A few recommendations

I so plan to make these

looking back on 2010

No Nap for Me!

The first rule of doing work. Here is an outstanding article on getting things done. I hope to employ this in 2011.

My Christmas list

December 26th

I can't believe it.

I am sad that the Christmas music on Directv has already been turned off. I like to wean myself off of Christmas music. Christmas music is one of the things that 'makes it' Christmas for me.

What makes it Christmas for you?

I was listening to the radio one morning early in December and they asked their listeners to call, text or email them what one thing makes it Christmas for them.

This got me to thinking.

I don't think just one thing 'makes it' Christmas for me. I have a list. It helped me to think about my list. Some years, it just doesn't feel like Christmas and I never knew why. I think it was because 'things' didn't get done and I didn't realize how important they were to me.

Here is my list in no particular order.

1) Smelling citrus fruit. My mother always put out oranges on the coffee table during the holidays. When I smell them, I am in my living room in Birmingham and I can see our tree. Taylor loves to eat grapefruits. Each time she ate one the smell was wonderful. If you see me eating a cutie, I smell it deeply first.

2) Baking cookies and breads and making fudge. I love seeing the tupperware containers stacked up with the products of our labor in them. I love the kitchen with my measuring cups and flour and other special ingredients all over.

3) Getting the tree. Ahhh the wonderful smell of fresh evergreen.

4) Decorating the house. I love decorations all over the house.

5) Christmas lights in and around our house. Carl has Christmas lights up in my room so that I go to sleep by Christmas light. I love that!

6) Christmas cards. I love getting them and sending them. I plan to start writing my tomorrow. I didn't want them to compete with Andrew and Taylor's visit.

7) Having Carl home more. I love having him here for day to day life.

8) Getting up before anyone else in the morning, turning on the Christmas tree and sitting in the dark to bask in it's glow. It is magic to me.

9) Laughing with Kaitlin about who is going to put up the next part of our Advent Calendar. She tries to put up baby Jesus every single day and I have to be on top of her to keep him off til the 24th.

10) driving around and looking at Christmas lights.

11) hearing Isaiah 9:6 And His name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace

12) singing Christmas Hymns in church

13) going to a few Christmas parties

14) giving gifts

15) being with family

16) watching bowl games

17) hearing Christmas songs on the radio

This year every thing on my list was done and then some. Some years the list has to be changed. Sometimes life gets in the way.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas season. I hope everything on your list has been seen, felt, smelled or done.

Care to share what is on your list?

Merry Christmas!

I am thankful for the greatest gift ever given, Jesus Christ.This year I am blest to have family and friends near. The gifts are all opened and it is about time to start the monkey bread. I am savoring every second of my many blessings. I am praying you are too.

Wedding Randomness

I have some what recovered, maybe.

Here are some random pictures with a few of the stories that go along. I don't have all the pictures on my computer so I don't have the full story in pictures yet but soon!!!!

Here is the newest member of an exclusive club. We all married into this crazy family. Sarah, Esther, me Marisa, Grandma, Taylor, Renee and Tina.

Here is my sister in law, Renee. She is tying a handkerchief bonnet on Marisa's bouquet. My mother made this for John when he was baptized. It is a handkerchief that belonged to my daddy with lace from my wedding dress. It is her something old and something blue.

This is my friend, Linda. She and her husband flew down to document the wedding. I can't wait to see the video she took of Sandy and KimT when they curled my hair using a broken curling iron just before I was seated.
My brother, John, shown here holding the door open so the photography could get a picture of the amazing dress.
Here is sweet Taylor. She didn't have the handkerchief on her bouquet when she got married because I forgot to bring it to the church but she did carry it for this wedding.

Here are all the women that were born into this crazy family, they didn't have a choice. They were teasing us about choosing to join the group
One story about 'our group'. The florist was to have the flowers at the church before pictures which were at 10 am. She got there about 9:45am and had to hustle. She was stunned with all the people already there. She asked my friend, Sandy, if the wedding was still at 1? Sandy told her it was. The florist asked why so many of the congregation was already there. Sandy told her that that was John's family. There were 40 of us. What a blessing to have that kind of support.

