Remember the Alamo: Part 2 - Tour of the Town

Alamo was a tiny town. Bit of an understatement. This is the epitome of the one stoplight town. 

You see, railroad tracks used to be important here for some reason. Can't think why, but they obviously aren't now.

Can you see the black truck on the left that says "State Prisoners" on it. Yup, they let well behaved ones out to do some roadside beautification. Side note, this is right by the "Wheeler County Walking Track & Playground". Nothing fishy going on there at all. 

This is the main drag. Notice the absence of cars, stop lights, stop signs, etc. 

This is across the railroad tracks. I can only assume that at one time, all of these shops and stores were open, but alas, we couldn't experience that. 

The Glitz & Glamour Salon. I bought some clippers to cut Will's hair while in Alamo. 

Planet South - The hottest fashions from 5 years ago brought to you by a local Goodwill

The Alamo Discount Pharmacy and Gift Shop, where I did all of my Christmas shopping

The Alamo Police Department. Please note how tiny this place is. Obviously not much to do. 

The real action is a mile down the road at the CCA prison. That's where all the eligible menfolk work. And a few womenfolk....

The Wheeler County Library. My saving grace in this town. Even if all they had was 10 year old James Patterson and Michael Crichton books, I would gladly take it over checking Facebook one more time. 

And the Wheeler County Courthouse. Beautiful building for a town so tiny. 

Third and final post from Alamo coming up showcasing some of the stranger sights of living in South GA. Stay tuned!

Remember the Alamo, Part 1

After talking with some people today, I started to re-tell some of my favorite stories from Alamo, GA, the place where we lived when we first got married. I almost forgot how funny some of the stuff we experienced was. When I went back and looked at pictures, I just knew I had to do a series on some of the more bizarre things we experienced.

First of all, keep in the mind that we moved our stuff to Alamo about 3 weeks prior to getting married. The company Will was working for at the time rented us a house about a mile away from the job site they were working on. (The job was an expansion of a fully functioning prison, in case you were wondering).

So, this was our first little home

It featured 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and some lovely brown shag carpet covered in cigarette burns from the first owner. 

Our bedroom

Cool little nook in the bedroom

The living room/dining room. 

And the thermometer that basically told us we were getting close to being in hell. This picture was taken around 10AM, and it was already 90 degrees. Did I mention that we lived in south GA (below the gnat line, which does exist, by the way), from basically May to September? Yea...

Alamo itself sits in Wheeler county, which boasted about 6,000 residents (including inmates). The town sported two restaurants, the Bulldog Cafe, open for lunch and dinner, and Sharkey's, open for breakfast and lunch. We ate a lot of sandwhichs at the house. 

However, when we wanted to go out, we needed to drive 15-20 minutes down the road to the big city of McRae. Not only did McRae have the nearest Subway and McDonald's, but they actually had an awesome Mexican restaurant with a lunch buffet. Unlimited cheese dip, yes please! Might have a small reason to do with the fact that I am doing a Biggest Loser challenge at work....

Groceries were another issue. McRae had a Harvey's, which was a really crappy grocery store, and Alamo actually had the Piglet. (No connection to Piggly Wiggly, we asked)

The Piglet featured 5 isles of sub-par, sometimes expired canned or packaged food, along with some of the stranger parts of animals that you might not find in your everyday Publix. You could get pig's feet, chicken necks, cow livers, ect. no problem. The only thing they had worthwhile was super awesome, very fresh ground beef. They probably killed the cows behind the store for all I know, it did not smell pleasant in there. For actual groceries, I drove into Dublin, about 40 minutes away to go to the nearest Kroger or Wal-Mart. I had to pack an ice chest and plan for about a week to two weeks at a time. No running to the store cause you forgot hamburger buns here!

In my next few posts, I'll take you on a little (and I mean little) tour of the town of Alamo, tell you some of our stories, and share some of the stranger pictures I've taken. Stay tuned!

Slow Down Time!

Will and I are 1 week away from our 2 year anniversary.

How did this happen?

It feels like just a few months ago I was wedding planning, and looking forward to our honeymoon more than anything in the world. Our wedding was awesome, and our honeymoon was everything we could have ever dreamed of.

Now, realizing that Will and I are no longer "newlyweds", I have to stop and reflect on how much we have been through, and how much we have learned. 

In the past two years:

• We moved all my stuff to Will's Atlanta apartment
• We got the call that moved us to south Georgia
• We got married
• We went on the best vacation ever
• We spent the first 5 months of marriage in a town you have never heard of
• We moved back to Atlanta, picking out our very 1st apartment together
• I got a job as a Recruiter
• We spent our first Christmas together
• Will got laid off
• We talked about moving back to Greenville
• We both got jobs in Greenville within about 4 hours of each other
• We had a great dinner that night
• We moved all our stuff into a storage unit/Will's parents house
• We started looking for a house and a church
• We bought a house
• We joined a church

Throughout all of this, I think we have learned to rely on each other more, to trust each other more, and to love each other more. 

It has been a wild ride, and I can't think of anyone else that I would rather spend it with than my husband. Thank you Will, for a wonderful almost-2-year-anniversary. 

