Blog Challenge Day 17- Cars that I have owned

Blog Challenge Day 17: Talk about the cars you have owned.

-1985 Ford LTD- it belonged to my grandma, when she stopped driving, it became my car when I was about 16. I had this car for about a year before we sold it. Then I had to start sharing my dad's car with him.

 

Picture stolen from Google. My car looked similar to this, except it was gray.

-1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme- this was my dad's car, but I drove it when I first moved off to college after my parents moved to Thailand to do mission work.

 

Picture stolen from Google, but this is exactly what my car looked like.

-1996 Plymouth Neon- this was the first car that was bought solely for me. I got it when I was a junior in college.

 

Me and my buddy Jake washing my Neon.

-2001 Nissan Xterra-this was the first vehicle that I paid for completely on my own. I bought it in 2004 shortly before I moved to Dallas. This was my vehicle that was stolen last year.

 

My poor, sweet Xterra.

-2012 Mazda 3- my current car. Although I enjoyed my SUV the past 9 years, I'm loving that I spend less money on gas for this vehicle. It gets great gas mileage.

 

So thankful for covered parking at my complex. Took this after a thunderstorm in the spring, my car had no damage. :)

So, what kind of cars have you owned?

 

XOXO!

Mobile Monday Weekend Review

As I mentioned in my blog last week, I had to go car shopping this past weekend (since I didn't find anything the weekend before). After a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (okay, not really), I am happy to say that I GOT MY NEW CAR!!!**happy dance** If you live in Dallas and are looking for a new or used car, comment below with your email, I want to give you the name of the dealership I went to and the saleswoman I dealt with. She was super nice!! Thank you Christine!

My 2012 Mazda 3. Isn't it all clean and shiny? We'll see how long that lasts! :)

My friend Laura went with me and was taking pictures as I was signing the paperwork. There was A LOT of paperwork to sign!

In my new car, I haven't named her yet. My friend thinks I should call her Silver so whenever I drive off I can say "Hi-o-Silver- AWAY!" :)

After driving a truck for so many years, it will take some time to get used to being lower to the ground in a car, but I like it. And I like that it gets good gas mileage! And that I can hook up my iPod to play through the stereo. And that I have a "clicker" to unlock my doors (as you can tell, I'm very "high maintenance" when it comes to what I want in a vehicle.) ;) As long as it had power locks/windows, made a dinging sound if I left the lights on, and allowed me to hook up my iPod, I was happy. :) I was very excited to finally get it. To celebrate, I drove to Sherlock's in Arlington to meet up with some friends (okay, the night out with friends was already planned, but I did drive my new car to show off). :) As always, we had a lot of fun! 

Me and my roommie Laura ready to hit the town

As always, I love spending time with the fabulous Chance! :)

Got to see my friend Robert, who I hadn't seen in ages!!

We were trying to dance to the music. Noticed I said "trying to". :)

With my girls Khrystal and Laura!

We went to the bar where my friend Jamie is a Karaoke DJ (he's awesome!). He even dedicated a song to me, Khrystal, and Laura. :)

 
Saturday was a busy day. I had lunch with my friend Shondell at Olive Garden and then I went ice skating with some friends at a nearby mall. I can't believe I didn't get pictures of those two events, although honestly no one needs to see me trying to ice skate. I did run over a little kid who made the mistake of cutting me off and I had no way of stopping (I was doing good to not fall down myself). I felt terrible. :( 

Saturday evening we took the train downtown (well, it's technically uptown) to the AAC for the Stars game! Sadly they didn't win (boo!) but we still had fun. Glad hockey is back! I was excited to see my friends Lyn and Julie, I hadn't seen them since I got back to town a few weeks ago. 

Riding the train to the AAC. It beats having to sit in traffic and pay to park (or walk many blocks for free parking).

Free shirt night!

Hockey hotties- Lyn, Julie, Monica, and me!

