December Daily

OK, so I have only been wanting to make this album since like October.... better late than never I guess right? No wait, I'm not late, it's not December yet right and look! I have an actual book now! yay me. As I have mentioned before I was wanting to do a "December Daily" book like Ali E. had come up with. I love the way Ali used a mix of page materials and sizes and wanted to do something similar. I bought a scrapworks clear acrylic album at Hobby Lobby for my base. (size is 8x8) I haven't done/used a clear album before so this will be fun! For the inner pages, so far, I have a mix of patterned papers, KI sheers, Hambly Transparencies, Rhonna F. file folders, and old mini book pages and cardstock scraps. Now that I have that part done, I am going back and making different deco edges/sizes for all my page edges. Then I plan to do some inking, painting, use my gold leaf pen, or a mix of all three. Next will be numbers for the pages for each day of December. I am thinking of using my scallop circle punch and pink persimmon ric rac edge stamp for some of the numbering. (love that stamp and it fits perfectly with my large scallop punch). I definitely need more tags and tabs and edges and stuff hanging out of the book. LOVE that look. Here are a few of the inner pages so far.













This shows a a Rhonna Farrer file folder, KI Sheer and then cardstock behind that.

Here is another file folder, Daisy D. die cut Christmas paper from last year, Acrylic page, and cardstock.













This one shows some Hambly on the left, file folder, cardstock and then various Daisy D's Christmas papers.

This is a Rhonna Farrer die cut paper, and glitter paper behind with some Daisy D's beyond that. As you might have noticed I've been giving my border punches a work out. The three used are Martha Stewart doily punch, Fiskars Threading Water Punch and Stampin Up scallop. I think the scallop has been my fav. and easiest to use. I think I need remedial classes in how to line up border punches..... I also used my Creative Memories Wavy Trimmer on some of the edges.












I love the look of the different page styles and orientations. This one also has a hambly music transparency in there. I am thinking I'd still like to add a Heidi Swapp clock face in there somewhere and maybe some more die cut papers?? Not sure. I can always add as I go since I am using the binder rings. The way Ali's book looked I thought it would be fun as we go thru December to add favorite Christmas cards, mementos from Christmas parties, etc. I already know what I want to use for my December 1st picture. Wait till you see the cool decorations they have up at church. Here is my cover for the moment.

I need to get my title on there and decorate of course. I am just tickled I was able to get the base part ready today. Now all I need to do is keep up! ha. I will share pics of the inner pages as I add to them throughout the month. You'll help keep me motivated to keep up right?

We were supposed to have a "Thanksgiving" with my Dad today or go to a Hanging of the Greens service at church. We had planned to go to be with Daddy. However our septic lines had other ideas for the weekend. Our tub drain started not working properly on Thanksgiving day. This caused Darrel to find where roots had gotten into the line were 2 pipes joined together. About the time he had that fixed yesterday, he found another piece was broken. Digging to fix that piece resulted in 2 broken spots in another pipe which from the looks of it was as old as the plumbing.... which is probably from like the 40's....so it was old and brittle. Then that ended up with no plumbing Saturday night into Sunday AM because by that time it was almost 9 Pm and stores were closing and my husband was out in the dark trying to fix it and hadn't had his dinner yet. Thanking the Lord for the blessing of our spare room. It is out behind our garage and has a bedroom/bath and is on a seperate septic so that got us thru until he could make the repair today. This kept us home from both functions today trying to get a functioning bathroom back. Today he was about done and noticed a crack in a new fitting..... GRRR so still not finished, but at least this fitting was one going up to the "clean out" so the septic is functioning now, just need to fix this last piece. Now doesn't all that sound like a fun Holiday weekend? We did OK, and are thankful we had other options to get us thru. Also very thankful for my brilliant husband who knows how to do all that stuff so we weren't paying plumbers either.

So, for this week we start out several loads of laundry behind (which couldn't be done for the above reasons...) and having nothing done for Christmas. Hopefully this week we can get the furniture rearranged and the tree up/decorations done. If we get that far I'll be happy. Hope you have an awesome and peaceful week.

Blessings!

The Day After

I did it! I survived the week and made it thru Thanksgiving. ha! I'm only teasing. It was just a very, very busy week and I don't know how many times I said to myself.... you just have to make it until after dinner on thursday.... and I did. We celebrated thanksgiving at our home with my family. Darrel took this picture as we were about to start dinner. I wish we would have planned ahead and had the tripod set up so he could have been in the picture. How cute is Ethan there right down front? Very natual don't you think? Ha! After taking that shot, Darrel walked around to get one from the other side.... notice how well everyone is paying attention this time..............














I at least get an A+ for looking up adoringly at my husband don't you think? We had a nice day, but I missed my Dad. He had to be at work in Detroit. When we called him around dinner time we found out he was eating a can of soup! We thought his company was going to bring in dinner, but we were disappointed to find out they didn't. I hate that he was by himself having soup. I wished he weren't so far away so we could have at least sent him over a plate or something you know? I did at least send him home some pie and we are going to all go and have a late Thanksgiving with him this Sunday.

