"science projects" and life lessons

It came right down to me just being tired to my gross kitchen! Ok, gross is a bit dramatic, but yesterday I had had it. You see, our kitchen is about the size of a small closet give or take. We literally have about 3' x 1.5' of usable counter top space to prepare meals. If we let the dishes pile up due to our lack of a dishwasher, than you can forget about having a space to use. Which yesterday, this was the case. It always seems to be the cups. I don't know why we can't use the same cup all day except for the fact that Scott has about two protein shakes a day and I have one. Then we drink water and that makes two more cups. You get the point. And, I was going around the house rounding up cups here and there that we had used by the bed or in the living room and what not. So, I completed my first task of the dishes.

And, my fridge was a disaster. Because I have been sort of down and out for about three weeks, last night was the first night I felt like cooking. I am embarrassed to say the least. Yet again, I found several "science projects", as Scott likes to call it. Mostly just half lemons and limes and avacados that we had used here and there. This wasn't actually the worst that it had been so it didn't take me long to clear it out and wipe it down.

Being crazy like I am, I called my mother last night to apologize that she had to come to my house in such a rush that I hadn't been the good little housekeeper that week. Our house, to me, was a disaster. Others may not feel that way, but I like a clean house for company. It needed dusted and swept. The bathroom was not that clean either. Mom, of course, said I was a "silly willy" (yes those were her exact words) for apologizing for my house. Thanks, Mom, for cleaning while you were here! Um, so some of you are going to probably tell me that I need to get over this "clean house" issue before I have kids. I already know, and thanks in advance for the advice.

What is funny about all of this is that we are going to look back in ten years and laugh about the first house we lived in and all the things that we will be grateful for because we lived in this house. I guess sometimes it takes a little craziness to appreciate what you have. That goes for the baby thing. I didn't realize how much I wanted to have a baby until we had this little scare. I know we will truly appreciate the experience when it comes again. God is good like that. Every once in a while we experience little things in life that make us realize how grateful we are for the things we have.

I gotta get ready for church! Love and hugs everyone!

feels like home

Just a quick note before I retire for the evening. Tonight we went out to dinner again....Haven't really had a chance to stock up on food since coming home from Arkansas and getting back to normal. Anyway, we went to dinner and to Wal-Mart for water. On those two trips we saw several people we know, or Scott's knows at least. I like to go out in Fort Worth and recognize people we know, make it feel like home. It's not quite like McPherson, though, where you are guaranteed to see someone you know when you go out for errand. It just makes it feel like I have my own little section of Fort Worth when I see people I know. It has been happening quite a bit lately. Makes me happy because I think that means I know a lot of people here.

When we were out to eat at Rio Mambo (good Tex-Mex) we were seated next to a birthday party. My guess was the girl was turning fourteen. She had about six of her closest friends there at here table and her parents and younger siblings sat at the next table over. I tried to pay close attention to the gifts a fourteen year old girl gets now-a-days. From what I could tell, without it looking as though I was stalking her party, she got dangle star earrings (which she immediately put on), gift cards, and several things that called for an "oh my gosh, I totally can't believe you got me this! This is soooo awesome!" Unfortunately, I was unable to stretch my neck out far enough to see the "way coolest gifts ever". Brings back memories though. I almost called Heidi right then and there so we could reminisce about birthday parties from our past! I remember the days of dangle earrings. Hers kind of looked like the ones I got when I turned twelve back in 1992, of course mine were gold back then and hers were silver! Scott was pretty amused with the whole situation as well. There was a lot of squealing and giggling going on. I told him not to roll his eyes too much, he will be the parent of that fourteen year old girl before he knows it.Good night ya'll, time for beddy by. Catch up again soon!

more trip pics

Sorry guys, no "real" post today. Not feeling too well today so hope the pics will suffice for now. I took so many on our trip that it took two posts to get them all in. Enjoy!

28 years

Happy Birthday to ME!

Blog family readers, you are growing!!! How exciting you have been reading my blog. Thanks so much! I guess I need to post more pics of fun family trips, that gets you all here! ;) I would love it if you would leave comments on your stop in, always curious as to who is stopping by.

Not a lot to report today. I feel like all the excitement and chaos has happened in the last two weeks. Now back to my mundane life.

