Life and Times of the McGinnis Family

The dog days of summer!

2009-08-11T05:24:00.001-07:00

August...hot..steamy...miserable!

So here at the end of summer life is getting pretty boring. I am liking it that way though, we have had enough family drama this summer to last me a lifetime.

With the economy being down my jewelry sales have been pretty low but nothing worth doing is easy right?
Ryan lost his job at the beginning of summer and has launched SND Designs. Things seem to be picking up for him a bit so that is always good news. I do like him doing web design much better than glass work. He is happier and not so sick. It gives us a lot more time to be together too.

We have had a lot of good trips this year so far, Orlando (which I never really need to go back to), the family beach trip (will probably be the last one-hence family drama), Atlanta (to see Green Day), Marion, NC (for a wedding), and hopefully a few more before the end of the year.

We have also seen some awesome shows. In Charlotte we went to Jimmy Buffett and No Doubt and in Atl we saw Green Day.

Still working on that addition to the family, no luck yet but I must be patient. It will happen when we are ready.

So that i it for these dog days of summer, short and boring but at least it is something!

Where has the time gone????

2009-04-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

Is it really April already??????

We haven't been doing anything much different lately.

I had a show to sell my jewelry a few weeks ago...that went oh-so-horrible! It is ok though, I learned what to do and what not to do. I got lots of "I love this but i don't have any money" in the back of my mind I am thinking, then why come over to my table? Its ok it got the word out there a little bit. On a more positive note I did finally get some pieces in a Shear Crazy in Stanly. I am pretty excited about that. Even more exciting some of my pieces will be in a new store (Panache) opening May1st in downtown Gastonia. I am very stoked about this! While I was meeting with the owner we got a "sneak peek" at the new Irish pub. It looks amazing and my family will be there saturday for their opening (as long as all inspections pass this week). It will be nice to go somewhere that is not crawling with rednecks!

We also got our trip to the beach this summer finalized with my fam. The dogs get to go too (Jack and my sisters dog Hercules-the chihuahua). That should be interesting. All i know is I can't wait to get there and relax. I do plan on making necklaces while I am there and really can not wait, thats in June so it will be awhile.

I also went to Raleigh tuesday for a work conference. It was not a bad trip, though our meals were a bit of a disaster. My friend Stephani was visiting family in Raleigh so she came and hung out with us for awhile. It was nice to have a piece of my real life there!

Ryan finally got his website up snddesigns.com. Its pretty rad you should check it out!

Thats all for now, maybe I will have something more exciting to talk about next time..

And times keeps on tickin

2009-03-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

I am a slow poke, or lazy whatever you want to call it.

We have been extremely busy, but here is a rundown of the last few months.

I started a side business called Amber's Accents. I make and sell Jewelry. You can check it out at ambersaccents.com.

Ryan is now designing websites. So basically when we get home from our day jobs we start on our second jobs. Our poor dog never gets to hang with us. he doesn't really care though, as long as he has a soft spot to lay he is happy.

Speaking of Jack he turns 4 on Tuesday, I can not believe how old he is! I do treat him like a child don't i?

We also had quite the adventure the other week. We went to Florida for a long weekend. Orlando..ehh..not too impressed. The weather was beautiful when we got there and we had a blast at Sea World and lounging around the pool that afternoon. We also went to Margaritaville, B.B. Kings Blues Bar, and Bob Marley's little bar too. All places were awesome. Bob Marley's was my favorite. Well while we were gone it snowed in Charlotte. We were supposed to come back Monday morning but our flight got cancelled, then delayed so we didn't get to Charlotte til 10 PM that night.

We we were home and happy to see snow and be away from the rude Floridians. While we were gone Jack was at the vet being boarded and getting his annual check up in which he had worms and a bacterial infection, he also had just gotten off his antibiotics for a respiratory thing like 2 days before! Poor puppy! Anyway so before I went to pick him up on Tuesday we had a pipe crack! AHHH!!!!!!! Could anything else happen?

Anyway it has been pretty smooth sailing since the adventure of last week. Now I am focused on getting my necklaces ready for a show on the 21st and Ryan is hoping to get more clients to compensate for short time at his work.

2009-01-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

Holy Cow I am a slow poke!!!!

