Reasons to Smile

1. It is sunny outside and the high today is supposed to be in the 60s. After the cold weather we've had the past few days, I thought winter was coming back for a while. I'm glad to welcome warmer temps though! Hurry up, spring!

The kitties love the sun, too!

2. New pillows for our bed! This was a much needed purchase, I promise. Our pillows were so flat and worn out...we should have replaced them a long time ago. So, I got new ones at Kohl's today. Of course, they were on sale and I had a 30% off coupon, so they ended up being about $15 a piece...regularly $69.99. Not bad! Hope they're comfortable!

3. While I was at Kohl's, I conveniently looked in the clearance section and found some really cute Valentine's decorations for our house. (Travis, I know you're shaking your head. You can skip to #4 if you want to.) I got 2 kitchen towels, a cute sign to go on our mantel, and a hanger for our door. It was all 70%, and I could resist. Now, someone please remind me next February that I bought this stuff so I can pull it out again! :)

4. We had a great Valentine's Day supper last night. Travis got off "59 minutes" early from work for the holiday. Only government guys get off early on Valentine's Day! Haha :) Like we usually do each year, we decided to stay home and cook together rather than go out to eat like most people. We had Cajun shrimp, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, and Derby pie for dessert. It was a great meal! Next time, I'll definitely have to set some shrimp aside for me without so much cayenne pepper, but Travis thought they were perfect. Thanks, Cheryl, for the recipe! We don't usually exchange gifts for Valentine's Day, but we did give each other cards, and then we watched the Alabama basketball game. It was a fun evening just being together!

5. This one still has Travis smiling. The bathroom fans that he was so excited last about last week are now installed and sucking moisture out of the air after every bath and shower we take! I wasn't quite as pumped as he was still is, but they are quiet and seem to be working better than the old fans. I keep saying this, but whoever buys this house from us one day will really be getting a gem. If they could only know how much research Travis does on everything we buy for the house...

Isn't she lovely? Isn't she won-der-ful?

6. Our bathroom is now officially complete as of this weekend. We got curtains hung over both windows without too much trouble. They are sheer and cream-colored, and they go really well with the shower curtain and towels we have. Yay for another finished room! Next up...hanging blinds and curtains in the study and guest bedroom.

It's hard to tell what they look like in this picture, but they look good. Just trust me!

7. Mom is now over a third of the way finished with radiation! It seems like it's going by pretty fast to me, but I'm not the one having to drive downtown and back every day like she is. So far, she hasn't really noticed any side effects from the radiation, but her doctor said that she may not have any until closer to the end. March 20th is still set to be her last day! Way to go, Mom! You're almost there!

8. Tomorrow is my little sister's birthday! She's not so little anymore though...Jenn is turning 22 and graduating from college in just a few months. That's so weird!! Happy birthday Jenn!!! I know you've been taller than me since you were probably 7 or 8 years old, but I can't believe you're almost finished with 4 years at Auburn. Still seems like we should be playing school with our Beanie Babies or playing Rollercoaster Tycoon on the computer!! Love you lots! Hope you have a great day tomorrow! :)

9. Felix and Gabby are always making us laugh. Even when they misbehave, it's hard not to be amused by it. I wish I could have caught this on video a little while ago....Gabby was being Miss Curious Cat as usual and investigating what I'd bought at Kohl's. I'd already taken the Valentine's decorations out of the bag, so the empty plastic bag with some tissue paper inside was lying on the bed. Well, somehow Gabby got the handle of the bag twisted around her head and she couldn't figure out how to get it off. It was hilarious trying to watch her get that bag off. She danced around and around and finally started to panic when it still wouldn't come off, so she ran so fast that she somehow finally slipped out of the bag. (No, you don't have to call PETA...I wasn't going to let her suffocate or hurt herself). She is just so entertaining! But, we also found another chewed-up antenna behind the TV yesterday...bringing the total count to 4 antennas that have been chewed through since the kittens arrived at our house in August. We figured out that they Gabby is jumping up on the back of the TV stand to get to them. What are we going to do with her??? :)

10. I'm working tomorrow instead of Friday now, so three cheers for another Friday off! I was going to go up to the hospital tomorrow morning anyway to see Patrick, one of the teenagers at church, before his surgery, but now I'll be there working anyway, so that works out great.

This weekend, we're looking forward to our gospel meeting at church (several lessons about courage), lots of good food, game night at our house Sunday night after church, an 8 mile run on Saturday (Are we really excited about that? Not sure...), and Monday off for President's Day!

So many reasons to smile today! :)

P.S. Do you like the latest blog redesign? Let me know!