Scott and I both have the day off work today. That means we have A LOT to do. He is off mowing two lawns already. I am going back to the dr. this morning to look at the pictures they took of my tube before taking it out. They didn't have the pictures at that office when I was there on Monday. I am going to have them write me a note to go to work only half days the rest of the week. I got a bit tired yesterday only working five hours. Then, I am going to make some lunch and then I think we are headed out to do a little bit of job hunting for Scott. He has to find another part time job to go along with his coaching since it isn't full time. I want to go to a movie this afternoon too. We got a theater gift card for our anniversary from his dad. We may go out to dinner after that.

Now off to get ready for the day....my birthday that is! :)

post-op dr. visit

I had an excellent report from Dr. Read this morning for my post op. dr. visit! Surgery went great, incision is healing beautifully. I'll spare the gruesome details, but I'll tell you that again I am so thankful for my life today. I was hours away from a seriously dangerous rupture that would have been life threatening. Thank goodness we went to the ER when we did. God was watching over us in more ways then one. I would also like to point out the fact that two weeks prior to all of this we received our insurance from my new job. We had been insuranceless since getting married two years ago and I hadn't had insurance since 2003. After seeing our medical bill from the hospital and what we would have had to pay, I am very thankful we are insured. Again, thanks for all of you who were praying for us during this time. I am feeling much better and am attempting to go back to work for a few hours tomorrow.

home sweet home

We got home from Arkansas at about 6:00 tonight. Scott had to be back for his first team meeting tonight as assistant basketball coach at Texas Wesleyan! We had such a great time with the family. I was able to recover and am feeling a lot better. I had a bit of a melt down one night, I think it was just the hormones changing though. We are glad to be back home and I am going back to work on Tuesday. I am ready to get back in the swing of things. This blog will be mostly pictures. I took lots while we were there.

Heidi dressed Joely up like a little doll so she could meet her Aunt Hannah and see Mamaw again! It was so precious.

Of course I snatched her up right away. She is such a little angel.

#1 nephew and #1 niece! Pardon my exhaustion, I wasn't feeling too hot obviously.

It is so sweet when Heidi talks to her. Joely listens so intently to what Mommy is saying.

Can you believe I caught this picture? Heidi was talking to her and making her smile. A rare shot for a 2 week old baby.

We had a few scary run ins with Batman. There were a couple of entertaining Batman vs. The Joker fights as well.

Gotta love the little dresses. Couldn't resist this picture, she is so beautiful.

Proud big brother with his new baby sister.

The night Scott came Andrew, Scott, and I stayed the night with Katie and Chloe. Andrew LOVES Chloe. He played with her all night. Chloe isn't so much used to kids so I think she was a bit annoyed with Andrew at times. They got along pretty well though.

Andrew helped Katie with the chores around the house. Such a big helper! Katie made us blackberry pancakes for dinner. Thanks Katie!

Bedtime!! Andrew slept on the floor next to Scott and I. We made a little pallet for him and Beanie Weenie.

A proud uncle. He will be a good dad someday!

Mamaw and her grandkids.

Mamaw and Papaw and the sweet baby girl.

Andrew and Great Grandma Egle putting puzzles together.

Joely finally graduated from her herbal baths with Mommy to her very own bathtub. Heidi and I gave her her first bath last night. She seemed to love it.

Watching the Olympics with Uncle Nathan and Uncle Daniel. We missed Uncle Henry.

Last night Heidi and I celebrated our birthdays. Grandma and Mom made us a carrot cake. We had steak, chicken, corn on the cob, asparagus, portabello mushrooms, and cantelope. Mom really outdid herself! Thanks for grilling Jacob!

