a post of random thoughts

 

Happy Tuesday, friends! I have grand plans today—more plans to decorate for Christmas, to clean the messes I created yesterday, to catch up on the laundry I never finished, to grocery shop and make an easy (favorite and yummy) dinner, and to meet my sister at Dad's to finish his lights. We'll see how this all works out...all while I post a ton on Instagram for my favorite day of social media all year, the #OneDayHH challenge. Do you follow Laura Tremaine? She's the one that started this social media thing of documenting each hour of your day all day long for this one day a year. Get it? One day, hour by hour. If you're my friend on Instagram, consider this your warning that I'll be posting a lot. 

I probably won't finish, though...I always start strong and then dwindle down to forgetting by dinner time. Here's hoping, though! It's fun to look back on.

Look how pretty my son's dog is! Oakley is growing up quickly, but I think she's just about finished growing. She is still so sweet, and she is FINALLY healthy. She had a very rough and traumatic start. Just to remind you, the night she came to us, she was involved in a terrible multiple car wreck, in which the kennel that she and her two siblings were in broke in half! After that, we found out she had some type of worm, which is common, so she was on medicine for that, then she got a urinary tract infection that never healed right, then we found out she had some sort of parasite, which is also very common. After several doses of STRONG medication, she is finally healthy and a normal puppy. 

Her favorite thing is to play in the water bowl. She also loves to torture her fun uncle Chip (Funcle Chip, I've nicknamed him), she loves to cuddle with me and/or Todd, she loves to pull her blanket out of her kennel and drag it all over the house, and she loves any and all of her toys, the squeakier the better.

Isn't she beautiful? She's fully house trained, I am so happy to say and she sits at the back door until I come to take her out. She actually touches her nose to the door to get my attention! It shakes when she does that and she knows I'll come every time. She knows how to sit, lay down and come. We're working on not jumping on people/cabinets and not biting my finger off every time I give her a treat.

I saw this on Instagram over the weekend and cracked up. How true is this? It's still so creepy. Do you do gifts for your spouse on holidays? We used to, but we don't really do that anymore. My mom gave me an excellent piece of advice as a young mom and that was to make sure the boys saw us give gifts to each other so they'd know how important that is as a couple. Once they reached a certain age, we kind of backed off of this and we rarely give gifts to each other now. I know that sounds terrible, but we're at the stage of life that we just go buy whatever it is we want. We don't need a thing. I am not into jewelry and the only thing he's into I wouldn't know what to get, so we just do our own thing.

This book would make an excellent gift for someone! Chad Williams came to our church to preach on Sunday and he was phenomenal. I'm thinking it's more for guys, but I'd probably love it too, so it can be for either. His testimony is powerful! 

Look how beautiful my mom is! Isn't this a great picture of her and my stepdad Bill? She shared this on Facebook Sunday and I saved it to my phone. I love all of our parents so very much and am always so glad to be able to see them in person. This was as they were on their way to church on Sunday. 

Memories like this CRACK ME UP. This was Missy and me with Drew about five years ago. He was shopping for part of his costume for the dress up youth night for Halloween and he was going as Bethany Hamilton, the girl with just one arm. He wore flesh colored shorts and a shirt, then a bra and printed bottoms (not the ones in the picture) as his bikini. He wore makeup and a long, blond wig and his best friend went as the shark. We were in Target as he tried things on and when he pulled those bottoms off and his shorts started coming down, I thought we were for sure about to be kicked out of the store! I've never laughed so hard in public in all my life and I had to just stand there for a bit before I was able to walk! They did win the contest, by the way.

Speaking of Halloween, Noah went as a Teletubby. This makes me laugh too.

Back to Drew—he asked his boss on Monday if he could switch over to night shifts each week. He likes it so much more and he found out the pay is actually better. He gets time and a half. I'm not sure if they'll let him, but I was surprised that he liked that shift as much as he did. This week he is moving to different floors at St. Jude. One is the ICU and then the other two he's not sure about. If you think of him, will you pray for him? He's lost a few patients since he began and though it's never easy for him, it is getting a little easier each time. He took it really hard the first few weeks.

I've been reading a lot again. I'm on my third book of the month so far and am loving each and every book I've read so far. I made a goal in January to read more and I've definitely kept it up all these months. The Kindle has been a gamechanger, though. I am so much more likely to pick up a book to read when the light is built in and I can adjust the font size. Speaking of reading and the library, I need to go in soon and renew my membership. It's free, it just needs to be done each year. 

The weather is flip flopping again and we went from super cold to the seventies in the daytime. Noah has been under the weather with his sinuses and they sent him home from work on Friday. (He wasn't running fever, he just had an issue with not breathing, headache and sore throat and his ears were bothering him. Several of them get this seasonally every year.) He's finally coming back around from it and is on the mend. He did work yesterday.

Graham and Jonah left at the crack of dawn yesterday! It was a long day for them both and they had to be in Jackson (an hour away) by seven thirty. They came home to help Noah put up star lights in his car and Jonah got super grumpy because they were all messing around and wouldn't get started.

That's about all I've got for today, friends. Thanks for reading! Love to all.