More soon...

The day before the day before

It started with this fine group. This is about 7 Am on Thursday at Mimi's
A good breakfast is always a good thing. We then headed to the church to set up for the rehearsal dinner except...

we found that the men who were putting down new floors in the fellowship hall, a- weren't finished, b-had all their trash in the fellowship, c-the guy who was to have all the chairs cleaned wasn't done and wasn't there.

I sat down, took about 7000 deep breaths, started saying to myself "If this is the worse thing that happens this weekend, we will be ok". Pastor Tim must have seen the look on my face as did Carl because they sprang into action. They talked to the workmen and they made a plan.

They fellowship hall was as clean as they could get it, with the workmen still there, then Carl, Kaitlin, Bri and I moved on to the sanctuary. We turned this...

Into this.
We did have lots of laughs. Here are the girls helping Carl move some boom mikes

then back to the fellowship hall where my blessed friends were cooking for Friday night. Here is Barb making a strawberry cake. Kimt and Sandy were busy behind her.
Then off to the Christmas party for Carl's company. Here is Carl posing with a group that helped plan this years get together.
Carl was employee number 34 and now there are close to 500. I stood up where I had been sitting and took pictures of the tables on either side of me.
Very cool!

These girls, wow, I can't say enough. They sure worked hard as did Robert and John. Here there at the one point in the day when they sat down and they were still working.
We went to KimT's to get the dress.
Her house is so fun to see during Christmas.
I forgot to take a picture of the office party that Carl and I went to after we took the dress back to the church. It was at Stacy's house. Lots of wonderful fellowship. During that time Kaitlin and Bri picked up Uncle John and Aunt Elaine at their motel and took them to the Purple Cow where they met up with Aunt Marian and Alan.
Afterwards we went to see John and Marisa's apartment. I took this picture because of all the coffee that they have. Some of you may be getting some of it for Christmas????I slept so well last night. I was worn out. I know the folks that helped were too!

More pictures soon!

How is your nose?

Read all of this blog regardless of the title :)

Here is a small part. I love this...

Luther goes so far as to say that vocation is a mask of God. That is, God hides Himself in the workplace, the family, the Church, and the seemingly secular society. To speak of God being hidden is a way of describing His presence, as when a child hiding in the room is there, just not seen. To realize that the mundane activities that take up most of our lives. . . are hiding-places for God can be a revelation in itself.

Do you see God hiding?

I need to be more like Jesus and Winston Churchill

No Time for Meanness is a wonderful article about things that may drain us. I struggle with this and needed this timely reminder. I recently read that bitterness is revenge that has turned inward. Yikes, I struggle with that too!

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

Hot Dog Mike

Social Networks

Do you use them?

I do.

I like Facebook and Twitter.

That's how I found Hot Dog Mike.

He has a hot dog cart and sets it up all around town.

How do you find out where he'll be?

Twitter and Facebook.

Carl and I tried to find him the first time he went to UALR but alas, his cart broke down.

Kaitlin and Carl found him the next time he was there.

This past Thursday we all found him.

It was delicious.

He gave us free hot dogs for our donations to Toys for Tots.

He gave Kaitlin a bumper sticker that says " I'd rather be eating a hot dog." He was out of the ones that say" I'm on the hot dog diet."



Hot Dog Mike jumped in the picture with us. Justin is his friend who helps him. He is in the background with the Santa hat on. Kaitlin's friend, Marci, was with us too but didn't get in the picture!


This is the chili dog
This is the Woo Pig Hot Dog. Kaitlin didn't get a photo of the Frito Chili Pie Dog. I just got chili dogs. The rest of my group was more adventurous. We all enjoyed our lunch.

The regular hot dogs are $3.00. The specialty dogs are 4 and 5 dollars. He also has cokes and chips each are $1.oo.

He had a turkey dog during the month of November. He is usually near the razorback games when they play in Little Rock.

