When Todd and I got engaged and it came time for me to choose my bridesmaids, I didn’t have any trouble at all. I know that a lot of brides have a hard time narrowing it down or feel obligated to have a cousin or friend whose wedding she was in. Bridal parties can become really big really quickly. I felt so fortunate to know that the five women that I would choose were the only five that I could ever imagine being a part of my day. It wouldn’t have been the same without any one of them there and there isn’t a single person that I wish I had included.

All by one of us attended Louisiana Tech, but we all were Alpha Chi Omegas either at Louisiana Tech or UVA. I grew up with one of the girls– our moms were pregnant with us at the same time and they were best friends– and we ended up living together in college. I met one of them in graduate school and we were instantly friends.

The sad thing is that none of these girls live here in Columbia. I love visiting my friends and one of them actually lives in San Diego– the perfect vacation spot, I think! I still miss them, though. If I had it my way I’d put them all here or put us all somewhere together with our jobs, husbands, boyfriends, and pets and we’d live in a perfect world.

My California bridesmaid is also an event planner and my Dallas bridesmaid is a designer. We’ve all tossed around the idea of going into business together and finally living our dream, but geography poses a pretty large problem.

We’ll just have to settle for frequent flights and road trips to get all of those good times back. I often wonder how many girls live near their best friends and how many are dealing with long distance best friendships.

My friend, Lavender Lily, posted about the Wordle she created today and I immediately wanted to jump on the wagon.

Here’s my Wordle. You can click on it to make it bigger. Create your own Wordle and share it with me!

SEC football is on the horizon and I’m pretty much looking forward to everything about it. The food, the friends, the excuse to entertain, the competition, the black dresses and flip flops, Cocky, and most of all, hearing 2001: A Space Odyssey before kick off.

So far this week, we’ve had three 100+ degree days here in Columbia. I’m not a huge fan of the heat. I’ve already mentioned that I’m creating my online shopping carts full of Fall clothes.

Here are a few of my favorite things that are intended to keep us cool:

Is everyone surviving the summer? Hang in there… it’ll be over in November.

I’m trying to plan my fall trip to Dallas to see my parents and two best friends. The Texas State Fair falls right around our fall break at USC. This year, in addition to my regular event planner duties, I’ll be teaching a class. I teach on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which is great, but it makes it hard to take some Fridays off to have long weekends to go to Dallas. Since fall break comes at the same time as the Texas State Fair, I’m going to go out on Thursday and stay until Sunday. I’m pretty excited because my brother is always able to go to the fair with my parents and I’m just dying to see my Dad in his boots and hat that he’s so proud of. And I really miss my parents. I can’t wait until Christmas to see them, so I’m headed out there in October! Yee haw!