magical memories

I love to sit and stare at our Christmas tree in a dark room. This usually happens early on a Saturday morning when the house is still and quiet.

I may get this from my mom. I remember her up late sitting in a dark room, just watching the bright sea of wonder. I get lost there. It sparkles. It twinkles. It glows. It’s just magical.

One of the best parts about this time of year is relishing in the moment without reserve to be nostalgic as well. For this tenderheart, it makes the things of this time of year even more special. I love reliving the memories of old and making new!

NYC ornament bought at the Empire State Building just after getting engaged
My mother always called me CandyCane

Proposing frogs my sister gave me when we got to Denver after getting engaged

We had these beautiful ornaments as kids – there are 3 of them left.


From my band days

my baby’s first Christmas ornament


What memories (old and new) are you savoring this Christmas?

October 5th, 2009

Just a regular day, but here's what happened....

listened to message from an optional school principal who wanted to interview me for a kindergarten position......called her back immediately......the position had already been filled.....she had been interviewing all weekend......i asked when she called and left the message.....it was saturday while we were in the back woods of arkansas camping......i told her that......then i got off the phone and cried

i babysat two beautiful girls tonight that i had never met in person......their mother and i went to college.....she was in town to photograph a mutual friend's engagement......when she left she said my house was beautiful and adorable......i said her girls were beautiful and adorable

my husband just made me s'mores

thoughts i am taking to bed.....God has something planned and i am glad for the wake up call to keep my phone within range of a cell phone tower.......i would much rather have my kids complimented than my house.......jacob is the best

Raccoons, and Tears, and S’mores, oh my!

What good would this weather be without a little camping trip? Chilly and crisp at night and just warm enough in the day to enjoy yourself. Absolutely perfect weather for camping. Absolutely perfect weather. Period.


We had originally planned to go with some friends, but it did not work out for them. We packed the car with the camping gear we got as wedding presents and headed over to Arkansas to enjoy a weekend getaway, just the two of us. We got there around 4pm on Friday afternoon and were greeted by a slew of Pickin & Grinnin Seniors. We were not aware we had chosen the mobile retirement home park of the south. We had.


We got all settled in – cooked, played rummy, yadda, yadda – you know, the usual. Except, I forgot to put the food basket in the car at the end of the night. So, what happens when you are nestled back in the woods away from the pickers and grinners and you leave your food out? (See below)


Notice anything missing from my s’mores pack? Yeah, the chocolate! What kind of raccoons take just the chocolate? Seriously? They must not have known who they were messing with. Seriously.

Also missing but not pictured: bread (all but two pieces), wheat thins, and the best chips in the world.


Jacob and I took inventory, cooked breakfast and then decided to explore a little. This park had some decent trails that we wanted to get in before lunch. Hence, the tears.


Sometimes I feel so out of shape that I could cry, but the tears were not ours. We walked the longest preserved portion of the original Trail of Tears. It was amazing. We thoroughly enjoyed being surrounded by nature and checking out all of the cool little things the “woods” have to offer. Mostly this included mushrooms and spider webs. We are dorks. We do not care. We have fun being dorks together.
















After our excursion in the woods, we drove down into town to replace what the raccoons had taken or left contaminated. Lunch was nothing special, but dinner, oh my goodness. Let me just tell you, if you have never had wings marinated for a full day and cooked over an open fire, or a burger with onion soup mix in it cooked over an open fire, then go do it. Both are SO good!

Then, then, came the s’mores. Also known as the best s’mores I have ever eaten. Not sure what did it for me, but they really were the absolute best ones I have ever had the pleasure of savoring.

We topped the weekend together off by making it to church just in time and then relaxing on this rainy Sunday. Have I mentioned I love our little life?

Finances Teacherized

My dad would be so proud. Just a few months before he passed away, he left his staunchy office job and partnered with another accountant to start a new CPA firm. His firm almost immediately became an Endorsed Local Provider for Dave Ramsey. My dad prescribed to Dave's (we may as well be on a first name basis) guidelines and strict financial advice. My dad even paid for me to go to one of Dave's big seminars several years ago when it rolled through town. I paid full attention, took notes, and wanted to start saving for my emergency fund. (Jacob was no where near being in the picture at that point.)

Well, we are about to complete our first month working with Dave Ramsey's envelope system from the old Financial Peace University. Jacob figured out our budget and I took it from there. I went and got the cash necessary to be set for the month. Instead of buying the envelope system wallet that is available, I got a streak of teacher creativity.

Above are the envelopes I carry on a daily basis.

I just got some regular ole envelopes that were tucked away in a drawer. Added some leftover scrapbook sticker letters I had tucked in another drawer (hence the funky labels on each envelopes), and then had them laminated using a gift card to Knowledge Tree a former student gave me.



About a week into the process, I went back and added this little piece of velcro. Necessary for all file folder game pieces holders and cash envelopes, in my opinion. These are things I learned in college - okay and may a few other things.

