'Tis Time

Yea...It's about time.

Another awesome trip ahead of Lauren and I. North and South Carolina both in one shot!!
Plus getting to hang out with old friends and new friends!! (Kris called last night, maybe we'll get to do dinner with him on Wednesday night...we'll see)

A little road trip to Dallas tonight before a straight flight to good ol' Charlotte! Look out east coast, here we come!!

I'll return to my sweet Texas Saturday!
Don't miss me too much!!

The Clever Juices aren't flowing

What a great weekend. Sometimes being lazy is boring, but sometimes it's not. I just had a super weekend. My weekend's always start on Thursday night since I do not work in Friday's. What's a better way to start than by getting off early? The secretary left early to go to her son's track meet and the Pastor always leaves at 4:30 anyways, and since I'm a little creeped out by the man that always plays golf in the field in front of the church and leaves me creepy gross notes on my windshield, the Pastor didn't want me staying at the church by myself for an hours, so he said for me to leave with him. I didn't argue.

I celebrated by doing some shopping!! I just got some "lounging" clothes from Old Nave to take on my ski trip. And then I loaded up on pain pills and little soaps at Target. I love buying travel size stuff. It's such a waste of money...but I just love little things. Don't judge me. Georgetown has a new shopping center, so I then just went to a 5 other stores just for the heck of it.
Thursday night is Bible Study night and we met at Chili's and got desert while we did our study. That was a nice little treat...but goodness, eating goodies that late at night doesn't really do much for the stomach. I was a little full and it's hard to relax...whatever.

Friday I got up and did some more shopping. I went to Academy because they have their winter stuff on sail. I got a cute little beanie with snow flakes on it, some cheap hiking boots and a bright green polar fleece. Awesome. I then continued south on I 35 to go to Tinseltown. I've been wanting to see BrokeBack Mountain for quite some time and I finally made my way to see it. It was pretty good. I thought it was a little sad, but it was good. Then a little more chill time back at the Casa. All in all, it was a good day.

Saturday was just as good. More sitting around. But then that evening I got to go Ice Skaing. Now I haven't gone since middle school which is about 12 years. But not to sound cocky or anything...but I'm a rock star when it comes to Ice Skating. Seriously, my kiddo's couldn't keep up with me. I had a blast and am totally ready to do that again. Plus, there was another youth group there from Austin...so after some forcefull intervention by some of my youth and one of their mom's, I made myself go and talk to their leader...Trent. Totally cute, so I was super nervous. We skated a couple laps together and stood at the wall a while. It was nice. Nothing drastic, but I have a hard time going up to good looking people. Plus, now I know another Youth Pastor which is always a good thing when you're in this field.

Today's a busy day too. Pastor is taking staff and volunteers to lunch today!! Yeah, free lunch!! Then I have to go to Round Rock to meet with my insurance agent...at least it'll get me out of the office for a while...

Then tomorrow after work...Lauren is picking me up and we're off on a new crazy adventure!!

Spending Money like I'm Mrs. Trump

Golly Geez! March is just going to be the month of spending money, but I've been preparing myself because I'm going to have so much fun. This weekend is my last weekend to shop for everything I need for my upcoming trips. I need a few basic things for my ski trip such as long johns, wooly socks, sweats, and if I can manage...some cheap water-proof hiking boots. Then I should be set. So that's this weekend of spending money...

Then it's off to N/S Carolina which I'll pretty much be spending money every day for that...but it'll be so worth it. At least we're getting free lodging at every place we're staying...
Although maybe I'll give some pineapple butter as a nice host gift. (If anyone know's a place that sells pineapple butter, let me know. I've checked a few places but haven't had any luck).

Then I'll be back for a week before I leave for COLORADO!!! Where I'll spend money on some very worth it ski lessons because I have never even had any type of ski's on my feet. But I am very excited and ready for the challenge.
So by the end of the month be looking for some awesome picture of all my trips.

But back to reality. There is so much on my mind right now that I just want to spill, but I'm not sure who all read's this thing, so I'll just keep it to myself and wait until I can gossip to Lauren. Lot's of girl stuff that needs to be shared.

Georgetown just got a McAlister's I guess a week or so ago and so I had lunch there today. Delicious. Especially the eye candy that walked in a litte while after we sat down. For some reason, just haveing someone "pretty" to look at always makes the meal taste that much better. Weird.

