Ummm...

Yeah, I know that I haven't posted anything in a few days. It's because I have been spending the time on the computer working on my last assignment for the ESL certificate. I turned my last one in on Monday morning and got it back this morning... I PASSED!!!! :~D I got a 19.5 out of a possible 20 points!!! :~D My final score is 90.5 out of 100 possible points! :~) Yeah, I'm excited about it! Now all I have to do is wait for them to mail me my certificate. I'm going to feel a little weird not having anything to study for when I get off work. Oh well, I'll deal with it! ;~)

This Friday all of Jamey's family is going to a reunion in GA! I'm looking forward to it! It will be fun to go somewhere and meet new people... Not to mention that they will have all sorts of yummy food there. The only thing is that it's on the same day as my Grandpa's birthday and Kannel family reunion. I haven't seen some of my cousins for years now, but we knew and were planning for this GA trip way before we knew that they were going to do something for my Grandpa's birthday. Luckily, my sister will be able to go up and help celebrate. :~)

Tomorrow is one of my co-worker's birthday so I decided to make some peanut butter squares. :~) OK, so I had been thinking about them for a while now... But hey, a birthday is as good an excuse as any to make them! :~) Not that you really NEED an excuse to make something chocolate! :~)

Well, I'd better go see if they have to be cut up yet. That and I need to get going to bed cause I have to work tomorrow from 10-4. Then I have to pack. And get some sleep for Friday's long car trip to GA!! :~D

Last day of June already??

Well, I wanted to get one more post in before July... Yeah, it had to be now! :~) I haven't been that busy the last couple of days. Just been doing my ESL stuff and working. I've decided doing this ESL training that I've learned more grammar than I ever wanted to know. I had to do an activity on passive and active sentence structure... I had to look it up, know the difference between the two and how to change them back and forth. I've been trying to avoid getting this stuff in my brain for so long! ;~) Anyway, I won't be like a grammar geek... I'll always use good grammar, but won't be like a grammar know-it-all.

Yesterday I had a day off, so I went and painted my nails this melon color... It's summery and I like it. I wish I had more bright colors, but I'll make it. This color almost makes my skin look like it has some color to it! :~) I've also been using this gradual tanning moisture lotion. I don't know if it's working or if I am imagining my skin looking like it has a little more color to it. I'll keep using it cause I think it is working... At any rate I have to get rid of the stuff some how! ;~)

Last night Jamey's sister Tabitha and her husband Casey were flying into the Memphis airport. We got to go with Jamey's parents to get them from the airport and bring them back home. The plane was scheduled to land at 11pm. It actually got there at 10:45pm... We got to stay in the airport for about half an hour and watch all the airplanes! I loved it! All the lights, the planes landing, and the noise of the jet engines. Ahhh, the sounds of home! I really miss having that noise and all the lights of an airport just blocks away! :~) Anyway, Tabitha and Casey got here safely and are still trying to adjust to the jet lag...

Today we went to the Pink Palace!! :~D I've never been to the Pink Palace before today and it was really neat! It's a museum with practically everything in it... We went with Jamey's sister Sarah and her group of kids that she works with that have been abused to see all the stuff at the museum. It had skeletons of a lot of things including a hummingbird... That was small! It had a section on cells and what is in them, it had all sorts of animals that had been stuffed and posed in scenes. It had all sorts of rare gems and stones in their raw forms... Of course, it had the required evolution section. They also had a section with moving dinosaurs... The dinosaurs were actual size and made noise! All the kids liked that! The section that really got my attention was the section on when Memphis was just starting in the early 1800s. They had all sorts of trinkets and clothes. They also had a section on early doctor equipment. There was a section on WW l and WW ll, a section on the mid 1900s with more clothes and trinkets and they had a mock up of an old grocery store! :~) I think that's about it for all the stuff that was in the museum... There was so much to see, I tried to see and remember it all but I'll probably remember things tomorrow that I forgot about now.

