Thankful... home stretch

I'm behind on being thankful... my only excuse is that I had teenage houseguests all weekend and then Monday I left my house at 6:00 a.m. to meet a newscrew to shoot a surgery and then went non-stop until I got home that night at 10:00 p.m.  Needless to say I was in a zombie-like state by then and barely able to brush my teeth, much less blog.

I'm still in a zombie-like state, but at least I'm sitting down.

So, in honor of days 26, 27, 28, and 29...

I am thankful for my sister and brothers-in-law. Three years ago my little family was just our core five, and now it's busting at the seams. Some of the greatest additions have been all of the -in-laws: Dallas the police officer, Philip the music minister, Grant the oil and gas guy, and Michelle, the stay-at-home mom to our beautiful niece Ella (and fabulous cook). Each one has meant a special new friendship and has made get-togethers so much more interesting.

I am thankful for big family holidays - in our case it meant two massive Thanksgiving meals, two massive birthday dinners, and one massive out-of-town family dinner. Which is why my hiney feels a bit massive today, but I'm back on the running wagon, so I plan to slim it back down to Kim Kardashian size just in time to overeat again for Christmas.

I am thankful for foot rubs from my husband. And neck rubs.

I am thankful for some special girlfriends, mainly Katie, Andrea, Sara, Amy, Tera, Nyree, and Pam. These women have seen me on good days and bad, all dolled up and with tears and snot running down my face. And they still keep coming back.

I am thankful for Pinterest and the many Christmas projects it's inspired, including my Christmas quilt, some Christmas wreaths, and my Christmas cards (which I will debut in a later post... they're sewn!).

I am thankful for long bubble baths and good books... something I enjoyed Sunday night.

I am thankful that I will become an aunt again next summer when Sarah has her first baby. And I am thankful that I'm already an aunt to the fabulous 2-year-old Ella who has hit a really fun stage.

All of this thankfulness has just made my day a little brighter. Now I can get back to conquering the world... and start dreaming about that next bubble bath.

I am thankful for days off with nothing to do

On day 25, I am thankful that I'm not out in the chaos of Black Friday shopping, but instead thankful that I was able to do a little bit of shopping online while sitting on the couch next to Mr. Right, sipping coffee in my pj's. Today has been one of those beautiful, ideal days off from work - spending the day finishing a quilt, listening to books on tape (finished Millenials and now on to Charlie Wilson's War) and enjoying some leftover Thanksgiving pecan pie. 

I am thankful for my sisters

Happy Thanksgiving! As I sit here in my sewing room typing away on the computer, Mr. Right is busy in the kitchen making us a gourmet breakfast (because we haven't consumed quite enough calories yet) and prepping for our family dinner tonight. He asked me if my 30 Days of Thankfulness ends today... it doesn't. I'm not sure if it's good timing or bad, but I'm extending my thankfulness through the end of November. Besides, I still have several more big posts up my sleeve... I could be thankful until spring. But I'll try to cap it on November 30.

Today I am thankful for my sisters. Growing up in a house full of girls was one of the biggest blessings God could have given me. My sisters are my best friends--not just because they have so much dirt on me that I'll always have to stay on their good side. No, they are two of the coolest and strongest women I've ever met. I am so thankful for them.

You can imagine that we grew up with a lot of laughter in our house...

We have seen each other through weddings and major illnesses. Dozens of moves and dozens of boys (but praise Jesus we found our keepers). Breakup CDs and dance parties and High School Musical movie nights. We have cheered each other on at softball games and gymnastics meets and cheerleading competitions. I've watched them walk the stage at high school and college graduations. And soon, we're going to cheer Sarah on as she has a BABY. (We're pee-in-your-pants excited about that one.)

We have traveled the world together... from Italy and France to the White House and the mountains of Colorado. I have shared a bed with them (they'll tell you I hog the sheets... they're lying) and tiny back seats with them (with our running joke that I need more room because of my LONG legs).  

