yeah, yeah...as usual it has been a while.
I have been trying to enjoy my summer and get lots of projects done before my LAST year of school!
I have made a tshirt quilt for Josh:

I have caught up on all of my scrapbooking except for this summer (which is still in process). I have taken a few sets of pictures and have one more set on Sunday. We also have Ladies Day Saturday that we have been getting ready for. 

Yesterday was my birthday...I was a little bummed about crawling closer to 30...so I decided to do something different. I did 27 Random Acts of Kindness. Chaylie and I baked 2 batches of cookies on Monday night. Tuesday morning I made a batch of brownies and glazed one set of cookies. Then I jarred them up and tied tags on them. 

This is what the jars and tags looked like. 

Here is my list with a few notes:

1. Opened doors for people whenever possible

2. Returned stray grocery carts to proper places
3. Visited nursing home
4. Dropped off 2 goody jars to nurses
5. Dropped off goody jar to Chiropractor office
6. Dropped off goody jar to The Outdoorsman (we visit there so often)
7. Bought someones coffe in line behind us at Starbucks
8. Bought someones lunch behind us (we did this at Chick-fil-a)
9. I handed a lady an envelope with some ones in it at the Dollar General.
10. I taped a few dollars to a vending machine outside of Wal Mart.
11. Handed a lady a Wal Mart gas card before she began to pump gas.
12. Handed a young mom a Wal Mart gift card while she was in the check out line buying diapers.
13. Gave a jar of goodies to a homeless man
14. Wrote thanks you cards to 2 physicians
15. Made long overdue phone calls.
16. I helped out the softball team by standing in for them.
17. Passed out smiles everywhere I went.
18. Made all the college girls notebooks personalized for them for the semester.
19. Donated the rest of the baked goods.
20. Listened and gave advice when I really didn't have the time. :)
21. Gave a generous tip to our server at supper.
22. Filled up the water jugs for the church building. (actually doing that today)
23. Put in a lot of unnecessary/extra hours working on ladies day projects. (over the past week)
24. Took engagement pictures for free (this was actually done last week)
25. Was very VERY patient with CRAZY drivers. (that is a good deed, right?)
26. Helped out a man at the University Bookstore
27. Handed out 'treat bags' to a cute little brother and sister outside of Wal Mart.

Most of these acts were handed out and then I immediately walked away. I would have LOVED to see their reaction, but I didn't want their 'praise'. I almost scared one lady to death in the Dollar Tree oops. I don't want people to think I posted this blog for the attention. I wanted to give you ideas for those borthdays that may make you feel 'blue'. I had so much fun doing these things. I loved the reactions I received (the ones that I saw). I loved spending the day helping others.

Moving on...while we were at supper Josh handed me my birthday card. Inside was a small packet of folded papers. They were our reservation papers to...ready?....DISNEY WORLD!!!!! We are going the week after finals in December. Just after our 6th Anniversary! I am so excited. There were so many things we weren't able to do on our first trip there in 2009. So, we are already making reservations for certain things AND Josh made us reservations to eat with Cinderella in her castle AND go see Cirque de Soleil (front and center!).  I couldn't be more excited!!!!

Summer Fun!

So...
As you can see...above is my first completed summer project! (well...almost complete. I still need to sew the back on...but, that is easy peasy!). I have a list of things I want to get done on summer break.

Things like:

 1. a deep cleaning of the house

 2. tshirt quilt (check) 

3. get caught up on almost 3 years worth of scrapbooking (one year down)  

4. read a book (haven't started yet) 

5. work on stuff for Ladies Day (in progress)  

6. read for next semester (haven't even started!) 

So...I have a long list but, I am getting there! 

We went at the beginning of June to TN for 2 weeks. One week to visit family and the second week we were at church camp (we had 10 baptisms). The day we got back into TX we stopped at Brownwood/Bangs for a rehearsal dinner and a wedding for DJ and Chaylie the next day. Also, the day of the wedding Erika flew in from AL to spend 10 days with me! WE HAD A BLAST! Two days after she left we had company for another night! This is pretty close to what our schedule looks like most of the time though! CRAZY!

But, as soon as company left I rested a few days and began work on this quilt. It probably took about 10 hours to finish. I took a lot of Josh's old baseball shirts and jerseys and CAREFULLY (they are almost sacred haha) cut the into equal squares. Then I had to stabilize them bc they are so stretchy. Then came cutting the sashing...tedious!!! ugh! The sewing was pretty easy though. He LOVES it! I can't wait to get the back on so he can use it!
I also have t-shirts from my high school and college that I want to make into a quilt. THEN...I have a lot of sentimental shirts between Josh and I that I want to quilt. (I have the shirt he wore on our first date, the shirts we were wearing when he proposed, the first shirts we bought each other, the shirt I wore on our wedding night when we ate supper, and hopefully this year I will have the shirts we wore when we found out we were pregnant) This will probably be my favorite quilt!

So, this is a little peek into my summer!

New semester...new experiences...new desires

So...I am 3 weeks into a new semester. As usual I panicked unnecessarily the first week. It is always the most overwhelming. We lost 3 students from the program last semester (because of grades) and one Monday (because of anxiety). So, now there are 18 of us. We had our first day of clinicals on Monday...a 10 hour day at the hospital :( yuck! After doing my 'clinical prep' day between services and after evening services on Sunday (and not seeing one second of the 'big game')...I got to the hospital at 0630 ready to go! Me and my partner had the awesome opportunity to go to the OR with our patient! We were able to watch a lap chole (laproscopic cholesystectomy (gallbladder), lap appy (laproscopic appendectomy), and ventral hernia repair (belly button hernia). We spent almost 2 hours in a chilly OR room loving EVERY minute! We even got to wear hospital issued scrubs (this is a big deal to us nursing students). It was so neat to be with the patient through the whole process from pre-op to watching surgery to post-op! It was neat being able to tell the patient about what we saw during his surgery!

As I stood in front of the mirror tonight I got so blue...disgusted really and how far I have let myself go. School is no excuse... I needed time to clear my head so I went for a walk/jog for a while. It is so hard for me to eat healthily when we eat out so often (usually when asked by members of the church). Not only eating out but Josh and I have talked many times about working out...but have never gone one step farther. So over the past few weeks I have attempted working out by myself a few times (because I could not keep up with any of my classmates who have asked me to go with them). I felt good afterwards...but doing it alone is NO fun...I miss ERIKA and our workouts! I need motivation! Then I look at my schedule get overwhelmed and loose the motivation... It is time to drop the excuses and get to work.

But, why does eating healthy have to be so much more expensive?!

I really am happy though! I am happy I am going back to school...I am happy that I have a loving husband who got up at 0530 Monday morning to make me breakfast bf clinicals...I am happy I have a loving family...and most of all I am happy I have a Savior whose love is unconditional!