(You can download your own version of this wallpaper here.)

I’ve only been here since about 6:00am, myself, but I can already tell it’s going to be a great month.

FIRST of all, it’s fall time, which means pumpkin time. Pumpkin bread and pumpkin spice lattés for me, pumpkin BEER for my husband. We wait around for pumpkin season all year, and finally, here we are. Just around the corner.

SECOND of all, it’s my birthday month! I’ll be 25 this year. It seems crazy to me that a year has gone by already – it doesn’t seem so long at all. If you’ll recall, last year, I pretty much got a PUPPY for my birthday, so we’ve got our work cut out for us if we want to top that this year. I’m thinking pony? (Just kidding. Where on earth would I put a pony?!)

A mini-pony will do just fine.

All over my plate.

As it turns out, there is a thing called “lupus fog” that causes perfectly smart, reasonable people to have completely dodoheaded moments where they do things like, for instance, pour orange juice all over a breakfast plate. Or get lost in the middle of a city they’ve known for years. Or forget words they use every day.

As it turns out, I have lupus.

It’s interesting, because lupus is a word that’s been tossed around in my life for a few years now — alongside words like autoimmune condition, rheumatoid arthritis, connective tissue, Sjogren’s Syndrome, and a host of other scary sounds. When you have mysterious symptoms and you don’t see the same doctor regularly, you tend to get a lot of words thrown around like that.

Well, FINALLY, I have a home in a town where I can go see the same doctor as many times as I want. And my doctor found out that I had pain in my joints and a murky medical past, took a lot of my blood and ran a lot of tests and told me what I think I knew somewhere inside already – that I have lupus. That I was, actually, sitting before her, a “textbook example of lupus.”

So, here I go, moving forward as a 24 year old woman who officially has lupus — and with it, a reason to get serious, shape up, eat healthy, exercise, and keep this body as healthy as I possibly can.

I’m not sure why I wanted to write this post and get my news officially “out there,” other than because:

1.)  It’s my blog and I haven’t been writing lately and here’s something to write about. Life! It’s happening!

2.)  I’ve already taken a lot of solace in reading the blogs of other people with lupus. The internet is a nasty place sometimes, but it’s also a wonderful tool for networking and finding other people who are in your same boat. I don’t plan to make this blog a “Lupus + Me” narrative, but I probably will be talking about life with a condition like mine. Consider it a new layer to the parfait that is this blog.

Are you reading? Do you have lupus? Welcome to my boat! Let’s float together.

We had a Biltmore adventure!

Josh and I have been married for a YEAR. Can you believe it? This time has seriously flown by. Why? Why did the stressful pre-wedding jitters and anxiety seem to crawl through the countdown? Why did time speed up only now that we’re happy and relaxed and married? I’ve got beef with you, time. I’ve got mad, mad beef.

At any rate, we had a blast celebrating at the Biltmore Estate – if you’ve never been, it’s definitely worth making the trip at least once in your life.  My favorite thing is to walk around and pretend the tourists are gone and it’s 1930 and this is my magnificent library (or bedroom, or kitchen, or garden). It’s hard to imagine being a family in this house — or, even better, a little kid! Can you IMAGINE the games of hide and seek that went on? Epic.

Our tour guide told us there aren’t any Biltmore ghost stories (because of COURSE I asked), and I’m calling shenanigans. She was all “Nope. Nobody died here, THEREFORE there are no ghost stories.” And I was all “Lady, PLEASE.” And Josh was all “Please don’t embarrass me in this fancy place in front of all these people.” So I held back. But come ON. A house that old has to have some stories, amiright?

Since I’m now a notorious blogging delinquent, it shouldn’t surprise anyone reading this that our anniversary was July 25th and I’m just now blogging about it – but as luck would have it, today IS our “Date-A-Versary!”

Yes, oh yes, three years ago in Boone, NC, I called Josh in a panic because there was a team of firetrucks evacuating a dead body from a truck in the parking lot of my apartment complex.  From that disgusting, traumatic experience, true love was born.  Have you ever heard a sweeter story?

Share and Enjoy:

]]> http://corleymay.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=204 1 http://corleymay.com/blog/?p=192 http://corleymay.com/blog/?p=192#comments Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:30:50 +0000 corley http://corleymay.com/blog/?p=192 Good morning! It’s been a while, yeah? Sorry for that. Wanna catch up?

Grab yourself a cup of coffee!

We got a French press lately, and I am loving it. It’s not something I have time for on weekday mornings, but boy do I enjoy my Saturday coffee. Josh digs it, too. This morning it’s Larry’s Beans Cowboy Blend. I made it a little strong, but I’ll survive.

