Let it Snow Let it Snow Let it Snow

Winter has hit NWA again! It started snowing this morning (even though it wasn't supposed to begin until tonight). So everyone started leaving work after lunch. I waited until almost 2 to try and avoid traffic. NOT! It took me ONE hour to drive the 5 miles home. The roads were slick but it wasn't as much that as it was the fact that apparently all 20,000 residents of Bentonville were trying to get home on the same road at the same time. And to add to that, as I waited in the turning lane for about 30 minutes to turn onto the highway we live off of......I was trying to observe the "leave at least one car length between you and the next car" rule and about 45 cars took that as the "I see space so I'm cutting in front of you" rule. It began to get more than a little irritating. But I tried to do the Christian thing. :-)
Scott's on his way home now. Looks like we may be working from home tomorrow. Yippee!

Here She Comes...................

When I was a little girl - Miss America was always on Saturday nights in the fall. My mom would always pop some popcorn and we would sit in the living room and watch and I would keep score on my little notebook. I've always loved watching the pageant. When Laurie and I lived together we would get a tube of cookie dough and a spoon and eat up while we were critical about the girls' hair or thighs. (I realize I had no room to talk but I wasn't on TV walking around in a bathing suit).
So even though it's gone downhill and you have to really look to find it hidden away on a Monday night on CMT - I wasn't going to miss. I'm only halfway through and I'm very disappointed that Miss AR didn't make it to Top 10 but I'm still enjoying it. I only hope one day I'll have a little girl that I can fix snacks and watch with one day.
P.S. All the top 5 finalists are from the south - is there any doubt that the prettiest girls live in the south???

Weekend

We had a good weekend. Mostly a quiet, restful weekend. (and did I mention cold?)
Last night we had our friends the Kays over for dinner. We haven't done anything with them in a while so it was fun to get together. Their little girl is getting so big and is SO funny! It's so neat to see her personality coming out.
Today Scott helped me with Sunday School and we were also on the welcome team today. After Sunday School - we ate lunch with the Ormons. Emily was in an especially good mood - she kept us entertained.
I had Beth Moore Bible Study this afternoon and then we had church tonight. It was a great day!
I didn't take any pictures this weekend (which always makes the posts more interesting) but you can use your imagination.

Christian Chicken

I drove thru one of my favorite fast foods today - Chick Fil A (the Christian Chicken) and I was greeted by Francine (and it was her pleasure to take my order). I have never driven through the Rogers Chick Fil A once when the most pleasant drive thru worker ever (Francine) wasn't working. And the people at the window are always equally as friendly and kind.

I was thinking about how if you ever think a company who is based on Christian values, who plays Christian music and is closed on Sundays wouldn't succeed and flourish - just try to visit chick fil a around meal time when it is constantly busy. Or go to Hobby Lobby. They have a similar foundation. My favorite clothes store is Forever 21 and on every bag they have John 3:16 on the bottom and after researching I found that the owner is a strong Christian.

How many times in businesss do we feel that if we stand up for what we believe in and proclaim our faith - that we will not succeed and that the world won't accept us?

I just read an article about the 2 coaches going to the super bowl this year. They are both strong Christians who stand up for their beliefs and convictions and give all the glory of their success to God. What a testimony and what a challenge to do the same!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is my parent's 36th anniversary. In a world where more than 50% of all marriages end in divorce and celebrities can't seem to stay married more than a year - it's so encouraging to see my parents married for almost 4 decades and still very much in love. I've always said it took me 30 years to get married because I wanted to find what my parents had and wasn't going to settle for less. They have set a very good example for me of how wonderful marriage can be if God is in the center. I can say the same for Scott's parents too. We are very fortunate to have such good role models.
One of the best examples of a good marriage was my grandparent's marriage. I still think back to a few years before my pap-pa died and he was in the hospital and he was so sad because he was away from "his lifelong sweetheart" and he would talk about how much he loved mam-ma with tears in his eyes. They met before World War 2 and Mam-Ma said she didn't want to marry pap-pa like so many other girls who were marrying guys who went off to war so they could get money from the government. She wanted people to know she was waiting to marry pap-pa for love. And he got captured and was in a German prison camp for FOUR years. And this was in an age where you couldn't talk to your soldier by e-mail or cell phone ......you might get telegraphs if you were lucky and even then they usually didn't have a lot of information. For FOUR years my mam-ma waited for him to come home and worked and got a house ready and for four years my pap-pa carried her picture in his pocket (which he still had with him in the hospital). And they finally were able to marry and were married close to 60 years when my pap-pa died. Now that is true love. I knew that I wouldn't marry till I found THAT kind of love.
That's the legacy I was born into and I hope to carry it on to my children.
Happy anniversary mom and dad! I love you!

