O.C.T.O.B.E.R.

This is a shout out to my sibs…for only they can truly appreciate what October means to me. :) This is to be said in a chant-like singsong-like way. I can and will perform this for anyone who has an interest in actually witnessing this train wreck of a rhyme.

O.C.T.O.B.E.R
Halloween brings us a candy bar.
(Hand gestures consist of bringing your right and then left hand up to your mouth alternately as though eating a candy bar.)
Christopher Columbus has a holiday.
(Hand gesture here is hand above eyes at brow as though an explorer looking at far away land.)
Fall is here and winter’s on the way.
(Cross one arm over chest during “Fall is here”; cross other arm over chest during “Winter’s on the way”; arms should now both be crossed over chest.)
Brrrrrrr.
(With arms crossed over chest, shiver action while saying “Brrrrr.”)

Also a big shout out to Ms. Jeter at Jane Long Elementary for teaching that nice little rhyme to all four of the Smith kids in a span of over 7 years.

**We had a rhyme like this for every month…is it weird that it’s the only one that any of us can remember? Furthermore, is it weird that even a single one of us (let alone all 4 of us) can remember the words AND motions?

I've Been Tagged - This is a first...

Well, I’ve been tagged by Julie. I have never been tagged before, and I haven’t blogged in forever…so here goes.

1. Where was I 10 years ago?

10 years ago, I was in college at Abilene Christian University, was having the best time, making tons of new friends during pledging, and working hard on my major, Communication Disorders.

2. What was on my To Do List today?

Where to begin...hmmm.

- Work.
- Leave work at 4:00 since I got here before it was even light outside (which was only 7:00). :)
- Go home, cook, and read for about an hour.
- Go to my (and Candas') class for small business starter uppers...this is our last class of this session.
- Come home and go to bed.

Pretty darn exciting day I have.

3. What would I do if I were a billionaire?

Pay off my school loans, first and foremost.
Pay off my family's and Mike's family's debts - all of them.
Set aside money for each person in our family to do something with, whatever they wanted to do with it.
Start college funds for my future kids, Gaite, Paige, and any other future nieces and nephews.
Give a lot of it to church, Samaritan Inn, and the Alzheimer's Association.
Travel, travel, travel.
Sock the rest away where neither Mike or I could touch it...so that we weren't poor in a matter of minutes. :)

4. 5 Places I've Lived:
- Abilene, TX: born, raised, college
- Lewisville/Carrollton, TX: first and second apt after college
- Addison, TX: first apt after getting married
- Dallas, TX: crack shack that Mike and I moved to in the ghetto
- McKinney, TX: our first home that we bought together and where we currently reside

5. Bad Habits:
- Saying "Um" all the freaking time! Sounds so unintelligent, and yet, I can't stop.
- Eating dessert after practically every meal.
- Not good at keeping in touch with old friends...in fact, I am terrible at that.
- There are lots more, but I don't want to be too self-deprecating, if you don't mind. Thank you very much.

I tag Lisa, James, Chad, Sherry, Alison. (For the record, I don't care if you don't respond to this on your blog by completing this. I am just short on material lately and thought this could enlighten a few of you.)

TTFN

My New Favorite Thing

My new favorite thing is iced coffee. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, for I was thinking it myself just a few short months ago. But then my father-in-law got an iced coffee from McDonalds. I wasn't quite convinced until I tried it myself a week or two later. Now I am a believer...a firm believer.

I recently saw a post on Smitten Kitchen on cold brewed iced coffee. Very simple and very delicious. I must say, I am hooked! I would rather make my own cold brewed iced coffee than buy McDonald's or Starbuck's iced coffee. Not that their's isn't good. It's just a little bitter, where the cold brewed iced coffee is almost sweeter. If you don't believe me, try it yourself. It's super easy and totally painless. You won't be disappointed!

Tropic Thunder - Worst Movie of the Season

Don't go see it. If you decide to NOT heed my advice, at least do yourself a favor and rent it so that you can turn it off when you realize that you should have listened to my valuable advice. That's all I have. Later I plan on discussing the Democratic National Convention. I just have to figure out a way to do it in a non-partisan way. :) More on that later.

You So Funny, Mr Grizzly Adams

If there is one thing I love about my husband, it’s the way he makes me laugh. Now, he can also make me not laugh, like when he is being a pig-headed ignoramous…but that’s not what this is about. It’s about how he makes me laugh. Sometimes it’s the things he says; sometimes it’s the way he looks; sometimes it’s the terrible jokes he tells and then says something like “I am just like my father” (which by the way also makes me laugh because even if no one else thinks his dad’s jokes are funny, I normally do).

Sometimes it’s the funny things he does on a dare. We love to bet each other to do stupid stuff and we love to dare each other to do even more ridiculous stuff. Normally a bet would consist of something silly like the time Mike bet me lunch that I wouldn’t wear my camo shorts that I bought in the men’s section at Target with my unmatching camo shirt that I got when I worked at Legacy. Oh, and did I forget to mention that I had to wear it to small group in front of all my friends? He almost had me convinced to wear knee high striped socks with my cowboy boots…with the camo. I got all dressed up, socks and boots included, came out of the bedroom and Mike said that it was too much with the socks and boots. YOU THINK? That got me laughing. The socks and boots were too much? Not the camo men’s shorts that are WAY too big and the unmatching camo shirt from a former employer? I could not stop laughing. And then I had to walk down the street dressed in that get-up to small group, which was around the corner. The things I will do for a free lunch. I should be ashamed.

One time he asked me if I thought that he should grow out a mustache. Oh yes, I do. I think a mustache is a great idea. It looked like the boys in middle school that don’t shave yet, but almost need to. It was hilarious! And he went out in public like that. Everytime we would leave a place, we would die laughing and wonder if the people inside were laughing as hard as we were. (And as hard as I am laughing now just thinking about it. Seriously, tears are streaming down my face.)



