Meet Madison

As reported earlier, I met my friend Amy's little girl, Madison, for the first time last night. This beautiful child is the result of many answered prayers. And she's precious! Only God could make a child so perfectly precocious and adorable that you just want to squeeze her. What can I say... I'm a sucker for sugar and spice and everything nice.

Summertime

Copyright infringement... I totally stole this from Shannon's blog, so I'm hoping she'll give me some relief from litigation. But I thought it was the most fun pic I've seen in awhile. I have some cute relatives, huh?

Perfect weather, perfect friends

It's been a very long day and I'm tired, so I don't have much to say tonight. I do want to report, however, that my weekend at Nebo was about as perfect as it could have been. I don't get to see my Tech friends as much as I'd like, but it's great to know that I've been gone for over eight years and we still hang out and visit and have a great time, no matter how much time has passed.

Scott and Alisa put out quite the spread all weekend, making homemade sushi for dinner on Saturday night, and hosting a shrimp boil for my birthday last night. Thomas and Amy and Mike and Shauna were able to join us with their families, and we had a fabulous time. The weather was perfect, the food amazing, and the company was flawless.

Everyone's kids are growing way too fast, and this is the first time I've ever seen Madison, who is one of the cutest little girls ever. I'll write more tomorrow about the weekend, but for now, please watch the video of the party.

Thanks for a great time!

My natal anniversary

Today was exactly what I wanted.

After indulging in a morning latte and (my favorite!) white chocolate raspberry scone, I went to weekly devo, where they sang "Happy Birthday" to me. In harmony. It was quite impressive.

Brent and Kent from the Rogers office came over and joined Chris in taking me out to lunch, where I had chicken parmesan and chocolate pecan pie for dessert. They also gave me a box of chocolates which created multiple opportunities for them to channel Forrest Gump. It was a long lunch.

One of my favorite things about my job, believe it or not, is that my coworkers feel like family, in both the good ways and the bad. They make work fun, but they also harass me mercilessly and give me a hard time about telling the same stories over and over. I also, evidently, ask people to remind me to do stuff too often. Who knew?

I went over to the Corridor this afternoon to meet Dad and Vickie for dinner. We had a nice visit and a good meal.

I'm really very sleepy and ready to go to bed, but I hate for the day to be over.

Thanks to all of you for the phone calls, cards, texts, and e-mails. You made me feel truly loved!

Happy birthday to me

I am in official birthday countdown mode (it's a mere five hours for those of you who still need to overnight my presents).

I love any day when others realize that the world revolves around me. All kidding aside, I don't need presents. I just demand that everyone acknowledge my natal anniversary. I've already gotten five birthday cards (thank you Granny, Memaw Kat, Estella, Paige and Kelly), and that makes me so happy.

Tomorrow three guys from work are taking me to lunch. Granted, I dropped hints for about a week to get a lunch invite, but still... there will be frivolity and hopefully some singing. Then Dad and Vickie are meeting me in Fayetteville for dinner. This weekend I'm headed up to Mount Nebo to spend a couple of nights with Scott and Alisa, so I'm managing to stretch this birthday into several days.

Only 366 more days 'til the next one.

Office style

Those of you who work for organizations that have July 1 fiscal years know about this time of June. After 11.5 months of frugality, of writing on both sides of post-it notes and stealing pens from the bank drive through, you spend the last two weeks of June trying to spend the last dregs of your budget. See, you don't want to leave any money in there since it doesn't get rolled over into next year, and you certainly don't want the bean counters to think that you don't need it and therefore give you less the next year, so you give yourself permission to purchase things that you'd never buy in October.

I've been living in a man's office since January. I inherited a cracked burgundy leather wing-back chair (which was merely on loan) and some navy and tan buffalo-checked curtains. So I've slowly been trying to feminize my office in the past few months. It began with replacing the plain navy lamp with a purple one. One of the empty nails now contains a Kandinsky print. But my office still lacked personality. I felt like I was merely a temporary resident there.

Until today. Today I spent the afternoon shopping for office stuff. And yeah, office furniture isn't too fun, but it was cool to get to pick out chairs that actually match and have some style. Plus I got a brand new desk chair with lumbar support. I also purchased a decent shower curtain to replace the maroon liner that's covering my teal green bathtub.

Hey, I spend more time in my office than I do at my house. It should at least be stylish, right?

8 years ago...

... sweet little Brady Reece joined our family. Happy birthday, BR!