Girls vs Guys

This morning in 4 year old Sunday School - Julie and I discovered how the battle of the sexes gets started.
I've noticed in my circle of friends that there are a lot of couples made up of quiet guys and very outgoing social wives. I've always wondered why it seems guys seem to talk so little and girls just can't get the words out fast enough. I think I got a little glimpse this morning of how it begins. We only had 3 kids today - 2 girls and a boy. One little girl and the boy were trying to tell us about a movie and the boy kept trying to say something but the girl just kept interrupting and talking long, loud sentences. The boy kept sighing and holding up his finger to try and get a word in edgewise and finally he just put his head in his hands in disgust. Julie and I started laughing and said "Get used to it......you'll have a lifetime of this". ha!
It's amazing how God made us so different that we balance each other out.

Saturday Night Fever

Since all it had done all day is a cold rain - we went to Springdale tonight to eat dinner at Laurie and Steve's house along with the Greens and the Murrays. Laurie made delicious Taco Stack Up and Julie brought some VERY yummy brownies. We had such a good time visiting and playing with Emily. I got Scott to take a picture of the girls but I didn't get our husbands in a picture. Emily loves for me to take her picture and then show it to her. I even caught her once scooting into where my purse was and trying to get my camera out. She wanted to look at herself! Right when we were leaving she had bumped her head and was crying but as soon as I showed her a picture of herself - she immediately stopped crying and smiled. The girl knows she's beautiful!
We noticed after dinner it had started snowing but we didn't really worry about it until we started home and it was getting pretty slick. If it gets much colder tonight - it could be a very messy Sunday. Right now I'm wondering if we'll have Sunday School or church?

Get Fit

In order to keep myself accountable on my "Get Fit" program - I'll have to update on here.
We had our first weigh in at work yesterday and I lost 3 pounds!!!! I think that's the most that anyone lost! :-) I don't want to get too excited because that might (and probably will) be the only 3 pounds I lost. Especially if we keep having these snowy/icy weekends where all we do is stay inside and watch TV and eat! (As I just finished eating a big lunch).
I did end my hiatus of not working out this morning - only due to the encouragement of my friends Kacy and Julie. We went to the gym and attended a class. It was very obvious by my heavy breathing and red, sweaty face (and body) that I was very out of shape. But it was a lot of fun. It was the first class I've ever been in that they played country music instead of "club" music. That was kind of a welcome change. ha!
If nothing else - I just need to work on my health - I'm not getting any younger. :-)

Party Food

Tonight I had the girls from my Sunday School class over for our monthly Bible Study. I made a few little treats that were all new recipes for me : Chocolate Chip Cheese Ball, Ham Pinwheels and B.L.T. Dip.
I thought I would share a couple of the recipes because I thought they turned out pretty tasty!

CHOCOLATE CHIP CHEESE BALL

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup finely chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium bowl, beat together cream cheese and butter until smooth. Mix in confectioners' sugar, brown sugar and vanilla. Stir in chocolate chips. Cover, and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
2. Shape chilled cream cheese mixture into a ball. Wrap with plastic, and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
3. Roll the cheese ball in finely chopped pecans before serving. But it can be hard to form a ball so I skipped the nuts and just put the mixture in a bowl. (I think it's better that way!)
   

B.L.T. Dip

1/2 Jar Mayonaise
16 oz sour cream
12 bacon strips cooked and crumbled
2 small tomatos - diced
2 Teaspoons Garlic Salt

Mix ingredients together and serve with crackers.

Pizza - the best medicine

So after yesterday's disturbing news from the Razorback front ...... we decided to drown our sorrows in Gusano's pizza with Guy and Julie. It seemed to really help. Nothing like a little pizza and cheese to comfort you.

We then went home and got ready to watch AMERICAN IDOL that we had DVR'd but something messed up and it didn't record. So we only saw the last 15 minutes. But there will much more Idol to come and I can hardly wait. We just love American Idol.

UGH

Edit: Let's make that a double ugh!

I've got a disease and the only cure is.................MORE COWBELL!

