Job Hunting

So today I applied for my first job this time around.  The job hunting season is officially upon us (or me).  Let me just say first of all that I forgot how much fun (not!!!) this whole process is.  However, I am graduating in December and happy to move on to bigger and better (and hopefully more fun and with better compensation) things, and this is a necessary evil.  Wish me luck!!

Photo books

Today was another awfully boring day at work.  I had about 8 minutes of work to do today.  The rest of the day I have just been sitting at my computer and waiting for people to update their blogs.  So for that my friends, you fail.  :)  There has not been a whole lot of action in the blogging world or on facebook today.  (or it may have to do with the fact that I have been checking it every 5 minutes.)  Seriously, I need a new job. I started today looking for real.  Here we go, I guess.

In other news, I had a coupon code for a free 8x8 photo book on Shutterfly (as in I only had to pay shipping).  Let me just tell you that I think this is amazing.  I made it for my Great-great- Aunt as part of her Christmas present.  It was so super easy!  All I had to do was log into my facebook page and pull the pictures off and it rearranged them in order and grouped them and placed them on the pages.  All I had to do was add the captions and pick out the page colors that I liked best.  I am telling you that I will definitely be doing this again!!  I am terrible about printing out pictures, since they are all just stored electronically. 

So now I need your opinions and advice.  Which sites do you like best for doing photo books?  And which do you think has the best deals?

Another busy weekend

This weekend was another busy one.  (And one in which no pictures were taken...)

Friday started out pretty laid back.  I ate dinner at my mom's house and went to the grocery store. 

Saturday I hit up a bunch of garage sales.  I am still looking for that perfect table/dresser for my entry way.  I can't seem to find one that I like that I can also afford.  Isn't that how it always works???  I drove all over town, and didn't buy one single thing.  Then I babysat littlest brother and little sister for a little while.  We played outside and tried to decorate a pumpkin.  Then it was time to watch my Hogs beat Houston Nutt's Ole Miss Rebel Black Bears.  I swear that is the dumbest mascot I have ever heard of.  Anyway, it was a crazy game, and lasted forever.  I am glad that we finally pulled off a win against ole Houston.  Then I had my birthday party with my dad's family.  We went to the Purple Cow and I ate way too much.  Who can turn down one of their milkshakes???

Sunday, we played handbells in church.  We played Blessed Assurance. Someone recorded us, so I am trying to insert the video in here.   I had to get it off of Facebook, and for some reason it only recorded the first few seconds to my computer, but anyway, here is a sample.  :)

I think we did ok in the first service, and much better in the second service.  After church, I went to serve food to the hungry at Stone Soup.  We served 109 people and passed out soup kits for 220 more people.  We had a lot of volunteers and it was fun.  After that, I headed back to church for the women's Bible study.  We had some bad weather, including a tornado warning.  I sure was glad to be home!

Today, I have to go early to handbells practice to play the Christmas music on my flute for the director.  Nervous!! Wish me luck!

So bored

I am so bored at work today.   Yesterday I had about 10 minutes of work to do, and today I have none.  You might think that is awesome, but really it is just boring.  Every now and again it is ok, but not all the time.  I hope that my next job is a little more exciting.  Don't worry- it is common knowledge around the office that I am looking for a new job upon my upcoming December graduation.  :)  It is not a secret. ha.

So not much has happened around here.  I did finally cook something at home.  I made this recipe that I got a really long time ago on Kelly's blog during a favorite recipes link-up.  Her's definitely looked better.  And please excuse the seasoning burnt on the side of the pan... I forgot to add it before I put it in the oven, and when I tried to put it on without taking out the dish, I got lemon pepper seasoning everywhere.

It was super easy and pretty good.  Just olive oil, salt, pepper, lemons, green beans, potatoes, chicken, and lemon pepper seasoning.  I am glad I finally cooked something so that I don't have to eat out of the cafeteria every day. 

I also made some cupcakes for my Wednesday night kids.