Brady's birthday party

Yesterday was Brady's birthday party. The kids had a blast. Brady's really into anything Army right now.



Hope loved the pool, but wouldn't take off her life jacket.



Peyton hates it when I take his picture, but I caught him a couple of times yesterday.



Chance, Brady and Avery jumped off the diving board about 100 times.



Chance and Brady were born 7 weeks apart. They don't see each other often, but they are still great buds.



Brady even swims in his Army hat, including diving off the diving board.



This pretty much captures how Peyt felt at the end of the day... worn out.

Happy birthday, Dr. Jen

Wishing a happy (albeit belated) birthday to the incomparable Jen. Her birthday was actually yesterday, but she spent it celebrating her son's birthday, which is tomorrow. What a great mom!

The good news is that she got to spend her birthday with me. The bad news is that she had to spend it with the rest of my family. :) Pics later.

5K=a long way

Well, I finished. I didn't win. I only ran about 100 yards. But I finished 3.2 miles in 44 minutes. Not too shabby.

Granted, there were old people, a guy pushing two kids in a stroller, a woman with a dog, an 8-year-old, and a lady with emphysema who finished ahead of me, but at least I didn't come in last.

There were ten whole people who finished behind me. Jen came in 18th. Pretty impressive.

We celebrated by going to Cracker Barrel where Lonnie said he wasn't very hungry, then promptly ordered three pancakes, grits, two eggs, turkey sausage, biscuits and gravy, and hashbrown casserole.

Running nowhere

Do you ever feel like a hamster, spinning around on a wheel, running your little legs off, and never getting anywhere? Today was one of those days for me.

I'm the only one in my office all week, at least in theory since I was out all day on Monday and most of the day yesterday. I did work in the office nearly all day today, with the exception of the time I spent getting a massage. That's considered work-related, right?

Anyway, I realized today that I'm one of those bosses with fleeting self-awareness and little or no understanding of how to do simple tasks. I did answer the phone all day and managed to talk intelligently and answer most questions. It's amazing how much you can figure out when your back's against the wall. So I started feeling good about myself and my abilities, until I realized that I hadn't gotten any mail this week.

See, every other day the mail has just appeared on my desk. Hmmm... turns out that someone actually has to go to the post office. And know the combination. Weird.

When did I turn into Michael Scott?

I'm having company the next two nights (Amanda tomorrow night and Lon and Jen on Friday night), so I cleaned the house tonight and walked a couple of miles. The treadmill did nothing to alleviate my hamster on a wheel feeling.

Sunday/Monday recap

Ok, this is about the cutest thing EVER! My grandmother and I stopped to visit Parker and Emma (and Larry and Ashley) last night after dinner. They are growing like weeds! They're now smiling and laughing and really responding. Ashley took this pic a couple of weeks ago (I bought them the outfits!). Don't you just want to squeeze them?



My grandmother asked if they were identical. I said, "No, one of them has a pee pee."

After surviving the strong winds last night that knocked out the power and downed power lines and tree limbs all over the Fort, I met my friend Susan at the country club to work at a golf tournament. Thankfully no one had a video camera on us as we, quite comically, struggled to put up a tent in the rain. Then it stopped raining just after we were done. By that time I had frizzy hair and two inches of mud on the bottom of my pants. The rest of the day was pleasant, and we got to visit in between guys stopping by for our bananas, cereal bars, and bottled water.

I dropped $113 on running gear at Academy Sports this afternoon. You may recall that Lonnie, Jen and I are going to "run" in a 5K this Saturday (the quotes are for Lon and me, who will probably walk 90% of it). Needless to say, if I'm going to run five feet I need to look good. So I bought new shorts, two shirts, running socks, and an industrial strength sports bra.

After a pedicure at my favorite nail place (yes, I'm a brat), I came back to Siloam and met my friends John and Tricia for dinner. Now I'm just unloading my car and thinking I need to get on the treadmill. But I probably won't.

Yesterday, after Sunday School, I headed to the big city of Midland (pop. 221) to celebrate Dad's day with my dad, stepmom, brother, nephews, and niece. I also got to see the famous Uncle Cecil Missouri, who's evidently forgiven me for deserting her five months ago. We ate burgers and watched Chance try out his new golf club while Hope played with her imaginary baby sister. When we left, Hope told Brad, "Bye, Daddy. Happy Fodders Day." It was cute.

This coming weekend is Brady's birthday party, so I called to find out what he wanted. He wants cash to buy a big screen TV. Lucky thing his mom's a doctor.

