Hope for Haiti!

If you have 2 extra minutes that you can take to read this short post and click on the link, please do so. My church, First Christian Church in Erwin, TN, is participating in a $ for $ matching challenge to bring funds to the people of Haiti! As you know, they were affected by a large earthquake on January 12th. Please click on this link to read how you can get involved. It will only take 2 minutes, I promise. Thank you so much!

In 2010 I will...*sigh*

Seth went back to school last Thursday but being the amazing wonderful husband that he is, he kindly cleaned out our "junk room" before he went back. Don't judge, I know you all have one :) He wanted me to help but I told him that "if I try to go through all that stuff, I will find an excuse to keep it." He knows me so he went through it first.

By the time I got home from work that day, he had a box of stuff for me to go through and a pile ready for the trash and a pile ready for Goodwill. It's unreal how much STUFF two people can accumulate (FYI: it wasn't ALL mine). Anyway, I went through the box, kept about 10 items out of it, and put the rest in the Goodwill box and kept a few items to sell on Ebay or at a yard sale (they still had the tags on them). The next day, we took the boxes to Goodwill and dropped them off and went by the dump and trashed all the "trash". The room looks completely different now and we can actually leave the door open when people come over. All that leads me to my typical yet probably unachievable "resolutions". Why do I do this to myself?

In 2010 I will...

* Keep the room Seth worked so hard on clean and organized

* Organize all my scrapbook stuff and keep my desk free of clutter (let's see how long that lasts)

* Keep all of my school books and papers together and in order

* Do all schoolwork ahead of time so I don't panic the night before

* Keep all church bookwork organized and on time

* Stop eating out so much...

* Therefore, I will cook more often

* Lose 25 pounds before June (6 down as of today)

* Get exercise on a regular basis (no, apparently once a month is not regularly enough)

* In general, I will use my spare time to accomplish productive things

* Not wear laundry from the basket. I will put clothes away when they are dry

* Eat yogurt at least 5 times a week and take my multi-vitamin everyday

Once again, chances are I won't do ALL these things but if I don't try I am not any better off. Maybe if I can just make myself do them until May or so, it will just become habit. Cross your fingers for me. Happy New Year everyone!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! With the exception of being a few days late, I guess that is not too bad for an update :)

Some of the highlights of 2009 consist of:

Seth starting his last year of school!

Katie deciding to go BACK to school (one semester down, 2 to go)

Celebrating our one year anniversary! It has flown by

Seth joining First Christian Church (where Katie has been a member since birth) and rededicating his life

Discovering the state of TN was willing to pay for Seth's last year of school!

Our church going to a full-time blended service (contemporary and traditional)

Katie got a Cricut (Google it if you don't know) and went WILD at Christmas

We got a Wii!!!! Katie's first video game ever!

We got to go to Dollywood 3 times this year!

We also had some not so wonderful moments in 2009:

Katie received a chemical burn at work

Seth had surgery on his ankle (again) in August

Seth lost both his grandmothers in September and December

We hope 2010 will be wonderful year with new opportunities to grow and learn new things. Seth will be on the hunt for a job very soon and has already started updating his resume. Hopefully by graduation, he will have secured a job. Katie is currently starting her last semester of "classwork" with the hope of student teaching in the fall. We have been so blessed this last year and we hope that you have also.

Happy New Year!

Winter Break 2009

Today is my fourth day off and we have already done so much.

Saturday, despite 8 inches of snow and no power in some places, we wnt to a wedding. Not too bad until you find out that this was an OUTDOOR wedding! Yes folks, this lovely family hosted a wedding at their home, outside, on generators. The wedding was beautiful and we were actually quite warm in the tents. They had the big white tents set up with Christmas lights running all over. Our place setting cards were stuck in pinecones that were hanging on Christmas trees. The favors (which were wrapped in the prettiest paper) were boxes of white hot chocolate. They had evergreens behind them during the ceremony, a HUGE wooden cross standing at the front and a million candles! The programs each had a piece of black ribbon tied on them with a sprig of pine needles. The food was TO DIE FOR! Prime rib, asian something salmon, and little chicken rolls with spinach, tomato and feta. They had about 8 groom's pies to choose from, wedding cake and 2-3 more cakes. It was amazing!

