1 day short of 20 years of memories...

Love is a best friend.

This is probably the hardest post I've made so far in our 3-year journey together. Today, we lost a member of the family. Probably my best friend in the world. The one constant I've had in my life since I was 6. My sweet Ko-Ko was one day short of turning 20 years old when she passed away in her sleep today. Me and that cat have been through just about everything together. She suffered through countless hours of dress up when I was little. She has survived countless dog/Grandma car fan attacks. She used to pitter-pattered her little feet through the house every night before coming and jumping on my bed to sleep with me EVERY single night of my teenage years. We had matching headbands that we wore when she'd ride the 4-wheeler with me. And every July 4th, I made her a crown, blew up a balloon, openend some Tuna and we had a birthday party. She was the one thing I would go home for. She got the nick name "Nubbs" because she was our first and only indoor Nauvoo cat and Mom quickly tired of her clawing the furniture so she took her and had her declawed. Funny enough, she ended up being the one that would have to console the poor thing when she'd forget and jump off furniture and her little feet would hurt. I am attempting to be thankful for 20 wonderful years. It's really the only life I've ever known. However, tonight, I think I will take tonight to be very sad that my best buddy is gone. :x)

Visitating with Kenzie

Love is sucking it up and putting your fears aside.

I have a rule. I never drive with other people's kids in the car. It makes me a nervous wreck. Let's face it. I have good reason. I got hit SITTING at a red light. Thus far, I've been able to avoid, for the most part, having to drive Carson and Chloe around. Normally if it's absolutely necessary, I can get Sister to drive for me. However, tonight, Kenzie was dying to go with Becky and I on visitation. I've put off taking the kids all year for the simple fact of I'm a scaredy cat... but she really wanted to go, so I sucked it up and took her. AND WE HAD A BLAST! I wish I'd have done it all year. She's incredibly smart, tons of fun, and I know it meant a lot to her. Good times. :0)

Straight Talk with Buddy

Love is the truth of old friends.
Let me set this up. We are officially in week 2 of the Hungarian Flu. I decided to combat it last night by buying some Mucinex. I only and always drink water, but as I was checking out, I saw a Dr. Pepper. DOCTOR. Yep. Sounded like that might help. It said it was the cure for the common cola. Well, the jury is back. Mucinex, Dr. Pepper and attempting to run a 3-K will NOT cure the Hungarian Flu. Shocking, I know. Anyway, that led to a hilarious conversation with an old friend. While lounging by the river, I gave a call to my best pal, Buddy. Various portions of the conversation went as follows.
Buddy: "What are YOU doing?"
Me: "Laying by the river. Some creepster keeps walking by. You know the first thing that went through my head? Yeah... I can take him."
Buddy: "That sounds about right. Still got the Hungarian flu?"
Me: "Yep."
Buddy: "Have you been to a doctor? You need to get a shot."
Me: "Gosh no. I don't like needles. I did go on a lunch date with Zeb. He felt so sorry for me and said I sounded pitiful. So sweet."
Buddy: "Yeah... I would've told you you're an idiot. Go to the doctor."
Me: "And that's why I went to lunch with Zeb instead of YOU."

Hilarious. The conversation got funnier as it went on. There's nothing like your best friend to keep you humble. New boys bring you up - old friends make sure to knock you back down as only they can. He gets away with it because he knows me best. THAT is love. And that is my favorite conversation of the day. :0)

I'll Huff and Puff...

I love Rexall Chest Rub.

heeheehee. Bet you didn't see that one coming. I have proudly hosted the Hungarian flu for a solid week now. The only worse thing than humidity in the summer in AL is having a cold, in the humidity in the summer, in AL. It is IMPOSSIBLE to breathe. I have begun inhaling Rexall Chest Rub like some crazy crack addict. Gran would be so proud. Speaking of my favorite 87 year old... we had a blast this past Sunday. It was the "Big Decoration". Some things never change. We all had lunch and went to the graveyard. A few of the weirdos took pics. Jake, Mason and I got frowned at for playing football in the graveyard. And of course, Jodie had her Michael Jackson umbrella out to keep the sun off. We had Melanie's 18th b'day which made me feel really old. And now, it's back to week #2 with the flu. IT is completely my fault. Got a bit sick last Tuesday and then went Wednesday to the Braves v. Yankees game and sat in the pouring down rain for 8 innings. I did get to experience batting practice with Chipper though, so it was totally worth it. Fun times. :0)

Best Note Ever.

