Merry Christmas! Okay, a bit late......

What's new

Man, I need to get a new hobby.....oh wait nevermind, I stink at this one. Sorry to all my avid readers out there (all one of you). Okay, what's new?? Justin is the most awesome husband ever sheerly due to the fact that he is letting me get a new Entertainment Center (finally!) AND a new dining table and chair set for Christmas!! I've already ordered the entertainment center, it should be here shortly. But I came across a bit of a problem when it came to picking my new table set. It seems that deep down I am extremely phsyco about certain things and I dream up these weird pictures in my head of what I want, only to find that it does not exist.........anywhere! So because of my weirdness, I am getting my fairytale table made somewhere in Montgomery. Hope it turns out good =).

Thanksgiving was wonderful. We got to spend the day with Charlie and Rachel and shoved ourselves full of every good food imaginable. (I literally mean SHOVED, I almost died!........Long story, I'll tell ya later). Since Justin's mom was going to Jacksonville to hang out with Jo and james on Turkey day, we had thanksgiving dinner with her earlier that week, which just stretched out our stomach real good for the big day. As if that was enough, we then headed to Bama for my family's celebration. Since all but one of the 8 siblings in my family are married, my mom decided to move our thanksgiving celebration to the Saturday after....so everyone could spend the real day with the in-laws and none of us would miss out on seeing each other. I really really love that! My mom's the best!

Let's see, what else? Oh, after Thanksgiving my high school girl's bible study met for the last time of our 12 week session. It was sad, but I truly love those girls with my whole heart. I would do absolutely anything to see to it that they make good decisions in their lives, I want to save them from any pain, or mistakes. But, I know you have to let them be their own person and hope they eventually come back to the truth that you planted in them. Listen to me, I sound like their mother! Well, a mother couldn't love them more than I do! They are the apples of my eye. As a Christmas/end of the study gift I made them all headband thingys. It's this new obsession I have, making these headbands. Here are a few pictures modeling my crafts, and a few more from our first few sessions.

Okay, so not to change the subject but Justin and I are seriously considering buying some land in Stonebrook (you know, while prices are low). Then we figure when the market goes back up, we can sell our house and build on the land. Pray for that decision, we aren't sure what we want to do yet.

On to more important topics. My new love Megan Whitaker has officially opened her interior design store. It's call "Inside the Home" here in Pace. If any of you are ever in the area you should totally stop by, it's the cutest place! You're welcome Megan for the free PR.

Alright, I'm a little everywhere with my thoughts right now so I will leave you with two phrases that made me think this week:
One's from Mom Wow (Jus's mom) - "Sin makes you stupid, you can hide the sin, but the stupidity eventually shows itself."
And the other I just heard randomly on TV - "Nowhere in the bible does it tell us to fight against the sin of this world....no, it tells us to run from it" So in essence, run from sin cause it makes you stupid.........

Halloween and Marriage!

Alrighty, Halloween was a blast. Other than the fact that our pumpkins that we slaved and sweated over crinkled, withered, smushed, and grew hairy mold after 2 days!!! Oh well, it's the thought that counts right?

I'm so glad we live in a cool neighborhood with tons of kids. Toby came over as her hillbilly, bucked teeth, big butted self and we set up our station on my front porch. I bought more candy than an army of crazy little ghosts and goblins could ever want. Purely for the sheer joy of being able to say, "take as much as you want" to the kiddies and seeing their faces light up with sugar high dreams! Oh and they did! I was a knockout for halloween this year, no really a KNOCKOUT......

Scary I know! Well I'm sure most of you enjoyed Prissy's first Halloween costume we modeled in our previous post. But due to the fact that she stands completely still when she is dressed as wonder woman (i think it has something to do with the insane stuffed arms that are not usually present in day to day life), we decided to wear her backup outfit on the actual halloween night. (what, you know your dog has more than one costume..........right?) haha, a girl can't wear just one dress to the party huh? so I now present to you Paris Hilton in all her glory.......

