the unexpected domestic

christmas week festivities

Ok y'all! We are in the last week until Christmas!  Actually there are only a few days left.  I have a confession:  Last week when I went grocery shopping before Kevin came home, I kind of lost it at Wal Mart and bought like ten bags of chocolate.  Ok, no, I didn't buy that much, but I did buy two bags of dark chocolate chips and three bags of semi-sweet and two bags of mini m&m's and it just kept going from there.  I think one reason people love the holidays so much is that there is so many treats that are made!

I love making lists and with only a couple more days until Christmas I want to make sure I have everything done!  I have several things that I want to bake and other things that involve crafting!  Below are my two lists for the things I have planned to do:

Treats & Sweets
Fudge (double batch)
Puppy Chow
Crazy Crackers
Christmas Cupcakes
Haystacks
Mini M&M's (for snacks)
Peppermint Mocha Hot Chocolate

Crafting & Creating
Edible Gifts
Mississippi Pillow
Wrapping Christmas Presents
Gift Tags
Knitting

Ok, so maybe some of the last ones weren't ones necessarily for Christmas, but they are things I want to do this week!  As you can tell, I use a lot of my links from Pinterest.  Honestly, when I go to search for something, I no longer use Google, I just go straight to Pinterest!  Ha, I know I can't be the only one.

Also we have moved our church service from Wednesday to tonight.  I am so looking forward to a night so close to Christmas to worship with my church family the birth of Jesus Christ!  If any of y'all aren't doing anything, please come and be with us!  It sure would be a blessing for us to have y'all there!

jude 22

"And of some have compassion, making a difference:"

Compassion is something that I have been thinking of more often lately.  It can be hard to show compassion in our world especially when people are so self-absorbed and can cause you hurt.  This verse jumped out at me Sunday night when Bro. Darrin first read through them.  It is a small simple sentence that holds a whole lot of meaning.  I had just said something similar to this to Mrs. Gina the previous Friday night when we were discussing that sometimes people just need you to be nice to them.

My prayer is that I can continue to grow in compassion, extending it to people I know and strangers I see around town.  Like the verse says, it makes a difference.  Maybe not right away, maybe not a big difference, but this lesson is a repeating occurence in story after story, movie after movie.  All it takes is a kind word, mercy shown, and then it spreads.  So although I may sometimes fail, I will show compassion because of the compassion that was extended to me by my Lord.  Mostly I will show compassion because I was told to do so through the Word.
http://hecallsmelovely.tumblr.com/post/94268001639/http-instagram-com-brittzy

 

Thank You To Our Veterans

To all our veterans who have fought so bravely and greatly for our country.   There are not enough words to express the gratitude and respect and love y'all deserve.  Thank you.

thoughts about time change.

Yesterday I had an appointment with the opthalmologist (fancy word for eye doctor) in Jackson.  So I had about 4 hours driving in the car to just think about things.  I began thinking about daylight savings time and while I don't care too much about it, I did have a couple of thoughts on it.

bad:
- shorter days.  it gets dark at like, five now!
- it means cold weather is on its way.
- my eating schedule is off. makes me cranky
- my body really does sync itself with the sun rising and setting.  when it's dark I want to sleep and when it's daylight I want to wake up.  so I was waking up later and later since the sun was taking longer to rise.

good:
- the time the sun is rising is "earlier" allowing me to wake up early again.
- this week it felt like I wasn't going into work until 9!
- colder weather means I get to have cute little fires in my chiminea and that makes me happy.

So it's not much, but there you go!

I still miss summer tho :)

thoughts at the DMV

I recently had to renew my driver's license at the local to DMV which is known to be a time-sucker and you have to wait foreverrrrrrrr.  So to spend the least amount of time waiting, i got there 45 minutes before it even opened.  Because, you know, that totally makes sense, haha.  But it totally paid off because I was second in line!  The girl in front of me was a teenager there to get her driver's license.  When her mother asked her if she had her permit with her and the girl responded no, it reminded me of ten years ago and not caring about a thing!  I know I'm still quite young, but over the years I've learned a couple of basic things that are always nice to keep up with because it really just makes life easier.

1 - house keys.  it wasn't until a few years after I had moved out of my parent's house that this really stuck with me.  up until that point, I had no need to depend solely upon myself to get into the house that i lived in.  When i lived in starkville, i had begun to make it a habit to have my keys in my hand when I got out of my car.  That way i would be prepared to easily get in my house if i needed to.  I also thought it was an extra safety precaution because keys are sharp!

2 - driver's license or id.  you never know when you might have to drive for someone.  or you might need an ID for any kind of situation.  If you are in the habit of carrying it, you'll never be stranded without it!

3 - cash.  whenever i go out of town, I almost always make sure i have cash.  the first year kevin and i were married, we were out of town and both our debit wouldn't work!  this happened in two separate instances.  Luckily we were with family both times so we weren't completely stuck.  so now I try to go by the ATM before we go anywehre.

4 - pen.  there will come a time when you will need a pen!  there has never been a time when I have regretted having a pen.

5 - ponytail holders.  as a woman with long hair, I don't go anywhere without a ponytail holder on my wrist.  on the days i forget it, and i don't know how i do this, i feel so lost without it.

Y'all I'm sure there are several items that I've missed but these are the main things that i actually had with me at the time, so, duh. that's what went on the list! :)  What's some things that y'all have that maybe I missed?

 

happy Sunday y'all!

