my space in cyberspace

I thought this was interesting. Myspace was my first experience in “blogging.” The last comment on my page is dated October 17, 2007. It was long before that that I actually gave myspace any attention. Here is what I said about myself nearly 2 1/2 years ago. (yeah, i know - me, me, me)

About me:
I can be very outgoing yet can be extremely shy. I love to sing along with the radio or just sing randomly. Clouds are beautiful and absolutely amazing, I mean they are JUST water! Coffee makes my heart flutter, literally. Chocolate is the best medicine. I love meeting people and building relationships. I am beautiful and I love knowing that about myself! I am a sucker for butterflies in my stomach and stopping to smell the roses. I am loud and often explode with laughter! I am far from where I need to be in life but exactly where I belong......

Who I'd like to meet:
C.S. Lewis, Dr. Seuss, and my mom at my age.

Candace's Interests General:
God and His Word, teaching and learning, CLOUDS, the Village of Hope, finding life in the little things, the people around me, details, small-world occurances, that sense of accomplishment that comes with a good run, traveling alone - anywhere, discovering new places, finding something in the Bible that had been forgotten or never before found, smiling at strangers and having them smile back, doing a good job, crashing at the end of a full day, having a Saturday to sleep in.....

Nowadays:
1. Not as much singing these days, I get too lost in my thoughts.
2. There’s not so much running…..honestly, almost none at all.
3. Switching to half-caff coffee alleviates heart palpitations.
4. Saturday mornings are for coffee on the couch, time with God, blogging, and cleaning in my pajamas. Not so much sleeping in.

The rest is pretty much the same. At least as far as this description goes. Life has changed a lot though.

Hmmm, I wonder what I will think when I read this post two years from now?

Week in Review

First things first – I GOT A JOB! woooooo-hooooooo!
Our Bible class cheered yesterday when I announced this. Jacob cheered longer than anyone. Ha! I celebrated that day with a trip to Chick-fil-A to get a kids meal and trade my toy for ice cream – my favorite!


I guess I was feeling all confident and stuff. So, I bought a storage bench on Craigslist and recover it while I watched Practical Magic. That movie is a fall staple for me. I need to add legs to bench so it can become a coffee table/ottoman. Here’s the before.


Then, we went to visit some friends in Arkansas. Fun times. Good food. (Oh, the food.) Sydney and Darby even had a friend to play with too. Why did I not get any pictures of the friends?


Then, we spent some good time with family to celebrate Jacob’s grandmother’s birthday. Here is one of two pictures I have of Jacob and his grandmother. That’s is our nephew’s foot – not grandma’s. Ha!


Speaking of nephews……they LOVE their uncle. I think he loves them too.

What I do best.

teaching 5th grade class
Hope Christian Academy, Ghana West Africa
March 2006

Okay, maybe it's not exactly what I do best, but I am pretty stinkin good at it and I had to try to convince some people of that today. Teaching, that is.

I began this blog this past Spring whilst I was student teaching. I spent most of the summer as a regular teacher would except I was taking Praxis exams and getting as far with the application processes as I could. The blog and the projects that appeared here (and many others) were my way of staying busy in the mean time. Well, the mean time is over.

Small group reading instruction (with half the group paying attention)
Student teaching - 2nd grade, Spring 2009


Now, my license should be in the mail any day, I have been subbing this past week, and I just completed one of two interviews scheduled for this week. A classroom is where I really shine if you want to know the honest truth. I feel at home there, I enjoy the children, I enjoy education. It is my calling and my mission. It wears me out and I love that about it. It is fun.

I forget that sometimes when I spend too much time blogging or squirting out what little creative juices I have around the walls and furniture of our house. Today, I would rather be in a classroom with 24 stinky little bodies that just enjoyed the beautiful weather we had. Today, I would rather be called my name and still not recognize who is being addressed (even though I have been married for 18 months now, I still do not know my own name)! Today, I would rather pretend that I know all there is to know about regrouping, proper nouns, or what exactly are the differences between a spider and an insect when I just found out all of that stuff last night! Today, I want to be a teacher again.


So, move over Elvis, I'm about to hit the stage and rock this hood! Er, as soon as they let me and with a little less hip shaking cause that might not be so good for the kids or me. Ha!