He grew out a fu man chu once for a friend’s wedding. What was he thinking? Probably that it would get a good laugh out of me. And it did. He made it the whole weekend with that thing. Everytime I looked at him I would start giggling. I couldn't stop.

These are all entertaining stories that you can think about for the rest of the day. But I wanted to leave you a little bit of a visual as well. Mike was growing his hair out once, and he loved to put his hair in a samari ponytail. I love it. I can’t stop laughing!!!!!

My Life As I Imagined...And My Life In Reality

I was reading Pioneer Woman the other day and she had an entry about whether or not your life turned out like you thought it would, like you had planned for it to turn out.

She asks:
How similar is your life now to how you imagined it ten years ago? Twenty years ago? Are you exactly where you imagined you’d be? Or are you constantly asking yourself, “How did I get here?” Do you mourn the unrealized plans in your life? Or are you happy no matter what your circumstances?

Some of the responses she got were about how happy people were with where their life was, but a lot of them were really, really sad. They were people talking about how miserable their life was, or about how their kid was in the hospital with a terminal disease, or about how they had made a lot of mistakes along the way, and so on.

I have been thinking about where my life is a lot lately. This post on Pioneer Woman made me contemplate even further. I can honestly say that I absolutely adore my life. It is hardly what I thought it would be in some ways, and exactly what everyone hopes for in other ways. Some days are pretty darn hard. Other days are so happy, how can I even complain about the ones that aren’t?

Am I where I thought I would be 10 years ago? Not even close. But would I trade it for what I naively thought that I wanted? Not a chance.

Let’s start with 10 years ago…I had just finished my freshman year in college (Holy crap!!! That was 10 years ago?!?!). I had just started dating someone who was a year older and had completely different friends than did I. The relationship was doomed from the start, but we generally enjoyed each other’s company. I was serious about school. I couldn’t lose my scholarship; that would have spelled disaster for my college plans. Heck, I could barely get enough financial aid to stay in school. I sure wasn’t going to jeopardize it any further by not having good enough grades to keep the free money I was getting. I was working like a dog to afford life. And I was having a blast. I had a ton of friends, almost all of which had the same beliefs that I did and liked to have fun the way that I did.

I had HUGE dreams. I was going somewhere. (That meant, somewhere outside of Abilene.) I was going to succeed professionally; I was going to make a difference in the world; I was on a career-minded mission. I guess somewhere in there I was going to eventually find a relationship that wasn’t doomed from the start. I had zero plans for children.

I still have huge dreams. It’s just that now they are totally different than they were back then. My focus has gradually changed. I want a fulfilling job that allows me to be with my family as much as possible. Right now, it’s just Mike and me, but we hope to eventually have kids. I want to be able to focus on that aspect of my life as much as possible. I can’t imagine working in a high-powered position that didn’t allow me to go home at the end of my day and leave my job at work. Sometimes it is really hard for me to accept that I am in a job that is not satisfying and not at all prestigious. In fact, a monkey could do my job. Seriously. But the thought of trading that to go back to my high-stress health care job, where I honestly felt like I was making a difference, makes me cringe.

Do I mourn this change of plans? Absolutely not. While I may have a job that I find less than satisfactory, I still have a job. A job that allows me to go home to the teeny tiny house that I am madly in love with and is the product of our hard work. I love that I love to come home to my husband, dogs, and home. Does that make me a “desperate housewife”???? I guess so. And I'm okay with that.

4th Anniversary Staycation

Last week Mike and I celebrated our 4th anniversary. It seems like just yesterday that we got married, but in some ways it feels like forever. In a good way. I almost can’t remember what life was like without Mike. Then again, Mike and I went out on our first date over 9 years ago, and we were friends for awhile before that. Essentially, Mike has been in my life for right at 10 years. That’s about a third of my life. So that’s what I mean by it “feels like forever”…

We celebrated our anniversary this past weekend. We went on a staycation!!! Mike surprised me by planning the whole thing. He just told me when and where and took care of all the details. We had such a great time! We left the house and drove to downtown McKinney, where we went to a little bed and breakfast that Mike found. The B&B is an old house called the Dowell House. http://www.dowellhouse.com/ It is 130 years old, and was built by an influential family in McKinney. It was also the house used in the Benji movie. It’s been owned by the current owners and run as a bed and breakfast for the last 18 years. It is such a quaint house. Our room was on the second floor and had its own private balcony. There were doors in the room that opened up onto the balcony, which was huge! There were plants and trees all around to shade and make it private. There was a table with two chairs, an awning, and a hot tub. The owners really didn’t miss a thing. We had everything we could think of. There was even make-up removal pads, face masks, Off at the balcony door for mosquitoes…everything we could possibly think of.

We got all dressed up and then headed over to a restaurant downtown in McKinney on the square called Goodhues. http://www.goodhuesgrill.com/ It was so yummy! Mike and I both had fish: he had mahi-mahi and I had sautéed tilapia. It was incredible food. The service was impeccable. I highly recommend it; it’s a great date place. The owners of the place we stayed said they have the most delicious steaks too. We’ll have to try the steaks next time.

The next morning, we were served breakfast in the dining room. We had oven baked French toast that was in corning ware dishes. It had a great cinnamon and pecan sauce at the bottom, a cream cheese filling, with the bread baked on top. Oh my – it was rich and oh so good! Even I couldn’t finish it, and I rarely think anything is too rich. After breakfast, Mike and I headed home to let the dogs out and get ready for our day.

It was a sweet and memorable anniversary. Mike has a lot to live up to for future anniversaries now! And I am sure looking forward to them!!