The Stars have been in Dallas 20 years- hard to believe!

Lyn is seriously one of my favorite peeps. She always makes me laugh!!

I know a lot of you aren't on my Facebook page, but this status applies to you all too. Thank you so much for everything (your emails with words of encouragement mean a lot), I really appreciate y'all!

This was the scene driving in to work today. It reminded me of the Hitchcock movie, The Birds.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Monday!!

XOXO!

It's OK Thursday...

Linking up with my girls Neely and Amber. Be sure to check out other It's OK posts here. 

It's OK...

...that I keep going back and forth on what kind of car I want to buy. I'm SO indecisive. And I really hate car shopping (have I mentioned that before?) :)

...that my roommate and I made up a list of guests we would have on our talk show (if we ever had a talk show). It seems EVERYONE has a talk show these days, why not us? We would be so much more entertaining than Katie Couric (who apparently has her own talk show, who knew? Not me).

...that I've been pinning on Pinterest A LOT lately.  No really, a lot. Again, shameless plug to follow me on Pinterest here. Some of my recent pins...

This is my life.

I'm so doing this!!

True story.

Love this!

...that I've gone to bed before 9:00p twice this week.

...that I'm both excited and nervous about getting back to having my own place. 

...that I've been watching some cheesy Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew TV show from the 70's on Netflix. Evidently these two guys were the "bees knees" back then.

Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson. Their hair is scaring me.

Happy Thursday! XOXO!

Weekend Recap

Happy Monday my lovelies! I hope everyone had a great weekend! I had a busy, but fun weekend hanging out with my friends. Friday after work I got my hair cut. It has been in DIRE need of that for a while, I just didn't seem to have time.

I can't remember the last time I sat under a dryer at a beauty salon. The gal cutting my hair had another client she had to finish up on, so after cutting my hair, she sat me under this for a while.

The finished product. I didn't cut a lot off, just a few inches. My hair never looks as shiny and straight when I fix it myself. I swear they must use a magic flat iron!

I went by my old apartment to get a few items and to check my mail (since I'm still having my mail delivered there). I had a package at the front office. The envelope had no return address on it so I was curious (and I'll admit, a little nervous at first) to see what was in it. It was an autographed baseball. There was a nice card inside from my Rangers ticket rep (who is the greatest ticket rep in the world. If you are looking to get season tickets with the Rangers, even a mini plan, comment below with your email and I'll hook you up with his info). Anyways, he had heard about my incident and was writing to say he was hoping I was okay after everything that had happened (he read about it on Twitter). He said the Rangers thanked me for being a fan and for supporting the team and they looked forward to seeing me out at the Ballpark this season. Boom. What a great organization! I love my Rangers!!

My new Alexi Ogando autographed baseball.

Friday night I had a Girls Night with my home girls Laura and Khrystal. Our first stop of the evening was Applebee's. Our poor waiter was having a rough night. He got our drink orders wrong, kept forgetting to bring us water, and then had Khrystal's food order wrong. We are assuming (and hoping) it was his first night or something. Maybe he was just having a bad night.

A group picture. :)

After dinner we headed back to Laura's to watch Ryan Gosling movies (it's a tough job, but someone has to do it!) :) We watched a movie called Lars and the Real Girl. I'll be honest, I don't think I had ever heard of it. It was great. And I'm not saying that because Ryan Gosling is in it (Laura's not as big of a Ryan fan as I am, and she liked it!)

When I first read what the movie was about, I was thinking, oh no, this is gonna be bad. It's not what you think it's going to be though. This movie could have taken a raunchy turn, but it (thankfully) didn't. It was actually kind of sweet, in a weird way. I'm too lazy to type out the plot, so here is the IMDB info here. :) Here is the trailer below. I even found a review of it on a Christian movie review website and they liked it. Click here for that article.

And what would Girls Night be without pictures? :)

Our friend Brandon stopped by for a bit, but it was okay, we invited him to crash Girls Night. :) It was a very fun night hanging out with friends!