Not that anyone reads this anyway.

So the holiays have come and gone....now its 2009!

Christmas was great, of corse we all got awesome presents to play with. I got an extra special present from my parents house...food poisoning! It was just dandy, half of my xmas break I was sick. I guess I wanted to rest so I got my rest!

So this year we have lots of exciting things to look forward to.

At the end of Feb. we are planning to take a long weekend in Florida and going to Disney, yeah!!!! We plan on spending a day at Disney and one at Islands of Adventure. Its a short trip but we can't wait.

In June of course we will be taking our annual beach trip, this year it sounds like everyone in my family will be there. You know what that means.....

Ryan has also gone back to school for web-design and I am contemplating on starting my own small business. We will see how it goes.

We are still planning on starting a family, just nothing to talk agbout yet hopefully soon. All of my friends back home are having babies, I am feeling a little left out!

...and we just keep truckin.

2008-12-04T11:12:00.000-08:00

So I finished the Twilight series and have seen the movie twice. My sister has now become just as obsessed as me. That makes me feel a little better about it. I do recomend EVERYONE to read this series.

In other news though we are not expecting(yet) our child Jack(the dog) has been diagnosed with anxiety. The vet put him on prozac. I have always thought it was stupid to put a pet on drugs, but with how Jack has been lately he needs it. When I was looking at my doggie behavior books I looked up seperation anxiety I could not believe how bad Jack really was. He has been that way since we got him (I had no idea it was anxiety) and it recently has gotten worse when a tree in our backyard fell. Lately he has been trying to keep me home by standing in from of the door and whining when I get ready to leave not to mention the numerous other bad and obsessive behaviors. Desperate times call for desperate measures so now we have to completely change the way we treat him and have to medicate him. I am hoping with us (especially me) treating him differently we can take him off the prozac.

Twilight

2008-11-16T08:35:00.001-08:00

OK, so I know I get easily obsessed with things. Really that is more like an understatement. Well anyway many of you may have heard abut the new movie Twilight coming out and that it is based on a book. Well I decided to buy the book last weekend and read it. I am thinking to myself "I hope I didn't just waste $15 bucks". I really just wanted to see what all of the hype was about. OK so I start reading it and I am like "OK this is pretty good but I don't see whats SO great about it", then in 2 days I finish the book. I still can not pinpoint what is so great but I will say I am now obsessed with this book, and the series. Something about it draws me in. I know a lot of people love it, and maybe it also has something to with a former fascination I had with Vampires. I am going to the movie next Friday ( I wish it were out now), and though I just finished the book last night I have already bought and started the next. Its not like I can't get it out of my head, I just don't want to. It has been a long time since a book has gripped me this hard. I will say it is nice to be into a book or characters, but now I am obsessed.

2008-10-27T12:03:00.001-07:00

********Acupuncture Update**********

It is working! I have hardly had any pain recently. I will not lie, there are times where the needles do hurt a bit, but in the end it is all worth it. I also have never been more relaxed in my life! I encourage everyone to try it!

Dr. Li

2008-10-12T04:39:00.000-07:00

So in a quest to finally heal my back I have broken down and listened to what Ryan has been preaching for years, go get acupuncture.

Back Story, I have been having various back issues ever since 2001ish. I did something to my back and one morning I passed out in my kitchen b/c of the pain and couldn't get off the couch for days. I was basically out of work for a month, and it really sucked. i never figured out the exact cause, could be lifting HUGE babies, riding roller coasters over and over, bad posture or a combination of all. Well two yrs ago (maybe less) I started going to the chiropractor, I could not believe the difference ( Thanks DR. GREGORY!!!) All the sudden I felt great again and it been pretty good since. I have my bad days but usually a quick trip to Dr. G and I'm good. This time not so much. My lower back is killing me to the point I can't sleep at night. After about 4 hours I would be in pain. I would wake up stiff and miserable and in pain for most of the morning. Then the pain started staying through the afternoon. Dr. G couldn't fix it this time. Biofreeze worked for a few nights, then nothing worked.So off I went to see Dr. Li and get needles stuck in me.