Yeah her glasses are called Doggles, made for dogs, them suckers won't come off if she shakes to the tenth power! Her boyfriend Louie has his studded Leather jacket too, I figured we could call him Colin Farrel, or any of the Hollywood bad boys. Paris needs a date ya know. Anyway, I loved sitting out there for hours talking to all the kids, even if we couldn't understand what they were saying. A lot of the teachers that I work with also live in our subdivision so I got to see them and all their kids. Justin decided he fervently enjoyed his Freddie Kruger mask last year and though we tried to find another scary mask that would be just as fun, we did not succeed. He went with what worked I guess. It was the funniest when Toby and I finally came back inside and just left the huge bucket of candy on the porch, hoping the last little trick or treaters would just grab what was left..........we would hear little voices at the door, then squeals of joy when they realized no one was there to supervise which granted permission to dump the whole thing into their respective baggies. Right at that moment, when they thought they were getting away with all the goodies......justin would open the door (in his business suit and a Freddie Kruger mask) and scare the daylights out of them. hahahhaa

Well, while Halloween was tons of fun, I have other big news to share. Sharry is married!! yay! Yes, this weekend we traveled to Bama and participated in all the wedding festivities. The wedding went off without a hitch. It was beautiful and lots of fun. We got my mom to do the Macarena (sp?), and Josh (the groom) to do the cha cha slide..........Note to self: Josh needs Cha cha lessons after the honeymoon. I'm an idiot and didn't take any pictures with my own camera, so I will have to depend on others and the photographer to give me some........I'll be sure to post them then!

Pictures finally!

So I basically dropped off the face of the blogger planet for a while there. But I am proud to announce that my spaceship has officially landed safely in the backyard of our wonderful love nest. Oh the many things I have deprived my readers of let me count them one by one:

1. Jeff and Laura finally gave the world a beautiful baby boy, whom I am now obessesed with......Lane Micheal. Seriously too cute.

2. We had fall break at the beginning of October. Justin's family rented an out of this world beach house down at Grayton Beach. We had the most amazing room with a balcony that opened right up to the water every morning. And for once Justin and I actually watched the sunrise together (usually we don't even roll over for the first time that early in the morning)

3. then I came home to go to Ashley's bridesmaid's luncheon at Norma's, yum, yum.

4. Then it was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at Hemingways which was tons of fun. I learned that Hambone has the most family of anyone on the planet....including me!

5. And we can't forget about the awesome wedding that followed. So much fun! Ash was gorgeous and I'm glad I got to stay for the whole reception!

6. I went to Bama to throw Sharry (my sis) the most slammin' lingerie shower of all times! She was thoroughly embarrassed by the sexy firegirl outfit Brandy and I got for her.......but I made sure to show that one to Josh so she can't hide it come honeymoon time. I'm evil, I know it. Anyway, this is my 2 year old husband wrestling with my neices and nephews.....they love him.

7. I celebrated my 24th birthday! I had to go to school and teach the kiddies but I had an awesome surprise when a child with a huge arrangement of flowers for a head burst into my 3rd block class. So sweet, yet, I was consumed with the thought that that kid was so friggin cool for not falling as he walked blindly from the front office all the way to the math building. I got roses and lillies, my favorite. Funny, how he knew. I mean, I guess not so funny being that he IS my husband. But we take for granted how much we know about each other. No other man probably really knows what kind of flowers I like........I'm glad.

8. The next day Audge and I hit up Portofino where I fell in love with a woman named Susan, my massage therapist. Wow, how did I go my whole life without visiting this place. The pure relaxation, the elixars (sp?), the pedicures, the massages, the sauna, the cool little robes and slippers you walk around in...........man, if it were a country club, I would join! After our 5 hour excursion I came home and got ready for a night with my love. We started by particiapating in our annual pumpkin carving. I tried to be all ellaborate and carve "Trick or Treat" on my pumpki while Justin took a whopin' 5 minutes to carve your traditional pumpkin face. Then we went to Jackson's. I had never been and was kind of scared because hoity toity places never have food that I like. But man was I wrong?? It was fabulous! Justin introduced me to two very expensive habits this weekend.........he'll regret that!

9. And yes, Megan and I participated in Pet Smarts "Howl-O-Ween" pictures. But I will be glad to say that there are many other obsessive dog owners out there, hundreds of them who are willing to humilate their pups for a laugh and a picture. Even wierd old guys.

