Hurry Up May!!

(I started this blog post a week ago! and then got busy and forgot to post it. fail)

I cannot wait until May 29th!!! Disney bound again! and once again i am more excited than the kids are!! woohoo! 

Thank you Feliciano's :) 

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

This past few weeks I have tried a few new recipes some were a hit and some eh maybe wont eat that again lol. Chicken Parmesan was fabulous and we really liked this creamy cheesy chicken quesadilla's that we had too, we also did a smothered pork chops recipe that was super easy and had a really good flavor, over all I was very pleased with the new things we tried and will definitely do them again sometime! Preston will soon be on the road ( A LOT!) so i'm squeezing in home time all i can, my favorite thing to do it just lay around the house watching movies and eating junk food :) so i try and force him to do that as much as i can.

we did taxes the other day .. boo. but its done and our refund will make another nice dent in my 2014 House fund :) so that makes me very happy! 

The next few weekends are busy - next weekend is my husband's sisters wedding and the following we are going with a few friends to the Majestic theater in Dallas to see Anjelah Johnson's comedy show, I CANNOT WAIT! she is so funny.. If you dont know who that is YouTube Bon Qui Qui or the Nail Salon video of her. That is going to be a fun night!

Jen-

productive weekend

What did you do this weekend? 

Preston has been gone all week in Florida and I decided Friday night to be productive before he comes home Tuesday night and i thought -hey, I'll deep clean the apartment this weekend - it wont take THAT long ... I scrubbed my bathtub for an hour! I thought it was so cool when we moved here that I would have a garden tub! ... i hate it, when it comes to cleaning it. So after that i quit for the night and headed to dinner with almost my entire family (missing two siblings) and several family friends, i feel sorry for the poor waitress that had our table of 20+ lol, I love having such a big immediate family as well as a huge extended one, Thank you, Jesus for the times we get to spend together and have fun. Saturday i was very lazy and slept in (stayed in bed watching tv) till almost 10 before i got up to tackle the rest of my bathroom, I spent a good hour there finishing it up and organizing all the drawers that has needed to be done for months. I finished up my bedroom around 1, you know I regret getting all of this dark wood furniture whenever i have to clean and dust, I should have went with white or iron, next time i get a furniture upgrade I'll have to consider that.  

Saturday night i had a date with my sister wife and my sister Katie and her husband, we love going to shoguns and sitting at the sushi bar and having fried rice, soup, salad and sushi! i used to never eat sushi, didn't even want to try it ( i don't even eat cooked* fish) but Preston finally got me to try this fried shrimp sushi roll one time and i was hooked, ill be brave and try other stuff now and i even like to just get an avocado roll - yummy, it can be an expensive place to eat if you sit at the hibachi tables and order the meals but we would rather have a quiet dinner and for half the cost just chowing down on rice and sushi so we eat there often. Today I finished up my cleaning with the dining room, living room & kitchen and I am DONE. Preston comes home Tuesday and I'm sure the place will look a mess in no time, but at least i tried and i wont have to deep clean again for a while - yay!

I decided that when Preston is not on the road that i wanted to try and cook and eat at home as much as possible so last week i spent a lot of time making a meal plan for the next two weeks and I'm excited about it, yesterday i drug my sister Kate with me and bought all of the groceries for the meals and snacks etc. This weeks menu includes Black beans & rice, no-mess sloppy Joe's ( love them, you put the sloppy Joe mix and cheese inside a rolled out biscuit and fold it over and bake!), Chicken Parmesan, Smothered Pork-chops & Grilled chicken salad. Lunches are boring sandwiches and leftovers but dinners are different every night. Its not really to be healthier (although we should) but it is cost saving for sure and I just like to cook for us and eat together because we don't get a lot of time together once he starts really going out for work, sometimes he is gone months before he comes home again so I soak it up when i can. The chicken Parmesan and smothered pork-chops are new recipes to me and i hope they come out good, ill let you know! 

hoping for a great week!

Jennifer -

well .... lets try this again

Where have i been? a year and a half ... hmm, well i guess i'm ready to talk about my pretty average/boring life again. Not much has happened in my life the past year and a half, i lost my beloved grandma (great aunt) and i still miss greatly, I got a new (used) car "Zara" and i love her, i'm still married to a crazy man who drives me nuts and he is still truck driving and gone most of the may-oct months, we're still apartment living and my sister still lives with us, yes i still work for the same doctors office - almost 5 yrs! i'm addicted to Don Juan's chicken tacos ... seriously its a problem, i enjoy my coke (no ice!), no babies, no home yet ... but both are in my sights in the next 18 months... ssshhhh. but seriously im tired of apartment living (a house payment would be cheaper than rent! buying is just so scary to me though) and we hope to try and buy by the first of next year and are working hard towards being able to do that and after thats done - baby, just dont tell my husband:) we have been married 4 yrs in march and he is quickly running out of time for me to wait, so many friends have had babies and are about to have them and i hope to have my turn soon enough. i'm just running out of patience lol.