Love is my Grandma.

My entire Grandma is love. From start to finish. Love is her buying pizza (which she doesn't like) so that I have something to eat when I roll in at all hours of the night after she's in bed. Love is not one, but two notes telling me where to find it and what to do with it. Love is her sitting up to chat with me for a few minutes after I jump in bed with her and wake her up. Love is spending the whole day with her and having scrambled eggs and baked beans for lunch. We got tickled. She was talking about we had to take George with us because we were his only friends. I told her she was my only friend so we were a sad bunch but I was okay with it. My Gran is awesome. She's the best. And she is MINE. Only 14 other people in the world can say that (originial Grandkids anyway). There are too many great grandkids to count, but I'm pretty certain I can say I am the favorite of all of them. I know she's my favorite. :0)

Christmas in May - Bloggin About it in June :0)

Love is the fun being worth the wait.

This has a double meaning today as I have just noticed it's been nearly a month since the last update. I have no better excuse than summer at the Shoals is nuts! There's too much to catch up on, so I'll explain the other half of the AWESOMENESS of anticipation of fun times. After 5 months, we finally had the Myers family Christmas. We had a fantastic little picnic at the Ava Maria Grotto. It was a beautiful spring day. Becky made the absolutely most delicious hummus. We had lots of other food, but that was the BEST! Sooooo good. After Chuckie and Susan left, we took a trip through the Grotto. It was so cute. Becky got her most out of the money. She looked at everything there and took it all in. Uncle Fuzz was cute too. Good times. :0)

4 Diamonds and a Graduation

Love is celebrating the accomplishments of some pretty awesome people.
WE have to start with my 360 peeps. This has been a big secret for a while, but Friday, we finally got to share with the world that the 360 is now officially a 4-Diamond restaurant. We got a visit from the AAA inspectors and have been waiting patiently for our corporate office to arrange a press release so that we could share the good news with everybody. Friday was the day!! I was so proud of Bowser. On a day when we saw the ABSOLUTE worst in some people, he absolutely shined as GM. He did a great job. Chef, Josh and Kristy didn't do so bad either. Aren't they cute in their little photo? They've been working at this for a long time and it's a big excitement for us all. So proud of them!
Continuing the celebration, we had a birthday party for Lena, Happy Mother's Day to Grandma, and a big Graduation shin-dig for Melanie today. I can't believe my little cousin is old enough to graduate! She is definitely the prettiest of the Tittles, so sweet, and an awesome cousin. I'm so proud of her! It was fun. We had a big Tittle throw-down, complete with lots of cake, gossip, food, fun and of course, FAMILY. Here are a few of the pics from the day. Love to all!

Love is Wa-Hoos and Singing with George.
I thought Grandma was incredibly excited to see me Saturday. She lit up when I walked through the door. I was feeling pretty high on myself until I realized the true joy and excitement lay in the fact that I had a case of Yoo-hoos in hand. "You brought me some Wa-Hoos!" she exclaimed. She'd been rationing like we were in the Great Depression because she was getting low. (Note: Low to her was only having about 8-10 in the fridge.) SO I restocked her and once again assured her, I wouldn't let her run out. I purchased a Sam's card just for this reason.... buying Wa-Hoos in bulk. Gran wasn't up for visiting Aunt Wilma, so i once again recruited George to go with me. We had a hilariously good Saturday morning together. He was in charge of the radio and we sang LOUDLY all the way to town and back. We also stopped for pizza and took Grandma 2 hotdogs. It was fun. :0)

Bubblegum and Chocolate

Love is a nice surprise and a planned surprise... sort of.
Let's start from the bottom and work our way up. This morning, I walked into a nice little surprise. Studley (aka Joe Saling, our Area Director of Marketing) had snuck (is that even a word? maybe it should be sneeked... either way, you get the point) into our office at some point during the night last night and left me a present. He knows me so well. M&Ms and gum are really all I need to make me happy in life. He's fantastic. I'll deal with crazy photo shoots all day long for that guy.
The next pic is the one I tried to tell you about yesterday. Chef's drawing of the dish is on the bottom. Josh's in on the top left. I'm assuming you can figure out from here which one was mine.
Finally, the top is Jessie's birthday. She goes nuts for chocolate. SO, for her special day, I made her chocolate cupcakes, with chocolate chunks, and chocolate icing and sprinkles. She was elated. Chef and Jim joined me in the celebration.
And the biggest newstory - Coach Holladay joined me for lunch. He was in town, so we had a nice afternoon chat. Best part by far. Happy Wednesday! :0)

3 of the Best..

