Thanksgiving Teaser

It has been a week since I've updated! Mainly because I've spent the last 5 days in New Orleans, having some amazing quality time with the family. I have tons of pictures to upload but I cannot do all of that right now because Grant is playing video games and when I upload pictures it sucks up the bandwidth and then he gets killed because he can't move as fast and it is all very upsetting to him.

I can tell you this though... I ate alot of good food. And I snuggled with some babies. And I had my socks blessed the heck off. And I hugged and kissed my husband at 6am after he crawled back in bed after making an all-night visit at the Best Buy Black Friday sale where he purchased a fancy washer, dryer, and refrigerator for 55% off.

I leave you with these 2 pictures till I can post more later..... love y'all!

Look, Evan found his hand!Emmy Grace... love love love!

This is the Beginning of a 3 Day Week

Ah, yes. We are only working 3 days this week. The work week ends on Wednesday! I am so happy and not at all dreading going to work tomorrow. I can totally do this! 3 days? Piece-of-cake!

I feel rejuvenated and rested. This weekend has included an amazing potluck dinner with our Sunday school class, a sleep-in Saturday, lunch with a good friend, a pedicure, driving by our new house, a lazy night in with chinese takeout, church and a beautiful day at the LPGA Tour Championship with good friends. For dinner I made jambalaya and cornbread and the house is clean. HOORAY!

Oh.... I forgot. There is a sentence in the above paragraph that seems to inform you that Grant & I found a house that passed inspections and all systems are go.

Um... THAT IS THE TRUTH!!!

I am not lying about this. We found a house.

WE FOUND A HOUSE. And we put an offer on it. AND IT WAS ACCEPTED!!! And we had inspections on the house. AND IT PASSED!!!! WITH FLYING COLORS!!!

Before I go any further I have to just take a minute to praise the Lord. We prayed and trusted and I wasn't always great at it but I absolutely love this house and am so thankful that He allowed us to find this house and allowed us to proceed with it. God is good and we are very thankful this Thanksgiving week!

So, aside from finishing my Christmas shopping, I have to pack now. And move. And buy a refrigerator. And buy a washer and dryer. And rip down some horrendous wallpaper. And repaint the master bedrom which doesn't match my bedding or color scheme. And also maybe decorate for Christmas if my husband will still let me? We aren't moving in for 3 weeks or so and there is alot that has to happen.

It is a one story home. Stone and brick outside with blue shutters. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom with a study and a dining room. The yard is spacious yet manageable. It is in a quiet neighborhood with lots of trees. WE ARE THRILLED!

Love y'all. All of y'all. Go ahead and start dreading the stressed out posts I will be writing as the month of December approaches!

Goodnight Houston....and Goodnight Blogland!

An Entire Post About What I'm Eating This Week

So I've been on this kick all week to not purchase anything food related until the weekend. On Sunday, I went to the grocery store and bought enough groceries to last us through the week. I have made dinners that provide plenty of leftovers so that we can bring them to work for lunch. With Christmas being just around the corner and some pretty big projects on the horizon, it's time for the money crunch!

So far, I've stayed true to my word. I've either eaten a bowl of cereal at home or made something for breakfast here at the office everyday. I've had leftovers for lunch and cooked for dinner.

There have been a few times this week when I've gone off of the charted course. Take Tuesday, for instance. When I came home from work Tuesday afternoon, I was so looking forward to putting on my pajamas and making some dinner and watching Biggest Loser on the couch. Then Grant called and said "Have you started dinner yet?". When I said I hadn't, he said "Don't! Put a dress on, we're going out!". I got all excited until I realized that he had been offered tickets to go to a LPGA dinner with our friends Justin & Julie.

I knew I couldn't take the opportunity away from Grant. He got to see alot of his favorite female golfers. Michelle Wie, Paula Creamer, Anna Nordqvist, Brittany Lansicome. He also got to see some familiar faces from the golf channel. I have to admit though, my favorite part was the guest musical performer, Josh Kelley. He is talented, but more importantly, he is married to Katherine Heigl from Grey's Anatomy. But more importantly, he is married to Katherine Heigl, star of that great early 90's Disney flick, My Father the Hero. He sang the most beautiful song that he wrote after they adopted their new baby girl. Sooooo sweet. Anyways, I didn't cook for dinner that night, but it was still free!