This girl loves her Uncle Darrel. I don't think we are ever at a family function where I don't have a picture of her sitting on his lap and hugging on him. Isn't that sweet? This is our niece Lindsay. We all spent the day together and visited and played some cards and looked at some old videos on the computer. We are all so blessed and it was a good day.














I love Thanksgiving and don't mind hosting it, but it is exhausting. I have been so completely lazy and tired today. (I did get my walking in though.) The week was so busy because work was busy and lots to do in order to have today and yesterday off. I worked some of the evenings too so that I could be done in time. Then Wednesday evening of course was also full of prep. for Thursday. I made my pie crust and pies and my Mom and Darrel worked on salad and getting the mashed potatoes ready for the crock pot. The pic above is of the left overs. My husband is very happy there is so much pumpkin pie left... its one of his favs. I have made probably 100's of pumpkin pies in the last 21 years and I don't think I've ever eaten a piece of one of them. Just not a pumpkin person I guess.. I do hope to have a piece of that apple though... My sister brought some yummy brownies and um Eclair cake... MY FAV. And guess what I had this evening? Look.

The last confiscated piece! ha. I did pretty well on not overdoing it yesterday and staying in my points. I really wanted a second piece yesterday, but I didn't do it. My sweet sister suggested putting a piece in the fridge for today... What a good idea and was I happy to enjoy that this evening.

How cute is this? Do you know what this is? This is what you look like if you actually got up at 5 something this morning so you could go buy something at staples at 6 AM this morning. yes, my husband actually did that. I have never been one of those early bird black Friday shoppers. Darrel either. We actually avoid the stores like the plague. Do not like crowds. Well we were in dire need of new Virus/Internet Security Software. Our desktop had expired a LONG time ago, and the laptop was about to. Well Staples had a deal where they had Norton Internet Security 2009 for $65 and then there are 2 rebates with it where you get all that back so it ends up being free! Cool. So after Darrel spotted this, it was his idea/desire to go do that this morning. Um I was sleeping when he left and sleeping when he got back! ha. Mom was too (she stayed a few days with us). He said when he got to the parking lot, there were no spaces. It was full all the way out and he ended up parking on the side where there weren't spaces where other people had started parking. The store was packed and people were there that had already been at Walmart and were complaining about the crowds and the way things were being handled.... See... much better idea to sleep.... especially after cooking yourself unconscious (as Archie Bunker would say) the day before.

Gracie is still here and hanging out with us. I love her. She is such a sweet kitty and loves to be held and petted. She also likes to climb trees and chase the dog. It is so funny. Our little maltese dog is all brave and bold when he is looking at her thru the screen door. However, let him out for the bathroom and then he doesn't want to come back up on the porch because of the kitten. She hides and jumps out at him trying to play. Then he leaves the porch and she follows him still trying to play so he comes back to the porch and then we repeat the whole thing.. It is hilarious to watch. I need to take a new picture so you can see her. I think she has grown quite a bit.

So tomorrow I hope to have a bit more energy and get my December daily book put together or at least started. Need to finish up that layout for the new Shabby Pink kit too. We will have that ready for you soon now tht we are passed the holiday for the moment.

Went walking this afternoon. I missed yesterday because of the holiday. I was tired and having trouble most of the time. I hate when that happens. Sometimes it is like that after missing a day. I kept moving though and made my full distance/time. As we were walking thru prides creek I saw the canadian geese as usual and asked Darrel when they would go south.... He said they may not go further south. That had never occured to me. I was thinking they like all went to Florida or something! ha. I was also thinking maybe I'd have a few months where I wouldn't be dodging goose poo in the road! No such luck I guess.... Oh well, I'm getting good at it. Can even do it in time to the music on my ipod now! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha.....

I'll share some peeks of my album if I make some progress tomorrow! Hope you have an awesome Holiday weekend! Blessings!

Catching Up

So how cute is my new snowman for this year? My Mom and Jen and I went to a Christmas Open House thing this past Sunday. My mom lives in a little country town that has a town square with the court house in the middle. Usually the week before Thanksgiving they have an open house at the stores in town and we like to meet for lunch and then walk the square after that. Didn't buy much but did manage to come home with a new snow person for my winter snowman collection. I love his little spool and button legs. How cute! I also found a pretty pink, silver and gold chunky bracelet. It's a 7" and it fit! Yay! The other thing I found was called a "car charm" and is just a pretty string of beads and crystals that you are supposed to hang on your car mirror. Well I've been looking for a pretty/unique ceiling fan pull for our bedroom fan and think this will work. Now Darrel just has to figure out how to get it to hang up there! ha. He says it will work.

So how has like a whole week gone by without blogging? Why am I asking how when I know its because life has been toooooo stinkin busy! wow. I don't even know where the last week has gone. This time of year always gets so hectic. Things really kick into gear at work with all the Christmas and holiday happenings and then we are hosting Thanksgiving at our home so that makes home hectic and busy and wow when both places get stressful and busy..... I am ready to run away for a vacation or something. We have had something going on every weekend in November as well and so it just seems like there has been no down time. I am SO ready for the 4 day weekend. I am working my fanny off the first part of this week so I will be able to have Friday off. Cannot wait. My Mom will be here, Darrel has the same days off and will be home so planning on a good weekend. We usually like to get the Christmas decorating done so thinking we will at least start in on that.

