4.26.2009

The ABCs of me!

The ABCs of me!!

A - Age: 26 in July

B - Bed size: Queen

C - Chore you hate: cleaning the toilets... bleh!!

D - Pets' names: Penny and Ellie

E - Essential start your day items: toothbrush and toothpaste haha!

F - Favorite color: navy blue, I've actually started liking green too?? whoda thunk it right?

G - Gold or Silver: White Gold

H - Height: 5'5"

I - Instruments you play(ed): not a darn thing haha

J - Job title: Testing Representative

K - Kid(s): 2 in Heaven

L - Living arrangements: 3 bed/2 bath house with my own craft room in Shannon Hills! hehe oh yeah, with Tom

M - Mom's name: Linda

N - Nicknames: Jess

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: never.

P - Pet Peeve: people who are blatantly argumentative... OH! And people who let their kids run wild in Mazzio's!!

R - Right or left handed: Right

S - Siblings: 1 brother, 1 sister, and one bro-in-law (sis's hubby - my hubby's an only child)

T - Time you wake up: between 630 and 645 in the morning.

U- Underwear: cute, but not hootchie haha

V - Vegetable you dislike: brains... oh wait I mean Brussel Sprouts - they remind me of brains!

W - Ways you run late: I'll be late to my own funeral... haha... I guess I am named after the perfect person - my mid name is Dianne - my Aunt Dianne is ALWAYS late... but that's ok. we still love her!

X - X-rays you've had: only my teeth

Y - Yummy food you make: sausage balls... probably our biggest hit to date... but we have some great ideas for this Christmas season!!

Z - Zoo favorite: Penguins... I really want to go to the zoo, I haven't been in YEARS. Maybe I can talk my sis into letting me go with her and the kids one weekend?

4.25.2009

11 Days...

Wow, it's been 11 days since my last post! Crazy!! EEK! Am I losing my touch?

ehh...

The last couple of weeks have been pretty cool actually...

At work, things are good. I'm really getting the hang of the World Championship Registrations I've taken over. My phone is ALWAYS ringing now, since MY name and extension are listed on the paper work I keep sending out. Here in the next week, we have "End of Month," which is always stressful, because we HAVE to have every test processed by the end of the last day of the month, which means I won't be able to really work much on the World's stuff until it's over... Oh well, we'll call it a lesson in time management, right?
We have two girls that work on my level in our office. The three of us process ALL of the testings for all of our schools from all over the US, and schools in Canada, South Africa, Australia, South America, and Spain. It's really neat to get to know all of these people from around the globe. Anyway, well one of the girls has been there for three years, and the other one has been there for about 6 months. I started my second year on April 4th. I don't always have the best patience at work. Especially because the newer girl doesn't seem to grasp some of the most simple processes. Most of the problems/questions she has asked in the past month are issues that were covered in the first two months of her working at ATA. It's not like we change what we do each day, it's quite monotonous. So we get aggravated a lot... Well, the other girl gave me some very good advice on Thursday - basically, to not let the other girl get to me. It just makes me seem petty, and just looks bad on me... So, I worked hard on Thursday and Friday and basically just ignored her and how frustrating she can be.
We each do our own work, have our own schools we handle, it's not like we are working together on a one-on-one basis. So, I think I did well on Thursday and Friday.

We had a pregnancy scare - that fell through. I was late on my monthly event last month by a solid week, this month by about 6 days. Tom chocks it up to being stressed at work... The girls at work think it might be the diet we're on... I don't know... We call it a "pregnancy scare". Honestly, it's not a scare any more for the whole "oh my gosh, we're pregnant," it's more along the lines of "oh my gosh, I don't want to lose another one." It's kind of depressing... I don't know what is worse - NOT being pregnant, or being so terrified about losing another one. I don't know, I know God works in mysterious ways... I just wish for once he would say "You'll get pregnant with a successful pregnancy on September 1st, 2010." or whatever. So I could at least know that we will be parents one day... it's just rough... I know He will not bring us to something we can't handle. I just wish things weren't so hard...

Anyway, enough of that... I don't like being depressed... haha! I'm doing more scrapbooking tonight... getting some pages done I meant to do weeks ago!

Oh! Good news!! We did yard work this afternoon! We mowed the front yard (both of them haha - the side yard, against the main road through Shannon Hills, and then the front yard that is against our street.) Tom also got up on the roof and brushed off all of the pollen that has been piling up for a month... it was gross! Well, it started raining right after we started the back yard... that kind of sucked, so we didn't get as much done as we wanted... but, we did start thinking about how we are going to do the landscaping along the front of the house. We're going to plant Boxwood bushes... I think they are going to look GREAT. I can't wait...