So anyway, that is all I can think of for now. I go back and edit this thing tomorrow with all the pictures!

Pictures from our weekend in BAMA!

Here is my sweet little Tatum playing with Prissy. She just kept cracking up laughing/hyperventilating
Sharry and Josh, we had so much fun at their shower. Well, when everyone finally finished listening to the Auburn game on the radio in the back...
This is Cory. He decided he needed to ride the eagle statue outside the Plantaion House resturant. After church Jeff decked the boys out in their camo before we went to lunch... my family doesn't always wear camo.
Me and my baby girl sittin' on mom's couch
Isn't he adorable......you know he makes you wanna smile...
Although I am not smiling when I realize he can't take a serious picture. Really Justin, what is that anyway?
The three amigos. These are Brandy's boys. Ain't they the cutest!
Cory ridin' his Grannie's/my mom's back
My adorable puddin pop! You can't say that isn't the most adorable little girl.
I didn't get to see KC's kids this trip but I'll post some pictures of them next time. And although I got to see Kathleen (Tim's little girl) I don't have any pictures of her, dangit. This weekend was fun. I'll have to write a blog about it when I get a minute.

God and Man

So some of you may have seen this painting before, it is by Michaelangelo and it resides on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Well, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel actually is a huge amazing work of art and this picture is just a small small piece of it. This little piece by itself is called "Creation". If you were to zoom out a bit more you would see that the two hands in the picture belong to God and man. God is the one on the right and man the one on the left. I now have a HUGE version of this in my dining room and I LOVE it. It's an amazing piece of art but it has so much more meaning than that to me. Okay so to most, just thinking about an Almightly God taking the time to create and form man in his exact image, well that's an act of love in itself. But as Justin and I were measuring, hanging, and admiring the beauty of my new piece of art, I really looked at it. Look at the hands here, the one belonging to God is out stretched, in fact in the bigger version of the picture you actually see God leaning as far as he can, if he were to lean anymore it looks as though he might fall right out of heaven, but he's trying his hardest. And man, is sitting comfortably (actually leaning back against a rock). Yes, he does have his hand reaching too, I mean, he does acknowledge that God is there, but he seems as though his effort isn't as great. Kinda like he's waiting for God to reach down and touch him and if he would only reach an inch farther for himself, their hands would meet. That is a visual representation of the christian walk with God. Yes, we acknowledge that God is there, that he exists and we pat ourselves on the back because we have our hand lifted toward him in a half-hearted effort. "Well, that's more than most," we think to ourselves. Meanwhile the almighty creator of the universe is struggling with all his heart to get our attention, urning for us to put just a little bit more effort into it. But this means we would have to give up our position on our comfortable little rock, we might even be put in a position that is "God-forbid" uncomfortable... It's so easy to say to Adam in the picture, reach a little further, come on just do it. Yet so hard for me to look in the mirror at myself and say, get out of your comfort zone, do something daring for Christ, show him you want to reach him as bad as he wants to reach you. Today I had to deal with a loss that I wish on no one. One of my precious lovlies passed away. Kathryn Renella was in my 4th block math class and was killed in a car accident this weekend. She was the ham of the class, couldn't close that mouth of hers for anything. And I loved her. Funny how my love can grow for students I have only had for a little over a month now. But, it's kind of like I am their substitute mother for an hour and a half everyday. You just think of them as your own. I love them all. It's hard to show that to a child when your trying to keep up the "mean" teacher act. I hope they all know deep down how much I love them. And I regret not getting to ever really get to know Kathryn. But in the month I did know her, she made me laugh. Something we don't take enough time to do. She made me. We were all just joking on Friday how loud class was going to be again now that she had gotten her voice back (she had laryngitis for a week). She was only 15. I'll miss her, this is something I don't believe you ever truly get over nor understand but, it brings back to memory a blog a posted a while ago...."Why do bad things happen to good people?" So I think it is appropriate that I post that blog again...