I found an acrylic album at Hobby Lobby to make into a December Daily album like Ali E. did. I love that they are carrying that kind of stuff now. Man they had lots of cool new stuff when we were there on Friday. They had some of the BG lines that I had been waiting on, the acrylic stuff from scrapworks, MM paperie journaling books, Prima say it in crystals and lots of other cool stuff. I think I could make my whole Christmas wish list there! Ha. OK, one problem at Hobby Lobby though... the check out guy... I seriously think he was like sleep working.... you know like sleep walking..... bwa ha ha ha... The people in front of us bought 110 individual Christmas ornaments. He was wrapping each one in paper. Good right? NO. He could not have possibly wrapped each one slower.... I was so ready to say, here - let me do that! I could have easily been done in 1/10th the time. Even the people he was waiting on were cringing when he picked up the last 2 and started to put them in the bag and then stopped and decided to wrap them too.... the lady let out the biggest sigh like oh no.... not 2 more!

After Hobby Lobby we hit Baskin Robbins... was looking up my ww points for my scoop of chocolate fudge and discovered that 1 scoop of BR ice cream has the points of like 2 scoops of the stuff you buy at the store... no wonder it is so yummy. On our way home we decided to stop and get our turkeys for this week. Have you ever went to a super walmart after like 11 PM? Well they start doing their shelf stocking, etc. then and even though the store is open, they act like there are no customers around. The one thing we wanted to look at was the turkeys - I mean it is Thanksgiving time right - and so of course this is the one place they pick to pile pallets of stuff. I mean all the way completely around it.... They saw us there trying to look and for the most part, just kept piling up more stuff!! We were diligent though and got two Honeysuckle White turkeys at only .69 lb. That was a good deal. We are doing one on the grill and one in the oven. YUM.

Our 5K is less than 2 weeks away now! I am so excited. I've gotten down to a mile in 16:04 minutes. My best so far. I keep working for that 15 min mile. We have 13 on our team now; 10 women and 3 guys. This is going to be so cool. I plan to take lots of pictures! Maybe not so much during, but definitely before/after.

Have you heard that Prima and Pink Paislee are looking for a new design team? I am thinking about applying. They are 2 of my fav. mfg. and it would be SO COOL to make one of their teams. I am sure tons of people are applying but what do I have to lose right?

Well I hope you have an awesome Thanksgiving week. Bad economy and all we are so blessed in this country and have so much abundance and so much to be thankful for. Blessings!

The Pips....

Someone asked me Saturday night if I was one of "the Pips".... I thought that was too cute so of course I needed that for my title! Ha. Cool group photo huh? This is the group of us that got to sing with Todd Braschler at our church this past weekend. Hopefully Todd doesn't mind me borrowing this photo off of his web site. I am sure you can figure out which one Todd is... The other girls are (from left to right) Lynn, Carrah and Lori on the top row and then Me, Jennifer and Alicen on the bottom row. I thought it was awesome getting to sing with Todd and the girls and loved all that Todd taught us. We rehearsed with him Friday for a couple of hours and he taught us so much about technique and the meaning behind the song, etc. I was loving it. It took me about 5 minutes with him to realize compared to him, I know little about singing.... I just get up there and sing. I've never had the voice lessons, how to pronounce things and breath, etc. I really thought in all he taught us though he was really teaching us that its about what God can do thru the music and singing for Him. It was awesome... did I mention that? Here is a photo from during rehearsal before the concert Sat. night.

Todd was also with us Sunday morning. He led worship for us and we sang worship team. We also got to do 2 more songs with him. This picture is from Sunday Morning.

Here is a cool shot of the interior of our Sanctuary. I love how you can see the ceiling.

My cool stuff from A Cherry On Top came today. It was the Little Yellow Bicycle Christmas stuff I mentioned the other day. I am ready to put my December Daily book together now if only I had an album! Ha. I hope to correct that this Friday if we can make it to town.

So who can believe Thanksgiving is next week? Wow. Not me. My family is coming to our house to have dinner with us so I am thinking I should be getting a turkey some time soon! We always buy the biggest one we can find. I figure if I am going thru all it involves to cook a turkey, I want plenty left over so we can enjoy it for a bit. As you may know I am a planner so I am needing to figure out my cooking and cleaning schedule from now till then. I like to make as many things ahead as I can. That usually means making my refrigerator roll dough ahead one day and baking rolls another so on turkey day, you only need to reheat. I also make pie crust and pies ahead and sometimes do the mashed potatoes ahead to heat in the crock pot on turkey day. Right at dinner time can be so hectic with everything being done and getting into serving dishes it always helps to have as much already done as possible. Some years we do a smaller turkey on the weber kettle grill. YUM. Have you ever tried that? So good.

