Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The frugal shall inherit the earth

Not only did I buy Ninja Turtle valentines on clearance after Valentine's Day last year, but I actually had the wherewithall to put them somewhere I could find them for this year.

Can I get a what what?

Thursday, January 29, 2009

If only...

This morning while I was still lying in bed, I overheard Jacob upstairs say,

"I had a dream last night that Caleb came back to life and I thought, 'Please don't let this dream end!'."

Amen, buddy.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

25 Random Things

How appropriate for my 200th post! (confetti)

I spent all of this energy doing this little thingy for my facebook I figured I'd put it on here, too. It's random. Enjoy....

Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. Though I do it quite a bit out of obvious necessity, I really don't like cooking. I really have to stick to the recipes, unless it's something I make a lot, the success is not guaranteed, It's devoured in like five minutes.... AAHHH!

2. I absolutely love my husband. He's one of the smartest, perceptive, most resilient, loving people I know.

3. I was a major nail biter until I got braces when I was 13. Then I couldn't seem to make it work anymore. Hmmm...

4. I absolutely cannot fall asleep if my feet are cold (which is most of the time). They're caled Bed Buddies. You can get them at Walgreen's.

5. When I eat a muffin, scone, etc, I don't take bites out of it -- I break it off into little pieces with my fingers and eat it.

6. I would audition for American idol, but I'm too old. Boo.

7. My favorite swear word is "crap"

8. I have an unreasonable fear of locking my keys in my car though I've only done it like twice in my whole life. This fear is so overwhelming that if I am leaving my keys in the ignition even if I KNOW the doors are unlocked, I will roll down the window. Even if it's raining.

9. My favorite singer is Eva Cassidy. God rest her soul....

10. If I had my way, I would stay up until like 2am every night and sleep until 10 or 11am.

11. I love my boys very much. They're so awesome. Though I would never trade any of them, I would have really loved to have had a girl. Not in the plans I guess.

12. I'm a voracious reader. I have a list of favorite authors a mile long.

13. I have five holes in my ears. First one on my eighth birthday, the second a week before HS graduation and the cartilage in my left ear when I was about 26. I wouldn't mind one more, but we'll see. Also wouldn't mind a simple tattoo. We'll see about that, too.

14. I am an extremely frugal person - almost to the point that I have to tell myself to relax and just enjoy life a bit.

15. I make my own ringtones.

16. I grew five inches in three months - the summer between 6th and 7th grades. I ended 6th grade at a normal 5'2" and started 7th at a freakish 5'7". Made junior high REAL fun!

17. I'm a little OCD about returning videos. I will check the case like a million times to make sure I have the right DVD in the case. I know. Weird.

18. If given a blank map of the United States, I could identify all of the states and name the capitals.

19. Until my early 20's, I had never set foot in a salon. My hair had always been cut and permed (yes, permed) in my kitchen by my mother.

20. I have never had my wisdom teeth removed because I was born without any (as was my sister).

21. I can't rap. At all. It's amusing, actually.

22. The house in which I grew up did not have am oven. Only a stove top and a microwave.

23. I am very crafty - scrapbooking, crochet, I used to sew (and miss it)...

24. To amuse ourselves as young teenagers, my sister and I made movies (soap operas, commercials, talk shows, murder mysteries, etc.) with any unsuspecting friends who happened to be spending the night. They are...... awesome.

25. I wore glasses from the time I was ten, contacts from the time I was 13. About two years ago I got Lasik and it has been one of the best things I've ever done. I only wish I had done it sooner!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Stuff

It's Saturday (I think - kinda have lost track). I'm sitting in a hotel lobby in Cincinnati (which I'm proud to finally be able to spell correctly) at a Sweet Adelines event - Region 4's Winter Warm-up. When I tell people that I sing in a Sweet Adelines quartet, it's hard to even start to explain what it means if you've never been around the organization. It's women's barbershop - 4-part a capella (without instrumantal accompaniment) harmony. I sing with my sister, my mom and my mom's best friend, Pat. We really have a lot of fun and the technique of the singing is quiet challenging. We compete once a year (hopefully twice this year if we can win the region in the spring and go on to International in the fall) and practice whenever we can all get in the same vicinity - Jen and I usually travel to Ohio from Nashville and Baltimore, respectively.

So it's fun. We're getting lots of practice time in and even a couple of opportunities to perform.

Time up to this weekend has been a blur. We took our youth group on a retreat the weekend prior to this one. It was pretty amazing - one of the best retreats we've ever had the privilege to do with a group I would say. God did so much in their lives and we got a chance to bond and have fun, too. For the retreat, we brought in a group of five young people from FL, plus our friend and former band-mate of my husband, Alton Hood. They all stayed at our house and we really enjoyed it.

Other than that, I've just been working - a lot. I'm up to about 31 hours of lessons every week, plus music classes at TCS on Wednesday mornings. I so love it, but I'm not going to lie - it's tiring. I think the hardest part is feeling like I'm keeping up with the house and the boys at the same time. Of course, it would probably help if I were a tad more organized, but c'est la vie.

That's all for now. Nothing earth-shattering and for that I am thankful.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Update on my silly phone kafuffle


I look back on how panicked I was about my phone (like two blogs ago) and I feel a bit silly. Thanks to Marshella's generosity with her time and automobile, some time and a little politeness and unabashed eyelash batting at a Verizon employee, I have a nifty new phone that I love. If I thought the Chocolate 2 was wonderful, the Chocolate 3 is even better! They ended up replacing it all together because of a glich in the texting software.

That is all. Back to your lives, citizens.

I got a hippopotamus for Christmas

You know, I figure if I continue to NOT blog, eventually people will stop checking -- and that just makes me sad. It's my own fault. Well, kind of. People, you would NOT believe how busy I was around Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was busy with such good stuff, though, I can hardly complain. My work load has increased immensely -- a blessing, but a crazy one. To give you some perspective, I resumed this past week with a weekly load of 48 students. I neevr imagined when I branched out to do lessons full-time that it would become what it is.

Anyway, I did all that up until the day before Christmas Eve, in addition to being involved with and/or planning three separate programs - within a week.

And youth group on Tuesday nights.

Oh, and crocheting two teachers scarves.

Oh, oh oh! And that one thing... what is it called.... oh yeah. Christmas shopping.

Christmas arrived and brought with it Mom and Dad from Ohio and Jen and Chris from Nashville -- all spending time on the road to see little old us! We had a wonderful dinner, presents and..fun! It was really a great few days.

So - new years - small party as usual. Then, somewhere in there, I turned into a total slug. And remained so until regular life resumed on Monday, January 5th.

So... here we are.

I've been thinking a lot again about blogging and how much I've missed it. All of these little random things that happen in my life cross my mind as blogs.

A good reason to be back here. To make time for it. I have to and I want to.

Plus Louise has been threatening me and Mike is bummed out! Ah, it's good to be loved.

So here we go, folks. Happy 2009. I'm ready for the best year yet. I hope you are, too.