Trick or Treat!

Have a Happy Halloween!!

Things that have been making me happy recently

Here are a few things that have been making me happy recently:

• Making smores in our fireplace at night for desert
• Visiting old friends and sharing memories
• Working out
• Halloween approaching and yes, the Christmas decorations already out in stores
• Home cooked meals
• Visiting Auburn
• Twinkle lights in my bedroom
• cheese toast for breakfast
• Searching our basement and attic for cool retro finds

Nirvana

" Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are"

Thank you Mr. Cobain. I think you are on to something here.

twinkly lights

So I have been talking to allen about twinkly lights. Thinking about getting some orange ones for our front bushes/trees in honor of the fall season. I really have been wanting to put twinkly lights up in the house. I think they are so magical. I think they are really beautiful. I feel like i am in some kind of fairy tale when I am around twinkly lights.

So last night I was in the bathroom taking off makeup, brushing my teeth and when I walked out this is what I saw.

beautiful! I got so excited. I wanted to sleep with them on, but it was too bright. I just layed in bed and looked up at them. That was a magical moment. To lay in the bed with allen talking in the night with these twinkly lights up above us. bliss.

The Pumpkin Patch

War Eagle!

An old photo of me and Say in the math building. One night we went around and took photos. Maybe our senior year? I love that girl.

My to do list for the weekend in the AU

I can't wait. Its only Tuesday and I am already making a to do list! yay!

• Eat at : The Pita pit, Taylors Bakery and Big Blue Bagel


• Buy an Auburn sweat shirt


• Take pictures of places that I have memories from (example: keller dorm, the hill, HDFS building etc)


• hanging out with friends


• walk around campus

I am sure it will get longer but I am really hopeful for a good weekend. I enjoyed God so much during my stay in auburn and I am looking forward to sharing that with Him again over the weekend.

Evidence

The new blue star that used to be a brown rusty color....

Our new little breakfast/dinner nook

A wide view of the back porch re-do...

Yummy brownies ( sideways and unbaked)

The beginings of soup

Close up of homemade soup

Our funky fall pumpkins

Saturday morning :O)

w-e-e-k-e-n-d

I loved this weekend. I love all weekends, but this weekend was really great. It almost feels like a gift. Lots of rest. Lots of love. Lots of things on my never ending to do list getting checked off.

Thursday night we stayed with our good friends Willy and Laura. They live right by my school so on Friday Allen came by and brought me lunch. My day was immediately made better by 100%. Later in the afternoon he stopped by again with a hot chocolate in his hand and a few free hours to spend with me during my planning period. It was so much fun to have him at work with me. A little bit of Allen in my work world was such a blessing. Friday night we hung out with some pizza, salad, Dwight and Michael and a nice fire in the fire place. Saturday morning was awesome. I woke up freezing with the smell of the heat being turned on for the first time and then falling back asleep until around 11am. It can make such a difference to wake up and feel rested instead of just awake. After sleeping in we made it to a furniture salvage store in hopes of finding a dinning room table but came up empty handed. Back to craigslist I suppose. Lanier met us for lunch at a new tavern near our house and we enjoyed really good hamburgers. After lunch we shopped a little bit and visited a pumpkin patch. A hot chocolate and a purple dress later we arrived home ready to bake brownies and work on some home projects.

The brownies were amazing and the crafts projects brightened up my house. I will post pictures later on. Lanier left early that evening and we headed over to a friends house for a birthday party. Lots of chili, cake and little kids later we arrived home ready to call it a day. We took care of two little jack Russell’s for a friend and enjoyed staying at their beautiful 3 story home.

Sunday arrived early and went by too fast. I visited a thrift store in search of something to wear for my schools “decade day” and then came home and transformed our back porch from a storage area to a cozy breakfast nook/reading space. I would love to hang new curtains and paint the walls but as for now and our small budget I am so completely happy with the change! Allen made homemade chicken soup last night and we ate dinner out their with the radio on instead of a TV. It was so awesome. Every time I came into the room with another helping of Sister Schubert rolls I just got this big grin on my face.

I loved this weekend. I had so much fun with allen. I loved seeing my sister. I enjoyed being creative with our budget and making this house more of a home.

brrrrrrrrr

Wowweeee!


Tonight is supposed to be in the mid 40s’!!

I better start pulling out the winter clothes and figuring out what stays and what goes! Oh I hope it stays like this for a LONG time! I bought a really cute vintage Christmas decoration last night at TJ Max and I cannot wait to put it up!! I know I know its only October...but hey that means pumpkins and twinkly lights and fall foliage right?

Its so fun playing house. Its like a natural high or something!

Things I am loving right now

A good friend of mine who has infinitely more wisdom than I, sometimes posts things that she is loving right now. Sometimes they are material goods (like soap and pancake mixes) and sometimes it just might be things/events/people in her life at the moment. Well, Bethany please forgive me but I am taking your idea! So here are several different things that I am loving right now!

