My Weekend So Far

Hello all! Happy Saturday!

I hope your weekend is going well! Mine is pretty good, besides the fact that Chad (as well as my parents who live next door) left on Thursday afternoon and wont be back until Sunday night :( So I've been all alone for almost three days now. Well, except for my little buddies :)

But, other than being alone, my weekend is going pretty well! Friday was a loooooong day of teaching with only a 30 minute break for lunch. Whew! So after school, I went to find a few new clothes since fall weather is starting show up, and then I headed straight home to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day! It was grand :) I cooked myself a yummy dinner: Baked buffalo chicken, sweet potato, and salad. And, then went to bed early. ZzzzZzzzZzzz.........

My body tried to wake me up at 5:30 this morning.... the NERVE! So I forced myself back to sleep until 10 ;) It was amazing not having to get up early for work or anything else. So I've just been enjoying my lazy Saturday with nothing to do. I thought about getting some of my internship projects done, but I'm sure you can guess how well that worked out. ;) Earlier I got kind of bored, so I headed to walmart to get some ingredients to make a skinny pumpkin spice latte. I was so excited, but then found out that walmart didn't even have the things I needed. I was so upset! But, I did find a skinny vanilla latte powdered mix for only 100 calories and decided to pick up some pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon marshmallows to add to it! It turned out to be pretty good! I think I added too much pumpkin spice, so next time I'll tone it down a little, but I'm DEFINITELY making it again! 

Well, it's about 4:30 here, and I haven't eaten since lunch, so I think it's time for a snack! ;) Later on tonight I'll be going to see a friend perform in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. It's the cutest musical about a (you guessed it!) spelling bee! :) Hopefully I'll write again tomorrow! Thanks for reading and God bless!

Camps, Diets, and Teaching

Well, it's been like 10 days since my last post! I've just been super busy and haven't had much time to sit down and write. So here's what's been happening! 

Last week I started teaching my music classes, and I LOVE IT! It's so much fun, and I'm so excited about the rest of the semester! I was so tired after teaching though! I literally have never been so exhausted in my life. But it's definitely worth it! After teaching all week, the band Chad and I have played at a "5th Quarter" on Friday night after the high school football games. It went really well! Then Saturday morning Chad and I left with some of our youth to a camp called Sumatanga for a three day retreat....

The retreat was called "Alpha," and it was...... well, a little unorganized. But, the speaker was fantastic, so I think he made up for all the craziness. His name was Justin Lookadoo. (crazy name, I know!)

 He spoke about dating and relationships the entire weekend, and it was so beneficial for our youth. I'm glad they were able to go. Now, while on this retreat, I obviously can't eat all my healthy foods, but I tried as hard as I could to eat small portions and cut calories in any way possible. For example, on fried chicken night, I scraped off all the skin on the chicken, skipped the roll, and had plenty of green beans. Also, I skipped desert. Never really wanted it anyway. After successfully eating as healthy as I could all weekend, we finally got home about 2:30 on Monday, and I'd planned on eating a healthy dinner. Then Chad's mother called and invited us over for BBQ. lol So, we went over, and I (again) tried to eat as healthy as possible. Small portions, no bun, etc. And THEN... Chad's mom says she's made homemade peanut butter chocolate ice cream. If you don't know me, then I have to tell you that my two favorite things in the world are peanut butter and chocolate! ugh.... But, after she tells me that she made it with only 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/4 a cup of peanut butter, cocoa, and the rest splenda, I decided to have a small bit. And it was AMAZING. I was so glad I indulged just a bit for some ice cream.

Well this morning I was convinced that I was going to be up a pound or two, but to my surprise, I'd LOST 2 lbs since Saturday morning! So I think the last time I blogged I weighed 160.6 lbs, and now I'm down to 158! I'm pretty excited! Now I've really got to start exercising so I can keep on losing and get down to my goal weight! So as I'm sitting here blogging, watching The Office, and eating a chocolate rice cake w/ a little peanut butter (DELISH!), I'm mentally preparing myself for another week of elementary music! :) Chad goes back to Sumatanga this weekend from Thursday afternoon to Sunday night to work on my mom's Emmaus walk, so I'll more than likely be blogging a lot this weekend! 

Before I end, I have a quick question for anyone willing to answer. Chad and I have this coffee creamer that we LOVE. It's international delight almond joy creamer. But sadly, we can't find it anymore. :( So does anyone have any suggestions for a great tasting creamer??

Thanks for reading and God bless! :)

Happy Sunday!

Hello readers! Here's just a little weekend re-cap:

Friday: Dinner with Chad at our favorite Mexican place (where I had just the skillet part of a chicken fajita to stay healthy) then went to see our old high school's football game. They won! :)

Saturday: I slept in after a long first week of student teaching while Chad was at a meeting all morning. Annnnnnd I cheated on my weigh in. I'm supposed to weigh myself on Sundays, but I got excited and did it Saturday morning. And I'm happy to say I'm another 2 lbs lighter! yay! :) Then we spent the afternoon getting ready for a cook-out we had with some of our friends. It was fun getting to hang out with everyone! :) Chad grilled some yummy smelling hamburgers, but in a effort to stay healthy, I cooked my own Bocca veggie burgers. They were still tasty!

Sunday: Church as always. :) Then me and Chad spent the afternoon watching a movie. Source Code... it was pretty good! Then we had rehearsal with our band for a few hours before taking our youth group out for tacos. And I had yet ANOTHER fajita skillet ;) But for those who don't know, Chad and I are part of a praise band called Selfless Praise. Chad plays keyboard, guitar, and sing lead vocals. I sing backup to him. Our friend Jeremy is on lead guitar, Caleb plays bass, and my brother Drew plays drums. We're playing this coming Friday night at a local church's "5th Quarter" after all the high school football games. Maybe I can get a recording of us on here sometime so y'all can here us!

