Bon Voyage

It is official, two weeks from tomorrow J.D. and I will sail away on a cruise. We love cruising and it has almost been three years since we have been on one. We will be sailing to Mexico for the third time and it hasn’t gotten old yet!

What’s not to love?

The food and the amazing service?

The water?

The cute towel animals placed on your bed?

Maybe the ports that you stop?

Yes indeed, we love a cruise!

I won!

I have never received a trophy in my entire life. I’ve won Social Studies and Science fairs in school before, but we always got a ribbon or a framed certificate. That all  changed the night of the Super bowl.
Our church hosts a chili cook-off every year during the Super bowl to benefit the youth. Usually there are about 25-30 pots of chili entered and you go around and sample different chili’s and you buy tickets and use your ticket to vote for your favorite. I had never entered, but had heard that it could get really competitive; mainly my Uncle Fred and his friend Paul revert back to school boys on the playground.
Case and point, My Aunt and Uncle’s display:

Yep, the title of their chili was “Everything But the Kitchen Sink”.  Everyone else’s Crockpot was on a folding table, but they had to be different.
I was so nervous, I honestly thought that mine didn’t stand a chance. I mean there were twenty five other chili’s there!
I won first place!
I had the largest majority in history and I am proud to say that my pot of chili raised $100 for the youth department.

And no, I won’t be posting my recipe. :-)

Running water is a necessity…

We finally figured out how to install the bathroom faucet. I think it took us about a week to complete installation, but it is in now and it does not leak!

The ugly gold before!

No faucet. It stayed this way for about a week!

Jennifer finally got it installed….

and it WORKS!

I would definitely order from Overstock again. The quality could not be beat for the price. We know the bare minimum about plumbing, so that was probably a contributing factor in how long it took us.

So it snowed….

We received some serious snow on Friday. God decided to dump a good six inches of snow where I live in Georgia. It was breathtaking. It snowed for a good ten hours and it was like a winter wonderland.
     
This southern girl had never seen anything like it! Our house with the snow!


The two story house above is my aunt and uncle’s house. They live right next door to us. My cousin Kyle hooked on of our sleds up to the four wheeler and we went sledding in one of the pastures on our property. Talk about fun!
Right before it got dark, Kyle took me on a four wheeler ride through the woods on our property. It was gorgeous and the entire time I was thinking of the verse from Job 38:22, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow….?” . God’s creation truly is majestic.
My enthusiasm for the snow had dampened after Saturday morning. Jennifer and I walked outside to check what had iced over and no sooner had I stepped out of the garage did I hit a patch of ice and twist my knee and then land on it. I’m hobbling around but am mostly on bed rest. I cannot stand being confined!

Women of Faith

I am really trying to make an effort to update my blog more often, so here goes nothing:

Remember a few weeks ago when I was terrified of going to a big, scary conference in Dallas? Well, I shouldn't have been! I had the time of my life! Have any of you ever heard of Women of Faith? I hadn't either until I went to Dallas. I went at the last minute to this big group leader planning conference because someone in my church wasn't able to go. I loved every single minute of it. It was a little odd at first because I was with a bunch of women who had all experienced what Women of Faith was all about, but by the end of the first day I was just as excited as the rest of them.

Basically it's a two day conference with amazing speakers designed to show you how much God loves you. It fills you up with His love until you are overflowing. Spiritually, I left bigger than I came. I laughed, I cried and I made some amazing new friends. I am now on board to bring 50 women to the Atlanta conference in September. I can't wait!

A few of my pictures from the event....

Picture #1: The karaoke cab in Dallas. This was the most fun I have ever had in a cab. There was a karaoke machine and a strobe light and shag carpet and cd's glued to the ceiling and tinsel and all things gaudy. It was a blast!

Picture #2: My new friend Stephanie from North Carolina. We went to this awesome restaurant in downtown Dallas, Taco Diner. It was delicious. Dallas has THE BEST Tex-mex.

Picture #3: Me and Lisa Whelchel! I have loved her since I was a little girl and I watched her on The Facts of Life. She is really involved with Women of Faith and it was such an honor to meet her at the conference. She is just as sweet as you would imagine!

If any of you ladies would like to come to Women of Faith with me in September, I would be honored to have you!

P.S. Stacey H., you're coming with us! Hurricane Heather, I haven't given up on you yet either!

Bathroom update!

I was hoping to have a big fancy bathroom reveal today, but I think, actually I KNOW that it is going to have to wait about a week. You see, as we went along things kept being added to the list. Also things somehow manage to take three times as long as you expect them to. I also spent a weekend in Dallas, TX and nothing got done while I was gone. I figured that J.D. would have gotten a lot done while I was gone because I tend to be a bit of a distraction in the way of " LET'S DO THIS! NO, LET'S DO THIS! HOW ABOUT WE GO HERE? LOOK AT ME, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS?" Who knew I was a motivating factor?

We spent about four hours yesterday trying to install the new bathroom faucet that I ordered from Overstock. It is awesome quality and I like it, but suffice it to say, the directions are seriously lacking. The directions are worse than Ikea directions! J.D. spent about two hours removing the old faucet and we were able to get the center part/spout of the new widespread faucet installed, but installing the cold water handle threw us for a loop. The directions would refer to crazy terms but wouldn't explain what that crazy part was called or that you had to twist here or tighten there. We finally quit after about four hours and decided we would try again on Monday.

The cabinet is finally painted and it looks nice. I accidentally bought oil-based paint which was a giant surprise when I opened the can and got a whiff of the paint. Rustoleum didn't label the can as oil-based, but maybe I should have just known. I am actually glad that I ended up using the oil based paint because I have read that using oil-based finishes on kitchen and bathroom cabinets is better because the finish is more durable. I also need to say that using gray-primer when you will be painting something black makes all of the difference in the world. I can't say that enough.

All of the other trim and doors are primed and we have also cut trim for the baseboards by hand with a miter box and saw. Go us! We are going to buy a miter saw before we cut and hang the crown moulding. I think that would be a little much with a hand saw.

I promise to post pictures soon!