There's no stopping curiosity

Day 6-A picture of a person you'd love to trade places with for a day.

My choice isn't actually a person, although I could make quite a list of some people's shoes I'd like to walk in. As a kid my favorite books/tv show was Curious George and for obvious reasons. He's adorable, I mean look at him. But I always loved how George gets into trouble but doesn't actually get in trouble. He has a faithful Man in the Yellow Hat who just shakes his head when he ruins an entire museum or paints all over the walls and loves him anyway. George always went on the coolest adventures, he's always pulling sneaky pranks on people, all with the intention of brightening someone's day. Isn't that a cool life? And he's a monkey so he can climb up and hang from trees and eat bananas all day. If I had a movie, Jack Johnson would definetly write the entire soundtrack like he did for Curious George. I could get real into that kinda life!

quote of the day

Even though I'm busy with the 30 day challenge, I can't leave you without quotes of the day. You're welcome.

This is what happens at worship practice before church...
Ben: "Do either of yall help with ESL?"
Grace: "No English is my first language."
Ben: "Well, I think they messed up my keyboard settings."
Me: "It’s probably because they can’t…never mind. I’ll stop."
Ben: "Speak English."
Me: "You said it. Not me."

Me: "Bring me back Derek Jeter from New York."
Bickell: "I seriously might. You know, not cooked…"
Me: "Whoa What?"
Bickell: "I thought you said bring back some pizza!"

The Nance will make you dance

Day 5- A picture of your favorite memory.

How do the people who make up all these blog ideas come up with this stuff? Best memory? Ever? Come on. I'm 24 and I think everyone that's not me should be jealous of my life. I've got some really funny stories as a kid, I loved a lot of my high school days, and college was the best 4 years of my life. So I'll go with my best memory of college, just for narrowing down purposes. While at Winthrop I did some crazy things. And even though my Dad reads this blog, I'll share some with you. I got in trouble with campus police one time for a campus-wide prank that I pulled at 3am one morning. I've put bubbles in the Tillman fountain, went swimming in that fountain on several occasions, been on top of the Tillman tower, went mattress surfing down the Nance stairs, and gotten 2 parking tickets. But my sophomore year, I constructed the single best intramural flag football team known to Winthrop University. The win-loss record wouldn't agree with that. But the girls living on my hall in Margaret Nance came together with what athletic abilities we did or didn't have and took the Nancers to the championship game that year. What made the whole experience (besides the boys painting their chests and cheering us on) was the ministry that we made it into. Some of the girls that played with us on our hall weren't Christians, so it was a great way to reach out to them and we became a really close hall of girls that year. From intramural football I learned a TON about what it looks like to do ministry in college. Although we lost to the PE Majors in the championship, we had more fun and looked cuter than anyone out there! And Brandy broke her finger which was kinda hardcore.

Guys Night Out

Day 4- A picture of your night.

I love going home to Gaffney, as you probably know if you've ever been around me. Today I went to see the Justin Bieber movie with Amanda, watched basketball with Dad, we both fell asleep, and then went to the greek/italian joint for supper. I really love hanging out with Dad and my big bro. We talk about sports the entire time, which if you can believe, doesn't happen very often among my group of friends. I like chillin with the guys on a Saturday night. Especially when homemade lasagna is included.

Trash TV

Day 3- A picture of the cast of your favorite show.

There's not much I love more than some good trash tv. With shows like Pretty Little Liars, Glee, the Sing-Off, the Bachelor, How I met your Mother and Parks and Recreation, it's hard to pick a favorite. But I do have to go with the Office. Let's be real, it's the funniest show on TV. You can't beat Steve Carrell's hilariousness and Jim is the perfect man. In the case of my job, I find several similarities with real life and the show. Some of my favorite college memories included Office marathons and I have my very own Dundee Award. Thanks Ktb!

The love of Grace's life

Day 2-A picture of you with someone you've been close with for a while.

This one is tough because I have two handfuls of really good friends that have put up with me for many moons. One friend in particular though, is always a money back guarantee for a good time when we're together. Her name is Kerin Watts. or K-Dubb as I passionately call her.

Here are our stats:

-First Baptist preschool class

-Girl scout troop #02

-Recreation soccer

-Church youth group

-Ewing Jr. High

-Gaffney High School

-GHS soccer (6 years)

-GHS football trainer (1 month)

-GHS tennis team

-Coaches of the cutest soccer team in Rock Hill

We've been through a lot together. Lots of sports injuries, lots of VBS, lots of girl scout cookies, lots of laughters, lots of pranks, and LOTS of dance parties. She's kinda my partner in crime. What can I say? Gaffney sure knows how to grow em.

30 Day Challenge: Day 1

Katie B, Brooke, and I are participating in the 30 day blog challenge. We'll post something every day for 30 days. Day 1 is a picture of yourself with 15 facts. Ready...Go!




1. My lucky number is 12.
2. I kind of collect autographs…I didn’t really mean to start that, I just did. I have quite a few from professional athletes.
3. I can say my ABC’s backwards.
4. My dream job is to run a camp (with Brooke Currie!)
5. This picture is of me at Alcatraz. Best summer everrrr!
6. I want to adopt instead of have my own kids someday (as of right now, at least)
7. I’ll have a Master’s Degree in 2 months!
8. I drink at least one Coke a day.
9. I really want to write a book one day.
10. I think everyone looks better in plaid.
11. I haven’t read any of the Harry Potter books.
12. My favorite place to be is anywhere outside.
13. I thought the black eyed peas rocked the super bowl halftime show.
14. I dream about surfing and/or puppies literally every night.
15. I cry every time I watch Remember the Titans.

quote of the day

I helped out at our Special Olympics junior bowling tournament today.

