How Great Thou Art

Today is Wednesday.

I'm over the hump and on my merry way to an extra long weekend.  I think it is time for another music break.

There are a lot of reasons I love this song:

First and foremost, I love Jesus and this is a beautiful song of praise. Second, I'm from Oklahoma and so is Carrie Underwood, which practically makes us best friends, right?

I remember watching this live a long time ago and every once in a while, I look it up to watch it again.  It will take a minute to load, but I promise it will be worth it. Watch through the end - goosebumps.

For your listening pleasure:

Day of Silence

I am sure you all share my sadness over the events that took place in Connecticut last Friday.  The blogging world is taking today as a day of silence to remember the victims.  If you'd like to send your support financially, click on the button below.

Festival of Lights

So, after the hair incident was resolved, a couple of my girlfriends and I met up.  Each December we meet for dinner and a trip to Chickasha, OK to look at Christmas lights.  This year was our fifth year of our annual tradition!  The three of us met in grade school and have been friends ever since.  I truly cherish my friendship with these two.

Elizabeth and Ashley at Texas Roadhouse

Elizabeth is 6 months pregnant and we are so excited!  She was craving steak, so we were happy to oblige.  Texas Roadhouse never disappoints!  We called ahead to reserve our time slot and didn't have to wait at all once we got there :)  Another perk of Elizabeth being pregnant is that she is our designated driver, so Ashley and I tried out the strawberry Long Island Iced Tea. Verdict is: Awesome! We will be having that one again.

After a delicious dinner, we headed to Chickasha for the Festival of Lights. The line just to get into the park had to be 2 miles long! It took us about an hour to get to the entrance of the lights! It's a good thing we had great company and hilarious conversation.

Another part of our tradition is that we take a horse drawn carriage ride. We've done this, even when it is literally less than 20 degrees outside.  Luckily, this weekend we had great weather. 

We are on the light bridge in this picture.  After about 20 tries of taking our own picture, we finally broke down and asked someone to take it for us. 

My iPhone really doesn't do well with these lights - but isn't this cool?!

One of the things that sets this show apart from the other light setups is the water. The reflection is beautiful. 

What a wonderful night! I hope we can continue this tradition for a long, long time.

Haircut Disaster

On Saturday morning I planned to wake up early and be one of the first people at the mall.  I had several gifts I needed to pick up and the mall I needed to go to is notorious for running out of places to park. 

I have also needed a hair trim for weeks and failed to make an appointment sooner.  I thought I could quickly get a trim and it would already be styled to go out with the girls on Saturday night - so I swung into a hair salon in the mall.  I never do this. Ever.  I have a hairdresser that I love (Jo), so I thought I'd just get a trim and make an appointment for a color soon with Jo. 

Big mistake.

  

I knew that I was unhappy the moment I stepped foot outside of the salon. When I got home, James said it didn't look as bad as I'd portrayed over the phone. I almost felt better - but then.....as I turned to walk to the bathroom to try to fix it, James stopped me and said, "Wow, that really is uneven in the back. Is it supposed to look like you have a tail?"  What?  OMG - did he just ask if I had a tail?!!!!   

I immediately panicked and this is the message I sent to my real hairdresser 30 seconds after this conversation with James.

I packed up my stuff and was out the door in seconds..  I made the walk of shame into her salon to explain why I "cheated" on her with another hairdresser.  She finished up with her current client, sat me down and evaluated the damage.  We've been working on growing my hair out - that is down the drain now.  She straightened out what she could and I left a happy camper.

Before - note the 'tail', maybe mullet is appropriate too..

After

Thank goodness of Jo making herself available to fix my disaster.  I seriously considered canceling my plans with the girls to avoid public.  Since Jo worked her magic on me, I actually got compliments on the new haircut.  Whew - catastrophe averted! and....

Lesson Learned.

12.12.12

Today is 12/12/12.

It was another crazy day at work so I am glad to be home.  Today's post is pretty random.

Last night I went to a play with a friend from work. Her 10 year old daughter was in the cutest musical.  Santa's elves ran into a group of pirates - the elves taught the pirates the lesson of how good it feels to give instead of always taking.  I loved it!

 On my way home, I tried to take a picture of the lights on our house. This is from across the road, so the patches of black are the trees blocking the view.  I have got to start using my real camera instead of my phone... ignore the crazy bush lights - I need to add a couple more sets.

James and I went to Raising Cains today for lunch.  I've decided I need one of these in my kitchen!

The Christmas cards have been pouring in - I've got to get mine out soon! The envelopes are getting fancier every year - and I love it!  In fact, I picked my Christmas cards this year because I love the envelope.   I removed the addresses to protect the innocent ;)

I read an interesting article today - I've never thought of this, but I'll definitely be paying closer attention to the number twelve.

