Prayer Requests

Hello, all!!

Well it's definitely been a crazy week and a half for Rusty and I... but here and now is not where I'd like to start.

There are two families that are near and dear to my heart, that I'd like to ask you all to say an extra prayer for, if you don't mind.

The first is for a family whose first born son (now 5, I believe) was recently diagnosed with cancer. He has a very rare tumor, but a lot of the early tests show he's otherwise healthy and that the cancer hasn't spread. He's been through one round of chemo already, and will be starting his second soon.

The second is for a family that recently learned they both conceived and lost their first baby. Nothing brought more joy to this family than knowing a baby was on the way. All too soon, the baby was taken from them for reasons none of us can understand right now. I know that this family will one day have their turn, and that they will be truly blessed with an amazing family.

Thank you in advance!! :)

TTFN!

Just a question...

Now I'll admit straight up that I'm a Dr. Pepper girl. I don't mind Coke and Pepsi, but hands down, DP is my fave. Yesterday I went to lunch at bakery who will not be named, and got a cup for my soft drink. Remember now... I'm "limited" to 1 serving of caffeine per day, so I like putting it to good use, and what's better than a good fountain DP, right?? Well I get up there and was extremely sad to see all they offered was Mr. Pibb. UGH! It is SO not the same! But this isn't even the worst part! They still offered Diet Dr. Pepper!!!!! Who offers Mr. Pibb and diet DP, but not the delicious 23 flavors of regular DP??? I was so bummed and ended up "wasting" my caffeine on a flat coke. So sad. :(

food food food

*BIG SIGH*

I'm so hungry. These past few weeks of pregnancy have really been a test for me. I'm hungrier (more hungry? I can't remember...) than I've been in a while, and the great part is that I don't get full quite as fast most days. I've really tried to battle the hunger by making smart food decisions. Some days it's easy to do. Today, not so much.

I had my slightly larger-than-normal bowl of cereal this morning. My mid morning snack was a normal cup of yogurt and handful of almonds. I usually hold out until about noon to eat lunch, but it's 11:55 and lunch is gone. This morning I did "good" and packed a peanut butter sandwich, strawberries and a 100 calorie back of chocolate covered pretzels. That lasted me all of about 7 or 8 minutes and I'm still starving. :(

If my hunger stays this way for the next 4-5 weeks, we might have some issues. I've done so good on my weight gain and I really hate to spoil it now. Any suggestions??? (As I ask, I think about the secretly stashed half of a Nestle Crunch bar that I've avoided for about 6 days now. Today might just be the last day of it's sad little life.)

TTFN!!

My Non Birthday

To be quite honest, I couldn't have asked for much better of a birthday.

Leading up to the event, I'll be honest and admit I wasn't in the "birthday spirit." There are 2 things I do EVERY YEAR and I couldn't do either one of them this year. I ALWAYS go shopping, usually with my mom, and I ALWAYS get a nice sangria swirl margarita from On The Border, usually with friends. Seeing as how I have this medicine ball of a baby hanging off the front of my body, shopping for cute, spring clothes was out of the question. (Shopping in general is kind of off the tables during my pregnancy - I think it's dumb to spend a lot of money on clothes that I won't wear that often.) Again, seeing as how I have this medicine ball of a baby IN my body, margaritas are out of the question.

I worked hard to come up with a few alternative selections for birthday ideas, since shopping/drinks weren't options. I thought of a movie and several books I wanted, and kindly relayed those to my sweet husband.

Friday morning started off good. I was just a little mopey, but generally accepting of the day. During the hustle and bustle of getting ready, Rusty brought me a birthday gift. I opened it to find one of the books I most wanted - The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks. I'm a huge fan of his so I was really pumped about getting this book!!

After I opened it, Rusty told me this was the first present of the day, and that more would come, but that is all he would say. First of all, I didn't want much for my birthday, so I would've been just fine with this! But then to leave me in suspense like that!!! What the hey!

I got in my car to go to work, and looked over in the passenger seat, and sure enough, there was another gift. I opened it and found two movies I wanted to get on DVD for a while now - Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride II. AWWWW! I called him to say thank you so much, and to tell him I loved the gifts, to which he said there's more later... WHAT?! I was fine with the book and movies already!!

(More to come about my birthday lunch in a later post...)

When I got home from work, I brought in the bag that had my movies, and I set them and my new book aside and left the bags just sitting on the bar. A few moments later I walked back through the living room and noticed a new bag sitting with the group of bags... A little black one that quickly caught my attention - it said "Zales" on it. I just kind of looked back at Rusty with that, "Is it really?" and "You shouldn't have!" face. I went ahead and opened it. To answer the questions, yes, it really was, and yes, he really did. I got a beautiful pair of diamond earrings!!! He did SUCH a good job!! I love them, and they really are beautiful!

