Friday 5

This week’s 5 is inspired by the party game called Taboo, in which players must make their teammates utter key words by giving them clues. The twist is that each key word is assigned five Taboo words, and players are forbidden from using the Taboo words in their clues. For example, one key word might be milk, and its Taboo words might be dairy, cow, drink, white, and carton. Your clue might be something like, “It’s a beverage from Bessie,” or “You add it to coffee,” or “The land of BLANK and honey,” or “It comes out of breasts.”

Your task is simply to answer these five questions without using any of the Taboo words or phrases. Challenge yourself not just to avoid using the words, but to think of fresh, new answers to these sort of cliched meme questions!

Who’s making a positive difference in your life?
Taboo words: friends, family, husband/wife/spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend.

I'd like to think that I am making a positive difference in my life as my decisions and my choices determine the outcome of my actions and the path I will take. I will say though that in order to make those decisions and choices you have to have the support from important and influential people in your life. The people I surround myself with always make a positive difference.

Where would you like to be right now?
Taboo words: home, bed, anywhere but here.

Let's see. I would like to be hanging out with my husband - maybe at the beach with our dog.

What’s the first thing you’d do with a $5,000 (or your local equivalent) gift?
Taboo words: save, debt, vacation, payments, invest.

I would take that money and do great things with it - Like send some in to Chase bank :) College was expensive. Then maybe put some in this neat little account I have that stores all your money for you.

What super-power would you really like to have?
Taboo words: invisibility, x-ray vision, flying, strength, transform.

I would like to be able to calm people's emotions like Jasper in Twilight - then if anyone was having a bad day I could make them feel better :)

What’s your favorite sound?
Taboo words: laughter, music, ocean, wind, ____’s voice.

Peacefulness. Whenever I just really sit and listen...you can hear peace in the air. Sit outside one day, close your eyes and listen. Take in what's around you. That's my favorite sound.

Read more...

Writer's Workshop

It's Thursday so time for Writer's Workshop with Mama Kat.

This week's prompts...

1. Who made you red hot this week?
I got a little upset with work this week (what else is new), but really it's been an overall good week.

2. A day in your life...recap.
Oh wow. Please don't start snoring. A typical day...let's see. Alarm goes off at 6 am. Get ready. Eat breakfast around 7 am. Leave for work 7:15 am. Drive to work and listen to the radio. Arrive at work 8 am. Open office. Check e-mail. Make to-do list and prioritize my day. Work. Check e-mail. Check google reader. tweet. blog. tweet. work. work. lunch around 1 pm. work. Get mail at 2ish. distribute mail. work. Check google reader. tweet. work. work. blog. work. Run out of office at 5 pm. :). Drive the hour home. Home at 6 pm. Say hi to Hubby. change. check e-mail. talk to hubby. start dinner around 6:45-7. eat dinner. talk with hubby. catch up on the dvr. play with dog. get ready for bed. pick out clothes for work. turn on tv and set sleep. watch the news. fall asleep with hubby.

if it's a workout class night: Home at 6 pm. change. Leave for class at 6:45. Class from 7-8. Come home to cook. And then the rest is the same as above.

I'm totally exciting right?

3. What decision are you having a hard time making?
Hmmm. I really want some photography to go above our bed in the master bedroom. We bought some paintings in the DR, but I want them in the laundry room now. I've found some pictures at Kelly Ann Studio, but I need to pick which ones I want. Our bedroom kind of has this rustic, romantic theme going. Dark chocolate wood furniture. Deep red duvet cover w/ shams and skirt, chrome lamps with burlap/canvas-like shades. I also have this super cool leaf thing on the wall. You would have to see a picture to understand. I just don't want to buy a bunch of stuff - I want to really think it out so it looks great!