Hey y'all :) what a blessed day we have had! We heard a good sermon this morning on the gospel of Jesus Christ followed by an excellent lunch in the fellowship hall! Afterwards we had an encouraging devotional and then enjoyed the afternoon service brought by Heartdeep, a local gospel bluegrass group! I was really encouraged by brother chuck's words about "being the best woodworker." Even just reading the wonderful and uplifting words of truth gives me a renewed strength and peace!

Kevin and I also had a really good afternoon, just spending some time together around the house. We also took an afternoon drive and ended up at his grandmother's house for a few minutes! She has kind of like a living fence along the front of her yard that was made out of muscadine vines! So, of course I got a handful. :)

daydreaming

I've been daydreaming a lot today.  it is so nice to have dreams, don't you think?  I believe it began w/an early morning trip by the farmer'smarket and then i ordered some plans to build a new chicken coop so now I'm dreaming about farm life again.  I really should have gotten a degree in agriculture or something :)  I also went to lunch with Jessica and that really does not help any!  We get to talking about all our interests and we just keep getting more and more excited.

I am very excited about my chicken coop plans!  They were created by Heather Bullard and I actually discovered this coop through the blog Happy Days Farm. 

I will do a fall garden of sorts along with a bigger herb garden!  A lot of my herbs are in my fancy pot stand that Kevin got me for Christmas but i believe that they will flourish if I plant them in the ground!

I feel like I have  to do list that changes daily.  It's a little shameful but I know I have so much in my house that I don't even use or sometimes even remember I have.  I really want to clear out my extra room.  I feel like if I do that, a lot of my distractions will go down.  You know, like when you have so much to do you just don't do anything? haha. that's where I'm at a little bit.

Kevin has helped me out with this distraction a little bit this week!  He has done the dishes for me this past week! :)  now, I really enjoy washing dishes, but they're kind of like laundry, the never really end.  I love that he does things like that especialy since then I have more time to spend with him!

Is anyone else daydreaming these days?

moving on.

for the past year, there has been an activity in my life that I have been putting a lot of my thoughts and effort into.  It was something that at one time I really enjoyed and am very good at.  This past week I realized that I no longer felt the same about my project.  It just was not the same anymore and I could feel myself drifting to other things even though I still had not admitted it to myself yet.  

So what do I do now?  What am I supposed to focus my energy on now?  I have gotten on this blogging kick lately.  And I've been knitting some.  However, I think I know what my focus and energy is going into...being fit!  I have exercised every day for the past two weeks.  In fact, I've done it in the morning and then again in the evening.  I know I have already talked about why I love running and all, but y'all.  for some reason all I want to talk about is the latest workout I've been doing.  Luckily, I have some great friends who listen to me ramble on.

Once upon a time, working out and exercising was pretty much all I ever did.  Running and lifting weights and playing sports consumed me.  Looking back at that time in my life, I wish I had embraced it more.  Well fitness, here I am!  Let's do this.  Yoga pants and sports bras are already my best friends.  This past week I have pushed myself running more than I have all year.  You know, it's a lot harder to do mself than when I had a coach pushing me.  Ha!  But I fee like this is something worth putting all my energy into.

And how lucky am I that one of my besties is also just as much into her fitness??  It's pretty great to have someone that I know I can constantly relate to and to be an encourager.  Even though we do not do exactly the same thing, we can still encourage each other no matter the activity.  There are also many other outlets where I can get my fitness fix, too!  I'm hoping to convert my hubby but I'm not sure I want to do that because we work out way different. and only one set of adjustable weights.  ha!  I would love to find more fitness blogs to follow, it is always nice to find inspiration from other people with a similar mindset.

ttyl!  elizabeth

Saturdays should smell like clean.

Except today...haha! Just kidding. I am cleaning today. In fact, normally I get started earlier than I did today but I kinda stayed in bed a little longer. But you know what I mean! As a kid, Saturday was always the day to vacuum, clean my room, do yard work, you know, the whole works. Since I have gone to college and then got married well...I hadn't always done that.
However, earlier this year, I decided that around here I wanted Saturdays to smell like clean again! I still don't do it every Saturday but keeping things somewhat clean throughout the week helps a lot. I'm trying really hard to put things up after I'm finished using them. Which, you know what? It's sometimes hard to get in that mindset because this is my house! Shouldn't I be able to do things how I want? But I also want to walk into a room and not see stuff strewn everywhere. Therefore, I put my stuff up after I use it (sometimes). When I don't, I have a big mess to clean up. Like today.
But I'm rambling now, so happy Saturday y'all!

p.s. if you look at the dates when posts are posted, this was supposed to upload yesterday from my phone but it didn't!

time flies when you're having fun. (or are just super busy)

So here's what happened. I had such a great weekend last weekend, and I really wanted to post some of the pictures and blog about it. But I didn't. And then we have had some great services at revival and I really was gonna write a post about it but I didn't. And then Jessica gave me some tomato plants to plant and I was gonna blog about that. But I haven't and I didn't.
Truly, I have been going full throttle all week and have just been keeping my head above the water. My mind has been completely scattered, I can't focus, I am just doing the task at hand that had to be done or something would fall. But there's only so long you can juggle things before you stop dropping them and you crumble under the stress. Which happened last night...but I will do more on that later, lets just say praise The Lord!
What I want to talk about right now is how I am comfortable and resting because Kevin got the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. That one thing has given me the freedom to take a much needed break and just take an hour for myself to do whatever it was I wanted to do and not because I have to get it done. Just doing one small thing for someone can do so much and make them so happy! I know I am fixing to get up and leave my little quiet time and fix chicken salad for church tonight and do a load of laundry before we leave. But, thanks to my loverly, I have one less task on my mental to-do list!