granny is a chain smoker.

so what does a crappy hotel that looked really nice online, a celebrity siting, some inappropriate talk, shopping thrown together with a little driving miss daisy play equal?  you are so right...a girls trip!

after being roommates for forever, and forever i mean...like forever! life happened and two of us are married now, two of us are homeowners, one has a preteen, all of us have a dog...and throw in a little work and the day to day, we don't see each other like we used to---so a few months ago we made it a priority to plan a weekend getaway.

and i can already hear the text coming in complaining that i put bad pictures of them on here, but i didn't have much to work with girls. (and they are bad of me too!)  we were so busy talking that we forgot to take pictures.  

we stayed at the wynfrey hotel, which was attached to the galleria mall in birmingham.  cool, huh?  it's kinda like a cruise ship without the water.  

yeah, no. 

oprah would have been ashamed of the hotel and that they spelled her last name wrong.  i mean, it was bad.  

think mauve in the best possible way combined with granny just decorated her living room.  

and that granny is a chain smoker.  

we didn't want to stay with granny, but alas...granny was already paid for and all granny would offer us was free breakfast.  and hey, girls gotta eat.

dear granny.  the beds were really comfy, sheets were really soft and clean.  

thanks granny, i think.

shopping we had to send a few of these back home to get approval from the eleven year old before purchase.  i was sold on this cool jacket, but the reply was "ewwwww" but she liked my shirt and bessie's pants.  apparently we don't know fashion for eleven year olds.  

it was such a great, refreshing weekend.  and let me tell you something, in my life, there are many things that i am so so thankful for...but sitting high at the top of that list are these two.  we started barely knowing each other and now we know each others ends and outs.  we have been each others biggest cheerleaders in the highs and long arms extended for hugs, and open ears to listen in the lows.  and there have been lots of life lived in our friendship and plenty of both highs and lows.

and at night when i thank jesus one last night before i go to sleep for another day, at the top of that list are bessie and lori.  i am a better human because they are my friend.  

next trip...HUNTSVILLE!  that place has an H & M.  

AND a westin hotel, more importantly...

happy birthday bessie.

i met bessie when my life was falling apart at the seams.  i had just had major surgery and my personal life was more difficult than it has ever been.  i was wounded, i was sick and  so so sad.  i needed a friend.  i needed a bessie.

she was five years younger than me and had just started college, i had finished.  we worked together and she needed a roommate as did i.  i remember saying to friends, "i think she will be a great roommate, because she has her own set of friends and mine and we will leave each other alone."  but we moved in that day ten or so years ago and both of us instantly became richer because the gift we would grow to become to each other.

i often think i hope that everyone at one time or another in their life has a bessie.  because i can not imagine my life without her.  she has been there in the really impossible times and has rejoiced with me in the happy times.  she cried tears of joy for me when i told her brad had asked me to marry him and stood beside me when i married him as my dreams came true.

when i have been sad, she has shown up.  

even when there was nothing needing to be said, she has been my constant throughout the years.

today is her birthday and we just got finished celebrating bessie style.  her request that i make for dinner - pork chops, baked potatoes, mac and cheese, green beans, sister shuberts (did i mention she is smart?) with pink lemonade cake (i'll post the recipe this week, it was yummy!) for dessert.

i wanted her to have a special day.  a wonderful birthday.  a happy day.  a day where she felt loved, needed, wanted and all the things that i would desire my friends to feel every day, but i wanted her to feel an extra dose of all things lovely today.

so with a little construction paper and twine i rigged up this banner.  use what you have, right?  nothing says happy birthday like a homemade banner.
everyone needs to be made a big deal of every now and again and today it was bessie's turn.

and if i can give to her half of what she has given to me in the years i have known her, i will have learned much about friendship and what it really means to love someone.

happy birthday bessie.  i love you with all my heart and hope you feel special today.

p.s.  brad cleaned every dish from dinner AND dessert.  man, i have good people in my life.

gulp.

i regret to inform you that this happened to me last night while in my own home. it is a rather sad story so get your tissues. true story.

deep breaths.  i can do this.

last night while bessie, brad and i were three deep on the couch watching the bachelor pad (don't judge.  if you don't watch it, you want to. it's by far the best drama on television.  oh, it is too.), we were engrossed in another outburst of tears from melissa and the fact that girl can stir her yogurt faster than no other.  and all this time, i had no idea greek yogurt even needed to be stirred. that's neither here nor there and i am off the subject. as engrossed we were in this, suddenly brad goes 'uuugh' and make an odd jerking 'like i might be kinda scared kinda way' and his eyes were on the floor. so i looked to wince he was looking and i saw the rodent run across the floor.

remember this blog post?  mouse in da house.

oh.  my.  lord.  dot.  com.

