10.24.2009

What a great week...

Wow... this has been a fantastic week!
1. Numbers look good at work. We have been bustin' ass and takin' names!!
2. Fall Nationals was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Orlando. Sounds like everyone had a good time.
3. I gave my Miley Cyrus ticket to my niece, well, she's my best friend's daughter, so she's my "niece" lol! I love my nieces and nephews - biological or not! So, I decided she'd get way more out of the concert than I would. That's tonight.

Here are the girls in front of the stadium at the Miley Cyrus concert!

Here they are in front of a green screen! Aren't they adorable??

4. I won tickets on Tom FM to Billy Joel and Elton John!! I'm so excited! I was begging Tom to try and win tickets for me, but I wound up winning them! yay!
5. I stepped on the scale - I started the diet at 290 pounds, I'm now at 196.5! Only 6 1/2 more pounds, and i hit goal.
6. Tom and I went shopping for new jeans today. I got a pair of size 16 jeans... yay!! And they are super cute!!

I'm having so much fun in life right now!! I hope things are going well for everyone else... I can't wait to see pics tomorrow from Cathy. She's with the girls at the concert. Sounds like they are having a BLAST!!!

<3 Jessica

10.23.2009

2010 Survey

Welcome to the new 2010 edition of getting to know your family and friends. Here is what you are
supposed to do, and try not to be lame and spoil the fun. Change all the answers so that they
apply to you. Then send this to a bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person who sent it to
you.

Some of you may get this several times; that means you have lots of friends. The easiest way to do
it is to hit 'forward' so you can change the answers or copy and paste. Have fun!

I want to see your answers!

1. What is your occupation right now? Testing Representative for the American Taekwondo Association
2. What color are your socks right now? no socks right now!
3. What are you listening to right now? Hotel Babylon on tv.
4. What did you eat last night? Tom took me to the greek restaurant in bryant, we had hummus and pita, and i had a lamb and mozzerella calazone. yummy!!!
5. Can you drive a stick shift? technically... i know the physics behind it, anyway...
6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My sister
7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? yup, it was Tom's Aunt Marti
8. How old are you today? 26
9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? baseball... but i'd prefer to watch it in person, AND I would always prefer to play!!
10. What is your favorite drink? diet dr pepper
11. Have you ever dyed your hair? yes, i need to do it soon, too.
12. Favorite food? anything Tom cooks.
13. What is the last movie you watched? Wanted
14. Favorite day of the year? March 19... my anniversary
15. How do you vent anger? i cuss... a lot...
16. What was your favorite toy as a child? either a barbie - or my kid brother lol!!
17. What is your favorite season? fall
18. Cherries or Blueberries? blueberries
19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? i love it when friends email me!
20. Who is the most likely to respond? ???
21. Who is least likely to respond? ???
22. Living arrangements? homeowner/wifey
23. When was the last time you cried? umm... earlier this week... because the vending machine was out of peanuts... lol i was emotional... bite me.
24. What is on the floor of your closet? nothing.
25. Who are the friends you have had the longest that you are sending this to? I'm posting it on my blog... lol but Ashley and Cassandra are probably my friends i've known the longest! (more than 10 years!!)
26. What did you do last night? watched Hotel Babylon, hung out with Tom, watched CSI, and hung out with my amazing husband.
27. What are you most afraid of? heights...
28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? plain
29. Favorite dog breed? German shepard
30. Favorite day of the week? Friday or Saturday
31. How many states have you lived in? just the one.
32. Diamonds or Pearls? Diamonds
33. What is your favorite flower? i love gerber daisies! but roses are also wonderful...

10.11.2009

Wow...

Ok, so let me tell you - other than a bit of cold, rainy weather, and my sinuses not liking our Summer-to-Fall weather change - I have had one of the best weeks since I started at ATA.

No drama in our office.Michelle, Marissa, Mr. Jacobs, and I went to lunch on like Monday or Tuesday - it was a nice lunch. (I was really happy because I got to steal everyone's checks and pay for lunch. I LOVE LOVE LOVE doing that! hehe!!) After lunch we all stopped and bought lotto tickets, i won like $8 (after spending $10) lol! I don't mind the lottery because it means that when my nieces and nephews or, God-willing, my own kids go to college, they will have access to the Arkansas Challenge scholarship. Tom had that scholarship when we were in college, his
second or third year they ran out of money - but they still paid him his scholarship money, Thank God! Hopefully, this will make the scholarship more wide-spread and be able to pass out more money to high school graduates to help them go to college.

