Halfway to a Clean House

Well I have spent most of my day cleaning the back half of our house. The in-laws are coming on Thursday night and I don't want them thinking I make their son live in a pig-sty! Plus with us having been out of town so much, I haven't really given the house a good cleaning. That is what my wonderful cleaning people that are no more were for :(!

Today I cleaned both bathrooms, dusted and vaccummed both bedrooms and the office, and hand mopped the floors and baseboards for the bathrooms, laundry room, and the back hallway. Took me about 2 1/2 hours off and on, but it is now done! Tomorrow I have to bake cookies for Keith's work and I have laundry to do so that will most likely take up the day. Thursday I will do the floors of the kitchen, living, and dining room plus all of the dusting and counter cleaning! It will be a long day!

So that will be the extent of my week, work is REALLY slow this week so it gives me a good excuse... I am trying a few new recipes this week too, so if they come out any good I will post them! Tonight is Smothered Swiss Steaks... wish us luck!

Katie's Wedding and Mom in the Hospital

Well we are back from our short trip to Louisiana and it was great! On Friday I was lucky enough to go to my friend Katie's wedding and it was wonderful. Nice and laid back just like her! Here are some pictures...

The Happy New Couple!

Me and the Bride

Me and one of my best friends, John (he was an usher in our wedding)

Me and the Hubs

Unfortunately right before the wedding we did receive some awful news. My mom had a mini-stroke (as the doctor's called it) and has been hospitalized since Friday. As I write this she is actually getting released (YEAH!). She was telling a story to her kindergartners when she she started feeling dizzy, the words on the page went blurry, and her right arm started going numb. Luckily after the doctor's ran lots of test, they have been unable to find any damage from the stroke, but they did find 2 aneurysms (luckily the are VERY small). She will have to be on medication for who knows how long, and she will have to continue to see a neurologists to watch the aneurysms to make sure that they do not grow large enough to cause any problems. The doctor's are not worried about them now (which I am not sure makes me glad or worries me that something could happen at any time). But please do pray for her as this will most likely be a ongoing thing she will have to deal with!

Last night we had our first Gourmet Group! It was so much fun and the food was wonderful! We had Lemon Thyme Goat Cheese, a Spinach and Blueberry salad, Herb-crusted Beef Tenderloin, Orange-Glazed Asparagus, Pepper and Pine Nut Rice, and a Chocolate Raspberry Torte. All was aboslutely wonderful and the company was great too! I can't wait for our next one in May! Luckily one of the ladies is also working on finding me a job... so hopefully between myself and her I can find something!

Job Fair...

So before we leave for LA I just had to write this...

So I go to a job fair in Tyler today... and can I just say, did no one teach these people how to present themselves to potential employers!?!?!?!? You do not wear jeans and a sweatshirt with tennis shoes, and you don't where your mini skirt with your hooker heels.

Do people really not have more common sense than that?

Boring...

Not much to say over here this week... I have been very busy with work, laundry, and cleaning before we leave tomorrow night for 3 days in Louisiana. My boss is out of town for the next 2 days so I have a little more work than normal and I am still catching up with laundry from when I was out of town! Plus I have not been getting in my normal 30 minutes of cleaning as Keith has been home early and I like to spend what time he is home with him.

This weekend we will be going to LA for one of my best friend from highschool's wedding and to see the In-Laws new house in Covington. We are trying to fit as much as possible into the weekend along with eating as much as good food as is humanly possible! We are having a crawfish boil on Saturday and I am soo excited! It will be the 2nd time this season that I have gotten to eat it and I am so ready!!! Sunday night when we get back is our first Supper Club and I am very excited. I am in charge of the salad and am making a Blueberry Spinach salad. I will let you know how it turns out and share the recipe if it is good!

Alright well it is time to get back to work... don't know if I will have time to write tomorrow and if not expect a post Monday with LOTS of pictures from the weekend!

Oh Hobby Lobby... How I Love Thee!