This is SO cute. Andrew is getting ready for football season. He has been practicing his Hog Call. You gotta see this video below!

my journey to Arkansas

My mom and I got to Arkansas today. It was quite an eventful trip. We left yesterday (Monday) morning. I hadn't been feeling too well before we left, but thought it would pass. I was feeling nauseous and just not quite right. We left at about 9:45am anyway, thinking it would pass. I kept feeling worse and worse and we ended up stopping about halfway in McAlester, OK to get a thermometer. My temperature was 99.9 at that point. We called my doc back in Fort Worth to see what we should do at that point. Meanwhile, we checked into a hotel and got comfy. When the doctor called back he said that the surgery had got very well with no complications and there shouldn't be anything wrong surgery related. He told me that if my fever got to 101 to go to the ER. I was very impressed with the fact that he took the time to call me and cared enough to share his thoughts that could have just as easily been relayed through his nurses. About two hours later my fever had gotten to 101.6 so we headed back to the ER. Long story short, after several blood tests, a chest x-ray, and an ultra sound of my legs to ensure no blood clots, come to find out I had the FLU!!!! Go figure...... Luckily it was just a 24 hour bug and I woke up this morning feeling wonderful and we made our way on to Arkansas to see my sister and her family. I have been having a lot of fun so far. Probably too much fun with Andrew. I need to be taking it easy still. I am looking forward to a fun week here before going back to work next week.

As a side note, I am very thankful to God for my life today. We never know when our time is up and thankfully I am here today by the grace of God. When talking to my doctor on the phone yesterday, he had mentioned that the Vicodin (pain meds) he had prescribed may be causing the nausea. When I told him I never got that prescription filled he was amazed. He proceeded to tell me that I was one of the toughest patients he had ever seen. My fallopian tube had been the size of a bratwurst sausage. Kind of a gross comparison, but I got the point. A normal tube is about .5 to 1 centimeter in diameter. He was also amazed at the fact that when he saw me in the ER that I was sitting up and talking to him. Most girls, apparently, would have been doubled over. If my tube had ruptured, I would have lost all of my blood in one hour. It was only a matter of a short time before my surgery before that would have happened. So, as you can see, I am very thankful for my life today considering that I was very close to something way more serious.

On a lighter note, I love to show off my nephew and niece!!! Love to be here with them.

post surgery recovery

It has been three days since surgery. I am getting more energy every day. Yesterday I felt strong enough to get out of the house, so Mom took me to The Vitamin Shoppe to see Scott and we got some recovery supplements. That was about all I could take yesterday and I was exhausted when I got home. I took a nap for several hours. I have three incisions, one through my belly button where they took the camera in to navigate and take pictures, one where they blew gas into my stomach, and one to get in and take fallopian tube with the pregnancy. Scott said the doctor came out and showed him the pictures. My left fallopian tube was about 10 times the size of the right. The doctor was surprised I hadn't been in more pain than I was.

Yesterday and today it finally hit me that I actually had a baby growing inside of me that isn't there anymore. It is sad. I hadn't gotten attached to being pregnant because I didn't even know I was six weeks along until I went to the ER on Wednesday. I had no real symptoms and no signs because it was growing in my tube. I had bleeding and pain that I was sure was a cyst. I had talked myself into thinking I had a cyst the size of an orange on my ovary. I was wrong. Everything in the hospital happened so fast that I didn't have time to have emotions about it all. I know that God is with us during this time and our baby will come again when it is the right time.

My dear friend, Marissa, has set up meals to be delivered by our church friends. It has been such a help to us. We are so blessed to have such great friends and wonderful support through all of this. I know that I wouldn't be watching the Olympics as much if I wasn't bed ridden, so I guess that has been fun.

Tomorrow, Mom and I are going to Arkansas. I am looking forward to getting my mind off of this and getting away for a while. I hope the trip won't be too exhausting.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support!

a rough week

I have really debated about whether or not to blog about what has been going on the past couple of days, but I guess I need to share it now.

This past week I have been having some pain in what I thought to be my ovaries and kind of dismissed it as being painful cysts. I have had cysts in the past and some have been even more painful than this. When I began bleeding along with this, I found it to be a bit odd, mostly because it wasn't that "time" and also because I was in some pain. Again, I sort of dismissed it. About day 4-5 I decided it was getting to be a bit more serious than I had originally thought and I stayed home from work on Wednesday. My pain was off and on during the day but got a bit worse at night. Scott was working so I was calling my mom for advice. I called a gyno to get an appointment and they were going to fit me in the falling day at 8:50 am. That would have been Thursday am. By the time Scott got home Wednesday evening and had settled in a while I decided it may be time to think about going to the emergency room. Still, I wasn't at a 10 level of pain, but enough that I wasn't sure I could sleep ok.