It is generally thought that it takes twelve people, accomplishments, things or conditions to make one perfectly created item, for instance;

• Twelve months completes a full year
• Twelve apostles
• Twelve signs of the zodiac
• Twelve hours twice completes one full day
• Twelve people sat on the UFO panel, the Majestic 12
• Twelve divinities in Greek mythology
• Twelve cranial nerves are in the human body
• Twelve principle Gods in Greek religion
• Twelve Days of Christmas
• Twelve people on a jury
• Twelve (roses, donuts, eggs, etc) 
• Twelve people have walked on the moon
• Twelve people sat at King Arthur's round-table
• Twelve inches to a foot
• Twelve steps in alcoholic anonymous
• Twelve Tribes of Israel
• Twelve constellations

If you want to read more, click here. 

Hope everyone is having a great week - the weekend is approaching!!

Christmas Party and Big Win!

After the kiddos arrived sugared up safely at their house - I went home to prepare for my company's Christmas dinner at Remington Park.

I was a picture taking failure on Saturday night - I meant to take a picture of the horses for y'all!

James and I hadn't been out in a while, so it was a nice treat.  Most of our time was spent eating the awesome food and there may have been a drink or five two involved.

Here's the only decent picture we took all night.

We sat with my boss, Cheryl and her husband, Don.  They were a ton of fun - we even did some horse race betting.  And... we WON!

Drum role please....

$13.20! Can you believe it?!  Okay, maybe not that exciting for you, but it was super exciting for me.  Nevermind the fact that we spent $16 to win $13.20.  That's okay though - it was really fun!

We'd planned to meet up with Gary and Ashley afterward, but we were all exhausted. So, we took a rain check and plan to meet up later this week.

Well, I've had 3 posts and we haven't even discussed Sunday yet!  Busy, busy, busy.  Have you done anything exciting for Christmas yet?

Christmas Fun, Part 2

So, Friday night was CiCi's and Christmas lights... if you missed that post, click here.

The last time I kept Olivia, I let her stay up WAY too late.  She stayed up until about 1:30am. Let me explain... first of all, we had a packed agenda and were busy until literally midnight.   You can read about some of our activities here. Then, when I started hinting that we should get ready for bed, she said... "but I'm at YOUR house, so I can stay up as late as I want." Here big pretty eyes and pouty lip could not be ignored, so I caved.  Since she hadn't stayed at my house in a while, I thought it would be a good idea to let her fall asleep to a movie to ease her into the lights being out in a strange house.

This doesn't happen often people, so embrace it when I say:  I. was. wrong.  I just knew that she would fall asleep the moment she got still. Nope.  She stayed up for the entire movie, then when the credits were rolling - she was up dancing and singing!

So, flash forward to Friday night.  Having learned from my mistake, Olivia and Roman were laying down by 10:30pm and asleep by 11pm.  This is still later than I had planned, but improvement nonetheless.  They needed their beauty sleep because the next day, I revealed the big surprise... We would be having breakfast with SANTA!

Santa was scheduled to land at the Orr Family Farm on Saturday morning at 10am.  I reserved seats weeks in advance so we wouldn't miss him.

We had a pancake breakfast. They had whipped cream and chocolate chips as toppings too! All of the kids were bouncing off the walls at this point.

 How cute is he?!

Craft time!

Then pictures with Santa and his elf.

 All the kids this time.

Story and Christmas caroling time!

 Then my favorite part - the train ride around the entire farm.

After the train, the kids got to ride the carousel.

I leave you with the many faces of Roman!  He cracks me up :)

Christmas Fun, Part 1

On Friday, James and I went to pick up our niece and nephew, Roman and Olivia.  We had big plans in store!  We were a little late getting there because the traffic was nuts.  I was getting really frustrated, but all of that went away once we pulled into the drive and they were both waiting at the window looking for our car to pull in - they were so excited!

We started at CiCi's all you can eat salad and pizza.  They said they'd never eaten at a buffet, so they were super excited once we got there. I need to ask Jeni if this is true or not... Please note the salad on the plate - these are the only kids I know that prefer salad over pizza. They are seriously the best eaters!

Ashley and Gary met us so the kids could eat together.  They are almost exactly the same ages, so they get along really well.

These two are all boys - both of them had tattoos and stamps on their body.
That's what they are showing off in this picture. 

The kids were eyeing the game room their entire dinner. So, in typical Jessica fashion, I caved and they got to play.

The adults had fun too!

It's a good thing they have years ahead before driving...
they were all over the place :)

The fun didn't stop there - we went to look at Christmas lights afterward.  There is a large park in Midwest City that has a pretty good light set up every year.  Since it was getting colder outside, we opted to drive through the park.   

The park was set up to tune into a radio station and the trees lit up with the music. They've done this a couple of years now, and I just love it!  This was toward the end of the lights, so the kids were restless, but the adults liked it.

We had a great time - and the fun continued on Saturday. Part 2 tomorrow!