Peace Out for now.

5 more days!!!

Is a Restraining Order in line?

Yesterday was a very exciting/random/creepy day.
As I was walking out the church door's to go home for lunch I got a phone call from Kara asking if I wanted to get some lunch with her and her intern. Of course I want to get lunch with her. So we went to the usual place, Logan's in Round Rock. Always a good choice. She has a former youth that is a waiter there so we sat in his section. And then there was this other waiter that looked very familiar. Turns out he is one of my "friends" on myspace. Weird, huh?! So he came and said hello and we chatted for a while. It was pretty neat. He's pretty cute. Then as we were leaving Kara thought it would be a good idea if I would leave my phone number on the receipt. So she, Not I...I would NEVER do that...wrote it down and was like "I'm going to hand it to him as we leave." Oh my gosh I was getting embarrassed. I told her not to because that's just silly, seriously, who does that? Anyways...our waiter makes this huge announcement, when I say huge, I mean yelling it across a couple of tables and into the kitchen: "Hey ___, I think you're getting a number!" Seriously, it was loud. I was even more embarrassed and so I just walked out, I didn't know what to do because by then most of the people in the restaurant were looking at me. I stood in the little waiting area at the front for Kara...she stayed behind and I still don't know what she did. I couldn't believe that happened....

OK, so then I come back to work. I leave at 5:30 like I usually do and there was a note on my windshield. I immediately knew who it was from. We have this guy that joined our church a couple months ago who has schitzophrenia and really creeps me out. He doesn't work, so he hits golf balls in the field by the church EVERY DAY. Well it was a couple of pages long, a little weird, very crude at some places, and just bizarre. I don't know what to think about it. I don't want to find weird letters on my car when I leave. Yuck. I showed Pastor this morning and he just laughed, which really hurt my feelings because I was really offended about the letter. I guess I'll just save it as evidence for now. In case something happens again. But hopefully nothing will.

So all in all, it's been a weird week.

I went to Austin on Monday and had dinner with my cousin. We went to Manny Hatten's, which was pretty good. We talked about our spring break plans and a bunch of other things. Then he was gracious enough to come with me to David's Bridal. I had a bridesmaid dress that came in and I need to get it altered. So...I did. A size 2 is just too huge on my. It looked like a pink monster sneezed on me. But after all of the pins were in I could tell that is was going to look nice on my. Well, it better be nice because alterations alone are costing me $97.00. Can you believe that?! That's almost the full price of the dress. I can't believe how much money I spend on my friend's weddings. I'm beginning to think that I won't even have a wedding party. It'll just be me and my husband up there in front of everyone. That way they can spend more money on our gifts. Just kidding...I have no plans for this day yet...

OK...count down time. 6 more days!!

Not Sure

I didn't really have a topic to write about today, but I figured it was time to put something up. Life is getting super busy for the month of March coming up. I'll be traveling to 3 different states which I am super excited about because I love to travel. Plus I get to travel with a super awesome girl... (see below)
We've traveled to many places together last year...Miami, Key West, Dallas, Nashville.
We travel well together!!

I just get a little excited when it comes to taking trips.

Everyone wants to find the lid to my pot...

Lids and Pots definition
Wow...being single and working at a church filled with mother's and grandmother's and aunt's can be tiring. There seems to be something VERY appealing about me to these women. I just seem to be the PERFECT person for their son, grandson, or nephew to be with. That winds up being tons of pressure on myself. Of course they think their son/grandson/nephew is this amazing guy and very interesting, which I'm sure he is, but what if I'm just not that interested in him or not attracted to him. Then what? Am I just the snotty girl who thinks no one is good enough for me.

I have had a couple women talk to me about their son's and I even have a lady who works in a mail store in town that randomly get's guys phone number's for me, or gives mine to them. She wants me to finally meet someone.

Well now there is this whole scheme going on to set me up with a guy that goes to church here. Apparently his mother has been thinking/planning this for some time now. She just thinks we would be good together. Now, she is not telling her son any of this because he would be completely embarrassed, and I am not supposed to know anything either, but I have snoops that go around that keep me up to date. Anyways...my lady friend called him and asked if he would be interested in being a male chaperone during my Sunday night devotions with my high school kids. (Yes, we are now pulling my youth into this). So she tells me I have to call him to set this stuff up...Oh my gosh!!!!!

