There Were Moments of Gold and There Were Flashes of Light

Saturday night I went to a karaoke birthday party.

Me and the birthday girl sang "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips, but I then closed out the evening with a solo performance of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celine Dion.

There were fist pumps. There was foot stomping. There was eye closing and finger pointing. 

I belted it out. The VERY large bouncer gave me a fist bump when it was over and said "Ya do good, girl". 

Let's just enjoy this song:

SO MANY MOMENTS. It just gets better and better as it goes on and on. 

I love to belt out some Celine Dion. 

Yard of the Month

Isn't my front yard beautiful? We've been using a sprinkler and it's really been making a difference.

Our flower bed is filled with beautiful flowers that are really unaffected by the heat. Such beautiful red and yellow blooms. Here is how the flowers looked when we planted them in April: 

The man at the nursery said these flowers would stand up to the heat, and boy, was he right! THEY LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME!

Look, I know you're jealous of my yard.  It truly is the jewel of the neighborhood. 

Top 10 Reasons Jen Is Ready for the Fall

1. We have topped 100 degrees every single day this month. The heat is unbearable and I'm cranky. And the rest of the city is cranky too.

2. I am not so comfortable showing my legs because they are pasty but I've been wearing shorts and skirts all summer and I am just about over that.

3. I need my routine back. All the Fall schedules are about to "fall" into place and I am looking forward to that.

4. I get to start Kids' Choir again! I've missed my kiddos so much...

5. I feel like I could write an entire blog post about the Fall TV schedule. Oh my goodness. Grey's Anatomy. Modern Family. The Office. 30 Rock. How I Met Your Mother. Ellen. Criminal Minds. Law & Order SVU. THE LIST GOES ON AND ON.

6. I feel like I just look cuter in non-Summer clothes. Boots. Jeans. Sweaters. That's more my style.

7. I'd really like to step outside without my sunglasses steaming up.

8. All the flowers in my flower bed have been dead and crispy since June. And it's too hot to dig them up. So we're just letting them be dead and ugly until it cools down.

9. Ever since I quit my office job, I have taken over the "Chief Dog Walker" duties from Grant. I now walk Moxie 95% of the time. Part of me wonders if I should have held off on this until it cooled down because I don't think he's getting a sufficient walk with me. I let him pee and then we head right back inside.

10. Pumpkin spice candles, anyone?!? :) :)

Are you content with summer? Or are you ready for Fall, like me?

Cousin Camp 2011

My parents are spending their week loving on all four of the grandbabies.

They're calling it cousin camp, and there is t-shirts and everything. 

I can't believe how big these kiddos are....

That's Dean (age 2), Grace (age 4) , Scarlett (age 5) and her twin sister Juliet (also age 5) (duh!). The twins are starting KINDERGARTEN this month! Absolute insanity! How did they get so big?!?

And here are the kids with their Pops. 

Seriously. I don't understand how they got so big. 

27 is Getting Uncomfortably Close to 30

Saturday was my birthday. I'm 27 now.

27.

I met Grant when I was 19.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?!?

I know, I know, 27 is not old. I'm aware. But I'm inching closer and closer to the big 3-0 and then I'm a real live adult and I don't quite know what to do with all that.

That being said, I had a GREAT birthday. It was so low key.

Grant had a whole day planned for me. We woke up and went to breakfast at Pecan Creek Grill where I had a breakfast taco (Praise the Lord) and great cup of coffee. We sat and visited and then Grant took me to our second location of the day:

We got a couples' massage!!!

Grant knows that massages are my love language and it was such a great gift. Although, I will say this: when I get a massage, I like it to be quiet and peaceful and no speaking and I drift in and out of sleep. Grant got a sports massage where they work on specific muscles that relate to his specific sport (golf) and they spent a lot of time talking. And I kinda wanted to throw something at him.

But, I kept my cool because I was super relaxed. It was a great gift :)

We headed home and ate leftovers for lunch and rested. Then we went to Target! Mercy, I love that store. I got to shop, guilt-free! I got a handbag, earrings, 2 shirts, and some necessary kitchen items.

We headed back home and Lindsee came over and we sat on my couch and visited while we got ready to go to the big birthday event of the evening.

There's a local ministry here in Houston called Feed-A-Friend. Every evening, a team from Feed-a-Friend sets up some tables in a parking lot downtown and spends about an hour serving dinner to the homeless. And I decided that that is what I wanted to do for my birthday.

It was so much fun. There were about 60-70 people in line. I served hot dogs. Lindsee served shredded cheese. My parents and some of their friends were there. Grant handed out crackers for them to take with them. I met a man named Ray who told me that it was his birthday too! It was fun. It was a great way to spend my birthday.