Anyway, so great week at work. I only have a couple more applications for Fall Nationals to take care of. Then, I can do my score sheets, and print my numbers! Yay!!

This weekend has been really good too. Friday night, Tom made dinner, and we watched our first Netflix dvd - Wanted. OMG! What a weird/awesome/gorey movie!!! Then, we watched a couple episodes of Dexter on Netflix (PS. I love Netflix!!). I wound up crashing a little early with a sore throat.

Saturday, we woke up kind of late (i needed the sleep!) and got dressed and headed to Pine Bluff to hang out with Tom's mom at an SCA event. SCA is an organization that, for a very short and subtle explanation, likes to recreate medieval armor, weaponry (out of pvc pipe and rattan), and clothing, and like to reenact certain battles and/or scenarios of wars. To me, to begin with, it sounded like a lot of hype for a hobby. But, some of these guys take it really seriously, definitely to a higher level than other participants. It is a game. They all refer to it as a game. Some of the clothes are cute. I'm a big cloak person (Probably because of Harry Potter lol!)

It was definitely an interesting experience. The event was named Diamond Wars and held at a camp in Pine Bluff. Here are some of the photos I took:

Can't go wrong with a pic of us two, right??
Here is a pic of them fighting - the guys on the outside of the fort have to fight their way INTO the fort. easy enough right?? No!! Even though their weapons are made out of PVC pipe and rattan, they can be pretty brutal!!
Here is Tom's mom in her period garb. She looks cute, doesn't she??

Nick and Tom, "Bottle Jousting". What you can't see is that they are each standing on a piece of PVC pipe that is about a foot long, and you have to balance on it, while trying to off balance your competitor. Also, you aren't supposed to hit the other person - just their stick.

Tom, trying to keep his balance while Nick kicked his butt at Bottle Jousting.

After we watched a couple more fights, we all went up to "Merchant's Row" and checked out the shopping. It was cold, muddy, and miserable, so there were some shops closed. But the ones that were open held some of the neatest stuff. It was almost like walking through Toad Suck Daze in Conway. I think my favorite little shop was selling all sorts of jewelry, earings, pendants, bracelets - even a THONG - made out of links of chain-male. Like the Knights from that time period wore! It was neat. I thought it was a very ingenious idea to use the links as decoration instead of protection.

After that, Tom and I headed out to meet up with Ashley. But, come to find out, the cell tower in White Hall was down, and so we couldn't get in touch with her. We tried calling a few times, but couldn't get through, so we went to The Pines mall - it was a good sized mall, but it looked like a lot of people had closed their stores. Tom and I discussed the death of the "mall" setting. I enjoy malls, but I don't shop enough at them. I like going to Dillards, and Pennys, and sears, but some of the smaller shops, I won't shop at. I'll go and look around, but very rarely do I ever actually BUY something there. I'm the cause of the death of the mall. Maybe not me, specifically, but people like myself.

I also saw Senior Master Anderson's studio in the mall:

Not a great pic, sorry, it was on my phone lol!!

Anyway, at the Dillards in the mall - lol, yeah I know - I'm a nerd. Tom bought me a new Fossil purse!!! Super super cute!! It was originally $98, marked down to $29.50, on clearance with another 50% off, PLUS, Tom's Employee discount. We got a $1o0 Fossil purse for **drum roll please!!!** $16.04 AFTER TAX! haha! Yay us!! I love Dillards.

We decided for Christmas, rather than buying for each other, we decided to spend money on us. We are going to buy us a kick ass coffee maker from Dillards. AND, i think we're each going to get a new pair of jeans. Then we're going to do like $40 or $50 a piece for our stockings, but other than that, we're not doing anything for each other for Christmas. We always get each other a new ornament for Christmas - so that's a given. I've already got Tom's picked out! yay me!!

Anyway, so we wound up not getting to meet up with Ashley - because we couldn't get a hold of her because the cell tower was down in White Hall. We drove around for like an hour and a half looking at random apartment complexes in White Hall, trying to see if we could spot her car. But we could never find it! We tried! I promise lol!

After that we headed back to Bryant, and wound up eating at our favorite little mexican place. Then, we decided we were going to go walk around Best Buy to work off some of our dinner. lol! We wound up picking up a new laptop mouse for me - wireless! yay!! And we picked up Halo ODST for Tom. I think he likes it. He played last night for a couple of hours, and has played for a good part of today on it!