Dallas, a 2nd grader: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Me: "Well, I'm already grown up and I have a job that I really like, so I'm going to stick with that.
Dallas: "Cool. I want to be a vet."

A lot of people can't say that their current job is where they want to be when they wake up in the morning, much less a few years down the road. My boss told me today that if I stay with my job, I can retire when I'm 50. Awesomely enough, I think I can manage that because I love every single detail about my job. That IS cool.

quote of the day

From Sunday at praise band practice...
Grace: "Did you see that video Will put on my wall with the celloists playing Smooth Criminal?
Ben: "We should play that for worship. Smooth Criminal!"
Grace: "Yes! It could be about Judas!"

At bible study...
Brandi: "I need to find a girl scout."

Love Shout

I went by Mom’s grave for the first time this weekend. I felt like I was in a movie standing there, it was really weird. But I’m glad I finally went after almost 7 months. But what I thought about most while standing there was what happened during that week. I’ll certainly never forget every detail of it but what I remember with a smile on my face is seeing Erica, Laura, and Erin at my door on that first day. When I saw them and hugged them I knew I was going to be alright. They didn’t leave my side the whole time she was in the hospital and they were the first ones to the funeral and the last to leave. They never stopped calling or texting or giving me food and coloring books and I felt bad because I knew I could never pay them back for any of it. They are literally the 3 people I look up to the most, whos opinions matter probably more than they should, and who I'm convinced have the most beautiful hearts of anyone I know. It’s the 24th Valentine’s Day that I’ll spend single and that has potential to be depressing but it sho aint. Among all my wonderfully amazing friends that are single and married and living all around the world really, I have 3 best friends who I’ll never get too old to talk about how much they mean to me. Where do you find friends like that? Other than in a good chick flick or Gaffney I just don’t know. But good luck finding em, because I think I took em all.

Thoughts on winning

I literally wish I could go to my Administration of Sport class every day. Not just because my prof is the MAN and took me to Ireland but because it's what I like to spend my time talking about. It relates to my current but more future career. We've currently been given the task of writing a philosophy of management paper that has to be atleast 7-10 pages long. But listen, when you get to grad school, 7 pages is a break and most of the papers you right actually teach you something. So that's cool. In the case of this paper, we get to write about how we would motivate people, our ethics in the workplace, how we would create organizational culture, what our leadership styles are, and talk about some examples of who we think are good leaders. Just reading that line made some of you fall asleep, but for me, I cranked out 6 pages in one saturday afternoon. When I think about a good leader, I think about Coach K at Duke. Now whether you're a Duke fan or you think the Bluedevils are the actual devil, you can't say Coach K isn't one heck of a leader. He said in a recent interview, "If I spend every waking moment just trying to beat you, eventually that becomes a shallow life. That can't be what motivates me. I want to beat you, but that's not the bottom line for me." It's hard to think about, let alone write 10 pages about what your leadership style is or should be as a manager, but I will say that my thoughts on the matter have changed as I get older. Ask me what it was like to be captain of the soccer team in high school and I'd say it was great but it sucked because we never won games. I judged every game I played on how many goals I scored and what the final score was. I never judged myself on how I improved or what I could do to make my team better. If I ever get the opportunity to be a manager of an office or get to coach more as I get older, I hope that won't be the case. I'm reading a book on Coach John Wooden (probably the best basketball coach of all time) where he addresses his motto for his team, "We play to win. But my team must understand that while I play to win, always, winning was never the way I measured my success. Nor was it the way I gauged the success of those under my supervision." Needless to say I've loved writing this paper so far and I'm learning a lot about stuff I thought I had all figured out. Basically I'm asking myself, "how do I treat the people around me?" and "what is my influence on the people around me?" And thinking about that on any level is a good thing to do often, not just on Thursday nights. If only I could write the paper instead of blog about it. hmm.

quote of the day

This would be a lot funnier if I didn't know Grace was talking about Brittany's self-defense class. and it was still funny.

Grace: "I want to stay up and hear about Brittany's rape thing."

Super Bowl 45

Here we have my completely biased opinion on who you should pull for in Super Bowl 45 this weekend. If the Panthers can't make it to the big game, only one other team is worthy of my attention this Sunday. Recently a co-woker said "I'm pulling for the Packers because I love a good underdog." And just in case you are dangerously close to picking them as your team for that very reason, well, let's not get me started on what the term "underdog" really means because we just don't have time for that. The Packers have won 12 Super Bowls in their day. The Steelers have won 6. Even the Super Bowl trophy is named the Lombardi trophy, after the best Packers coach of all time (one of the best coach's of all time in general) Vince Lombardi. The Packers played and won the very first Super Bowl in 1967 against the Kansas City Chiefs, back when it wasn't even called the Super Bowl. So you tell me who the underdog is. You're probably thinking that most of my opinions on sports are rediculous and ignorant, and they might be. I mean I do love a good underdog (hello I'm a Gamecocks fan). But just because you don't keep up with football and you like the color combination of green and yellow, doesn't make them the charity dream team that's going to shock America when they win. Green Bay winning a Super Bowl is anything but shocking. I realize I'm about to get kicked out of my church for writing this, but I hope this helps you in your decision this Sunday. Also, the Steelers mascot is named Steely McBeam. So if I haven't convinced you enough, he should. Let's go Black and Yellow!