Thanksgiving

Well it has been awhile since I have written, things have been fairly busy around here. But right now I am in Dallas enjoying a great Thanksgiving break. We flew in Wednesday night after a day of work for Nelson and a day of hanging out with my mom for me. We were delayed an hour because of weather but the airport really wasn't bad at all. We have been doing a lot of hanging out, spending time with all the siblings and just having fun being together. Nelson's grandfather was here for a few days and it was great to be with him. Yesterday I got a sewing machine and Winsor, Ginny, and I have been trying our hand at making lots of things. It has been so fun! I am going to make some pillows when I get home and I am getting sewing classes for Christmas from my parents. I was so bummed because the store where we got my sewing machine in Dallas offers free lessons for all machine owners but since I don't live here, I don't get to take advantage of the great deal. Ginny says that that is all the more reason why we need to move to Dallas, but until then, they said I can call any time I am in town and they will give me some free tutorials! Today we celebrated Nelson's birthday a day early with a delicious dinner of pot roast and bosom beans. Bosom beans you may ask? Well, they are really green beans but when Nelson's mom was cooking them, she used a pork thing to give them a salty flavor. Well, that pork thing had a nipple still on it! So by process of reasoning, we decided that in fact, it was a bosom flavoring our beans! So we lovingly called them bosom beans! We had some funfetti birthday cake and Nelson opened some presents from his folks. Then John got surprised with an early birthday present since he will be at school for his birthday (in a few weeks). It was quite the surprise- an X Box 360! Now he and Nelson can play on line together all the time! We have also had a great time hanging out with the puppy additions to the Somerville and Vanderhill families. Jack and Riley are brother and sister and Jack is the Somervilles and Riley is the Vanderhill's. They are cavalier king charles spaniels, pretty much the cutest dogs ever! It is so fun to watch them tussle about and play fight together. The Somerville's other dog, Callie, is also a Cavalier and so she loves having friends around to play with. Tomorrow we have to go back to the Lou and back to reality again :( But I only have three weeks of fieldwork left and then I will become a working woman! This Thanksgiving has been an amazing time to reflect at God's provisions and blessings in my life. I would not be anywhere without Him and His grace in my life. Praise him for the wonderful things he has done!

My Dad's big race!

My dad ran a marathon this weekend and pretty much kicked butt, if I do say so myself. My sister-in-law documented the race in her blog so I will just let that speak for itself!

Every Kiss begins with Kay

just when you think you've learned it all, something totally new hits you right smack dab in the middle of your face! So tonight we were watching some TV, a commercial came on for Kay jewelers. I made the comment that it seems like all the Kay commercials come on just at the holiday times. So I started making fun of the commercial, singing the little tag line "every kiss begins with kay." I was about to sing it again and I was trying to think of how I could change it to make fun of it even more. So I thought, I know! Instead of saying Kay at the end, I will say whatever letter kiss starts with. Then it hit me!!!!! The whole point of the little song is that the word "kiss" really does begin with the letter "k!!!!!" Imagine that! And this whole time I just thought it meant that if you give someone something from Kay they will kiss you. I never put two and two together. Now I no longer make fun of the commercial but wait in eager anticipation of when the next one will come on so I can embrace it in a whole new way!!!

I think it is time for a new post but not a lot is coming to my mind. I think it is because I had a fever the past few days and so my brain cells are a little burnt, but I think they are recovering and I should be good as new in a few days. Well, we had a good weekend last weekend, we helped at a retreat for my parents' church, watching the little kiddies. It was a great time, we really enjoyed it. It was a little intense at times when the kids didn't want to listen, but overall, it was good. We were able to play some putt-putt and go paddleboating in our free time so that was fun. We also had a rousing game of basketball with my parents which is always good. On Sunday night we had a friend over who made a very momentous purchase- her first digital camera!!! She needed a tutorial on how to use it because it had been sitting in the box for about a month before we were able to intervene and teach her the ways of the digital world! Hopefully it went well and we didn't inundate her with too much information. Monday was good until the afternoon when I started feeling really sick. The sad part was that my brother was in town and we were having our belated birthday celebration with my mom (the three of us have the same birthday). We had our party anyway, I got some great presents, but I was not really feeling the greatest. Then on Tuesday, I still didn't feel so good but when I called my client for that day to cancel, he was like, oh no, come anyway, we don't care if you are sick, no big deal. I was thinking "I care that I am sick and do not feel like putting on clothes and driving to see you." but after a few attempts to reschedule, I realized he wasn't budging, so I went anyway. I spent the rest of the day asleep in bed so that was good. Today I feel better, not 100% but a good 90%. So tomorrow should be better.
That is about all the happenings for now. We are going this weekend to Big Bill's marathon in Chattanooga, so we are pumped about that! Go Big Bill!