We got to the ER at about 11:30pm and got all checked in. We waited and waited and waited and at about 2:30am they called us back. They ran some blood tests. By this time I had sent Scott to the car to get some rest. He had to be to work early and I felt like I was in good hands. After the blood was taken, I was able to rest until about 5:00am when in comes the sonogram guy who informed me that I had a positive pregnancy test and he was there to see what he could find. I knew this couldn't be good because I had had a period and this bleeding all since we would have conceived. Scott came back in while he was finishing up the sonogram. The guy left and the doctor came back pretty quickly and informed us that I had an pregnancy that was growing in my fallopian tube and he was getting a gyno to come down and inform me of my options. The ER doc said that most likely I would be having surgery pretty much immediately. When the gyno got there he checked me "in and out" and verified what he also believed to be an ectopic pregnancy and we would be having surgery right away. Scott was pretty emotional about all of it and I was a bit scared as well. We took the time to say a prayer together and I felt at peace after that.

It is kind of all a blur from there. I remember being wheeled from Baylor All Saints ER to the new Baylor All Saints Women's Hospital. Everyone was so nice and took such wonderful care of me. They all explained in detail what was going to be happening and everything they were doing. I woke from surgery about 11:30 am. They did a laproscopic surgery and went in through my belly button and in two point lower. They had to take my left fallopian tube because it was too badly damaged. They were amazed that I had not been in more pain than I was in before coming to the ER.

At about 2:30pm on Thursday. I was discharged and Scott brought me home. My mom got here about 4:3opm and has been taking very good care of me. She is making soup and keeping fluids in me. I am pretty sore, but have been trying to keep from taking the serious pain killers and sticking to the Ibuprofen. I am walking around a little bit, but mostly staying on the sofa or in bed. I am trying to get all rested. Mom and I are going to Arkansas on Monday and she will take care of me and Heidi, who had unfortunately developed a breast infection and still needs help with her 2.5 year old and the newborn.

I will keep you all updated. Thank you all for your prayers and support!

i'm in the dog house!

Today was a great day off! Not to mention that is was also our anniversary today. I gave a massage early this morning, and then headed out to Marissa's house for lunch. She made me a fabulous meal as an early birthday present! I just love that lady, she is such a great friend. After lunch, I went to meet with the realtor we are going to work with if we decide to by a house that is on the market. It is looking like we are very interested in the house that is up for sale by our landlord. I will have to share that story, but first, I am sure you are wondering why I am in the doghouse. Well, I didn't get my hubby a card for our anniversary!!!! Can you believe it, ME, I didn't get one....the wife!!!!!! And to top it all off he got me one, a very sweet one I might add. We kind of joked about giving cards every other year since I got him one last year and he forgot to give me one! (he blames that on the fact we moved to Arkansas on our anniversary last year) It really isn't THAT big of a deal, but he keeps giving me a hard time that I forgot the card. So, we tried a sushi place tonight that is downtown we hadn't been to called Piranna's. It was so good! To make it up to him, I bought dinner. But let's back up. Before dinner, we got to go over to look at the house we are interested in buying.

Here is the story on that.......
So this place is owned by our landlord and has been rented out for a year. Unfortunately, there are people in this world who are not responsible for their business. The tenants had not been paying for several months and it was time for them to pay or get out. They were taken to eviction court and given 10 days to pay or get out and still did not pay. As a matter of fact, come to find out they were also conveniently stealing water and electricity from the city! Yesterday the sheriff and corporal showed up on their doorstep to move them out. Sad, but seriously, take care of your business people! We now have the opportunity to purchase this house. The tenants had just been evicted yesterday. The police had moved their furniture and all their belongings to the curb. These people had been living in filth and trash. When we went in there tonight we were very sad to know that there had been a 17 month old baby living in there. There was food and bugs EVERYWHERE! It definitely needs some TLC, but we are up for the challenge. We saw past the disarray to what the possibilities could be! It is three bedrooms, one and a half baths, and two car garage. It is a lot bigger than we were expecting and definitely bigger than our house now. It is convenient to everything we need to get to in Fort Worth. We are so very excited. We went to Barnes and Noble after dinner to look at remodel magazines. The bathrooms are going to need the most work. The kitchen is not a total redo like we were thinking it might be. I will share some pictures, but please know that we were able to look at it in "as is" condition and it will be cleaned this week. I drew a little floor plan so you all can get a better idea or how the hosue is configured. It was kind of hard to take pictures to show the real set up.

