The Automotive Industry...

Hello All! Monica and I have been looking for a large truck for some time now and much to our credit have not been swayed from our budget price for monthly payment. This week I found a great truck, talked to the dealership, came together on price and were ridiculously excited about the potential purchase....Yes there is pause for suspense here..................Long story short Ford decided that we were not cool enough to have their truck...Did I mention that this unit has been on the same lot for 625 days! This is a new 2008 F450, not exactly flying off the shelves here. One would think that they would be just shy of paying us to take it from them in this economy. I know that they were the only ones not to take a bailout, but really...C'mon... How many folks are actively seeking Super Duty trucks today? Not many, I've checked. So we rely on our faith that "this just isn't the one God has for us..." We continue to save our pennies for a bigger downpayment to offset our negative equity trade and we have been assured that they would be excited to do business with us. So if anyone is feeling philanthropic, don't hesitate to give us a shout ;-) All in all though, it has been a good week, especially since my beautiful bride has purchased her ticket to come home!!! Wooo Hooo!!! 13 days!!! Can't wait...

Valentine's Day

I am so excited about this Saturday. No, not because it is Valentine's Day. Actually, because it is V-Day, I should be pretty sad because I am about 2500 miles away from my husband! Not fun. I will discuss this later. I signed myself up for a sewing class and I am so excited about it. I have dabbled in sewing quilts for a little while. My first was one for my best friend's first baby. Then a big one for my sister's high school graduation, and my most recent one was a really big one for my grandmother for Christmas. Each one has been more complicated than the previous. The last one I actually did a lot of hand quilting for. I really liked how it turned out but I would like to get better. So for a birthday present for myself, I registered for this class. It is a really really nice and expensive quilting store in my area. They have absolutely gorgeous fabrics and they are kinda pricey so I don't feel too bad about signing up since I used money I got for my birthday. Anyway, I am excited to share the finished product with you all after Saturday!
Yay!! Picture upload worked!! Above is the fabric I am using for my quilt!! I am just so excited!

It's My Birthday!

That's right!! It is my birthday!! I am kinda excited. I feel like I have so much going on and so much to be thankful for that I am happy to be turning 25. I feel like I look better than I ever have, I dress better, have more confidence, and I know that I have the best looking and most devoted husband by my side!! So what is there not to be excited about! I am surrounded by family and friends who love me and have supported me through so much. Today is going to be a good day. I am so blessed!

Remodel Anyone?

I don't know if anybody else has seen the new show on HGTV, Remodel Realities. This is hilarious. A camera crew captures the crashes, mishaps, tearing down, moving walls, wrong measurements, arguments, and unfinished work all done by inexperienced homeowners. Tonight's episode followed a couple who's home was being featured in a home tour. The house was over 100 years old and was originally a grocery store. The wife wanted to move/take down some walls to allow more light in the kitchen. The husband did not have any vacation time to take off to work on the project so they worked on it at night. But the best part was that they waited until only 4 days before the home tour to even start on the project! The did not know what they were doing, they didn't have a plan when they started, and they did not have enough time to do it. The husband built a temporary wall for support. He built this one wall outside, not thinking whether it would fit in the door to get inside the house. (You see where I am going!?) That's right, it was too big! He had to take it apart, the rebuild it inside!! It is great to know that there are other people that this type of stuff happens to. While he was at work one day, his lumber that was being stored under a carport was stolen!!! I felt bad for the guy. He got no sleep in about 4 days, full time job at a bank, builder by night, wife who kept wanting to tear down walls, and had no idea how to do it. But I guess he did put a lot of it on himself, leaving himself only 4 days to complete a project like that! WOW! You have got to see it. I feel so much better about my remodel adventures now.

20 Things About Me

So... Firefly tagged me in a post on her site. Here goes, 20 things you may or may not know about me:

1. I really enjoy reading. Just got done with Persuasion by Jane Austen. Nicholas Sparks is never disappointing.

2. I believe in personal responsibility. Take responsibility for your actions and whatever consequences that come with it. A lot of our society's problems would be solved if everyone took responsibility for their actions.

3. Me and the hubby are drama minimizers. We don't like to create drama, for ourselves or others, and we don't like being sucked into other people's drama.

4. I love Jesus!

5. I have never had a broken bone.

6. I grew up waterskiing on a nationally competitive level.

7. I skied on my college team.

8. I LOVE college football.

9. I think I have the best family in the world.

10. Music is a way for me to escape my immediate surroundings, which is fun sometimes.

11. We don't have kids yet, but we are so extremely excited about when we do decide to have them. We want to be as prepared financially as we can be. You know that personal responsibility thing!

12. For 2 summers in high school, I lived 3 hours away from my parents and worked at a water ski school. No parents, living with college kids for an entire summer, at 15; I learned a lot about my self and about the world.