sweet justice

this morning started off not being so great. I knew when I woke up and it was light outside that there was a problem. when I looked at my alarm clock to see the time, there definitely was a problem. I overslept by an hour and a half! I remember my alarm going off but I guess I turned it off instead of hitting snooze. I woke at the time that I am supposed to be at work by, so I quickly jumped in the shower and got ready in about 12 minutes. It would have been shorter except when I was putting on my mascara, I accidentally poked myself in the eye, my eye started watering and all that mascara I just put on of course was then pouring down my face. So I had to wash my face again and reapply my make up. Luckily I have my lunch leftover from yesterday since I went out to lunch then so I didn't need to make a lunch. I grabbed Pop-Tart (it was definitely a pop tart kind of morning) and headed out the door with soaking wet hair to find that my car was all frozen over with frost. So I quickly scrapped a few visible spots on my windshield and was on my way. I was driving to work and I was pretty much obeying the speed limit because the road I take has so many stop lights that speeding wouldn't get me there any faster. But this dude behind me was totally riding my butts (as Nelson calls it) and then finally got the chance to get around me and flew past me. I pretty much dismissed him from my memory until a few minutes later I saw some flashing lights in front of me. That annoying butt-riding dude had gotten pulled over!!!! I was so excited and felt this wave of justice sweep over me. Then I knew that all was right in this world and that the morning was going to be ok.

monograms, decorative soap and time zones

So tonight while we were enjoying some games with some friends, we came up with some ideas for my blog. The first one was on the topic of monograms. I really love monogrammed things. If everything could be monogrammed, I would monogram it. Shirts, bags, blankets, towels, soap, etc. If it were up to me, I would probably mow my initials in the yard every week or at least sculpt the hedges in a nice EKS (or eSk depending on the type of monogram). But since we live in an apartment, I don't have control over those things so for now I am content with monogramming things inside. I am not sure where this love came from but it is here and it looks like it is here to stay. One of the things I have monogrammed is my soap. However, this soap is not really meant to be used. I do have three bars of this monogrammed soap but I just can't bring myself to use it because then eventually we would get down to the part that isn't monogrammed any more. and then it would just be a bar of unmonogrammed, boring soap. so for now, it is just decorative soap. And one more thing, who knew that Canada has the same time zones at the United States? I certainly didn't. Not knowing this almost caused some embarrassing times for me today. Luckily someone who did know about Canadian times zones was able to fill me in on how they work before I emailed someone from Canada wondering how we would ever set up a phone conference when we would both be at work at the same time? I mean, I didn't know if I was going to have to come in really early or stay really late-it almost didn't work out. But then I looked at a map and saw that Canada does in fact use the same time zones as the U.S. and it would all work out. So we have our phone conference set up and I will probably take notes on some monogrammed paper.

funny people

I am not quite sure what it is, but I have managed to have some strange interactions with people during the past few days. After the weird conversation with all the sprint people yesterday, I got cussed out by an old lady today! I really didn't do anything wrong though, I promise. See, I went to see a client and she lived in condo. So I drove up, parked my car, and went inside to do my thing. Well, when I came out, I found two older ladies standing by my car. I wasn't sure why they were standing there, I thought, maybe I have a flat tire or maybe my car is just that cool that people congregate around it. but then I realized they were not happy. and the yelling began "IS THIS YOUR *&$% CAR???" "why yes, it does happen to be my car" "WELL, WHY THE $%#% DID YOU PARK YOUR CAR THERE???" "well the spot was open" (there were lots of open spots) "YOU #$%@#$ IDIOT, YOU CAN'T PARK YOUR CAR THERE, YOU ARE A VISITOR, YOU MUST PARK OVER THERE" (there were no signs or anything alerting me to this fact) "ok, I am sorry, I will not let it happen again" "WELL I HAVE SPENT THE PAST TWO HOURS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHOSE $#@$# CAR THAT IS" (I was only there for 45 minutes) "I am really sorry, I didn't know" I thought that was the end of it but I turned to get into my car and I noticed there was a huge piece of paper taped to the window with some not so friendly words written on it. "THAT'S YOUR #$&*#@ TICKET YOUNG LADY" "yes ma'am, I am sorry" I mutter under my breath as I rip this paper off my window and try to peel of the tape that is pretty much frozen to it. So after that ordeal was over and I peeled out of my parking space. Then I went to the grocery store. I really love the grocery store and I always look forward to going there. This particular trip lived up to my expectations except one small incident (it really was pretty small). Well, first there was a really cute old guy wearing a hoodie but it was tucked into his pants which were pulled up really high. So that was awesome but then I proceeded down the canned soup, beans, etc aisle. There was a man there that started talking to me about how hard it is to go to the grocery store and buy things that are low in sodium. I didn't want to tell him that it really is not that hard but then he started going off on how the heck was he supposed to keep to his low sodium diet when there are 800 mg of sodium in this can of chili??? I really didn't feel like talking so I just told him that maybe he needed to choose something else instead. I quickly finished on that aisle and proceeded through the rest of the store. The rest of the trip was uneventful but I am really just wondering why do people always go so crazy with me?