I'm here. I promise.

I realize that it's totally not like me to go more than a couple of days without gracing you with my presence via blog. My sincere apologies for not being there for you in the past week. I can't decide if I haven't blogged because I've had nothing to blog about or because I've had too much to blog about. Thinking about the past week, I think I decided that it's the latter of the 2. Don't worry, I'll happily spare you the details of the entire week and try to focus on any main points that come to mind. I will admit that my days have been running together for some reason, so I'm sure nothing that I blog about tonight will be chronological. Deal with it if you don't mind...

I'll first update you on my P90X progress. I enjoy blogging about this because so many of you have already encouraged me whether it was via blog comment, facebook comment, or face-to-face! I've completed over a week of P90X, and overall, I'm enjoying it. My first attempt to Yoga was a complete DISASTER. I ended up quitting before I really even got started. I was so mad at Tony for making it look so easy. I turned it off after about 20 minutes and almost started crying because I was so frustrated! I'm already dreading it this week. Ugh. Tony and I have a love/hate relationship, really. I look forward to seeing him after school each day, and then when he comes on, I just want to cuss at him.

Oh, and have I been in pain? You better believe it! The first few days of doing P90X, I found it extremely difficult to sit, stand, eat, breathe, sit on the toilet, get off of the toilet, lay down, etc. My students were highly entertained by how slowly I was moving. I'm still sore, but it's starting to ease up a little. Well...maybe.

Other than P90X, planning a shower took up a good bit of the other "free time" I had last week! Kristen and I gave Heather a baby shower in Jackson on Sunday. I always love planning parties with Kristen---she's so creative, and even though she's completely over-the-top, I enjoy watching her creative juices flow and seeing it all come together. If she had any free time at all, I'd insist that she become a party planner on the side. She's fabulous. Even though the shower was given by the two of us, she honestly too charge, and....well....I just basically did as I was told...I've always been good at that. Definitely wouldn't have made it this far in life without Kristen's guidance!

On to the shower now. I'll first share some pictures of the decor. The shower was held at Bon Ami in Jackson, and it couldn't have been a more perfect place!

Here's the invitation that we displayed at the shower....

Can you tell what the "theme" was?

I love this picture of Heather. I think it captures her innocence so perfectly. :)

The honoree and her many guests!

Sweet Nana and Heather! Notice the bump! Seriously...she's tiny.

The sisters with Nana followed by a picture of the 3 of us! We missed my mom, who's recovering from pneumonia! :(

A few of Kristen's dear friends (Allyson Windam, Laura McQueen, and Alli Sherman) along with Anne Parks and Nora McQueen! Precious girls.

Heather and her M-I-L, Mrs. Peggy!

Heather and one of her dearest childhood friends. Here's what's going on in this picture: Susanna is checking out Heather's tiny self, while Heather is trying to show off the new addition to Susanna's left ring finger! Yay Susanna!

....Heather with Susanna and Susanna's mom, Ms. Varner. I.LOVE.HER.

2 of our cousins, Lisa and Monica...followed by a picture of Lisa's daughters Tiffany and Candace, and Monica's daughters Brooklee and Amberlee). YES...there are lots of girls in our family! :)

Heather with Kristen's M-I-L and sister-I-L.

Kristen with her friend Erica and her son, Carr. You have no idea how squeezable that child is.

Heather with sweet Aimee Wiggins and adorable Asher! Is he a stud or what?
Nana with Trey's mom and aunt.
Heather and adorable Anna Little, who's about to get married and move to Starkville! YAY for new Starkville friends!

Finally, I had to include this picture of Anne Parks and Grace helping Heather. They were the cutest things and had a great time "assisting." :)

(Sorry...I didn't realize I'd end up posting so many pictures. I guess I thought they were all blog-worthy!) It's so fun to think that in just a few more weeks I'll have another nephew, (who, according to the ultrasound tech, appears to already have a head full of hair!). I can't wait.

I'm off to bed soon, I suppose. I've got a mere 4 days left of school before my much anticipated Spring Break, and I'm guessing it's going to be a crazy one! Here's to hoping the rest of the week will be as beautiful as it was today!

Welcome, spring!

Monday memo.

Happy cold, rainy Monday to you!

I don't know about you, but I'm glad to see the arrival of March and will be even happier to see spring make its grand entrance to 2010! The 60-something degree weather last weeekend was beautiful, but did it last? Nope. Oh well...it is March, so it's GOT to warm up soon right?

We'll see.