I hope everyone had a happy Fodders Day and sustained little or no wind damage. Is it too early to go to bed?!?

Happy Dad's day!

It's Father's Day, so let's all take a moment to pay tribute to our dads. Mine is almost as groovy now as he was during the 70s.

Joyful and useful

This morning I went to work to help with freshman registration. I love to see the new class come in every year, and it was especially awesome to hear the new students singing "How Great is Our God" acapella in the chapel (and yes, I cried just like always).

Our president said something that I thought was profound (and I'm not sucking up; I doubt he reads this)... he told the new students that God wants us to be joyful and useful.

Joyful and useful. Wow. I feel especially grateful today because, for the first time in many years, I feel both of those things in my work. How great is our God, indeed.

Num-huh?

In case you haven't seen this:

It's not you, it's me

Four times in the past 24 hours I've uttered the phrase, "There's no easy way to say this..." That's a tough thing for me to say, so obviously I'm not a man.

There's a fine line between being kind when giving bad news and opening the door for argument. It's a delicate balance, and I learned the hard way to be as vague as possible. People may say that they value honesty, but at the end of the day, no one really wants to hear that there's someone smarter or prettier or who has a better personality. We want to hear, "We went another way" or "It's not you, it's me."

So perhaps honesty isn't always the best policy. There have been many times when I've wondered why I didn't get a job or why someone dumped me, but looking back, I realize that I really didn't want to know that a potential boss didn't like my personality or that the thought of spending one more day as my boyfriend was unbearable.

So we say all the things we're supposed to say, like "We'll stay friends" when we know we won't, or "I hope the girl you did hire works out well" when we hope she doesn't.

But as I've grown older I have realized that saying those words is almost as hard as hearing them. No one wants to be the bad guy. But sometimes you have to be.

Summer in the (small) city

I really hate summer TV.

Oh, I know, I should be outside doing something active, like swimming or watching baseball or planting flowers. Instead I'm watching "What Not to Wear" on my DVR and catching up on my Netflix.

Tonight's selection was "August Rush." Heavy on the sap, light on the plausibility. Seriously. I love romantic movies--happy endings a must--but this was too cheesy even for me. She gives birth, thinks the kid dies, he becomes a music prodigy in an orphanage (and Robin Williams is somehow intertwined in this), then he uses his composition to draw his parents to him in Central Park. And they haven't seen each other since their one night together... Um, sure. That would happen.

I'm also fighting an infection as my summer allergy attack has seemed to settle in my right eye. That ain't cute.

I did get up to exercise this morning at 6 a.m., then I spent all day in a job interview (as an interviewer, not interviewee). So I've paid my Tuesday dues.

It's 8:41 and I can't wait to go to sleep.

Weekend weecap

I'm still a brat. I had a great weekend of good friends and fantastic food in Mountain Home. We canceled our Branson shopping trip in lieu of a lazy Saturday of napping. We caught SATC during the Saturday matinee, so I've now seen the movie three times in three different cities. It's still great!

I have some pics I'll post tomorrow.

An abbreviated post

Wow. I haven't updated this thing since Tuesday.

I was talking to my Aunt Kathy tonight and she mentioned that she thought about calling me today since I hadn't written on my blog in a few days. I responded that the reason I've been lax in writing is because I really have nothing to say. She said that I could just write about how awesome she is.

So that's what I'll do. My Aunt Kathy is amazing. And I'm not just saying that because she told me to. Well, I sorta am. But it's true, anyway.

That's all for now. I'm excited about watching "Army Wives." So I'll write more tomorrow.

Just do it

If the journey of a thousand miles truly begins with a single step, then perhaps the journey of three miles begins with 3/4 of a mile. At least that's what I'm hoping, since that's how far I made it this morning before I thought my lung was going to collapse.

I've always wanted to run a 5K. Jen and I had plans to run one in Fayetteville in April, but since there was a lack of exercise coupled with the addition of poundage at that time, I didn't do it.

She's running one in Springdale this month, so I'm going to, too. Oh yeah, I have only 17 days to work up to three miles, but I am determined to finish, even if I have to walk the whole thing.

Keep in mind that a mere 8 days ago I consumed an entire bag of Oreos, 14 diet cokes, and the only exercise I got was waddling from my bed to the couch. I haven't had a carbonated beverage in over a week (can't say that about caffeine anymore, but small steps). I actually set my alarm and got up and spent 30 minutes on the treadmill this morning, including a 3/4 mile spurt of running. I've already had 80 ounces of water today. So even if I don't lose a pound, at least I'm on my way to being healthier. And maybe my jeans will fit.

