New Patio

Ok, so today I got to talk to my sister on the phone for a while and she informed me that I have not put pics of the new patio. It was finished on the weekend of our anniversary but I was waiting to get our picnic tables so you could get a full idea of what it looks like (or will look like). Since I am apparently too busy or lazy to get the picnic tables purchased and stained and put together, you are gonna get what I have.

Before After

We tripled the size of the concrete and added the pergola for a little shade. I know, I know, it needs picnic tables, but I'm working on it when I get around to it. The nice thing is that since our house faces south, most of this is in the shade from the house for most of the day and the pergola just adds to the shade. We are planning on having our Father's Day get-together at our house, so we'd better get on that picnic table issue and fast. In other exciting news, I was off today. This morning I went to Cardio Dance Party at 24 Hour. It's not turbo, but it was still a great workout. Then I went to Cedar Hill to Charming Charlie's and found a purple purse. It makes me soooo happy! Apparently I have been living in the dark ages because I so didn't know anything about Uptown in Cedar Hill. It is fabulous. I wasn't in the mood to really shop, but I do plan to go back and shop in the future. It is basically an outdoor shopping mall. From FM1382 it looks like a mall with only a few stores, but when you drive inside, it is amazing and there are so many stores. They also have a water spout area for the kids to play. I must remember that for the future. Yesterday evening, I was finally able to pull together all the digital pics I need to get printed so I can scrapbook. The memory card for one of our digital cameras has been at a friend's house (he was using it in his fish finder. Yeah I totally don't get that.) Anyway, the memory card has made it home and I was able to get all the pics I want sent to Walmart to be printed. BJ is supposed to pick up the pics after work today. Hopefully, now that I'll actually have the pics at my house, when I get some free time and the urge to scrapbook (yes, I actually get the urge to scrapbook) I'll have everything I need to do a page or 2 until I am caught up. While I was sorting through pics on the computer I realized I have quite a few events to scrapbook including my getting CPA license in Sept 2008, anniversary trip in 2009, kitchen renovation in July 2009, Cozumel trip in Aug 2009, anniversary trip in 2010, and the patio expansion. So do you think I'll be able to catch up before we go to New York City in August? I'm thinking probably not, but I can at least shoot for that. Did I just nonchalantly mention we are going to the Big Apple in August? Yes I did. We booked our flights and hotel yesterday and are really looking forward to our vacation. We are hoping to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and that is the only thing we have agreed on at this point. Yes, BJ wants to see Phantom as much as I do. I actually saw it at Fair Park a few years back, so he may be looking forward to it more than I am. Starting next week, my boss is letting us work 36 hour weeks through July. Thanks Elaine!! I am pretty excited about that as I love being off during the week and will get to attend Mindy's Turbo class in Mansfield on Fridays. Also, I am making a plan to go and see one of my sister's friends and her new baby the week Jill is in town for Father's Day/my mom's birthday. I think my mom, Jill, and Ashley will join me on my trip to Wilmer so we could call it a girls trip I guess. There are a lot of fun things coming in the next few months. Yes, work is still crazy and hasn't slowed down any, but hopefully we will be able to keep pushing returns out and things will eventually slow down. And this makes 4 blog posts for May, thank you very much.

No Plan B

Have you ever said something and as soon as you heard yourself, it just clicked? So a few weeks ago in Sunday School (I'm not exactly sure what the date was) I heard myself saying the following statement:

If you trust God with all your heart, you don't have a plan B.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I just realized that if you go back and look at my posts I have been hit by quite a few tons of bricks over the past year or so. I must be in really bad shape. Ha. Okay, back on topic. The verse I was talking about is in Proverbs 3:5. It says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." ALL your heart. Trusting is hard and especially when you are so used to being in control of things. I don't know who passed down the controlling gene to me, but I definitely have it. As long as I can remember I have been over-organized and over-planned and have therefore thought I was controlling all the variables that I could. So I realized, I've been trusting God for plan A, but having plan B in my back pocket the whole time. It is so hard for me to not have some plan in the works. So hard. For example, I was at the store today and I almost purchased something that would help me with my plan B. I realized what I was doing and put it back. No plan B. The second part of that verse has some weight too. Don't trust in my understanding. I have leaned on my own understanding too long. I understand too much and try to control by leaning on myself. No more. I've got to learn to totally & completely trust without reservation. Dana, I'm sure you are laughing your head off because you've been trying to tell me to stop controlling and I want you to know that I'm trying. With God's help, I'm getting rid of my plan B. I'm not going back to trying to plan things my way again. God, I give up. Really, I do. I know it's what you have been waiting on the whole time. This doesn't mean that on occasion I won't think about my plan B since it has become quite a large part of my life, but I commit my plan A, and B, and all the other plans I have to you. You are really the one in control anyways. I just thought I was controlling things by my planning. I give it all to you and wait patiently for your timing. And when my mind lingers to my plans, I pray that you'll help me to put it away and continue trusting. On a totally separate and unrelated note, I determined that I had to blog at least once more this month so I wouldn't only have 2 blogs this month, one of which is from BJ. Life has been crazy, but at least now, May of 2010 will at least tie for last place in the blog world. I may post something tomorrow or Monday and move this month up in the rankings. We'll see.

Jumping In With Both Feet

I have debated blogging my craziness for a while because I feel like its been so long that I need to catch you up and at this point that is way too overwhelming. So I've decided to jump in with both feet and start right where I am instead of trying to "catch up". I'm exhausted. I was up last night, or should I say this morning, until 2:30 finishing stuff for our Junior/Senior Celebration Service at Church. This morning I woke up at 6 and didn't really go back to sleep after that. I know that all of you mothers out there will say to deal with it because you run on that much sleep every day, but I'm not you. I love my sleep, so when I am without it, things don't go so well. For example, I have been calling people by the wrong name all day. Today at church I wasn't feeling the best because of a combination of things. First, little sleep, and second my abs are sore from Turbo Kickboxing. I guess I have been pushing my self to do extra ab work during Turbo since that is where I need to tone up the most. Yeah, I'm really sore. So with all of that, I have felt sick to my stomach today. I skipped lunch to stay at church and finish decorating for the service. About 4, I realized I was hungry so I grabbed a piece of cake at the reception. Then I went to the hospital to visit a friend's grandfather who basically adopted Jill and me when we were little. He had been in the hospital for a few weeks and I really needed to go see him. After that, I drove through Arby's and devoured a #1. It wasn't very good, mostly tasted not fresh and reheated. I was starving at that point and no matter how bad it was, it did quench my hunger. I took a quick nap on the couch and woke up to pack for tomorrow. I'm going to a conference which will be slow and uneventful as compared to the past few months for me. I am grateful for a break, even if I may get bored. We are staying at the Westin Galleria tomorrow night as opposed to coming home and braving the traffic again Tuesday morning. So tomorrow I have to be at Shannon's house at 6:30 packed and ready to go. That is before I normally am even up, so hopefully I can catch up on sleep tonight some and get my butt out of bed in the morning. I am very tempted to sleep in Shannon's car on the way to the conference, but we'll see. On another note, my name is Sandra and I'm a Turbo-a-holic. I never thought I would be addicted to going to the gym but my Turbo class is definitely addictive. I think it is about 20% the challenge and at least 50% Blanca. (For all you people keeping up with the math, I know that is not 100% but I'm not sure what the other 30% is, so there.) Yes, I'm in love with my Turbo instructor. I'm not ashamed to admit it. If you know Blanca, you'd understand. She keeps me laughing and kicks my butt every stinking time I go, which lately has been twice a week. I have a new phone and I love it. It is a Samsung Solstice. This is a big move to the 21st century in my opinion since I now have unlimited text and data. I knew you would be impressed. I may even update my blog and facebook from my phone tomorrow. Look how tech-savy I am becoming. Ok, I'm rambling now. Must stop that. Until later, (insert catchy and inspiring phrase here). Yeah, I got nothing. But that's what you get when I don't get sleep.

6th Anniversary

Last weekend Sandra and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. We went to Davis, OK and stayed in a cabin for a couple of nights and pretty much just relaxed. I'm usually pretty short on words so I'll just post some pictures.

We stayed in the Treehouse Cabin in Warren Woods.

The fishing pond

On Friday we went to the Toy and Action Figure Museum. On Saturday before heading home we walked around the Chickasaw National Reserve