So Dr. Li and his wife, they do not speak much English, but I have to say that made me more confident in what I was getting myself into. So he asks where I hurt (should be where I don't hurt for that matter), checks my pulse and glances at my tongue. He apparently has his diagnosis (stress and posture, plus anything else he isn't telling me). I lay on the table as he stuck like 20 needles in my lower, mid, upper back, knees and my head. He then sets electrodes to them ,puts me under a heat lamp and tells me to relax for 30 mi. Ok any of you who know me know I have a hard time sitting still. When that time was up (though part of the time I was counting down) I had never felt so relaxed in my life!!! I hardly could get up. He also put these herbal patches on my in various spots. Let me tell you what, those patches knock you out(in a sleepy way). Well long story short, I slept for the first time in like 2 months pain free and deeper than I can remember. Saturday I had to go back and Dr. Li did the same thing but time I also go some herbal pills and teas. The pills make me sleepy, the teas is bitter as fuck, but I have noticed the pain is still there but not so bad. I have to go back next week and probably at least 6 more times but it is worth the cost. I have never been so excited to get stuck with needles. Oh and by the way, you feel them poke you but they don't really hurt. All I can say is that I wish I would have listened to Ryan years ago. In this ONE instance he was right!

Ahh those Panthers

2008-10-05T14:47:00.000-07:00

So Ryan and I set off for an adventure today. He had scored us some Panthers tickets a few weeks best because I had requested to see them against KC (since they were near my hometown of Omaha). Our adventure started around 10 am. Ryan had been wondering why the sudden huge spike in hits to his website (stillnotdead.com) but had a suspicion that it was because the new AMPS 11 came out. Its a Charlotte local zine for those of u who don't know. Well we decided if we left early for the 1pm game we could swing down to the Common Market to check out the mag. Well we did and when I opened up AMPS 11 there wasn't just a small article it was a whole two page spread about the web-site!

So happy as clams we set out for uptown Charlotte. We arrived around 11 with a lot of time to kill so we decided to walk around. We went to this great sculpture by my favorite artist, Arnaldo Pomodoro. It is an amazing piece of art, but the best I have seen is "Sphere #5 in the Milwaukee Museum of Art. Now that is breath-taking. Especially to someone who is concerned about the direction the world is taking in the modern era.

So anyway, we then went to Hooters to kill time before the game and ate some damn good chicken strips, but no beer. I was sad.

So after walking forever and a day we arrived at Panthers Stadium

We proceeded to go inside and find our seats...which were at the very top and my legs were so tired I was convinced I wasn't leaving my seat. So the game starts and we can't do a damn thing (surprise, surprise). Then KC gets the ball and I thought we could do anything. They looked like a damn High School team. Anyway so near the end of the 1st half (and a few beers later) a needed to go to the bathroom really bad so I sucked it up and went. I decided to get beer and peanuts on my way back. I start back up...not a big deal but by the time I got to our seats I thought I was going to die. I wasn't leaving again til the game was over, even thought it pretty much was by that time. The Panthers kicked the Chief's ass so hard! Final score Panthers 34....Chiefs 0. I am so tired of walking now, and I want to go to bed

It was a great first NFL game for me. I have to say Ryan is awesome and never fails to make me have the time of my life when we are out on our adventures. So now I have been to NBA, NFL, MLB, College Football and Minor League baseball and hockey games, so now its time for NHL. Ok Ryan, when are we going?

Here are a few more pictures of our day.

Welcome to our life

2008-10-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our blog...

This is just to chronicle our life events, the things we care about, as well as our opinions about life in general.

Ryan and I met in 2005 and were married in June of 2007 on the beach in Oak Island. Currently it is just us and our dog. We hope to start a family soon and I am sure that this blog will also chronicle the ups and downs of trying to start a family.

This is our dog Jack. He is a Rat terrier. We got Jack through Ratbone Rescues. It was a long process and irritating at times but thanks to our adoption coordinator he was able to come home with us. Thanks Sherri! He hates most people, but loves a few. He is stubborn but sweet. His favorite pastimes are licking, laying under a blanket, eating treats, chasing squirrels, walks and sleep. We slowly but surely are teaching him tricks. So far he knows, sit, lay, shake, stay (sorta) and next will be roll over. He really is a great dog. I wonder how he will re-act when we have a kid?