• hot tea- usually i drink a cup of joe with lots of milk and sugar in the morning on the way to work. But lately or really ever since I was sick I have been only wanting hot tea. Not the lemony kind or fruity kind but basically earl grey or chamomile. I love the warmth and the lightness of tea. The taste of coffee is so distinct but with tea you can pick different flavors and spices.
• spray paint- spray paint can transform your house. Or really the items in your house. I have been spray painting pumpkins to add a lil festive color to our living room but my next task is to spray paint the metal stars we have outside our house. I am going for the color of turquoise. I think with the newly painted front door and brick that it will look fun and funky.
• an Esther bible study- a friend of mine asked me to join a women's bible study for the next couple of months. It has been awhile since I have committed myself to something like that and I am loving it. God is so amazing. His timing is so sweet and perfect. I love being around these women that are in so many different places. I am hoping that God will really transform us into his image even more during the next few months.
• sweet tarts- not your usual sweet tarts. You know the ones that make your mouth turn inside out. But the chewy ones that look like BB's. I keep some in my desk at work and they are a nice break from teaching sometimes.
• hot apple cider - oh it smells like fall and tastes like fall! Atlanta has been nothing but rain and cold the past week and a hot hot cup of apple cider makes it all worth it. I buy the kind at walmart.
• candles- any color. almost any smell. I feel like they bring an immediate sense of relaxation, coziness and richness to any room. And when you go to TJ max and target as much as I do, then you can usually find good sales.
• email- i used to email people all the time. I mean all the time. I might even go as far to say that I was addicted. But then i stopped. I guess I got busy and started texting. But really how much can you say over a text? I have re-found the greatness of email. Especially for those friends that live in different time zones or countries.
• holidays- thinking about the upcoming holidays like thanksgiving and Christmas. All the fun activies that accompany that time of year. Even thinking about what others might enjoy recieving as Christmas gifts. Thinking about the white twinkley lights, our first Christmas tree, hot chocolate and having to wear mittens when I am outside! The wrapping paper, the amazingly touching christmas carols...

So those are just a few little things. Last night I layed in bed and started to get really annoyed with our renter downstairs. Our bedroom is over half of his kitchen so when he cooks we smell it. When he puts his dishes away we hear it. When he wakes up and wants a midnight snack, the slamming of the cabinet doors wake me up. Not allen, he is out like a light but i wake up, lean over and reach for my ear plugs. Well once I started thinking about all that other things crept into my mind. It is so easy for me to go from slightly annoyed to a full on war with my thoughts. I hate that. Mid-thought, I realized what I was doing. I had to repent and ask for forgiveness. I realized I complain more than I want to. So today I decided that every time I complain or hear myself in my head complain that I would move the rubber band on my wrist to the opposite wrist to keep track. So far I have done well. We will see how the rest of the night goes!

i love this man

enough said.

Thank you to Parks and Shirley Garrett!

I am soooooooooooo excited!! I have been looking at the space behind our front door (our only attempt at an entryway) and thinking that I just was not happy with it. A cousin of mine gave us this wood thing that we decided would fit nicely behind our door. It was convenient to us, a place to put our mail, car keys, sunglasses and even some of my necklaces. But the more I looked at it the more I disliked it.

I dreamed of a nice cozy nook where the contents of our pockets would not always be on display. I searched craigslist. I looked at hobby lobby. I thought about the contents of my parents house and tried to come up with something they might want to give away. I visited the goodwill. I even looked in the basement for something that might work.

Today on the way home from work I decided that instead of going to the local TJ Max (where they practically know my name) or Ross that I would visit the attic of our house. Allen's grandparents, Parks and Shirley Garrett were very good at keeping things. A lot of very cool vintage stuff. So up allen and I went. And wouldn't ya know! We found this dresser!! All I had to do was wipe it down and look around the house for a few odds and ends to place on top. We even got to use our little white chalkboard from IKEA above it!

So that being said, I can look at my little cozy entryway and be satisfied. I huge thanks to Parks and Shirley!

Idea?

I really like the way this looks. Is it pratical? Would you want to eat in a dining room like this? Let me know what you think because my friend Kelly is coming up to help re-do my dining room!!

Kitchen Re- do

Allen and I decided this summer to tackle the task of removing the old outdated wallpaper in the kitchen and giving it a fresh coat of paint. Actually, I really wanted to do this and Allen hates painting so he did it out of a heart full of love. We picked out a cool grey which to me now looks like a blue and painted the walls.