Whatever, so I called him yesterday to see if he was interested in helping out and protecting us poor helpless souls as we sit in our youth room on Sunday night. We only talked for a little while (I don't really know him, so I don't really have anything to say) and then he asked me if I had any plans for that evening. Hello...it's Valentine's day...I'm not going to hang out with someone I don't know on V-Day...Plus I was on my way to the UT vs. Baylor basketball game. (Yes, UT spanked Baylore...go figure).
Anyways...now he's going to come and sit in on my devotion on Sunday night. We'll see how that goes...

On another note...I turned my cell phone ringer off last night because the past few nights I've been getting random phone calls and text messages in the middle of the night and I just wanted to sleep. I woke up this morning and my little red light was flashing...I got a text message and some point in the night. It was Dube. He was my neighbor in college and we became pretty good friends. And I had a huge crush on him because he was the only semi-mature guy that went to our school. Anyways...he told me that he was smoking his last cigarette and that it was time for him to quit that immature habit. What tell me that you ask? I have no clue...but I'm thinking it's because he's secretly in love with me and wants me to know that he's growing up. Not really, but it did get me thinking. Of all the people he could have sent that to, why me...and at 3:00 A.M. for that matter. I mean he's pretty good about keeping me up to date with all his happenings, but for something like that I was just a little curious as to why he had the urge to tell me that.
It doesn't matter...it was just a nice little surprise to get a little message from him.

More good News...I get to go home tomorrow!! Yea, I'm excited. I'll go to San Marcos for a meeting and then head out from there. I need a little time back hom so that should be nice. I called my mom yesterday to tell her that I would be home a day earlier and she said that she and my Dad will be going to the Rodeo that night. Hopefully they'll get me a ticket. I don't really get to go to the Rodeo...mostly by choice, but I think it would be fun. They're going to see the "Stars of Texas". Which includes the following artists: Kevin Fowler, Jack Ingram, Cory Morrow, Charlie Robison and Randy Rogers. I guess that's a good line-up. I've seen Charlie Robison before and I really liked him. And Kyle tells me that I saw Kevin Fowler before with him...but maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Whatever, it'll just be nice to do something with the 'rents.
Then I'll get a little hang out time with my younger brother Daniel and a Baby Shower for Becca on Saturday...lot's of fun stuff going on the next couple days.

Well, with the good comes the bad. My nightmares are coming back and I'm scared I'm waking up my neighbor because I wake myself up screaming. Weird. For those who don't know, my mom is always tell me that people that work in the ministry have this huge target on their back for the Devil to find us. That is why we have so many struggles and a hard time with decisions and all sorts of stuff. Well with these nightmares that comes it always has to do with "demon"...I guess. I feel them and know that they're around me...Well Sunday night I saw one. Now I could just be going crazy or have a wild imagination while dreaming, but oh my goodness it freaked me out. Upon being ugly, it had these amazing glowing blue eyes that matched it's blue glowing horns. So from a distance if you couldn't see it's face, you could see it's eyes and horns...and it left through my air conditioning vent.

Now I don't tell many people about these occurances, because a) it's a little embarrassing b) people just think I'm over reacting c) it has to all be in my imagination. But they're so real when it happens. I'm the kind of dream where I know whem I'm dream, so in a sense I'm kind of controlling what happens...but I really don't see myself wanting all this to happen. I seem to wake up saying the Lord's Prayer because it's a safety net to me. I feel if the demon hears me saying this, it'll just leave me alone. Sometime's it works and sometimes it takes a while. Weird, I know. Please don't call me crazy. It doesn't happen every night...but it happens regularly. I have a friend who has had similar "experiences" so I don't really feel like I'm just crazy, but I would still like for all this to stop. Sometimes I don't want to go to sleep for fear of what is going to happen during the night. Sometimes I can't breathe, sometimes it shakes me, sometimes it just stares at me...CREEPY...
But I'm thinking if I get it out in the open it should die down because it knows I'm not scared of it. Or maybe I just need a way to release this tention so that I don't release it in my imagination of my dreams...

Practice What You Preach

Every Sunday I each of my devotions or Bible Studies has to do with giving your problems to God and He will take care of you. God is always there with you through thick and thin, and therefore if you have a problem, He is guiding your steps.

