Showing posts with label hampton roads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hampton roads. Show all posts

11 August 2013

What I Wore Sunday (Hampton Roads Edition)

It's been 3 years, but I am back! I lived in Norfolk/Virginia Beach (yes, that's in Virginia, for those too lazy to look at a map) back when I was dating/engaged/newly married to B. The rough timeline of that is from September 2007-August 2010. This is a huge military area, and B was a military man, so it makes sense. Now he's only a 'part-time' military man, doing his 2-week Reservist commitment here right now. Cora and I tagged along to see old friends and visit the old stompin' ground.

This old stompin' ground of course included a visit for mass at my old parish, Sacred Heart. We actually used to live within walking distance of the church, and I loved walking through the beautiful urban neighborhoods on Sunday morning. The choir at this church is just amazing, and the music director writes a lot of the music (but it sounds like it could have been written 300 years ago!). And the acoustics in there just enhance the choir sooo much. I'm such a music/choir snob.

I love the detail on the ceiling rafters
The priest saw me during his processional and perked up and gave me a little wave (or maybe it was just a nod of the head?) We got to introduce Cora to him and to some other people, and I remembered how this church really felt like home. I haven't really had that much attachment to a church since, even though I did like our Pensacola parish.

Speaking of Cora, isn't she looking quite adorable today?
Dress: H&M // Shoes: Payless
As for her mass behavior, it was okay. All she wanted to do was climb up onto the pew and then climb down. Finally B gave her his iPhone and she was just entertained by pushing the button over and over. Are there any kids' toys that have buttons that work to do something on a visual level but don't make noise? Because the would be the perfect mass toy for this child.

And oh yeah, what I wore:
Tank: Merona from Target // Skirt: thrifted a long, long time ago // Shoes: Target //
Necklace: Body Central // Watch: Charming Charlie
Two things: This skirt looks awesome with a white shirt, but the white shirt I have got a stain on it right before we left on the trip. Therefore, it did not come with us. Second thing: I know some people out there are anti-tank top or bare arms for church, but I'm not one of those people. My high school had a "2-finger width" rule for the strap of the tank (so no spaghetti straps), and I think that's reasonable. I had a non-matchy cardigan with me in case I got cold, but it's August in the South. Enough said. A lot of women in this parish were wearing sleeveless dresses, and I thought they looked great.

What do you think about bare arms in church?

And just 'cause I love it so, I'll leave you with a picture of the outside of Sacred Heart in Norfolk:

More Sunday fashionistas here

30 October 2012

What I Miss

I'm really bad with goodbyes.  They don't really affect me too much, and I hate when people get all weepy about me leaving.  I usually see the adventure ahead of me more than the place that I might miss later.  Our most recent goodbye was rushed, but that was fine with me.  Why drag it out?

I was recently trying to think about things I'm starting to miss from the past two years down in Pensacola.  So far, it's a short list.  When thinking about that, I also started reflecting on things I actually do miss from previous homes.  I have much more clarity for those things since the dust has settled and I have those way behind me.  I thought I'd share those lists with you today.  (I'm not going to say I miss certain people or friends on any of these.  Obviously it's a given, but people are also mobile.  Most of the friends from each of these places don't live there any more anyway.)

Lawrenceville, GA (home)
  • Is it bad that I can't think of anything?  Maybe that's a blessing.
Athens, GA (college)
  • Free or cheap entry into a lot of great sporting events, including football and gymnastics
  • Free city and campus bus system with my student ID
  • Myers Quad
  • Tons of stuff to do
Jacksonville, FL (AmeriCorps year)
  • Main Library
  • My bike (which was stolen on my last night living there)
  • Ultimate frisbee pickup game on Sundays
Hampton Roads, VA
  • Sacred Heart Church
  • Walkable Ghent neighborhood
  • Imperio Inca restaurant
  • Norfolk Botanical Gardens
  • Croatan beach and watching the surfers
Pensacola, FL
  • St. Paul Parish
  • Brie dip from Hopjacks
  • Teaching Budget for Baby class
  • Naval Hospital Pensacola and free healthcare
  • Central Time Zone
  • (To be determined with time and comparison!)
The Pensacola list was actually longer than I expected (sure as heck beat out Jax). My hometown, however . . . ouch. Sorry, Lawrenceville!

13 April 2011

wordless wednesday: what's on parade?

In many places I've lived, some type of creature has been "on parade" around town.

Bulldogs in Athens, GA

Jaguars in Jacksonville, FL

Mermaids in Norfolk, VA

Pelicans in Pensacola, FL

Does your town have a signature creature?

25 January 2011

top ten tuesday: best things i've won by mostly luck

Top Ten {Tuesday}


I've been a lucky girl.  I just won my second blog giveaway last week, thanks to Flip Flops and Combat Boots.  So I thought today I'd share some other cool stuff I've won in the past.