and i screamed and immediately grabbed the blanket on the back of the couch and threw it over my head and screamed some more while arriving in the fetal position. brad and bessie told me to calm down. i told them...nothing, because i was screaming. bessie told me to calm down again, i told her to shove it. bessie also told me that i might be over reacting (ya think?), i told her nothing and continued to scream.

while my thirty five year old self was in the fetal position with a blanket over my face screaming, brad and bessie took action. brad, quick on his toes got the broom AND the mop, swiftly he handed bessie the mop and he kept the broom and their plan was to shoooooo the mouse out the door. i didn't have any words for i was screaming to tell them, "really, you REALLY think you two are going to shoo the mouse out of the door?" i just thought i would keep my opinions to myself since i was on the couch with a blanket over my head screaming.

they might ask me to grow up.

or even worse - to help.

this was all good and fine and the mouse successfully ran around and got closer to the door as bessie and brad scared the thing to the side of the room they wanted him with their mouse tools...broom and mop.

then....

HE RAN UNDER THE COUCH FROM WINCE I WAS SCREAMING IN THE FETAL POSITION WITH THE BLANKET OVER MY EYES.

and brad said, "ummm, jessica.  he's under the couch!"

and i screamed and you now the rest and almost peed in my pants and screamed some more. and wanted to fly out of the room and get off of the couch because the mouse and i were now cohabiting in the same exact area.  and bessie and brad were poking at it with their brooms and mops. and i was screaming some more.  bessie told me to calm down again.

i didn't calm down again.

i screamed some more.

and then the mouse ran out the door.  for real.  he ran out the door.

and bessie and brad became my heros for real.  like more than michael jordan is my hero.  go bulls.

good lord.

so we unpaused the paused bachelor pad and want back to our positions on the couch and delved back into the drama.  and then...

a mouse ran across the floor in front of the tv....

it was a loooooooong night in the dukes household last night.  

p.s.  and while we are all laughing at my expense, thank you very much.  take a moment and read this:
drewupdate.blogspot.com and then pray for drew, whitney and his parents.  thanks everyone.  and while you are at it, leave them a sweet note on their blog and tell them you are praying. comments on blogs are the best.  thanks for praying.

i chest bumped adrian grenier.

my best thoughts happen when i am over tired and i am laying in bed trying to go to sleep.  since i now sleep with a boy nightly, i listen to his breathing over and over and over again and i am happy that i am laying next to love.  but also, he is asleep!  i am not...i am laying there thinking...usually it goes like this, "oh crap, i should write about that."  and then i write it in my head and it sounds spectacular and then i wake up and forget that i wrote a story in my the night before until i am really busy and in the middle of something that i can't stop and the thought comes to me that i forgot to write the spectacular-ness, and then you get average.  and i am sorry, if i slept with my computer at night...oh the tales i could tell!

i'm talking too much.  

it's really just my way of apologizing for forgetting to tell you all about this that happened so long ago.  i might have mentioned it when i was day dreaming and wrote this blog, but i didn't really tell you.

but, here, let me.  

in november of 2008, my best friend bessie and i went on a cruise.  {be still my heart...i long to go on another soon}  we left out of miami and were gone for a week, it was heaven.  for a week.  

let me back up a little though, being a fan of the show entourage since it first aired, and naturally a bigger fan of adrian grenier (this was pre-brad, it's okay if i liked another boy, people) because well...

hello!  you are a fan too.  i mean, he is pretty.  let's all be honest.  my lord.

comercial break over.  back to my original thought.

we got to miami to see the sites a day early and stayed downtown at a really swanky hotel because that's how we roll and priceline gave it to us for way cheap...is the real reason.  as we were walking into the hotel after a long day of travel and had just been out to get dinner - i was walking up the stairs into the hotel and suddenly i ran chest to chest with adrian grenier.

i chest bumped adrian grenier.  beat that.

let me reapeat.  i chest bumped adrian grenier!!!

and because i am nice, i looked up at him and then really LOOKED at him and heard ahhhhhh in the sing song voice playing in the back ground in all the movies when something great is happening and said, "oh excuse me.  i'm sorry."  and when we locked eyes, i realized it was in fact him.  

he was with an entourage (i crack myself up) and was in a hurry, hence the running into me.  the nerve.  really.  oh but, thank you soooo much for running into me.

all i remember after that was my mouth not closing for ten minutes and then once i regained composer and straightened my shirt, shaking bessie and saying, "did you know who that was?  oh my gosh!  did you know who that was?  oh my gosh!"

she new who he was.

so, pretty much we are friends now.  be still my beating heart.

and today is the day that i remembered to tell you the story that i wrote in my head last night in bed and midnight.  

you are welcome.  i promise to do better.

(i said all that to say...tonight when you are snuggled up on the couch for your weekly dose of this guy, remember, he and i...well, we are best friends.  be jealous.  please?)