I also learned that you can write on anything that is laminated with a Sharpie. Yes, I know they are permanent.....I smelled, I mean, I uuussseeddd them a lot in college. Anyway, they also taught me that if you combine the high fumes of a Sharpie with the overwhelming fumes of Nail Polisher Remover, then you will be in total bliss and have not a clue what is going on in your classroom. Okay, not really but the nail polish remover will "erase" the permanent maker. (Not so tough and permanent now are you, Mr. Sharpie?) See?



Now, they are all ready for next month. Works for us - and hopefully we will be debt free in about 2 years. I am proud of our good start. We couldn't have done it without you Daddy.

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!

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."

running behind....

Well, lo and behold, I actually did something besides yard saling, creating more messes (I mean projects), and hunting for a job this week. Hallelujah! I went to visit my best friend, Lindley, over at her new place in Middle Tennessee. She moved this past weekend and I went to check out the digs and help decor-ize (I can make up words if I want to). She has a great new job teaching Physical Education at one of the top schools in our state. She has a great new apartment in a booming little town filled with charm. She has a great outlook on things to come! She needed all this newness and greatness. God has given her a special task to fulfill there - I just know it!

Lindley and I have been best friends since I don't know when, but she claims it was around 4th grade. She doesn't lie and she has a freakishly amazing memory, so I believe her. Her mom is very dear to me also. Our moms were friends back in the days of us growing up. Her mom has kind of always been a second mom to me and I realized this past weekend how much I have missed that. Lindley's mom has the best laugh too. We all get tickled at each other and can just laugh and laugh.

Good times, good times. We even got some cupcake action in there at the last minute. There is a new GiGi's cupcakes open just down the road from Lindley's new apartment. They were to. die. for. Here you can see Lindley modeling her and her mother's selections.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Miss Princess - the name suits her
White cake with fresh strawberries, cream cheese frosting,
topped with pink sugar

I had the Strawberry Short Cake and got the Wedding Cake to take back to Jacob. Yum! Jacob did call as we were leaving GiGi's. The conversation went a little something like this. "Hey, what's up?" Me: "Nothing." Jacob: "Cupcakes?" Me: "How'd you know?" He knows me and loves me just the same.

Here's a pic of the cupcake that I got for him. It didn't quite make it back to Memphis in the same grand presentation in which I had bought it. However, it tasted just as wonderful.

Oh yeah, and about the title of this post.....I've run/walked/elipticaled over 8 miles since I have been back trying to keep that cupcake off my behind!

The Heirloom House

This could be a good name for our place if we were in the business of naming our place...more to come on that in a later post. However, we do have many heirlooms floating around here. We adore them and are so glad that we have a house filled with pieces that hold history. we love old stuff, not for its shear coolness factor but that old pieces hold a story.

Here are some of our pieces and their stories.

The white cabinet you saw back on this post belonged to my great-grandmother on my mom's side. We called her Grand Ruby. She and her sister took my mom to church when she was younger and then helped her get to the Christian college where she met our dad. On the left is how it looked when my mom got it after Grand Ruby died. On the left is how it looks now in our dining room.

Now, for inside that cabinet....

This thing is filled with a mixture of our wedding presents and things my parents were given as wedding presents.
Some things belonged to our mom's mom, or MawMaw, if you will. See there that glass shoe in the bottom right side, those three teacups across the middle, and that pink depression glass set on the bottom shelf. Oh how my sister and I would admire that pink depression glass when we visited Mawmaw for Spring Break and the Holidays.

Well enough of my stuff, let's move to heirlooms from hubby's family.

This beauty hangs above our bed and looks eerily like Jacob's best bud, Sydney. We are not sure where it came from. Jacob thinks that it was drawn by his great-uncle maybe. All we do know is that it is a charcoal drawing that was in his grandparent's farm house in Pennsylvania. It has a gorgeous frame around it too.

One of our most valued treasures is this book. And while it is new, it holds years of photos and heirloom memories. Jacob's grandmother (with help from uncle and cousin-in-law) created and gave each grandchild a book of the family tree. It simply tells the story of Jacob's grandpa and grandma and the legacy they built of loving God and doing His will.

There are several other pieces in this house that have stories to go with them. There are so many others but I didn't want this post to go any longer. So, I'll give you them in list form.....Mawmaw's white Bible that Jonny gets, the bed my parents had when they first got married, part of dad's coin collection, Jacob's grandpa's work log, mother's pearls.

Well, like I said in my last post, I am glad that these things are in our house, but more importantly I am glad that we have pieces that mean something and tell a story of the people who once owned them.

We also have a great heirloom meatloaf recipe from Jacob's other grandmother......oh, it is so good. I'll be posting it soon, so be on the lookout.

Head on over Emma Calls Me Mama and enjoy all the heirloom pieces.

Wonderful Wisdom

"This is what the Lord says:

'Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom,

Let not the strong man boast of his strength,

Let not the rich man boast of his riches,

but let him who boasts boast about this:

that he understands and knows me,

that I am the Lord who exercises kindness,

justice and righteousness on earth,

for in these I delight'

declares the Lord. "

Jeremiah 9:23 -24

Lately I have had some issues with my blog and the purpose for it. Originally, I claimed that it was to get acquainted with the blogging world so as to introduce my sister and her home business. What I didn't claim was that around that same time my grief counselor suggested that I start journaling to relieve the myriad of emotions pinned up inside my head and heart. This posed a bit of a challenge for me. I have never been a big journaler and knew that I would fail myself again if I resorted to pencil and a bound stack of blank paper.