Oh, on another topic - but still the house haha! We have some neighbors down the road who are selling their house, well, they were nice enough to ask us if they could put a For Sale sign in our yard (since we're on the corner lot). Well, we just asked them to not point their arrows towards our actual house, because we've gotten people knocking on the door in the past asking to see the house, since it's for sale... haha! Well, the guy that was putting up the sign said they had already gotten calls about "the house on the corner" haha! i guess that is good news when we decide to sell this one! It's a good location, Bryant School District, doesn't flood, Big deck on the back, 3 bed 2 bath... I'm already laying out the flyer in my head for when we sell it, but that's not for a few more years down the line...

Anyway, I'm off to do more scrapping! IM me if you need me, or email me!!

Talk to you all later!!
<3 Jess

4.16.2009

Faith Booster

I had never seen this email circulated - however, it gave me goosebumps. I love it.

Little things like this give my faith a boost - how about yours?

Why did Jesus fold the linen burial cloth after His resurrection? I never noticed this.......

John 20:7 tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not thrown aside like the grave clothes. The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded and was placed at the head of that stony coffin.

Early that Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, "They have taken the Lord's body and I don't know where they have taken Him!".

Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other disciple outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and

went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the napkin that had covered Jesus face was folded up and lying to one side.

Is that important? Absolutely!

Is that really significant? Yes!

In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to understand a little bit about the Hebrew tradition of that day. The folded napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and every Jewish boy knew this tradition.

When the Servant set the dinner table for the Master, he made sure it was exactly the way the Master wanted it. The table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just out of sight, until the Master had finished eating. The Servant would not dare touch that table until the Master was finished.

If the Master were done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, and clean his beard and would wad up that napkin and toss it onto the table. The servant would then know to clear the table. For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, "I'm finished".

I did not know this....

If the Master got up from the table, and folded his napkin beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table, because....

The folded napkin meant, "I'm coming back!".

He is coming back!

During this Holy season, I pray that you are blessed with peace and joy in the knowledge that He IS coming back someday.

4.12.2009

Eggs, Lillies, and Bunnies

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Holiday! Tom and I went to my parents' house and had a great Easter lunch. We also got to hang out with everyone. It was nice.

I mentioned an Easter Surprise for Nana and Cathy? Well here are the pictures!
Each flower was made from one of the kids' hands. The smallest were TJ's - those were really hard to work with because of them being so tiny!! Nikki's worked ok, it was harder to get her fingers to curl down. Brett's worked out GREAT because his hands are so wide!

We made two sets, one for Nana (my mom), and one for Cathy (the kids' mom). It was a lot of fun, but took forever!! Definitely a good crafting idea!!

And here's the Easter funny... I mean, Bunny... hehe!!


Check out my ArkieScrapper site throughout the week! I'm going to be doing Easter pages of the kids at their Egg hunts!!

<3 you all!!

Happy Easter!!

Jesus Christ has risen today! Hallelujah! Amen!!

Cute bunny stuff later! It's time for me to go to bed!!

4.11.2009

Easter Saturday Update

Hello everyone!!!

[Disclaimer: This is a long post, sorry!! Lots of pictures (again, sorry! It may take a little bit to load). It won't hurt my feelings if you're super busy and only have time to read the captions on the pics! I tried to put them in italics and centered under the pics!]

We've had a pretty good Easter week so far. Work wasn't bad for me, I don't know if I've mentioned in blog-form, but I took over the World Championship Registration for everyone Midterming, and for all 3rd Degrees testing to 4th and below. It's CRAZY. But also very cool. I really feel like I'm contributing to my company - and that feels great, especially since April 4th was my one year anniversary at ATA. It's super cool. I'm hoping for my "One Year Evaluation" here soon. I may need to nudge Mr. Jacobs about it... I don't know.

Also work related. Tom had a great week. He had a really good evaluation at work. And feels like he is truely appreciated. It's really good. I'm really happy for him. Other than that, things have been pretty quiet on the home front.

Tom is about 4 pounds from his first "mini goal" - to lose 45 pounds. I am sitting about 2 pounds from mine. - which was to lose 40 pounds. What do we get to reward ourselves with for reaching our mini-goals? A tattoo!! I'm so excited and scared at the same time!! eek!! It'll be my and his firsts!! Any suggestions??

Oh! Thursday night, we had a wicked storm blow through our area - the lightening was FANTASTIC!! I wanted to try my hand at a really cool technique that I'd been fascinated with for soooooooooo long. I wanted to catch lightening on camera... And I did:
This was my first attempt. My shutter speed was set to like 8 seconds... which basically means that my shutter stayed open for 8 solid seconds. I thought this was going to be a lot better than it was, but I think my shutter actually closed just as this lightening bolt danced across the sky.

This was my second attempt. we have this HUGE tree just to the East of our house, and the lighting looked cool through the tree - I wanted to catch it in open sky, but you gotta face where the lightening is playing!!