In the walking report I am happy to say things are going a little better. I think I finally found the right combo of things to wear so I am not freezing the whole time. I got myself some good old long johns and they made a huge difference. I don't think I've ever owned a pair before. I would like to understand how they can be so warm when they are so thin? I liked them so much I've been tempted to wear them under my pjs at home when I am cold! (which is all the time these days...) I also got one of those fleece headband things (pink of course) that cover your ears. That was perfect. My ears were toasty and my ear buds stay in place too. I also found in our coat closet a pullover fleece that is Darrel's. He got it from work when we lived in IL. Used to be I am sure it would not have fit over my head.. now it fits and is lightweight and warm. I walked in my new attire on Sunday afternoon and for the first time I wasn't freezing cold. My face was cold, but that was it. I was also less sweaty at the same time so I am thinking good combo there. It was completely rainy and wet on Saturday so I was thankful to still have my borrowed treadmill from my friend. I didn't get out there this morning early either so I hit the treadmill after work today too. We have an old (OLD) TV and VCR in the room where the treadmill is so I have discovered putting in a movie (which Saturday and today was "While You Were Sleeping" love that one! ) I enjoy helps to pass the time. It can get boring pretty quickly on the treadmill. I can be wanting to be done and tell myself I have to go a certain number of minutes, which today was 45. Well I get to 45 and I'm like well maybe I can jog for a few more minutes, ok, maybe I can walk a few more minutes too and next thing I know I had 53 minutes. When did I turn into this person who pushes herself when she wants to stop? Thank you Lord. Oh and yes, I did say jog... yep, still been throwing in just a TINY bit of jogging.

We now have 10 people on our 5K team! How cool is that??! I know of 2 more that are still going to register and possibly a 3rd. I love it! 13 people walking/running together in a 5K for the 'Weighting On Him" team. I will definitely need a group picture and a scrapbook page or two for this one. Did I tell you about the hats? Ashly (my friend) came up with the idea to find pink santa hats. We ordered some and plan to wear them on walk day. How perfect is that, pink santa hats for the Jingle Bell Walk/Run? I am so excited about this!

Hope you had a good Monday and an awesome week is coming up! Blessings.

Friday Randomness

Or is it Saturday now? Whatever it is its late and for whatever reason I was in the mood for blogging... So how cute is this box full of goodies?! Have you ever heard of Operation Christmas Child? Our church participates in this every year. It's been a few years though since Darrel and I have put one together. It is so fun! All you do is get a shoebox, pick the age group your box will be for and if boy or girl and then fill it up! Now, can you believe my husband found and picked out the pretty pink blanket? Can you further believe that he dug thru two rows of pencil sharpeners looking for the pink one? Of course you can because he is just that good. Our box is for a girl age 2-4. Now how fun will it be to get a baby and a blanket? I hope she likes it!














My sister is like seriously rubbing off on me. She has an affection for scarves. I've always liked them OK, but haven't really worn one much in years. Not even really a winter one because I guess I just didn't get it. Well last Christmas Jen asked me what I wanted and I said pink stuff. Well she delivered pink stuff with a pretty pink scarf and pink eyeglass case. Here is a picture from last Christmas.












I love them both. Last winter I often found myself grabbing that pink scarf. It matched my Vera Bradley purse and it didn't matter what I was wearing I liked that pop of bright pink. Now fast forward to this year at Covered Bridge. It was a chilly day, but not enough that I wanted to wear my coat all day. I already had on a t-shirt and light jacket. Well I discovered with my gloves and the pink scarf around my neck, I was set for the day and nice and toasty. Well at Covered Bridge there was a great booth with all kinds of scarves and I picked up a bright blue scarf there. Jen got one too of course. So now I think she has hooked me too.... This weekend we are having a special singer at church. I get to sing back up vocals with him along with 5 other ladies from church. Well we talked about wearing black and/or white. I don't have a white top. But I have a black shirt and a couple sweaters and a black skirt. I was thinking to add in some white it would be cool if I could find a black and white scarf and then maybe add my white tank. Well I found this pretty scarf at Walmart this evening for a whole $3! Cool huh? I love the little pop of red in it. I used to be more into scarves years back, but I mostly had the big square ones. Now I am really liking the long rectangular ones. I've learned too with walking that a scarf can make a big difference in how warm/cold I am. I was especially surprised to find out how warm that fleece stuff can be. Love how soft it is too.

I was kind of browsing/blog hopping a few minutes ago and came across this one which is Claudine Helmuth's blog. She makes some cool paints for Ranger. Well she has a picture of this adorable pink scarf posted and was talking about how much she loves and lives in scarves so that was what got me going on the whole scarf tangent (I mean seriously Jen, anyone... how come no one told me sooner? Ha!! ). She said she got her wool scarf here on etsy. This lady has some beautiful felted wool items. Check out the cool journals!

So the special music at church is Todd Braschler. Check out his web site here. He came to our church several years back and did a 1 day conference and a concert then too. I got to sing with him that time too. It is very fun and rather challenging. I sing soprano so I am not used to doing harmony and that kind of thing. Well when you are doing back up, it is a whole other thing then just singing lead. Todd is a great teacher and taught us so much today during rehearsal. Very fun and so worth it. I am looking forward to the concert tomorrow night. We get to sing Sunday morning for service as well.