(that's right - the Stamps are going to become Miss State Fans)

Back to Work

Even though it's snowing outside and most of NWA is shut down - I'm back at work and so happy to be here.
I get so stir crazy being at home for too long. I just have a hard time sitting still and yet I didn't really want to do anything of importance while I was home either. And there are only so many lifetime movies or Paula Deen cooking shows I can watch in a day.
If only I could come to work in my pajama pants and slippers - then it would be ultimate bliss. (and if I could bring Scott and Dawson too)

Cold Day

I kicked off the weekend with a trip to Wal-Mart last night after work in preparation for this weekend's winter weather. You would have thought that someone came on TV and said that NW AR was going to be shut down for 6 months - you couldn't move in the store. And they were out of everything. The few things I had on my list were wiped out. No bananas, no hamburger meat.......so I got the healthy things in life - Little Debbies and ice cream. So much for "getting fit".
Luckily the roads were clear (but wet) this morning so I was able to go to Pass Your Plate (one of my favorite places on earth) and make a bunch of meals to last us for another month or more. So let it snow because we can eat like kings if we are stuck here for a weekend, a week or a month.
So now we are just kind of roaming around the house and watching non-stop TV. I hate cold weather but I do love the way winter keeps me inside to hibernate.

Baptism

I'm sure Scott will make me take this off once he reads it but it was too funny not to post.
As you know, Scott got saved in December and he's been trying to co-ordinate with his family when they can come up here for him to be baptized. We had finally decided it would be in March but he had forgotten to e-mail the church and let them know.
Well yesterday afternoon he got a call from our associate pastor. He called to tell me about it and he said "This kind of made me mad - I think my feelings should be hurt". Our associate pastor called to say they were baptizing several "husky" men on Sunday - and did Scott want to get baptized then too?
Scott wanted to know if they were putting less water in the baptism and bringing out the big guns. He had to tell them he couldn't do it that day. But I'm sure we'll be interested to see what happens on "Big Boy Baptism Day". ha! We laughed about it all night. Especially when we went to church last night and sat right by the pastor who called him.

Get Fit

Our company is doing a weight loss contest. Everyone has to form teams of five and do their initial weigh in today and then in 8 weeks will be the final weigh in and the team that loses the biggest percentage of their weight will get a cash prize. Our office has 2 teams. I'm kind of doubting we will win but I guess it's good encouragement for me to diet.
I am not good at sticking with diets. If I had a nickel for every "program" I've been on - well - I would be laying on a beach right now in retirement. Just in the past year - I've dabbled in weight watchers, low carb, exercise only, and body for life. (and I think I'm about 10 lbs heavier than last January).
"Lean and Mean" is my team's name. Hopefully in 8 weeks that's what I'll be. (except for the mean part - I'd rather be lean and nice.

Some of my favorite pictures

Click for captions!

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Saturday

Today was a fun filled day of taking down the Christmas decorations and loading everything back up into the attic and cleaning. It's worth all the effort for how pretty our house looks when it's all decorated.
Scott kept asking me when I was going to go to Wal-Mart and I didn't know why he was in such a rush for me to go the store until I got home. He had bought me a new flat screen monitor for my computer and transferred my computer over to his. (He has a lap top) My old computer was on the brink of dying. He rushed around while I was gone and cleaned up my desk and hooked everything up. I just love it and I thought that was so thoughtful of him. Now I have an ever better place to blog and e-mail! :-) 

Baby Shower for Berkli

Last night the girls in our Sunday School class met at San Francisco Bread for a baby shower for Berkli. It was a lot of fun and we had a great turn out. Seventeen girls made it (and 3 more of those are pregnant too!).
Berkli has a precious son Clay who is about the cutest thing I've ever seen and now sometime in the next week - they will have a 2nd son Caleb. I'm sure he will be just as cute. Berkli got a lot of cute things. It was fun just to have a girl's night and laugh and talk.

Dog the Bounty Hunter

I have a confession.

I love Dog the Bounty Hunter.

This is one of those shows that Scott watches all the time (kind of like anything on Discovery Channel or American Chopper). This is the kind of show I have always refused to watch. But I've accidently watched it enough that I've found myself watching it by myself when Scott isn't even around. It's white trash at it's finest. But Dog's a Christian and he does do a lot of praying on the show (right before he chases down the crack heads).
This summer when we were in Hawaii, it was all over the news that Dog's daughter had died while we were there (one of his 12 children). Scott couldn't believe I had never heard of "Dog". Well I know him now.
I've got to go..........there's a "Year of the Dog" special on A&E right now.