Best Home Remedy - Nail Polish!

Last Friday was our firm picnic and I truly didn't expect it to be that great. I haven't been to a whole lot of company events where I wasn't bored and uncomfortable. But Friday's picnic completely surprised me! Sam Bartholomew, one of the original founding attorneys of this firm, has 180 acres in Kingston Springs with two huge ponds, one for fishing and one attached to a huge covered picnic area with a BBQ pit and a boat launch for paddleboats. Then just across from the pond, there's a good size adorable cabin that was built back in 1780!!! It was the coolest thing and when I first saw it, my response to Brooke and Kacie was "Look! They have their very own Cracker Barrel!" It had a huge screened in porch with rocking chairs, a swing, adorable guest rooms, a big old stone fireplace and in the kitchen you could see over hundred year old newspapers that were sealed into the walls that they had used to patch the holes. I loved this place. Too bad Sam wasn't one of the CEO's I had worked for, cause I would have definitely hit him up for having family reunions out there. Sam took Brooke, Kacie and her boyfriend Dan and myself out on the Gator (which is like a four-wheeler with a flat bed in the back) for a ride out on his property. And it was quite the ride. The three of us girls in the bed of that gator had to have been quite the sight. We were all tucked in and ready for our ride! So off we went and I don't think we stopped laughing for a solid 30 minutes. The picnic was fully catered with the best southern food - ribs, fried chicken, creamed corn, BBQ beans, sweet tea and blackberry cobbler...and if you can't tell, I had a blast. I did take a couple pictures of the property, but I hadn't gotten my storage card for the camera yet, so I could only take 3 pictures. I wish I could have gotten a picture of Kacie, Dan, Brooke & I out on the paddleboat - we were 1 inch from sinking this thing in the middle of the pond. And Kacie and Brooke thought they'd conquer the blow up slide, which in itself was completely hysterical to watch.

I did leave with some souvenirs however, 43 nasty chigger bites. Please don't misunderstand, these things are nothing like mosquito bites. A chigger is a small microscopic bug that bites you and then crawls inside your skin. I googled a picture to see if I could show you all a picture and ended up completely freaking myself out and decided maybe that wasn't such a good idea. When I got home, I didn't feel anything, I just saw some red spots on my legs. Then two days later these blisters popped up on my skin looking like chicken pox. What the heck??? The itching that soon followed cannot be described. No amount of cream could bring the sweet relief I was in need of. I went into work on Monday and immediately had to take off my shoes because of the pain. My attorney Larry proceeded to give me the "Bugs of the South 101" lesson and diagnosed me with chigger bites and then tells me to go buy some clear fingernail polish. Ok what? You lost me at polish. Turns out that clear fingernail polish suffocates these little boogers in my skin, killing the bug and brings relief to the itch so the bite will heal. It is the best home remedy ever!! I'm using polish on all my bites in the future! It doesn't rub off or need reapplying every hour - and it stays on better than a band aid - I love it!!! So lesson learned - if your near the woods in the South, wear bug spray EVEN if you don't see any bugs...trust me, they are there. And apparently every true Southerner has learned this little secret, cause when I've told someone I have chigger bites, the first thing everyone asks me is - you got clear fingernail polish?

The weekend was a slow one for us. We've been fighting some flu bug off and decided to take advantage of the free weekend to get some much needed sleep and rest. It's hit Jason harder than me and he literally slept most all Saturday and half of Sunday before he went into work that night. I took a picture of how peaceful he looked Saturday afternoon, isn't he adorable?

Oh and some great news - I got a raise!! Yeah!!!