Unfortunately, we didn't stay in one place long enough to have pics and we didn't take our camera... With the kids, we had to move so they wouldn't get bored and so they could see as much as they could while they were there. After that, we went to the park to let the kids have a snack and play before going home. We had a good day! It was hot, but the museum was really neat!! :~) Maybe next time we go Jamey and I will take a lot of pics to show you! :~)

Yay for Snow!!!

Yep, it's still here! But it is starting to melt... Ahhh, the life of a snowflake in SC! :~) I got up earlier than I normally would because my Mommy said something about it might be gone in the afternoon! :~o So I got up and started making snowmen! It wasn't that cold outside and with rolling snowmen I definitely didn't need all the layers that I had put on originally! I put on a new coat I got from a friend at church, but that didn't last long! I rolled all the snowballs but needed some help from Jamey to lift them up on top of each other! He also found the pine cones used for their mouths and noses... Aluminum foil was used for their eyes! I was only going to have one, but the second ball I rolled ended up being larger than the first one! :~o It took about two hours to make both snowmen... After that I came inside cause I was wet! The snow started to pack better but only cause it was starting to melt... So I got wet from melting snow!! :~} Anyway, here are some pics!!! :~) I won't put all of them up here but you can see the rest at Photobucket! :~)

These are the neighbor's trees with all the snow weighing them down!

Look at all the pretty trees I can see from my front yard!

This is the tree that fell down the other day... It's larger than most of the other trees so I wonder why it went down!

This is me in my homemade hat, mittens and scarf... Trying to not look dorky with my jeans tucked into my boots. Yeah, like that's the only thing making me look dorky in this pic!!! :~D

The bottoms of the snowmen....

Yay! They have torsos!! Jamey had to help me put these on...

Look, they are the same size as me! Jamey helped with the heads too...

So you can see their faces, an up close and personal shot!

Our stylin' snowmen... Don't they look chic? :~D That's my black hat and one of Jamey's ball caps.

Two Years!!! :~D

Yes, it's been two years of wedded bliss for me and Jamey! :~) Can you believe it? I know it's hard for me to comprehend it too...

It seems like just yesterday we were standing in front of Jamey's dad promising that we would love, honor and cherish each other till death. Two very nervous people... Yeah, you should have seen us before the ceremony! :~} The only thing we were sure of was that we didn't want to go through life without the other there by our side...

I'm still sure of that! I wouldn't want to be anywhere else than right next to Jamey helping him and being there for him. I love him and he's a wonderful husband that I don't deserve... I'm hard to love sometimes and crazy other times (however, I have stopped dancing and singing to the music in the grocery store!) but he loves me anyway... He loves me and I love him. We like it that way, it's worked well for us! ;~)

I thought I would wear the clothes I got married in today... Well, the shirt (my something new - back then it was new) anyway. The jeans (my something old) made my thighs look huge so I chose not to wear them out of the house! :~} I wore the earrings that I wore that day... Blue rose ones (um, yeah that would be my something blue!) that I had gotten from Avon. Jamey was wearing his high school ring today so I couldn't wear it (that was my something borrowed). Hey, getting married wearing normal clothes has its advantages! I could go out in my wedding clothes and not look like I was crazy! :~)

Today was an amazing day, we got to just enjoy each others company and just have fun! Jamey took me out on a picnic lunch and we played monopoly all afternoon! :~) We then decided to go to a Chinese Buffet (my favorite place to eat!). When we got home from that we discovered that someone had crashed into a telephone pole and we had to have our power off for a while! :~O I think the people in the crash are going to be OK, though. So with our power off we decided to go see a movie - Taken. Before the movie started Jamey took me to go get some ice cream at this Marble Slab Creamery next to the movie theater... I always seem to want ice cream on the colder days of the year! :~) Before long I was shivering and enjoying every bite! Then we got to see the movie... Which was really good! After that we went home to relax after the full day that we'd just had! :~)

We had a really great anniversary celebration today! This last year has been a great one and I'm looking forward to this next year together... Hoping and praying that it will be as good if not better than the last! :~)

Been a while...

And it's all my fault, I know! :~) Well, I had to get back in the swing of things and to tell the truth I'm not completely there yet... But here goes!

