HOTTY TODDY I'm ready for football season!!!!

SO, today one of my most famous sorority sisters Katie F. Ward posted this video to her Facebook site and I am so PUMPED!!!

Check it out



This is why I miss Oxford!! This is why I love football season in the south, and I KNOW we do it better than ANYONE ELSE!!!

Not to mention this Sports Illustrated preseason poll that puts Ole Miss as #7!! It's going to be a GREAT FALL!!!

HAPPY 3-OH to me!

So, as you know, I turned 30 last Thursday! Mom sufficiently humiliated me at work by sending a cookie bouquet along with the 16x20 GLAMOR SHOTS print from when I was a Freshman in High School. The delivery sat at my desk for over an hour before I got back to the office and everyone had a good laugh. HAHA. Unfortunately with this new phone I can't figure out how to pull the pictures off, so my blogging friends will have to imagine 14 year old me, the iconic Glamor Shots flag jacket, rhinestone earrings and all.

Thursday night, my husband took me to P.F. Changs for dinner! But not before revealing my "mystery gift" in the garage. I have been banned from our garage for a good 3-4 weeks; there was newspaper over the windows and everything. It was all because my amazing husband was MAKING my gift. It's something we've wanted since we got married and it's so special that he made it for me. He would get up at 5am, dress for work, go out to the garage, change clothes into bum clothes, work on my gift for an hour, change back into his tie and work clothes, and go to work. Without further ado, I give you CORNHOLE!!! And because we are staunchly loyal to our respective undergrad alma maters, this is how we do cornhole in OUR FAMILY.
























Anywho, I had lunch Friday with my local BFF Mere at one of my FAVORITE lunch places, Petunia's Silver Jalapeno. It's an old silver airstream trailer joint that has THE BEST fish tacoes ON THE PLANET. Top it all off with a homemade from scratch peach milkshake (that's fresh peach slices and Mayfields vanilla ice cream and milk) and you've got yourself a fantabulous lunch!!

My sweet father-in-law and step-mother-in-law gave me a certificate for a mani-pedi, which I promptly used Friday afternoon in preparation for my birthday party. When I pulled up to the nail salon to meet my mom (in town from Cinnci) I noticed my BFF Hilary (from Indianapolis) through the window. She rode down with mom for the weekend to surprise me! EEK! AND THEEEEN Hilary and I got home from the salon (Mom had run to the "grocery store") when Mom delivers my BFF Melissa (from VEGAS) that she just picked up at the airport!!! Double EEK!!!

Melissa, me, Hilary
These ladies traveled the farthest for my big celebration!!!

SATURDAY is when we had my birthday party and my BFF Lamm (from Atlanta) came up with her husband Keith and baby Knox. My godmother Brenda also came up Saturday from Birmingham. My sweet husband FINALLY broke down and gave me a Pandora bracelet that I've been wanting since Christmas with the cupcake charm for my birthday. And each of my sweet and loving friends and family got me a bead or set of beads to add to it! Each bead means something between me and that person, and it's just perfect! See?

























We all loaded up and headed to the park for the celebration. Lamm surprised me with a custom birthday hat and a "Pin-the-Crown-on-the-Princess" game that she made with a photo of me when I was 3!! That was lots of fun. Some folks did well and some not-so-well as you can see!

Here are some pics from the party for you to enjoy!

Mel, Lamm, Me, Hilary, and Mere - love these ladies!!

Knox dressed up for the occasion. He heard that every girl's crazy for a sharped dressed man.

Grillmaster Ken and me (he's my big brother, can't you tell??)

I collected school supplies for the Inner City Ministries program at our church in lieu of gifts. Check out the LOOT!!! I'm so excited to deliver this basket to the church!!!


Thanks to everyone who donated supplies, came to my party from near and far, sent me wishes and cards, and otherwise recognized this monumental birthday! I'm blessed by you all!!!

Not ME! Monday returns - or so I thought

After a small hiatus from blogging, (ok I took almost a month off, SUE ME!) Not Me! Monday has returned!! Check out the totally cute new logo!!



So I started this post as a "Not Me! Monday" post, but when I went to MckMama's page to phish off this logo, I was shocked to see little Stellan in the hospital again. He's been doing so well and their life has been so "normal" for so long that I was very surprised. Her "tweet" in the side bar quotes Dr. B saying, "He's in bad shape." I just read her blog post seconds after I wrote this and their family is coming in to the hospital. This is as bad a shape as this baby has ever been in. Please pray for this sweet little boy and his family.

Overwhelmed

I'm a bad bad blogger. A lot of stuff that has been on my mind lately I don't feel comfortable blogging about just yet, so I've avoided my blog altogether.

Since I last blogged, Matt had his 27th birthday. He reminds me often that he turned the age I was when we met. Thanks hunny, I remember. I got ZERO pics of his birthday, bad wife. I did buy him an awesome ukulele for his birthday. It's an authentic ukulele from a maker in Hawaii. He loved it. I still don't have any pictures of him playing it, but hopefully when things calm down I can get some.

Matt has been working an insane amount of hours trying to get a job out on time. They were supposed to post July 15th, then the deadline was Friday, July 24th. Today they were told that it's been extended to Sunday night and they are expected to work this weekend. BTW, my 30th birthday is tomorrow (more on that later). So, he's wrestling with doing a good job, giving me time, properly celebrating my birthday, etc. We thought after they extended the deadline once that we would at least (FINALLY) get to sleep-in together, enjoy the day and have my birthday party in peace. Not so much. Oh well. I know he feels horrible about it, so I try not to complain and make it worse. At least we will have 5 or 6 hours on Saturday to celebrate.

Matt being gone so much lately is starting to really affect me. By the end of the day Sunday (the 19th) he had crammed 6 weeks worth of hours into 4 weeks at work. Monday and yesterday I think he worked about 21 hours in 2 days. My love languages are Physical Touch and Quality Time (I'm bilingual), so obviously I am affected by this.

Last night I lost it (again, this seems to be a regular cyclical occurrence). I feel so overwhelmed and I can't break out of it. I will have a good week or two, then a bad. I never can seem to time my counseling sessions with bad weeks, so we've yet to address it. UGH. Anyway, there are a lot of things that are important to me as a wife.

1. I love Jesus and want to have a close relationship with him, so I need and want to spend time studying the Word.
2. I love my husband, so I need and want to spend lots of quality time with him.
   
3. I want to be healthy and feel good about myself, so I need and want to exercise regularly.
   
4. I want us to eat healthy, nutritious foods, so I need and want to cook good meals often.
5. Clutter stresses me the heck out, so I need and want to keep up with housework.
6. I want to take care of myself, so I need and want to get to bed in time to get a good night's sleep.

These are all things that are of the absolute highest importance to me, and they are ALL things that are daily or nearly daily things that need taking care of. BTW, I work a full-time job too. I am stuck in this vicious cycle of setting goals for all of these things, FAILING MISERABLY, flipping the heck out about it, trying to do better, setting more goals, FAIL, flip out/ rant, and so on. This has been going on for 3 freakin' months now and I have NO IDEA how to do any better.

THEN I start to think if just keeping up with life is hard now, what happens when we are ready for kids??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!??!!

OH, and BTW I turn 30 tomorrow, chubby, childless, and totally overwhelmed. AWESOME.

Praise and Trust

A couple of girls in my small group have adopted this motto in the last month or so, and I think it's my turn. I've got a couple of things in the hopper and I'm feeling better about life in general. At least things are MOVING instead of me feeling STUCK like I did here.

So that's what I'm going to give my God, praise and trust.

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you and watch over you."

Psalm 32:8