Consider these the "Before" in our before and after project.

View #1 of the kitchen. It has nice tile floors that we agreed would be good to keep.

A view of the living room. It has nice hard wood floors. Scott is
standing in the dining room, you can see his foot.

The house sits on a corner. This was taken about six weeks ago when they were still living there. I wonder if they knew we were stalking the house!! ;)

View #2 of the kitchen with the built in oven and microwave. The bifold
doors to the right that are open belong to the laundry area.

Can you get the idea of why a bathroom remodel is at the top of our list. The green tile just doesn't do it for me!

A floor plan view.

so much to do, so little time

A lot has happened since my last post.

1. My sister, Heidi, had her baby last Tuesday August 5th.
2. We went on our anniversary trip.
3. We are house hunting.
4. Job hunting and finding.
5. And, we are both working way too much!

First things first.....
Baby Joely Grace made her way into the world at 6:45am on August 5th. It was a fast birth, as Heidi's water broke at a bit past 5:30am that same morning. She had a home birth at which only the assistant midwife made it in time for. They are all very thankful that Jacob did not have to deliver the baby himself....it was a bit iffy there for a while.

And...
Our anniversary trip to The Inn at Lake Granbury was spectacular. We had such a wonderful time!!! We got there late afternoon on Tuesday. The inn has a pool, so that made our list of what to do first. It has been soooo hot here. I believe it was about 106 that day. After swimming we cleaned up and went to dinner. Not much to brag about there. It wasn't great. After dinner we walked around the square and happened to bump into Scott's step sister who lives in Granbury. She was on her way home from work. We chatted with her for a bit. We headed back to the Inn after that. It is sad, but one of the highlights of our trip was watching HGTV on cable! We aren't cable people right now. We watched all kinds of fun shows and got some ideas for our future home! We are sad, I know. We had picked out a movie to watch from the Inn's selection, but we were to entranced with HG! Our room had a fireplace which we actually used. The thermostat was set at 72 which feels a lot cooler than the 78 we have it on at home. The next day on Wednesday we ate a fabulous breakfast! The innkeeper is also the chef and she was amazing. We ate upside down banana walnut French toast, scrambled eggs, fresh fruit, and a hominy mix. It was soooo good. After breakfast we watched a bit more HG before checking out and then headed to the square for a bit of window shopping. It was unexpectedly cool and windy out as you can maybe see from the picture. We weren't really in the market for anything. I bought a new potato scrubber from a neat little kitchen store and a little pink bow for Joely and that was it. We ate lunch at Babe's Chicken. It is a little homestyle cooking restaurant. We ate too much and were ready to come home for a nap! It was such a great time and we would definitely do it again.

Next....
We got pre-qualified for our home loan. Looks like we may be able to look at a house this week that is a for sale by owner that is owned by the landlord of the house we are renting. We should be able to see it this week once the tenants move out. It is currently being rented. A friend of Scott's mom is moving and the house they are moving into is in a beautiful gated community in Fort Worth. They are doing a total remodel and gutting a lot of it. Well, they are getting rid of a double oven, wood blinds, a kitchen island, cabinets, sinks, and toilets. I went over there on Friday morning to take look at it all. It is definitely things we could use for our future fixer upper. We took a few things, but once we see the house we will really know what we need. They are just giving all of these too us! It is so amazing and such a blessing!

Then....
Scott has been offered the assistant basketball coach at Texas Wesleyan. It is a great opportunity for him! He is pretty excited about it, but he is going to have to do something else on the side as well. We are glad he has his personal training to fall back on. Personal training is very flexible and we think it would be a good thing. He would have to quit his job at The Vitamin Shoppe because the hours would conflict. Still praying on that. He will most likely take the position, but it is a big decision to make. It is his ticket into coaching and a way to pay his dues. He will make a lot of contacts though. He would also be working with his former coaches which is very enticing to him.