10. A jar of jelly beans.  This was the first thing I ever won, and I was probably 7 or 8 years old.  You had to guess how many jelly beans were in the jar, and my guess came closest (which is hilarious, because I've always been pretty terrible at estimating).  I actually hated jelly beans, so my family benefited.  But the jar was my favorite part (it had a hinged lid and a pretty neat closing mechanism).  We used it for many years until it finally broke when I was a teenager.

9.  Hair stuff for a baby girl.  This was the first thing I won from a blog (Confessions of a Sailor's Wife).  The hair stuff came from Keelan's Krafts, and I of course gave it all away.  I visited my friend and her newborn, and the hair bow instantly transformed her into a little girly girl.  Too cute.  I gave some of the stuff to my newborn niece too, but I haven't seen any pictures yet.

8.  Candles that smell like mulled cider.  Back when I did the Extreme Makeover build, the company that was providing the lighting for the house did a Facebook giveaway.  I ended up winning another "guess the number" type of game (more of a counting/detail-based though), but they wouldn't tell me what I won until I showed up at their business.  So I hiked it up to Shades of Light in Milton, praying it wasn't just gonna be a coupon since we rent and have no need for lighting fixtures.  But I was pleasantly surprised to receive two nice autumnal candles.  Their showroom was pretty cool, too.

7.  Movies and CD's.  I can't always remember where I got things, but I do own certain movies that I have absolutely certainty I would never buy.  One was Crash, I remember that.  The others, hmm . . . I'd have to look through everything.  And I might have given some away.  My most recent win was the Family Movie Night package (contains 3 movies), which is what I won from Flip Flops and Combat Boots.

6.  Money on scratch-off lottery tickets.  My family likes to give these to each other on holidays and birthdays.  I won $7 or so from my birthday ones last year, and at Christmas I won $13.  My family doesn't mind buying the tickets, because the Georgia Lottery paid my entire tuition all four years of college.  As long as they don't spend more than $20,000 or so, we've already come out ahead.  (My dad won $500 on a scratch-off once, by the way.)

5. Something at a bridal show I wasn't present for and will never know.  I'm sure it was fantastic, and my mother can take all the blame.  Basically, she went to a bridal show in GA (where my wedding was happening because it's my home) with one of her friends and friend's daughter, also getting married.  She put my name and non-spam email address down for just about everything (argh, I'm still on some of those darn lists!).  She and her crew left before the big drawings at the end.  I had gone to one of these in VA and there were some big-time prizes at the end--trips, nights in hotels, hundred-dollar gift baskets, etc.--but you had to be present with ID to claim them.  Well, apparently a gal I went to high school with was also there.  She Facebooked me the following day, asking what I won because she'd heard my name called.  All that said, Mom should've just put her own name (and my spam email address) down and stayed until the end.  Oh well.

4.  One hour in a limo.  This I did win from a bridal show, but not the fancy one.  The limo company was in Virginia, so obviously that wasn't going to help our wedding.  I decided to use it anyway, since neither B or I had ever been in a limo before.  We used it for B's birthday, and we just told the driver to take us around Norfolk for an hour.  It was kind of odd, to tell the truth.  We had the driver drop us off in front of an ice cream place in Ghent.  Neither of us wanted ice cream though, so we just walked back to B's apartment.  That was probably our last limo ride ever, and we're quite okay with that.

3.  A bottle of Curve perfume.  This one has a story too, and probably involved the least amount of luck and the most amount of skill.  Back when the Oxygen network first aired, I was in high school.  They had some afternoon variety-ish show that had a gameshow segment, and you could play along in their chatroom online.  The questions were darn easy for anyone who had ever paid attention in school, so of course my 4.0 GPA and I won.  You could only win once a month or so.  I won at least three times, and I remember getting the Curve perfume for winning.  I had actually never owned or even worn perfume before this.  I still have it (10 years later!), and it's still my favorite.

2.  $100 off of one month's rent.  The apartment complex that my roommate and I lived at in Virginia Beach (before I was married, obviously) would occasionally do some contests.  They did one around Christmas that both of us entered.  I believe roomie won a giftcard to Wal-Mart, and I won the $100 off January rent.  I split it with her, of course.  The complex B and I live in now does occasional giveaways, so hopefully we'll win the Valentine's Dinner I put us in for!

1.  11th-row tickets to see Michael Bublé in concert.  Yes, I already had tickets to the Norfolk show and had to drive to Richmond for this, but it was so worth it!  This remains one of the best concerts I've attended (read my review if you haven't).  Thank you, Nordstrom for $400 worth of tickets.

Have you had any lucky wins?

02 September 2010

a farewell to norfolk

It's the end of an era.  The movers have come, our place is empty, all we have left is a carpet-cleaning and a move-out inspection.  Then it's goodbye Hampton Roads!  It's actually been harder to leave than I thought it would be.  After college, I moved to Jacksonville, FL, to do AmeriCorps, and since then (or possibly before) I've sorta considered myself a nomad.  But I guess it's a bit different this time since we're the ONLY ones leaving.  College was just a bunch of entrances and exits, with everyone on roughly the same timeline.  It was good to leave Athens -- it meant that you're moving on (and hopefully up) in life.  My AmeriCorps "family" also mostly left en masse at the end of our year of service.  The others just never really left (and probably never will?).