What are the Chances?

Have you ever seen Homeward Bound? C'mon, yes you have. Well, there is a puppy in that movie whose voice is provided by Michael J Fox (love him). That pup's name is Chance. He is an American Bulldog and rips through everything and is a bit rowdy. That's putting it nicely.

Well, Chance (as he is better known) is our American Bulldog's great-great-great-great-great something. Okay, so we have no idea how the bloodline goes, but we do know that Chance is in the same bloodline as our 2 year old Darby.

We were given Darby by Jacob's brother and sister-in-law who once were registered breeders. She was the runt of the litter. Yes, we have a 95 pound runt.


Well, what happens when you have an unfixed 95lb runt American Bulldog running around the house the week you are actually inviting people who do not really know you over to your house for the first time? A dog that is in heat and apparently ate corn cobs out of the trash last week. Yep, she is bleeding and puking everywhere!

You wanted to know that, right?

Oh yeah, and it is raining a lot and really muddy outside. So, you know what that means.

What are the CHANCES this would happen this week?

Oh, and yes we just got the okay last weekend to have her fixed. We thought we should ask Jacob's brother in case he wanted to breed her. She will be going to the vet next week....to be ready for my next party.

Darby's new name is Chance. I just changed it.

A Classic (or the longest post ever written)

As with most of the old things we have picked up along the way, this find has a story. (You know what a sucker I am for things that have a story.) No, we did not pull it out of the trash and lug it home. No, we did not splurge on our estate sale trips and no, we did not inherit it. Jacob did, however, buy it on eBay.

That’s where our story begins. Purdy as she is this truck caused a big stink in our house before we ever laid eyes on her. I got a little upset about the big purchase and I cried. Imagine that….me, crying. Yeah, not hard. At all. Anyway, we got everything worked out and worked out well. I like the way we fight – we resolve stuff.

Then, we had to work out how to actually get the truck back to where we are. It was in Redstone Arsenal, AL and well, we are not. Jacob got all of that worked out with his brother and father helping in big ways. One let us borrow a big trailer, one let us borrow the big truck. I know what you are thinking, “So, where’s the story? This doesn’t sound that exciting.”

Well, our trip down to Redstone Arsenal went well. We had a good ride in the big truck and enjoyed each other. Then we get to Redstone Arsenal and things changed fast. If you do not know, Redstone Arsenal is a military base-thingy near Huntsville, AL. We do not belong to any branch of the military. So, we experienced something new trying to get on base. And by experience I mean we had to get out of the vehicle while they asked us lots of questions and searched the vehicle. Plus, to add to the mini drama of two naïve civilians trying to get on base, we could not find the insurance card in the big borrowed truck. Excuse me, we could not find the current insurance card. We did find five others though.

On base, we found a nice truck in much better condition than Jacob was expecting, a nice military man who owned lots of classic cars, and a hold your breath moment while Jacob tried to pull the truck on the big borrowed trailer. Back on the road, we kept thinking someone was following us until we realized it was Jacob’s truck on our tail. And that made Jacob smile. Big.

Then it happened, just as we called Jacob’s parents to tell them everything was going well. Yep. That’s when it happened. The tread came flying off one of the tires on the big trailer that was carrying the new big truck that is really, really heavy. And when I say the tread came flying off, I mean all the tread on that tire came flying off and took a trailer light with it. Yep.

We were still in Alabama when the tread decided to escape. We rode on the treadless tire for a while at the big trailer owner’s advice. We were okay for a bit, but then we hit Mississippi. Have you ever driven on Mississippi roads? They are not good for regular, good tires much less a tire with no tread on a trailer carrying a 4000lb truck. Nope. Not good at all. See?


But had this not happened, we would not have the story I have been trying to tell you this whole time. You see, Jacob got to the point where he thought something needed to be done about the tire. He pulled over in Union Station, MS and called his dad. They decided Jacob should take the tire off and just ride slow the hour or so left to Memphis.

Then comes Ricky Fiveash with the biggest toothy grin you’ve ever seen. He was excited about Jacob’s new truck on the trailer. His eyes were big as quarters as he was asking about the truck and inspecting it. His hat sat up high on his head. Lucky for us, Ricky knew cars and tires. He lived “just up at the top of the hill” and he had several cars in his yard from which to get spare rims and tires. The Ford tire he brought back first didn’t work. Then he brought back a rim and tire from a 57 Pontiac. It worked.