We hope to find Hot Dog Mike again and again. You may want to find him too. You won't be disappointed!

Do you know what the color is for 2011?

I just read in the Wall Street Journal that Pantone plans to announce that the New Hue for 2011 is Honeysuckle Pink. It is supposed to be EVERYWHERE. We are supposed to see it on designer dresses, pillows, water bottles, nail polish, sofas and appliances. The paper says that it is seen as a pick-me-up at a time when many people have had their fill of misfortune.

In case you missed the colors for the last decade they were

2010- Turquoise

2009 Mimosa

2008 Blue Iris

2007 Chili Pepper

2006 Sand Dollar

2005 Blue Turquoise

2004 Tigerlily

2003 Aqua Sky

2002 True Red

2001 Fuchsia Pink

I must get off the computer now and go get me some Honeysuckle so I'll be 'in' for 2011. Will you be 'in'?

One week!

This picture was taken August 21, 2009 as Marisa changed her status to engaged. In a week we will have a picture much like this one as Marisa changes her status on Facebook to married and she changes her last name.
They have an apartment and Marisa already has her artistic touch there even before she moves in. Here is their tree.
Kaitlin made 'bouquets' for the bridesmaids to use for the rehearsal. Here is Marisa's. Kaitlin found the wedding colors for hers.
Here is Marisa at the courthouse getting the marriage license.
These beautiful girls will be wearing dresses in these styles but not these colors in a week.

Just a week! How exciting! This week will be busy but fun. I just had Kaitlin show me how to delete the pictures from my camera that were saved to my computer. There were over 5000 of them. I think I'll have room to capture this week-maybe!

What do the experts know?

I am cleaning off my desk.

It will/has taken days.

It is like a treasure hunt!

My favorite find to date is The College Football Preview dated August 27, 2010. Here are some highlights

AP preseason top 25- alabama, ohio state, boise state, florida, texas, tcu, ok, nebraska, iowa, va tech are the top 10. The SEC schools in the rest of the top 25 are arkansas at 17, lsu at 21, AUBURN at 22 and georgia at 23.

The odds for AUBURN to won the BCS title game were/are 125:1 ohio state were 6:1 and oregon were/are 50:1

Top players in the SEC were Mark Ingram and Dont'a Hightower both for alabama.

The team proposed to win the East was florida and the West-alabama. The game between to two of them was a 'game you shouldn't miss' on October 2nd. The teams that won were south carolina in the East and AUBURN in the West.

Top Heisman prospects were Mark Ingram, Noel Devine, AJ Green, LaMichael James and Case Keenum. No where is Cam Newton's name.

It is interesting how things played out in the season. I love college football and am sad that the season is drawing to a close. We are getting ready to do our bowl pick 'ems. It is just for bragging rights. Reading the old newspaper and seeing what the 'experts' picked let's me know that I know about as much as they do, I knew AUBURN could go this far!

Stay tuned to see who wins.

Kaitlin loves Nutella

Nutella Chip Cookies I mean seriously. I may have to add this to the long list of cookies that we plan to make this Thursday.

I feel like jumping too!

Lookie here!!!!! Guess what we got back this week. Isn't it beautiful?!? Remember what it looked like?
Guess how Marisa feels!!Insurance is a wonderful thing. God provided for all our needs during the time when we were without one car. Thank you God!

turkey and ham and leftovers, oh my!

