Thoughts Before Bedtime

My tree is up.

The lights are on.

The star is on top.

The ornaments are sparkling.

The stockings are hung.

The wreath is on the front door.

I have fresh flowers on my table.

My apple cinnamon candle is burning strong.

My puppy dog is cuddled up by my feet.

My husband is napping next to me.

Christmas time is here at last. My most favorite time of the year.... celebrating our one and only Savior!

I feel rested.

I feel at peace with whatever is coming our way.

While I may not feel that this apartment is a home, it is our home.

I am thankful for this home.

I am thankful for my husband who works so hard and strives to make such excellent decisions for our family. I am so thankful that he always checks with You first, Lord.

Thank You, Lord, for guiding my heart and mind, and molding them to Yours.

I am beyond blessed.

I have to go back to work tomorrow....... and that's okay.

Thank You, Lord, for long, restful weekends. Thank You, Lord, for good friends and good family that surrounded us this weekend. Thank You, Lord, for this overwhelming sense of peace and contentment I feel tonight, which I haven't felt in quite some time. I am patient. I am still. I KNOW that You are God and that You are in control.

I trust You Lord. You haven't let me down yet, and I know You never will.

Happy December, everyone. Remember the reason for the season :)

Thanksgiving Down, Christmas Here We Come!

Good morning! It is Saturday morning, but I feel like yesterday and the day before were Saturday too! All this time off has been so nice.

First of all, I'd like to give a big THANK YOU to all of you who helped contribute to my very first sweet potatoes. I combined your recipes into one very sweet casserole dish and it was a hit! I would say about 75-80% of it was eaten up... thank you ladies!

We had a great time over at my parent's house on Thursday. Alot of my cousins who I do not see often were able to make it this year so that was a fun change. The food was GOOD and so were the pies. :) I love me some thanksgiving food!

Thursday night Katie & Mo came in to start their apartment hunting. It has been fun having them here.... we are so excited that they will be living here full time.

Yesterday morning, Black Friday, Katie & I braved not one, not two, but THREE WALMARTS. Ya'll, we were on a hunt for some bedding that was cleared out of the king size. But we finally found it at WalMart #3. Ya'll.... NEVER AGAIN. I am not tolerant or patient with WalMart people. It was an adventure nevertheless, and I also got some good gifts at Bed Bath & Beyond.

Last night we went to see "Four Christmases". Very, very funny. It is a good laugh!

Today we are so excited because Chase and Ronda are coming in to spend the night with us! This is the first time they have come to Houston since we moved here and we are so happy to spend some time with them.... and sweet Ronda is just as pregnant as can be. I got lots of munchies at the store :)

Alrighty.... off to make sugar cookies with sprinkles in the shape of Christmas trees! It's the most wonderful time of the year.....

It's Gonna Be a Good Week!

Well hello there! It has been awhile since I stopped by to chat with you all. I had Friday off of work so I headed up to Austin to be with all of my nieces. They are pretty stinkin' cute. The twins are talking crystal clear and have lots to say. I think the quote of the weekend was when Shannon was going to let Scarlett have a bite of her canoli, and Scarlett said, "How 'bout I just lick the chocolate out?". Girl after my own heart! :)

Yesterday was supposed to be a Christmas shopping day, but hubby and I spent the vast majority of our Sunday dealing with tire issues. Can't they just make a tire that is incapable of getting a nail in it?! Annoying!!

Also, regarding the sweet potatoes... I SO GREATLY appreciate all of your suggestions and recipes! They all sound so wonderful! What I have decided to do is kinda combine all of your ideas into one recipe. They were generally similar..... but I am NOT doing marshmallows, I AM doing pecans, and I AM using brown sugar instead of white. Hopefully they will turn out well. I'll take a picture :)

I am thrilled because the office is closed Thursday and Friday. Three day work week for me!!

Talk to Me: What are you doing/ where are you going for Thanksgiving?

OH MY GOODNESS!!

YA'LL!!!

Katie and Mo are MOVING TO HOUSTON!!!

Our dear darling Louisiana friends are going to become TEXANS!!!!

Mo was offered a job and they are moving here!!!!

I MAY EXPLODE!!!!!

Sweet Potatoes, Anyone?

Calling all Chefs!!

Next week is Thanksgiving, and I have been asked to bring some sweet potatoes! Of course, I'd be happy to do that....

Problem: I don't have a sweet potato recipe. "Look for one online!", you may say to me. Let me tell you, I have. And may I just tell you that there are 365,000 sweet potato recipes online!?! Some with granola, some with marshmallows.... it goes on and on. Jaclyn has offered her recipe to me, so as of right now, that is what I am using.... but I thought I'd open it up to the wide world of web, or atleast to my bloggy friends!

So, here is where you come in....

