5,4,3,2,1....

Hello again, we're half way through the week! I am not sure if you have seen the 5,4,3,2,1 blog posts that have been out in the blog land lately, but I have and I decided to join in on the posting fun, so without further adieu...

5 things that I am looking foward to:
1. Getting my hair trimmed and colored this Saturday. My appointment was scheduled for a few weeks ago, but I had to reschedule so I am really looking forward to it (I'm sure all the people that have seen my roots are glad that I am going, too).
2. Game night on Friday.. some of our close friends are coming over for dinner and then we are playing some games. It is always a fun time with lots of laughter, the perfect way to end the work week!
3. In a couple of weekends, Preston and I are going to Pigeon Forge, TN with a couple of our friends. We are really looking forward to it because we haven't seen them in a while. Within this trip I am also looking forward to seeing the Dixie Stampede Christmas show and doing a little Christmas shopping at the outlet mall.
4. As you have read about it before, I am excited that Preston and I are making our flower box/bed. We started cutting the boards and building it last night, I can't wait to see the finished product, but more than that, I can't wait to see it filled with colorful blooms in front of our house in the Spring!
5. Call me crazy, but I'm one of those Black Friday shoppers that plans the trip and doesn't even sleep that night. I am excited that it's almost here and I've started receiving sale ads in my email inbox. I always look forward to this day, not only for the good deals, but because it is a tradition I share with my Mama!

4 things that you might not know about me:
1. I am a social worker and I love working in the helping profession, unlike the stereotype placed on social workers, I an not a "baby snatcher" or someone who just takes children away from their parents.
2. I fell off a 10 foot high dive onto concrete when I was 9 years old.
3. I love cruise vacations... seriously guys, I love them!
4. I hate hate hate tomatoes.

3 television shows that I love:
1.I know it's not actually a show title, but most anything on HGTV.
2. Duck Dynasty, Jack!
3. Now I'm trying to think of something I watched last night because I don't watch a ton of t.v., all I can think of is wheel of fortune, I wouldn't say I love it, though.

2 things that frustrate me:
1. The stereotype of my job profession that I mentioned before.
2. Poor customer service... ohhhh, don't even get me started!

1 of my favorite words
1. Not that it's a favorite, but the word flabbergasted just makes me laugh!

And there you have it, a whole bunch of pointless things that you probably didn't care to know about me... oh well, hope you enjoyed it anyways! Have a great rest of the week!!

Wonderful weekends (moving, yard work, and pumpkin bars)

Good morning and happy Monday! Hope your weekend was a good one, we enjoyed ours, but as always, it ended to quickly. I am looking forward to Veteran's Day (nov. 11) because I get that day off as a paid holiday... a long weekend? I'll take it! Anyways, on with our past weekend.
Friday evening we went to Kentucky to watch Bradley's football game. They were ahead the first half, but things went down hill in the second half, wish they could have won, but they played great. We also got to visit with my grandparents for a little bit before the game which was nice. After the game we headed back to our house.
Saturday morning I was determined I was going to sleep in at least until 9:00am. After sleeping a little bit, we went to our old house to get the last things out. We got everything out and finished cleaning. Then we got ready and went to a fall festival with some kiddos from church. It was a fun evening and it was great to see lots of our friends that we don't always see.
Sunday was a normal Sunday, church, home, and church again. It's nice that we are in walking distance to church... since Preston needs to go earlier, he can get up and go and I can sleep a little longer (can you tell I love sleep on the weekends?) and then go without having to worry about extra gas being used. Sunday morning I was super excited because I was having a good hair day, my hair is always flat and I never have volume, so when I had a little bit, I was ecstatic... it was a fabulous start to tthe day. After church we walked back to our house and had a quick lunch and then went to our old house. I had planted some roses earlier in the year and I wanted to move some of them to our new house since they have been doing well. We dug them up and then got them to our new house and dug holes and replanted them. I really like where they are and I can't wait to see them once they bloom again (since I haven't been at the place they were at they were a bit neglected, but I'm sure they'll be okay). After getting cleaned back up it was back to church. After the evening service we went back to the old house and put up the owner's decorations that we had boxed away why we lived there. We are completely done with that house now and there won't be anymore trips back and forth, can you hear the angels singing?! Hallelujah!! We ended the evening with some pumpkin bars I made with cream cheese frosting and a little bit of "Hocus Pocus".
And now for some pictures from our weekend:

Well, that brings us to this morning, it's a gloomy rainy day.. I'm hoping it gets a little bit nicer outside, we are buildind a flower box this evening! A post on that is in the near future, so check back!

House Bucket List

Hey readers!
Remember me telling you about us moving to a new [to us] house? Well, this past weekend (sorry I haven't got a weekend post up)we started staying in our new house. We have most things put away, but there are a few boxes that still need to be unpacked and we need to organize our storage room. Right now totes are just stacked in there and I want to label them better and organize them by season/category. Anyways,I want to create a bucket list of things for our house... okay, so maybe it's not a bucket list but more like a to-do list. Some of these things are short term, some may be more long term. I'm sure I will revisit this list in the future to add and cross things off.
So here we go, a room by room list of to-dos....