Sunday morning, we had no church so we slept in until 10:30. That was really nice. After we got ready, we ran to Johnson City to pick up some last minute gifts and to take some "Santa" tags to Seth's sister for her boys (because you know Santa makes all his tags for each child). We picked up a Papa John's pizza for lunch and went home. Seth stopped and rented me Four Christmases with Vince Vaughan and Reese Witherspoon (pretty funny). After we got home, we watched our movie and ate pizza. We had to watch the movie on the laptop because we have difficulty with our DVD player. Our first one went out so a friend gave us one of hers. It didn't work either so my mom gave us one she had bought and never used. It doesn't work either! So, we watched it on the computer and shared a pair of headphones(the fan on the woodstove is LOUD). After lunch I wrapped, made tags, wrapped some more, made more tags and on and on.

Monday was movie day for Seth. He has about 4-5 movies he wanted to watch that I refuse to watch because I just don't want to. We got up early, went to the Walmart to get a few groceries, stopped at McDonald's and got breakfast and went to the video store. He got 2 and I got one (it was $1 day). He started watching his as soon as we got home and I called my mom to see if she wanted to run to the mall with me. She was already there so I met her there. I finished all my shopping, had a tasty lunch and spent some time with my mom. She got all her shopping done too so now all we have left is WRAPPING!!! Seth helped me wrap most of our gifts that night so I am free to help my mom.

Today I am going to WalMart to get stocking stuff and a few things that I could not get until today. After that, we are going to visit Seth's grandmother in the nursing home and then we have P and W practice at 2ish. After practice, my mother and I are going to wrap and bake pumpkin and chocolate chip cookies. Then, my sister and BIL will be here. Tomorrow we are all going to Dollywood to see the lights and then Thursday is Christmas Eve! This week has already flown by and it's not even half over yet.

What is all this white stuff?

Yesterday was my last day at work until after Christmas! I was so excited to be off for an entire week and just spend time with my family and get a few things done around the house. It rained all morning and we were all expecting it to turn to snow sometime in the late morning. I never even saw the first flakes of snow until around 2 pm. By the time I left work at 2:45, the roads were becoming slushy. By 4pm, the ground was covered and the roads were white. Now, we sometimes get snow around here but not this much often enough for people to be "comfortable" driving in it. All night on FaceBook there were updates about people being stuck on the interstate because of semis sliding and blocking the road. Seth's cousin left her job in Kingsport (about 45 minutes away) at 4pm and finally got home at 12:45am. She sat in traffic for over 5 hours before someone could get to her. Her car is still sitting on the interstate.
The Jones family however, was home. We had a fire going, Seth cleaned that morning and made a HUGE pot of chili. Needless to say, we were not going anywhere. The only time we went outside was to let Nattie out. She absolutely loves the snow. This is her first "big" snow and she had a ball. She and I played for about 15 minutes around 5 and then Seth and I went out to play with her again around 8:30. With all the snow on the ground and falling, it is not nearly as dark out at 8:30. She likes to jump and catch the snowballs we make and she collapsed on my start of a snowman.
18 hours later, it is still snowing, TDOT is still struggling to catch up and Seth and I have an OUTDOOR wedding to attend tonight! I know they did not think this would happen on their wedding day. There will be a tent though. My sister is coming with her husband Ben and dog Millie on Tuesday so we are hoping some of this sticks around long enough so Millie can play with Nattie. She is an indoor Florida dog though...wonder how that will go. She may need a parka. Here are some pictures of our snow day.

Pardon the snowflake

Seth and Nattie (she looks so vicious)

How much?!

New Screens!

A little more than a year ago, our church started blending our worship services a little. Every so often we would have a team of people lead the congragation with some pre recorded somewhat contemporary music. Then we started doing it every 3rd Sunday. Back in July, our longtime pianist and organist retired so we decided that this would become our new style of worship. Since July, we have worshipping on Sundays with mostly pre recorded music and have a screen placed at the front of the church for the PowerPoint. It is a free standing screen (like from the 80s) and is very much in the way. A few months ago, we talked of getting a new screen for the wall but the way the church is built, it would not have gone in the middle and it would have been very awkward. We asked for 2 screens to go on either side of the baptistry. They approved it and they were finally installed this week! This is not the best picture but you get the idea. Come out and join us for the "unveiling" of our new visual equipment this Sunday with the choir performing their Christmas Cantata at 10:45am. We are all very excited about this new media equipment because the possibilities are ENDLESS!

Just Kidding...

I found out this week that I will NOT be getting laid off...at least not before Christmas. I don't know what will happen after Christmas but for now I am still employed. I am glad that I will still be working but of course the good news came after I had all this stuff planned for while I was off. I was going to work for some people doing odd jobs, put in some much needed extra time working at church and clean my house from top to bottom (yes this includes the walls). Hopefully I can still do all those things over the next 4 weeks because today was also my last day of class for the Fall 09 semester!