Anyway, I'm getting prepared for another week of teaching! I officially start my music classes at the elementary school this week, and I'm so excited! I'll surely have many funny kid stories to tell later on. :)

Thanks for reading, and I'll blog at ya later! :) God bless!

A Little Crafternoon Delight!

What a day! I am exhausted! Today was my second day of student teaching, and though I love every minute of it, it is so tiring! Now I know why my mother was so ill when she would come home from teaching all day. Sorry for doubting you Mom! But, I'm so excited to see what this semester is going to be like!

Anyway, I thought I'd share with y'all my two projects that I worked on this past Saturday afternoon!

This first one is a little green chair I've had since I was 14 that I decided to turn into a cute time-out chair for my elementary music class. I call it the "Rest Chair." Get it? Like music rests?? :)

Started with this plain (ugly) green chair.

Painted it white.

Then added a few rests on the seat and painted the back.

Then I added all the little rests with sharpie because it was way to hard to paint! And that's the end! :)

While I was waiting on all the paint to dry, I worked on another little project inside. I started with this simple candle, some old sheet music, and glue.

I cut strips of the music to fit the candle and used all purpose glue to wrap it.

There wasn't quite enough!

So I cut more strips to cover the bald spot and......

VOILA!

Annnnnnnnd to top off all these fun projects and exciting new things going on in my life, Chad and I got new furniture for our den! FOR FREE!!!! I'm so excited!! Our den used to look like this...

And now it looks like THIS!!

We love it, and it's so amazingly comfy! Oh btw, the pallet shelf above the couch is an idea that I saw on Pinterest! I think my next project is going to have something to do with the old ceder chest in the second to last picture that has the basket of magazines on top. It's just so.... plain! So check back to see more crafts and more rants about my crazy life! 

God bless!

Summer Comes to an End

Hello readers! It's been a carazy weekend for the hubby and I! 

We started our weekend off with a back to school lock-in for the youth at our church which looked a little like this.

We had about 100 kids show up! It was fun but VERY tiring! But this little baby helped get me through it.

Yes that's right, a ZERO CALORIE monster energy drink! I know they can't possibly be good for you, but one per year should be okay right?

Anyway, Saturday was devoted to sleeping as long as possible and not doing anything all day! It was fabulous! :)

Today has been a great Sunday! Started my day off with a 2.2 lb loss! Then wore my favorite team colors to church for "tailgate Sunday." My colors were purple and gold for UNA! (For those who don't know, it's the University of North Alabama.) After church, Chad and I went to lunch with my mom, brothers, and Suzanne my brother Drew's girlfriend. It's so fun spending time with the whole family. Missed dad though =/ The rest of the afternoon was restful, and then at 5:30 we headed down to the park for our church's tailgate party where we had hotdogs, hamburgers, music, games, and a devotion. It was great!

Tomorrow I have my orientation for student teaching (which I start on TUESDAY!). I'm pretty excited, but a little sad at the same time because I know my summer has officially come to an end. But, I'm ready to get this new chapter of my life started! Plus, after my internship, I GRADUATE! December 16th!!

And now, I'm spending the rest of my Sunday night doing some of my favorite things. Reading Self Magazine, having a WW dark chocolate raspberry ice cream bar (DELISH!) and a diet mountain dew, watching Family Guy, and of course BLOGGING! :) Wonderful end to my glorious summer.

Be on the lookout for my post showing how I turned this candle...

into THIS!

AND, how I'm going to turn a small, ugly, green chair into a cute time-out chair for my elementary music class called the "Rest Chair."

Thanks for reading and God bless!!

Guitar Shelf

I'm so excited to share this project that Chad and I finished this week! Well actually, Chad did all the work, but I coached him through it! haha I found the idea on Pinterest to turn a guitar into a shelf. There wasn't a tutorial, but Chad looked at the picture and thought he could figure out how to do it, and he did!! So here's how he did it.

First he to the strings and pegs off of the guitar and used his dremel tool to cut just below the neck.

Then he cut around the edges.

After he cut all around, he was able to get the front off. We actual meant to leave part of the bottom attached, but he fixed it later.

Then he used the front of the guitar to cut out shelves.

It was going to look like this.

But after a few tweaking, we came up with this final product!

We're trying to decide if we're going to leave on the ground or hang it on the wall. I'll post pictures if we hang it! I'm excited that we actually completed a project, and I can't wait to find things to put on the shelves! :)

It's the Little Things :)

Isn't weird how little things can make your whole day or even week better? Today was going to be just a normal Wednesday, but when I got up, I had the sudden urge to do some excersise. Now normally, I do a quick ab workout in the mornings and go about the rest of my day. But today I wanted something different. So, I turned to excersiseTV and after looking through some different selections, I chose a dance workout. Thankfully no one else was home to watch me make a fool of myself while dancing around my den. After my endorphins were kicked in, I took a shower and decided it was time for a new hair cut. So, I called up the salon and made an appointment for that afternoon. Here's my before and after pictures. Pay no attention to my goofy looking smiles. haha!

Before

After!

I felt so good after getting  it cut, I decided to go to Walmart for some groceries and stop at Sonic for a Diet Cherry Limeade. Coincidentally it was Happy Hour ;)

It's the little things in life that make me happy. A workout, a hair cut, and a limeade. And to top it all off, I made it home from church in time to see tonight's episode of Big Brother!! For all you fans out there, who do you want to win?? I'm rooting for Jeff, Jordan, or Shelly!