This past Sunday we read the story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17) and how this little boy went up against this HUGE giant of a man. The whole Israeli army had just stood around for 40 days while this Philistine man challenged them. Then this silly little boy stumbles upon the situation and is like..."Sure, I'll fight him. He may have a spear and a shield, but I have God on my side." Simple, huh? Who thinks that way?

We then talked about what the "Goliath's" are in our life...school, friends, jobs, parents, etc. And that if we put our faith and trust in God, we are able to face these battles with no problems. Every Sunday I feel like I'm repeating myself and saying: God is always with you. Put your trust in God and He will take care of you. Something bothering you? Just pray....almost as if I am just a broken record.

But as soon as I have a difficult time, or my job is stressing me out or I'm trying to make a decision about what to do with my life I don't know what to do. How silly is that. I feel like I at least have some kind of answer when my youth come to me...but when I try and ask myself these same questions, I don't know what to do. I guess I know what to do, but it's not always the first thing that pops into my head. But it should be. I want my immediate reaction to a problem to be to pray about it...but somehow that always seems like one of the last things I end up doing. If I call my mom when something is on my mind that is the first thing she ask's me: Did you pray about it?...well, no...actually I didn't pray about it mom, that's why I'm calling you for advise.
I was, and actually still am, the person people go to for relationship advice. Me, of ALL people they choose, me. I can preach my little heart out about how they should act and what they should say and build them up...but there is no way in Hell that I can do the same for me. I really don't like that about me.

I find I have much more strength and courage after a Bible Study or Devotion, but I really wish I had that strength all of the time. That's one thing that really challenges me.

I don't want to be this fake person that tells my high school group to go to God when they have a challenge or a problem if I can't even do it. You know what I mean. This is just weighing on me because I want to be the person who acts out their life the way they show they act out their life. I'm not a bad person, I just think I want to be better about how I handle situations.

There are so many decisions that are coming up in my life with spring break and summer and fall all coming at me, I just want to know that I'll be making the right moves and doing what I need to be doing and what God wants me to be doing.

With all that said:
Happy Single's Awareness Day!!!

that ANNOYING neighbor

A couple weekends ago I was awakened by this awful honking, the sound of a car alarm going off. Yes, the sound of lots of random honking and I'm sure the flashing headlights. I was pissed...it went on for quite a long while. A day when I finally get to sleep in and there it is...*honk* *honk* *honk* for minutes on end. How rude. I live on the third floor and my bedroom is on the back side and I can still hear every stinkin' honk.

This morning a 6:22 A.M. I hear it again...*honk* *honk* *honk*. By this time it's ridiculous because I know I'm not going to go back to sleep, therefore I lost a good hour of sleep this morning. It stops at 6:23. Ahhhh, quiet again.
6:34 A.M...yup...honks and more honks. I wanted to scream. I put my hair in a pony tail and go to the door, I unlock all my dead bolts and open the door...and Yes, you guessed it (hopefully you didn't guess it, but maybe you did)...IT WAS MY CAR!!!!!!!!!!

I was mortified. How embarrassing, how rude, how unexpected. I don't even have a car alarm and this vehicle is going crazy with the flashy lights and the honking horn. I don't know if it was cranky and just telling me that it was cold and wanted a blanket or what. What would make it do that. I don't have an alarm, therefore I don't have a switch or something I can just turn off.

I feel for my neighbor's, especially the one's on the first floor. That's awful to have to hear that in the mornings. I don't want to be that rude neighbor that everyone talks about behind their back. Well, I don't know what to do, but this honking has got to stop. If someone has any suggestions on how to end this Please Please Please pass it my way. I, along with I'm sure all 11 other rooms in my building and the houses across the street would love for my car to behave.

Until next time...

"I like the way you do that right there,
switch ya hips when ya walking, let down ya hair,
I like the way you da that right there,
Lick ya lips when ya talking that make me stare."
-Chingy

Call me Crazy

Let me first start off with saying how much I dis-like Diesel Trucks. They used to not bother me until my neighbor would start his truck EARLY in the morning and let it sit there and run for what seems like hours on end in the morning to let it warm up. So the only thing I hear as I'm trying to sleep is the sound of this loud machine outside my window. One thing I don't like is waking up before my alarm goes off when I still have an hour before I really need to get up...stupid loud trucks.