Texas-bound boys

I've mentioned before that my two favorite cousins, Scott and Lonnie, married well above themselves. The beautiful and talented Shannon took some great pics of Jen's family this past weekend. Feel free to check them out. Huey, Dewie and Louie have never looked so handsome (or so well behaved)!

Time flies

Remember when you were a kid, and time seemed to drag? The minutes between lunch and afternoon recess seemed to tick by slowly, and it felt like summer vacation would never get here. When it finally did, I couldn't wait for my birthday, but it seemed that month or so was an eternity... time filled with Bible school and slip-n-slides by day and chasing fireflies at night.

Now I'm reeling from the breakneck pace of the past four months, in disbelief that it's nearly time to blow out 36 candles on my birthday cake. I've been driving for 20 years, but it seems like yesterday that I took my first drivers' test, right after Mom and Dad bought me my dream car, a '88 Pontiac Grand Am with a cassette player. I drove it to basketball practice listening to "Must Have Been Love" by Roxette and checking out my hair in the rearview mirror, which I'd sprayed with hair spray and blown dry to stick out as far as possible.

Time, it seems, doesn't just fly when you're having fun. It flies when you're busy working and buying groceries at Wal-Mart. When you're paying electric bills and doing laundry.

I'm not quite sure which is worse: time passing too slowly when you're a child or too quickly when you age. There's either too much or not enough. And you wake up one day and realize you didn't appreciate those lazy nights of bike rides and lightening bugs nearly enough.

The other half

I come from modest beginnings. I grew up in a town of 700 people. My childhood was filled with love and friends, but eating out usually consisted of KFC (known back then as the politically-incorrect Kentucky Fried Chicken) on Sundays and Western Sizzlin on special occasions. We stayed in motels where you could park outside your door and enjoy a vibrating bed if you had enough quarters.

I'm lucky enough now to have a job that requires a lot of time in nice restaurants and moderately nice hotels. But this weekend proved to me, once again, that I was meant to be treated well.

Kelly and I arrived in Tulsa around 7 Friday night and were given the key to our room on the gold-status floor (Kelly travels a lot with her job)... a floor that you had to insert your room key in the elevator to gain access to. Our room had a sweeping view of one of Tulsa's nicest neighborhoods. Our beds were plush. Our morning meal was served in an exclusive lounge on our exclusive floor, where a nice lady brought me juice when I was thirsty and kleenex when I sneezed. I could definitely get used to being pampered.

After Sorne and Amanda joined us at the hotel Friday night, we drove to Cheesecake Factory for dinner, where I enjoyed a delicious ahi tuna salad, followed by decadent lemon raspberry cheesecake. And, since we were celebrating Sorne's birthday, our waitress was nice enough to bring her dessert (apple crisp) to the table with a special message and a song.



Sorne and me



Amanda and Kelly



After dinner we headed to the theatre, where we stood in line with hundreds of other women, many of them overdressed in really tacky clothes, to see the 10:30 p.m. showing of "Sex and the City." I must say, as a huge fan of the TV show, I was not at all disappointed. It was 160 minutes that I didn't want to end. I know the reviews have been mixed, but I thought it was fabulous. And Sorne, who's never seen a single episode, loved it, too.

So we got back to the hotel around 2 a.m., when Amanda stopped at the front desk to ask for her doubletree chocolate chip cookie. We rehashed the movie and Kelly's love life until around 3, when we finally all went to sleep.

After breakfast and showers, we all headed to the mall for some serious shopping (and a 10-minute massage for Kelly and me), after which we ate a late lunch at Macaroni Grill. It was my favorite meal of pasta and heavy cream, and given that I'd eaten raw veggies and fruit all week, I paid for it all the way home and all night last night. There weren't enough Tums in the world.

I was in bed around 8 last night, and after waking up with a stomachache at 2 a.m. and a hail storm at 5 a.m., I finally crawled out of bed at 8 this morning and got ready for church. I took a 2-hour nap this afternoon, then went to the theatre here in town by myself (something I've never done) to watch a movie twice in 48 hours (another thing I've never done).

What a great weekend! I feel really lucky to have such great friends. Friends who appreciate fine dining, good entertainment, great shopping, and fantastic conversation.

Happy birthday, Sorne!