Friends and VBS... Oh, what a weekend!

This past week was the first week of the Spring semester for me and the hubs. Needless to say, the week was insane! After having a month off school getting back into study mode is a bit rough. The poor kid is back to watching us study every night. However, we make it a point to have dinner together and watch a 30 minute show together.

The weekend before school started, I was able to fit a ton of stuff into 72 hours. I was able to spend some time with an awesome friend  I haven't seen since since 2006,  as well her family. The on Sunday I got to have dinner with 4 of my favorite girls. All of this time with friends, old and new, made me realize how blessed I am to have awesome ladies in my life.

On Thursday and Friday I got to do some awesome work. Really it didn't feel so much like work, as a ton of fun and discovery. I attended Lifeway's VBS Preview and was blessed to sit in on a couple of lectures ranging from how to teach the entire week of 1st-2nd grade VBS to the best ways to relate to preteens. I also was able to get a ton of pictures of the decoration ideas that Lifeway always offers. I have posted a few of the pics below. This stuff is awesome and can go from a small budget to a well expensed budget:

Victoria Falls. Made from foam board, sheets and pillow stuffing for the white water foam at the bottom.

The Northern Lights. This picture doesn't do it justice. Twinkle lights are in the sheer fabric.

The Great Barrier Reef. Made from foam board and the bubbles are made by hanging clear glass Christmas ornaments

The Matterhorn. Made from foam board.

Motorized propeller on the plane all made from plywood. The motor was powered by a riding lawnmower battery.

The Grand Canyon. Made from foam board.

Adorable wall art made from poster board.

Paricutin Volcano. Made from foam board.

Busy Day

I think today has been one of the busiest days I have had in a long time. It started with taking the Kid and his best friend to school, then off to work for me. They didn't have tennis this morning due to semester exams. I am still trying to get used to a school systems that does semester exams AFTER Christmas break. The concept is so weird to me. So, the kid has a half day of school today and tomorrow. Anyways, I was off to work to await the start of the Lifeway VBS Preview which is being hosted by TABC. Lifeway has taken over the church. For the past few days we have helped get this event set up and ready to launch. I will take lots of pics to share. Lifeway goes all out for these events. It is really exciting and gets people ramped up to start planning a church's biggest summer activity. This year's theme is Amazing Wonders Aviation.The big stuff starts tomorrow and I am ready.

However, today I left work at noon to go pick up the kid for a meeting with the youth pastor at TABC. It was time for the kid to tour the youth areas and talk to the pastor about any questions he may have about switching churches. (For the past year and a half, we have attended a church close to home while I worked in the Children's Ministry Department at another church. It was hard for me to split myself between two churches, so now we are making the switch.) The kid did well. He is high functioning autistic and has anxiety issues with new and unfamiliar situations. He only acted out a few times and it was all towards me. He would cover my eyes and give me bunny ears. You could definitely tell he was anxious/nervous about the tour and meeting new people, but he did pretty awesome. After the tour, we had to go back towards the house to buy my school books. $324.00 later, I had my books for this semester. After acquiring my books, we went to meet the hubs in downtown Fort Worth for an early dinner. We ate at Pie Five Pizza. We each got our own personal pizza. I got a veggie pizza which included artichoke hearts, 3 types of olives, tomatoes, roasted peppers and onions and feta cheese. Feast your eyes upon the yumminess:

Finally, we are home and I get spend some time with the family and enjoy a restful evening.

Regularly Scheduled Life Full Steam Ahead

In the process of having a two week vacation from life, I have gotten terribly of schedule. The hubs had to wake me up at 10:30 this morning. I was in a dead sleep. It doesn't help that after a 2-3 hour nap on the couch last night, I suffered a bout of insomnia from midnight to approximately 3:30am. I really should not have taken that nap. So here I sit at 11:45am still in my pj's and drinking coffee. Tomorrow morning I have to be bright-eyed and bushy tailed for a mass of children at 8:45am. Dear Lord, the amount of coffee I will have to consume is terrifying.

On another hand, it is New Years Eve. My plans are to get some regular sleep and make it to work on time tomorrow. I also have a couple of projects I need to finish (start), take down all of the Christmas decorations and wash some laundry. Exciting times in this house.