Good Things Are Happening

Good things have been happening this week.  The week really could have gone either way - we were off to a rocky start.  But I'm choosing to count my blessings.

• I got a chance to catch up with an old friend on the phone.
• My almost tragic plumbing situation was resolved for only $75. 
• My New Year's Eve plans are almost secured. 
• Most of my Christmas shopping is done!
• I got to see Grayson in a Christmas program at his school - makes me look forward to having my own kids in it one day.
• I received some extra kudos this week at work, which always help the week go better :)
• I have a lot of fun activities to look forward to this weekend!!

A co-worker and I went out for Chinese yesterday - and I got a great fortune... 

I wonder what will happen March 4th?

Monday Ramble

Warning - this post is long and I ramble a lot.


If you knew me in real life, you'd know that I stress about things - sometimes even the small stuff.  So, life presented me several opportunities to improve how I react to stress this weekend -- and I PASSED (kinda).  Here's the story...

Saturday morning I decided I needed to be productive, so I got up and started putting away all of our purchases from Sam's the night before. One of those items.. light bulbs. The energy efficient ones.  Rather than shove them in a drawer, I reminded myself that I needed to be productive.  So, I went through the house and evaluated what I was up against. The light bulbs that needed replaced were not the easy to reach, simple swap out ones. They were the ones that required a ladder and removal of globes from the ceiling.   Typical Jessica would have waited for James to wake up so I could whine until he did it. I ultimately decided it would be easier to do it myself.

Not only did I remove all the globes, I washed ALL of them, inside and out.  Then, it was time to swap the burned out bulbs. I opened the package and one of the bulbs came flying out of the package, landed on the table, then dropped in slow motion to the wood floor.... and shattered. Ugh - my motivation was deteriorating.  After I got that mess picked up, I finally completed my light bulb exchange.  I'm pretty sure I was sweating by the end of all that.

Then, I thought, I should wash our new sheets. We bought sheets for our wedding anniversary gift and hadn't used them yet - you can read about our anniversary here. While the sheets were in the washing machine, I was cleaning some dishes and noticed water coming up both of my sinks from the drain.

Isn't that gross?! When I went to rotate my sheets to the drier, my garage was flooded!  Hang on... let's let that soak in.  My. Garage. Was. Flooded!  Ohmygosh.  Some of my Black Friday purchases were wet too, but fortunately, very little was ruined.  I called immediately and put in a service request with my home warranty company.  Good news: they immediately processed my request.  Bad news: I wouldn't see a plumber until at least Monday. This is where I typically stress out and make customer service talk to me until they are convinced that my emergency is their emergency and not give up until I get what I want.   This is where I surprised myself.  I did not give "Alicia" a hard time at all. I just took what they offered and waited my turn during normal business hours. This is a big step for me :)  This meant I would be at least 2 days without my washing machine, kitchen sink and dishwasher...

Let me give you some background on this home warranty.  I purchased this service when I bought my house - it has an annual fee, then a service call fee per incident.  It has been beneficial a couple of times, particularly when my air conditioner went out last summer!  The concept is really great, but I'm always worried that they will find a way to not cover the service I need.  One time I had a leak under my sink- so the husband put some plumber's putty on the pipe.  It didn't help, so we moved forward with my warranty company sending a plumber.  The plumber showed up and left, citing that we'd made improper repairs (plumbers putty) so my warranty was void and I still owed him $60 for the service call.  What?!   How is a small amount of plumbers putty an improper repair?  All we did was pull it right off once he left and called another plumber.  So, needless to say, when we called about this issue, I was afraid they'd void my warranty - so James was not allowed to touch anything!

Then there's Sunday. I was eating some buffalo wings and needed to step out of the room - less than 3 minutes later, I come back and Oliver had jumped on the table and ate 3 huge buffalo wings, bones and all!  OMG - this time I freaked out.  Dogs aren't supposed to eat chicken bones!  And I don't recommend google at a time like this... I was convinced Oliver would get sick and may need to go to the emergency room.  Someone recommended to give a dog rice to help expand their stomach until the bones pass through.  So, I went to make some rice that we had in a microwavable package.  I was caught up in conversation and forgot to open a part of it to allow it to vent.  ONE second left on the microwave and BAM! the bag explodes - rice goes everywhere!  That was it.  I fed Oliver some of the rice I could salvage and went to bed.  I had all of the weekend I could take!

I knew if I rode out these events, something good would have to happen... and it did. The plumber came today and confirmed it was just my drain was clogged.  They used a really loud machine that vibrated 1/2 my house and before I knew it - it was fixed!

And the best part - my bill was cheap.  $75 - I'll take that!!

And tonight was great too!  Oliver seems to be just fine after eating those bones, so I'm happy about that.  Here he is in his brand new Christmas pajamas!

I normally don't put clothes on Oliver, but isn't he handsome?!

Fingers crossed for more good events this week :)  Thank you for listening to me ramble.