4. How will you enjoy your last days of freedom (aka summer)?
Well seeing as though I'm no longer a student and I'm not a teacher the summers just aren't what they used to be. However, the summers are always full of vacations. i.e. our river trip and the DR. So I will miss the vacations. With Hubby being a teacher and a coach he can't take off really in the middle of the school year. Also with football starting in a few short weeks my husband will be very busy and I won't see much of him. So I enjoy all the uninterrupted time with him i get over the summers. So as far as enjoying the last bits of summer - grill a little more outside, sit outside and drink a few beers, go to the beach hopefully...wait. Summer goes until at least October around these parts so I still have a way to go....

5. List your 7 most favorite summer items.
7 MOST fav items...
1. shorts and flip flops
2. ice cold beer and neoprene coozies
3. vacations :)
4. neutrogena sunscreen
5. spf softlips chapstick - addicted
6. sitting outside when it's cool listening to the crickets and gazing at the stars
7. bright and fun tops

Read more...

I have a sneaky dog

I have a sneaky dog. Sneaky like the kid who goes in his parent's closet before Christmas to see all his presents sneaky. Actually...that's exactly what he did.

It's really quite comical...

Sunday my husband and I went to Petco to get Boudreaux some more food as well as some birthday presents. Nothing major...I don't want you to think I'm some crazy dog mom. Although I am sometimes. Whatever. I buy my dog a birthday present and a Christmas present. Moving on. So we bought some sausage rawhide chews, his favorite treats - NUTRO Apple treats and my husband insisted on some pig ears. Disgusting if you ask me, but I digress.

So I for some reason put the pig ears on his snack shelf in the pantry, but put left everything else in the bag and put it on the pantry floor until this weekend.

Well this morning while getting ready Hubby got up to let Bou outside. Hubby came into the bathroom holding Bou's new toy. "I guess he found his birthday present." He says. "What?" I exclaim and turn to see Hubby holding the little rope dog. "That stinker."

I decided to walk to the kitchen to check things out. When I approached the kitchen I found pieces of plastic. Then a cardboard label tag....that was the package the rawhide treats were in..."Oh no!!" "Hubby he ate ALL his rawhides!" My husband is like "did he really?" As I'm picking up the trash and walking it to the trash can I notice green plastic. The same green plastic that his treats come in. No he didn't!

I can't find the rest of the package anywhere though! I go back to our bedroom and find the EMPTY package of his treats in his bed.

Apparently one of us left the pantry door open where his stuff was hidden and Mr. Boudreaux found it in the middle of the night. He's very good and well house trained so we don't crate him at night. I guess the smell of the rawhides and treats was too good to pass up.

So he found his new toy, ate all his treats and all his rawhides AND didn't finish his dinner. Tsk Tsk. I guess he has a full belly though.

When Boudreaux came back inside I said to him "My, My someone had fun last night. Did someone find their treats and birthday present?" He ducked his ears, turned his head slyly and sheepishly wagged his tail. All I could do was laugh.

I mean how can you be mad at a face like this...

I was mainly just worried about his tummy. Hopefully he doesn't get a tummy ache during the day today.

Has your dog ever done something funny like this??

Read more...

In case you were interested...

I just posted another blog on Stage of Life. It's a great website to connect with other people in similar life situations. You can read my post here. Be sure to browse around!!

Read more...

Wordless Wednesday - Can I go back...now?

Read more...

Finished!

I FINALLY finished my Honeymoon scrapbook! It only took me what...a year?

I ended up with about 40 pages! I took a lot of pictures. Maybe that's why it took so long...

OK so here's some of my favorite pages from my book. Sorry they're a little blurry...I was fighting with my camera this morning. Then some are sideways although I rotated them - so apparently I'm fighting with Blogger too. Enjoy...

Read more...

20 Questions

I nabbed this from Dawn...go figure. Thanks for saving my blog!

