Ella Grace

Last Wednesday, I had a photo shoot with Miss Ella. I wanted to do the pictures for her mom as a birthday/Christmas present. Obviously, we aren't very good at keeping secrets. We took Christmas pictures of Ella and pictures of her in her mom's wedding dress, and veil. The veil is very special to Randilyn and Ella's Gigi. They both wore it in the weddings. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday, Randilyn!

I've Moved.....

That's right.... I'm now over at http://www.chaseandbrie.wordpress.com/

Come check us out and see what's been going on in our lives!!!!

Definitely not in college anymore

This has been quite the week. My friend, Randilyn, stayed with me for a few nights this week with her daughter Ella since the hubbies were out of town!! Randilyn is the Yukon H.S. POM coach. She has bright and early morning practices (at 6:30 A.M. people). Well, we did what you typically do at sleepovers, stayed up late talking. Too late. This happened the first night and the second night (no we did not learn our lesson after the first one).

When she got up Wednesday morning, I was so excited because I was going back to sleep for another 35 or so minutes. It was glorious. Then I heard this voice go, "Bri... I locked my keys in my car." What kind of cruel joke is this. The punchline was both sets of keys were locked in the car and she was NOT joking. I rolled out of bed, walked outside with a hanger, and we sat there for an HOUR AND A HALF trying to jimmy her door. AAA took forever. Thankfully, some nice gentleman who was up and driving around my neighborhood at 7:30 A.M. jimmied the door open with the hanger. The plus side, everything BUT baby Ella was locked in the car! She got to sleep in!

We were delightful on an average of 3-4 hours of sleep for two nights in a row and getting up and going to work early. I love my friend!!! We manage to keep ourselves entertained... Hurry home boys! We need you!

Um, excuse me!?!

Chase and I have had some very memorable moments in our marriage. Some were big events; i.e. the power going out at our wedding. Some were little events; i.e. Chase eating a bowl of ice cream in the bathtub (water-less). Last night was a little event, but I assure you I will not forget it. Nor will Chase.

I woke up chilly in the middle of the night and decided to be a good wife and snuggle up next to my husband. We were both laying with our backs to each other. I just scooted as close as I could to him and could feel the heat radiating off of him. I nestled in. I was warm and comfy, and was just about back to sleep and I felt this RUMBLE on my backside. My perfect gentleman of a husband had just let out the loudest fart known to man on MY backside. This rumble from his innards was so loud that it had woken him up from his deep stupor. I mean, really!? Really babe?

When I was little, my mom would quote this line from the movie Something to Talk About; "You fawt in your sleep." (that's my southern accent for "fart"). FYI Mom, Chase FAWTS in his sleep!

I'm my own worst enemy

One thing that drives me batty is toenails with no polish on them. I don't know why, but girl toes were just made to have pretty colors on them! (and the fact that I think my toes NEED polish) I don't know why but it seems to make me cringe when I see bare toes and no polish. Worse than bare toes with no polish are the toes that have the faint red/orange/pink tinge to them because they've been under layers of red-tinted polish for quite a while! You know what I am talking about. Well, what's worse than the fact that all these things bug me (I'm not judging) is the fact that I am my own worst enemy today. That's right. I took my polish off last night and took a bath thinking I'd paint my toes after that. Well somehow it was bedtime and I still hadn't polished my toes... I figured I'd do it in the morning and somehow managed to wear open-toe shoes today. Thankfully, I've had pants on with my shoes so it's not AS noticeable (yes, that is me making excuses for myself). I'm very, VERY ashamed of myself and plan to trot myself home and put myself in timeout with a bottle of OPI polish! You better check tomorrow and make sure I did it.

What are you passionate about?

At firs,that seemed like a pretty simple and easy question. Then I started thinking about it... and I'm still thinking about it... WHAT AM I PASSIONATE ABOUT?

First off, I am passionate about God and my beliefs, but that's not where I am heading with this post. I am more on the lines of hobbies/interests-- what is something that I am passionate about that I could do all day and it wouldn't be tedious? If I had to do it all day, I'd enjoy it for the MOST part (let's be real, everything has a negative side, and I realize that).

I dibble in many things, but I don't know if I've found that ONE thing that just calls my name. I love blogging, but I want to blog about what I am passionate about... I guess I am not sure what that thing is. I love to decorate, to photograph, to cook, to be crafty, but I guess I feel that since I like doing many things that I don't excel at any ONE thing. The blogosphere is filled with many versions of the same and different ideas. If I don't excel at them, I guess I feel too timid to put them out there. I don't know. I guess I just want to find the one thing that makes me so excited, that I want to share it with everyone! I want to teach someone how to do it... Maybe someone needs to teach me how to do it first...

What are you passionate about? What drives you day in and day out? Is it a hobby? Your family? Your job?

Spring Cleaning Project # 1

Lately, the weather down here in OK has been wonderful and warm and wonderful! I have had spring fever for a couple of days (weeks). Tonight, I decided that my guest closet needed a little TLC. I have been neglecting it, throwing stuff in it when I need it out of my way elsewhere. It has just become a "catch all," and that is not what I want my guest closet to look like, so I tackled this little spring cleaning project! It looks much better! Be prepared to be amazed!