Another week...another update...

I cannot believe we're already over halfway through February! 2011 is going by so fast. Travis and I have been homeowners for over a month now...that's just crazy. No, we still haven't moved in. Yes, we're still painting. Haha :)

One day, the painting will end. 

Possibly not until next February, but it will end.

Seriously, though, we are making good progress. The dining room is completely finished, and the living room is almost there. We've got to roll it a second time, and it will be done. It looks awesome! It's a darker shade of beige than the dining room, and it looks great with our new furniture. Everything is coming together! Next up, we'll paint the hallway and laundry room, and after that, the guest bedroom, study, and guest bathroom. Finally, we'll paint (to satisfy the OCD in my husband) all the closets and the garage. Whew. My original hope to move in by the end of February seems pretty unrealistic now, but no worries. Maybe by the middle of March??

This past weekend, we got a wonderful break from all the painting when we went to Trussville to celebrate my favorite sister's birthday. We worked on taxes for part of the time we were there. Isn't that sad that doing taxes was a nice break? :) Mom made some awesome BBQ in her new crockpot along with the normal fixins like potato salad and coleslaw. Made me wish summer would hurry up and get here!

We had a low-key Valentine's Day on Monday night. I guess this is the 4th Valentine's Day we've been married (crazy!), and we usually decide to cook supper together rather than go out to eat with everyone and their brother. Last year we made Baked Salmon, but this year we decided to try something a little different. Everyone probably knows that Travis LOVES seafood. Lobster, crab, shrimp....all of it. Well, I found a recipe called Lobster Colorado that involves lobster, steak, bacon, and lots of butter. Sounded right up his alley, and it was! It turned out really good, especially the lobster part. We also had Texas Toast and salad to go along with it. It was a quick and easy supper to fix, which was great considering the fact that I didn't get home from work until about 7 PM.


Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about the moron who poisoned the trees at Toomer's Corner in Auburn. Apparently, they've already found and arrested the guy who did it. Good. I just can't believe someone would do something like that. It definitely made me mad when I heard about it, and I hope things don't escalate from here. It's one thing to have a heated rivalry, but it's another thing to let it get out of control and start doing stuff like that. I hope both Alabama and Auburn fans will act classy about this and not let it go any further. And I hope the guy who did it won't ever be allowed on either campus ever again.

"Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. " ~Romans 12:17-21


That's all for today! Have a wonderful rest of your week :)

Snow + Game Night + Valentine's Day = A Fun 4 Day Weekend

Well, I'm back in Tuscaloosa again :)

I worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week at the hospital. I put in some pretty long hours....10 hours Tuesday, 10 hours Wednesday, and 8 1/2 on Friday. I'd rather do that though and get more days off! Work is going pretty good so far. I'm getting the hang of the computer systems we use, and I'm getting more comfortable doing "nurse" things without somebody watching over my back all the time.

I drove down here Thursday afternoon and got here around 5:30 PM. Travis and I warmed up some meatloaf for dinner, and then we watched our Netflix movie, The Proposal, later that night. It was pretty funny for the most part!

Yesterday, we woke up to find NO snow...even though they'd been predicting 2-4 inches. However, I checked online, and Alabama had still cancelled classes for the day, anticipating that snow would fall later in the morning and afternoon. Yay for snow days :)

The snow started falling around 9 AM or so, and it fell pretty hard, but it just didn't stick very much...at least, not around our apartment. Around noon, we drove to Publix, Walgreen's, and CVS, and the roads were fine. Typical Alabamians overreacting about winter weather! Oh well! I just hope UA doesn't make them make the day up later in the semester...

Speaking of Walgreen's, I got a free 8x10 collage yesterday online by using the code VDAY at checkout. The code may still be working, so try it out if you want to make one too! I made mine with pictures from our trip to Pasadena, and it turned out really cute!!! You can upload pictures to Walgreen's website, and it shuffles them around for you into a collage. Can't beat a free picture...I didn't even have to pay tax when I picked it up :)

Last night was supposed to be the Valentine's Day scavenger hunt, but Alisha decided to postpone it because of the snow/cold weather. I think we're going to have a St. Patrick's Day scavenger hunt instead in a few weeks! Once we found out the scavenger hunt was cancelled, I decided to invite everyone over for a game night. Jess, Alisha, and I played Yahtzee, and Travis, Jason, Tyler, and Caleb played Settlers of Catan. We all had fun! We also made hot chocolate and coffee for everyone...yum :)

Tonight, I think Travis and I may cook something together for Valentine's Day (a day early). I'm not sure what we'll make yet though...any suggestions?