"Why do Bad things happen to good people??"
So, by the title of this blog one would think that I must have recently gone through something bad. No, not at all. But for some reason everything I read about lately seems to be dealing with that issue. And not surprisingly, I opened up to prepare the Sunday school lesson and what was the title?? “If God loves us, why does he allow us to suffer?” So I figured I would just write and see what comes out. It doesn’t seem fair, if you think about it. If I really try to live my life right, do all the things God requires of me, I should be safe from harm, and suffering. But, if that were true then wouldn’t I just be living right and following God to keep myself from bad things?? Instead of actually living this way in order to please God and show him I love him. It is easy for me to be faithful when things are all good, when the sun is shining on face and life is right. But is that true faith? If I compare it to the most important human relationship I know, that with my husband, I can see that it is ludacris for me to live my faith like this. For example, what if my husband only loved me when I cooked well, cleaned spotlessly, and loved flawlessly. That wouldn’t be true love, in fact, it would be non-existent love, because I never do everything perfectly. No, but when he hugs me even when I bring home McDonalds for the umpteenth time, and he smiles at me even though my stuff is scattered all over HIS sink in the bathroom, and he gives me a sweet little “I love you” even when I am over-reacting to something small he has done, THAT is when I truly see his love for me. Unconditional love really is the only kind of love that exists, anything else doesn’t qualify to be called love. Much like the story of Job, it is so inspiring. Job is, to me, the truest example of an unconditional faith. Satan himself saw how dedicated Job was to his God and approached Jesus personally. He proclaimed that Job is only so faithful because he has so much, if God would only let Satan throw him some curve balls, Job would fall in his devotion. We would hope that Jesus would then say, “No you will not mess with him, he’s my baby!” But then Satan would win you see, because he would always have the power to proclaim that we only love God because he gives us good things………. But instead Jesus said, “No, I have faith that Job loves me, he is strong for me, throw whatever you want at him, and he will not falter!” I want him to have that much faith in me, and I want to stand under the challenge like Job. Yeah, it’s easy to love and praise and trust in our God when things are peachy, but again, this is love not tested, praise not battered, and trust not trialed. It is when we are in our valleys, when we have hit rock bottom, that our devotion is truly shown. When I am walking through the wilderness, do I trust him then, to “work all things to the good of those who love him”. When I can’t see the light at the end, do I still count on him to lead me through the tunnel?? That is the only way to show true trust. Is any of this making sense. If God gave us the promise that Christians would be saved from all suffering……..don’t you think that everyone would become Christians purely for this benefit…….yet then the focus is “what can I get”, it becomes a self-serving purpose for getting saved. My Christ would not feel loved by this. We would not be choosing him, but choosing “non-suffering”. But it is when my grandma dies and I can proclaim, “It is all part of your good and perfect plan, your glory is worth our sacrifice!” It is when I lose my job and I can say, “You know the plans you have for me lord, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me a future”. It’s when I can feel the bitter cold of loneliness to the depths of my bones and it seems that I am at the bottom of everyone’s list and I can smile and say, “The lord is my joy and my strength, I will base me life not on fading lights, but on an everlasting one.” It is then and only then that he feels my love and devotion to him. By not letting “suffering” differentiate the Christian life from the non-Christian life, Christ is ensuring that we are indeed choosing him only because he is our Lord, not for any benefit we can gain. Isn’t heaven a gift enough, isn’t joy for now a gift enough, yet I have the audacity to ask God why, why can’t I be rich, why can’t I be saved from the perils of life. How can I ask for more than Jesus asked for himself. He certainly wasn’t saved from any perils. Who am I? So, the point I guess is……bad things will happen to good people. But it is Romans 8:18 that sheds some perspective on this for me, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” This is heaven people! We could pile up the hardest most persevering times in our lives, throw cancer on there, throw death on there, through break-ups on there, throw rejection, abuse, disappointment, persecution, every bad thing on that pile and it is not even WORTH comparing to the glory he will reveal to us in that day. That makes my soul jump for joy, literally inside my body, it’s jumping! Haha! And before Paul was finished with this little speech he added verses 24 and 25, “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have we wait for it patiently.” So our hardships here on earth will give us an even greater hope for heaven. If he were to give us a perfect life here, what would we have to hope for??? But instead we get to wait for it patiently and anticipate the day we will have no suffering, the day when only GOOD things happen to good people!

Picture to Prove it!

Hey hey, I finally was able to get my phone to send these pictures so, they will be a bit blurry and not of the utmost quality but hey, at least they're pictures!