I am definitely doing a December Daily Album like Ali Edwards has posted about on her blog. Have you seen it? Such a cool idea!! Check it out here. I want to use an acrylic album like she did. I was really wanting to hit E-ville this evening to see if Hobby Lobby had one. They are supposed to carry them now and I have a coupon! If I have to buy one online then you have to add shipping of course and these babies are heavy! This will be my first acrylic album and I am seriously exicted. I was given a little bit of spending money as a gift and I am using it towards this. I ordered some cool clear embellies from A Cherry On Top Yesterday. They were the only place I could find that had these cool clear Christmas embellies from Little Yellow Bicycle. The item I really wanted, I grabbed the last one of and can't even find it on their site now. I thought they would look cool with the clear album. I would also love to get some of these Jenni B Christmas Mini Bingo Cards. Problem is they are out of stock most places and even if they are in, they are only $3 and shipping would be probably more than the product. Don't you think they would make cool tabs hanging off the edge of the pages in the book?

Did you see ER last night? How cool was it to see a DR Greene episode again? I loved how they even threw in Romano and Weaver too. We haven't liked the show as much these last few seasons but this year it has been cool to see some of the old faces again. I think Carter is supposed to be back too isn't he?

We had mexican food for dinner at our favorite place. Oh my goodness... I think it should have its own food group. I seriously think I could eat it every day. YUM. How come we do not go there more? If you live in the area, our fav is Mi Pueblo.

Better head to bed. It's going to be another busy weekend. I think I am getting way ready for the vacation time coming up the end of next month. Hope you have an awesome weekend. Blessings!

Sneak Peek

Finally, I have a PEEK for you of my newest LO for Shabby Pink Designs. I got to work on this on Saturday at the crop we attended for Southern Indiana Scrapbook Friends. We had a great time!!! I still have a little bit of work to do on this yet, but am loving all the cool supplies I got to play with. This will be a layout kit and will include goodies like Prima flowers and crystals, Kaiser jewels and pearls, Tim Holtz ideaology, and several great papers from Graphic 45. This was my first chance to work with Graphic 45 and I just LOVE their designs. Their papers and punch out tags are beautiful. So unique from many of the other papers out there. Did LOTS of inking and distressing on this layout as well. I am loving how Grandma and Grandpa's wedding picture looks nestled in all these cool flowers. Hoping to have a few minutes to finish this up maybe tomorrow. Stay tuned for the full layout and how you can get a page kit to make one of your own.














So Saturday at the Scapbook Friends crop, Lisa had a booth for Shabby Pink Designs kits and supplies. She had it set up so cute! She is so good at it too. Look at all these cool crates that she used as shelves. I got to attend the crop too and helped with set up and with sales at the booth. Lisa also taught a layout class so I helped out while she was busy with that. She had these really cool, vintage aprons for us to wear that she purchased on Etsy. I am realizing I didn't get a good picture of those, but you can sort of see Lisa's in this photo.

The aprons were really beautiful with vintage fabrics and trims and lots of pink and polka dots! Our fav!! I wore my new (smaller sized....) pink sweater and my fuschia pink crocs too so we were pinked out! Ha. We got to work on some of our own scrapping in between sales and classes and also got to enjoy a great dinner at the Amish Restaurant (where the crop was located) with the other ladies. It was such a fun day.














So Gracie is still with us. I am in love with her... I don't know why. She is so sweet and affectionate. She seems very happy in our porch rocker. Since its gotten a little colder, we put some old towels out where she likes to lay so she could nestle down into them. As you can see, she likes that idea. Today we noticed she is already earning her keep.... I had noticed what I thought was a stick on the porch.... turns out, as Darrel was happy to show me, she had caught and killed a baby mole in the yard and brought it up to show us. Isn't it funny how they do that? We have had a mole problem since we moved here so we are happy to have a cat that is happy to catch moles! Ha. Hopefully she feels the same way about mice! Except um, maybe she doesn't have to bring them up to show me.....

So I thought walking in the fall and winter was going to be awesome after the summer heat and humidity. Well the fall was pretty great, but now here in late fall and colder temps, I am struggling a bit. I am having the hardest time with being cold! It has been hard to figure out what is the best thing to wear to be comfortable and not too bulky with too many layers, but yet be warm enough. With my t-shirt and a sweat shirt or two, my torso had been warm enough. However I have also been needing a scarf and ear muffs. Well the earmuffs are the kind that go around the back of your head. So between the scarf, hood on the sweatshirt and the earmuffs, feels like I have all this stuff stacked up behind me! ha. I am also having a little trouble with the time change and needing to go in the morning. Doing OK, just need to get out there a little sooner. Of course the earlier you go, the colder it is too though. Despite all of that I have still been going and still intend to go. I will get this figured out and keep pushing thru. I am determined. I went and walked Sunday after church and decided to walk to the grocery store at the edge of town since I also needed to pick up something there. The walk there and back was 3.7 miles. Not bad when you are freezing at the same time... OK, and are you ready for this? A couple of times over the last week.... I even JOGGED a tiny bit. A very tiny bit. Thing is though.. .I did it! Plus, when I stopped and went back to walking, I wasn't wheezing and wanting to lay down and die.... I thought I would hate it and not be able to do it. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought. Cool huh?!!