Last, but not least....
Work is going well for both of us, as of now. We are working a lot and hardly seeing one another. I really need to cut back. I have been working about 35 hours in Arlington and on my days off I go to Aledo or work from home doing massage. I owe it to myself to take a real day off here and there. I know I will get burned out if I don't.

Other than that, not a lot going on here! We are watching the Olympics and are ready to go to Arkansas in about a week to see that baby and Andrew!

Good night blog family!

a trip down memory lane

Hi Blog Family!

As we approach our 2nd anniversary on August 12, I thought I might share a bit of what has been going on in our lives over the past two years. Let me start out with a brief history of our lives since we have known each other.

Scott and I met in the fall of 2001. He has just started school at John Brown University and I had just transferred to the University of Arkansas. We met through mutual friends and remained friends for a year until he finally asked me out on our first date in November 2002.

In the spring of 2004 I was working at the Wal-Mart Headquarters. Scott had been tossing around the idea of transferring for a while. One day we were sitting at the kitchen table in Fayetteville where I lived with Katie and Jessica and he kind of snickered and said he had emailed the coach at Texas Wesleyan about transferring. At that moment, I knew he would be moving back to Fort Worth and going to finish school in his home town. Things got a bit rocky with a long distance relationship after he moved and we broke up off and on for a while. I started massage school in the fall of 2004. When I was finished with massage school in the spring of2005, I decided to move to Frisco, TX just north of Dallas. We weren't together at the time that I moved, but once I got a bit closer we rekindled our relationship and knew we had to stay together. It was so much easier to be closer and be able to spend more time together. He finished out his college and basketball career at Texas Wesleyan and got his degree in Kinesiology after a long five years in school.

We got engaged in December 2005! In July before we got married, I moved to Fort Worth into the apartment we would live in. He had been living with his dad while in school. We got married in August 2006 and lived in that apartment until December when we moved into our house we are renting. We moved to Arkansas on our 1st anniversary and back to Texas in January 2008, where we moved back into the same house we had moved out of.

Scott works as the assistant manager of the Vitamin Shoppe in Fort Worth. I work as a retail specialist at Veria Wellness Center and I do massage on the side at home and in Aledo at Grace Day Spa. I kind of miss doing massage full time, but I am enjoying a steady paycheck and the benefits are a nice addition.

Recently, we have has some interesting options placed in our lives. Scott has been offered the assistant coaching position at Texas Wesleyan. It would be his ticket into coaching. He has been wanting to coach of a long time now and this may be his chance. If it pans out for him and he likes coaching, he will have to get a master's degree in order to be a head coach at the collegiate level. They will most likely require him to teach a class if he coaches at a college. So if you think of it, please be saying a prayer for us as we decide what to do.

We are looking seriously into buying a house too. We have been casually looking for a while now, but tomorrow we are going to the bank to get pre-qualified for a loan. This should be interesting. It is a little nerve racking buying a first home. Luckily I have my father, the real estate agent, to call every day and bounce ideas off of.

And, I will be posting pictures of our early anniversary getaway soon. We are staying at a bed and breakfast tomorrow night. We are very anxious for a fun little outing. We rarely have a day off together and we have two days off together this week!

We are still very much in love! Thanks for sharing in our lives. Enjoy so fun facts about our marriage and the past two years!!


Fun Facts:
Places we have lived:
- Fort Worth, TX
- Springdale, AR

Places we have traveled:
- Cancun, Mexico
- Playa Del Carmen, Mexico
- Chicago, IL

Our dreams for the future:
- to buy a house
- to have kids someday
- to buy a hybrid car, preferably a Prius

Strange events:
- screaming (and I do mean screaming) neighbors waking us up in the middle of the night
- a neighbor's (same one) house alarm going off all night because she wasn't there to turn it off. Just so happened it was the night before we left for Mexico the next morning at 5:00am! Needless to say, no sleep that night.
- Our cars getting broken into and both our stereos getting stolen the same night.

Number of times we have moved since being married: 4
Favorite restaurant: Edohana Hibachi and Sushi
Favorite date night: Pizza and a movie...a rare occasion since Scott can't have wheat.
He does: the lawn, the trash, the cars
I do: cleaning, cooking, bills (he does help though)