland) which was a deep fried hamburger patty on a bun, stuffed with cheese. Delicious, but my health took a turn for the worse after that (I didn't have a heart attack- don't worry). My throat felt like I had razorblades in it! So I spent the rest of the night in bed.

Sunday: Woke up for church. Meredith stayed in the sick bed, while Casey and I went to church. We went to the First English Lutheran Church down the street. It was a nice service! Got brunch with Casey's Aunt, Uncle, and Cousins. We then wandered towards Charm City Cakes and took pictures. Went to the Honfest. Google it. It was hillarious, but so hot! And we were all quite dehydrated. Honfest made us want to watch the movie "Hairspray." (Honfest basically poked at the women of Baltimore's yesteryear who wore big glasses and had the big beehive hair and said "hon" a lot). Hairspray turned into napfest. We all woke up, started talking about food, got hungry for dinner and went to sushi. Philidelphia roll. Yum! Gossiped and facebooked before we went to bed.

Today: Early morning. Rude cabbie on cell phone took us to the train station and didn't even help us with our luggage! Hung out in Baltimore's Penn Station and had a quick ride to DC. I could hardly even get my laptop out and watch an episode of Family Guy. We got to DC and got ripped off by a cab driver who took us to a fabulous breakfast spot on Capitol Hill, Pete's Diner and Carryout (good, ate a corned beef hash, egg, and cheese sandwich). We didn't have enough cash to cab it back to the train station, so we walked around DC with our luggage, which was easier than it sounds. We hit up the Library of Congress and the Capitol Building. By the time we got back to Union Station, we hopped on our train back to Cary. CRAZY people were on this train. Actually, just two crazy people. And maybe a few others, but that is a blog post in itself. I have several funny topics that I want to write about. Amtrak passengers will probably be one. Dolores will be the other. Mom and Dad picked me up from the train station (Thanks!) and we went to Woody's for happy hour. I ate too much, once again. Back on the diet tomorrow. Came home, hung out with Noah, Mike, Shelly, and Noah's stick collection for a while. Told my brother the story of the crazy Amtrak passengers and he cracked up for a good 10 minutes (I'm serious, its a blog post in itself!). Now I am here.

I'm gonna try and get to bed pretty early tonight since I have to work in the morning . Gotta get back to it! I'm looking forward to the Apex Leads Group though. It's a good group of people and I get to drink all the fountain Diet Coke that I can possibly drink.

Hope you enjoyed hearing about my adventures. How was everyone else's weekend?

(P.S. Photos to come!)

What's in store in Baltimore?

Happy Hump Day everyone! Its been a pretty good day. Shelly and I had an "organize it!" day at work today. So we got the office as organized as we could so we can keep up with all of the information that is flooding in every day! Tomorrow we are gettin' back out there and getting the SALES! (Mike, that was for you if you are reading this... haha)

This weekend I am going to Baltimore to visit Meredith who has an amazing internship at Johns Hopkins. Casey and I are taking the train there and back- it should be quite the adventure! Orioles game on Friday, out Downtown on Saturday, and I am meeting some of Casey's family that lives up there on Sunday, and we leave early Monday morning to head back to the Cary train station via a 2 hour stop in D.C. which will be fun! This is trip 1 of 2 this summer to Baltimore. Mike and Shelly are bringing me along for the Town Planner conference which I think will be an awesome/fun/exciting/educational experience!

I am about to Skype with Meredith about some more details about this weekend. I can't wait! Oh, and I got new glasses today. Yay!

Girl's Night Out

Tonight, some of the ladies of Crazy Maple Court and some of my friends are headed to Tyler's Taproom for drinks and dinner. I'm looking forward to it. My mom got a 95.5% on her exam today, so its part girls night-part celebration dinner!

This week has flown by- I started it in Bald Head and am ending it here in Apex. Work has been keeping me busy, and I am loving it. Yesterday I went out on my own and went to most of the auto repair places in Cary and Apex. It was fun to dress up and look cute and hand out information and hopefully land some potential sponsors for the Town Planner. I have a little bit of work to do this weekend. I meant to do it today, but I shopped then napped instead.

I got a really cute outfit for less than 30 bucks at TJMaxx and shopped some of the great sales at Old Navy and actually got some good finds! Usually Old Navy is hit or miss for me, but I got one of those maxi dresses that I haven't been able to find that fit/look right. I didn't try anything on that I bought, and I took it all home instead. It all worked out! Yay, no return lines. I took a risk and it paid off.

Happy Friday! Cheers.

To dye or not to dye?

Today was a busy day of work and fun. I worked all day; however, working with Shelly is quite enjoyable and we had a day full of popping into local businesses. Tomorrow I am going to do it on my own! My favorites: at Great Harvest Bread Company, I got to try some awesome asiago-pesto bread, and at Burger King, I got a Diet Coke. Yummm.

I'm thinking about getting some golden highlights in my hair- my hairdresser suggested peek-a-boo highlights would look nice with my auburn hair. So I have been thinking about it. Any comments/other suggestions?

I'm getting ready for bed. It is 8 pm. I have a big day tomorrow- I am going to be out on my own!

Boyfriend hunting at Chili's

Mom and I went to Chili's for dinner tonight. Dee-licious. But the chips are evil! I am trying to cut out carbs after noon. I am going to try not to eat them for lunch, but it won't be the end of the world if I do.

We had a fun girls evening- shopping and dinner. I got some cute things to wear to work this summer, and a new bathing suit top. While at Chili's, we managed to find a really cute boy that works there, so, Mom and I will be hanging out at Chili's more often. He kept coming over to "check" on our table, but I am pretty sure he worked in the to-go area. Ha!

I write about such trivial things. Maybe I will have something more profound tomorrow. Until then, I am going to bed. Soon. After I catch up on some more shows, of course.

Whoever said Bald Heads weren't beautiful?

I'm enjoying my last morning on Bald Head Island. It has been quite the adventuresome weekend! I absolutely love it here. Its much better than the Bahamas. Seriously.

If you don't know about Bald Head Island, learn more. Its one of the most beautiful and serene places. No cars are allowed so everyone takes golf carts or bikes around the island.

Our first day here was Saturday. We sat on the beach for a while and I got to take a nap in the sun. Then we went to Eb and Flo's- a steam bar on the island at the harbor. We saw Kate Gosselin and all of the kids (no Jon) eating dinner at the same place we were. We found their house too, so we have spent a lot of the weekend cruising past on the golf cart or bikes to see if we can catch a sight. Saturday night we saw Kate going for a jog with her infamous bodyguard and a nanny. She looks great!

Yesterday we spent the morning at the pool, then we traveled to the beach to try and boogie board. Unfortunately, the waves were not quite big enough for boogie boarding so we mostly just floated in the ocean for a while. Still a lot of fun though. Our trip to the beach was quite adventurous. The golf cart essentially died while we were making our way across the island so we had to push it up some hills in order to make our way to the beach. It was pretty funny.

We rode our bikes down to the harbor after dinner to have drinks at Eb and Flo's. I was craving a pina colada! Then we toured the inn on the island which is just lovely. The woman working at the front desk let us go in all of the open rooms, so we wandered around there for a while. Then, as it started to turn dusk we ventured back to the house. Maggie led the way and Casey and I followed through the jungle. I am pretty sure that I swollowed a bug, Casey got one in her eye, and we all have plenty of bug bites to show for it. It was a really nice bike ride, in spite of the bug dessert.

I have really enjoyed being here at Maggie's beach house. Her parents are so hospitable and have just been great hosts to us! Now it is time to head back to the real world this afternoon, not after spending some more time on the beach and trying to find Kate and the kids of course!