But this time, it's us.  Just us.  And lately I've been reminiscing on my reaction to those first set of verbal orders.  The ones that said we were gonna stay here.  I was NOT happy about it.  But what was hard to convey to my friends (and the reason I really didn't wanna tell anyone) was that I wasn't upset because of the PEOPLE I've met here.  Or the neighborhood we lived in.  Or the church we attended.  All of those things I will miss very dearly.  My frustration really circled back to that nomadic part of my personality.  I felt like we were being denied an opportunity.  I mean, let's face it here, our top six picks were in completely amazing, awesome, exotic, exciting locales.  San Diego, Hawaii, Italy.  If we had actually been selected to go to any of those, I'm sure my friends would've been ecstatic for me, the adventurous one.

After I let it set in a bit, I didn't know what to think.  This could be a great thing, and I could possibly see us as the kind to never leave here (which slightly frightened me as well).  Norfolk was safe, it was fun, I had friends here.  Why was I so against staying?  I can't deny I was jealous about everyone else getting their top picks, and me being stuck here angry at the detailer for being a lazy bum didn't help matters.  But after all the roller-coaster emotions a gal can handle in one week after hearing we're staying put, it changed.  Pensacola.  Our #7 (perhaps 8? either way, pretty far down the list).  I was pretty neutral about the news.  I'd lived in north Florida before, and B had done his OCS at our newly-assigned base.  My initial reaction was just a few simple questions.  Will this be a "real" adventure?  Does this mean I'm going backwards in my life?  Is there anything to DO there?  And, um, didn't some oil thingy just explode near there*?

*Okay, technically, the Deepwater Horizon Spill didn't happen until the day AFTER I got the news.  But still.

I've come to realize that these orders are coming at a great time in our lives.  It will be such a blessing to have my family only a 6-hour drive away, after these past 3 years of driving 10 hours (still cheaper than flying though).  And with my husband on shore duty, he will be around to go with me on MLK weekend and hold our first niece, due this January.  My mom can come down and see us for the weekend when she works in south GA.  And we can drive to see extended family in Tampa and Orlando.  Or we can drive the same amount of time as from Norfolk, minus winding mountains, to see his family in Indiana.  (At least I think there are winding mountain roads, as he's never actually been on land here long enough for us to take a road trip there.)  And when we start pro-creating (or "popping out puppies" as I like to call it), our families and friends all come to us just as easily.  No worries about southern hospitality, either.  I know we'll be taken care of by the fine folks we'll meet, just like we were here.

But Hampton Roads will always hold a special place in my heart.  It is where I went from girlfriend to fiancée to wife.  It is where I had more addresses in the course of three years than I'd had in my entire life.  It is where I had one of the worst roommates ever and one of the best.  It is where I became both a "career woman" and then a "domestic" one.  It is where I first felt like an outsider, and it is where I came to feel like I fit in perfectly.  It is where I first had to "try" at making friends, and it is where my friend-network built up so much that I rarely spent a Saturday night alone.  It is where I experienced a pretty awful deployment, and it is also where I experienced a pretty amazing one.  It is where I got into my first car accident, toured my first submarine, went on my first bar crawl (and subsequently dealt with my first hangover), decorated my first cake, caught my first fish, rode in my first limo, and bought my first boogie board.  I feel like I came here as a confused girl, hoping this dating thing would work out, and will be leaving as a classy young lady.  I feel like Norfolk is where I've received my "big girl panties," and for that, I am grateful.

I truly will miss all of the friends I have made here, from fellow sometimes-lonely Navy wives to passionate Catholic kids to middle-aged sopranos to cable advertising sales assistants (and everything in between).  I'm not very good at saying goodbye in person and I often don't know what to say in these situations other than a traditional Navy toast of "fair winds and following seas," but I thought I'd do this in my own style with a Lebanese Blessing by Jeannette Abi-Nader, since, you know, I'm Lebanese and whatnot.  We  included this on the back of our wedding programs, and I think it is appropriate here as well:

May love be the gardener of your years 
Bringing forth from your grounding in God 
A harvest of wholeness and peace 
A bounty of courage and compassion

May your soul tower 
with the strength of the cedars 
Your heart pound with the power of the sea

May joy rise in you like the mountains, 
And may it be a blessing you share 
With all those you love, 
Who this day make merry 
That in you The great love of God 
Has found a home on earth

That is my prayer for everyone who has come into my life these past three years.  I won't forget you, and I hope to see you again someday!


26 July 2010

two things right quick

A photo from yesterday:

 live crab at Fort Story, Virginia Beach

And a photo from today:
 
peach at Knott's Island, NC

05 July 2010

the best part of navy livin'

Sometimes I wonder how I lived the first 22 years of my life in a city that was more than a half-hour drive from this:

Chicks Beach, VA, 5 July 2010

"At the beach, life is different. Time doesn't move hour to hour but mood to moment.  We live by the currents, plan by the tides and follow the sun."  - Sandy Gingras