Maryland Bound!

Sadly I have to wait about 7 weeks before I am truly Maryland bound but it is happening.  In March I will be visiting my BFF Chelsea in Maryland for ONE WEEK! :-D  It all became official Wednesday night when I booked my flights after getting approval earlier in the day for my week of PTO from work.

I cannot wait to visit Chelsea and see what her life is like on the East Coast.  It's a shame she's there now because her birthday is today and I would love to celebrate with her.  Although I'm sure she's okay not celebrating with me as last year she didn't enjoy the day after if you catch my drift.  ;) I will be settling for a FaceTime date with her sometime today, maybe having a glass of wine together.

In other news, I forgot to mention in my post yesterday that I also created an Instagram account for Living n Learning by Amy.  Be sure to follow me, livingnlearningbyamy.

TGIF friends!  One last day at work and then it's the weekend.  I will be going to town for a chiropractor appointment Saturday morning and probably some other errands like grocery shopping.  The Packers play the 49ers Saturday night so I will definitely be watching that but other than that I have no plans for the weekend.  I have plenty to do around the house though so that's more than okay with me.

Talk to me...

Do you have any big vacations planned for 2013 already?

Any weekends plans?

 

Give me some Moore, Moore, Church!

I have been meaning to write this posts for months now and I am finally taking the time to do it.  I had hundreds of pictures to go through to find clear ones to use in this post.

Chelsea, Tammy & I

 In October I traveled to Green Bay, Wisconsin with Chelsea, Dan, and Tammy to see Kip Moore, Justin Moore, and Eric Church.  I mentioned it in my look back on my friendship with Chelsea as this trip was one week before Chelsea moved to Maryland with Dan.

Chelsea and I were lucky enough to have seen Eric Church perform before in January of 2012 so we were looking forward to seeing what the show would be like this time around.  Something I learned (thanks to needing to write a paper about my concert experience) prior to this concert was why there are no big screens showing the performers for those of us sitting in the back.  It's a pet peeve of Mr. Church's when people come to a show but watch the screen the whole time instead of the action on stage.

While I can definitely understand his point of view and he does do a lot of work with his show to keep you focused on the stage (like I wouldn't be anyways) it is a bit frustrating to not be able to really see when you're in the back (think second to last row...).  I was even more frustrated in January when you could clearly see the big screens but I had no idea why they weren't being used.

Me, Dan & Chelsea

 But moving on...I have also seen Justin Moore perform before as well but Kip Moore was going to be a first.

I purchased a Justin Moore t-shirt and can coozie and an Eric Church t-shirt before the show.  I walked back to the truck to drop off my purchases with Tammy who also bought a Justin Moore t-shirt and can coozie.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize I didn't have my camera with me until after we found our seats.  As you can see from the pictures though I decided on making the trip back to the truck to get it.  At least I got my exercise in that night!

As if forgetting the camera wasn't bad enough I didn't realize that I hadn't cleared my memory cards out from my vacation to Chicagoland Speedway in September.  I managed to delete one whole card picture. by. picture. before Kip Moore took the stage.

Kip Moore

Kip Moore sings the songs "Somethin' 'Bout   a Truck" and more recently released to radio "Beer Money".  Sadly, I have poor picture-taking skills or don't know the correct setting to use for concerts so a lot of my pictures didn't come out clear with the low lighting. :(

I purchased Kip Moore's album Up All Night prior to the concert in an effort to learn some more of his songs besides the two I had heard on the radio.  I have definitely fallen in love with more of his music since the concert as I have listened to the album more and more.

Being the first of two opening acts for Eric Church Kip (yes, we're on a first name basis ;) ) played for about 30 minutes.

Next up was Justin Moore who I was extremely excited to see as he is one of my top 5 favorite artists.  Tammy was also really excited to see Justin Moore, especially since this was her first time seeing him (actually all three) in concert.

Boots!

Between Kip and Justin music was being played over the speakers.  One of the songs we heard was Randy Houser's "Boots On".  And going out with our boots on we were!  I wore the boots I got for Chelsea's wedding while Chelsea and Tammy were wearing Uggs.

When Justin took the stage Tammy and I could barely contain ourselves.  We were just that excited!

We sang along to every song and loved all 45 minutes he was on stage.

One song in particular of Justin's that always gets to me is "If Heaven Wasn't So Far Away".  I rarely listen to it on my iPod as it always makes me a little teary eyed.  That night was no different.  As soon as I knew it was coming my emotions got the best of me.

Justin had the crowd light up their phones or lighters for Heaven

Chelsea put her arm around me and I put mine around her for that entire song and we gently swayed back and forth as I had tears rolling down my face as I remembered my dear puppers Duke.

I didn't let my emotions hold me down from enjoying the rest of the show though.

Finally the main event we had all been waiting for...Eric Church!  As I mentioned earlier Eric doesn't have big screens during his shows but keeps you interested in other ways.  Eric has big back drops that change throughout the show.  Rather than try to explain them to you I'll just let the pictures do the talking.

These were most of the backdrops that appeared throughout Eric's 95 minutes on stage.





Once Eric was done we headed home which was only a 90 minute drive for us.  It took me about an hour to come down from that high of excitement following a concert.  When I made it home I'm pretty sure I crashed straight into bed.

