Friday Five

1. So, there was an election this week. And, enough about that!

2. We had a hurricane a few weeks ago, and boy, were we lucky. Our area didn't end up getting hit very hard by it, and we only lost power for two hours.

3. Moving on to something fun... Gus! I meant to have a special post when Gus had been with us for one year...but was caught up in my overly busy life and didn't get around to it. Work was so busy for a few months that I barely managed to do anything at home except for the bare essentials. Since I'm sure your curious minds want to know, August 5th marked one full year of our amazing kitty, Gus, joining our little family. He really is a great cat. I'm so thankful that my dog-loving husband actually loves our cat. A lot. Woot!

4. I can't believe its November already. How did that happen? It seems like last week was only July. I guess time flies when you are super busy. At least that means the holidays are around the corner. Love Thanksgiving. Love Christmas. Sure, it can be stressful, but I love time with family, friends, and food.

5. Speaking of things that are just around the corner...our 10th wedding anniversary is less than two months away. Wow. It somehow feels longer than that and not that long all at the same time. Ten years. Amazing stuff!

Dear 14 Year Old Me

I'm linking up to Chatting at the Sky today (because of my friend Thelma - she made me) to write a letter to my teenage self. This should be fun?

14 years old - Freshman

Dear 14 year old me,

There are several things I would like to share with you. Take this stuff to heart. I know a lot of this will be hard for you to accept, but please try.

First I want to talk about your confidence, or lack thereof. You've already spent far too many years wondering if your friends like you as much as you like them. They do. Stop being so afraid of what everyone thinks of you. Most people genuinely like you, not just your good friends. When you see that group of kids that you want to join, don't be afraid to go over to them. They are not secretly wishing that you would go away. There will be some people that won’t like you, most of which will be outside your control. Don’t lose sleep over it. No one can actually be liked by everyone they ever meet. Not only do most people like you, you will eventually be one of the more popular kids in school. You won’t know it, but you will be.

Stop overanalyzing what everyone says to you by trying to figure out what they really meant. Stop overanalyzing everything you do and say. It will be ok. People will like you for who you are, but that means you have to actually learn to let go and be yourself. Stop holding on so tightly to your every thought and action that you can’t be who God made you to be.

Freshman again - that's me on the far left with the BIG hair

You are sweet and nice. And no, that doesn’t make you boring and it doesn’t mean you have no personality.

You are smart, even though you have never thought so. Tests make your brain cramp up and you don’t have a photographic memory, but you are still a smart chick.

You are funny. Let yourself go a little, and more people will notice.

Stand up for yourself – for what you believe and what you want. You are worth it. Don't let your insecurities paralyze you.

And, believe it or not, you are beautiful. You might not be as skinny as many girls around you, but you are not fat at all. Your butt is not huge. And your face does not look like a boy’s, no matter how that short boy haircut made you feel as a preteen. (By the way, super short hair will always make you feel less pretty, and the volume in your hair will never work with the super short styles you try. Don’t go there again.)

Sophomore

You will have a great time in high school, but improving your self-image will make it even better and will serve you well for years to come. Enjoy every moment. Take advantage of living overseas in your beloved Taiwan. You won't go back nearly as much as you hope.

Start taking better care of your teeth (floss, for crying out loud). Try running (even though you truly don’t think you can). Step away from the perms (why did you ever think that was so awesome). And for goodness sakes, clean your dorm room!

Junior

Once you have taken the Myers-Briggs personality test multiple times as an adult and scored precisely dead center on the extrovert and introvert line every time, you will finally realize that you are not one over the other - you are both. Lots of things will fall into place in your brain at that point, like how you can be shy and quiet when first meeting people yet have them wondering why they ever thought you quiet after getting to know you. You are both energized and drained by being with people and being by yourself. That does not make you weird, it’s just who you are.