(In Venice... part of a two-week European trip without hair dryers or straighteners... talk about roughing it and BAD hair days.)

Not only are my sisters fun, but they're also super talented. Sarah is the most fabulous interior designer I know (call her!) and she has helped me refinish furniture and figure out how to make my house look like something that could be on Pinterest. Lindsay is nurse in the neuro ICU at one of the biggest hospitals in town and is always available to answer those pressing medical self-diagnosis questions (can I mix Benadryl with this flu medication?), and who's the only one in the family not worried about being puked on (she's pulled hospital family puking duty on two different occasions).

Our sisterhood is authentic... while we were all Thetas at Baylor, we opted to start our own sorority... Beta Sigma Lambda for LIFE. We eventually let the husbands join.

So to Sarah and Lindsay... I am so very thankful for you. And Happy Thanksgiving!

It's my birthday

Happy birthday to me. How do we celebrate birthdays around here?

With cake balls from the same lady who made our wedding cake. You haven't lived until you've had Colleen's strawberry cake balls dipped in white chocolate. Oh my word.

We bought two dozen, so it will be my birthday for a very long time. Don't worry, I'm choosing to share with Mr. Right and with various family members who ask nicely.

I also celebrated with a special birthday breakfast cooked by my chef husband. A bagel, egg, and bacon with homemade plum preserves. It was amazing. 

Speaking of food, I also celebrated with a birthday lunch with a few of my closest girlfriends... and a pedicure. Because nothing says happy 31st birthday to me like pretty toenails and a foot massage. And a strawberry cake (do you see a pattern here?).

I had a birthday dinner with my side of the family... and more food. My mama is an amazing cook... and then we ate more cake balls.

Tomorrow night I'm having Mr. Right's side of the family over for a joint birthday dinner (my father-in-law has a birthday two days after mine) and Mr Right is making homemade chicken fried steak. I'm sure it's the low-fat version.

And then I get two Thanksgivings. And I heard a rumor we may go to Joe T. Garcia's sometime this weekend.

Someone sign me up for a 10K before I double in size! Hurry!

I bet you're wondering what Mr. Right got me for my birthday. He's going to turn this...

Into this...

That's right, he's framing our master bathroom mirror. Ours will look a lot like this, but he painted it black. It's currently lying on the garage floor, ready to be installed. I just love being married to man who knows how to turn my wild hairs into reality.

Speaking of wild hairs... on a whim I decided to sew ruffles for my Christmas tree. It's the absolute best sewing project ever because (1) you don't have to iron your fabric, (2) you don't have to cut a straight line, and (3) you don't have to sew a straight line. It's like magic, I tell you.

Since this is Thankfulness month on my little blog, and since I'm three days behind (but it's my birthday... so I get a pass, right?), I thought I'd just list a few more things I'm thankful for, which can count for #20, 21 and 22:

I am thankful for strawberry birthday cake and girlfriends who love pedicures as much as me and family who calls and sings happy birthday and coffee being brought to me in bed and birthday breakfasts and getting birthday cards in the mail.

I'm also thankful for this blog, which started four years ago on my 27th birthday. 

Do you want to know how YOU can absolutely make my day on my birthday? Leave me a comment on my blog-- it would make me feel all sparkly and distract me from thinking about how I'm now 31.  I know you're out there - somehow I watched my visits quadruple this month. I'm sure 80% of those readers are related to me (hi mom, Mr. Right, and to my mother-in-law), but that still leaves a few friends and strangers out there reading, and it would just make my birthday if you would say hello. Won't you?

Speaking of 31, I'll leave you with a list of other famous people who are 31. It's kind of an awesome-not-at-all-old-at-least-that's-what-I-will-remind-myself club.

Venus Williams

Ben Savage - Boy Meets World

Michelle Williams

The oldest Hanson

Kristen Bell

Channing Tatum

I guess this means I'm joining the cool kids club. I hope that oldest Hanson saved me a seat.

