High Five for Friday

1.  Ticket - I just received a call from the Hickman County Courthouse, and the judge dismissed my $193.50 ticket!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Do you ever have those little gifts that happen, that you completely don't deserve, that you are so thankful God provided??  Thank you Lord for saving me that money!

2.  Scarf Weather - I'm going to be honest, I'm ready for the 80's to be gone for the year.  I pushed it today with a long sleeve shirt and scarf, and I'm loving it.  I wasn't loving the beads of sweat that formed on my upper lip when I stopped to talk to someone outside my house today, but I am loving the scarf.  Come on cooler weather!!!

3.  Football - It's Friday, so of course I'm loving football.  Looking forward to the high school game tonight, and college all day tomorrow.  I'm utterly failing in fantasy right now, but hopefully I can start to turn it around this week!

4.  Family Time - Tomorrow is another family reunion.  My family loves them.  I'm looking forward to seeing my grandparents, some cousins, and some more distant relatives I only see once a year.

5.  Slow weeks - This has been a nice slow week at work.  I really thrive on being busy 90% of the time, but last week was a little overly busy, so it's been nice to take some time to slow down and catch up this week!!

I hope you have a fantastic weekend!!

It's OK - Kind of the Long Version

Happy Thursday Folks. I don't know about you, but I'm glad to see Thursday roll around.


  It's OK...   ...to know you are old when you visit college girls, hang out with them until your bedtime, then see pictures on facebook of where they went out after you left :-)
...to have a 5K time so slow that you would trade your 3rd place $10 gift certificate if they just wouldn't announce your time on that blasted bullhorn (yeah, apparently just 3 of us in my age group for this race)
...to walk into the new Home Goods store across the street and have 100 things screaming "I would look so good in your house!!"
...to be excited that my favorite high school football team is back in action this week.
...to be such a high school football fanatic that I went and watched two random teams while my team had their off week last week
...to love, love, love dinners with my high school friends
...to laugh when high school friend's sibling and his wife comesto dinner with us and that I'm so close with their family we always know exactly what and who each other are talking about, it's almost scary.
...to be shocked that your baby sister is now 17, but so excited for her that she's loving this age as much as I did.
...to absolutely LOVE days where I work from home in my PJ's with my laptop
...to not be able to give up my turquoise purse that is dying a horrible death.  We are talking peeling straps, peeling, outside.  It's a sad state, but what will replace it???
...to be a little sad when I woke up and the weather forcast didn't really jive with the new outfit I bought yesterday, thus I must wait to wear it
...to be in horror when you call some other county and hear what the cost of a ticket is because you were a lazy, unorganized bum who didn't renew her registration in a timely manner, yes $193.50, it was nice knowing you *insert very sad face with lip stuck out*
...to be missing my friend's little girl, EGB, who I feel like I haven't seen in ages... and I miss my friend too :-)
...to have a love/hate relationship with being a grown up
...to have a sunburned, peeling nose at the end of September
...to want to hire a personal assistant who would keep my registration current, pay all my bills, grocery shop, do the junk I don't want to do
...to be slightly obsessed with Season 1 of Revenge that I purchased, but it's starting to get a little dark, and I kind of want someone to come hold my hand when I need them to on the suspensful parts.  Let's be honest, I'm nothing but a chicken when it comes to watching TV.
...to think that new show with Matthew Perry is pretty darn funny.
...to be sad that the majority of what's on TV is total trash
...to be happy that ESPN exists so that there is something to watch when you can't stand the trash
...to miss conversations and laughs with one of my favorites
...to be frustrated with running and panicing about the impending half and sad that there is no way I'm going to be ready.  It can't be helped, but it doesn't change the frustration I'm feeling.
...to love runs, hashbrowns, morning coffee, and breakfast chats to start my day.


I really think I could go on and on and on today, so I will spare you and stop with those.  Happy Thursday!!

Fair Week!!!