Senior

Boys. You will not seriously date any boys in high school. Take a deep breath. It will be ok. You will also not seriously date anyone in college. Trust me, it will be ok! In 1999 you will meet a great man that will challenge what you thought you wanted in a guy - in good ways. He won’t be ready to date you for a couple years, but trust me, he’s worth the wait. In 2002 you will start dating that great guy, and will marry him in a year’s time. He will make you laugh like no one else ever has and will love you fiercely. He will be incredibly good for you, giving you deep roots you didn't know you needed. The two of you will have a number of bumps in the road, but you will get through them together.

College. This is a toughie. College is going to throw you for a number of big loops. You will think you are prepared, and in many ways you are, but being independent isn’t enough. You're going to start feeling lonely and misunderstood. The reverse culture shock back to the States will last longer than you expect. You will think you are ready, so it will take you by surprise. Stay involved in things on campus, even when you feel like withdrawing. It will be hard to find a church where you feel you belong. Keep trying. Ask for help when you need it and accept help when offered. Stay true to who you are - sweet, funny, and kind.

Spend a little more time figuring out what you want to do with your life, in case you don’t find that job traveling the world. Ask more questions – about careers, resumes, and interviewing. Take more computer classes. Don’t let your one terrible experience with that professor that couldn’t teach discourage you.

Unfortunately, I can't steer you away from every challenge; you will need many of those trials to become who God wants you to be. There will be many difficult days ahead of you, but God will be there to walk you through each one.

Love and no-more-perms,
Your 37 year old self

Friday Five

1. The night before we left on vacation, there was a huge storm. Rusty was asleep and I was beginning to doze off when I began to hear the sounds of a storm. At first I dismissed it as a normal thunderstorm, but the howling wind kept getting louder and louder. I sat up in bed, unease giving way to worry. Rusty stirred and I asked him, "Do you hear that?" I got out of bed and grabbed my iPhone to look up local weather warnings as the wind continued to roar.

"Is that a tornado," Rusty wondered out loud? That's all I needed to hear. I speed walked to that bathroom, still fumbling with my iPhone in search of information. The wind raged as I sat shaking in the still damp tub with Rusty crouched beside me. I prayed for safety as branches and twigs hit the roof for what felt like an eternity. The power went out at some point. As the terrible wind finally died down, I had the presence of mind to find our local news station's website on my iPhone and touch Listen Live.

I used the light of my iPhone to find the camping light we had recently purchased on a whim (or what it?) which Rusty then used to find our big flashlight. He walked around our house, checking for damage and then shone the powerful flashlight out the front and rear doors. We had lost the top half of one of our 100' tall trees. Thank you, Lord, that the tree fell in the yard and not on our house. We shut the house up tight and let Gus out of his room, since we were now wide awake.

According to the news, there were no tornadoes, just a crazy storm with 80 mph straight winds. We got power back on late the next day (Saturday) before we had to leave on vacation (thank you, God). And the tree? It would have to wait until we got home from vacation in...

2. ...Virginia Beach! Ah, yes. I love getting away for a few days where the biggest decision is whether to start our day by floating in the pool or enjoying the beach. We all need that kind of relaxation every now and then, don't we?

3. The other important decisions while on vacation revolve around food. What should we do for lunch? PB&J in our room or eat out? Where should we go for dinner? Most of the places we went were successes. In fact, the only bomb was the Chinese place, where nearly everything was so overcooked it was nearly inedible. I still don't know what was in those deep-fried dumplings (they are supposed to be pan-fried, people, PAN-fried)! :shudder: (And no, I don't mean what kind of animal meat...they were meatless.)

All the other food we ate was fabulous - gyros and stuffed grape leaves at Ammos; topped crab flounder with a white wine lemon sauce at Il Giardino; steamed king crab legs at Captain George's, and table-side guacamole and fish tacos at the Side Street Cantina. Drool.

4. We came home on Thursday to a lonely 11-month old kitten, piles of laundry, and the tree in our front yard. On Saturday, Rusty and our brother-in-law, Barry, fired up chain saws while my father-in-law and I carried logs, limbs, and sticks. With their help, we got it completely cleaned up even though it was so hot I thought I was back in tropical Taiwan.