1. Do you have a sweet potato recipe you would recommend?

2. If you are a fan of the sweet potatoes, do you prefer them mashed?

3. Do you prefer marshmallows on top, or is that too much of a good thing?

I need to make this for about 15 people....

Comments please! I will pick the recipe that is seems easiest! (I don't wanna mess this up!) Any help would be very much appreciated!

Baby It's Cold Outside

Good morning, good morning! I have so much to tell ya'll about! Let's begin:

The Amy Grant concert was awesome beyond awesome. I adore her and her voice is just one of the most beautiful tones I've heard. Her band was excellent, her keyboardist's Cher impression was stellar, and the songs were SO FUN. There were so many songs that I knew as a child that I haven't heard since then. I was singing along to every song just like I had never forgotten that the song even existed! We had a blast and I was so thankful for the opportunity to go!

This weekend I got to help my BFF Lindsee with her middle school/high school Girl's Retreat. First of all, it MUST BE SAID that my Lindsee worked her little booty off and it SHOWED. That girl had it together and the girls had a blast. Her creative juices were just a flowin and I don't think anyone could've planned that thing better. The girl has a gift for girl's ministry and I am so proud of her!

Secondly, I was reminded this weekend how HARD middle school was! Those girls are going through some stuff, ya'll. It broke my heart, hearing what they go through and what they are fighting. That generation needs our prayers. I so enjoyed leading the 8th grade girls with Cristina and I will continue to left up those girls by name to our Jesus.

Thirdly, I got to meet Shelly and Abby! Actually, I have met Abby once before but I got to spend a bit more time with her and it was a blast. Shelly is as adorable as I imagined her. She is so blessed and she spoke truth over those girls. They absolutely adored her and I hope they heard what she had to say. If nothing else, Shelly was speaking to MY heart this weekend. I learned alot about what I put my self-worth in and I was reminded that I am the daughter of a King.

Saturday evening, Grant and I drove around looking at houses. We found this neighborhood full of cute, small, little starter homes. We got all excited until we finally came up on one that was for sale that had a flyer in the little tube. This cute little starter house was a cute little $200,000 out of our price range. Clearly, we were in a very expensive zip code or something! We were floored! After our dissapointing house hunt, we went to see the James Bond movie. It was typical. :)

After church yesterday, Grant and I spent the day with a sweet couple from our Sunday school class. Grant & Ben played golf together while Lynn and I shopped at the outlet mall. Girls, I got the cutest shoes. The. Cutest. Shoes. AND I got this cute green dress from Banana Republic that will look great with black tights and boots. I just had a blast getting to know Lynn and I am so glad to have made a new friend! We are absolutely fine with our husband's golfing if that means we get to shop!! My intention was to buy Christmas presents, but I found some super cute stuff for me.

So now I am at my desk at work... I am loving the chilly weather. I am motivated this morning after such a refreshing weekend and ready to take on this week. My prayer is that I do everything for HIS glory and not for my own.

Love you, sweet friends!

I've Got My Hopes Set High

Allow me to tell you what I am doing this evening:

I AM GOING TO THE AMY GRANT CONCERT.

However... she is not going to be singing this kind of music:


She is going to be singing THIS kind of music:

aka THE GOOD STUFF

Amy Grant was the very first concert I ever went to. And she'll be singing the same stuff tonight. I am considering crimping my hair.... or atleast wearing a scrunchie.

"I've Got My Hopes Set High" that I will hear the following songs:

Thy Word

Sing Your Praise to the Lord

Lead Me On

Saved by Love

El Shaddai

Pretty much anything and everything from the "Heart in Motion" album

And... I know it isn't even Thanksgiving yet... but I am REALLY HOPING that she busts out with some "Grown Up Christmas List" and "Breath of Heaven". PLEASE, OH PLEASE!

I'll let you know how it goes after I come down off of my cloud! :)

Chuck

Is anyone else watching this show? We LOVE Chuck!! We been watching it sine last year when it first premiered. It is a good, light-hearted, clean, silly, action packed show. It is good Monday night entertainment. I like it because it is a T.V. show that knows it is a T.V. show. Does that make sense? It's okay to do something a bit out-landish, it's just fun! Plus, Chuck has that Jim Halpert loveableness that is just beyond adorable. Love him!

We highly recommend it!

Tonight is taco night... which sounds so good on this rainy Monday. Tacos and Chuck, not a bad Monday night, if you ask me!

Eat Something

Every few months I get on this big dieting kick. I finally decide to stop eating 100% carbohydrates, all day, every day and start monitoring my caloric intake. This usually doesn't last very long, don't worry.

I have also realized that the vast majority of the time, this dieting thing is usually proceeding an illness. I get sick, lose my appetite for a few days, and then I am able to practice some self control due to my lack of desire for anything heavy. Funny how that works....

Well, I am married to a man who has a hard time eating enough. Seriously. My husband is trying to gain weight. He is just too busy to stop and eat. I live to eat, he eats to live. He simply does not find the time for food, and then when he does eat he gets full very quickly. I wish our metabolisms could just change places.

