Modeling Gig, Playing With Fire, Friendsgiving

This week was full of highs and lows, excitement and fun, giving back to the community and spending time with family and friends. Great week!

On Tuesday, I decided to take the day off of work and help friend Amanda out with her fundraiser! (This is the giving back to the community part). You may know that I worked at a non-profit before landing my fancy new job, and now Amanda is the executive director of The Hearing and Speech Foundation. She and her superstar assistant, Melissa, put together a fundraiser fashion show last week, and all the models (me included) volunteered to show off clothes from Chicos. I totally got into the part.

here we have me (starbucks in hand) and my supermodel self on the phone with my rap star boyfriend

then i called my publicist and yelled at him for getting me such a crappy gig. girlfriend doesn't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day, yo...

Kidding. It just so happened that it was a super lot of fun!

First, we got our hair done. I don't think I've had my hair in an updo since my brother got married! It was super exciting.

brent works his magic on my mop top

Then, makeup! Mary Kay reps were on hand to make us all look bee-you-tee-ful.

my new friend mary did my makeup - she's over my right shoulder.

You may know that I recently graduated from the $.99 crap at Walgreens to what I refer to as "big girl makeup." My holdout? Eyeliner. Mary poo-poo'ed my Wet N Wild eyeliner and is making me buy fancy eyeliner from her HUMPH.

One of my claims to fame in the ED role for HSF was bringing superstar (my but there are a lot of superstars among us, are there not?) volunteer Roma Renfro onto the board. Roma was modeling today too!

we smile pretty

Emily Womac was front and center too:

getting herself did up

And here I am in full hair and makeup, complete with accessories. And a rhinestone studded track suit.

i make exercise look good

And showing off my formal wear:

this is what all the ladies of fashion will be sporting this holiday season

And all the glamour girls lined up for a grand finale:

thank you, thank you... you're just too kind, thank you... (this is blog post 'highs')

Good times! Fun to play dress up and model, had a good time meeting new friends, and had a ball visiting with all my Blount County peeps. And HSF pulled in some bucks too!

It wasn't until I got home and started taking my hair down that I found this:

wha? what the? where? wait... how did this get in my hair? while i was visiting with fellow models, brent slipped this thing in my hair. it is the size of a doughnut. how in the world did i got the whole afternoon without knowing there was a doughnut in my hair? this is silly. and i don't know what to do with my hair doughnut either - should i take it back to the salon?

If someone knows what this is please tell me what I should do with it. Brent sure didn't make note to tell me to return the hair doughnut.

Moving on!

Some of you may be aware that I... I have an over-active imagination I CAN'T HELP IT. It's always been this way, especially when it comes to scary things. I really hate being scared and am an absolute baby when it comes to things like scary books, movies, and games (Ouija board? FORGET ABOUT IT.) I haven't been to a haunted house since I was in high school (refuse) and haven't watched a scary movie in about a decade.

I reiterate - I've always been this way. See? Circa 1982ish...

uh, yeah. still happens.

All of this to say - I have learned over the years to cope with this fear (see note re: don't watch scary movies or go to haunted houses). Scary stuff? Don't bother with it. Leave it alone because I know I'll pay for it in the middle of the night when I wake up and have to get out of bed to pee. But recently a new show has come on TV, and Mr. Smith loves it. It's called The Walking Dead and it's about zombies. I never had watched any zombie movies, or read zombie books, or played zombie games so I thought, what the heck, I'll give the show a whirl.

Hoo boy. Big mistake.

Episode one: after the first episode I was heartened by the fact that zombies are a) stupid (not adept at doing things like opening up doors) and b) slow (I RUN for a hobby, yo - I'm all set!). But then Mr. Smith went out for an evening (see here) and at some point during the evening the cat went crazy and starting howling at SOMETHING. So, my assumption was logically that he was howling at the zombies infiltrating my house.

Episode two: I kinda made a bit of a stink about the zombies the next day to Mr. Smith and my friends. So much so that when I got a thank you note from friend Shawn Mason she referenced it in the note:

your services may be needed, shawn

Mr. Smith really loved the show though, so I was willing to give it another try. Um... zombies learned to RUN between episodes one and two. I got even more upset when he mentioned that he was going out of town for an overnight in Atlanta. I told him that I couldn't watch the show anymore if I had nightmares while he was gone on his overnight, and so to keep me on The Walking Dead hook, he sent me flowers the day he left with a note that said:

aw.

How can you resist that. Which leads me to....

Episode three: Um... now zombies are FAST and know how to BREAK GLASS. They can officially NOT OPEN A DOOR, but can break a window and get in your house.

AND ALL OF THAT TO SAY...

Mr. Smith went out of town again and I chickened out and asked my friend Kristina if I could spend the night with her. It is official. I'm scared of all things scary. That and the creepy goose on the original Disney movie Babes in Toyland (don't... just... don't.)

Slumber party! WHEEE!!!!

We put on pjs and make junk food!

pizza!

Pizza post-oven:

yeah. it was good.

And here I am cutting it:

i seriously almost slobbered all over the pizza in this picture i was drooling so much

The next morning I got up early and went home. I was making my breakfast (homemade Egg McMuffin! So... I guess it was Egg Muffin? Anyway...) WHEN THE TOASTER CAUGHT ON FIRE. No kidding. Now, if you know me, you may know that I seriously panic during emergencies. You do NOT want me working as an EMT, yo... So I was pleasantly surprised when I found that I very calmly yanked the plug out of the wall and very sanely and quickly put out the fire. Then threw the toaster into the trash. That's the low part of the week - it was a wedding gift for me and Mr. Smith 13 years ago SNIFF. We had to say good-bye to a good and faithful appliance... Well. Good and faithful appliance until yesterday morning, that is. It was the element that caught too, so I was justified in tossing it. I had literally JUST cleaned it out before toasting my Egg Muffin.

But when Mr. Smith made it home and I told him what happened I also mentioned pulling the plug on our evening's activities because I'd already played (and won) with fire once already that day and didn't want to press our luck. He refused. So we...

invited a dozen people to the house for supper with a pot of boiling oil and a fire in the backyard!!!!

We recently came into a free firepit. From Yuengling beer.

nothing goes together like fire and beer

And we recently came into a free turkey fryer from Coors Light beer.

as tommy very accurately pointed out - boiling oil was a weapon of mass destruction in medieval times

That's not enough danger for you?

clay, this is why you weren't invited

We took the blazing toaster oven, boiling oil with the peanut allergy, and raging firepit as a quadruple threat sign that we should totally roll with the evening.

I bought a turkey and made a rub for it to marinate in.

this is a bottle of italian dressing, a half cup each of black pepper, cayenne pepper, cajun seasoning and garlic powder.

into the fridge for the evening!

I must confess... I was so nervous about Mr. Smith putting the turkey in the boiling oil (yes, it overflowed and yes, it caught fire, but it quickly burned off, we got the grass extinguished fairly quickly) so there are no photos from me of the initial dunking (excitement part of week).

But a mere half hour later:

gobble gobble!

i am sold on fried turkey

Only one flaming mishap all night long!

emily burned her boot

and got melted boot gunk all on the fire pit which really cracked me up

But good times had by friends and family alike (spending time with family and friends part of the week):

jen and greg terry with mr. smith celebrating friendsgiving

happy friendsgiving, all!!

Next up: epic Thanksgiving post from Winchester, TN in the brand-spanking new Smith household with the New Orleans contingency and Mama and Dipsey Doodle! Can't wait!!

That and Mr. Smith is upstairs with Walking Dead episode four saved on the DVR. *gulp*