Fresh Veggies

Sorry so long without a post...we just haven't done anything this week...well, except work, come home and eat, sleep and back to work! This morning, we went to Franklin to The Factory to pick up our garden fresh veggies. We get fresh veggies every other week because we halved a 1/2 share in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) with our friends Stephen and Emily Prather (by the way, who happen to be expecting their first baby, a girl!!! We are so excited for them!). We paid some money up front and then starting in April and lasts through July or August we get fresh garden picked, organic, veggies. We were there at 8:00 a.m. to pick it up...an early morning!! Our CSA is through Delvin Farms in College Grove, TN (http://www.delvinfarms.com/).

We stopped and had breakfast at Chick-fil-a after we picked the veggies up and then stopped by Opry Mills Mall for about 30 minutes so by the time I got home to take pictures of them they were a bit wilted. But the first 2 pictures are from our first batch and the others are from this third batch. The second batch we received was the night before we were leaving for Memorial Day weekend vacation so in all the business of packing that night, we didn't get pictures of it.

Stephen watched/listened to LSU baseball this evening - not a happy outcome for our house...

Another Day...A cleaner House

On the way home from church today we stopped and picked up Chinese...so easy to go get something so you don't have to worry with messing up and having to clean up the kitchen! I got lots more clothes done but mostly, I got the guest bedroom cleaned back up and the loft and the workout room cleaned back up.

The workout room was full of all the boxes from the new computer we bought over the "tax-free" weekend! Wow! It takes a lot of boxes, and big ones, to send a computer and all it's parts.

The loft and guest bedroom had accumulated all the items from painting the bathroom and had our luggage spread out from trying to pack for our Memorial Day weekend trip.

The BIG news of the day is that Stephen began working on installing the new towel ring, toilet paper holder and sink faucet in the guest bathroom. Still got some more work to do on the faucet but he had to stop because we had some company this evening...David and Brian stopped by for just a little bit...anyway, by the time they left LSU was playing baseball so he's watching them on-line. He's got softball games Monday and Tuesday so hopefully he'll get a chance to finish it Wed or Thurs. After all, that is the bathroom that he uses in the mornings to get ready for work so a couple mornings of him sharing my bathroom with me and he'll be ready to get his back together so he can get back in his...I spread out everywhere in my bathroom trying to get ready! :-)

When he gets it installed, I'll post a picture of the beautiful faucet fully installed!

Softball Tournament 5.31.08

This morning Stephen played in a softball tournament with his other teammates from the Tuesday night softball league. It was a wonderful Saturday!! While they didn't win the tournament, they did play well in the 4 games they played in! Most of the wives were there to cheer them on or to just socialize with each other! We have such an AWESOME Sunday school class! We always have fun hanging out with them. The Gentrys brought out their grill and at lunch we had hamburgers, hotdogs, chips and cookies!!

It was supposed to rain all day long so it was cloudy most of the day...(we all left the park around 3:00 or so). So the clouds and cool breeze blowing all day made the temperature so beautiful for sitting out at the field all day long! As soon as we started taking down the tents and packing up to go home the sky started to drop some rain drops on us but they were so lite that the sun was drying them before they could get us wet! Like I said - perfect weather! By the time we got home, it didn't rain another drop (until the night - we got woken up several times in the night with terrible rain storms, thunder and power going on and off).

Not only was it a fun day out with friends, but it was a very productive day at the house. When we got home, I was so sweaty and dirty from being at the field all afternoon so I decided to come home and clean off the garage before I cleaned myself up. Man does it look better now! We'll see how long it lasts! I am sooo proud of how much space I have around my car now when I pull it in. I packed up 3 boxes of stuff for the Goodwill store and threw away several empty boxes (don't know why I was storing them out there), and filled up the Waste Management container. I found all sorts of Christmas decor that needed to go in the attic. I can't believe how much stuff was needlessly out there on that garage.

Thankfully, while I was out in the garage, Stephen cleaned up the kitchen!

Of course, all the stuff I found out in the garage that needed to be inside the house got dumped on the living room floor. So after I finished sweeping out the garage and rearranging what was left, I sat down in the middle of the living room floor and went through all that stuff. Took me a while but got it all put away and proceeded to straighten up and vacuum the floor (since I made a mess on the floor with all that stuff). Stephen was trying to listen to the LSU ballgame on his computer but told me to go ahead and run the vacuum while I was in the mood! I'm not sure he knows what to think about the cleaning binge I've been on since we got back from Louisiana (because the day we got back I cleaned a ton of stuff in our bedroom and dusted EVERYTHING down).