We went to dinner at Grimaldi's, which is a little pizza place in Watter's Creek. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good pizza. It was wonderful! Our night ended there, as preggers here gets quite tired rather early in the evening, plus I had to get up early Saturday morning to head to Tyler for the day.

On Saturday evening, I'll just admit it - I was POOPED from all of the day's activities. After getting home from Tyler, I got to relax for about an hour before it was time to head back out for birthday dinner with my parents. Seafood was on the agenda, as it sounded good all week, so we went to Dodie's in Rockwall on the lake. It was SO good! Definitely satisfied my desire. Our waitress did look at me quite crazily when I ordered, though... I ordered "The Big Dodie" - over 2 lbs of boiled crab legs and shrimp. HOLY MOLY, though! I did a pretty good job at finishing it off, I'll say. I left 2 little shrimp (I think 3 were eaten by others) and of the three sets of crab legs I got, I ate 2 of them. (I donated the other one to my dad.) I was in and out of sleep the whole way home, but by the time I came to, it looked like Rusty had driven into Colorado or something with all the snow falling like it was!!

Sunday evening, we had dinner planned with Rusty's mom and sister's family. On the way to dinner, MIL (mother-in-law) texted Rusty saying we had a reservation for 20. WHAT?!? In about 3 or 4 hours notice, 18 other people were able to make plans to join us for my birthday dinner. How awesome is that! It was such a pleasant surprise! (And thank you to everyone that could make it out! I really appreciated it!)

As you can see, I have no reason to be mopey for this year's non-birthday - it turned out to be a wonderful event! I will say this though... next year I'll just have to shop and drink twice as much to make up for what I missed this year. Sound like a plan???

TTFN!

The Holiday Season

I don't know what it is about the Holiday season, but I sometimes feel like a completely different person - almost like a child again, but with more compassion. :)

As we sit watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" I just think about why we're doing it. Because we want to? Maybe partly. Because we just have to? Absolutely. I can't imagine going a single Christmas season without seeing those staple shows/movies...

1. A Charlie Brown Christmas
2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
3. Frosty the Snowman
4. A Garfield Christmas
5. Home Alone 1
6. Home Alone 2
7. Elf
8. Christmas Vacation
9. White Christmas

I'm sure I left one or two off the list, but you get the idea. I will state, for the record, that I do NOT enjoy any of the old clay-mation shows like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It creeps me out. It's not natural.

Happy Holidays to all, and enjoy your holiday favorites!

TTFN

Ever herd of spel chek?

I will be the first to tell you I'm not the world's best when it comes to spelling, punctuation and even grammar. I do use my resources when it matters, though. That's more than I can say for some...

There is a CVS near our house (I know, it's a shocker...) and it has one of those LED advertisement signs where they promote their current specials. It has turned into a ritual that whenever I'm sitting at the light at that intersection, I always watch the ads as they come and go. (I sit at that light at least 5 times a week, so I have a fairly large sample...)

I can count at least 3 times from memory over the past 6-8 weeks that a word has been misspelled on the board. Seriously? We have several options to choose from here, so let's start using our resources. First, there is always spell check. I would find it hard to believe that there isn't a computer with some sort of word processing program that could run a spell check for you. Second, there are more than just two people that work there. Have a co-worker run through it. Third, find a dictionary. Yes, it seems old fashion, but hey - I bet you sell them...

The most recent word I found incorrectly spelled was "gratuation." I would think this one would be a no brainer because I can only imagine how many promotion and special items are all throughout the store, considering it's June and everyone is "gratuating" right now... **Sigh**

Oh well. I guess it takes all kinds to make the world go round. I'll keep you posted as I find more. :) It's like a scavenger hunt now for me.

TTFN!

Free Time?

I know many people, especially married couples, and those with children, typically have their weekends planned weeks, if not months in advance. Rusty and I are no exception to this rule.

Four of our last five weekends were cram packed with just stuff. The first three of the five were time that Rusty and I spent building our new fence. We didn't expect for it to take quite as long as it did, and I will admit we have a few little things still to finish, but we are more or less done. The fourth weekend was designated my birthday weekend, as that is when we had a little get together. Of course our entire Saturday was consumed with getting ready for the party, and then Sunday was spent cleaning up after the party. (It's amazing how much we worry about cleaning for something to get dirty.)