I am thankful for our ESL class

On Day 19, I am thankful for my ESL class. In particular, I am thankful for:

Donje (Congo) and Afiwa (Togo). Missing from this picture are my other favorite Africans - Cecille and Kate (Ivory Coast), Lucienne (Berundi), and sweet Manga (Egypt) along with all of her adorable (and talkative) kids.

I am thankful for Rosie, a spirited woman who joined our class about 10 days after she moved here from Colombia and literally spoke about two sentences of English. But lucky for her (except I know God knew exactly what he was doing) we had two of the nicest students from Colombia (all from the same city - Bogota) already in our class, and they immediately became best friends. All three are now going to our church's Spanish Sunday school class, and because we offer translation via headphones of the main worship service, they have sat with us in church. My heart did a back flip that Sunday with excitement. 

I am thankful for Christina (Mexico) and also for her father-in-law Leonardo (Venezuela), who was one of our most faithful students in our beginner class. We ended up befriending this entire family - they are particularly special to us. (I'm also thankful for my co-teacher, mix-tape making friend and bridesmaid Katie.)

I am thankful for Carolina (Mexico), Kati (Colombia), her mother Hermalina (Colombia) and Rosie (Colombia). These ladies helped translate for each other, allowed Mr. Right to practice his Spanish, and were such fun students to teach. 

I am thankful for all of the countries represented in this picture. And I am most thankful that as the semester came to a close, I can proudly say that our church now has attendees from Syria, Colombia (3), Mexico (2), and hopefully soon a new visitor from Congo. Please join me in praying for these sweet students, that God would protect them and provide them community during our two-month class break, and that he would help them find their way back next semester. It's a scary place out there when you don't speak the language or understand our crazy culture. Please pray that God would continue to make them brave, and to make them hungry for his love.

Please also join me in praying that we will find more teachers who want to love on these students, as I expect our numbers will increase even more in January. I promise that they will get a much bigger blessing than what they put in. 

I am thankful for the weekend

On Day 18 I am thankful for the weekend! Especially for a weekend that involves a date with my husband, a birthday lunch and pedicure with my best girlfriends, decorating the house for Christmas and baking Christmas cookies, and getting to hear my man preach.

Let the weekend begin!

I am thankful for my in-laws

Today, on Day 17, I am thankful for my in-laws. 

When it comes to marrying into a family, I feel like I hit the jackpot. It's probably no coincidence that I started praying that God would bring me a Mr. Right who had a good family back when I was 22. I had dated someone whose mother I didn't get along with, and from that day forward I prayed that God would bless me with good in-laws. 

My prayers sure were answered. 

My in-laws are wonderful. They are supportive and encouraging and generous, and they love their family. They raised Mr. Right to be independent and self-sufficient (and his mom taught him to cook like a rockstar). They strike that perfect balance of wanting to be involved in their children's lives while letting them make their own decisions. They are peacemakers.

They are incredibly interesting people. My father-in-law is a team roper who competes in local rodeos and who has a passion for horses. He is also a church planter who helped launch their latest church a few years back and has built a large men's ministry reaching out to cowboys who never felt at home in a church setting. My mother-in-law is a BSF leader and accomplished golfer--she could smoke me on the golf course with both her eyes closed. She is an incredible cook.

They're also adoring grandparents to our niece Ella. I am thankful that someday when we have kids of our own, that they'll make great babysitters, and their house out in the country with horses and cows will make for some really wonderful childhood memories.

They're there. Whether it's meeting Mr. Right for lunch or coming out to my work events to support me, or coming up to meet our ESL students (which my mother-in-law is doing tonight), they do a great job of showing their support by just being there. 

When we had to fix up Mr. Right's house to get it ready to go on the market, my in-laws spent days helping us - my father-in-law did a ton of manual labor outside in the blazing heat, and my mother-in-law cleaned like a banshee. When our house got broken into, they came and sat outside with us in lawn chairs while we waited for the police to arrive. 

