Snow Day! and a Link Up!

Good morning everyone, it is a beautiful snowy day here in Tennessee.  Yesterday my office closed at noon and today it is closed all day!  Today I’m going to be linking up with Lauren and Hayley and The Girl Between the Lines again.  I’m really excited about today’s prompt.

We all imagine what our lives would be like when we were “all grown up”…how does that compare to what your life looks like now?

Everyone plans and dreams about the future.  I remember planning my future in a rather silly way when I was in elementary school.  I would gather around with a bunch of my friends on the bus or at recess, or during class when we weren’t supposed to, and play MASH.  Anyone else remember this game?  It was pretty complex and took a lot of time, but in the end, you would find out whether you would live in a Mansion, Apartment, on the Street, or in a House.  And you would know who you would share it with, how many kids you would have, pets, any number of things.  I know that my future was planned probably 100 different ways using the MASH technique.  Kids have all sorts of games like this that plague their time and thoughts.  We all want to dream about what our lives will look like in the future.

I have a book that I filled out when I was very little and one of the questions in it was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Do you want to guess what I wrote?
A window washer.  What? Yeah, that’s what I said.  A window washer.  Yeah, I don’t know where that came from either.

Our plans and dreams for the future are vast and changing by the minute.  I know that over the course of my (so far rather short) life I have had many plans and dreams about my future.  And while some of them come true, I have found that most of my dreams and expectations have not come true, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.  Some of the things I thought I always wanted are not really what are important to me anymore, so I am glad that they did not come true.

Am I where I always planned and dreamed I would be?  No.
Am I thankful for where and I am and what my life looks like? Yes.
Do I sometimes get wrapped up in the dreams and plans that didn’t come true? Yes.
Would I want to change it?  Sometimes I get caught up in discontent and think that everything should be different, and the way that I want it, but at the same time I know that the reason I’m am where I am is because God has directed it and placed me here, and he must have a reason for that.  So while right now I may not have or be doing everything I thought I wanted, I am where God wants me, and maybe one day he’ll let me see some of my own dreams come true.  I’ll just have to wait and see.

I may not be a billionaire window washer who lives in a Mansion with 5 kids, a red convertible, a basketball player husband, and a pet penguin, but I am a very blessed financial aid counselor, who has a roof over her head, a car that runs, an all star husband, with the promise of an amazing future, and an awesome God.  What more could I want?

What a Weekend

Wow, it feels like it has been longer than only 2 days since my last blog post!  So much has happened since Friday.

Friday night at work there wasn’t too much going on, so I started watching a new show on Netflix.  Lately I had been watching tons of Grey’s Anatomy, but I am all caught up and ready for the new season this Thursday!!  So I have been looking for a new show to watch, so I picked Pretty Little Liars.  I only watched two episodes on Friday, but that was enough to get me hooked!  Question: How do those pretty little liars get their hair to look so perfect?!

After work, I watched What Not To Wear and waited for Adam to come home from playing with some of his friends.  When he got home, we took a late night trip to Walmart, which we have not done in forever.  We browsed and got some grocery shopping done and got home around one AM.  But it was fun to spend that time together.

Saturday morning we both just woke up around 9.  We took it easy in the morning, reading and watching cartoons, and then we went out to run some errands.  Adam’s mission: Yugioh cards.  My mission:  some new work clothes.

Adam was successful at the first store we went to: Target.  Then we went to Books a Million where I bought the new Nicholas Sparks book (!) and got a great deal on it with my member coupons!  Then we went to the mall and did some shopping (there will be a shopping/clothing/work clothes rant coming soon).  We finished our excursion with Pals (for me) and a pretzel (for Adam).  Delicious!

When we got home, Adam and Jacob played some Yugioh and I crafted upstairs (pics to come) and watched more Pretty Little Liars.  Then Jacob left, I made dinner, and we went over to Jacob and Lauren’s to play some games with friends.  It was so fun!  We made another stop at Walmart on our way home, for a full length mirror, can you believe that we didn’t have one?!