5. The only bad part about our vacation (beside the cost of it) is that Rusty ended up with swimmer's ear. Ouch! His right ear began hurting enough on Sunday to cause him to ask me to make him a doctor's appointment on Monday. That is saying something about the amount pain and irritation that Rusty felt, folks!

Friday Five

1. So, sorry about disappearing...again. Whoops. Life has been so busy! Let's see, what have we done since I last blogged?

2. The biggest thing is that my parents came to visit us. We had a wonderful time together, but boy were we busy. Rusty can usually take off a day or two while my parents visit, but that wasn't the case this year.

3. This year my dad took on a very big project. Daddy built me a 7' x 40" bookcase for my kitchen. The weather was wet and cool, which made the process of staining long. See how beautiful it turned out?

4. Another big thing is that I took on the role of being Assistant Director of Hannah's Prayer Ministries. It is such an honor to serve the beautiful women of HP.

5. I attended the Chick-fil-A Leadercast that was simulcast at my church. It was a fantastic experience!

Friday Five

1. The Dixon family has had a rough couple weeks. One of Rusty’s cousins passed away on February 19th and an uncle passed away on the 21st. His cousin’s funeral was last Saturday and his uncle’s funeral was on Wednesday.

2. It rained cats and dogs and birds and hamsters on Wednesday during the funeral – puddles and mud abounded. Yuck. But the time spent with Rusty’s family was good, nonetheless.

3. I want to make this recipe for a whole chicken in a slow cooker tomorrow. After I remove all the meat, I want to make chicken broth in my slow cooker using a combination of these two recipes, #1 and #2. I found these three recipes on Pinterest!

4. We have been to they gym twice (TWICE!) so far this week, and we are planning on going again today. Go us! We may or may not be sore.

5. I can't believe I watched 6 hours of American Idol this week - 4 of those hours were live. I'm really glad that next week will be the normal length shows. LOL!

Friday Five

And now for the picture version of our trip to Virginia Beach:

The view from our room at dusk.

Gorgeous, right?

And now for a daylight shot.

Veal Parmesan - a HUGE piece of meat.

Just the two of us.

What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

1. Don’t sprain your ankle three days before vacation. If you do, however, be extra careful with it and baby it like crazy. You may be able to enjoy your vacation and be only slightly limited in what you can do. Also, avoid wearing flip flops that have no arch support even if your ankle is feeling better.

2. Don’t let your husband speed on your way to the beach. There will be speed traps – especially on a holiday weekend.

3. Watch the beach pros stick umbrellas in the sand. It is, in fact, an art form and you can learn from the guys that get paid to do it all day long. If you don’t, you may find your umbrella hurtling precariously end over end towards an unsuspecting and innocent bystander. Not cool, folks.

4. There is not much you can do if you have extremely loud hotel neighbors …even if they are screaming at the top of their lungs at midnight. Not even if they are wrastlin’ and/or moving furniture around at the same time as the screaming. It is true that they are totally inconsiderate and ridonk, but aside from calling the front desk, you are out of luck.

5. If the mini fridge in your suite has ice that has formed along the back, you can’t find the temperature control, and ice starts forming in your drinks…beware! Things can explode. The only good part is that cleaning up frozen diet Coke is a lot easier than cleaning up liquid diet Coke.

6. Thoroughly and frequently applying sunblock to a bald head prevents burning and whining from one’s husband.

7. When a thunderstorm slowly rolls by on the evening of July 4th, don’t hold out any hope that there will be fireworks shot off from the barge in the ocean. It ain’t gonna happen. That barge will leave and not come back. The only fireworks you will see will be the lightening from the thunderstorm, so grab your chair and enjoy. Do NOT get all excited and have your little camera set to the fireworks setting and attached to your mini tripod hours early. It will only serve to let you down even more.

Last Day

Mom and dad leave tomorrow. I'm sad to see them go. We have had a great time, and managed to get a lot accomplished with their more than willing help. Truth be told, a number of the projects were my dad's idea. My dad rocks. Just sayin'.