13. I knew I was going to marry my husband the day I met him.

14. He knew it too.

15. I was valedictorian of my graduating class.

16. I am quite the beginner in quilting, but I want to get better and make more quilts. I just love making something from scratch and giving it away, even if all the corners don't quite match up.

17. I love cooking too. Especially baking. I will make a whole cake just so that I can have 1 piece and then give it away.

18. I am also kind of hooked on sudoku puzzles.

19. Been helping people with disabilities learn how to waterski since I was a little girl.

20. I absolutely adore my husband. He is supportive, hilarious, giving, and a wonderful husband to me. It is good to know that you made the right choice, you didn't settle. I know because I know that God brought us together and will keep us together no matter what comes our way!

In Honor Of...

My sister's birthday was today, she turned 19! So in her honor, I decided I would post some of my favorite sister stories in which she is adorable, intolerable, and unique.

1. (Probably my favorite!) When she was about 4 or 5, my mom loaded us both up along with an adult family friend to go shopping. As we are driving through town towards our destination, my sister is in her own world. She begins looking around the car and says to herself, "Damn it! I forgot my purse!" She was FOUR!

2. Growing up the big sister, I always had to let her win in fights, you know, don't hurt your baby sister thing?!! There are pictures of a hairbrush stuck in a large rat nest tangle she created in my hair buy twisting and twirling the brush around in mid stroke while brushing my hair. It was fun.

3. In the adolescent years, whenever our parents would ask her to do something, i.e. clean her room, pick up her stuff from the rest of the house, swap the clothes, she would always yell, "I AM!!!" It always sounded like "I YAM!!"

4. Her favorite phrase as a young child was "Actually..."

5. Her room was once 4 different bright electric colors at once.

6. She is the artistic creative one.

7. She helps me with what to wear, so I don't look ridiculous. (Yes she is the younger one. I have NO fashion sense.)

8. Her existence is all my fault. I begged my parents for a sibling. Didn't matter to me whether it was a boy or a girl. About a month after she was born I informed my parents that she had ruined my life.

9. I used to give her a hard time and tell her that she was named after a very destructive hurricane that destroyed most of the Mississippi coastline back in the day.

10. I never knew how much I loved/enjoyed her until I moved out for college. She is so many things that I am not, and because of that, I love her and she drives me crazy. She is my sister, turning out to be a remarkable, independent, and wonderful person. We got really close over this past summer and it has taken both of us a little while to figure out that we can't always be with each other but regardless, she will always be a part of me and vice versa. I love her. She is unique, beautiful, and my favorite person to be with, after my husband of course. I pray for her everyday that she will grow in faith, patience, and understanding. She is MY sister!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAMILLE!

Collards and Cornbread...

Good morning! It is another wonderful day here in Cali. It is shaping up to be overcast as we are expecting some much needed rain in the Golden state. The Sierra snowpack is only at approx 63% of normal for this time of year and has many people in the ski industry as well as the farmers in the Central Valley worried. But oooooohhhhh yes, Mother Nature has decided that this week, the moisture will come. As I was cooking a fine, traditional meal last night made up of collard greens and pork with cornbread and black-eyed peas (tell you about that in a minute) my ears were perked to the weather report unfolding on my friends large flat screen across the room. I saw the words "Storm #1, Storm #2, Storm #3 flash into view. Apparently there are three storms lined up from the pacific (#1) and two from the Gulf of Alaska. The rain is expected to start this after noon and the snow levels to be around 5000 ft. Oh how visions of snowflakes the size of chicken feathers and face shots of endless powder have captured my dreams. It may not end up being the incredible dump that I am hoping for, but the mere notion of snow in Tahoe gets my blood going! So between now and tomorrow morning we are hoping for at least a foot of the white fluffy goodness to be enjoyed when I go skiing tomorrow. The speculations are flying about the potential of the next two storms converging on the Tahoe area over the weekend, but any snow is good snow and I am hoping to be a part of at least one epic powder day this season.

So back to the title of the post..... I amazed even myself last night at the quality of meal I turned out for our friends Chrissy and Vern. I even had an authentic Southerner's palette to test the mettle of my collard and pork abilities. I was given a solid B+ for my efforts in total. The greens, pork, and black eyed peas were fantastic. My cornbread was a little too dense, but was ripe with real butter flavor! Vern (the displaced Southerner) made the comment that his arteries were clogging just looking at the bread bubbling in the cast iron skillet :-) Yeah....just the way we Southerners like it... To top this culinary extravaganza off, it all came off the stove/out of the oven at the same time, a feat that I have never been able to master until last night. The only thing missing was my wife... I miss her soooooooo much, but am excited for her interview process success. Today marks the end of that process and her undoubted acceptance to both of the programs she has been interested in. I would ask everyone to join me in praying for her as she impresses everyone she comes in contact with today during her interview and that God will make abundantly clear the path that she/we should take for her grad school education. Hope everyone has a Blessed day!