Sunday morning we woke up, went to church, and had lunch at Taco Bell.  Then we watched some Big Bang Theory, Amanda came over to do laundry, and we called my parents.  After church in the evening Adam and I watched Harry Potter 7.1 and just hung out.  It was a great weekend!

Tree Streets

Adam and I spent two hours at the tree streets yard sales this morning.  We had a lot of fun hanging out and looking at all the stuff.

Here is what we came home with, all for $20
A wall decoration/candle holder, Road to Perdition DVD, Scattergories Game, and what I’m most excited about…an ice cream maker!!

I’d say I did pretty well.

Real Nails or Fake Nails?

First instinct response: Real.  I’ve only had fake nails once in my entire life and it didn’t end well.

The only time I have ever had fake nails was for my senior prom.  I went with my friends to get them done and then I had an honor band concert at Bradley University.  While I was there, I was playing cards with some friends before the concert.  In the game we were playing, you had to slap the jacks when they came up (I know it sounds like “Slap Jack”, but it was a little more complicated than that.”  Well, this one time I went to slap the jack at the same time someone else went to.  Our hands connected and off popped my pinky nail fake nail.  Only it wasn’t just the fake nail that came off…no, it pulled my real nail off as well!!  So I had 9 fake nails for my senior prom and no pinky nail.  So I’ve been scared of fake nails ever since.

But I do have to say that I have a very bad habit of biting my nails and I think fake nails would help that because I wouldn’t be able to get to my real nails.  And my nails would just look better all around.

And if I ever did get fake nails, I can assure you that they would never ever look like this:
Ew.  Not gonna lie, these kinda creep me out.

What about you?  Real or fake nails?

Games

I love to play games!  I am always looking for people to play games with.  I enjoy board games, card games, trivia games, really any kind of game.  I like to play new ones or old favorites.  The only games that are hard for me to play are the ones with significant time commitments, the ones that take over 4 hours to play.  That is pushing my limit.

What is your favorite game to play?

Happiness

I was informed that my last post was much too depressing, so here is some happiness.

Happiness Is…

My husband

Decorating

Sweatshirts and sweatpants

Rice Krispies

Frisbee

Baked Potatoes

Basketball

Babies

Popcorn

Musicals

These Shoes

Books

Movies

Games

New crayons

Veggie Tales

Pictures

Snuggling under Blankets

Candles

What makes you happy?

Thursday-Morning Tell-About (a few hours late)

My Movie Queue: Around the World in 80 Days, Cold Mountain, There will be blood, Melinda and Melinda
Pages left to read in my current book:   I’m reading several things at the moment and I do not know how many pages I have left.  All my books are in my room and I’m in the hotel lobby, taking advantage of their free wifi
I have made: notta
I have worked on: checking email, attending conventions, and looking nice every day
Food made: nothing. I’ve been out of town.
Goals checked off: none this week
Games played: Hand and Foot
Favorite Pinterest pin:
This is so true! Especially on my road trip this week!

Total Blog views since last Thursday:  161
Number of snow days: 0
Movies Watched: 7: The Watch, Total Recall, Les Miserables
Books read: none finished
This week I love: learning new things
This week I hate: only having free wifi in hotel lobbies

What a Weekend

If how I was feeling on Friday was any indication for how my weekend was going to go, well…it was not going to be good.  I was feeling terrible on Friday, but I made it through work and laid on the couch for the rest of the evening.  We had all kinds of plans with friends on Saturday, and on Friday night we almost had to cancel, but I asked Adam if we could wait and see how I felt in the morning, and it’s a good thing we did because…

In the morning I felt so much better!  All I had on Saturday was a runny nose and my voice was on the fritz.  I sounded like Yoda.  Yeah, not exactly attractive, but at least I felt better.