Yes, I know, I'm obsessed with the picibooth app! :)

We started to watch Murder by Numbers but we only made it halfway through before we realized we were too tired to watch a whole other movie. Ryan looks so young in that movie!! I hadn't seen it in years and I forgot how well he plays a bad guy (I finished watching it on Saturday).

Saturday morning I was too lazy to get out of bed (I was all comfy and woke up much earlier than I wanted to) so I just looked at car deals on my iPhone for about an hour (I know, that's just sad!) :)

This is me not wanting to get out of bed. See what I'm saying about my hair. The magic flat iron at the hair salon even has it looking good first thing in the morning. I need one of those!

Oh, have I mentioned that I HATE car shopping? No really. I hate it. I rank it right up there with getting a root canal and having to wait for hours at the DMV to get a new driver's license. Anyways, I found a few online that I kinda of liked, so I went to take a look at them on Saturday afternoon. I ended up not getting one yet, but I plan to try again next weekend. At least I kinda have a better idea of what I want, and the price range I'm looking at. I will say that CarMax was a pleasant place to look at. They were helpful and not pushy at all. Not once did I feel they were trying to just get me into a car to make a sale.

Laura tried to convince me to get this car. I vetoed that idea.

Saturday night Laura and I met up with her friend Lori at Sherlock's to watch the Stars game and see a band (I forgot the band's name, they mainly covered 80s music, which I liked a lot). :) 

A fun night out with friends!

Sunday I went to visit Khrystal's church (it's on my new side of town). I liked it, I'm gonna check out their singles get together tomorrow night. I was able to hang out with my friend beks! (that is the correct spelling of it by the way) yesterday afternoon, I hadn't seen her in a while. :) We watched the movie Invincible and came to the conclusion that Mark Wahlberg is better looking than his brother Donnie. I know, my friends and I have such intellectual conversations, don't we? :)

(l-r) Mark and Donnie Wahlberg

Sunday night is Revenge night. Do you watch that show? It's so good. I've mentioned before how I never know WHO you are supposed to like in the show. It's true. One week you think someone is a "good guy" but then the next week there will be a twist and you are like, "what the what, they are bad?" But I will say this (and I've tweeted it many times), Faux Amanda has to go. She annoys me. Get rid of her. And Ashley. Make them go away. Oh, after finding out that Josh Bowman has a British accent (or is is dialect? I get those two confused), I'm leaning more towards Team Daniel now. ;) Swoon.

Well, the Super Bowl is set: The 49ers and the Ravens. I honestly don't care about either team. I'm kinda leaning towards the Ravens, and that's only because their team was named after the Edgar Allan Poe poem, "The Raven", and I love him. I know, I know, I'm weird! Regardless, I'll be watching the game (I mean, hello, it's the Super Bowl!) If only Jerry Jones would fire himself, the Cowboys might once again go to the Super Bowl. Hey, let a disgruntled Cowboys fan dream. 

Hope y'all have a great day!!

XOXO!

Catching up!

I know, I know, I keep saying I will be better about updating my blog. It seems to be a "pie crust promise -easily made, easily broken." I'll send you a $100 bill if you can tell me what movie that line from. Okay, I'm lying, I won't send you $100- BUT, I'll send you a PICTURE of a $100 bill if you tell me what movie that is from. ;)

I decided to spend this post sharing some randomness that has been in my life recently. Are you ready?