So busy week ahead or more accurately... busy weeks ahead... sometimes I think I want off this ride! Ha. This week is grocery week, need to unpack from the crop and finish up that layout, need to get my cleaning and laundry done (not to mention the laundry I never got folded from last week...oops..) I have a couple of extra rehearsals for a concert I get to participate in Saturday night. We have choir and Bible Study. There are 2 design team positions I was thinking of applying for. I need to decide and figure out if I have the time to do the work for those before the deadline. We are hosting Thanksgiving so I need to start thinking about that and plan my shopping and baking. Of course there is work and walking. The weekends are FULL all the way till Thanksgiving too. We have a concert, choir and church this weekend. A wedding and the church Thanksgiving dinner the following weekend. Then it will be the Holiday! How did that happen so fast? Does time just whiz by or is it just me?

At the moment I need to go make up the grocery list I have been putting off..... I always hate doing that. Hope you have a great week. Blessings.

I think we've been adopted

Look what appeared in our yard last night..... Isn't she pretty? Darrel was headed out to our spare room for something last night and he said she just kind of appeared. She is the friendliest little thing and loves attention. I don't think I've ever heard a cat purr so loudly. She was here for a while yesterday evening and then disappeared. Now I am not a big cat person. But for whatever reason I like her and was sad when she was gone. This morning when I was heading out to walk the first thing I did was check the porch and yard to see if she was around. I thought I could hear her meow, but couldn't find her. So I went and walked and figured I'd look again when I got back. When I returned, I still thought I could hear her nearby. I called "kitty, kitty" which works with most cats and she came down out of the tree right near our porch. She headed straight for me, and was rubbing against my legs and purring. I went in and got her some milk and she dove right in to that. She seemed hungry and the only other thing I could think of to give her was a little dog food. She ate it all. When I left for work she was sitting in our porch swing in the sun seeming very happy and at home. I've been struggling with some things lately and she just seems like a little bright spot that God sent to us. I was praying while I was walking (as I often do) and was asking God if she was supposed to be our cat (yes, I pray about everything) and if so what should we name her. I was even asking Him to let her be there when I got home (from walking earlier). Well she was and still happy and sweet and friendly and wanting attention. I think He even answered me about a name. Gracie... So Gracie may be our new outdoor cat. I think she needs a fuschia pink collar don't you? She is still a kitten. Darrel was guessing maybe 5-6 mos. old. Her teeth aren't very sharp yet and she is small, but tall. We are wondering if someone dumped her out on the highway. We live outside of town on a highway and that wouldn't surprise me if someone just let her out. She just seems about the size like if she had been the last one left in a litter that no one adopted. There are several cats that live on the property next door but they don't seem to like people at all and they keep their distance. If she was one of their kittens, I wouldn't expect her to be so used to people. Gracie on the other hand wants to be right with you and can't seem to get enough attention and petting. Makes me think someone took care of her and played with her. So, at this point, not sure if she is here to stay, but we like her and are hoping she will decide she likes us and hang around.

We wondered what our dog would think of her. He has been around cats a couple other times. He mostly likes to chase them and bark at them as he sees the ones next door walk across his yard... He growled at Gracie at first, but now has just sniffed her and tried to drink her milk! Ha. He took off after her and chased her twice today, but then other times just sniffed her and kept walking by. So it seems like they could learn to live with each other. Last time we had a kitten around, I swear he tried to see if she would squeak like his toys do.. To make his toys squeak he always presses in on them with his nose. He did the exact same thing to this other kitten! It was hilarious. He also was trying to sniff her and check her out and flipped her over. Cracked us up!! When Tanner was a little puppy and we were training him Darrel had read on the Internet that a dog has 3 questions about any new thing... 1. Is it food? 2. Will it fit in my mouth? 3. Can I make it squeak! ha!! With the last kitten you could just about see him working those 3 things out in his head! Too funny!

So guess what? I am registered now for my first 5K!! I am sooooo stinkin excited! It is coming up December 6th and is a Jingle Bell Run/Walk to benefit the Arthritis Foundation. Several family members and friends from my weight loss support group have also registered. So far we have a team of 8!! Several others are thinking about it too. I think it will be a blast to do this together!! I really wanted to try something like this and think its cool that it just happens to turn out that the first one is for a good cause we can identify with. Darrel's Grandma had Arthritis pretty bad in her hands. I can still remember how twisted they were. Darrel's Mom has it now too. We also have a good friend that suffers from Rheumatoid Arthritis. So, we are glad to help a cause like this. If you are interested in checking out our team or making a donation to help us you can do that here. I really want to do my very best both on the walk (no I am NOT running...) and in helping raise any funds I can. The over achiever in me won't allow me to do any less! Ha.

