Signs Point to 50!

So did any of you bloggie-readers out there notice that on the right side (where it has the montly archives) it only said like 48 when I posted that it was my 50th post? (You're thinkin', yeah right - like I pay THAT close attention to this thing...) Anyway, if you ever write a "draft" and don't actually post it, it makes it seem like you have more posts than you really do. So this is the REAL 50th post. I think. Maybe.

Apparently at some point near the beginning of the year, I felt the need to start a post about my zodiac sign and how it relates to J-dog's zodiac sign. (Okay, seriously?) Well, I don't believe all this stuff, but sometimes it just makes me laugh when God sneaks a little truth into these goofy things. I'll paste them below and bold the things that stand out to me. :)

LEO - The Lion (Me)
Great talker. Passionate. Laid back. Usually happy, but when unhappy tend to be grouchy and childish. A leo's problem becomes everyone's problem. Most Leos are very predictable and tend to be monotonous. Knows how to have fun. Is really good at almost anything. Very predictable. Outgoing. Down to earth. Addictive. Attractive. Loud. Loves being in long relationships. Talkative. Not one to mess with. Rare to find. Good when found.

ARIES - The Aggressive (haha - Jason)
Outgoing. Lovable. Spontaneous. Not one to mess with. Funny. EXTREMELY adorable. Loves relationships, and family is very important to an aries. Aries are known for being generous and giving. Addictive. Loud. Always has the need to be 'Right'. Aries will argue to prove their point for hours and hours. Aries are some of the most wonderful people in the world.

No, you can't describe a person fully in a few sentences, but some of these things are really true about us. Jason is soooo funny, lovable, crazy about his family, generous (almost to a fault), and is always right... even when he's not. :) And I never stop talking, love being in long relationships, basically happy, but man, when I'm not, I am definitely childish and grouchy. (Just keepin' it real.)

Okay, that's all for now. Look for something a little more spiritual coming up soon. :)

August Birthday Celebration!

Here are some pictures from the August B'day Celebration at my house last Sunday!


The party people!! Everyone turned 23 during August (except me, I'm the baby.)

The yummy food!!

My beautiful backyard area with tons of wonderful friends!

Brandon brought his bocce set for everyone to play.

They were pretty hardcore!!!

Finally, Dash/Jason entertained everyone with the old "I can hold my dog up by a handle" trick. It was a hit. (He's just so cute!!)

We had a blast and only wish we had invited more people!!! :) There's always next year!

My A-Z List (from J.Martin)/my 50th Post!

A- Attached or Single? Well, I'm not single! I'm as attached as I can be without being officially attached. Make sense? Good.

B- Best Friend: Cara (HS bff), Emily and Samantha (college roomies), Alex, Emily, and Becca (NEW-cleus girls), oh, and Jason, yeah him too. :)

C- Cake or Pie: yellow cake with chocolate frosting (but dadgum - the BF makes some yummy peanut butter pies...)

D- Drink of Choice: trying to be water... Cherry Coke, Dr.P, Code Red, and sweet tea (oh, and cream with a little coffee in it at work)

E- Essential Item: cell phone

F- Favorite Color: hard question... greens and blues?

G- Gummi Bears or Worms: worms... my fav are those peach things though

H- Hometown: Signal Mountain, TN (next week we will have been living there 22 years!)

I- Indulgence: peanut butter m&ms... and chick flicks... together, if possible.

J- January or February: January because it's a blue month as opposed to red... (don't ask)

K- Kids: not yet!

L- Life, for me, is incomplete without: trying to understand Jesus' sacrifice, my family/friends, my Jason

M- Marriage Date: in the future...

N- Number of Siblings: 2

O- Oranges or Apples? mandarin oranges

P- Phobia/Fears: heights (big time!) and fear of not being liked (hey, I'm just keepin' it real.)

Q- Favorite Quote: "In the end it'll all be okay; if it's not okay, it's not the end."

R- Reasons to smile: being in love, having great friends, having a dog that gets more excited to see me each time I come home

S- Season: football :)

T- Tag Ten: sorry Jen, I don't understand what this means... :-\

U- Unknown fact about me: most of the time, I'd rather be doing something than nothing

V- Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals: I. Eat. Meat.

W- Worst Habit: biting my fingernails... yeah yeah yeah... tell me how gross it is, I know. I'm TRYING TO STOP!!

X- X-rays or Ultrasounds: don't like the doctor...

Y- Your Favorite Foods: hashbrown casserole, fried okra, zucchini, mashed potatoes, fried squash, asparagus, mac & cheese, anything my dad cooks on the grill, anything my mom cooks that has the word "fried" in front of it

Z- Zodiac: Leo

Collector's Edition 1

"My dear, dear friends! I love you so much. I do want the very best for you. You make me feel such joy, fill me with such pride. Don't waver. Stay on track, steady in God." --Phil. 4:1 (Msg)

Alright people, you heard me talk about it a few weeks ago: I'm really enjoying ready parts of The Message translation of the Bible. I think it's really helping me get a perspective I've been lacking on the relevancy of Scriptures. It's like I've read a bunch of stuff before but I've just been reading it, ya know? And I read most of Philippians this morning and I'm finally grasping some of the things Paul talks about. God is good.