I also went a bit off course yesterday morning. Typically, I am the first one to leave the house every morning. Yesterday was different though because I was running late and also Grant had an important meeting to go to, so he left before me. It wasn't until he had been gone for 10-15 minutes or so that I was trying to leave but couldn't find my keys. I called Grant who informed me that they were on the floor of his car! He couldn't change the time of the meeting so I had to sit at home until his meeting was over.

So, when I heard how long his meeting was going to be, I called my office, explained the situation, then put my pj's back on and enjoyed my morning on the couch with a bowl of Life cereal! It was a delightful surprise. I didn't get to my office till noon!!

And now, here we are, at Thursday. Which totally feels like it should be a Friday. I had a waffle with peanut butter for breakfast and plan on eating a Lean Cuisine for lunch. Then for dinner.... should I make breaded pork chops with potatoes au gratin or should I make PW's Meatloaf with baked potatoes? I can't decide!

Meet Dean

This is Dean Jackson.

He is our nephew.

He is out of control cute.

He is happy.

He loves to make alot of noise.
He loves to laugh.

His big sister makes him laugh. Alot.

He loves when his mama sings Boom-di-yada, Boom- di-yada, Boom-di-yada, Boom-di-yay.

He loves his mama. Period.

He looks just like his daddy.

He loves to jump.

He is scooting around now and is extremely fast at scooting.

He is pure joy, I tell you!

Also, shortly before this picture was taken, he was wearing a brown tie!

Adorable!!

I Have Confidence

I would like to take a moment to personally thank my 10 commenters who made me laugh my ever-loving head off. I don't know who takes the cake, but I think it is a toss up between Nat who wondered how they get the corn to stick on the cob and Jennifer who said hello to a woman who ended up being her own reflection in a mirror. You have made me feel better about myself. I think I'm going to save this post for a rainy day... a rainy day when Grant is laughing at me for something stupid that I said/did. I will direct him to the comments in my previous post and prove to him that I am not the only one.

For those of you (Kelli) who declared that it was not fair that Lindsee did not have to comment on her blonde moments... I will respond to that with this: Sometimes someone will tell a joke and everyone will laugh, including Lindsee. Then, about 2 minutes later, Lindsee starts busting out laughing for some unknown reason. Well, it is unknown to most people, but I know that she is laughing because she just now got the joke.

Also, when we used to play Mario Kart at our old lakehouse, when Lindsee got the Mushroom thing that makes your cart go faster, she would proudly exclaim "Oooh yay! I got a GO-y GO-y!" (Pronounced like Joey Joey but replace the J sound with a G sound).

And as I've said here before... Lindsee has her own language. When her allergies are flaring up... she isn't allergic, she is allergetic. I guess that means her allergies are very energetic. Who knows...

In other news, my husband comes home today! Grant has been out of town all week in Dallas. I am very ready to see him. Thankfully I have stayed busy but I've missed him. My feet get cold and he always absolutely loves it when I put my cold feet on him in the middle of the night and I have not had a foot warmer for a few days. I bet he has missed it as well.... I bet he has been in his swanky W Hotel room falling asleep and thinking to himself... "Ya know.. I am almost asleep right now and it would be awesome if Jen were here to put her ice cube feet on me".

However, Thursday night TV is a sacred thing in our household and Grant made me promise him that I wouldn't watch the shows without him. What was I to do with my Thursday night if I'm not watching TV?

Well first, I got to enjoy a impromptu dinner with my mom, my sister, my niece and my nephew. And then, in an attempt to win the little girl over through bribery and chocolate, I bought Grace a cookie. She jumped up and down. Then she proceeded to eat all the M&M's out of the cookie FROM THE TOP OF THE COOKIE... she didn't bite the cookie from the sides, she gnawed the M&M's out of the cookie one by one from the top... then ate the rest of the cookie. I may do that with my M&M cookies from this point forward.

Then, I came home and CLEANED MY FORSAKEN HOUSE. I swept and mopped the floors. I folded the pile of laundry that has been staring at me for 2 days. I wiped down the bathroom counters. I threw away stuff in the fridge that needed to be thrown away. I unloaded the dishwasher.

Then, I spent some wonderful time in the Word.... I did alot of reading and continued with my Beth Moore book on David. Love it.

Then, I made some hot tea and read a magazine and then I went to bed with my Moxie dog snuggled up by my side.

It was a loverly evening....