1. I've lost count on how many Rangers games I've attended this season, I'll have to check my ticket stubs at home, but it's at least 12. I'm actually going tonight, and Wednesday! My Texas. My Rangers! :)



This was used a few years ago for an advertising campaign. Still one of my favorites! ;)

2. Speaking of the Rangers, I have a new baseball crush (for those of you who follow me on Twitter, yes, I realize I pretty much am crushing on the whole team- with a few exceptions). It's no secret to my regular readers (and "tweethearts" as I call them) of my on-again-off-again crush on pitcher C.J. Wilson (it's actually off right now- even though I still think he's really good looking!) He has been replaced by outfielder Craig Gentry (**insert sigh here**). Sorry C.J. ;) 



Me and Craig Gentry at Rangers Fanfest in January. I must say that he smelled really nice (just something I notice about a guy). :)

3. EXCITING NEWS! I got a promotion and raise at work!! I actually just found out about it today. Funny story how I found out- my boss sent me an IM (we have an inner-office instant messaging system here) and she said, "I need to see you in my office when you have a free moment." GULP. Usually she uses smiling faces or other "emoticons" when she sends IMs, so it concerned me a little that was all it said. I get in her office and she tells me to close the door (something we never do unless it's my yearly review time. Or we are gossiping. I mean, we don't gossip, what are you talking about?) She sighed and was like, "I've been following up on you for a while now and have been noticing some things." Then she said, "I feel we need to talk about it." Insert panic mode here- my heart might have stopped. At this point she busted out laughing. She was like, "girl, you are getting a promotion and raise, I was just trying to freak you out." Rachel's heart starts beating normally again. I love my boss, she is great. I'm going to be doing exactly what I have been doing, I just now have a fancy title and more money to go with it. **insert happy white girl dance here** I guess being too busy at work has paid off (literally!) :)

4. I've been watching the later seasons of The Waltons on INSP and I must say, I'm not really a fan of "John Boy 2.0". After season 5, Richard Thomas (the original John Boy) left the show. For two seasons the character was written out of the main storyline. In season 8 they decided to bring back the character- but he was portrayed by Robert Wightman (no offense Mr. Wightman, I just prefer Richard Thomas). Yes, I like The Waltons and Dick Van Dyke, and I also cross stitch. I'm a 80 year old trapped in a 25 year old body. Okay, I'm not really 25, but I would like to think I have the body of one! ;) 

Robert Wightman, John Boy 2.0

My friend Mel and I got to meet Richard Thomas a few years ago when he was in town for a play. SUPER NICE guy! Of all the celebrities I've met, he's probably one of the nicest!

 5. I love the interviews that my friend Katie's future husband Tim Tebow has been doing to promote his new book, "Through My Eyes". He is an awesome guy! And what an amazing story!

6. I still really want tickets to the NKOTBSB concert on June 26 at the AAC. If anyone has free ones, let me know!! ;) (Okay, so, I WANT tickets, I just don't want to pay for them). ;) Yes, I know that NKOTB are no longer as young as I remember them being, but still, the 12 year old Rachel inside of me wants to go! :) Together my friends, we can make this happen!!

If not for me, for 12 year old Rachel!!

7. I saw Fast Five over my birthday weekend. You must be asking yourself: will I ever get tired of seeing Paul Walker and Vin Diesel in a movie about cars? The answer is no, no I will not! ;)



Nope, doesn't get old at all. ;)

8. I got to hang out with one of my besties last Friday night. A lot has changed in the recent years of our friendship (not necessarily for the worse, just different), but one thing still remains the same: we both still think that Tom Welling is really, really hot.



Just...wow. ;)

9. I've been slowly working on my World Series 2010 scrapbook. I got a few pages done yesterday. I always forget how time consuming it can be. I spent like 6 hours working on it and only got 3 pages done! Oh well!! :)

One day I'll have this thing completed!

10. I mentioned before I'm going to the Rangers game tonight. Some friends and I made signs. Look for me on TV, this is one of them. 



Rules for doing the wave (if you absolutely feel that you must): You do NOT do the wave when the home team is up to bat. EVER. NO EXCEPTIONS. You do NOT do the wave during a close game (if the lead isn't more than 7 runs, don't do it).

Hope everyone is having a great day!! Peace, love and Rangers wins!!

XOXO!!