The first thing we did was go to Brandon and Kristens to play Eclipse.  Now, Eclipse is Adam’s favorite board game and it takes a long time to play and there are lottsss of rules to learn.  We got to Brandon and Kristen’s at 11am and left a little after three.  The time included teaching me to play, playing, and a pizza break.  So I got to check something off my goal list (yay!) and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  It was pretty fun, complicated, but more fun than I was expecting, so I guess it was a good experience.

After the game we went home and cleaned the apartment because some of our favorite married people were coming over for dinner: the Albrechts and the Nicols.  It was a fun evening.

Our Sunday was relaxing and a perfect end to the weekend.  My only two complaints were: 1-that it wasn’t long enough and 2-that I didn’t get more sleep.

Do you have any wonderful weekend stories?

Stretch the Weekend

I wish that the weekend were several days longer than it actually is.  I wish that I had more time to rest and relax.  I usually have a lot to do over the weekend because it is usually the only time that I have to be productive because I am wiped out in the evenings.  That’s why the weekend needs to be longer, so that I have a couple days to be productive and also a couple days to rest and relax instead of trying to fit it all into just a few days.  Anyone with me?

Adam and I decided to celebrate my birthday on Friday because we are both busy today and won’t really get to spend any time together.  So, after work we went to Crazy Tomato for pizza.  It is one of our favorites, and it is pretty cheap.  You get an order of delicious cheesy bread just for sitting down and we got a large pizza for $11 and took three pieces of it home.  It was delicious.  Adam’s gift to me was some shopping money, so after dinner he took me shopping.  It was really fun, and I still have some money left over for some after birthday spending as well.  The only downside to the evening was that I wore these really cute shoes that pinched my toes and gave me blisters.  Adam said I was walking around the mall like someone had just chopped off one of my toes.  Then we just came home, played games, watched TV and relaxed.

Saturday morning I slept in a little longer than usual, which was good since I haven’t been getting very much sleep.  My arm was feeling good so I cleaned the kitchen and did laundry.  Now, don’t think I went crazy.  I was definitely babying my arm but was just trying to get some stuff done that I had neglected.  I watched another best picture movie, “Grand Hotel,” which I really enjoyed.  It is definitely one of my favorites.  I got all the laundry done, the whole kitchen is clean, we had chicken parmesan for dinner, we watched “South Pacific” and played some games, and I got to finish the night off by watching “Pitch Perfect”.  Yay!

Sunday we went to church, enjoyed some fellowship and potluck afterwards (and I didn’t die).  After church I did my grocery shopping, Adam preached the night service, I made some absolutely delicious macaroni and cheese, and I am so sad that I forgot to take pictures for you!  Then I made myself birthday cupcakes and we watched the Oscars.

And today is my birthday J  I have felt the love today.  Yay for another year.  I hope you all had as awesome a weekend as I did.  My only regret is that I didn’t take any pictures!

If you have noticed a lack of “crafty” posts recently, that is because I have discovered how difficult it is to craft without extra spending money, but I have some ideas and some stuff lying around, so maybe I’ll come up with something to share with you soon.

Tonight I will be working another 4 hours at the Phoneathon.  And coming soon, a blog post about my love of scrapbooking!

Thursday-Morning Tell-About

My Movie Queue: South Pacific, The Best Years of Our Lives, Lawrence of Arabia, The King and I
Pages left to read in my current book:  100
I have made: a beardo hat
I have worked on:  crochet skills
Food made: lots of regular, budget saving meals
Goals checked off: a lot of my daily goals will not be getting checked off for a few weeks or months because of the wrench in my plan.
Games played: Carcassonne, hand and foot
Favorite Pinterest pin:

This totally blew my mind, and now I have to try it!

Total Blog views since last Thursday: my stats page hasn’t been loading all week, so I actually have no idea.
Number of snow days: 0
Movies Watched: Pitch Perfect, Catch Me If You Can, Patton, The Brave One, Cavalcade, Goodfellas
Books read: just working on one
This week I love: my husband: Happy Valentines day Adam!
This week I hate: shoulder pain and not being able to sleep
Days until my birthday: 11