One more blonde moment for you.... one of the things Grant was going to do this week was go to something called the TEPA Conference.... I spent a good 11 minutes trying to guess what TEPA stood for.... he especially liked my "Texas Entrepreneur Professionals of America" and "The Electrical Political Association" and "Texas Electrical & Petroleum Engineers"...... he really liked that last one since the words I said make an acronym of TEPE. For the record, it is Texas Electricity Professionals Association. I got that one eventually.

Reddish Blonde Moments

So I know I'm not really a blonde, but I am here to confess that I do indeed have blonde moments. I think it's time that I get it all out there, lay it all out on the table. I'm all about being real, y'all. I realize that after you read all these, you may decide to no longer be a JentheNewlywed reader, and I understand. You didn't realize you were reading the blog of a stupid person.

1. When I was in junior high and my sister Jaclyn was in high school, she was driving us up to the church in her cute little purple Saturn. As we turned onto a dirt driveway, we were startled when a rusty old chain slammed onto the hood of her car. We hadn't seen the chain since it was the same color as the dirt. Well, after we screamed for 20 seconds, Jaclyn asked "What should I do?". I looked to the left and right of the car and decided that we shouldn't reverse into oncoming traffic, that would be dangerous. So at this moment I said "Just keep driving!". Jaclyn gunned it and the old, rusty, metal chain scraped all the way up the hood, all the way up and over the windshield, screeched across the roof of the car and then dropped down and ripped the spoiler off the back. It was a shining moment for us. Daddy was thrilled.

2. In junior high, I had a birthday party at my house for a friend of mine. We were all in the backyard eating chocolate cake when 2 of the boys started having a cake fight. After they were well covered in cake, one of them decided to jump in the pool to wash off. Huge chuncks of chocolate cake were floating around in the pool and I was so scared I was going to get into trouble. So, I ran around back and started messing with the pump until the pool cleaner started moving. It quickly removed any evidence of chocolate cake in our pool and I thought I solved the problem. Until the next morning when my dad woke me up asking why the spa was now empty. I had pushed and pulled so many levers that I drained the spa. He was livid. That was probably the worst trouble I was ever in.

3. Recently, while on an airplane with Grant, coke spewed out of his nose when I said "It's so crazy how we are like 35,000 miles in the sky". Not feet. Miles. I have no concept of space.

4. Did you know that the yellow line you see on the field when you're watching a football game is not really there? They put that in digitally!

5. In highschool, I was taking a biology test when the following essay question appeared: "Explain your thoughts, opinions, and solutions for global warming". I had not paid attention at all in class and had no earthly idea what global warming was. So, I wrote one, brief sentence for my essay answer: "I think we should not do it". My teacher just put a big fat X over my answer and I was awarded no points.

6. There have many times in my life when I will sit at a stopSIGN for up to a minute, waiting for a light to change before I realize that there is no light and I can just go ahead and go.

7. Many times I will run into a gas station to purchase a bottle of water or a pack of gum or many bags of M&Ms. I will purchase the items and then bolt out the door, leaving my items on the counter. What can I say, I like to donate money to convenience stores.

8. I still have to count on my fingers.

9. The other night, Grant was talking about his workout at the gym and said, "I did several sets of rows tonight". For some unknown reason, I heard "I did several sets of rose tonight". We went back and forth several times with me saying over and over again "what do you mean you did several sets of rose? I don't get it!".

10. I was really upset one day when I was in Target and an XL shirt fit me. I was so upset and thought that I needed to have a gastric bypass immediately. Shortly thereafter I realized I was wearing a child's shirt!

So spill it.... what are some of your blonde moments? Please comment and let me know that I am not the only idiot out there! Lindsee, there is no need for you to comment. I know all of your ditzy moments. And there are so many....

Maybe I Could Win the Gold Medal in "Friends" Trivia

There are many things I am good at. You could even call me talented in some areas. I can teach piano lessons and I can direct a children's choir and I can name the 50 states in alphabetical order (and sing them as well!). I can write a response to an essay question in 5 minutes or less and I can name my homeroom teacher from Kindergarten-12th grade. I also type quite fast.

But there is a certain department of skill and technique that I am at the lowest of the low. When the Lord created me, for some reason that is according to His perfect plan and perfect will, He made me to be the complete opposite of anything resembling athleticism.

This is so far from an exaggeration, you have no idea. I am not interested in sports. I do not understand sports. I do not care about sports. The only sporting event I can actually enjoy is a baseball game and that is pretty much because there is alot of hot dogs at baseball games and also the baseball players are easy on the eyes, if you know what I mean. The uniforms are hot. There, I said it.