It is already in my head to prepare for the walk too. It has really motivated me. Since I registered on Monday, I have had my best two times per mile on Tuesday and Wednesday. Because of the time change, I moved my walking to the morning. This limits my time with needing to get to work. So instead of just walking however long it takes to reach my 3.5 miles, I've been setting the ipod/nike+ for 1 hour and then walking my hiney off to get as much in as I can in that time. Well on Tues. my time per mile was 16:49 and today it was 16:44!! Before that I think I had only gotten below 17 minutes once. Woo hoo!! I am going to make it to a 15 minute mile. I am determined! Today I did 3.6 miles in 1 hour and 46 seconds!!! That is my best time ever for that amount. I was tickled about that!! Loving this and love that I am actually capable of walking a 5K walk/run!! If you had told me 6-8 mos. ago that I would be signing up for this, that I would want to sign up for this.... I would have said you were nuts.. I was the girl that wanted the car parked as close to the store door as possible. I was the girl who could hardly walk the mall to shop all day (and couldn't without stopping to rest). I was the girl who had to make sure she got up on the platform at church well before it was time to sing a solo... if I didn't and had to get to the mic too quickly from too far, well I would have been out of breath. Hard to sing when you have to catch your breath first. Did I just admit that? Yep. Jesus has changed me. My prayer these days is that He won't stop. I want the complete victory in this and I don't ever want to go back. In His strength I won't. Now I am the girl that is going to walk a 5K and do it in the best time she can. I am also the girl that will then own a shirt saying she did a 5K.... of course you know that will be on a scrapbook page right?

Heading for bed! Tomorow is home day but I will be packing and preparing for a big crop Lisa and I are attending on Saturday. I can't wait!! Blessings!

Wow God.... awesome job!

Seriously now, are there more beautiful colors anywhere than what God is coloring the trees with right now? I swear I've been walking around with my mouth open at the beauty. I keep finding myself saying, "wow God, that is gorgeous!" I adore the fall. Everything about it speaks to my soul. Today I was walking and I had to go thru a bunch of red leaves laying on the sidewalk and it just made me smile. Fall smells so good too! I love the smell of the leaves. I love the smell of burning leaves. If you think that is good, you should smell the fall scents over at the campground. WOW.. Love it when you can smell the campfire among all the other fall aromas. AWESOME. So Friday I decided to snap a couple of pics of some of the trees around me. The one above is outside of our church. Isn't it amazing?

This one is from our porch. I cannot wait to get mums and pumpkins every year. This year we paired it way, way down for $$ reasons and still it looks gorgeous and makes me smile every time I cross the porch! ha.

This one shows the trees in our side yard. They all get a beautiful gold color. LOVE it.













This one is from that same part of the yard. I LOVE the orange trees. I can never decide which are my favorite. One moment I am sure its orange. Then of course I see a beautiful red tree and I think the red are my fav. and so on... Ha. ha.

These are the trees in our front yard. Try to ignore the dorky way the electric company has cut them to keep them out of the lines...













This is a closer shot of the same trees. Wow. See God is so smart... he even knows orange and blue are complimentary colors and put the beautiful blue sky behind the gorgeous orange leaves... Smile.

All of those shots except for the first one are from our yard/property. Did you know I used to live in a mobile home with 1 very small tree? God brought us to Southern IN 7 years ago. We put our home up for sale at the beginning of September in 2001 and had no idea how long it would take to sell. There were like 20 other homes for sale in our area and it could have been a long battle. I prayed about being able to be in Indiana (with my husband because he had to come and start work before I came) to see the fall colors since I love the fall so much and now I was going to have a yard with all these trees. The colors really start in October so I had prayed to be here in October. Our home sold the the 1st person that looked at it in 5 days. The day we closed and moved was sept 29th 2001. Now is God amazing or what?

LOOK. IT'S A PINK CHRISTMAS TREE. Can you believe it? A beautiful pink Christmas tree!!! We saw this at Kohl's on Friday night. It was only $20 something and I did not buy it. Be VERY impressed. I love this tree. Darrel said I should have it for my office. Now that would be way to funny because my boss... Pastor Mark... gives me a hard time about my affection for pink things.. .He is not so into the pink and has banned me from even buying pink paper! HA!!! Now how much would he love it if I had a pink tree for my office! Ha. It would sure make me smile!! I mean I hear Heidi Swapp has a whole pink forest for Christmas so I should be able to have one little 4 ft tree don't you think? GRIN. Oh my gosh... look! It's on sale for $19.99!!!!

I went walking this afternoon in the gorgeous weather. It was like 70 degrees again and sunny and clear. I decided to head towards town for a change and wondered if I could possibly walk all the way to the cemetery where my grandparents are buried. It's at the edge of town and I wasn't sure of the distance. Just seemed LONG. Well guess what? I made it! It was 2.3 miles to where Mamaw and Papaw are which is a good ways into the cemetery. Realizing that they are both laid to rest just 2.3 miles from their home was kind of bittersweet. As I was leaving and walking back thru the cemetery to the road I was looking out over all the stones and realizing that really it was kind of a pretty and peaceful place. Plus, I thought because of Jesus and my knowing Him, it's not a scary place. I love the peace in that thought. Then the next song that just happened to come up on my ipod (which I pretty much had on shuffle today) was Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying." Wow.. the whole thing was one of those really make you think kind of moments. We are so blessed and sometimes I can get so caught up in worries, stresses and fears and "what if''s" when what is really important is to make every moment count, doing my best to do what God had placed me here to do. Don't you think? I kept heading for home from there and ended up with 4.6 miles in 78 minutes. I am sooo working towards being able to do a 15 minute mile at some point. I've gotten into the 16 minute range here a couple times lately. I will get there right?