I have always loved the county fair.  My dad was very involved when I was young, and we were at the fair the week before it started answering phones and spray painting concession areas, and we were there every day after school the week of the fair.  I LOVED it, every minute.  I can remember standing in my mom's room begging to go to the fair on a Tuesday night.  That was the only night should didn't want to be there, truck and tractor pull.  The noise killed her ears.  I, of course, thought that was utterly rediculous, along with her thinking that I had no business at 11 years old staying at the fair until midnight on a Tuesday night when Daddy finished up and was ready to go home.  Anybody with me that she was being a tad on the unreasonable side??  :-)

So, during college I came home both weekends of the fair, and may have skipped some classes the latter part of fair week to come home and day or two early.  When I returned home and finally landed my first job, I started in August, but I made it clear to my new boss, pary of the hire on package was that I was off the second week of September.  When I decided to change jobs and was interviewing for job #2, I made it clear I was off the second week of September.  Are we catching the drift of how insane I am?

So, sure enough, the Saturday after Labor Day, the fair was finally here.  My jobs this year were working in the harness race office and counting gate money, along with a few odds and ends here and there. 

The first Sunday, I really didn't work, I just enjoyed the fair.  At the end of the day, when I was doing at entry in my gratitude diary app, it said time with the Bigham girls.  They are a family I grew up with, they had 4 daughters and I just don't see them as much as I wish I did, but I always get to spend some quality time with them at the fair.  The people are what make the fair for me.  Some I only get to see this one time a year, some I only see a few times a year, and I just love catching up with everyone and spending some quality time with great people.

Oh yes, back to Sunday.  Sunday is horse races, quarter horses, pacers under saddle, mule races, all sorts of fun!

 

The fast horses

 

The mule race

 

 

One of the stars of the mule race

 

 

And two ladies who love the fair almost as much as I do :-)  Like I said, pretty much my favorite part is catching up with folks.

 

 

 

Ok, that was Sunday.  I'm nothing going to do a post on each day, we all know I never take enough pictures for that, but that's all for tonight!

Quick Laugh

This just made me laugh today.

I have fair pictures for you, thoughts for you, and other things, but I just haven't made it to the blog this week.  Let's blame work, I know I have :-)

o   

It's OK Saturday

Well, I missed It's Ok Thursday, so here's the Saturday edition...

It's OK... (so I started this on Wednesday, I'll follow up in parenthesis the Saturday comments)

To pay for a house cleaner (my bathtub hasn't been this clean since I moved in)

To be excited by a Voxer message (I feel so cool)

To be giddy over selling some calves! (Happy bank account... until I pay for the next set as soon as this check is deposited)

To eat spaghetti at 11:00 after a long day at work (so worth it)

To be overly excited about my sparkly UT Tshirt (and it got compliments)

To be ridiculously pumped about winning a blog giveaway. Seriously, I must have used 100 exclamation points in the reply email back to her.  (and I'm still excited and anxiously awaiting it's arrival)

To be so thankful that my first Scentsy party booking fell right in my lap (yes, I'm now selling Scentsy.  My sister and I nearly singed all our smelling buds the other night checking out all the scents.)

To be strongly considering spending 4 hours in the car tomorrow to go watch high school football (Yup, I did, and yup, they won.  I love watching a win)

To be afraid to use the dunking booth when my boss is in it during our tailgate party Friday. (The crowd hassled me into giving it a try, but I missed by a mile)

To check the fantasy football points at least once a quarter during the kickoff game to see how my guys are doing.  (One stepped up big, one failed me a little, we shall see  how all the games tomorrow go.  I'd really like to start out with a win.)

 

And for the new Saturday ones

 

To hate my biannual sinus infection.  Just started the Z-pac, hope that baby kicks in high gear really quick

 

To be thankful for really good dreams.  I can have some real doozies, so anytime the dream makes me smile, I say a little prayer of thanks.