1. I don’t really think I can manage _______________ today.
...to get all the filing done that's piled up...

2. What did you have for breakfast this morning?
A bowl of Life cereal along with some Strawberry yogurt and granola.

3. Share some recent good news.
I FINALLY finished my Honeymoon scrapbook album!!

4. What was the last movie you saw? What did you think of it?
I drug hubby to the theater this weekend to see The Ugly Truth...BEST MOVIE EVER! Even he loved it. I laughed so hard my sides and cheeks hurt. I would pay to go see it again!

5. If you had to, could you do commentary for a sporting event?
Maybe if I absolutely had to...I don't pay attention as much as I should. I could so do it if I had one of those ear things and my husband was feeding me the words lol.

6. What makes you feel better when you're sick?
pillow. blanket. tv. couch. sprite, chicken noodle soup. crackers. sweet, caring husband :)

7. What do you listen to in the car?
my Zune.

8. What were the last five foods you ate?
chicken fingers. skinny cow ice cream sandwich. Life cereal. Strawberry yogurt. oats and honey granola.

9. Who was your first prom date?
My husband :0) It was his junior prom and I was a sophomore.

10. What was your first grade teacher's name?
Mrs. Johnson.

11. How many weddings have you been in?
Let's see...my mom's (or one of them anyway). A girl from High School. Then I was in the wedding party of another...so I guess 3.

12. Who is on your "List"?
(This is actually hard to come up with) McDreamy. Brad Ausmus

13. I love you more than _____________.
...a box of cereal on a Saturday morning. haha (totally random, but that's what came into my head)

14. Oranges or grapefruit?
oranges.

15. What is the earliest memory you have of your first day of school?
I vaguely remember 1st grade where we had these leaves and if we did good things we got red dots on them. We could cash in the red dots for prizes. I don't think that was the first day of school but it's a memory from early on.

16. Would you ever choose money over love?
never ever. Money doesn't equal happiness.

17. Four people who e-mail me regularly:
Julie. Bailey. Mike. Junk Mail

18. What were your favorite books as a child?
the Baby Sitters Club series. goosebumps - those are the ones I really remember reading

19. Never in my life:
(Like Dawn) will I jump out of a perfectly good airplane...ever.

20. Ever been given an engagement ring?
Yup-from my sweet husband! It's gorgeous.

Read more...

Some Word Jumble

I was catching up on Google reader when I found this on Remember Moments. I thought it was so neat and absolutely could not pass up the chance to do my own.

You can type in your own words or paste in the link to your blog. I did both, but found I liked my own typed words better. More focused and less random.

What does yours say?

Read more...

Tuesday Thoughts

Welcome to Tuesday Thoughts. Just a little something fun to break up the monotony. I'll ask a question and you can either answer here or on your own blog and link back to me.

Have fun and thanks in advance for participating!

**

What's in your purse?

**

I have quite a bit in my purse. Let's see...

Wallet
Checkbook (yes I still carry this with me)
Coupon book (complete with pencil, notepad and coupon holder - I'm lame...I know)
Camera (never know when opportunity will strike)
Car/house keys
Tic Tacs/Gum/Mints (from restaurants)
Cell Phone
Lip stuff (lip plumper x2, gloss, chapstick x2, carmex)
Business card holder w/cards
Nail file
Shout pen
Fishing license
Keys to my best friend's house
Jump drive
SD card reader
Rolaids
Pocket knife

I like feeling prepared for whatever might come my way :0)

Read more...

Stellan

If you haven't been following MckMama and everything going on with Stellan then please go over to her blog and read.

Stellan is having a lot of trouble with his SVT and is in the hospital. From MckMama's blog it seems as though they may be flying to Boston (again).

I think the last few days have been really bad for poor little Stellan.

If everyone who reads this could say a prayer for Stellan and his family, I know they would appreciate it.

Also, if you can, blog about this so everyone we know can pray for little Stellan - I think that would be really great. Feel free to use my little button up there to post on your blog.

We're thinking about you Stellan and we're praying for you to get better!

Read more...