So lately, it has been my goal to lose weight and his goal to gain weight. (Would'nt you love to have that problem?) He is increasing his amount of calories per day, and I am trying to reduce mine to the normal, healthy, doctor recommended level. I think that means I am reducing by 95%, give or take.

Here is how it has been playing out..... during the middle of the workday, I will suddenly find myself in the midst of a serious and desperate craving. It doesn't matter if I ate lunch 40 minutes ago, this craving is intense. I am slowly but surely learning that I don't necessarily have to eat mass quantities of food everytime I feel hungry... so.... I try to "take one for the team". I will just text message Grant at work with these two words: "Eat Something". I have sent Grant to the office with bunches of munchies to snack on throughout the day. I will text him and remind him that he needs to eat.... NOW.

Sometimes I will suggest to him the exact thing he should be eating: "Graham cracker and 2 oreos". Or, "Eat something... preferably chicken Mcnuggets". I guess I feel somewhat satisfied knowing that one of us is acheving our goal :)

In other news, today I was at a rehearsal and I saw a bag of M&Ms lying on the piano. They were open, but the top of the bag was twisted as if the owner was saving them for later. I asked the director "are those your M&M's?".... he told me they were there when he got there today.

I stared at those M&M's for 4 hours. I was this close to eating them, even without knowing to whom they belonged or for how long they had been lying there. I never ate them.

Will power, people. Will power.

My Two Cents

Good morning, dear friends. Thank you all so much for your kind words after my little episode on Monday! I am back at work, and inching closer and closer everyday to 100% Jen. I am on a wonderful antibiotic and I am so thankful for prescription medication! Also, I am not anemic, so PTL for that :)

Alot has happened in our country the last few days. Initially, I had decided that I was not going to blog anything about the election of our new president. Later though, I realized that if I go back and read my blogs two years from now and see that I seemingly had nothing to say about such a major event, I would be quite dissapointed in myself.

Beth Moore and our pastor, Gregg Matte, had great stuff to say that really spoke truth over my heart. (Most of you have already read Beth's, I'm sure, but click on Gregg's name and see what he has to say. GOOD STUFF.) I am so thankful to study under such great men and women of God such as them.

As for me, the thing that kept whispering into my mind as every state "turned blue" on Tuesday night, was do not be a hypocrite. For the last 8 years, I have been a little more than irked at the people in our country who were not supportive of our government or our president. I didn't always agree with him either, but especially in a time of war, I thought it was more important than ever to stand together, UNITED, and support our leadership. Do not be a hypocrite. Now I have to do that. I have to choose to PRAY for this nation, PRAY for our president-elect, and PRAY that the Lord's will would be done in this country. After all, it is a high probability that my children will be born under this administration. (As I mentioned that very fact to my dear sweet husband, his response was, "We are gonna have kids in the next four years?!?". Yes, dear) So, I will be supportive. I will not like everything, but I will keep praying and promote UNITY!

Now, having said that, I have to now ask this very serious question that has been weighing on my heart for the last 4 to 5 months or so: CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE NOW??!

It's Been a Weird Day

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I told Grant that my throat was hurting pretty bad. I took some Tylenol Nighttime Cold medicine and headed to bed immediately. I had ALOT to get done at work today and knew that I had to go.

It was a rough night. I woke up several times an hour and my throat was getting worse and worse. My glands were swollen and I had a horrible headache. I got up in the middle of the night to take some more tylenol but nothing really worked.

My alarm went off at 6:15. I felt like I had been hit by a truck but decided to go ahead and get in the shower and head on to work.

I was in the shower and started to feel queasy, like I may get sick. And then I did.... (nice image there for ya) and then I felt better. I was beginnning to think that maybe I shouldn't go to work, and those feelings were confirmed when I fainted in the shower.

Grant was still in bed and he said that he heard me say "oh...." and then he said it was just really loud. I fainted and I knocked all of our toiletries down as I fell. That bottle of Tea Tree conditioner never knew what hit it. Grant said I was paler than he has ever seen me, and I must say that that is quite an accomplishment.

I went to the doctor this morning. My mom picked me up and took me cause I didn't feel comfortable driving after fainting. They ran an EKG, a pregnancy test (that was a nerve wracking few minutes), a blood sugar test, a strep test and they also drew blood cause they think I might be anemic. I will get the results of the anemia test later in the week. (But, for the record, not pregnant, no strep, blood sugar normal.... however my heart rate was a bit elevated.) After the doctor, I went to my mom's house were I laid in her bed and she brought me drinks with the bendy straws and chicken and stars soup. I found myself wondering when I digressed back to 5th grade. :) Thanks mom, for taking such good care of me.

I am feeling a bit better tonight... I don't feel like my glands are as swollen as they were and my fever has gone way down....

It's been a weird day....