Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?

I love Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I love his large muscles, his tight t-shirts, and his penchant for delivering killer one-liners. I can even gloss over that he attended Thug U.

Source

I also have a shameless love for The Fast and The Furious movies. OMG, I love them. I haven't seen Tokyo Drift, but I'm clearly not missing much. Fast 5 came out while Mac was deployed, so he managed to see a Haji copy of it. I truly don't have a favorite scene in that movie because it's 130 minutes of complete and total awesome.

Fast and Furious 6 comes out this weekend. My parents coming to town, otherwise I would be at the first showing. I'm so excited. The preview commercials include a tank exploding out of a plane. It has the potential to surpass the two cars dragging a bank vault sequence in Fast 5.

Who else loves The Rock and The Fast and the Furious? What movies are y'all seeing this weekend?

Fingers, toes, arms, and legs crossed

As I mentioned yesterday, housing on post kind of fell through. Thanks for all of your supportive comments! Mac and I decided to pursue some of the apartment options. Back in February, we looked at two of the "luxury" complexes and managed to uncover the Blood / Crips rivalry of Augusta apartments. They hate each other and aren't afraid to tell you why. We were encouraged to reserve an apartment then to lock in better rates, but the quotes today were actually cheaper than those in February. With rent and utilities, we should be just under BAH.

 

Generally, they're pretty similar in square footage and on-site amenities (clubhouse, pool, gym). Both are gated complexes on the same main road, close to the interstates, and are a short drive from Target, Hobby Lobby, the church I've been looking at, and the mall. Fort Gordon (or where Mac will be on post) is about 20 minutes away from both.

The Estates at Perimeter



www.estatesatperimeter.com

We actually stayed overnight in Augusta driving from Lawton to Fayetteville in 2010, and this complex is on the same road as that hotel. Random. This apartment community offers units with a sunroom (instead of a patio), so it's like having a third bedroom while only paying for two. We viewed the layout below. The rent was a little higher and didn't include any utilities. But they offered $50 off rent a month.

The Parc at Flowing Wells


www.parcatflowingwells.com

This complex is just down the road from the Estates. It's a little bit larger, but the apartments are pretty similarly sized. They also offer an enclosed sunroom but only on the top floor. We viewed a two bed / two bath with a patio. The rents were slightly lower but included trash and water. Their special included a free full month's rent.

After talking to both complexes and Mac, we filled out an application for a three bedroom / two bathroom apartment at the Parc. Our afternoon consisted of meeting for lunch, receiving the application via email, paying $1.50 to print it out at Office Max, driving to AAA to have it notarized, then going to home to scan and email it. Six weeks of rent for $650 (prorated for June + free for July) is pretty hard to pass up. Hopefully, we will find out in the next few days if we get it. We're hoping to sign the lease on June 14 because Mac has to be in Augusta that day to sign in to post. Transportation can't pick up our household goods until June 18, so we're going to try and move some stuff (cleaning supplies, some pots, and some dry food) when he's signing in.

Housing conundrum

So Mac and I finally heard back from the Fort Gordon housing office. The woman at the office we had been working with didn't send our application along to be processed, so we had to jump through a few more hoops. And bad news: they have no houses available for the next month. We asked to be put on the waiting list in case something opens up (you never know).

Mac has been out-processing from Bragg, and we scheduled our movers to pick up our stuff on June 18 (packing a day or two beforehand). He has to sign in to Fort Gordon on June 14, so we're going to drive down and find a place to live then drive back to Fayetteville to pack. We are going to stop by a few realtor offices to see if they have any houses open at the moment who wouldn't mind a six-month lease. But we've basically decided to go with an apartment and are going to be contacting the complexes we looked at a few months ago.

Less than a month and counting... and no place to live.

Prayers for Oklahoma

Last night at my final Junior League of Fayetteville meeting, we heard the news of just how bad the tornadoes in Oklahoma were. Sadly, a lot of people, including children trapped in their school, lost their lives. So I'm sending up prayers of support and love for them, their families, and everyone working to help these towns at this time.

As always in a time of crisis, those of us not in the area can help. Consider donating blood or making a monetary donation to the Red Cross. The Red Cross will actually ship units of blood to areas that are devastated due to disaster if needed. If you know of any other ways to help, please leave a comment with that information for everyone to see. Thanks!