Friday 5

What’s something in your possession that has long outlived its usefulness?
My childhood stuffed animal. It's this lovely, ragged little dog that now sits on my closet shelf with my wedding garter around her belly. She was my favorite thing in the whole wide world and even now the thought of loosing her is frightening. I hope to share her with my children one day.

Who in your life has proven to be a very useful person to know?
Wow. That's a tough question. Everyone I know is useful in their own way.

For group projects requiring collaborative planning and then collaborative execution, in what capacity are you most useful?
Definitely the planning. I can get a plan into action and help organize the project. I could also be useful in the executing though. I just like planning so if I had to be the most useful in only one aspect...I pick planning.

What’s something someone gave you that you didn’t think much of but later became surprisingly useful?
In college my grandma gave me a book titled "How to Clean Practically Anything." It seemed at the time silly as I was headed to college and really what would I need that for? It was an outdated copy and looks like it was from the 80's. Even though I never used it in college, having it now as a homeowner has been extremely useful...How to get ink out of carpet, How to remove tar and bug guts from an automobile, How to remove stains from carpet, How to clean up pet urine...Having a dog has caused me to look up a lot too :)

What is the most useful book in your house?
Ha funny enough I answered the last question without even reading this one. So since I already named that one...ummm...I guess the next most useful book would be my cookbooks. they give me inspiration to try new things!

Friday 5

Read more...

Writer's Workshop

I've fallen off the boat recently with writing so this week I've been trying to get back in my groove. Since it's Thursday, it's time for some Writer's Workshop with MamaKat.

This week's prompt:

What are YOU giddy about?

What am I giddy about?

Things I'm giddy about...

today is Thursday, which means tomorrow is Friday, which means it's the freakin' weekend y'all!

about the two scrumptious Dessert Gallery cupcakes in my fridge I picked up yesterday for my husband and I. I got the vanilla cupcake with creamy raspberry homemade icing filled with chocolate truffles. Mmmmm goodness.

it is almost the weekend and I don't have anything planned. Score.

all our bills are paid for the month :)

all the lovely awards I got this week from my awesome blog friends.

about finishing my honeymoon scrapbook soon and starting my Dominican one.

Read more...

My oh my another award...x2!

I don't know if I'm sending out distress signals or what, but people seem to know just what I need this week. I'm really down and dealing with a lot of stressful things at work (note the lack of posts). I have a lot on my mind and I'm not sure what to do. All I can say is thank goodness for great friends, a loving husband and wonderful, wonderful blog readers like yourselves.

Lyn AKA Ducky was so kind to award me with not ONE but TWO lovely awards. She is so kind and a very dear reader of mine. I can always count on her to comment and we all know how much I really love the comments. :) Thanks so much Lyn! You rock!

So on to the awards right?

First off...

The good thing about this award is all I have to do is pass it onto other favorite bloggers.
Here are the rules:
Rules:
1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link. check.
2) Pass the award to 10 (changed it 15 is too many) other blogs that you’ve discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award. check.

Fidgeting Gidget
Someday I'll Get There
Thoughts from Along the Broken Road
And if it's a hero...
Chicpea Studio
Iva Messy
Love, Marriage & a Baby Carriage
Float On...
The Newsome Family
Novelista Barista

And secondly...

I received this from Bailey when I first started blogging. You can read it here. I didn't know much about blogging then (not that I do now either...but nonetheless.)

Thanks again to Lyn for awarding me!!

So I have been tagged with "The Honest Scrap" award and I now must do the following:

1. “The Honest Scrap” award is not one to hold all to your self but it must be shared!

2. First, the recipient has to tell 10 true things about themselves in their blog that no one else knows.

3. Second, the recipient has to pass along this prestigious award to 10 more bloggers.

4. Third, those 10 bloggers all have to be notified they have been given this award.

5. Those 10 bloggers that receive this award should link back to the blog that awarded them “The Honest Scrap’ award.

So, 10 things about myself, OK here we go:

1. Caffeine makes me really hyper so I stay away from it. I don't drink soda partly for that reason. I'm seriously like the bouncing chihuahua saying throw me the ball, throw me the ball.