So I am yet to express my dear love for Hobby Lobby. But yes... I love it and I am slightly obsessed. When we first moved to Tyler and needed some decor for them home, I think I spent at least 500 bucks there... yes, it is ridiculous! Oh and at Christmas time, we bought at least 250 bucks of Christmas decor. Now I never buy anything there at full price, always 50% off, so double those amounts and that is what I would have spent. Now why Hobby Lobby doesn't just cut their prices in half, as I seriously don't know anyone that does buy at full price, I just don't know!

Well I had to take a break for awhile from Hobby Lobby, but we had received a gift card for Christmas, so I figured it was time to go and spend it. So off we went on Saturday afternoon, and we probably spent at least an hour there! So here is what I purchased... 104 dollars worth of stuff at 50% off... so 52 bucks... with a 30 dollar gift card... got 6 things for $22... Wonderful!

Also, Hobby Lobby has the Wilton Cake Classes and I have been eyeing them for the past 9 months... so I have finally decided to sign up for Class 1 and it starts April 6th! So excited! I will definitely share about it once the classes start.

I have also become very fond of cooking with fresh herbs lately thanks to all of my Food Network watching. So yesterday, off we went to Lowe's to make a small herb garden and to add a little decoration to the front of our house (saying the people that lived here before us destroyed the bushes in front of our door).
So there is our new little garden. I now have fresh cilantro, sweet basil, mint, rosemary, Greek oregano, and sage. I can't wait to use them in my cooking! I tried to find purple and gold flowers for accent, but they didn't seem to have them, so I had to go with a pinkish-purple flower and a orange-gold one.

Other than those 2 outings, the rest of our weekend was very uneventful. Just church and some grocery shopping. I am trying to do my best to clip coupons and search for the sales, and I saved 25 dollars between Wal-mart and Brookshire's. Not bad for my first try!

I'm Back!

Well we made it back to Tyler about 7 last night and I have really been non-stop since then. Keith has to leave at 7 am tomorrow morning for 4 days away for work which means I have lots of clothes to wash before he goes and errands to run to make sure he has everything ready. So far today... I am on my 4th load of laundry (please note... this is just Keith's stuff from the week!), I have helped to wash the car, and I have done lots of organizing! I can't go and run any of the errands yet as Keith is waxing my car, but I guess that gives me an excuse to do more cleaning! Still want to try and get the living room cleaned up today and of course my suitcase unpacked!

So I decided that it was finally time to do a little more spring organizing! Today I have done the linen closet, the bookshelf in the office, the spice cabinet, the dish towel drawer, the utensil drawer, and 2 miscellaneous drawers in the kitchen. Yes, I have been a pretty busy bee! Below are some before and after shots of some of my work!

The Linen Closet... Before

The Linen Closet... After

The Office Bookshelf... Before

The Office Bookshelf... After

The Towel Drawer... Before

The Towel Drawer... After

I still have plans to clean the shelves in the bathroom that just seem to collect everything in the world and also the pantry which is just a disaster! Not sure when I will get to those, but they will get done!

We have plans to leave for Louisiana on Thursday night for a wedding Friday and to spend some time at Keith's parents new house and I just can't wait! I am definitely ready to go and eat some yummy food!! Oh how I miss Louisiana food... I seriously could go on for days about all the food I would currently love to eat in Louisiana. Oh how I would kill for some Parrains, or boiled crawfish from Gator Cove... oh my mouth is watering just thinking about it!

Pictures... Pictures... Pictures

I was able to get some pictures off of my camera to share with you. So here they are!

Austin getting baptized by the same Pastor that married Shawn and Jenn.

Us with the little guy after the baptism

Austin with his Uncle Keith... Jennifer has the best picture of them on her camera!

This is the face that you will see 95% of the time from the little guy. He is always happy!

Other than hanging out with my favorite little guy not much has been going on. I was able to complete 2 miles outside yesterday (and in the hills around here that is way harder than I expected) so I am that much closer to completing a 5K on my own. I plan to run in the Race for the Cure in Tyler in early May. If I keep my current training schedule up and the weather stays nice, I should be able to run the 3.2 miles outside by mid-April at the latest. The hopefully I can just focus on speeding up my time a bit.

Should be back to normal posting next week when I am back at home!