I have been SCRAPBOOK/PICTURE happy lately. Yes, I am a scrapbooker. And pretty proud of it. I love having the memories captured with random notes and things you wouldn't remember unless you wrote it down. I printed off a bunch of picture from things that have happened recently: weddings, Ponte Vedra, my birthday (so far), etc. and started making pages. Now I just need to go to Mamaw's house (my mom's mom) to use all her fun stuff to make the pages cooler!! Man, I love spending time with Mamaw. She's really fun but also proper. (Haha - she would laugh out loud if she read that.) She's gotten me really interested in geneology also, which I would love to sit down with her and talk more about.

When we were little, my brother (the Fireman) and I would always have tea parties at her house. We LIVED for those tea parties, and dadgumit, if she wasn't planning on doing it that time, we were SAAAAAAAAD. It was definitely one of those traditions I miss.

Since those times, I have become obsessed with collecting teacups and saucers. Okay but here's the thing...

...I only have like 3. ::gasp:: I know, I know. What kind of "obsessive collector" does that make me. Not much of one... But they're just so beautiful! Things like:

and just make me so happy!! (I'll take pictures of the ones I actually own soon and post those.)

Not a tea set, just the teacups. No, they're not practical, and yes, I'm very picky about which ones I like. (That first one YES, the second one I'm still thinking...)

I just thought you'd like to know about some hobbies of mine. Scrapbooking, taking pictures, (potentially) geneology, and (eventually) collecting teacups. Am I strange?

Don't answer that.

This day's been crazy, but everything's happened on schedule.

What a fun weekend! What did I do? Not much of nothin'!! YAY! It was fab. Let me quickly recap my Thursday for you, since I chose not to post about it when it was all fresh on my mind.

My work gets a discounted monthly rate at the Rush, where I'm already a member, so I thought, hey - it's $10 cheaper a month, of COURSE I'm gonna get that changed. So it seemed like it was going to be easy at first. Those beefy goons that run the place started talking to me about how to go about changing my rate. Well, we were NOT on the same page and right before I was about to sign my life away (again.), I said, "Now this is just to finish out the year I have left on my contract, right?" (wrong.) WHOOOOA - then back it up, no way am I signing my life over to you guys again for 3 more years. Once was bad enough, and I blame that on age and inexperience (now that I'm so much older and more mature... right?). Anyway, I fought my way through it and stood my ground until I got exactly what I wanted - the corporate rate for 1 year. And NOW I'm an elite member which means that I get to bring someone when I go work out! Yay!

Later that night - Thursdays are pool nights, by the way - we were at the pool hall and I was in a match. Without going into tons of (boring) details, everyone who plays APA pool (just one of the kinds of pool leagues) gets a ranking. It goes from 2-7 (7's will whoop you with their eyes closed) and I started as a 2, played well and moved up to a 3. Okay, that's all background. So I'm playing and I'm not in a good mood because I'm getting schooled. The girl I'm playing is a 4, so she had to win 3 games to beat me, I only had to win 2 games to beat her. (Still with me here? Anyone?) As I said, she was killing me and beat me 3 times in a row. Game over. So I piddle over to my table, take my stick apart, put it back in the case and then the other team came over and said "There's still one more game." Wait, what?? Wasn't 3 bad enough? I'm GOING HOME!! Okay, so I wasn't that dramatic, but you get it. Turns out, since I got beat so badly LAST week, I moved back down to a 2, which means she had to beat me 4 times and I only had to beat her twice. So I'm all frustrated and I just want to get it over with but instead of STINKING like I had been, I started playing awesome. And I ended up beating her!! CRAAAAZY!

I'm sure you're just dying to hear about the rest of my weekend, and I'm sorry to disappoint, but I've GOT to get back to work. :) TTFN.

And the Olympic Medal goes to...

We've been watching the Olympics like CRAZY around my house, which is always very entertaining. You will never meet someone more into the Olympics than my dear sweet mother.

If she could sit at home all day, have someone pick up Nick from school, tell someone else to make dinner and clean the house, etc., make one of us help Nick with homework, make him shower, and put him to bed, she probably would glue her butt to the couch and watch every event. She might even drink some Red Bull and coffee just to keep her going through the night! :) Okay, so I'm playin' about most of that, but she LOVES it. And her excited spirit is totally contagious.

I've watched almost every swimming event, diving event, synchro diving, (good) track runs, and some gymnastics. AMAZING. (Now, I won't get all opinionated and tell you that they've been favoring the Chinese in most every event that isn't cut and dried... but that's what's happening.) Other than all the silly politics surrounding the games (and the girls beach volleyball outfits), the Olypics are the most wholesome thing on tv right now. I love having something on at our house that everyone can agree on and we all feel proud to support our country, even if it is just from home.

Well, sorry there's nothing more exciting going on in my life, but to be honest, I'm kind of glad. Things have slowed down a lot, giving me a little breath of fresh air.

Oh yeah, and I didn't start school this week.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friendship.

I really felt the urge to post this quote I just read from the Bible study I'm doing. The writer, Kelly Minter, is talking about living in Nashville:

"I've made some pretty amazing friendships here --the kind of friendships your heart always holds out hope for, but that you're not sure you'll ever find. They aren't perfect friendships, but they are lifelong, deep, and full of whatever says "home"."

Can I get an AMEN? :) There are just times now, when I stop to think about it, that I'm so grateful for life's changes. Things change, your environment changes, your school/work changes, your group of friends changes, your LIFE changes, and God always has a plan for the changes to come. I'm just grateful that all my changes feel like they effortlessly fall in my lap. Crazy cool.