My goal for the new year is to lose the 10 lbs I rapidly gained as a result of going off all medication I was on. Also over indulgence has played a huge part in the weight gain. Seriously, 4 lbs was overnight. Due to one medication, I was able to eat whatever I wanted, not exercise and not gain a pound. This was the only upside to the medication. It was like a consolation prize for the other side effects which included memory loss and a compromised immune system. It is like the makers marketing slogan was "So what if you can't remember your address, child's name, if you paid bills or missing complete blocks of time and you are constantly sick...At least you're skinny!" So now, after years of trying to keep my weight up so I didn't have to drink the horrible, nasty vitamins in a bottle weight gain shakes, I am now welcomed into the club of regular women who are trying to lose the excess holiday weight. This is where the plan for The Couch to 5K in 10 Weeks comes in to play. Below is the plan and it seems easy enough to follow. I even have a treadmill, so there should be no excuses.

I wish you all a very happy and safe New Year's Eve! Let me know your plans for New Years Eve. It is fun to live vicariously through others. I am off to do shopping, laundry and to de-holidayize (yeah, I made up that word) along with various projects I wanted to have done by now.

Oh So Southern Belle: A quiet week, sort of

Oh So Southern Belle: A quiet week, sort of

A quiet week, sort of

The kid has been out of town this week and it has been pretty quiet around the house... I have been able to spend some quality time with my hubby. We have watched a ton of movies including the Sherlock Holmes sequel. The movie was good, not as good as the first Sherlock Holmes movie, but it definitely was worth seeing in the theater. I won't give any spoilers for anyone who has not seen it yet. We also finally finished watching all of the Harry Potter movies. Since it has been awhile (years really) since I read all of the books, I had a hard time comparing 6, 7 pt1 and 7pt2 to the books. I guess that is a positive point to a bad memory.

We also went to eat sushi. This is a big deal because the hubby lost his sushinity. We went to two places: Sushi Sam (first night) and Cowtown Sushi (2nd visit a couple of days later).  I started him off easy with the popular and easy to eat California roll,  and we shared a salmon roll, spicy tuna roll and Sushi Sam's Super Sam roll. It is a California roll with shrimp tempura added. The salmon roll was definitely the weakest roll. It was a bit slimy and not the best I have ever had before. I think we both had once piece and didn't eat the rest. We ordered the calamari tempura and it was okay. A bit overcooked. I will leave calamari to Italian restaurants. Sushi Sam was absolutely packed and the prices were fair. Cowtown Sushi was better, but a little more pricey and had an intimate feel. We ordered the California roll, a Philadelphia roll, a cajun roll (crawfish tempura) and a spicy tuna. Some of the rolls were rolled a little sloppy, but in all tasted better. I was not pleased by the appetizer of tempura combination (2 crab legs and a few random pieces of veggies). it was way over breaded and over cooked. The price for Cowtown was just a few dollars more than Sushi Sam. Overall, both had their ups and downs, but I think I preferred Cowtown over Sushi Sam.

My other guilty pleasure for the week has been Pinterest. I have several projects I am working on and also learned a new way to style my hair. I did this to my hair, although my hair is a few inches shorter.

Road Trippin

This year the kid goes to his dad's for Christmas day. Actually, he spends a whole week. We had our Christmas at home last Saturday. The kid was over the moon and acted like a 5 yr old waiting for Santa, rather than a 12 year old boy whose parents are the gift provider. So last night we took to the routine of packing him up and arguing about what stuff he can take to his dad's house. No, the laptop can't go, yes your mp3 player is fine. No, can't take wiimotes, your dad has some. It is an argument we have every time...for the past 6 years.

Now we are east bound to meet at the 1/2 point for the switch. This is a 3 1/2 hour trip one way for all parties. It has become old hat by now, but not any easier on the heart to have him gone for a week. We will miss him and a week from now I will jumping up and down to get him back. The house is entirely too quiet without him. The upside is a week with my hubby and ample time to work on crafty stuff. I could clean the house but who wants to do that?

Procrastination at its best

Today I should be doing laundry and packing my son's suitcase for him to go out of town. I am procrastinating. I hate to see him go for a week. We have enjoyed a week of visits to the aquarium , hanging out with friends and just plain laziness.  Today I even let him sleep as long as he wanted. Being that he is about two blinks of an eye to being the dreaded teenager, he slept until 11:45am. I dropped off one of the dogs at the vet, went to the dreaded super-mart, decorated my laundry soap jar (recipe for laundry soap here) and created a blog. It has been a productive morning, just not the stuff I need to get done. So, maybe I will go eat some lunch and really get started on my chores for the day.