 

To still not feel the same about Peyton Manning since he didn't go with the Titans.  My feelings are still hurt and the sight of him on a commercial no longer warms my heart.

 

To have a really bad run.  This morning was borderline miserable.  I'm blaming it partly on the sinus infection and the face that I can't breathe, but I'm also really envious of the people who can have a two month break from running and jump back out with a 6 mile run at their same pace.  Me, a two month hiatus and it's like I just started running again.  Yuck!  But, I'm thankful to be able to run again and thankful for friends to run with

 

To have beef thawing to cook spaghetti again.  I have a problem.

 

To take the entire week off work for the county fair.  Heck yes, it starts tonight!!

 

 

Instagram Photo Dump

I'm enjoying Instagram when I remember to take pictures.  Here are a few recent ones...

10 nights before Labor Day starts the annual Walking Horse Celebration.  My family attends a lot!  I think my parents were there every night and I was there 7 nights.  As you can see above, Will is like the rest of us and really enjoys the eating part of the horse show!

My dad showed one night.  He did a good job, and he always looks so handsome in his riding habit.

In the midst of the horse show fanaticism, I ran a 5k Saturday morning.  It was the Titans return to football 5k.  I must say, I thought they did a fantastic job for a first time race!!  It was my first attempt at running in a while, and it felt really great.  I'm still getting back to where I was, but it's great to be running again.  That's the finish line you can see in the left of the photo, so you ran in the stadium, around the field, and thru that thing for the finish line.  As you were running thru, they put you up on the jumbo tron.  Kind of cool.  As we were running across the bridge outside the stadium, you could see the people on the jumbo tron, I was running next to a man and his young son, probably around 6 or 7 years old.  When his dad pointed out the jumbo tron and told him he would get to be on it, he took off like a shot.  It was too cute.

And back to the horse show.  The night my dad showed, some friends let us sit in their box right on the rail.  Will was enamored with the horses.  I couldn't believe he was sitting that still, but he loved being right up close and personal with them!

This was on patriotic night.  How cute is he??  But he did get my friend in trouble when he threw one of the flags on the ground.  A guy walked up, picked it up, handed it to my friend who was sitting in the front of our box and kind of glared at her like she had intentionally thrown down the American flag.  Anywho, Will enjoyed the flags and we all made it out with our eyes not poked out while he waved them around.  I call that a success.
Oh, and have I told you he can now say Anna??  I never thought someone saying my name could make my heart melt quite like that!

And this is why I rarely put up photos of myself.  I seriously still smile like I did in preschool.  I put a little too much into it.  And do I have eyes???  You wouldn't know it from this :-)
One of the best parts of the horse show... horse show donuts.  This year the donut booth put up pictures of their patrons on facebook.  I was called out by a friend when she saw this picture and tagged me!

A fun week at the horse show, with a nice 5k in between (in which my friend, Kathleen, placed 10th overall female, woo-hoo, speedy friend!!) 
P.S. Do you think I think my nephew is cute??

It's Here, It's Here, It's Really Here

Football that is.
A friend sent me this, I thought it was great!

And it is here.  This week marks the 4th high school game of the year. My team is rolling along at 3-0.  Last Saturday was the first full college day of the year!  (The Vols won Friday night - Go Big Orange!!)  I bought my new TN T-shirt for our annual tailgate party at work this Friday.  And tonight kicks off the NFL.  All we have to do to make things perfect is wait for baseball to be over so that their highlights don't get in the way of the football highlights on ESPN.

This is the text I sent my mom on Saturday...I know I have a sickness, don't judge...

Game Day, oh game day, how I love you so.  Herbie, if you weren't happily married...

Fantasy Football starts Wednesday.  My draft didn't go quite like I was hoping, but I fully intend to make the playoffs this year.  Let's go team!!

So, let the upsets, the crazy plays, the Hail Mary's and the overtimes begin.  I'm loving it!!