This is a summary of all that happened at lectureship... I'm going to try to get the notes that I wrote, but that will be for another post! :~}

Let's see... Freed lectureship! :~) We got to Jamey's parents house around 5:30pm their time. We left at about 7:30am our time, so it took about 11 hours! We were able to relax on Saturday. The only thing going on then was a dinner with Jamey's family that went really well and we all enjoyed it. We also had a delayed Christmas gift exchange.

Sunday was church. We went to Jamey's parents church for morning service and also went with them to the nursing home service at 2:30pm. We didn't get a chance to have dust collect cause after that Jamey, Jason and I went to Memphis to visit our old church. It was a blast seeing everyone again and we also got to stay for a Super Bowl party at one of the members houses. We had a good time in the sense that we enjoyed it but also were bummed out cause we knew we weren't going to be back in a while. We didn't end up getting home till about midnight! :~) Which, in retrospect, was a bad thing cause we had to get up early the next morning!!!

Monday we - Jamey, Jason and I - started by getting up at 6:30am so we could get a good start on all the lectures. We didn't leave the house till 7:30 and didn't get to Freed till 9. We were able to catch a good lecture before chapel. Then after chapel we were free to go to the dining hall... That was an experience! I had fun listening to Jamey and Jason reminisce about how bad the food used to be and how spoiled the kids were now cause they got pizza everyday! :~) Our schedule was full from then on with lectures and workshops. We got to eat at Bell's for supper which is like the social highlight of Henderson. The food was good, and the service was friendly! :~) We didn't get home until late this night too because we stayed for the congregational singing and the late lecture. I had an absolute blast!!! :~) I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Tuesday was more of the same except for the fact that Jason wasn't with us. I got to sit in on a ladies lecture which was really good and recommended by a friend... That friend was the lady from Memphis that helped me get my driver's license and was someone that I connected with when we were living there. Anyway, she was there at the lecture so I got to catch up with her a little bit. That was the highlight of the day for me! :~) Back to the lecture though, the lady was really interactive with the crowd and spoke on the Psalms... About prayer, praise and getting to know who God is. It was a three part lecture that went on from Tuesday till Thursday. I enjoyed it and learned a lot! :~) We stayed for the congregational singing, late lecture and also got to stay for the chorale. At the end of the chorale singing they invited all the previous members to come up and sing the last song... Jamey used to sing with them so he enjoyed going up and singing!! :~)

Something that I also got to experience was an open forum... I did not know that there were so many people that could comment on the same topic and say exactly the same thing as the previous commenter. :~} It was interesting and they got into some very controversial stuff. Jamey went up to comment on one of the days and he used something that I had said to him... There was an argument about Christian contemporary music and if we could sing along because these were not Christians that made the music and we should not participate in their false worship. I made the comment to Jamey that if that were true we really couldn't sing almost all the songs in the hymnal cause they weren't written by Christians! Anyway, that made me smile! :~)

Wednesday was a little shorter for the simple fact that it was church night and Jamey's Mom was making some deliciousness that is Louisiana Lasagna! :~p We got to listen to a few good lectures and the open forum then had to leave in order to make it to Jamey's parents house in time for church!

Thursday was a little like Wednesday we got to go to chapel, eat in the cafeteria and hear a few great lectures... However we had to go before open forum because we were going to eat supper with Jamey's family at Shoney's. It was mostly cause Jamey's sister Rachel could only make it that day... We had a good time and I got to talk to his sisters a little more.

It was very difficult to leave Freed on Thursday cause I knew that we weren't going to be going back. I ended up taking quite a few notes while we were there and got the good side of college life. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay and got to imagine what it might have been like had I gone to college... Course if I had gone I wouldn't be where I am today so I'm glad I didn't go, but still I couldn't help thinking about it! :~}

Jamey and I also got to go to the book fair that went on all week... It was a good book fair and also a money pit! :~) Jamey couldn't come out of there without spending some money! Hey, when you're surrounded by a lot of great books written by the brotherhood how could you not spend a lot of money? ;~) Another one of the things that I got to do was meet quite a few of Jamey's old college friends and also got to see a few of the people I knew that were going there.