Anyway enough rambling i need to go spend a few hours deep cleaning my bathroom and scrubbing my tub, uhg. but i'm back in the blog world for now! 

Jennifer -

Moving!

Changes-
 
I have not had my nose out of a book long enough to eat lately much less blog and I just started book number 9 in 3 weeks. I love books:) man I wish I had the yellow hardback Nancy Drew set!!! I would kill for it, well not literally, but you know what I mean:) one day . . . I'll get it!
 
 
anyway, the past week has been CrAzY, lots of changes going on - this biggest one is IM MOVING Thursday! woohoo! I am so excited to have my own space again and all of my things out of storage! I wasn't planning on moving until towards the end of the year because Preston wont be in town really till November ( he is home pretty much all the time Nov - March but right now he is gone for 4-6 weeks then home for a week or so) and I didn't want to be out on my own because im a big chicken:) but some things have happened recently and I'm not going to go into detail but Preston and I are moving out and my sister Bo is going to be my roomie again! Preston is gone a lot as you know so it will be just us girls mostly :) I love my sister and it will be fun to live with her again ( we were roomies at mama & daddy's for years) she can decorate the apt all cute and I'll fatten her up with my cooking lol. thankfully this place has a 24/7 gym! I see her dragging us there a lot in the future:) and a pool! so I'm just ready to get moved and settled and chill out! day and a half to go! the thing I HATE about moving .... having to stock a pantry again from scratch and buying all the cleaning supplies and stuff. hate hate hate it.   you know ill be taking pictures and get them up soon after we are moved! thank you, Jesus, for all my brothers and cousins and sisters who will have Bo & I moved quickly and I just supervise so nothing gets broken! :) haha.
 
 
Work has been nuts . . . its official now ( even though we have seen it coming for a couple of months) the Dr. i work for is leaving and going to the Dallas area, his last day is supposed to be Aug. 31st but he is out the last week in July (for yet another vacation, he has been off A LOT lately and now we now why . . .job hunting) and he has called in Monday & Tuesday this week!!! uhg. i am so sick of rescheduling Patients! so we think he may just not come back after his vacation* at the end of the month. which is fine, I'd rather him go then keep doing all this calling in and making us move people only to have to move them again and again when he takes days off.
We still have our PA and will get a new Dr. soon too. just not sure who yet. so work is a little stressful right now, gives me a headache almost daily. . . I just keep saying *im off Thursday & Friday, Thursday & Friday!* over and over.
 
so there is my last few weeks in a nutshell :) I'll post pictures on FB and here soon! the Apt. is so cute! and i'll live in walking distance to my aunt LuLu and she has muscadines or Scupadines? whatever in her backyard that will be ready soon . . . yummy :)
 
Jwf

Warning!!! --> Spiritual Post

I'm feeling a little deep today, I have so much on my mind with my life and things that someone close to me has shared about theirs and I'm praying that he gives me the right words to say to this person, I'm 24 yrs old and I dont feel very wise when it comes to being a spiritual counselor but yet I find that God has constantly placed these situations in my life where i am needed as one. He must know that I am strong enough to take the burdens of others, even when i feel as though I'm not the best to do so, He has always had more faith in me than i have myself. I really needed to hear some encouragement this morning and wasn't sure where to find it today, I took my bible and blindly opened it to a random section and counted to 3 as my finger slid down the passages on the page, once i got to 3 i stopped moving and this was the verse I had landed on. i know that's a very unconventional way of reading the bible and probably shouldn't count on that all the time but today the verse i stopped on was just what i needed to hear.

"Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God,

the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and

His loving kindness to a thousandth generation with

those who love Him and keep His commandments;"

Deuteronomy 7:9 (NASB)





this verse also reminds me of this song i heard last week that stopped me in my tracks. its called *Blessing* by Laura Story. If you haven't heard it then you must! I'll add the youtube video to this post. It made me think "how many blessings do we pass up just because something feels different or is unfamiliar to us? " this song was the special music in church Sunday and I'm not really one who believes in coincidences and I think that everything happens for a reason and I almost didn't go to church that morning because i kept getting knocked back. the 1st thing was i over slept and almost just stayed home but I just felt i needed to be there and so i hurried to get dressed anyway, then i spilled makeup on my skirt just as i was about to leave and almost gave up then and just said forget it. but i hurried to find something else to wear. i made it to church 2 minuted before it started. I think the devil was trying to keep me home .... but he lost :) anyway my point was - i needed to hear those words that day and the message and I'm so glad i didn't give in and stay home!


read some these lyrics from this song -



"We pray for wisdom

Your voice to hear

And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near

We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love

As if every promise from Your Word is not enough

All the while, You hear each desperate plea

And long that we'd have faith to believe



Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops

What if Your healing comes through tears

What if a thousand sleepless nights

Are what it takes to know You’re near

And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the achings of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy"

 

this song brings me to my knees and that part about trials in our lives being his mercies in disguise, I had never considered that trials in our lives could be anything more than that - I trial, a hard time, heartache & pain. when you go through those emotions its so hard to see the picture that is bigger than any of us. and I'm learning that those trials and how you handle them, shape you into who you are. they can break you or make you, and i will not be broken ... God is our rock, unmovable and during trials you are to take comfort in knowing that.


this post was a little random . . . sometimes i have a hard time sorting out all the things racing around in my head, ever feel that way?
take a minute and close your eyes and really listen to the words of this song ...... I hope it blesses you the way it has me ....

JwF

I'm still alive!

man I haven't been on here in a looooooooooong time!

and I have actually had stuff going on in my life the past few weeks to blog about! but i guess that's why I haven't though because I been kept pretty busy! in the last month ( wow yes a month) - I had a rangers game with my work crew that was so much fun, concrete was poured at mama & daddy's house site! thank you Jesus!! Kaitlyn was down from Dallas several time to visit! and Preston was home for a week! so all in all the past month has really been good! oh and i paid OFF two bills this month. very proud of that! i blinked and its the end of June! how sad that the year is going by so fast. and im not going to lie im a little  freaked out about turning 25 this year! i dont feel 25 ... not that its *old* but i dont feel it just the same. when i was younger i totally thought i'd have a couple of babies by now haha, i must have really given God a few good laughs when i would tell him my plans:) His & Mine do not seem to match up but i know His plan is better!

the week Preston was home ( which was 2 weeks ago now) is a blur, we had something to do just about every night so there wasn't a lot of down time but thats ok he had a good *visit* home :) my boss let me have 2 half days off and a full day off so im glad i got to have some time off work to spend with him. He will be home in about 2 weeks again :) and this time he is here for 2 whole weeks! and we have a trip planned around July 22nd to galveston! woohoo! not as cool as our vacation last year to Mexico but ill take it:) we are taking cousin Kaitlyn with us and sister Emily. We plan to go down there early Friday morning and stay till Sunday and then drive home that afternoon ( Preston will have to leave that Monday ) not sure exactly what we will all get in to down there but i think Schlitterbahn is in the cards and the beach of course! ( even if it is a brown muddy beach lol ) i'm ready for it!


This Saturday is the first annual Juvenile Diabetes Walk ( in tyler area, they have them all over the country though, we have been to the one in Dallas a couple of times) We are walking for Daddy & Christopher - our team grew to about 27 people!! woot woot! and we had shirts made for the event that are so cute! Kimberly gave Chris the nick name of Bete years ago when he was diagnosed and so we did all black shirts with colored letters and on Chris' shirt it says Bete and then on all of our girls shirts it says Bete's babes and on the boys Bete's Bro's and then my 3 nephews have shirts that say Bete's lil' buds. we are so cool lol. cant wait! we will take a lot of pictures i'm sure and i hope we get a good group shot! then that afternoon Laura & Emily and I are driving to Dallas to go to the huge outdoor Celebrate Freedom Concert ( Christian concert) I cant wait because Chris Tomlin is going to be performing!!! and i looooooove him!


I have been house sitting since last Friday - my Kiddos and their parents went to the beach for a week and im watching Cleo & Jack Jack. I miss the kids though! weird being here without them :) cant wait till they come home so i can hug on Jenna & Julia! but ya know its not bad having the big house and pool to myself! after work i can go and ReLaX !! i have read 3 books this week and on the 4th right now ... ahhh. love it. I was such a bookworm when i was younger i loved Nancy Drew and read that whole series several times, but those books only had a little over 100 pages so i could read several day. my summers were spend reading all day :) wish i still had all those books :( not sure what happened to all of them but one day i would like to have them all again! The series im reading this week is by christian author Dee Henderson, *The O'Malley Series" love it. its a series of 6 books about 7 people who all grew up together in a house for orphans and when they got older they became their own family, changed their name and so on. Each one has a fascinating career - US Marshall, Negotiator, Forensic Pathologist, Fire Fighter, Paramedic & Crisis Counselor. I have read this series i believe 7 times, first time i read them i was like 15 years old. i Finally bought the series about 3 or 4 years ago so i could stop using the ones from the church library all the time. so anyway if you ever need a book to read .... try these. you wont be disappointed!