On a side note - I was on Facebook pulling pictures for this post, and I came across these wedding photos. When I've talked in the past about marrying into a big family, I'm not sure if you really understand how big I'm talking about. So here's proof - these are just the relatives who made the drive in from Oklahoma and elsewhere to cheer us on at our wedding.

But back to my in-laws... they have worked so hard to make me feel welcome in their family. Thanks Audie and Ann for all you do for us. I am so blessed to be your daughter-in-law.

I'm tired but thankful

I'm due for a few more mushy posts on my thankfulness journey, but today I'm too tired. I had to LEAVE my house at 6:00 this morning to go put on a breakfast event for work. Since it takes me about 12 hours to get ready for work in the morning (what will I do when have children?), this means I'm working on very little sleep and too much caffeine. I'm about 10 minutes from downing two Benadryl and calling it a night.

I am happy to report, however, that my parents cried when they read yesterday's post. That made my whole day. Why wait until something bad happens to tell someone you love them? I'm a big fan of telling people over and over and over. You're probably next, so watch out.

But back to my long day. After my crack-of-dawn breakfast event, I brought all of my leftover food back to the office for my coworkers to enjoy. I was walking across the parking lot, carefully balancing a large box of pastries, a carton of orange juice a bag of cream cheese and silverware and my 50-pound purse... when the handles on my giant pastry box ripped, and the box came this close to hitting the ground and scattering Panera Bread cinnamon crunch bagels all over the parking lot. It was a total Charlie Brown moment.

Thankfully, I pulled a slow-motion Mission Impossible move and saved the pastries. I have quick reflexes when it comes to cinnamon crunch bagels.

I also got fitted for my Mrs. Santa Claus costume, because in two weeks I will be spreading Christmas cheer to hundreds of little boys and girls up at my hospital. When I first told Mr. Right that I was playing Mrs. Santa Claus, he worriedly looked at me and asked, "You're not going to wear one of those sexy Mrs. Santa costumes, are you?"

No, Mr. Right. I can assure you that I will be sporting the frumpy, matronly, extremely conservative Mrs. Santa suit, along with a gray wig, round spectacles and an apron. I can't wait to hear what all those kiddos tell us what they want for Christmas.  I can see it now...

Johnny: Santa, I want a puppy for Christmas.

Me: Sure, no problem!

Sally: Santa, I want a Barbie Princess Dreamhouse Laptop!

Me: I'll bring you two!

This may be my one and only year to play Mrs. Santa. We'll see how it goes.

But on to today's thankfulness. Besides being thankful that I have a job that allows me to do some wonderfully random things, I am thankful for some other wonderfully random things today.

Today, on Day 16, I am thankful for:

-Pinterest wreaths. Last night I finished this Christmas wreath, made from clearance rack red felt, a box of straight pins and a $5 styrofoam wreath. No hot glue gun required. Maybe the easiest craft I've made in years.

I'm not sure if it's going on my front door or my mantle... I may just have to make another one so I don't have to choose (my next one will be white). If it goes on my door, it will replace my fall Pinterest wreath.

I'm tempted to take those rosettes off and repurpose them as a pin to wear on my brown cardigan. I even snuck a few yo-yo's, which are one of my favorite things on the planet. I hope there aren't any weird germs from them hanging up outside for two months.

-I'm thankful for an impromptu dinner date with my mom tonight.

-I am thankful that patterned tights are in style AGAIN this year. I wore some for the first time today, and I had forgotten just how comfortable they are (and how much they cover your pale white legs after your husband made you promise not to go to a tanning bed ever again and you're too lazy to put on any self-tanner, and besides it smells bad). I especially like how all the fashion experts talk about how "in" patterned tights are this season. I guess they forgot that they were "in" last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. I'm pretty sure today's tights were circa 2008.

Or maybe I'm just progressive.