Love is a thankful crew, a Chef that has your back, and listening mindless chatter, loving every minute of it.

I got the sweetest card from our 360 crew today. I made them a 4-Diamond cake and they, in return, after completely devouring it, all signed a cute little thank you card for me. IT was great. It was also hand delivered by these guys - Brian and Chris. LOVE them. They are without a doubt 2 of the best. The other is my bestie, Chef. He is on a daily basis, my buffer. He keeps me sane, keeps me from knocking the general public's heads off, and keeps any and everyone from hurting me. Love that guy. I also thoroughly enjoy listening to him and Josh Quick plan menus. It truly is amazing to hear the two of them bounce ideas off each other. For starters, they are hilarious, but secondly, they are both so stinking smart at all things food, it almost sounds as though they are speaking another language. If you've never heard it, you won't get it. But trust me, it's fun. :0)

Just another Sunday and Monday...

Love is lunch with the fam and a sharp eye from JQ.

Drove down to Gran's for lunch yesterday. Best decision I've made lately. We had a good time. From the pics, it looks like they were all in deep thought. Really they weren't. They just all sit the same. My favorite is the one of Gran learning to work an iPhone. Something about that just makes me laugh. TODAY, love was Josh Quick being the only guy (or girl for that matter) to notice that I got a haircut. No wonder he's one of my favorites. :)

This, That, and the Other

Love comes in all shapes, sizes, flavors, and colors.
I know. It's been forever. Can I use the excuse that busy season is upon us? It's been WILD! I can't remember where we left off, so I'll just update you on the pics. Starting at the top we have a little love from my favorite bartender, Lovejoy. I walked in the bar the other day to grab a napkin and found everybody standing around talking about the new drink concoctions. They were all looking at it, yet no one was drinking. SO, I thought the love was that they just adore me and wanted to give me a drink. In reality, I think they wanted me to be their ginny pig. It was a strawberry something-or-other. Quite delightful. I took it back and shared with Chef. The next pic is Lovejoy or Frozen Drink guy as he's known to Sister. I've told him every pic I've ever shown her is him with a frozen drink that he's made me to try. He just won a ton of money from the Biggest Loser contest at work and instead of keeping it all for himself, he gave half the pot to our good friend that came in 2nd. Isn't he just a sweetheart? The next is a sausage biscuit from Bro. Alex. This morning I got a message that there was somebody wanting me at the Front Desk. I went up and there was brother Alex... delivering breakfast. He's over the Children's Ministry at church. How cool is it that he came to my work simply to bring me breakfast?! Amazing. Love. Next is the fabulous Josh Quick. We've been photo-shooting all day and Josh came up to the Tower to cook the food for the pics. Since it was lunchtime and he was already making Fried Green Tomatoes, he put on a couple of extras and made me the most delicious FRIED GREEN TOMATO GRILLED CHEESE! My friends, as I say every time, it should be considered one of the 7 wonders of the world. Delish!! I told him if I didn't already love him, I would, soley based upon his ability to make this dish. Finally, this was my dinner last night. I saw love in this in that God didn't kill me of a heart attack shortly after eating it. :0)

Love to All!!!