Cooking Score and a Miss

My mom always had the ability to take whatever was in the fridge and make a meal out of it.  And it was normally something tasty.  I came home the other day to a fridge of nothing.  I was so hungry and didn't even have my go to cereal on hand.  So I decided I would give the create something out of nothing a chance.  I did pretty good if I do say so myself...

Ignore the poor photo quality.

 

I always have every kind of wheat noodle imaginable in my cabinets, so I cooked some shell noodles in a big pot.  While they were cooking, I heated up some butter in the skillet, added some shredded Mexican cheese blend that was about to go bad.  When the shells were ready, I drained them and added them to the skillet.  Then I added a little crushed garlic and cayenne pepper.  For a little green color (I have lots of trouble adding anything healthy and green to my diet, so I have to fit it in where I can), I put in some spinach leaves.  I put it in the my bowl and took a bite, pretty good, but not delicious, so I found some pre-made spaghetti sauce opened in the fridge and added a couple spoon fulls of that, just what the doctor ordered.  It was really good if I do say so myself.  I ended up taking the leftovers to work and eating it for lunch two days!

 

And the fail...

I love deviled eggs (if you leave the nasty pickles out), so when they said they were doing hamburgers and hotdogs at church Sunday night, I thought it would be the perfect time to try my hand at deviled eggs.  I know at some point in my life I've boiled eggs, but apparently I forgot how.  So I put those babies on to boil (almost a whole dozen) and left them a while (this is where a more intelligent person would have looked up how long it takes to boil eggs).  After several minutes, I pulled them off the heat, and pulled them out, started cracking and peeling.  When I cut them open, this is what I found...

 

Again, I need to take better pictures

 

I knew that wasn't going to work, but I wasn't going to be denied my eggs, so I put the rest back in boiling water.  I proceeded to finish the laundry, do a few other things, and went back and went thru the same routine.  Cut them open, and while not as gooey yellow as the first time, not the hard boiled centers I had seen my mom use for deviled eggs.  So I decided that I wouldn't put my fellow church members in harms way of possible salmonella, I would use the sad looking yolks myself when I got home, I mean I already had all the other ingredients in the bowl.  So, when I returned home, I cut those yolks out and started mixing.  I took my first test bite, GAG!!!!  Straight to the garbage. 

I have been advised now on how the boiling process should go, so I'm expecting much better results next time around.

 

So there are my scores and fails in the kitchen last week!!

What is your motivation?

A couple weeks ago, I went to my church, then instead of Sunday school, I decided to shake it up a bit and go to the church next door.  Our town has 5 churches right off the town square that are within spitting distance of each other.  Anyway, not surprisingly, this sermon was exactly what I needed to hear.  It was the Old Testament story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and how they stood up to King Nebuchanezzer.  It ticked the king off and he threw them into the fiery furnace, but they came out without one hair on their heads singed.  The sermon did not go where I thought it would at all.  I thought we would talk about those guys and how they did right by God.  Instead it was more about the King, and how self absorbed the guy was.  And the preacher asked some tough questions.  Who do we treat as god, self or God?  What is our motivation for what we do?  What we wear?  Where we go?  To impress others?
It just made me think.  I know I have a problem with selfishness.  I know it, but what do I do about it?  Not much.  But since this sermon, I've made a consious effort to try to focus more on other people, not just dinners with friends and such like I was trying to do, because, honestly, a lot of that is about me, but instead, praying for others, serving others, thinking about others situations and not my own.  It's amazing the peace I've felt from it.  Weird isn't it, when I quit focusing on myself and my imperfections and my problems and my issues and start focusing on others and fill myself with compassion and thankfulness rather than anxiety and me. 
I don't mean it in a bad way, but I'm tired of me, tired of thinking about the same problems, focusing on the same things I see as shortcomings, tired of putting myself at the center of my world.  I'm ready for God to be at the center, for Him to be the focus, for Him to motivate my thoughts and my actions.  Like I said, I can already see a change in my thoughts and attitude.  I look forward to more!