So, let's see. What else have we done?

Dad flipped the door on my pantry. It opened into a corner. Yes, INTO a CORNER. Makes no sense at all. The doornob is a little higher than it should be (since the door is upside down), but that is a very small price to pay for the door to open the right way. He did an amazing job, even cutting small pieces of wood to cover the holes and painting them.

Rusty worked on his shed a little more, adding another shelf and finding about 72 screwdrivers.

We also planted flowers yesterday evening. Pretty, right?

All in all, it was a great week and I don't want it to end or go back to work. Alas, back to reality.

Thanks, mom and dad!
I will miss you!
Love and hugs.

The Shedding Project

Yesterday we worked on a long-awaited project and only had a couple mishaps along the way. Time to shed some stuff!

The Problem:
One overcrowded and discombobulated shed, eight years in the making.

Over. Crowded.

The Solution:
After eight years of discussions with my dad on organizing the shed, we finally bit the bullet and dove on into the deep end.

Getting started

The Project:
Empty, build, pitch, organize, build some more, mishaps, fill.

Mom helped too

Phase 1:
Empty.
Rusty bought our little shed the year before we got married. We have been talking about building shelves and organizing it ever since...as we steadily filled it up.


Lots o stuff


Phase 2:
Build.
Rusty and dad built one high shelf to store a LOT of stuff that we don't use all that often.



Hope it holds!

Phase 3:
Pitch.
There was quite a bit of trash, and a few field mice living in some rolled up carpet.



Yuck


Phase 4:
Organize.
The organization begins. Much more to come.



Hey, we can find stuff!


Phase 5:
Build some more.



Another shelf


Phase 6:
Mishaps.
First, dad got tripped up getting in the pickem-up truck and was rewarded with a nice welt below his knee. Ouch. The second mishap occurred while cutting plywood on the back of the pickem-up truck.

Poor pickem-up truck



The culprit

Phase 7:
Fill.
More stuff goes back in.
We want to add one more small shelf on the left. Rusty still has to sort through and organize his tools and we need to add some nails on the wall on the right to a hang tools, but it is almost done!


Awesomeness

Friday Five

1. I went to a Taiwanese cooking class on Tuesday. It. Was. Awesome. I have been to quite of few of these and I always leave with a very stuffed but happy stomach. Chef Nicole made Basil Chicken (to die for), Ground Pork and Vegetables with Noodles (so tasty), Shrimp Egg Foo Young (wonderful), and Sweet Buns (surprisingly yummy since I don't like a few of the filling ingredients). I can’t wait to buy ingredients for all of these tasty treats.

2. It was cold and rainy on Wednesday. Not very spring like of the weather. I may or may not have been a complete and total grouchy diva.

3. We’ve been raking up leaves and cleaning our house this week like mad people, in anticipation of my parents arriving.

4. Speaking of my parents…they are here! And there was much rejoicing.

5. Our plans for the coming week include Wegmans, the Amish market, planting flowers, hunting for a great new Asian grocery store, cooking Taiwanese food, eating Taiwanese food, and maybe raking leaves in the backyard.

The Eclair Dilemma

My sweet father-in-law came down to our house today to help my husband rake up some our million leaves and pick up some of the thousand sticks/limbs in our yard. He showed up with two huge and delicious eclairs from a local bakery. These suckers are huge and heavy with sweet cream. I can barely eat half of one at a time.

What is the dilemma?

Oh, well, we are still fasting desserts.

Tomorrow is the last day, however, so we are just leaving them in the refrigerator until Monday...where they will torture us with their sweet goodness. Oh, sweet eclairs, you are so yummy and calorie laden. If only I could partake of part of you tonight.

Until Monday, sweet friend. Until Monday.

Friday Five

1.  I was able to spend a few minutes visiting with a dear friend on Sunday. She and her hubby were driving past where my parents lived on their way home and they stopped to visit with me! Loved seeing you, Nae!