As a child, I never played any kind of organized sport. Nor did I have any desire to. I mean, even Lindsee played on a soccer team. Granted, she just stood there and then proceeded to run away from the ball, but I mean, she showed up.

In P.E. class growing up, I did all I could to not participate. In middle school, our coach would take us out to the track and tell us to "Jog the long, Walk the Short".... in other words you only had to jog on the long part of the track and you could take a breather on the short parts. Now, our P.E. class was 90 minutes long (I know, right?!) and the whole jogging the longs got a bit old for me. So I pretty much walked the long and then on the shorts I would kinda move my arms and pick up my legs a bit more to give the idea of jogging but I really wasn't going any faster.

One day, Coach Cowart (bless him) told me that if I didn't start jogging the longs I would have to go over off to the side and "hug that tree over there" for the rest of the class period.

Um.... really? Done.

So many afternoons I would enjoy the breeze and the shade as I hugged a large oak tree. Coach Cowart thought he was punishing me but he gave me the best gift in the world.

In highschool, I took dance. And while I was coordinated.... the cardio stuff killed me. I can fake a sit up like nothing you have ever seen.

In college, I took ballet. My arms and legs looked fabulous and it required no sweating. There was one time that a guy friend of mine BEGGED me to show up to his flag football game since it is co-ed and one of their girls bailed and it was the finals and they would have to forfeit if a girl didn't come. I kindly informed him that he really really really did not want to pick me to do this. He said "all you have to do is stand there".

Long story short, at one point in the game a guy tossed a football to me that I miraculously caught..... and as I surveyed the wonderous amounts of college boys charging at me, I subsequently hugged the football to my chest and sat down indian style. Like I said, I don't understand sports nor do I care to.

All this being said, imagine my surprise when I went to the gym last night and ran 5 EVER LOVING MILES on the elliptical machine.

Maybe it was due to the fact that I was watching Entertainment Tonight and was so caught up in Willie Ames (from Charles in Charge!) becoming a financial advisor that I got distracted. Maybe it was because I was wearing a t-shirt from highschool and it brought me back to my days of youth. Maybe it was because I knew what I was going to make for dinner when we got home and I knew it was going to be good and I was running to prepare myself for the glorious food that we were going to partake of.

All I know is that everyone was cheering me on and making a big deal of how far I was going and at what speed and I'm really nervous that people are going to expect this from me in the future. I am 99% certain that that was a fluke and will never happen again for as long as I live.

But then again, what if the Lord has decided to give me the power and endurance to do this all the time now and my arms and legs will get toned again?! How crazy cool would that be?!

Also, did you know Chandler Bing's middle name is Muriel?

October is Over

I have to admit, I am glad October is over. October was not a very good month for me. Here's to hoping that November is a little bit nicer.

November is already looking up. Yesterday I made some pumpkin bread that is just delicious and also my house is clean and also we got an extra hour of sleep (Holla!) and also November brings turkey and stuffing. Any month that contains a holiday that solely focuses on food is amazing in my book.

Do you want to know what I did this weekend? Well, I worked till 7:00 on Friday (boo) and then had a late dinner date with Grant and then on Saturday I slept in and picked up the dry cleaning and then I went to lunch with my mom and then I shopped at Target (PRAISE THE LORD) and then I watched Grace & Dean (aka Little Red Riding Hood and Superman) trick or treat and then I ate my mom's chili and visited with Lindsee and then on Sunday I went to church and then I went to lunch and then I went to DSW and then I went to Charming Charlie's and then I went to the grocery store and then I came home and then I made cookies and then I made pumpkin bread and then I cooked dinner and then I watched a funny show with Grant and then I folded the laundry and then I went to bed.

Somewhere, the President of the Run-On-Sentence Haters of America Club just passed out from the agony of the above paragraph.

The weather has been just beautiful lately. So cool and crisp and sunny and my allergies are having a ball. Claritin and Puffs-to-Go are my best friends for fall. Well, both of those items as well as a periwinkle scarf I purchased at Charming Charlie yesterday. Best friends forever.

Okay, this has been the world's most pointless blog post. In summary, it appears I love November already (as we are all the way onto day 2) due to the coldness, the extra hour of sleep, the shopping that has taken place as well as the promise of fattening food. I am full of family values.