Did you know that fabric softener can make wallpaper fall off the walls? Okay, okay not really but it makes the process about a thousand times easier.
So we applied the fabric softener to the walls, scraped and scraped the wallpaper and swept up the remains. We painted trim for days, painted kitchen doors for days and painted the walls for days. My favorite part of the kitchen is the chalkboard paint we applied to the attic door. Yes, you can reach the attic through our kitchen. I would love to add new blinds, and curtains for our windows. One day maybe we could even put tile on the kitchen floor. But as for us newly weds, I am pretty proud of our kitchen re-do

O happy Day!

O happy Day!

Shoulder Pads

I teach special education.

I teach 6th grade.

This year I really like my job.

Even though I just yelled at a kid for forgetting my name.

Today I was testing. I read aloud for those students who are low in processing skills or have a disability in a comprehension area.

In the middle of my reading the test aloud I looked up and noticed one of our 6th grades was wearing a blouse. With SHOULDER PADS!

I nearly choked on my tea.

Have a happy weekend, and if you see a blouse with shoulder pads think of my precious 6th grader.

Birds of a feather flock together

Geese. You know those birds that have long necks and make honking sounds? The ones that always happened to make an appearance on “America’s Funniest Home Videos?” The ones that run and goose somebody from behind? Or attack a poor child who is just enjoying themselves in the park? Yeah. Those.

Every morning and every afternoon I see these animals. In large numbers too. Where? Oh, at my school. Is there a lake nearby? Nope. I even see them on the side of the road sometimes walking in single file from the nearby church. Hmm….

I love these geese. They make me smile every time I see them. I love watching them walk because they:
A. waddle
B. start off in a clump and magically fall into single file line in a matter of a minute.

They disappear in the wintertime. I guess they go somewhere warmer. I hope that wherever they go they make the people there happy too.

**side note** this year, the geese have become very adamant about leaving their poop on the students sidewalk where the buses meet them. I don’t know if the geese get picked on during P.E. or if they just have a funny sense of humor but I have almost peep my pants during bus duty. In case you didn’t know, 6th graders don’t look where they are going when they walk. Just think about it.

Another chilly night in store for us in Atlanta!

Last night was something out of a movie. Something simple yet magical. After Allen cooked us a big pot of Mexican chili we ventured out into the cool autumn air. It was dark outside, our street lit only by the florescent glow of the street lights and scattered light from homes within the neighborhood. I had a mug of hot tea in my hands keeping me warm and allen had Maggie on the leash. We walked down the middle of the street talking about how great fall felt to us. We talked about the houses on our street. We talked about Maggie. We had moments of silence that were so comfortable.

Maybe to someone else that experience, that memory would not be magical. But to me…it is etched in my memory with allen forever.

I hope that we have many more nights like that this fall. And next fall…and the next….

8 ways to improve your people skills

I don’t think about it much but I could really brush up in this area.
In college I took classes about this. I think everyone should take classes about how to be nice to people. It wouldn’t hurt. I’m just sayin.

Don’t complain

Smile

Listen closely and actively

Praise others

Show gratitude

Talk about other’s interests

Remember names

Make a sacrifice

If I could issue awards to my friends who do these things wonderfully I would dish out the following:

Summer – I rarely hear her complain. She will identify with me, encourage me if I am struggling and maybe share something of her own where she has dealt with the same issue. But complain? Not really.

My mom- she smiles at everyone. Sometimes she smiles when she is annoyed and is trying not to be. I love her smile.

Robyn- an amazing listener. And she remembers. So not only does she listen to me but she will remember to ask me how something is going or if a situation got better.

Praise others: hmmm….

Bethany: Shows gratitude. My friend Bethany who has an amazing talent in cooking, writing and appreciating others. She blesses others by thanking them and finding value in their actions as well as who they are as people.

Kelly: Talks about others interests. She is not selfish. She cares about others. She really really does. When I talk to Kelly she asks me questions about my life. About the lives of people around me, that are important to me. She shows me she cares about me in this way. It is so comforting and so healing to my heart.

Beth: she has a talent of remembering names. I think this one of the reasons she has so many friends.

Pop tart/Taco/Oats/A/Allen/My husband….is always making a sacrifice for me. Small things like where we eat for dinner, what movie we might see on the weekend. Big things like where we spend our first Christmas as a married couple. His love for me is so real and so Christ-like that he is making sacrifices daily. Sometimes I am aware and it is obvious. Sometimes it is hard to see. But its is so life giving. So sweet. So powerful. I hope I can learn from him. So I can be a better woman. A better wife. A more loving friend, daughter, sister, mom (one day J

The 50's

Um....What happened to her waist? I love the fashion of the 50's. I love the style of homes, the movies and the types of appliances created during the 50's. But um, her waist?

cooties

I think I am getting a cold.
Scratchy throat: check
Loss of voice: check
pitful cough: check

Maybe its the change of weather
Maybe its all these kids i talk to, hug, take care of everyday
Maybe its nothing

Either way, Starbucks hot tea will help me recover :)

Two of my most favorite people

Allen + Patrick

How can I not love them?

They make my heart happy