2. I'm slightly OCD and ridiculously organized. I have a spreadsheet for our expenses meaning I track our spending by month. I know exactly what we spend and what we spend it on. My monthly tabs are broken into color coded categories. I can see each month how much we spend going out to eat, on gas, on entertainment, etc. etc. I also make color coded spreadsheet when I travel. I love spreadsheets :)

3. I love cereal and could eat it for every meal of the day. I ate a lot of cereal in college. My husband used to call me the cereal killer.

4. Some more OCD - when I log onto my work computer I open programs in a certain order. They have to line up in a certain order along the bottom of my screen otherwise it drives me crazy! I also open several tabs within the internet browser and the first four are always in the same order.

5. I wake up in the same position pretty much every morning. On my left side. Then I follow the same routine every morning.

6. I have this horrible habit of crying when I'm really mad. It really takes away from just trying to be mad.

7. I'm not very good about putting away laundry. It usually piles up for a week or two on the folding table in the laundry room. Oops!

8. I hate doing the dishes so I make my husband do them. I cook dinner, he cleans. That works right? I at least load the dishwasher. It's just pots that I don't like.

9. I care too much about what people think. (I'm working on that...) My skin is not very thick. :(

10. I absolutely love cartoon movies. Disney rocks my world. I drag my husband to new movies bribing him with popcorn and soda. I will laugh louder than any five year old in there.

Now to pass it on...

Gussy Has a Lot to Say
A Matter of Fact
Living Life to the Pinkest
Class and Coffee
And Baby Makes Three
Beaver Family Blog
Skinny Bitches in the Making
The Harrell Family
Type A Mommy
The Cournoyea Family

**

Thanks again to Lyn for the wonderful awards. They made me smile and definitely brightened my week :) And of course I award them right back to her!!

I tried not to double up on any awards so everyone got a little something...

Read more...

Wordless Wednesday

Read more...

Tuesday Thoughts

Welcome to Tuesday Thoughts. Just a little something fun to break up the monotony. I'll ask a question and you can either answer here or on your own blog and link back to me.

Have fun and thanks in advance for participating!

**

What is one thing you used to do and wish you still did?

**

In high school I was on the drill team. We did the standard dancing at half time for football games, but we also competed. That was one of my favorite parts of dance.

I loved getting dressed up and totally hamming it up for the audience. I loved getting into character and performing. The crowds didn't bother me and the cheering made me feel like I was on top of the world. We were a good team and always did fairly well.

I miss dancing so much. It was a fun hobby for me. I wasn't perfect or magnificent at it, but I feel like I was decent. My junior year of high school I even had enough courage to do a solo at competition. Where did all that confidence go? Haha. Now I can barely speak up in a meeting without tripping over words and turning bright red.

I love dance and they way it made/makes me feel. Not to mention my body was in such great shape back then. In college I took a few classes here and there, but now in the working world it's harder to find the time or money to go and do it.

I have however found classes put on by my local parks and recreation center. It's a small fee for the classes, but I've found them to be a lot of fun. Currently I'm taking Cardio Salsa and I really enjoy it. I took Zumba last summer, which was awesome.

The fall class line up came out this past weekend so I think I'm going to take Zumba and Cardio Hip Hop/Funk. I'm super excited about the classes and hope it will fix the yearning for dance that I have right now.

Read more...

Gussy has a LOT to say

I found Gussy through Sunshinemeg and she's having a super fab giveaway! She reached 100 sales on her Etsy store and is celebrating! Head over there and enter to win!! Contest ends July 28th. She has lots of great things in her Etsy store too!


I just love supporting other Etsians! :) Good Luck.

Read more...

Awards Make Me Smile :)

The lovely Fidgeting Gidget has given me an award! I have been in a bit of a funk, so when I was reading her blog this morning and saw my name I was ecstatic! Thanks so much FG for making my day!! Oh and I totally send it back your way FG - thanks for being a big participator over here as well.