2.  I gave my dad a puzzle of DC for Christmas. He pulled it out and started sorting pieces with mom. I joined in while they were putting the edges together. Even Rusty helped for a while. We made great progress on it before Rusty and I left.

3.  We are getting our new dryer delivered today. It cannot come soon enough for us! I am so over wet clothes laying everywhere, but mostly I am over rough towels. Blech!

4.  There was a major change with WW on Sunday. I go to my meeting to find out all the information tomorrow. I did gain a few pounds over Thanksgiving but I know it could have been so much worse. I am anxious to learn the new program and I am sure this will end up being a good thing for me. It will take some getting used though.

5.  I got a wrong number text message last night at 10:40. It woke me up. Evidently Rico's party is tomorrow. If anyone wants to go, they are meeting at 8:00 pm in Alexandria, VA!

Friday Five

1.  Our dryer stopped drying. It runs, but does not heat. Great. Wonderful. We have been having to air dry everything. I went to Target to buy a second drying rack. I was shocked to see how much those suckers cost. $40? No thanks! I managed to find one for about $15. Anyway, we have wet clothes hung all over our house and they are taking forever to dry. When we get back from Thanksgiving we have to figure out what to do next. Get a new one? Risk fixing it and paying just as money as if we did buy a new one? I hate appliances.

2.  One of my coworkers gave me a jewelry party catalog. Some of the stuff is nice, but man is it pricey! $130 for a long silver necklace?! Um, no. I did, however, find that I really wanted a long silver necklace all of the sudden. I went to the mall and found an awesome necklace for, wait for it, $6.35. Yay!

3.  To scan or to pat. That is the question. Or so we thought. We decided to go ahead with the body scan. No touching me please! We arrived nice and early, ready for long lines and lots of waiting. Sure enough, the security line was long. We stepped into the queue at 5:45 am. The line moved surprising fast. As we got closer to the front, I saw that there was only one of the body scanners. Ah ha! This may be good news for us! We put everything all the belt (bags, shoes, coats, belts...basically everything) and were waved to the regular x-ray thingy. PTL! No body scan or aggressive pat-down for us! We were through the security line by 6:00 am. Only 15 minutes! Wow. Just, wow! That was really fast. I applaud you BWI. Good job.

4.  It has been great to be with my family, even when one person is playing a game on the computer, one is watching football, three are looking at Black Friday sale papers, one is working on scheduling for homeschooling, one is playing games on her phone (me), two kids are reading books, and one kid is playing in another room. :) Of course, just a short time later we started up a rousing game of Apples to Apples. Love that game!

5.  I get to meet Esther Okerson today! It is amazing how you can become such good friends with people online. I never would have thought that so many of my closest friends would be started online. Any by online I mean HP, er, Hannah's Prayer (for you non HPers).

Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving my bloggie friends!!!

Stayca!

My mom and dad are coming tomorrow for a visit! I haven't seen them since Christmas so I am very excited! Stoked! :)

Rusty and I have been cleaning like crazy people...not because my parents care about how our house looks though. We use their visits as motivation for our one BIG cleaning of the year. I'm officially exhausted!

Tomorrow I have to change the sheets, sweep, and run some errands...Target, post office, and groceries. Then I will come back home and get some soup made for dinner. Now I just have to decide which soup to make.

• Meatball Spinach Tortellini Soup
• Spicy Italian Chicken Soup
• Braised Beef Minestrone

I think I'm leaning towards the Braised Beef Minestrone. Yum-o! If I'm really adventurous I'll make this awesome mixed greens salad with baked goat cheese rounds. SO GOOD! It takes a little time to get the goat cheese rounds made right, so we'll see how my timing is.

Hmm. I can make any post about food, huh? Back to the original intent...my parents are coming! :)

Love

We went to NC this last weekend for Rusty's cousin's wedding. Congrats Andy & Jess, on your wedded bliss!

Aww, kissy kissy!

Two apple ciders anyone? My silly double fisted hubby.

Toast to the happy couple!

Rusty & me.