Oh! yeah, with it being blistery cold and windy yesterday at Diamond Wars, I seem to have knocked this "sore throat" into overdrive. I'm having sinus issues and drainage and a sore throat. So, today, I'm relaxing, resting, lots of fluids, Tom's even got me some Drunken Chicken Soup going for us tonight for dinner in the crock pot!!

I'm off to check my facebook and to do some more photo editing! Plus, I've got to load all the pics from Diamond Wars into my facebook and tag the snot out of them!!

Here's to another great week! We have a couple of softball games (hopefully!), some good shows on tv, possibly heading to my parents house for dinner one night. ALSO! We should get the first disc of season 2 of Hotel Babylon from netflix!! yay!! Plus! Monday is Columbus day! No mail, which means that we should get a little caught up on some piddly stuff at work! YAY!!!

Next weekend is going to be cram packed too. Friday night, Nikki's going to spend the night, then my sis is going to pick us up and we are going to do the Walk for the Cure. Then, we're probably going to go to Conway so Kandi and I can work on our costumes for Halloween! I'm trying to talk her out of Wilma and Betty and do something a little, i don't know, WARMER?? It's going to be COLD!! I love this weather though.

Sorry for the long post, but dang it's been good. I hope you guys are all having a great October!!

<3 you all!!
Jessica

10.04.2009

Wow...

Ok, so this week has been way hectic! We were behind at work. Finally, got caught up and then, one of the girls in our office got fired on the last day of the month. Michelle and I handled the 1st and 2nd day of the month (Thursday and Friday) by ourselves pretty well! I was quite surprised at how well we kind of slid into our One-Man-Down mode. But she and I work really well together - when we don't have someone trying to keep us at odds.

Anyway, so that was this past week.

This weekend has been great! Friday night, Tom and I went to dinner at Chizi's- our favorite little buffett pizza place. Then, we went to Dillard's and picked me up a new wallet. Then we walked around the mall and then we went to Garden Ridge in west little rock. That was a lot of fun! Very rarely do we ever buy anything at Garden Ridge - but we love to look around at the stuff that they have.

Tom and I are doing a Gingerbread man christmas theme this year! I can't wait! We have most of the decorations already - I just need a LOT of felt, some buttons and some thread lol! Oh! Did I tell you?? I'm making my halloween costume this year! Well, mine and Kandi's! I'm super excited!!

That's off topic! Ok, so we got home Friday night, watched a movie, then Tom played his game, and I crashed on the couch. Then, Saturday, Tom and I worked on our computers in the office. Then, we went to my sister's house for my nephew's birthday party!

Kayla, Nikki, Maddy, and Jason were all there.

TJ and his Lightning McQueen cake!!

TJ wanting to share his cake with me!

TJ, after he opened some of his gifts. He looks excited doesn't he?


TJ and his mommy!

TJ and his big gift, a scooter!!

Nikki and me!!

We had a great time! After TJ's party, we came back home and hung out, watched a movie or two, then headed to bed.

Sunday, we woke up, took a shower, and slipped into fresh pjs and watched the 10th Kingdom! Now, we're waiting on dinner, and watching Bad Boys with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Dinner smells freakin' righteous!


The weather today has been awesome! cooler temperatures and rain! I am in flannel pj pants and a long sleeve tee! We have the windows open!! It's awesome!! I'm looking for new recipes to use - I got one for White Chili - Super excited!

October is a super busy month for us:

Saturday the 10th - Tom and I are possibly going to go with Tom's mom to an SCA event so I can photograph them. Then possibly trying to meet up with Ashley for dinner that night in White Hall.
Sunday the 11th - I need to go to Conway so that I can get working on my and kandi's halloween costumes.

Friday the 16th - Nikki is going to come and spend the night, then Saturday the 17th, Nikki, Cahy, and I are doing the Walk for the Cure.

Saturday the 24th is the Miley Cyrus concert - and yes I'm going. It's me, Cathy and Nikki going! Nikki doesn't know yet. It'll be a total shocker!

Then, we have Lisa's 3rd birthday on the 27th.

THEN, we are going trick or treating with Kandi and her kids and brothers. We're going to have a blast!!
I'm tired just thinking about this month!!

Anyway! I'm out!

<3 you all!
Jess