This past weekend, though, was our "exception." We did not have a single thing planned for the entire weekend - it was the strangest thing!!! Rusty ended up having to work Saturday morning for a few hours, so I ran some errands and cleaned up while he was gone. Once he was home, we got outside for a little while and did some yard work. At about 3p, we found ourselves just kind of looking around for something to do - we had no idea what to do with the free time!!! Rusty ended up playing his new Wii Baseball game, while I watched (aka napped) on the couch.

Because we could, we went to an early dinner at On The Border Saturday evening and sat out on the patio for about 2 hours while we had a couple of drinks and just enjoyed the beautiful weather. It was only about 7:30 when we left, and we weren't ready to head home yet, so we decided to go walk around the Shops at Legacy, just for something different. We ended up stopping in Fox Sports Grill, just to grab a quick beverage and to check the place out - it was a really neat bar with about a gillion TVs. They seriously had probably 30 TVs, most of which were showing the Duke - Texas basketball game. (insert gagging noise here.) After that we decided we to head home, as it was cooling off, and most places that weren't restaurants/bars were closing.

Rusty and I have been committed to getting a little healthier lately, so on Sunday morning, we bit the bullet and got up kind of early to head to the gym. High five team Ruslie! After that, we did a little more yard work, and then decided to clean up and head out to the Allen Outlets. We ended our day trying to get a little bit of sun in the back yard so we aren't so pastely white on our cruise in a few weeks.

I have to say, it was so relaxing with no where to be. We just went and did as we pleased (or in some cases didn't go and didn't do!!). Please understand I'm not complaining in the slightest - it was just so strange to not have plans. I'll have to remember how great this weekend was, as we do have plans the next six weekends in a row... so much for Saturday afternoon naps, and Sunday shopping strolls...

TTFN!

An Unexpected Ending

So we have a turtle... his name is TO (Turtle Owens...). He's a Stink Pot turtle. And he stinks. All. The. Time.

Rusty and I bought him a new tank recently so we could get him out of the kitchen. We also decided to get him a tank mate - one of those apocalypse fish that eat the algae. We purposely picked out the biggest one we could find, because we knew there was a chance it would be eaten. Well, everything went well at first. TO saw Spike and started snapping his mouth bigger than we've ever seen him do.

We sat around and watched for a while to make sure everything was A-OK before heading out for dinner. We didn't really know what to expect when we got home. We were really thinking everything would be alright. Well, when we walked in the door, there sat TO, next to a half of the apocalypse fish. The other half was NO WHERE to be found. :( TO ate him. :(

Sad. So sad. Anyone want a turtle???

TTFN

Has Anyone Seen My Big-Girl Panties?

Everyone has fears, and everyone comes to a point in their life where they must face their fears. My moment of glory is upon me, well, at least one of them anyway...

I'm scheduled to get my wisdom teeth out tomorrow - in 22 hours to be exact - and I'm slightly freaking out... Last night I actually "dreamt" about it all night long. (I don't know if you call that a dream??) The good news is I won't be going to a chop shop south of the border to get this done, as my dream portrayed...

I've always been such a healthy person - I've never broken anything, I've never had major surgery, etc. so I don't know what it's like to go through something like this. Of course, something of this magnitude starts with a needle.

I despise needles for a few reasons, but mostly due to bad experiences I've had at the doctor. It's no fun being a pin cushion while the doctors are looking for a vein actually strong enough to accept an IV. 7 pokes later, they finally found one, in case any of you are curious. I'm also the type whose blood pressure rises at the thought of the tiny little finger prick thing they do at the special girl doctor. I have to fan myself while taking very deep breaths, and it never fails that I break out into a sweat.

Rusty's done such a good job of trying to comfort me (key word there is trying). He's tried talking me through my fears, and he's probably told me at least 50 times that everything is going to be ok. My comeback? How does HE know? And then we start all over...

Deep down, I know everything will probably be ok. I mean, the chances of me being allergic to the anesthetic, or waking up as they yank a tooth, are both slim to none, but it's still possible!!! As the great Lloyd Christmas once said, "So you're telling me there's a chance?"

10:30 tomorrow morning will come and go before I know it, regardless of if I want it to or not. I guess I may as well embrace it, so it's time to put on my big girl panties, and just deal with it. :(

TTFN

What's worse?

OK, so I'm sure there are those of you out there like me - it NEVER fails that the millisecond you're in bed and your head hits the pillow, you instantly remember something you didn't do that you meant to, or that needs to be done. This seems like a nightly occurrence for me.