So thats kinda what i have been up to. i plan on keeping up better in July i'm just not sure where the time went this month it was gone in a flash!  Ill be sure to post some pictures from this weekend!!

JwF

4wheelin'

this past week at work was rather stressful and i do not expect this week to be any less :-/ so i decided to have a nice quiet weekend relaxing  - starting with Saturday - my plan was to sleep in late, lay in bed pretty much the entire day finishing up the Xfiles series and catching up on tv shows i had missed during the week and then end the day with Dinner with one of my friends who i have really been wanting to catch up with. sounds nice right?  well what actually happened was - i was wide awake at 6:30 so i went ahead and started the last disc of xfiles, and right as the VERY LAST episode started - BAM! tree knocked our power out! uhg - seriously? just great. so i was faced with boredom ... then i see my brother Chris and our friend Ronnie  on the 4wheelers and thought ... hmmmm lets go for a ride through the woods down to I-20! the guys go riding all the time and i never do so i get into my tall black rain/mud boots and off we go! Emily (sister) came along too, we were out riding for 2 hours! there are some scary paths out in the woods and steep hills we went up and down, obviously i have A LOT of trust in my brother and he is a great driver! :) it was so much fun and we got totally muddy but thank you, Jesus, when we got back to the house late afternoon the power was back on so we could shower! and i got to finish my series:)  and i also still got to meet up with my girlfriend for dinner and we ended up being at Posado's for 2 1/2 hours chatting it up! and then i went back to her house for another hour or so. good times and so glad we got to catch up! 

all the excitement from saturday wore me out and i slept till about 9 on sunday, oops! but my little body needed it i suppose. i recorded the xfiles movie saturday night so when i did finally get up and move around sunday i went to mom and dads to do my laundry and i watched the movie, it came out 3 years ago, almost 7 years after the series ended and i saw it in theaters back then and i never sit till the end of credits on movies and i so wish i had back then because today i was just letting credits roll and i saw that there was an extra scene! i was so mad i missed this lol. they did have their happily ever after ending and i never knew. im such a sucker for happy endings and i was obsessed with this show and their story and it really made me feel all warm and fuzzy to see it end that way. still wish they would keep doing movies every few years though, oh well - i have the whole series and the movies so ill just watch it all again every year, its like a good book you can read a hundred times over. ahh :) anyway then i took the 4wheeler down to the house site and helped daddy fill in the holes that they made to lay the plumbing pipes in, so that the truck with the concrete can drive all around the house when they come. and man was it hot! shoveling is not an easy job. by the time i got back to the house Chris, Ronnie & Emily were home from church & lunch and we all went riding again. this time i took my earbuds and had my itunes playing jams the whole time, nothing better for relaxing than riding through the "jungle" and listening to good music :) oh how i love country life, today made me really lean towards building my house at here in the woods close to mom and dads house site. i just love being by my family and doing things like this together. after that ride and working outside with dad i was worn out! took a shower because i was covered in mud from the thighs down again and chilled out with everyone at the house eating a super yummy watermelon! could this be any better? before it got too dark we went down to plant moms two new Maple trees that she got, she is going to get a few more they will all line the new driveway, they turn this beautiful red & pink in the fall! I had a great weekend at home with my family and kept busy and it kept me from focusing on the fact that i miss my husband terribly and 7 weeks is still a long time ....
loneliness is a horrible thing, i would give anything to spend an hour with him right now, i have my good days and i have my bad... friday was a bad day and i just wanted my husband. this week will be so nuts that ill be too busy to be down about it, I just have to be positive and say ONLY 7 more weeks then he will be home for 3 weeks!! ::that is hard to be!::  say a prayer for us, its always the hardest in the middle of his away time.




Hope everyone has a great week and as drama free as it can be! I for one am dreading this week, but this weekend will be awesome!! 2 Ranger games :) ssswwweeeeeeettttt :D


its about to storm here, i have been watching the lightening for a while now and i think i'm going to let the sound of the rain put me to sleep! good night!


JwF