Kitchen
-peel wallpaper above cabinets and paint where paper was
- hang coffee sign on wall

Storage room
-Organize tote boxes by category
-Make "other" room into craft area
-Organize craft materials

Hall bathroom
-paint walls
-Change mirror above vanity
-Change floor

Living Room
-Hang mirror on wall
-create TV stand from old dresser
-Purchase a bigger area rug
-Change light switches and cover plates

Entry way/Foyer
-Put small table by front wall
-organize bookshelf beside desk
-add rug

Master Bedroom
-Purchase rug for the end of the bed

Guest Bedroom
-Purchase new mattress
-Purchase new bedding

Dining room
-make table runner

OUTSIDE
-make raised flower box
-plant bulbs into existing flower bed
-make grass area by sidewalk into flower bed
-Get rid of bushes in front of house and landscape
-pressure wash front porch and swing
-pressure wash sides of house
-destroy hornet nest in front tree (!! Winter !!)

I'm sure that is not everything that we need to do, but as you can see, we have enough to keep us busy and get us started on making our house our home...

New [to us] house... so much WORK!

Hello! Just a little warning, this post may be boring for you to read, and if so, just come back when I post something else... but, I am not sure if I have shared or not, but Preston and I are moving into a new (to us) house this month. The house comes in part of Preston's benefit package from his job, so we are being tremendously blessed with a spacious house. This post is for me to be able to remember all the hard work we have been putting into it, I wasn't even going to write about it, but I want to be able to look back in a few years and see how far we've come! So...

The house is an older house, but has recently been upgraded, workers have done these upgrades, not us. Our master bathroom has been completely re done with new floor, bath tub, vanity, and toilet. Also in the upgrades, some walls were painted with a fresh white coat and others were painted colors that we were able to pick (the kitchen, dining room, and game room). Also, new laminate hardwood floors, that I love, are all throughout the house now, except for the bathrooms. The house is looking very nice, but there are some things that we still want to do before we move in. We will be working on some of it this Saturday, our families are even coming to help (so thankful)! I will be posting another post for a house to do wish list that I would like us to work on now, and in years to come.

Now that the renovations have been complete, what have we been doing? CLEANING! Every evening after I get off work I have been going to the house to clean. There were items in the house that we don't want to use, such as dishes, that we wanted to box up and store in the attic. We have got the items in boxes, now we just have to get them in the attic. At first the cleaning was over whelming and I didn't know where to start, so I made a room by room checklist of things to clean. The list had a total of 46 things for me to clean, from cleaning windows, to sweeping, mopping, and dusting fan blades, there has been a lot to do. However, as I have crossed my list off, I now have just 8 things left to clean. I am hoping to get those 8 things done before Saturday so that we don't have to worry about cleaning then.

We've also been working on things outside the house as well. This week, my dad used his pressure washer and cleaned the porches for us. He will be coming back at a later time to clean the sides of the house (brick). Preston has mowed the grass and weed eated as well, it looks so great! I am planning on revamping the flower bed that is there, well, right now it was more of a garden bed.... I pulled some of the things up and have been clearing out the space so that I can plant the bulbs I am ordering. I cannot wait to see our front yard in the spring!

I would also like to make note that in this cleaning process, I have had an in grown toe nail and I had it removed last Friday, the whole nail (ouch!!!!). So I had 2 days of rest that I didn't clean, but other than that, we have been working on it every day.

I know that all of our hard work will pay off, I am so looking forward to everything being moved in and in place (can we just fast forward to that time, please?). I'm thankful for the blessing this house will be to our family and I am excited to see what this house brings us.

Count your blessings, name them one by one.....

Hello and happy Wednesday.... what day is it? Huuump Daaay!
Do you ever just stop and think about how awesome our God truly is? Yesterday evening as we were cleaning at our new house, I couldn't help but think about how great God is and how BLESSED I am. So, whether you are interested, or if I am just writing for my own memory, this post is about blessings that God has given me lately, and I am so grateful! I don't want to make it seem like I have all these things that make my life perfect, because it's not, but I just want to recognize some of the wonderful blessings that God has given me.

*I am blessed with a husband that loves me, even when I might be cranky or have a list of to-dos that seem like a mile long. A husband that loves the same God I do and puts God before me, just like I do him. A husband that values me and is very understanding. A husband that is encouraging and a husband that prays.
*I am blessed with a family that is supportive and loving, I don't remember many times that they weren't. By family, I mean my "side" of the family and Preston's as a whole. We don't have the problem of not wanting to see in-laws or anything like that. Our families work well together.
*I am blessed with a job that I love, I get to work with children on a daily basis and know that I might have a tiny chance of making a small difference, and that's why all the papers, exams, and studying in my student years makes it all worth it. I have a pay rate that I'm happy with and a benefits package that is wonderful, that in itself is another blessing.
*I am blessed with wonderful friends. Whether they are 9 hours, 4 hours, 2 hours, or 10 minutes away, I've got friends near and far that I consider true friends. The ones I know I can call at any time and know that if they can help me they will, the friends that will pray with/for me, the friends that are dependable. The friends that share some of the same values with me.... that's important! *I am blessed with good health. I don't get sick often, and when I do, it's not too bad, my blood sugar/ blood pressure is usually right where it's supposed to be. I know there are so many medical problems these days and I'm grateful to be in good health.
*I am blessed with reliable transportation, not being able to get where you need to go can be difficult and I am glad that I can get to work every day with no struggle.
* I am blessed that we are getting a new (to us) home. With Preston's job, a house is included in his income package, so we will have a very spacious and newly updated house that will be saving us monthly because of the decrease in bills. We like the layout of the house and we are excited to move to a bigger place, even though that means this will be our 4th move in 2 years and we just got settled into where we are now, it will defintely be worth it.

I know that these things are not all of my many blessings, but they are a few that I've been thinking about lately. God is good, He blesses us, even if it means we have to wait and be patient for the blessing. As I said before, I don't want to come across as a "my life is perfect, look at all my great things", I just want to be grateful and recognize the things that I have been blessed with. What are some of your blessings?