Updates!

I set a few goals at the beginning of the year (you can see them here) and after looking at my progress, I decided it was time for an updated set of goals for me and the Blackmon home. Most of the things I need to do I have been putting off for a while, so maybe writing them down will give me the kick in the pants to actually get them done!

1) I need to get the stinkin' dining room furniture done! This stuff has been in the garage basically since we moved in, and I am slowly but surely making progress, but it is taking way too long. This spring has been crazy and I am hoping I can carve out some time at nights and on a weekend here soon to get this done.

2) Gardening. Hmm. I have a lot of plants that I picked up that needed to be planted. Like, this week. More to come on that. Hopefully I can keep some stuff alive. And my other plants need pruning bad. When I can't see out of my windows because of 7 foot tall azaleas, it's a problem.

3) Hallway. Currently, our hall is basically white, and is the next on my "to-paint" list. I just need to find the right color. Then comes putting together the other things I want like a small table, a runner rug, and some photos on the wall. Right now, we have a lot put together at each end of the hall, but I don't want to forget this important part of our house.

4) Our doors and shutters need some paint. They are hunter green, and I want them to be black. This will have to be a summer/fall weekend project when the door can be open all day. The last people to paint it closed the door too early and that is part of the reason it need to painted again, since it is flaking around that part of the door.

5. We need to make good use of that armoire we bought. That needs to be filled up with Will's clothing instead of the guest room closet, so we can use that to store stuff that should go there. Which leads me to my next goal...

6. The dreaded 3rd bedroom. The "let's just dump it into the 3rd bedroom" room. The "I don't feel like unpacking it now" room. And the paint/misc. storage room. 

It already looks a lot better than it did in these pictures, but there is still a lot more to go through. I want this room to have a purpose, perhaps get a desk and organize my craft and office things in here. Eventually we think we might remodel for this to be the master bedroom, since it has a gas fireplace and those great windows, but we will have to see. 

That's all for now, hopefully I can make some progress throughout the rest of the year and we can have most everything settled, finally!

The Bedding Struggle

Bedding has always been a struggle for Will and I to agree on. When we were getting married, I looked and looked for affordable bedding that would suit us both. He was very concerned about me turning our bedroom into a pink, floral, girly mess (Even though that is totally not my style, apparently Will thought that might change when we got married). We ended up with some bedding from Kohl's that was green and brown, because I was not moving into a beige apartment with beige carpet and beige walls and having bedding with no color. 

When it came time for us to look at what we wanted for our new bedroom, I was drawn to beautiful gray/blue walls with fluffy neutral bedding. Will agreed it was time for an upgrade and I went searching. 

I finally settled on this beautiful Pottery Barn bedding. 

It is so comfortable! Now, instead of stealing sheets, Will steals the entire comforter from me. After I got some accent pillows from JC Penney and put down a throw we already had, it was complete. If it were totally up to me, I would probably get some more accent pillows and a different throw, but we can take it one thing at a time. 

Now, if I can only settle on some dang curtains the bedroom will be complete!

Weekend Celebrations

This weekend was full of celebrations for us!

First up, on Good Friday my sweet sister turned 19! We met for a giant family dinner at Red Robin. I mean seriously, I felt like we took up the whole restaurant. I only snapped a few photos with my phone, so forgive the quality.

Sam and Gatlin

Me and my chubby cheekers!

Nana feeding Gatlin

Then, on Sunday, we had a wonderful Easter church service down in Falls Park. Both Will and I's families joined us and it was a beautiful service with a beautiful setting and I just hope we can continue that tradition. It is so important to remember the sacrifice that Christ made for us, not just at Easter, but every day of the year. 

After church,we made our way up the mountain to enjoy some more family time with my fam, and then back down to Greenville for dinner with Will's parents. 

Easter cornhole!

Will and Keith playing

Campbell on her tractor

I feel like this picture is perfectly Campbell. Running, crazy, happiness, all wrapped up in a tiny package hurling themselves at you!

And my sweet Gatlin, how precious in his sweater vest!

Easter picture!

And a time-honored tradition of "flippy time", now featuring Campbell and Uncle Darryl instead of me and my Granddan. Campbell runs at dad, he picks her up, throws her over his shoulder, scoots her down his back, reaches his hand through his legs, and pulls her through. 

We will see how long this lasts, although with as small as Campbell is, she might have several years of flippy time ahead of her!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well!

Beautiful Blooms

Will and I had a super busy weekend, heading down to Charleston for the Cooper River Bridge Run, and then to Beaufort to see our friends Hunter and Leah. It was a great time, and even though the weekend looked like a logistical nightmare last week, we both had a great time and I am so glad we went. 

When we got back to the house, it had just rained and the azaleas in the backyard were looking beautiful, so I had to get out the camera. 

These are the backyard azaleas last week. 

What a difference a week makes!

Can you spot the odd man out?

I love these purple blooms!

Don't think I forgot about all my pretty pink blooms!

Pink dogwood tree

Reddish/orange azaleas 

I am so in love with our backyard right now.