This was the best one of the night. Definitely the most defined. The reason why I left my aperture open so long is because I was shooting with no flash, no bulb - only the darkness. The longer the shutter is open, the more light the camera pulls into the shot. Which is why the sky looks off color - also because it was tornado weather... sometimes that makes the sky look all hazy and pinkish. All in all, one of my favorite "still life" photography sessions. I was quite pleased with the results. Oh!! Tip for anyone trying this technique... USE A TRIPOD!! If you move - even the SLIGHTEST bit - you're entire shot will be blown.

Friday night was my sister and her husband's 10 year anniversary! Yay them! It was also the Brett and Nikki's testing date at Taekwondo. Yay them! They both did really, really well!

Nikki always loves having her hair in pigtails... They just look so cute while she's bowing!!

What?? Brett smiling? Holy crap!! He was grinning at Cathy and Tim - because as you see - he's in his sparring gear - when they spar, the crowd is supposed to make lots of noise. The kids that are not sparring are supposed to beat and stomp on the floor - supposed to be good for those that are sparring... I just thought it was noisy. Anyways, the kids that were sparring had to tell their parents to make lots of noise for them... thus, Brett's grin!

This is a really cool shot, because if they were sparring in tournaments - Brett would have gotten some points for this shot on this girl... Anyway, because they had three sets sparring at once, I wanted Brett to stand out - thus, I made everything but him black and white... cool, huh?
Nikki's round kick - she looks so serious!!God forbid anyone try to get her. Something cool that I noticed, when the Tiny Tigers (6 and unders) are testing, their instructor (Hailey is Nikki's instructor) stands with them and walks them through their form or their 1-steps, depending on what they are doing. Anyway, Nikki was always one step ahead of Hailey - she gets dance routines and choreography really quickly... She's a smart cookie!

Anyway, we'll find out the kids scores next week. Actually, I'll find them out first... hehe. Ms. Cupples' school is in my region - thus, I get the scores and get to enter them into the computer, we print out the certificates and ship them back to the school. hehe! I can't wait until Brett gets his Black Belt... Lord help us... he'll have to put up with us throwing a big bash for him... Taekwondo is the first thing that I have seen him really get into... Brett's a green belt (testing for his purple) and Nikki is an Orange Belt (testing for yellow).

Well, since it was Cathy and Tim's anniversary, we kept all three kids... and this is the first time in FOREVER that I have not taken about a million pictures of them here at the house. Anyway, I had a project I worked on with them last night... I'll have photos of it tomorrow... It is an Easter Surprise for Cathy and for Nana (my mother).

Then, Today we went to an Easter Egg Hunt with Cathy and Tim and the kids... that was a lot of fun... too many people for me... I have issues I know... big crowds make me feel like I am going to die. haha!!

Tom and Nikki waiting to go outside for the Easter Egg hunt, she crawled up in his lap... How adorable are they?!?
The Ball Men: Brett, Tim, and TJ

Nikki, giving TJ some tips on how to pick up Easter Eggs quickly!

Brett's age group's grand prize was an XBox 360, and he wanted that sucker so bad... he really went to town grabbing all the eggs... some other kid got it... but he did get a HUGE load of candy!

TJ did pretty good, Tim helped him, by holding the sack - he got a pretty good haul too. I think he would have rather had all those Easter Eggs than the candy and stuff that was inside of them!!

Nikki was our little winner in the family - she got 11 little slips of paper that said "Prize" on them, she got to cash them in for some super cute Easter decorations.

Our local fire department was there too. TJ love the big fire truck!

Brett didn't seem that impressed haha!

I really liked the pic of TJ - he had a BLAST. I think all the kids did...

Tomorrow, Tom and I are going to my parents' house for an Easter lunch. Should be fun! The kids also get to give Nana and Cathy their Easter surprises. Yay!

I'm off to search the web... sorry this is so long... and it's got lots of pics, so it might have taken a LONG time to load... sorry!!

<3 from us!

Happy Easter to all!!!

4.04.2009

Our Extra Weekend Day

Today, Tom and I were both off from work.

It's been a lot of fun. We stayed up WAY later than normal on Thursday night, and we kicked the kitties out of our bedroom so that we could enjoy sleeping late (They have a tendency to walk all over us, nuzzle us, paw at us, and be down right annoying). Anyway, so it was great. We only slept about an hour later than we normally do haha! When you have a rhythm, it's kind of hard to break.

Anyway, so we got up this morning, and came in to play on our computers - yes, we are HUGE nerds. I'm sorry, it's who we are. Then, we started the demo on our back porch:

Here is Tom, removing some of the screws.

Here is the porch... without the porch.

Oh, yeah, had to strike a pose with my hammer... yes it says "Jessica".

Here is the torn down porch and the pile of porch haha.

Then, this afternoon we set our lovely Pile O' Porch ablaze. I'll have pics of that later. I can't get them to up load right now, weird...

Anyway, now it's bed time!!

<3 Jess