Kristen and I spent this past weekend in Gulfport helping our little sister get the nursery finished, baby clothes clean, hung, and sorted by size (yep...we're that nice!), house clean, etc. It was great sister time, and it made me even more excited about the arrival of Jones in less than 2 months! I would post pictures of the adorable nursery, but I want to let Heather post about it instead. Take my word for it though...it's perfect. I can't wait to be an aunt again!

Now...on to a P90X update!

One word--PAINFUL...

I started it last Wednesday, and found myself getting so frustrated, I almost quit the program before I even started. It was SO HARD! I woke up the next morning (and the next, and the next...) in so.much.pain. I knew I'd be going out of town the following day for a long weekend, so I decided I'd go about the weekend and then restart the program today. So, this afternoon I repeated the same workout as last week and have good intentions of consistently keeping this up for 90 days! My thoughts: It'll hopefully be worth it in 3 months when I'm relaxing on the beach!

2 prayer requests I have for you before I leave you for the evening:

1. Please pray for my sweet mom! She's been under the weather for about a week now, and found out today that she's got pneumonia! Poor Mom! Am I the only person that thinks that moms aren't supposed to get sick?

2. My dear friend Nelson was deployed last week and he'll probably be gone for about 6 months. Please pray for his safety!

I've been talking to my students about the branches of the military and I told them about Nelson and his service in the Air Force, so they all wrote Nelson letters today. They're great! I can't wait to send them off (I will also have to threaten Nelson to write them back or they will be devastated!).

Oh! There is just ONE MORE THING--

Happy birthday to my "teacher friends" Angie and Monica!

I was glad to be able to celebrate with these fun girls after school today!

OK...Max and I are officially tired and ready for bed now....

Good night to you all...

a baby shower and a new challenge!

I mentioned in my post yesterday that some of Heather's sweet high school friends (seen in first picture) gave her a shower here this weekend. I was hoping to steal some of the pictures that Heather took at the shower, but, well... I'm afraid that it will stress her pregnant self out too much if I ask her to email them to me. Plus, I thought she'd rather have them on her blog anyway.

I took some pretty good ones though, so here you go! Doesn't the little sis look fantastic?
...and now for the "challenge" of which I was speaking in this post title....

I think I'm about to take the plunge. I've heard of a lot of people who've done P90X and I've said "Oh, I couldn't do that," but guess what? I said the same thing about running a half marathon.

I've had little motivation to work out lately. I'm not going to say that I miss training for the half marathon, but it kept me so disciplined! I need something to push me again. I thought of training for another, but I decided to go for another challenge. We'll see how it works out for me!

Any of you P90Xers have any advice for me?

Let's go fly a kite!

So...am I the only person who was completely obsessed with the weather this weekend? After how cold it's been lately, it was so refreshing to have some sunshine!

A few of Heather's high school friends gave her a shower here this weekend (pictures to come tomorrow...), so Kristen, Rob, and Henry were in town. Henry really wanted to fly a kite this afternoon, so naturally, his aunt had to tag along to capture some pictures!

He loved every minute of it.

I'm enjoying the rain outside right now, but I'm afraid that means that it's going to get cold again before it STAYS the way it was this weekend.

WHAT A TEASE!

Oh well...here's to hoping it's a fantastic week to you all regardless of the weather!

and here they are...

American Idol

Season 9

Top 24!

females) Didi Benami, Crystal Bowersox, Lacey Brown, Michelle Delamor, Katelyn Epperly, Siobhan Magnus, Paige Miles, Ashley Rodriguez, Lilly Scott, Katie Stevens, Haeley Vaughn and Janell Wheeler; (males) Lee Dewyze, Andrew Garcia, Tyler Grady, Todrick Hall, Casey James, Aaron Kelly, Alex Lambert, Michael Lynche, Joe Muñoz, John Park, Jermaine Sellers and Tim Urban

While the auditions are fun and entertaining, I always look forward to this point in the competition when I can focus and really start picking and choosing. Do I sound like an AI addict? Well....maybe I am.

Anybody have a favorite yet?

So...guess what I gave up for Lent AGAIN this year?!?!

Think I can do it??

(I will, of course, be "cheating" on my birthday though. Just a little FYI.)

CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

Please do not judge the way the blog looks right now. I took down my Valentine's layout only to realize that I'm too tired to come up with another one right now...

Don't worry though...I'll come up with something tomorrow. Right now my bed is calling my name....

whew!

My weekend actually started Thursday, when my friends HEGS, Candi, and I went to the Veranda where we celebrated Candi passing a BIG TEST!