So life! Right? I’ve been hard at work at my new job — early mornings and close to regular hours took some getting used to, but I’m loving it so far. I am a little concerned over how out of control my coffee habit is getting…I’ve started switching to tea after noon in an effort to wean myself off of the sweet, sweet java.

I’ve decided something. Before July 17, 2010, I want to take a class in / start learning American Sign Language. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for years, and I’ve decided that this is the year to start. It’s a long shot, but do any of you have resources to recommend?

As you may have noticed, the try it diet sort of…died. It was a quiet death — definitely more a whimper than a bang. It died in Auburn, AL at a restaurant called “Cock of the Walk.” It was done in by fried catfish, fried pickles, cornbread, and the death blow came from warm, gooey blackberry cobbler. I’m not ashamed — I think I got a little too ambitious. I am still on a quest for more natural, healthy foods, and I still want to start COOKING more. But I’m not going to saddle myself with a bunch of rules. Personally, I’m most inclined toward Michael Pollan’s simple three: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

So! How have YOU been? What did I miss? Fill me in!

I was doing some image research at work today — specifically looking at “The Saturday Evening Post.” I was reminded of how much I love creamy, Rockwell-ian images like these. Do you ever get the feeling you were maybe born in the wrong decade? I do.

I think I was meant for Rockwell to paint, fair skin and rosy cheeks and thick glasses and all.

(PS. I ordered some new dorky glasses last week and I can’t WAIT to get them in and show them off. We’re talkig trés geek.)

We’ve both been falling more an more in love with Asheville, and I think we’re going to start trying to spend more of our time here. We live in a great city! And we don’t have much room now, but we’re hoping to move house-ward in October, so we’ll have room to host visitors! We can be the ones other people travel toward! It’s really exciting – I’m ready to focus on being a grown-up and making a house a home for us.

(June wallpaper courtesy of this Smashing Magazine post.)

So far, I love June. Thunderstorms, sunshine, pool parties, cookouts (and all those delicious grilling smells that follow), the MEAT I’m allowing myself to eat this month (I’m lookin’ at you, bacon). Yup. June is turning out to be just my style.

Jennifer and I got to visit the Lee Walker Heights Community Garden on June 1. Earth Fare Westgate has partnered with the Girl Scouts this quarter, and this community garden has been one of the fruits (no pun intended) of our partership. On this visit, I got a guided tour of the garden. The girl scouts also taught me the surefire way to tell you’re doing a good job in your garden (hint: it involves hands that smell like poop!).

Check out the video below:

My first day as Web Content Producer at Earth Fare is Wednesday AND I’m off this Saturday and Sunday! I’m telling you, it’s a good time to be Corley May Cole.

So it’s the 31st and I’m proud to say I made it!

I won’t say I was the most creative or that my diet was the most varied (I ate more of our Soy Delight mock chicken salad than I’d like to admit), but I kept to my promise and I didn’t eat any meat! I’m excited about the coming month – now that my “warm-up” is over, we’re getting in to the REAL lifestyle changes.

I took to twitter today to ask for any advice or tips on a new gluten-free eater. Some of the input was encouraging and helpful:

And some, not so much:

Thanks, mom!

Gross, husband!

Do you have anything to add? I’m working on a list of common and more surprising foods containing gluten. As a bread addict and chronic carb-muncher, I’m a little worried about going through withdrawal. For those of you who have made the switch, how was your adjustment period? Did you notice any side effects? Do you have any advice for me? Leave it in the comments or email me here with your input.

First of all: he likes me. We’re pretty much BFF.

So! Some of you may have seen my big announcement on facebook and twitter. If you didn’t, let me recap.

I got the job! Many of you didn’t know I was even applying for the job – things happened fast, which was for the best because I don’t handle suspense and waiting very well.

I seriously couldn’t be more excited about moving to the Earth Fare home office and really (officially) starting my career. My first day on the new job will be June 9, and I’ll be thrown right in to the world of content management and web writing (and yes, blogging on behalf of a company). I’m so excited about the technical aspect of this new job and the opportunities I’ll have to learn. It’s going to be crazy, and it’ll be a lot of work, and I can’t wait.

Thanks for those of you who encouraged me to go for it like a crazy person and who believed that I could actually be the person they were looking for. Life has definitely been a roller coaster the past two weeks, but I’m pretty happy with how I’ve come out. So that’s it! My big announcement. Thanks for reading along!

As you may have surmised from my recent and sudden change in mood, things are looking up! I should be able to make an official non-mysterious announcement later today or tomorrow, but I can say this: life has a sense of humor and I LOVE IT.

I decided this week that, if I had to come up with my own motto, it would be “Make it happen.” I might even get it tattooed on my other wrist. Or maybe just an abbreviation. MIH. Make it happen.

Do you climb up on your counter for daily affirmations? Do you love your aunts and your Allisons? What’s your motto?