This part of the story doesn’t even begin to capture the glory of this moment.

Ricky Fiveash was like a 40 year old kid in a candy store as he talked about the turquoise Mercury Comet he had brought the tires in. I wish I had gotten a picture of it. He had an empty old Dr. Pepper glass bottle in the front seat. Ricky Fiveash had an incredibly thick drawl, and I will never forget our redneck Angel and the way he said “Naw” when I asked him a question. I am glad that God blessed us with the tools to get the trailer fixed that night, but I am more grateful that God sent us Ricky Fiveash. He was a joy. He gave this truck a story and turned it into a true classic.


And we even got to see this right after we left Ricky Fiveash at the Union Station, MS BP. It's a beautiful life, isn't it?


Update: I'm back! I was reading over at Chatting at the Sky and decided this would work for Emily's Tuesdays Unwrapped. So head on over there to find more gifts in the everyday!

Cheater, Cheater, Pumpkin Eater

So, I've been cheating this week - a lot. There were no tests but plenty of opportunities to cheat. I am confessing. Cleansing is good for the soul.

I cheated on my diet. I am not really on a diet, but I am trying to not gain more weight.

Chocolate chip cookies do not help. Did I mention they were still warm here?
To my benefit, that's Breyers half fat ice cream.


I bought a lamp at TJMaxx for $7 when I do not have any money
left in my August "Me" budget. I actually bought two lamps. This one didn't have a shade, so I bought a gaudy gold one for $10, switched the shade to this one, with intentions of returning the gaudy gold one with no shade.
Shady, I know! (pun completely intended)
I have decided to take back both lamps.

I didn't wash the dishes one night. Okay, two nights.
Okay, I do this often.
(Head bowing lower and lower)

There are canned goods holding up my picture frames. I yanked off that easel thing so I could hang the frame on the wall (just a few weeks ago). I refuse to pay money for some of those little picture easels. I guess this doesn't really constitute as cheating. Whatever.

Oh yeah, after cheating you have to eat pumpkin, right?
So I cooked up the pumpkin hubby's parents gave us and froze it.
Wish we had more. I could eat pumpkin stuff all fall long.

{insert devious little look}

Do you think I could cheat and eat it before fall?
Hmmmm.

Guess I will have to confess more cheating later!

In case you need a little sunshine....

The weather here has been fabulous, like we had the windows open on Saturday kind of fabulous. Ahhhh! Sunny and breezy and light. Do you know what is a good color to represent this "it's still summer but here's a little fall teaser" kind of weather? Yellow. Think about it. You can have bright and sunny and summery. Or you can have warm and mellow and fallish. From lemonade to mums. Yellow is a good color, and I've been hooked on it lately. See?

via flickr

via design*sponge

via design*sponge

via anthropologie

via flickr

my favorite
sunshine floor to ceiling!
via design*sponge

via anthropologie

my second favorite
via flickr

Yellow is just a happy color, wouldn't you say?

10 years

This past weekend marked ten years since several girls met on the 3rd floor of a dorm they did not want to live in. We soon changed our minds about living there and we didn't leave for three and a half years. Oh the memories of dance parties, devos, and a little bit of studying.

Back in the day, Spring Break 2001

The infamous "open mouth smile" at our wedding.

The growing gang

These girls changed my life forever and even though we cannot be together as much now, I know I will see them in heaven. As one of the girls always says, "Find me."

Anthro-drool-olgie

Hubby leaned over my shoulder the other night while I was perusing the Anthropologie website. We were equally impressed by the eye candy and disgusted by the exorbitant prices. We enjoyed looking around but will not be enjoying any of these items in real life.

He Likes:

She Likes:

Ah, now that fits

This blog has been in the fitting room for some time now. Trying on different dresses to wear and show off. Finally, we have found one that has the perfect vintage feel and fit. Love it! It reminds me of a funky little apron that you could find in grandma's attic. It's fun and funky - my favorite combo! Yay, for a good fit!

Yes, yes, I know. Crazy I should get so excited about a blog background right? Just another reason that I need to get a job.