I Have a Serious Problem

I know you are probably asking, "Just one?" I have many problems but the one to date that I can't seem to conquer is very troublesome. I can't seem to park correctly in a parking space. This was never an issue for me but it seems as if I couldn't park correctly if my life depended on it. If the space is straight I park crooked. If the space is slanted I park "straight" in it. It's weird and disturbing. It seems that the harder I try to park straight the more crooked I get. What does that say about my personality? I wonder if that means anything. :)


Anyway, I'm so excited. Last night I purchased new living room furniture. I'm very pleased with what I got and I can't wait for it to be delivered which won't be for a couple of weeks. Here's are all the pieces except for the lamps. I couldn't find a picture of them online.

I'm really excited about the tables because they have no glass in them!! I can not stand tables with glass on them. I currently have tables with glass on them and I absolutely loathe them! They are very 1980's and as much as I love 80's movies I loathe the furniture (and the clothes but that's a whole other blog) that was made during that era! But that's just my opinion and if you currently have tables with glass in them I mean no disrespect and do not mean to offend. I'm just stating my own personal preferences.

I'm so glad it's Friday but sad too because I don't get to see my man. He was asked to go along with some friends on a four-wheeler trip somewhere in the boonies of Alabama. I couldn't say no to that sweet and gorgeous face so I told him to have fun. Not that I could give him permission...I'm not that type of girlfriend. But anyway, I won't get to see him this weekend but that's okay because that just means I get to go shopping. See, it all works out. :)

Have a great weekend!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I've been a bad bad blogger this week. Nothing is going on really and nothing has really caught my attention that is blog worthy. But I thought I would drop in and waste a few minutes of your time. :)

My plea last week to get a friend to join me in a book club was a bust. LOL! She emailed me after she read it and said, "Subtle." So that's a no. Ha! That's okay. I will wear her down one of these days.

I had kind of a blah weekend. I think I really chalk it up to the fact that I had a migraine the entire time and no matter how many Advils I took, it just wasn't going away. I think my liver will be severely damaged if I don't go off those things but I have a hard time swallowing pills (meaning, I can't swallow them at all) and Advil tablets are the only pills that I can really get down with about 2 glasses of water. I'm a baby, I know. I choked on a marble and and a fireball candy when I was little and haven't been able to swallow pills ever since. I don't know the correlation between the two but that's the reason.

Anyway, I had a migraine and it wasn't going away. On Saturday my boyfriend decided to change the oil in my car since I hadn't had it changed and was about 3,000 miles overdue. But the process took a long time. We had gone to his parents house because that's where all his tools were. It was a windy, rainy dreary day. His parent's live in a small town outside of Northport. Their house is located on top of a hill and they have a carport/shop that is near their house. Well, as I said it was very rainy and freezing all day. But I stayed out in the shop to help Alan and when I say help I mean, I watched, Alan change my oil. Anyway, as we (he) were working on my car I could literally hear this huge gust of wind head up the hill. I had never heard anything like this before I seriously thought it was a tornado even though it was way too cold for one. Anyway, all of a sudden we hear this huge bang of metal and then the shop started shaking. I really thought the place was caving in even though it was a very sturdy building. Then I looked out the opening and saw a brick fall from the sky. Alan has a ski boat that he keeps at his parents house and has it set up right beside the shop with a tarp and a canopy covering it. The canopy was anchored by huge cylinder bricks. Well, this gust of wind picked up one of the bricks and threw it in the air and it crashed down on the roof of the shop and fell to the ground. The roof is a metal roof so you can imagine how loud it was. So we went around the side to check the boat and the wind had blown the entire canopy up and over the shop. It was one big piece of twisted metal. So we had to clean up all of that which took some time and didn't help my migraine at all. The migraine finally went away Monday morning. I guess this means its time to get my eyes checked again. I'm sure my eyes have gotten worse since my last eye appointment which was three years ago.

But the good news is that's it's St. Patrick's Day so I hope you all are wearing green. I am wearing green contrary to what people think. They are saying I'm wearing blue but it's a blue-green sweater. So it's in the green family and it so counts!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Book Club

One of my favorite movies is The Jane Austin Book Club. I don't own that movie and I need to make a note of picking a copy up the next time I'm at the store. But anyway, I absolutely love that movie. I'm not sure of why I love that movie so much except that I love the concept of a book club.

This week I was emailing with a friend back and forth regarding a book that I let her borrow to read. A couple of weeks ago we went to watch Dear John together. While we both loved the movie, I had told her that night that I loved the book so much more. She asked to borrow the book and then when she finished reading it we started comparing notes about the book and compared it to the film. While I loved the book better than the movie she loved the movie better than book. Now, do I wish she shared my sentiments about the book-movie comparison? Not necessarily. She had some good valid points for her reasoning and I feel I had good valid points on my reasoning. I loved the discussion (as much as you can through e-mail) and it got me to thinking.