Another cool thing that happened today.... I've been wondering about doing some kind of run/walk for charity kind of thing. Did I mention that? Well today a friend at church was telling me about a 5K run/walk in Early December. 5K is like 3.2 miles. I can do that!! So cool! I am definitely signing up. I think some friends and family are joining in with me as well. I think this will be SO awesome. It is a "jingle walk" for the Arthritis foundation. Won't that be a cool thing for the holidays too? I am very excited!!! Trust me... NO ONE would have ever thought I would be wanting to do anything close to this!! Don't worry. I am sure there will be pictures to share. Ha!!

I better head for bed. My walking is going to have to switch to AM if I want to go outdoors. With the time change it will be too dark in the evenings. Have an awesome week! Blessings.

It FIT

So we had a slight lifting of the spending freeze last night and were able to head to town for dinner and a movie. We have really been wanting to see Fireproof and the budget was in pretty good shape so Darrel asked if I wanted to go. Well the movie wasn't till later so we spent a little time walking the mall. I was hoping to find something inexpensive and pink to wear to a crop I am attending next Saturday. My friend Lisa is going to have a booth for Shabby Pink Designs and she got us these very cute shabby/vintage aprons to wear and I needed a pink top. So we went into CJ Banks. First, before I started losing weight, I seldom even went in here because even though its a "women's size" clothing store, their largest size seldom fit me. Did you ever notice in nicer quality clothes, the same size you can get at like walmart is actually cut smaller at the nicer store? Or is it just me? So anyway, I thought stuff might fit now. Well I didn't find much pink, but walked by this sweater and really liked it. I like the retro kind of feel with the big buttons and sleeve length. I decided to slip it on, just to see. So I grabbed the largest size they carry, which I can't believe I am doing this.... but I am going to say it... it was a 3x. Yes, a 3x did not fit me At the beginning of this year. I was beyond that, well beyond... It fits now though. Well the 3X was TOO BIG..... I looked at my husband and said I wonder if the 2X will fit. So I grabbed one and tried it. IT FIT.. THE 2X FIT.... It wasn't tight, it wasn't small, it fit well. Oh my gosh, I could have cried right there in the middle of the mall. I was teary and happy and wanted to jump up and down. I could NOT stop grinning. It fit... Did I mention that? The last time I remember being able to buy something in that size was about 15-18 years ago. Seriously... Besides that, I cannot even remember the last time I lost enough weight to now be in a size that is 2-3 times smaller than where I started. WOW. Thank you Jesus for the strength to do this. Did I say wow? Well I did not buy the sweater (although the thought is still crossing my mind) because I thought $50 was a lot and because I am planning on going down more so been trying to not buy clothes much at all. I did however find a pink sweater that I liked at JC Penney and it was 40% off and it was a 2X and it fit too!!!! WOW.... So excited about this. I had forgotten how STINKING GOOD THIS FEELS. It's like once you get some momentum on losing, stuff like this starts happening and then that gives you more motivation and desire to go futher! The sweater was seriously cute though.... and would look great with some navy pants I have....good thing the store is 45 miuntes away huh?

The Fireproof movie was AWESOME. Go see this movie. Kirk Cameron is excellent, the story was excellent, the truth and music were excellent. It was so good. We really enjoyed it. I'd buy the DVD and the soundtrack right now if I could. I think one of the best lines was when Caleb's friend tells him "you don't just follow your heart. You have to lead your heart." Wow. Never thought of it that way. You know the best thing? My husband was 1 of only 2 men at the movie. I love that. Plus, I didn't have to leave the movie thinking, "I wish my husband would be like that" or do that, etc... I am so blessed to already have that. Great movie. Go see it!!

I am headed out for a walk. It's a beautiful, sunny 70 degree fall day. The trees are gorgeous right now. I took some pics yesterday. I'll share later. Hope you have an awesome weekend.

OK - ADD ON to this post. Darrel just brought in a box from the porch. In today's mail I got a box from Sassafrass Lass. It has 4 of their new collections in it.. the paper, stickers, chipboard, alphabets, the whole deal.... It was in a box with pretty colored tissue papers and a big handful of taffy. I have no idea why I got this or where it came from...... Did I sign up for a give away on someone's blog? If so, I don't remember giving anyone my address. Did someone send me a RAK/Gift? Oh my gosh, if that is where this came from... WOW. Thank you to whomever sent this for whatever reason. I love it and my mouth is still hanging open. I haven't had spending money as I've mentioned so again big wow! How fun was this to open and receive. I am stunned....... This kind of thing soooo speaks my language. Thank you. I'll post a picture later of all my new goodies!