Friday was spent relaxing before having to be on the road for an extended period of time. We just chilled with Jamey's family. We watched some movies and had to pack... I tried not to have our stuff explode all over the floor, but to no avail! So I spent some of the day doing laundry and packing what I could. We definitely left with more than what we came with!!! :~) All in all we had a great time and I can't wait till the next time! :~D

We had a very uneventful trip back and got home in record time. I'm still trying to get back into the schedule that I had for myself before we left... I'm doing well with the meals, it's just the chores that I'm not liking right now! Hopefully this will get me out of the writers block that I've been having. I'll try to write more later... I have ladies Bible study to write about and then just life in general! It's getting late and I have a busy week ahead so I should start thinking about going to bed! :~)

Ok, this will be short...

But sweet! :~) Jamey and I just got back from spending time with his family... We also had a blast going to the Freed-Hardeman lectureship. I enjoyed hearing all those great speakers and I got to take some notes... I'll try to let you in on what it was that I heard and let you read some of my notes! :~) I'm exhausted, we spent all day in the car and tomorrow is church... I already have things unpacked, but I need to go get ready for bed! ;~}

A little update!

I just needed a title for this post... :~} Not that much has happened since the last post including the snow. What I mean by that is that there was no snow and everyone went around town like headless chickens for no reason! :~o Anyway, on the flip side of that coin we have today... I normally have a really hard time with cold and if it's not 80 degrees then I'm wearing something under a short sleeved shirt. Although I exaggerate a little it's not entirely false. So why, on this 22ND day of JANUARY am I comfortable going outside in short sleeves and no coat???? I have to say this weather is just a little crazy... (Either that or I'm getting better with cold weather. :~O) However, I do enjoy when it's unexpectedly warm like this. :~) Even though I enjoy it, I find myself hating the fact that I do enjoy it so much because it shouldn't be this warm outside at this time of year! Ahhh, the northern girl in me wants to rebel but she won't because she's having too much fun in the warmth! :~}

On Tuesday I led a Bible study at church. This is a big deal for me because I usually try to fade into the background when it comes to leading of any kind... There are only two ladies that do the class so they go back and forth all the time. I just thought since I am the preacher's wife that I should step out of my comfort zone and help out. I found it just a little odd that the first time I did teach, the part of the book that we are studying was all about how we need more people to get up and lead in the church! :~) I was so nervous! All the ladies thought I did a good job for my first time, but I had a lot of pauses and the things that I had said in my mind before going to class completely left me! We didn't finish the section we were on so I'm going to do it next month too. The only way to get better at something is to continue doing it! :~) I'm hoping that next month after I teach I can blog about the section covered!

My hair has gotten longer... It's down to the middle of my back now. That said, I've found a new love... In the form of Herbal Essence Long Term Relationship shampoo and conditioner!! :~) I saw it on commercials that it's supposed to be formulated for the longer hair. It smells so good! :~) And it makes my hair silkier than it has ever been. I actually want to wear it down more! :~) I also purchased the split ends serum that is in the same family with the shampoo and conditioner... In order to get the full effect of what the products can do. At any rate, you're looking at one happy consumer! :~)

Well, I think that's all for now... We'll be traveling next Friday to go spend time with Jamey's family and go to the Freed-Hardeman lectureship. That will be fun and I'm looking forward to being back in that area again... Hard to believe it's been a year! :~) So if I don't get to my blog for a while, console yourself with my sister's blog... She's been trying to post everyday! :~) A difficult challenge and one that I hopefully will be doing one of these days! :~)

Happy New Year!!!