Moses

Love is wanting the unwanted.
It's ridiculous how much I enjoy my Saturdays. Got up this morning and drove to Jasper to have b'fast with some of my pals from high school. We had a good fun. Tons of laughs. And somehow I walked away with a new pair of shoes. It was that kind of morning.
Then I went to visit Aunt Wilma and Uncle Huck in the Nursing Home. And guess who was on their way as I was leaving... Mary and Faye. Grandma's 2 youngest sister. Well, I had to stick around and see those two crazies. They're awesome.
Then, went to visit Gran. I found my sassy Grandmother out back with her hedgeclippers. She made a quick journey to the front porch when I told her I'd brought her a hot dog. George joined me.. and soon found ourselves at Dad's playing Mama to a baby calf. Apparently this cow decided (like a few low down humans) that it didn't want it's baby. Instead of being a mother, it wanted to kick it in the creek and drown it. How terrible is that?! So Dad-o and Sister dove in after it, pulled it out, named it Moses and brought it to the house for safe keeping. Cynthia went to town and bought it a baby bottle. George and I came over and assessed the situation, and I got closer to a cow than I've ever been in my life. It was SO CUTE! I got to feed her and she was absolutely precious. I then spent the next 2 hours trying to convince George I had no idea why an animal wouldn't want it's baby. Love is simply wanting the unwanted. It was a spectacularly weird and awesome day. :0)

No more New Years...

Love is tradition - such as New Year's Eve with Dick Clark.

Sad day. America's beloved Dick Clark died. That's a bummer. I love me some Dick Clark. He was Mr. American Bandstand. WAY cooler than American Idol. He was Simon before anyone had ever heard of Simon... only way nicer. He was also Mr. NYE. I told Chef today we'd have to cancel New Years because you can't ring in the new year without Dick Clark and his Rockin New Year's Eve party in Times Square. Gonna miss that guy. :0)

A perfect afternoon with my favorite fam...

Love is a BIG wedding throwdown...

Jules decided to get married. She didn't tell anybody, so there was no big Tittle wedding. However, once we found out, we knew there MUST be a big Tittle reception. Today, we did just that. It was a BLAST! We had tons of food, made them do all the traditional cheesy wedding poses, I brought bubbles and made them do a wedding march while the fam blew bubbles and I made a pretty fantastic bouquet if I do say so myself, that I promptly used my basketball blocking out skills to ensure that I was in correct position to catch it. Yep. Pretty awesome day with the fam if I do say so myself. Love those crazy people. :0)

I Got Friends in HIGH Places...

Love is a special lunch with 2 guys.

So I got a call from Chef this afternoon and eh wanted to know what I was doing. "Pricing out the stuff you just sent me. What are you doing?" was my reply. He'd been gone from the office for a while. I assumed he was in 360 (the Tower) helping with a special lunch we'd done for Huntsville Hospital and possibly enjoying a little of the leftovers himself. "Well, take a break and come up here for a minute." OK. Random. Odd. I knew it had to be food related. I figured he'd snatched me some dessert. Oh but it was better than that, my friends. Ran up to the line to find a strawberry pound cake with lemon zest ice cream, whipped cream and strawberries... and chocolate sauce for good measure. Can you say 'Delicous'? And it gets better. Kyle was making me my own special lunch of potato gnocchi, mushrooms, spinach, green beans, and onions. I can't fully explain how wonderful this dish was. Soooooooooo good. I promised to never again pre-judge gnocchi. It has truly won me over. Am I spoiled? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Sister asked how I managed to swing a 4-Diamond lunch. My reply? I got friends in high places. Literally. :0)

He's Baaaack!

Love is the common grace of Braves Baseball and the Return of Chipper Jones.

The Lion King was our absolute favorite movie my Senior Year of high school. No kidding. We watched it a ridiculous amount of times. Maybe it was the awesome sing-a-long songs... I have no clue. But we all loved it. Boys and girls. All of us. WELL, if you're a true Lion King fan, you may remember one line spoken by Rafiki when he realizes Simba is alive and is coming back to take his rightful place as king of the pride and he says, "It is time". Tonight, my friends, it was time for the return of #10... Chipper Jones... the most awesome 3rd basemen to ever grace a baseball field. Chipper's back in the line-up. All is once again right with the world. The stars are back in alignment. The wars should cease. Chipper's back. Good times. :0)

Tittle Family Easter

Love is a Tittle Family Tradition.

Easter is one of our holidays. One of the big ones. One where it's never really been an option to show up or not. And why you would even want to consider not coming is beyond me. We have a blast. Today was no exception. This was an especially special year considering all that Gran has been through. We're so lucky to have her. She was doing great. She even cooked a good bit today. Banana Pudding for Meredith - stewed okra for Melanie - some peas and beans for the rest of us. We had a blast. Love those crazy people. :0)