Now, kudos to you if you made it through this quite lengthy recap of my Blood, Sweat, and Beers tour concert experience.  Sometimes I get wrapped up in telling the story and forget that reading it takes a lot longer than listening to someone verbally tell it.

Talk to me...

Are you a country music fan?

Who are you favorites?

Frustrated with the USPS

October 29th, 6 weeks ago, I mailed a package to Chelsea in a Priority Mail box.  I was told when I picked the box up from the post office that it would only take a few days to arrive at its destination.  6 weeks is not a few days.

I mailed a picture frame with pictures of Chelsea and I inside and a card.  Unfortunately the glass was broken when Chelsea received the package yesterday.  Not the end of the world considering I thought she was never going to receive the package at all.  And other than that the contents were in good condition.

I tried to register a complaint with USPS last night but wouldn't you know it their site was slower than molasses/not working.  Thankfully I was able to register my complaint with them this morning.

Lucky for them they've already responded via email and are looking for additional information to help them research why my package took so long to arrive at its destination.  Once Chelsea is home from work she's going to provide me with the tracking number (internal since I didn't purchase any myself) and then I will be able to respond to them and hopefully get the ball rolling on figuring out what happened.

If only that package could talk...

Have you ever had problems with the USPS?

I'll See You When I See You...

It's been just about a month since my best friend moved from Wisconsin to Maryland with her husband Dan so I thought it would be a good time to reflect on our friendship.

During the Spring semester of the 2010-2011 school year I first became aware of Chelsea when I had a math class with her.  But she had her best friend Alie in the class with her so we never really talked.  I also had an accounting class with her but we sat on opposite sides of the room and never talked.  I decided to request her as a friend on Facebook, which she accepted.

It was in the Fall semester of the 2011-2012 school year that we actually started talking when we were in the same class for our business program.  We were bonding over missing a Milwaukee Brewers baseball game over Facebook before the first class and decided to sit by each other.  We've been pretty much inseparable since.

We had our first date as we like to call it at Buffalo Wild Wings after class one evening and we had a pretty serious discussion about a situation in her life at the time.  I found this kind of surprising considering we had only been hanging out during class prior to this.  But I went with it and decided maybe I wasn't crazy for feeling so comfortable with her and wanting to just tell her everything and anything.  Sometimes when you know, you just know.

Her boyfriend Dan, a Marine, came home for leave for Christmas and actually proposed on Christmas Eve.  I was one of the first calls she made to share the news.

Surprisingly, Chelsea asked (well told me was more like it ;) ) that I be one of her bridesmaids in her wedding.

We were able to finish the 2011-2012 school year with the same classes so we were together a lot for school but we also were getting together outside of school quite a bit.

I set it up with her fiance Dan before he had to leave again that we would go to see Brantley Gilbert and Eric Church in Madison on January 26th as his birthday gift to her.  He sadly had to go back to Japan and would not be able to go with her so he hired me to stand in.  

Waiting for the concert to start!

I took her out on her 22nd birthday to Chica Night (2-for-1 for the ladies) at a bar called Chicos.  The very next day we were going wedding dress shopping and let's just say that Ms. Chelsea was not feeling very well following a rough ride home with her friend Alie.  Let's just say Chelsea had her mom's car and felt the need to offer to wash it for her mom.  We also were going out on Friday nights frequently   Basically, like I said earlier we were inseparable.  If she was there more than likely so was I.

Chelsea & I @ Homestead

It also seemed as though we were best friends for a lot longer than a few short months.  We shared the same thoughts about a lot of things and one of us would say something and the other would say "I was just thinking that too!"

We were together a lot throughout the summer.  I went to multiple softball tournaments with Chelsea, some out of town weekend trips.  We made a lot of memories together.

Chelsea & Amy collage :)

Or as Jason Aldean sings, "we laid a lot of memories, like tattoos on this town!"

Then it came time to hand her off to her husband Dan.  I had a blast at her wedding at the end of September.

The bride & the bridesmaids

Not even two weeks later we were having our one last big outing together with Dan and my friend Tammy in tow to see Kip Moore, Justin Moore, and Eric Church in Green Bay.  But that story is for another time.

It was exactly a week later that Chelsea and Dan began their cross country road trip to their new home in Maryland (where Dan is now stationed).  The year flew by and it felt like we had been friends forever.  We keep in touch on a daily basis through text messaging and now that I have an iPhone Facetime.  The miles that separate us do not mean anything because we both are looking forward to many years to come of being each others best friend!

I'll end this post with the lyrics to another Jason Aldean song that I used as my status the day Chelsea left for Maryland and the part of the song I posted to her wall.

"Let's don't say goodbye I hate the way it sounds so if you don't mind let's just say for now see you when I see you another place some other time if I ever get down your way or you're up around mine we'll laugh about the old days and catch up on the new yeah I'll see you when I see you and I hope it's some day soon!"

"I'll see you when I see you Till then my prayers are with you And I hope it's some day soon..."

Questions for you
Have you ever had a best friend move a long distance from you?  How did you handle it?
Do you use music to express how you feel? Sometimes I just feel that lyrics to a song can perfectly describe how I am feeling better than any attempt at words that I could make.