In comes the blog. I had always found blogs somewhat baffling. Why would you want to display your life, your thoughts, even you out there in the never, neverland of the internet? I mean, Facebook, that's fine. It's keeping up with people you know, right? But a blog? Why in the world would you do that?

Well, I found some people I actually knew who had blogs and I conceded. Their backgrounds were so cute and you can stay connected with people you know other than on Facebook. (Go figure, right?)

So, the blogging obsession began. First, it was a story about something little that happened. A funny story that would be worth remembering. And while I wanted to do what my counselor had suggested, I wasn't quite ready to open my heart and my it a true blog-ary. You know with that whole, "Dear Diary, today I...." feel. No, so I thought I would just blog about what I was doing around the house. That way there would be no negative for others' to bear. No, there was enough of that and I needed to know how to deal with those feelings on my own without involving others. That was the whole point of journaling - not pulling others down with my negative thoughts and to release some things that I wanted to tell those that I could no longer talk to.

Well, over the last few weeks, I have felt a nagging at my heart. We are not talking about a gentle pull on my heartstrings. This was more like an elephant swinging from the ropes of my heart making it extremely heavy. As I looked back over the things that I had been blogging about, that's just what they were things. Not many people, not many relationships, not much faith. Just things. It made me sick.

I had been boasting about the "rare and beautiful treasures" that filled our home. And though that they are, there is way more to it. I realized last night, after reading the verse above, that in boasting about those things, I was really wanting to boast about my parents, about how much I miss them, about how when I look at all of those things I see them. You see, those things are not just things to me, they are memories and stories trapped in physical vessels. Those things are not so important to me as what they represent.

My heart has been screaming to tell their story and to boast about how they instilled in me, my sister, my brothers a frugal mind. To boast about how they taught us that the stove is not just a place to cook, but that your children can remember it as the place where you met and kissed and the world stopped for a minute when you saw your spouse for the first time in eight hours. To boast about the white cabinet and how it belonged to my mom's grandmother who took her to church and taught her about God. To boast about how they taught us that the table is not just a piece of furniture, but a place for the family to gather and share time together. To boast about Daddy and how he tried to rise above his early life circumstances and persevered to make a better life for us. To boast about how they taught us that food is not just food, but a blessing from God that should be savored and appreciated.

You see, I don't really want to boast about things, but I want to boast about what those things represent. Love. Good Stewardship. Gratefulness. Of those I am "proud to be in the possession of."

Isn't it wonderful how God provides what we need when we need it? From the food we put in our mouths, to the money in our pockets, to the verses of His word that we read?

last definition taken from dictionary.com

So in Love

This man is incredible. He wants to make all of my dreams come true.

Here's how I know:

Example 1: When were dating (about 6 weeks into it), my roommate forced me to tell him that I loved cotton candy and wanted it at my wedding one day. I received my very own personal cotton candy maker for Christmas (about 4 weeks after I had told him.)

Example 2: I had always wanted to go to NYC. I knew it would be like one giant playground. He took me there and proposed with Brooklyn Bridge in the background. (He thought about doing it in the Toy-R-US and on top of the Empire State building, but that moment just felt right for him.) It was perfection!

Example 3: I am watching t.v. and he is on ebay. I nonchalantly mention that I want to go on a cruise. Within the minute, he has prices pulled up for a cruise. I cannot remember now what triggered the change in agenda, but he started looking up train tours. (oh yes, I mentioned that we could go on a cruise that leaves from New Orleans and ride the train from here down to there.) Anyway, when I was single I dreamed of going on kind-of-a original 13 Colonies train tour. I wanted to start down in Savannah and work my way up the east coast stopping in key cities rich with history. (I'll say it for you - I'm a DORK!) So, there was hubby last night going through the long task of piecing together the stops and route that would fulfill this dream.

The tickets alone came out to $508 for both of us. That does not account for any hotels, meals, and tours we would want to take. So, we probably will not be taking this trip any time soon.

(sigh)

BUT, we can stay at home and make each other happy just looking up the places and dreaming can't we? You can bet your bottom dollar.

Count your Blessings, Name them one by one

Today has been a blessed day.

1. I got to talk to my mother-in-law for the 2nd time this week. Short but sweet.
2. The dermatologist called to say the mole they removed was normal.
3. I passed the two Praxis tests (with flying colors) that I took in June. Three down, one to go.
4. Was able to buy a small pillow at Target to celebrate the above. Of course, it was on clearance.
5. My sister-in-law called to say that something big with the boys might happen today.
6. My husband is grilling right now.
7. Facebooked with an old friend.
8. Got an email from my favorite aunt.
9. Emailed my student teaching cooperating teacher. Love her!
10. Laughed at my hilarious husband.
11. Had one of our tomatoes with lunch. Yum!
12. This list could go on for ages.......

Life is good!