-I am thankful for Hulu because our Tivo was broken for a month and didn't record any of our favorite TV shows. It's obvious that we don't watch much TV since it took us three weeks to notice the Tivo wasn't working and another week to figure out how to fix it (um... you unplug it and plug it back in... it's like magic). But the past few nights I've been watching my shows on my laptop while piecing the last of my black and white quilt. Sure makes the time go by faster.

-I am thankful for an early bedtime after an early wake-up call. Time to take those two Benadryl.

I am thankful for my parents

It took me 15 days to get to a serious topic--probably because the little things in life are so much easier to verbalize than people who have truly changed your life. So today I will be brave, and begin at the beginning.



Today, on Day 15, I am thankful for my parents.

It's so funny to look back at my baby picture and see my parents when they were younger than me. They were (and still are) such a handsome couple. Who knew that these sweet people would one day scare away high school boyfriends with the threat of guns and knives? Surely not these people...

My parents have forever been my biggest supporters. My encouragement. My protectors. My inspiration. My dad taught me at a young age that in order to be the best, you don't have to have the most talent, you just have to work harder than everybody else--a lesson he taught me when I didn't make the softball all star team. After a full year of working harder than anybody else, I made the team and had the highest batting average of anybody on there, not because I was big or strong or even particularly good, but because my dad taught me to play a position nobody else wanted to play, and taught me that consistent singles are much better than the occasional home run. On those teams my dad taught me how to lose with dignity, and how to play as a team. 

My mom taught me to love books. As kids we weren't allowed to watch much TV but we had unending access to library books. As a trained reading specialist, she taught me to read at a very young age, and even though I could read long books on my own, each night before she put me to bed she would read novels to me--The Little Princess. Little House on the Prairie.  Those are some of my sweetest childhood memories. 

As an adult, I still take most of my book recommendations from her, because I know if she likes it, I probably will too.

My parents fell in love at Baylor, and they brainwashed taught me to bleed green and gold like them.  All of their children followed in their footsteps by going there. (But I did rebel and marry an Aggie.)

They raised us going to Rangers games, and it was a sweet moment to go with them to the World Series in 2010. 

My parents taught me to be a life-long learner, modeling the way through attaining advanced degrees and winning prestigious awards, while never becoming elitist or proud. My father has been an accomplished CEO and graduate professor, and my mother has received too many teaching awards to count, including being named Reading Teacher of the Year for all of Dallas-Fort Worth and having her school yearbook dedicated in her honor. I am so very proud of my parents.

Because of the way they raised me, I never even considered not going to college - I just assumed that was what everybody did. When it came time to go back for my master's degree, it was my parents who continually encouraged me not to quit on those dark nights when I felt swamped with assignments and tempted to throw in the towel. When it came time, three-and-a-half years later, to walk the stage for what should have been a two-year degree, my parents were there to help me celebrate.

They were also there when I snuck out early from the graduation ceremony to go eat Mexican food. My family loves to eat.

My parents taught me some valuable life lessons - including how to handle money. In my sweet ignorance I didn't realize you could charge things to a credit card and not pay them off every month until I was already out of college. I just had no idea that debt was even an option - because it was something that our family never used. It saved me from a lot of problems.

My parents were there for me during the long post-college years when I waited, and waited, and waited to meet Mr. Right. They comforted me during breakups and helped my times of being alone to feel anything but lonely. They have a wicked sense of humor that can make anybody laugh until they hyperventilate (or in my case, an asthma attack), and I treasure the many weekly dinners at Corner Bakery and Spring Creek.

Now that I'm a married woman, I am thankful that they have set a healthy example of marriage for me to model. After 36 years of marriage they're still best friends and make a fantastic team.

I am most thankful for the truths they taught me about the Bible, about how much my Jesus loves me, and how a life lived with purpose is so much better than a life lived for yourself. Thank you for teaching me Bible verses as a young child, for training me at home and setting me out on a life-long journey of faith.

So to my mom and dad... I am so very thankful for you.