GO CANDI! (And thanks for the pics, HEGS!)

Meanwhile, Henry and Rob made their way to Starkvegas where Henry made Valentine's cookies with "Lita" on Friday

and went to the Rodeo with Grandaddy on Saturday.
At the Rodeo, Cowboy Henry was able to pet and ride on some animals and had a blast!

Friday night, I went to the Grill to celebrate my friend, Laura Mims' birthday Sorry for the belated birthday wish, Mims! I'm glad I got to spend it with you!

On Saturday, Mom and I went to fantastic women's conference at our church with guest speaker Vicki Courtney. Any of you heard of her? She's a writer and speaker, and if you've never been to one of her conferences, allow me to recommend that you do so!

Saturday night was spent watching Dee Bost

and the Bulldogs defeat Auburn in overtime. GO STATE!

Sunday was spent relaxing and spending time with some very dear friends. Perfect weekend? Well, pretty close to it....

Weekends like this make waking up on Monday morning SO HARD!

Plan B...

This was emailed to me this morning (thanks, Claire!), and I thought it was worth sharing. You should take time to read it.

And please stay tuned...I had a wonderful weekend and will be blogging about it all tonight! (I know you'll all be on pins and needles today as you anticipate the post)....

Running With Plan B. A special report on This American Life follows the lives of several people currently living what they unequivocally call "Plan B." Host Ira Glass expounds his thoughts on an informal poll and a seemingly universal human reality: He asked a room of hundred people to think back to the beginning of adulthood when they were first formulating a plan for their lives. He called it Plan A, "the fate you were sure fate had in store." He then asked those who were still following this plan to raise their hands. Only one person confessed she was still living Plan A; she was 23 years old. It seems a trend for many of us: There is the thing we plan on doing with our lives, and then there's the thing we end up doing, which becomes our life. Here, Christians often have a nuanced view of Plan A—it is God's plan we are trying to follow. But there is still very much an initial picture of what this plan, and subsequently our lives, will—or should—look like. God's best becomes something like a divine Plan A, while any other plan leads the follower to something else entirely. But akin to the statistics in the room with Mr. Glass, it is likely that the number of Christians who find themselves living the plan they first imagined are also few and far between. For some, this is seen as good news. Many discover along the way that they are doing far more leading than being led, and God mercifully redirects them. "Many are the plans in a human heart," the proverb reads, "but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails" (19:21). Others find the journey with God from Plan A to B to C to D an interesting part of the pilgrimage itself. Yet there are still many others who walk away from Plan A thoroughly defeated. Regretful turns and drastic detours may now be behind us, but our deviation from the journey is writ large before us. We have failed at Plan A, the plan we believe God intended; God's best is now merely God's backup. When life turns out to be something you didn't plan on, when missteps and unplanned detours loom with guilt, a life of alternative routes and broken roads seems certain. It is easy to wonder in despair what it means to have missed God's best, and to believe that somehow God must now step back into the picture, disappointed, and find a secondary plan for your life. How significant, then, are Christ's words to his despairing disciples after an evening of mistakes, and to those of us who have ever felt the sting of falling off track. To these men who repeatedly failed to follow his instructions, Jesus simply said, "Rise, let us be going" (Matthew 26:46).A wise friend of mine once wondered if following God was not something like following the directions on a GPS system. At the beginning of the journey, the plan for arriving at the desired destination is set before you. But when you accidentally turn left or are forced to take an unforeseen detour, the computer doesn't scold you. It doesn't force you to start over or announce that you can no longer make it to your final destination because you have ruined the route. In fact, it doesn't even make you feel guilty. The end still in mind, it simply adjusts the plan from that point onward, as if the “wrong” turn was a part of the journey all along. The destination has not changed. Plan A may have switched to Plan B, but the outcome will be the same. Although Blaise Pascal was a mathematician who saw the created world as one of equations and precision, he saw the God who created this world as one who is innately personal, guiding, and accommodating. "[T]he God of the Christians is a God of love and consolation," Pascal wrote in his Pensees. "He is a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom he possesses: he is a God who makes them inwardly aware of their wretchedness and his infinite mercy: who united himself with them in the depths of their soul...who makes them incapable of having any other end but him."(1) God is well aware that there are turns in life we can never undo, choices we cannot erase, and detours we were never expecting. Some of these turns God no doubt laments with us. But God is never deterred by our position. Plan B is not any farther away from God than Plan A or C or D. In fact, God sees only one plan: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11). In this, God is ever at work redirecting our steps, while the end—God Himself—remains the same. Despite broken roads and secondary paths, God is forever showing us that the destination is unchanging, and in the end, God's best comes into our lives not because of our careful steps toward the divine but because of divine steps toward us. The God of the Christians is one whose plans are all-encompassing, whose arm is not too short to save, who goes the extra mile, and who takes every detour, that even one will not remain lost.

a much better Max.

