Did I ever tell you about...

...my 16th birthday?

Rachel's blog was about her 18th, but my 18th involved some stuff I'd rather not remember, so 16th it is!

Of course the biggest deal was getting my license, and my fabulous mother took my on my birthday so that I didn't have to wait even one day past the big 1-6 (not that she let me drive right away, but that's another story). One of my BFFs at the time went with me and I almost killed us all turning left into oncoming traffic on the way to the DMV, but hey - I passed the driver's test and got my license.

That night my friend spent the night and the next day after school, my crazy parents took a whole bunch of us 15-16 year olds to the beach to celebrate. At the time my Papa had a beach house and my parent's had their beach place as well, so Ronnie was the official chaperon for the boys at their place and Mama was the official chaperon for the girls at Papa's house. This probably sounds nuts to some of you - but for real - I was still a relatively good girl at this time and it really was just a whole bunch of friends, my brother and sister and my parents, celebrating a milestone birthday. We weren't like shacking up or anything. Actually - the guys didn't pay a whole heck of a lot of attention to us - Ronnie made them mow the grass and play Frisbee and manly stuff like that while we basked in the sun.

Anyhoo - my parents wouldn't even let me drive while I was down there, so I begged and pleaded for them to let me drive to a restaurant and go out to eat with just my friends and no parents. They finally said I could - it was literally less than a mile away (anyone that's been to Salter Path, NC can attest to the fact that everything is less than a mile away). But I didn't care - I thought I was hot stuff driving to eat shrimp with my friends.

I opened my presents out on my Papa's huge deck and even managed to laugh at my parent's wittiness in giving me the Mustang I had asked for...as in a little key chain Mustang that revved it's engine when you pushed a button. They are just so funny, let me tell you.

Honestly, it was a wonderful birthday and even though I only still speak to a whopping one person that went - I'm glad we got to go. Eat your heart out, My Super Sweet 16!

Did I ever tell you about...

...my never ending People magazine subscription?

I've always loved People magazine. I read it cover to cover and although I know there are those that think it's a junk magazine - I would definitely disagree. Not saying everything that's printed is especially important, but they do write some really good articles and generally don't print things that turn out to be false. I used to pick up the magazine whenever it caught my eye at the grocery store, but couldn't justify the $100+ price tag on a yearly subscription.

So shortly after James and I got married there was a giveaway at his job and he came home and surprised me with a year-long subscription to People! I was so excited and enjoyed getting my magazine every week. That was 4 years and one move across town ago and I'm still getting People every week. I've never paid a dime.

Now - I know you're tsk tsking me right now, but I have honestly called People more times than I can count to tell them that I'm getting the magazine for free and to ask them to bill me or to explain why the magazine keeps coming. Every single time they've told me that they are not sure what's going on and that someone will call me back and they never have. James laughs at me about this all the time - he says I'm going to go to the mailbox and in place of the magazine will be a $1,000 bill for all the years I've gotten it.

Until then - I shall call People periodically to tell them (again) that I'm getting a freebie and sincerely enjoy every celebrity-filled word.

Did I ever tell you about...

So I have a knack for picking very smart, creative girlfriends. This was most recently evidenced by my friend Rachel. She is a faithful blogger and I want to be more like that for the few folks that I know read this blog. Her newest idea is to share things that we've never really blogged about. She posted about it on her blog, got suggestions from friends about what random things to write about and posted her first one this week. I shall shamelessly steal her idea each week and write about the same thing.

This week's random blog was: Did I ever tell you about how I picked my children's names". Except in my case - there is only one child, so far.

Kendall Anne - My very favorite girl name in the whole wide world is Maycee. However, I knew that I would never be able to name a sweet baby girl Maycee after marrying James and taking the last name Mason. Maycee Mason sounds like Casey Kasom (you know - the weekly Top 40 dude) and that's just weird. James really liked the name Jasmine, but #1 - I hated it and #2 - I didn't want to be one of those families where everyone's name started with the same letter (no offense to any of those that have decided to go that route). So that left us picking a girl's name from "scratch". Which ended up being really easy because one day I thought of the name Kendall and just knew it was right. James loved it, my mom (whose opinion is probably way too important to this 30 year old woman) liked it - all was well. It's the right mix of different without being pure crazy. As for the Anne - that was easy. My grandmother's name was Ann, my mom's name is LuAnn, and my middle name is Leann. Then I added the 'e' as another tribute to my grandmother, who shared my absolute obsession with reading and who gave me the book Anne of Green Gables when I was just starting to enjoy books.

So there you have it. Post me a comment with anything you'd like me (and Rachel) to blog about!