The Humane Award is to honor certain bloggers that are kindhearted individuals who regularly take part in my blog and always leave comments :) This lovely award is to thank those individuals for their growing friendships through the blog world.

I'm passing it on to...

Iva Messy
Dawn
EyeGirl
Lyn Hernandez
Patty Ann
The Novelista Barista

Thanks for commenting and leaving me some love. Comments make my day. A big thank you to anyone who comments on my blog - I just selected a few people who comment often.

Read more...

dude...it's raining

Well it's definitely Monday over here. Monday's should so be illegal....but that's besides the point.

I'm finally feeling better! Woo! Friday I made it through the work day and went home to lay on the couch with the hub. Saturday we were so unbelievably lazy...and I loved it! I slept in, watched Rachel Getting Married - which by the way is so depressing and made me so sad - then I made pancakes at like 11 for breakfast! We then proceeded to lay like big fat cats all over the sofa until about 3 just watching movies. Once we finally got ready I asked hubby if he would run with me to Target and Bed Bath & Beyond to get a new trash can for the kitchen and a purse at Target. I was feeling down and wanted a small little purse. He said...and I quote..."Why don't I just take you to Dillard's and you can get something nice there." really??

So my very sweet husband took me to Dillards. He even told me I could buy a Coach purse if I wanted. (I've been wanting one, but from the outlet store) So I told him no, that was silly. I went straight to the Fossil section and found a darling purse....on sale of course! That meant I could get a new wallet to match too. :) Such a sweet husband. I've been really good with my spending lately so maybe that helped too. I've been proud of myself. So yes...the purse is leather, canary yellow with chocolate brown on the sides and a round, braided leather, brown strap. Darling. The wallet is super cute too but hard to explain...picture? Ah yes, here's one.

OK so anyways. After that we went home to wait for hubby's parents to come over and watched another movie. They called to cancel so we went to dinner anyway. A big storm rolled in and knocked the power out twice at the restaurant! When we got home the power was out so we couldn't park in the garage. Needless to say we got soaked running into the house.

Since we had no power, we decided to light a few candles and play mancala at the dining room table and watch the rain. I think we got power back about an hour later. Not too bad. Oh yea - maybe I should mention that we haven't had rain in a month or so and my yard along with everyone else's is dying...is brown and crunchy. We need rain here soo badly. So...rain baby rain.

Sunday was another day of some nothingness except Matt and Tony went golfing and Bailey and I scrapbooked. I got to work on my honeymoon album. I'm so close to getting it done. I have to finish it before I can start on the Dominican one.

So yea..not a real exciting weekend. I don't even know that it was exciting enough to share, but whatever...it's my blog right?

How was your weekend? Already write about it...let me know! I'm still trying to catch up on Google Reader.

Read more...

Howdy and Happy Friday!

I'm back!

Whew...what a trip! Did y'all miss me?? I hope you enjoyed the guest posts I lined up for you! Another big thanks to everyone for helping me. I really appreciate it!

Our vacation was beyond fantastic!

We went on a party boat and swam with stingrays and nurse sharks. We drank MamaJuana. We rode dune buggies through town, across the beach and through the jungle. We swam in underwater caves. We zip lines through the hills of the Dominican. We shopped the market. We swam in the pool. We hung out on the beach. We drank lots of nice cold beer. We had a wonderful time to say the least.

Here's a few pictures (of the 400 I took) from our vacation...

We just got off the airplane...

Our first view of the beach

It was gorgeous.

Before dinner one nightBefore our dinner on the beach

I loved our vacation! Hope y'all missed me! I did unfortunately end up getting sick while we were down there, but at least it was when we were leaving. I've been feeling pretty crummy the last few days so that's why I haven't written much. As I'm feeling better I'll write more. So for now here's a slide show of our vacation!

Read more...