What I loved about The Jane Austen Book Club is the fact that a small group of people read a book a month and got together to discuss the story and characters. They used their minds and imaginations and had intellectual conversations. Today's world is all visual now. We have a TV program for just about any story or genre you can come up with. We have virtual everything now where it's almost people telling us what to think and how to feel. I know that this doesn't apply to everything and everyone. But we live in such a virtual world that do people really use their minds? I know that they do but I hope you see where I'm going with this.

I love to read. I love to get wrapped up in a story and create the images of the characters in my mind. I love to visualize in my mind what their house, cars, clothing, and city would look like. As much as I love movies, I do prefer books ever them. When I read a book and then watch a movie based on that book I'm so disappointed. The characters and cities and situations are never what I had pictured in mind where I thought was a little better than what I actually saw on the screen.

I love the fact that books make me use my mind and make me think about things that I wouldn't ever before. I love the way they make me look at myself and ask what I would do if I were in that situation. I love how when you and a friend read the same book you are having personal face time with them and talking about what you got out of the story. This then lets you get closer to the soul of that friend and learn what they truly are about where you start to form a bond or closeness with that friend that you didn't have before. Your conversations go past the day to day business and clothes and small talk that you normally would have. I'm not saying that reading a book together is the only to find this closeness in friends and family but it's one way to do it. Or maybe I'm just trying to find the courage to and convince some friends (cough *Tammy* cough) to join me for a few months in trying out a book club with a few friends...no matter how busy you might be. That's another thing...who has the time these days? I'm just as busy as the next person but I think I could find time to squeeze this in.

Anyway, these are just thoughts floating around in this head of mine today. :)

Have a great weekend!

Sadness All Around

This has been a sad week it seems. I know that death is all around us every day and I know that it will touch us all in some way in our life. This week seems to be worse. I guess it started for me when I heard that Marie Osmond's son took his own life over a week ago. Now, I do not know the Osmonds personally but I am a fan. (That's right. I'm an Osmond fan and not ashamed who knows.) I think what made me so sad for them was the fact that they are so grounded in their faith but it's a faith that is so wrong. They seem to be unbelievably nice and sweet people and it hurts my heart to know that they are so far away from the truth but yet know the truth. Does that make sense? Plus, suicide just does not make sense to me. I just can't imagine being in a place where I think the only out is to kill myself. I know it happens and many people commit suicide every day but I just can't imagine what they are thinking in the midst of the act.

I'm assuming that most of you know that I work for my denomination, Free Will Baptists. I work in the Home Missions Department as the Administrative Assistant to Richard Atwood and David Crowe. Richard is the Director of Missionary Assistance and David is the Director of Development. I try not to talk about work too much on here since it is a National department and most of you that read this blog is a Free Will Baptist. I don't talk about it much because I don't want to get myself into trouble by saying the wrong thing or giving out too much details on certain things that happen within our department. But on Monday we did get a call from one of our missionaries saying that his wife's brother had died suddenly on Sunday. It was pretty devastating to them and so I'm asking if you will pray for LeAnn Ledbetter and her family. LeAnn and her husband Randy our missionaries to Salt Lake City, UT.

Then last night I was talking to my sister (in law) when I get a call from our General Director, Larry Powell. He had called to tell me that Richard Atwood's brother, Brian, had passed away from a heart attack in Huntsville, AL. Brian is the father of International Missionary to Spain, Brooke Turnbough. I went to college with Brooke and her brother Brandon. My heart goes out to all of them. Richard and his wife, Sandy, went to Huntsville last night to be with Brian's wife. It was a huge shock and we are getting many calls here at the office regarding it. Again, I ask for your prayers for the Atwood family.

Then, (I know the bad news keeps coming) I read online that the actor Corey Haim passed away early this morning. This saddens me almost as much as the death of Marie Osmond's son. The news reports say that he died of a drug overdose. I am a child of the 80's and so to see him pass away at just 38 years old was a shock.

So today feels so odd to me and I'm having a hard time trying to find a way to end this post. I guess it's just a reminder that the life is precious and we need to always tell the people around us that we love them. It's a reminder that we are here on this Earth for just a moment and we need to do all we can to tell people about Christ and to live and serve Him to the best of our ability.

I Don't Know What to Name This Post So This Will Have to Do. :)

I'm such a terrible blogger or at the least I'm a very inconsistent blogger. My dream is to blog everyday but sometimes I get too busy to blog but I try to blog at least a few times a week and last week I only made it to one day last week. But again, for the millionth time, I'll try to update more.

I had another great weekend. Alan (my wonderful and loving boyfriend) and I have gotten into a routine now when he comes up to Nashville to visit me every other weekend. Since we both work on Fridays and then he drives up we are both a little tired and don't want to go back out so we've gotten into the routine of my cooking dinner or ordering out and watching a movie. So on Friday I made a lasagna which was very good and I didn't have the fiasco as I did last time. Then we turned on The Informant. I was interested in seeing this movie because it takes place in Decatur, IL (my father's birthplace) and was the company ADM. My aunt worked there for years and my cousin is working there now. So I have a little bit of ties to the movie. But, oh mercy, that was a boring movie and we both pretty much fell asleep. I love Matt Damon but goodness that movie was not funny, it was confusing, and just plain boring.