Sometimes I'm lucky enough that Rusty won't be in bed yet, so he can take care of whatever it is, or vice versa. The other night, though, we were both in bed when I suddenly remembered something (of course...). I laid there for a good 5 minutes talking about how terrible it was that I had to get up and walk not even 10 feet across the room. (I know - it's just awful, isn't it?) After sulking, I finally gave in. Rusty was even sweet enough to get up and walk with me so I didn't have to be miserable alone. :)

Then we started our discussion - what is the MOST annoying thing like this that can happen? I think that remembering something the instant you've laid down is the clear winner. I usually wake up in the mornings looking forward for night time so I can go back to sleep (am I alone in this, or are there others like me?), so you can only imagine how excited I am about finally getting back in bed to sleep some more!! Talk about rain on your parade... Neither Rusty or I could think of anything more annoying... anything valid that is.

Rusty did make the suggestion that forgetting to pull down your pants before going to the bathroom would be pretty annoying, but I instantly vetoed this with the "Are you serious?" look before having a good laugh about it. I don't think it qualifies, as I've never met anyone who actually forgot to pull down their pants before using the restroom. At least I don't think I have... I mean I know sometimes we all REALLY have to go, but really??

Thoughts??

TTFN

2009 - The Year of ???

I'd like to start out by saying that I CANNOT believe 2008 has already come and gone! It seems like only yesterday we were tearing down inappropriate wall paper after the 2007/2008 New Year's Eve party, and now we are left alone in the wake of the 2008/2009 party. So sad...

Every year, be it big or small, is filed in our brains' files according to those events that most influenced our lives. For instance, 2000 will always be the beginning of the end for Rusty and I, as that is when our Senior year began. 2001 is earmarked by finally graduating from high school, and heading off to college (after 4 years of planning throughout high school). Now I know these specific years will change as the people do, but everyone can recognize their significance in a teenager's life.

For me, one of the most significant years in my life was 2003. 2003 was a sad culmination of many things, but was also the bright beginning of many others - I turned over many leaves in my life that year, some of which were great, some not so great, some fun, some sad. I graduated from Tyler JC, and spent what I know as the best summer ever at home in Rowlett before moving off to Denton to start North Texas that fall.

Going into it all, I knew this would be the last time that I could call Rowlett "home." In its place, I got Houston. My mom would argue that Houston was never considered "home" for our little family, but I have to disagree. I learned that year that "home" really is where the heart is. I never knew I would miss my parents so much when I realized they were more than 45 minutes away.

2003 was also the summer I found myself in my friends. Its amazing the people you thought would never change and would always be there. They were the ones that changed so much I hardly knew them anymore. Those friends that I expected less from, turned out to be the ones who helped define my life and make me the person I am today. As summer faded, Lindsay, Jennifer and I got to carry our friendships and time shared forward, as we were all at North Texas. The 3 of us, though, had to say goodbye to Chrissy as she left once again for Aggie Land.

My new journey in Denton, though, was the most life-changing of all. Rusty and I met that fall, as we shared several classes together. As we got to know each other through classes, we found out so many fun things about each other, like where each of us grew up (10 minutes apart, might I add!!) and all of the mutual friends we shared. Times like these - when proof of fate exists - are always the most fun. It always leaves me in awe of how truly spectacular God's plan for each of us is.

As 2009 is upon us all, I just can't help but wonder what miraculous journeys are ahead! I wish everyone a safe, prosperous and blessed 2009!! :) Happy New Year to you all!

TTFN

What September Means

As we embark into this new month, Rusty and I realized that what is probably our favorite portion of the year is once again upon us. This month marks the beginning of many fun things - football and tailgating, just to name a few. We also celebrate quite a few occasions in the next 4 months - Rusty's birthday, Halloween, Turkey Day, what will be our 2nd anniversary, and of course, Christmas and New Years. Besides the afore mentioned, we also have so many exciting little things along the way that will make the next 4 months fly by, but everything will be so much fun!!


This Saturday is the first North Texas home game vs. Tulsa. We are always proud supporters of our Mean Green, and are hoping that this season won't be quite as depressing as last season, but never the less, good times will be had by all.

To follow Saturday with a bang, Sunday brings us our first regular season Cowboys game. I'm sure most of you can only imagine the anticipation building in our house, as Rusty gets so giddy when football season comes around. It's all I can do to keep up with him, as he gets so excited!!

While this weekend's festivities are hardly a drop in the bucket for what is to come, it signifies the beginning of a great 4 months ahead. As 2008 quickly comes to an end, we wish all of you a Happy Fall, and hope that you will enjoy what's left of this year as much as we will.

TTFN