Now this wouldn't have been that bad, but I ended up staying out later than I expected. Why was I out late last night you may be thinking? I met with yet ANOTHER guy from the internet. Yes Lauren, I met ASSMAN last night. (I will let you know that "assman" is a reference from a Seinfeld episode). It was a pretty pleasant meeting. We met at Chuy's in Round Rock, had a couple margarita's and some nacho's and talked about our jobs and what we do. So after a couple hours I was about to head out and he was all....I want to keep hanging out with you. I'm such a wimp about saying No. Well actually I said no a couple times but got suckered into doing something else.

We then went to shoot some pool. I won 4 times, he won twice. But it was so obvious that he was losing on purpose because the last two games he was just sinking them like it was no big deal. He said he kept missing the other shots so that we could keep haning out. Whatever.
It was a nice little evening, we got along great...but the whole time I was hanging out with him I kept thinking about the "age" situation... He's 35. Ouch, I know. That's a 12 year age difference. Ridiculous I know.

I kept recalling all the times I told my 29 year old cousin that I didn't think it was a good idea for him to be "talking" with these 20 year old girls. And here I am doing the same thing with someone much more than 9 years older than me.
Eh, I don't know. Plus he wants to hang out again and I told him that would be alright, but right now I just don't want him to get any idea out of this because I don't even know what to think about the whole situation. I was just excited to get out of the house for a while.

So Lauren...we definitely need to get together sometime this week and do something. Gossip about our week and weekend!!

Another Sinking Feeling...

As I sit here at my desk I've been having the hardest time breathing. The feeling where something is wrapped tightly around your chest that it almost makes you want to cry. Where does that feeling come from? I try to yawn to get oxygen into my lungs, but it still feels like something is wrong. But as always, I will sit here and suck it up.
(I guess there is just some underlying stress that I'm unaware of.)

What a weekend. Actually not much happened on Friday and Saturday, I had plans for both days, but things just seemed to fall through. Which is fine, I don't mind sitting around.
I did get to go to San Antonio for the Super Bowl XL which I'm glad I did. I got to see all my college friends that I don't ever get to hang out with. It was nice. It was also different. It's not like it used to be when we hung out in college. I think I'm the only one that feels that way though. They still live pretty close to each other and get to see each other more regularly, so then when I come into the picture I just feel so out of the loop. It's kind of sad. Apparently I've changed a lot since graduating college and have just now realized it.

I've also been doing a lot of baby shopping recently because my best friend from back home will be having a baby girl in April. I already have a box filled with clothes for her and a basket with a blanket, bottles, headbands, pacifiers and a few other things for her. It makes me happy to do that for her because I love that girl so much.
It also came to my attention that another friend from high school is recently pregnant. As excited and overjoyed as I am for them...that defenantly causes part of the sinking feeling. She's just now 21 and has been married to my friend Keith for a little over a year now. So this girl who is younger than me and is married is going to have a baby. I can't help it but have a little feeling of unhappiness to go along with my excitement for them. OK, enough of that.

Compliments

Unexpected compliments are always the best. I've never been very good at taking compliments, but I'm training myself to just say thank you and be gratious about them. I don't know what's wrong with me...I've just never really been good about accepting the fact that I can actually look nice with I dress up. Anyways...

A couple weeks ago I was meeting Kara and her new intern at Logan's for lunch. Of course I get there on time and they're not there. So I sit on the bench in the entrance with my back against the window and the hostess comes up to me and says "Has anyone ever told you how much you look like Jennifer Aniston?". I didn't know what to say, so I said "well, once, but I think they were just messing with me." She continues to say "with the way the sun was hitting your face and your hair I could have sworn that was Jennifer Aniston sitting right there." Now she was a very sweet lady, No, she wasn't delirious or anything, she was very genuine. I just smiled and said thank you very much.

So that just made me smile through out the lunch hour. Mostly because Ms. Aniston is gorgeous and it was nice to be put on that level, even if it was by a lady.
That hasn't been the only celebrity that people have said that I looked like. In high school there were multiple occassions where people would tell me that I look exactly like Elizabeth Shue. I think they were crazy, but I would hear it from different people at different time. It was weird.
Now to me...I personally don't think I look like either one of them, but I will take both of these occurances as compliments.

I didn't really have a point to this post, just that I was thinking about what the lady said last week. Have any of you circle buddies ever been told that you look like a celebrity?