Looking down on all the clutter (eek!)

More clutter on this side of the closet too

So these aren't in the closet at the moment, but they did reside on the middle shelf. I swear. I crammed a lot of goodies into that closet!

Another angle of the junk!

Ah, much better!

Craft stuff on one side and sewing items on the other

The hub's clothes had to stay (or I have to make room in my closet for them, so they had to stay here)

So I know you didn't see what was inside of these tupperware drawers, but I moved my DVDs to little baskets in the living room and put all my crafting supplies into the bins. They are nice and organized and easily accessible right now!

Another thing I did was organize my stock-pile of cards. I grouped them together by holiday, blank cards, etc. They are easy to find and in the drawer with my gift wrapping supplies!

These were all just a few minor adjustments that I made to my guest closet. It didn't cost me anything but a little time and attention. I actually plan on selling some of those lamps that got exiled in our garage sale in the spring, so maybe (down the road), I will make some money off of this clean-up! Can't complain about that.

So do you have spring fever? Have you organized anything (big or small) lately? Did you do it for free, or did you buy a few organizing products? Did you have a great Monday? (not sure great and Monday go well together but I'm entertaining the idea).

Conflicted

The past two days I have tried to write a variety of posts on different topics. I really think I should make a schedule of topics and stick to those for posts, or they may get pretty random (enter today).

I have noticed a change in myself lately. I thought I just had a case of the "in betweens" like many people are blogging about with this time of year, the weather, etc. I think some of my blahs come from being conflicted with myself. There are so many things that I want to do, but it's not my 8-5 job and I am not to the point of making those WANTS a career yet. In fact, I am no where close to that. It's a vicious cycle. Must continue to work, to support the crafting/project habits, but that takes up time and energy that I could spend crafting, thus I don't craft very frequently and can't get anything going without the ideas to blog about. See, I told you. It's vicious.

I guess I just need some encouragement, a few more hours in my day, and lots more energy. I guess the supportive husband is going to read this and give me an ear full on being able to do anything I put my mind to. Man, I love that guy!

Sorry for the random-ness. I guess I just needed to blog about how the things I really want to do are the things that I don't do daily and I'm conflicted within myself about that. Any suggestions?!

Deadlines

.... They are fast approaching. I thought deadlines were a thing of the past once you were out of school, but they are not. You may wonder what type of deadlines am I facing? Well, here are a few:

1) the Memorial Marathon- it's in a little over 2 months and I am no where close to where I need to be in the training schedule. I have a feeling it may be a walk/run marathon again this year. The most exercise I've done lately is stair climbing 2x a day with a girl from work. We climb about 7 flights of stairs and then come back down them. It's a nice little break, but it is not 13.1 miles

2) Passport- we are going on a cruise to Alaska this summer with Chase's family. Well, in order to get to Alaska, we have to go through Canada and I need to get a passport. You see, I've never been out of the USA and I don't have a passport. That takes about 6-8 weeks. I'm planning on the side of error that it will take longer because I don't want to be stuck home while everyone else is enjoying a great time!

3) Taxes- thankfully, I (think) I finished our taxes the last snow day we had, but I still need to get them filed before April. And the sooner the better because that means we get a tax return sooner (and I may or may not already have plans for that money. I think I will have to make Dave Ramsey happy a little bit and buy something to make Chase and Brie happy a little bit)

I guess these are just a couple of deadlines that I have, and really they are self-imposed deadlines. I guess I function better when I think I have to have something done by a certain time. I have lots of house projects that I would like to have deadlines on, but those need funding too, not just deadlines, and that's a story for anothre day.

The Simple Things in Life

I think holidays have become such a marketing hype. I mean, we are not even out of July and the Christmas decor is bursting forth from the aisles in Hobby Lobby and Wal-Mart (don't get me wrong, I do love me some Christmas spirit, just not in mid-summer).

This year, Chase and I decided for Valentine's Day that we were doing "homemade" gifts. This was a neat experience. I decided that I was going to make him this LOVELY red-velvet, heart-shaped cake. It was a great plan, until I started trying to put the plan into action. Let's just say that the beautiful heart shaped cake ended up being a single layer (yes, it was supposed to be 3), round cake. It was rough, very rough. I did not inherit all of my mother's cake baking/decorating abilities. The 2nd layer of cake fell out of the pan into my sink. Unfortunately, I was too disgruntled to take pictures. However, Chase loved it (and if he didn't love it, he was great at convincing me that he did love it).

He made me a "Coupon Book." It was thoughtful, and sweet, and homemade. And I loved it. Plus I won't be cleaning for a while! : ) He made me two copies of the coupons, so I have double coupons. It's great!

I am glad that we simplified this holiday. We loved our gifts (despite the imperfections) and they meant so much more. Just remember that great gifts don't have to cost a great deal of money, and they will still be very heart-felt.

Happy Valentine's Day!