Emily, a teacher friend of mine, requested that I post a recent picture of Max so everyone could see how much better he looks! I know I told you that he was doing so much better, but I guess I neglected to post a picture so you could see for yourselves. Compare this picture of him to the one I posted just a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully, he looks AND feels so so much better! I love him.

I apologize for the demon-possessed-looking eyes he has here. Ha! Not sure how to take care of "green eye" in pictures...

as seen on a billboard...

I DO.

RELIEF.

GREAT NEWS!

I had to wait over a week to get Max's test results, but I found out today that MAX IS FINE! I said before that Max's dr. was hoping it was a bacterial infection, but he was afraid that it was too severe and he was preparing me to hear not-so-good results. I honestly was expecting to hear that Max had something severe that was going to cause him to be on medication for the rest of this life as well as shorten his lifespan. The thought of that terrified me. Seriously.

I was absolutely relieved to find out today that it really was just a serious bacterial infection that will cause no long term problems. He looks and feels so much better, THANK GOODNESS!

Oh, and just in case I've failed to mention it before, I LOVE MY DOG.

If you're single and live alone, I hope I don't find out because I will find a way to convince you to get a pet DOG! :)

Oh, and about the house that I wanted to so badly?...Well...unfortunately I was let down once again. :( It fell through and YES, I was disappointed, but oh well. That's life, I guess...Sad.

But did I mention that Max was healthy and happy again?

Welcome back, Dave.

So...after about a 2 month hiatus from good 'ole Dave Ramsey, he's reentered my life. I found it nearly impossible to stick to the envelope system during the holidays. I did well with my Christmas shopping, but I shamefully didn't stick to the "just use cash" rule.

2010 is well underway though, and I'd really like to get back on track with Dave.

So, if there's still a week left in the month and I want to go to dinner with friends, but find that there is no money left in my "recreation" envelope? Well...I'm just going to be out of luck.

Anyway, I've got to really really start pinching those pennies again.

Why you ask?

Well...

Perhaps you remember me flirting with the idea of buying a house. I've been looking a lot and praying even more and a few weeks ago I found a house I really liked! So after much thought, I made an offer on it, but unfortunately it fell through. :(

I continued looking at other houses and came across another one that I LOVE (even more than the 1st!)! I actually made an offer on it this weekend and I'm waiting to hear back. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but I really REALLY want this one to work out!

Cross your fingers for me, will ya?
I'll definitely keep you posted...

I'm also still waiting to get Max's biopsy results back, so be expecting an update (hopefully a GOOD ONE!) soon! Thank you much!

Jimbo and Caroline!

Congratulations, Jimbo and Caroline!One of my dearest childhood friends, Jimbo got married this weekend!

Aren't they sweet?

I couldn't be happier for these two.

Want to see some more pictures of my fun friends who were there? Well, here you go!

me and HEGS with the beautiful bride!

me and the happy groom!

me and Ashley and MSKS. Love these girls!
Sara Beth, Gracie and me! Fun college friends!
more high school friends... me and HEGS
Finally, here's a sweet one of Jimbo and his mom who I ADORE.
YAY FOR MR. AND MRS. HEARNSBERGER! :)

It Is Well...

Happy Saturday friends.

First of all, thanks so very much for all of you for checking on Max this week! His mouth is starting to look better and the past couple of days he's started eating a little and actually keeping it down. It's been a tough week for him (well...his mommy too!). We should get the biopsy results early next week. Obviously, my fingers are still crossed that this is nothing other than a bacterial infection that can be easily and quickly treated. I'll definitely let you know when I find out.

Secondly, I want to share this video I found several months ago. It gave me chills the first time I heard it and I listen to it pretty regularly. I always love contemporary Christian songs, but there are some old hymns, that in my opinion, just can't be beat. "Holy, Holy, Holy", "How Great Thou Art", and "It Is Well" are a few of my favorites.

Anyway, watch this video of these 3 sisters singing "It Is Well" (acapella nonetheless!).

Amazing.

I'm watching my Dawgs play LSU on TV right now and then I'm heading to Louisville to see my dear childhood friend, Jimbo, and his precious fiance, Caroline get married tonight!

I wonder if anybody loves Saturdays as much as me...