I'm officially 27.

SO. WEIRD.

Dear Chick-fil-A,

It came to me, like a vision in the night.

Although it wasn't night time, I was standing in my bathroom straight-ironing my hair. 

And then it hit me:

Chick-fil-A NEEDS MACARONI AND CHEESE. 

Everyone wants macaroni and cheese with their chicken. And YOUR chicken is the BEST chicken and it would taste SO GOOD with macaroni and cheese!

And I would know, because I am a macaroni and cheese expert. 

It's easy to make and people would be ALL ABOUT IT. I'm telling you, this would be MAJOR for you. HUGE. 

Please do it. Please. 

PLEASE. 

Do it. If you agree, leave a comment. YOU KNOW YOU AGREE.

IT IS THE BEST IDEA EVER. 

Basic Necessities

Today's discussion will mainly focus on the few basic items that our household could not survive without. 

Eggo Waffles

Yes, Eggo Waffles. This is a common breakfast item around here, or a late night snack. They are super quick and easy and sometimes I eat them with peanut butter on top rather than butter and syrup. They are in our freezer at all times.

Cell Phone Alarm Clock

Grant and I are heavy utilizers of the cell phone alarm clock. We each set 2-3 different alarms to 2-3 different alarm tones. Grant first wakes up to the song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". We normally listen to the song 2-3 times before we actually start moving.

DVR

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We are TV people. But we have social lives. And, oh yeah, we have jobs. Therefore, we are DVR people. This has been perhaps the most cherished tool in our TV watching lives :)

Kraft Singles

Do I really have to elaborate on this? Kraft Singles. ENOUGH SAID.

Steam Dryer

I can not even begin to explain how much I love my steam dryer. This is largely due to the fact that I DON'T HAVE TO IRON ANYMORE. Oh, what's that? Your shirt is wrinkled? Oh, throw it in the dryer on the "Wrinkle-release"setting. IT WILL RELEASE YOUR WRINKLES.

Humidifier

Oh, mercy. Moments like these are when I realize that I'm getting older. Hello, my name is Jen, I take One-A-Day vitamins, I have a heel spur, my right ankle swells when it's about to rain and I use a humidifier in the fall and summer months. I'm not even 30 yet. Things aren't looking good for my elder years. 

Big Brown Blanket

Big brown blanket is my trusty big brown blanket that is on the couch with me at all times. Yes, even as it is over 100 degrees outside with a "feels like" temperature of 149 degrees, I still use big brown blanket every time I watch TV. My mom once said that she didn't think it was possible for me to watch TV without a blanket. True statement. True, true.

What does your household need to survive?

Clarity

I love it when God brings me some major realizations and clarifications when I need them the most. And let me tell you, He has made a few things CRYSTAL CLEAR the last few weeks.

A couple weeks ago, he smacked me upside the head (figuratively speaking, of course) when I was having feelings of resentment towards someone in my life. Something wasn't going my way and I was blaming someone for it. As I prayed about it, I prayed "Lord, show this person that they are WRONG and I am RIGHT!". That's when I was told "JENNIFER DAWN, this is NOT about them. This is about ME." 

Wow. 

I was put in my place. I was reminded that when things aren't going MY way, it's not because others are hindering it. It's probably because God is trying to remind me that things aren't supposed to go my way. They're supposed to go HIS way, and all my moaning and complaining at whoever isn't justified nor accomplishing anything. I'm just barking up a tree, essentially. 

And then, this morning, it happened again. I've been praying the last couple weeks that God would continue to reveal to me where I am in the wrong, where I am way off base, and where I need to be corrected. I'm not perfect, He is, and I want HIM to tell me where I'm wrong. This morning, He did. This morning, I was praying, and I said "Lord, I trust You." And then I felt it... something was revealed to me.

I realized this: I'm never really saying "I trust You"..... what I'm really saying is "Lord, I trust You to make things go MY way".  

"Lord, I trust You to make this happen for me"

"God, I trust that You're going to work all this out in the way I want it to go"

Um, NO.  That's not supposed to be how it goes. So I changed it up:

"Lord, I trust You whole-heartedly, I trust Your plan for my life. I trust You with NO input from me. I trust that You know what You're doing with no input from me".

Probably for one of the first times in my life, I took the motive out of my prayer.

While some of this has been hard to hear, it has brought SUCH clarity to my life. He has removed so much fog and revealed to me the things that are holding me back. 

I so deeply struggle with selfishness. I struggle with my motives for the decisions I make. I pray for things that will make my life easier, but are not necessarily the things that are best for me. Thankfully, God is showing these things to me in such a powerful way. 

He is good, all the time. And He DOES NOT need my input!