Then, I got to thinking...while I'm doing all this I might as well go through those bathroom cabinets and clean them out!! So I went through our 3 cabinets and 4 small drawers and dumped ALL of it out in the bathroom floor and sat down in the middle of it all with a garbage bag. I wonder if other women do this or if it's just me...when a bottle of shampoo is almost empty (like with a 1/4 oz of product left) I turn it upside down underneath the cabinet and think that I'll buy another bottle of the same stuff and when it gets low I'll combine the two and get a couple more uses out of it...never happens. So I had tons of mostly empty bottles from the past 3 years that I ended up throwing away. Next, I noticed that we had tons of boxes of medicine; lots of various cold medicines & drops and prescription bottles, Advil...you get the idea...over half of it was expired, so yep, I just started throwing it all away. I ended up filling a garbage bag all the way up and it was so heavy the bottom almost busted - good thing I was using HEFTY bags! Then I re-organized the cabinets! It's soooo nice and neat now...we'll see how long that lasts as well! :-)

Next I decided to start washing clothes and went ahead and jumped in the shower (this was about 8:00) - by now I really needed it! Then got out, ate some Fritos for dinner and ran up stairs to download softball pictures of which I got e-mailed out to everyone around 11:15 p.m.

What a fun and productive day!!

To see all our photos from the softball tournament, check out the link I added in the left column under "Our friends' blogs and other Links". It's the link labeled "HHBC Softball Tournament Pictures 5/31/08".

More Guest Bathroom Upgrades

Well, we got home and didn't know what to do for dinner so we went out for Mexican! We were very good though...we got one entree and shared it...by the time they brought it out, we had eaten soooo many chips and salsa that we were stuffed when we left...This is something we are going to try to start doing to help us with portion control...restaurants serve portions that are entirely too large for one person to eat!!

Afterwards, we went to Lowe's so I could show him the faucets, towel ring and toilet paper holder I had been looking at. We found one of each that we both liked and bought them...it may be a couple weeks before we install them, but hey - at least we have them. After that, all we need is the artwork and we'll be finished with that room and can move to another room.

Memorial Day Weekend

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Louisiana with Stephen's family. We drove to MS Thursday after work and spent the night with Momma and Daddy and then got up Friday morning and drove the rest of the way to LA. Friday night, we went to Hilltops and ate WAY TOO MUCH fried catfish, shrimp, crawfish, hushpuppies, boudin balls and french fries...notice all was fried...and the platters were heaping. We ended up eating leftovers for lunch on Saturday. Then, Saturday night, we went out to Ninfa's, a favorite of Stephens. We ordered a "meal for two" to share but brought home leftovers enough to feed three of us Sunday at lunch and still throw some away...it was so delicious though! Then, Sunday evening, Richard (Stephen's brother) and his wife, Marie, had the family and some friends over for a crawfish boil. 3 bags!! That's alot a crawfish! Tristan played with the live crawfish the whole time, except on the 3rd bag we started noticing he was finding a lot of dead ones and later discovered he had a wooden spoon stiring the tub of live crawfish and was stabbing it in the water...explains why so many were dying before we could get them in the boiling pot! :-) We even got a picture of Anelise holding her first LIVE crawfish! Monday night we went to Uncle Douglas and Aunt Tammy's house for homemade ice cream...each sibling brought some. We had orange sherbert, cherry, choc butterfinger, banana, and choc chip cookie dough ice cream...this was everyone's dinner that night. It was all sooo delicious! Then, we were up Tuesday and out of Mrs. Nell's house just before 6:30 a.m. driving back to Nashville. We had a great time with our LA family...we haven't seen so many of them in so long!




Here's a couple of hilarious videos of our niece Anelise dancing!

First Entry

Okay, this is very new to me but hopefully I'll catch on very quickly!!

Stephen and I met, married and lived in Jackson, MS. We were married at Colonial Heights Baptist Church in Ridgeland, MS on September 27th, 2003. We moved to Nashville on July 29th, 2005. Stephen went to Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Business to get his MBA. He graduated in May of 2007 and then went to work for Ozburn-Hessey Logistics in Brentwood. I work for Corner Realty Partners off Demonbreun Street...for the locals...it's the building in front of the statue of naked people.

We LOVE living in Nashville - Music City!! We hate being so far from our family but we know this is where God has planned for us to be for this point in our lives.

My hope is that with this blog, friends and family will be able to keep up with our lives better, especially for those friends and family that live so far away!

Painting the Guest Bathroom

Well, over the weekend of May 16-18th, we decided to paint the guest bathroom upstairs. It's soooo pretty now...we even got new rugs, garbage can and tissue box. Now I just need to finish it by finding artwork for the walls and finding a new towel ring and sink faucet...but just painting it made such a huge improvement. I just go up and stand in it and look at the pretty color scheme going on in there now! The new color is more dramatic in person, but here is a before and after picture...

Before:

After:

This one does a good job of showing the new color.

Previously, the wall was the same color as the ceiling.

This one just shows the wall color, curtain color and my new rug.

I hope to find some artwork that will add some color to the bathroom,

but right now, I love the color scheme!