Meal planning Monday, #13

I'm working and staying overnight a good portion of this week, so Mac will be enjoying some pre-made stuff. I also have a Junior League dinner tomorrow. And my parents are visiting for the long weekend, so we'll wait until they arrive to decide dinner for Friday.

 

 

<a href="http://www.sororitylifearmywife.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i1146.photobucket.com/albums/o530/armywifemommylife/MealPlanMonday_zps8cc53c82.jpg" border="0" alt="Meal Plan Monday"/></a>

Hop rules:

1. Follow your hosts.

Alejandra at Munchkins and the Military and Lisa at Sorority Life to Army Wife.

2. Link up your weekly meal plan. Please link to original websites if you found a recipe on Pinterest.

3. Check out a few other blogs!

Monday: Rigatoni with rosa sauce
Tuesday: Baked manicotti
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: TBD

Sunday Social:

1. What is your favorite kind of surprise?
Not presents. Most of the fun to me in getting a present is guessing what it is correctly.

2. Flowers or Chocolate?
Probably flowers. Pink, yellow, and orange roses.

3. What is your favorite summertime activity?
Utilizing the glorious invention that is air conditioning? Road trips.

4. Do you have any vacations planned this Summer?
We are going to Savannah and Charleston in about two weeks! Then we're moving to Georgia!

5. Favorite Summer Holiday?
The 4th of July! Makes me proud to be an American :) I always buy lots of American cupcake liners and need an excuse to use my patriotic tableware. Hopefully, Augusta does something cool.


From Pinterest

6. Dream Vacation?
Traveling the world: Europe, African safari, Egypt, Russia, Asia, Australia, Hawaii, Alaska

25for25: May

How is it May already? What happened to April?

In honor of my 25th birthday this year (umm, what?), I've decided against traditional new year's resolutions and am hopping on the 25 for 25 bandwagon. Basically, 25 goals I want to accomplish by my 25th birthday on September 18.

1. Be a better Christian: attend church regularly, finish The Purpose Driven Life, read the Bible.
I've fallen off the church bandwagon. Going tomorrow.

2. Lose 25 pounds and keep it off.
Ughhh, not even.

3. Read 25 new books (I'll give myself until the end of the year for this one).
I think I'm on 15. Go me!

4. Move at least once (possibly twice!).
We're moving in like a month. OMGsomuchtodo. And we have nowhere to live.

5. Visit somewhere I've never been before.
Savannah and Charleston for vacation! Followed by moving. OMGsomuchtodo.

6. Start graduate school. Virginia Tech has made this attempt quite dramatic already.
Done with my first semester!

7. Organize our house and get us in better shape to move.
OMGsomuchtodo. We have some piles of stuff for Goodwill. Need to finish our household goods inventory.

8. Grow my blog to a point where it can make me some monies.
I've been contacted to do some sponsored posts! Those will be posted soon.

9. Celebrate our first wedding anniversary on June 9.
Wow, we're about three weeks out from our first wedding anniversary. Time flies when you're having fun!

10. Figure out our budget, stick to it, and pay off some of my loans.
I've been making extra payments each month. Hopefully, I'll start working more in Georgia and be able to pay more than $100 a month.

11. Complete an organized run (at least a 5K).
Yeah, no. I'm going to see what sort of runs are scheduled for Augusta in September when it's cooler.

12. Work out 3 days a week.
Been getting better with this. The past few weeks, I've been right on track. But no weight loss.

13. Cook a new recipe at least once a week.
I think so? Some days, I don't even know what day of the week it is much less if I'm cooking a new recipe for dinner.

14. Try out all of the kitchen gadgets we received as wedding gifts. A good many of them are still in their boxes in our garage. Whoops.
I busted out a milkshake blender we received and have been using it to make breakfast smoothies with fresh fruit and Activia.

15. Watch our Hokies play.
AUGUST 31.

16. Hike part of the Appalachian Trail.
Hmm, this might not happen.

17. Design a Hokie room in our next house.
Office / craft room.

18. Actually finish a blog project I start for myself.
5 / 5 with this one. Am in the process of putting together the moving series. You can still contribute if you want!

19. Learn how to properly apply eyeliner.
Dunzo.

20. Do some pins from Pinterest.
I've tried out a few recipes.

21. Host link-up parties on my blog.
Meal planning Monday. Coming soon: moving.

22. Be pen pals with my college friends.
Yeah, no.

23. Make new friends.

24. Keep the house and garage clean.
Been pretty good on this. Just need to keep the kitchen table cleared off.

25. Enjoy turning 25!