Saturday we got up and browsed Home Depot. We went there with a purpose but browsed the light fixture section also with me dreaming of changing out all my light fixtures. I needed a new cord for my dryer and so we had gone there to get a new one and then my very handy boyfriend fixed it and now I have a dryer!! You just don't understand the level of excitement I have over this. I no longer have to drag my huge pile of laundry over to my parent's house every week. I guess I could have let everything air dry but really, I just didn't want to do that...plus I got a home cooked meal at least once a week. :) We then headed over to OpryMills mall and walked around and browsed some stores. That was a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time and I mean A LOT of time at Bass Pro Shop. We spent quite a bit of time looking at the boats and ATVs. Alan had a speed boat now and we plan to use it quite a bit once the weather gets warmer. I'm excited about that. Our relationship started in the winter where all it's done is snow and have bitter cold temperatures (at least bitter cold for AL and TN) and we haven't really done much but stay indoors and watch movies. We both are looking forward to getting out do some boating and all that other fun stuff outside.

I realized after going back on some posts that I really don't talk about Alan a whole lot. I know that after writing post after post of how I longed to find someone that I figured I would write about that once I did find someone. But now that I'm in this relationship I find that I don't necessarily want to share too much about us. I mean I am crazy in love with this guy and I seem to fall more in love every time I'm with him and we have the best time together. So even though I'll talk about him from time to time I just won't share as much as I thought I would.

Oh! I watched the Oscars last night and I was very happy to see Sandra Bullock win for The Blind Side. It was such a great movie and she did an exceptional job. Also, I think Meryl Streep is so cute and I wish she could have won also. She is one of my top favorite actresses.

Have a great week!

The Perfect Weekend

There are just moments in time that I want to freeze forever and really this weekend was it. We celebrated my nephew Luke's 2nd birthday. I wont' go into too much detail but he is just one cute kid and is just the sweetest thing to ever live. But I'm not a biased aunt or anything like that. LOL! Anyway, this weekend my family got together this weekend to spoil the kid rotten. I also got so spend some good quality time with my boyfriend since we hadn't seen each other in two weeks.

Friday night I got there around 7pm and we decided I would meet everyone at Logan's for dinner. But it was an hour and half wait to get in so they (my family) decided to try O'Charley's then Mellow Mushroom and after driving all over Tuscaloosa and realizing it would be a long wait no matter where we ended up they decided to just go back to my brother's house and order pizza. That was the very much condensed version of that story but there was frustration and the throwing of a cell phone in the car because some people kept changing their minds and others (me) was getting frustrated and tired of driving all over town after driving for 4 hours and was getting a little cranky and was done talking so I threw the phone where I couldn't reach it.

But finally we all made it to my brother's house and we had some awesome pizza and my frustrations melted away. Then on Saturday it was just a gorgeous beautiful day. The weather was just so springlike that I am now officially getting Spring Fever. Alan (my wonderful boyfriend) came over around 10am and we all just sat around and talked and played with the kids. Then Alan and I got bored so we took off for a few hours before the party started. He drove me over to where he works to show me the shop. Alan is a machinist and I never understand what he is talking about when he talks about his work so he took me there so show me some things. Nothing is really that much clearer but I do realize that what he does is something I could never do and that he works in a very dirty place. That place is so full of grease and grime and dirt. But it's a shop so what should I expect, right? But it was cool to see all those machines and he tried so hard to explain to me what everything did. I was glad to see that part of him.

After that we went down to the Riverfront and walked for a little while. It was so special to me. We just walked for awhile holding hands and talking...about everything and anything. Then we went down a path to where there was a tiny little beach and pebble area on the water and he tried to show me how to skip rocks on the water but every time I tried it my rocks would just plop down to the bottom. He could skip them for three or four times. I was proud. :) Then it started to get very windy and a little chilly so we decided to head back to my brothers since it was almost time for the party anyway. We had the party and ate hot dogs and watched Luke open his presents which consisted of cars, cars, and more cars. It was funny.

After that my parents headed back to Nashville, Chad and Jenny went to dinner with Jenny's parents and Alan and I headed back to his place to watch a movie and play some Rock Band. This boy has been trying to get me to play Rock Band since we first met and I always made excuses why I didn't want to but he finally wore me down and I played and I loved it! It was so much fun. I'm not so good on the drums but I can rock it out on the guitar. Later we headed back to Chad's and played some Wii bowling and tennis with Chad. Jenny had to give the kids a bath and put them to bed so she opted not to play.

Then on Sunday afternoon we just stayed at my brothers and watched Karate Kid II & III. I love Ralph Macchio! He was so dreamy. But anyway, it was just a perfect weekend. It might not sound like much and maybe it sounded boring to you but I just love doing a bunch of little things where you don't have to spend a lot or any money at all. I guess I just love the small stuff. It was the perfect weekend.

What more can you ask for?