A few posts back, I told you about winning a ham and a turkey. Here is what arrived at my house on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I was stunned at how big the boxes were.I had no idea what to expect. They came frozen and in ice chests. We started the thawing process and we ate.
We had turkey sandwiches on Thanksgiving Day and then turkey for our big meal that night. We had leftovers on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We sent leftovers home with Mary Jean, who joined us for Thanksgiving evening dinner. We had ham and potatoes and then ham fried rice. We had fried ham sandwiches plus all we ate of the ham and the turkey as it was being fixed. And the 'we' is Carl, Ellen, Kaitlin, John, Marisa, Kaelyn, Robert and JenniferW.
After we ate all that this is what was left over.
I sent out a few text messages to ask if anyone, especially those who went away for Thanksgiving, if they needed some leftovers. Sandy, Julie, Cheryl and Peggy all said "YES!" I packed up the car and went to deliver their bags and containers of wonderfulness. Before I left, I got out enough turkey for my last sandwich-it was probably my 6th! White bread, mayo, salt, jellied cranberry sauce and turkey. It really doesn't get too much better than this.
It was very cool to me that even with all we ate there were still lots of leftovers so that we could pass on the blessing on to others. Thank you Park Wife for your contest. We serve a great God.

Rust Colored Pants, Gilmore Girls and Bedspreads

In two weeks we will be in the middle of the wedding festivities. We will have lots of family, lots of friends, lots of laughing and lots of new memories. Plus a million new pictures that I will post ASAP.

It was 5 years ago that John and Marisa started dating. Three years ago Marisa's home life fell apart and she needed a place to live. She picked our very quiet and calm home ;) . With John away at school, Kaitlin and I widened our Mother/Daughter duo to include her and we became a trio. She joined us for our lunches out and girls evening in when Carl was away. She made me watch The Housewives of New York, America's Next Top Model and The Gilmore Girls. (I can watch the second two but there is too much drama in those 'housewives' shows for me) The Gilmore Girls was especially fun because that was such a girl thing. If John or Carl were ever home when we were watching they were required to keep total silence if they chose to stay in the room we were in. If not, let's just say , it only happened once and it wasn't pretty.

Marisa began painting my toe nails. No one ever had as nice or as artistic toes as me! She took over the cleaning of the kitchen and if has never looked better. The first dresser she used had the squeakiest drawers and later I leaned that that was a signal between she and Kaitlin, that she was up and the visiting could begin.

I loved hearing the early morning laughter from the girls bathroom as they got ready for class.

Marisa became the fashion police. We are all better dressed because of her influence. Even Carl was not above her disapproving look if what you had on that day didn't look good. I remember the look on his face when she told him the first time that he was not even going to work dressed in the pants he had picked out. (They really didn't match the shirt he had on and she bought him a shirt to match those rust colored pants he dearly loves).

It was fun to shower her with gifts and then in turn, see her do the same to her siblings and cousins.

It was my privilege to see her heal and blossom and now go forth. Oh, but it is hard.

She and John are moving her stuff into the apartment that John is living in little by little. She has here what she needs to for her day to day living but all the extra's she is moving.

Last Saturday as she came past me, with her arms full of her books and things, she paused and said that her room really looked bare. She put down all that she had in her arms and came to me. As we stood hugging, she very quietly said " This is hard." We both cried. It is hard.

I am so thankful that she has come to know this as her home, her safe place, her refugee. I am so thankful that God opened my heart and gave me such a love for Marisa. I am thankful that He provided Kaitlin with such a giving spirit that as soon as Marisa moved in, whatever she needed, if Kaitlin had it, Marisa could use it. I am thankful for Carl and his giving spirit. I am thankful for his willingness to let our home have a constant flow of people in and out.

Yes, it is hard. but this is a good hard. This means that roots were put down, memories made, conflicts worked out all by the grace of God.

I asked Marisa is she wanted to take the bedspread that I gave her two Christmases ago. She said emphatically said "NO!" "That bedspread stays here in my room so when I come home, it will be on my bed." Nuf said

Two more weeks till lots of changes take place. When all the dust settles and all the relatives go home and we find out what new normal is around here, it will be hard. But I am so glad it will be!

It's December Fool's Day!

Look at these happy soap dispensers that will grace two of my sinks this season.
I found Christmas wash cloths. I love wash clothes (strange, I know). Now I can even wash my face with a Christmas decoration of sorts. I am pumped. I used one this morning, I could feel the Christmas feeling going deep into my pores. Well, not really, but it was sure fun to see these in my wash cloth stack.I hope your day is wonderful and you find things that make you smile too.