I know that it's been a while since I wrote on here... I've been having a blast with family and getting all the packing and unpacking done! :~) I have pics, so hopefully you will forgive me for being so tardy about writing lately! ;~) The first one is when Lydia, Philip, Jamey and me went to a concert on New Years Eve. The rest are of my visit with family and getting to know my new nephew!! He loves his Aunt Priscilla... He smiled every time I would say something to him!! :~D Anyway, I'll post more about my visit over the next couple of days, but for now... Here are the pics!!! :~D

Pictures... Of Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is over... Well, we certainly won't run out of food for a while! :~) We had a really good Thanksgiving dinner. Jamey and I cooked Wednesday night, then I got up early to cook on Thursday. Jamey made some really good sweet potatoes and some very flaky crust for the pies! :~) I also tried my hand at rolls and they turned out alright. We had Turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, cream corn, rolls, green bean casserole, relish tray, cottage cheese salad, carrot and pineapple salad, cranberry salad, pumpkin pie and chocolate pie. After the food it was time for a little bit of a nap... Turkey will do that to you! :~) Later in the afternoon we went over to one of the church members house. They had invited us to come celebrate Thanksgiving with them! :~) We had fun and ate a little.

After the dinners we put up the Christmas tree. It was a lot of fun deciding where all the decorations were going to go... We have a 7 and a half foot fake tree in the living room! It's so pretty! :~) We put some icicle lights in the windows and a wreath on the door. Here are some pics of the decor... One of my favorite pics is the one with Munchkin! :~)

Pictures! :~)

I finally got the pictures to upload!! :~) Now you'll be able to see all the beautiful scenery and the colorful leaves!! :~) Just check out Photobucket!

Ode to Frank Mills

If there was one album that took me back through the years of my life it would be Frank Mills Sunday Morning Suite. I have very scattered memories... From doing chores to the music when I was little, to listening to it constantly when I was a young teenager on a Walkman. Most times the cassette tape would get lost and wouldn't be found for awhile... I'm sure it was just it's defense against being played to death! :~) But whenever we could find it, it generally got played at least once... Mostly by me, cause I loved it! I've been looking for that album for the last year and a half... Hoping to find it so I can listen and be taken back every now and then, also so I can share it with my kids. Yesterday Jamey went to a new thrift store and found it! :~D It's a record, so I can play it on Jamey's new record player (which I'm doing right now!). Someday soon hopefully Jamey will be able to put it on a CD so I won't wear out the record! :~}

Well, last time I wrote it was before my birthday! I had a really great birthday... Jamey got me balloons and he made me do a scavenger hunt for my presents! :~) That had to be the most fun. Other than the shopping of course! ;~) He made me a chocolate cake and gave me some candy... But the biggest present came in the form of a video camera! I love it! It's a small one and it's so cute, if such things can be called cute! I've used it a couple times, but the most it will get used is when we go and see family! After the presents were opened I got to go shopping and couldn't find a pair of trouser jeans anywhere until I went to Target. Those ones are nice... Then I went to Kohl's and found some. So now I have a couple pair... They're nice cause they look like straight leg jeans on me. After all my shopping we had a lovely dinner at Olive Garden. We had a gift card and decided to use it on my birthday.

I also got some fabric at Hancock's. It's a beautiful purple plaid and I made it into a jumper... However, when I wore it I stressed the seams! :~o So before I wear it again I'll have to take out the seams and add a strip of fabric to it so it won't rip on me! :~) I don't have a pic of it right now, but when I get done fixing it I'll be sure to take one.

Oh, if you want to see some of the cutest pics of the most adorable nephew... (I know, I'm bad) Just go to my sister's blog. There are too many now to be able to copy and paste onto my blog! :~) Not that I'm complaining about all the pics! :~)

Last Saturday we had a yard sale... Not a normal yard sale, it was in front of one of the local Wal-marts! Yep, Wal-mart and the Children's Health Network were selling spots in front of Wal-mart for whatever you wanted to put out there... We did a yard sale. There were a few spots that were just selling things they made and there was also a Pampered Chef table. They had food there too, the proceeds from that also went to the charity. It was pretty neat cause we had so many people stop and look around... I mean who doesn't go to Wal-mart? Sure it was kinda cloudy and drizzly, but we had quite a few people buy our stuff. Jamey sold all his stuff and I sold some of mine... Mine was all clothes anyway. What we didn't sell we took over to Goodwill. It was fun, we had to take Shorty with us and he got most of the attention!