I'm in town until Monday afternoon, so I'm really excited. I wish I could have a 4 day weekend every weekend until May...but I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much! 12 weeks until Travis graduates!!!!! We can do this :)

Yummy food and a Valentine's Day recap

It's been a really fun weekend!! Here's the recap:

Friday - We ate dinner at Depalma's, an Italian restaurant in downtown Tuscaloosa. We hadn't been there in almost 2 years, but it was even better than I remembered! I got the Spinach Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken in it...yum! We've heard that their pizzas are awesome too, so next time we might have to try one.

When we got home, I made a cheesecake from a recipe I found on allrecipes.com (Chantal's New York Cheesecake - http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chantals-New-York-Cheesecake/Detail.aspx). It turned out really good! I followed the recipe exactly, except for the part at the end about leaving it in the oven to cool for 5 or 6 hours. That would have required me to stay up til about 3 A.M., and I wasn't that dedicated, so I only let it cool for about 2 hours before refrigerating it. Supposedly, letting it cool in the oven like that prevents cracking. Mine had a small crack in it, but it still looked good! Next time, I might add more butter to the crust because mine turned out a little crumbly.

Saturday - I made breakfast for Travis (normally he has to settle for cereal!), cleaned, and went to the Rec Center to exercise. For dinner, I tried another new recipe from allrecipes.com called Zippy Chicken Corn Chowder (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Zippy-Chicken-Corn-Chowder/Detail.aspx). I loved it, and Travis said he liked it too. It actually turned out to be pretty spicy, but it wasn't too spicy that I didn't like it. I only made a few changes to the original recipe: I left out the red pepper and leeks and added some onion instead. I also substituted some cayenne pepper for the hot sauce and used milk instead of half-and-half. Yum!!

After dinner, we went over to Alisha and Katie's for their Valentine's Day Party. I took my cheesecake and some brownies I'd made, and we had a few other snacks. The big event of the night was the Photo Scavenger Hunt. We split up into four groups of four, and we had exactly one hour to go to as many places on the list as we could find and take our picture. At least 3 of the four group members had to be in the picture, so that prevented the group members from splitting up. The different places/things on the list had different point values, depending on how hard they were. I was in a group with Travis, Mollie, and Jason, and we got 2nd place!! Here are some pictures from the night:

This is everyone before we left!! We were getting our gameplans in order!

We had to take our picture in one of the engineering buildings by a lady named Ruth Garrett's picture. Doesn't Travis look excited?!?

Reading the Crimson White (campus newspaper) in front of the Ferg

Posing with one of the Crimson Ride bus drivers...she said we made her night!

Climbing a tree on the Quad

Doing our best "Rocky" impression on the steps of Gorgas Library

Doing cartwheels in front of Gordon Palmer (the math building)

Sliding down a slide outside of our apartment

There were several other fun pictures from the night, but it would take forever to load them on here with our slow Internet. We would have gotten a ton of points for getting inside Bryant Denny, but we didn't think we'd have enough time to find a way in and get all the way back to Riverside on time. We also would have gotten a lot of points for jumping into the Riverside pool, but none of us were that dedicated (the pool was pretty slimy), although if we had, we would have won! Alisha, Katie, Alan, and Kyle all jumped in though!! They were pretty hard core :)

Overall, we had a blast! I hope we do another scavenger hunt soon!

One bad thing about working with sick kids...

...is that you get all their nasty germs! I think I was lucky the first two weeks I was on the peds unit b/c I didn't get sick at all afterwards. But, yesterday I took care of a 7 year old with strep throat who was throwing up all day...and my throat was hurting before I even left the hospital. Today, it still hurts, and I'm starting to ache all over. YUCK.

Other than that, it's been a pretty good week! I have a test tomorrow that I've been studying for off and on today, and it will be nice to get that over with. After tomorrow's test, I don't have another one for 2 weeks! Travis, on the other hand, is up to his ears in stuff to do...poor thing. Seems like all he ever does is write lab reports, do homework, study for tests, and go to class.

We're planning to go out to eat for Valentine's Day, except we're going on Friday night instead of Saturday. I think we're going to eat at Depalma's, an Italian restaurant here in town that is really really good! Depalma's is also where we had our first date, so it's a pretty special place :) Can't believe that was almost 3 years ago! Saturday night, Alisha, Katie and Mollie have planned a big Valentine's Day party. I'm excited! Apparently, we're doing a photo scavenger hunt, which I've never done before, so that should be fun!!

That's all for now :)