This Sunday is Jamey's birthday. However, we will be doing stuff on Saturday so he can just chill. I tried hard to find the lemon cake mix for his cake... I don't know why stores don't have at least some sugar-free cake mixes! I was able to find it last year at a drug store, but this year I couldn't find it anywhere. I called every place I could think of that might have it, but no luck. Ordering it on-line would have cost a lot! Finally, I remembered one of the members at church makes the greatest cakes and sugar-free stuff you've ever had! So I called and asked if she had a sugar-free lemon cake recipe. She did and she gave it to me on Wednesday! YAY!!!! :~) I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to make Jamey his Lemonade cake. Now I don't have to worry about finding a lemon cake mix ever again! Oh, and for those of you who have tried to make a cake sugar-free from a cake recipe that has sugar in it... Add 1/2 cup dry milk and 1/2 tsp baking soda for every cup of Splenda used and the cake will turn out fluffy. If you want anymore tips you can visit the Splenda site.

Piano!!!! :~D

The title really says it all... I just got a piano! :~) Some church members were kind enough to give us their piano that they didn't use. I'm very grateful! :~) I wrote a couple of posts ago that Jamey was looking to get me a piano... He mentioned that he was looking for one to this church member and they said that we could have theirs! :~) I've already played quite a few pieces on it... It's in tune! It weighs a LOT... So Jamey got some men from church to help him bring it here. Here are some pics of my new piano! :~) I got it all clean and bathed it in furniture polish so it shines!

Yesterday we thought that we would go get the piano, but didn't have the dolly to get it. Anyway, we had the guy that was going to help over for supper... I figured that was the least we could do. We had tacos! :~p I made the meat, rice and corn to go with it... I also made my own tortillas. My family came across a Mexican woman in Ohio that made her own and she showed us how to do it. It's not that hard... The only hard part is rolling them so they actually resemble a circle! Mine always end up looking like large amoebas! :~} Jamey really likes them! :~)

I sewed a little today, too. This fabric was easier to sew and it is thicker so I didn't have to line it. It looks like it's a velvet, but it's not... It's got a neat feel, but it's not like velvet. I still want to sew some more so I'll keep you posted on that. However, it'll be hard to concentrate on sewing for a few days cause I'll be playing my piano! :~)

Summer special... BLTs :- p

I had a good day Thursday, Jamey took me out to the Greenville park which has a suspension bridge and cool waterfalls... I mean cool, the water was freezing! :~) After that we ate at Subway in town and went in search of the Historical Society. Ok, I have to say this... I'm a Civil war era freak! I love that time period, so much so that I made myself an outfit... Which, I hate to say, doesn't fit like it used to but I still love it! Anyway, when we finally found the place it was just a little one room deal with lots of pictures and some old newspapers. I was just a little disappointed. I guess I had been spoiled by the one that I was a member of before in Williams Co. OH. There they have clothes, furniture, lots of items that command your attention... I just thought that for such a historic place like SC they would have had a better one than that... Maybe they have one like I'm thinking of in Charleston. :~)

Yesterday we went visiting and went out to eat with an elderly couple from church, and let me say that Silver Bay is about as good as a fish place gets! :~) I left there fat and happy, until the food decided to get revenge! :~O No, not heartburn just the awful feeling of being too full... You women understand! :~) After that we went grocery shopping and went home. For supper on this night I planned BLTs! :~) I love my bacon! I cooked about a package and a half and we ate it all! I don't usually eat tomatoes but I had one on my BLT and it wasn't bad! :~) That sandwich is my all time favorite summer delights! :~) That and ice cream on a hot day...

Today we went to a yard sale. Nothing special about that I suppose except the fact that I had to get up at 6:30am to go to this one. I'm not usually that much of a morning person, but we got there when it opened! :~) I'm glad w to fine did... Jamey is a veteran yard saler and knows how to move at one. Apparently, I did it wrong. You're not supposed to stop at the first thing you see, but go straight for the electronics cause that is where you get the best deals... Not to mention that stuff is gone fast! :~) I'm glad Jamey was with me cause he found a Casio keyboard that looks about new (with stand and adapter) for $40! :~) Yes, I played it when I got home! :~)