Now, I am an avid reader of Cake Wrecks, and I know that they always make fun of chocolate icing swirled like that because it looks like a pile of poo.  SO in my defense, I only had 30 minutes, and frankly, I didn't care.  :)  The cupcakes were delicious even if they did look like crap. (ha.)  They were chocolate and the ones on the left had cream cheese icing that I colored orange and they have Halloween sprinkles, and the ones on the right had chocolate buttercream icing with candy corn on top (obviously).  I think they were a hit, considering we had 5 kids, and none of the cupcakes made it home.

That is really all I have to share today.  Obviously both my work and personal lives have been very boring this week!!

Jam Packed weekend

Friday night on the way home from work, my mom called to see if I wanted to go to the fair.  I saw the monkey show, the alligator show, and some bad band that nobody knew the songs.  The monkey show was actually really cute and funny, and the alligator show was not.  We didn't stay really long because we knew that we had to get up early and go to the Race for the Cure.

On Saturday morning, I got up at 5:00, which is an hour that I haven't seen in a while.  :)  My mom and I went to the survivor breakfast.  We made it there, even though we couldn't find the survivor parking lot and I drove the WRONG WAY down a one way street.... The breakfast was nice and then we went to look around.  My mom missed the survivor picture because the line for the bathroom was so freaking long.  The walk was a success though.  Almost 46,000 people participated, making us move up to the #3 largest race in the country.  Woo-hoo!  There were people everywhere.  Here we are before the race started.

There were so many people that you seriously couldn't walk.  It took us forever to get started, and I am pretty sure that the runners finished before we even started walking.  There were several places where the sidewalk entertainment caused a traffic jam because people wanted to stop and watch, which slowed us up even more.  This is how long it took us:

Um yes, almost 2 hours.  It was only a 5K in case you were wondering. :)  Hopefully next year I can get closer to the front of the line and not be caught up so much in all the congestion.  At least we finished, though.  It took us so long that my mom actually missed the survivor parade.  We did at least find the survivor luncheon.  It was a long day all in all.  After the race, we hit up 2 estate sales, but didn't find anything.  I am still on the hunt for an entryway table or dresser that I can use for an entryway table.  Then I picked up my sister, and we settled in to watch the Razorbacks take on Auburn.  Let's just say that the officiating crew was less than stellar, and maybe we would have lost anyway, but man that was frustrating.  Our backup quarterback ended up playing for more than half of the game because Ryan Mallett got a concussion in the 2nd quarter.  I was actually pretty impressed with Tyler Wilson even though he did throw a couple of interceptions.  Since he has had virtually no playing time, I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  I'm glad he got the chance to show us what he can do, since Ryan has been getting all the attention, and he sure does get on my nerves!  After the game, we were going to go to Purple Cow for dinner because I have a free milkshake for my birthday, but we were too tired so we decided to eat at home.  Popcorn and brownies are a good dinner, right?  Sister of the year award, right here!

Sunday we went to church, and then to Tropical Smoothie (one of my favs!) for lunch.  Sundays are kids eat free days, at least in our area.  Woot!  I especially hate to take her to new places when I am not sure if she will like it, so I am glad at least it was free.  She is still too chicken to try a smoothie though.  I just don't get it.  :)

Then we went to Lily's 2nd birthday party.  It was good fun, and my sister jumped in the bounce house for probably a solid hour until cake time, and then played in the sand box.  All the adults where hiding in the shade.  Why is it still hot out?  I even ran the air conditioner yesterday.  Arkansas weather is just crazy.  Then Sunday night I had Bible study.  It was kind of a scary one.  We are going through Revelation with Beth Moore, and so far it is a good one.

Today is handbell practice.  It is our last practice before we perform in 2 services at church on Sunday.  I hope it goes well!!

Lately

Last Saturday was Laura & Hal's super fun wedding.  It was in Benton, and the reception was in Little Rock.  It actually worked out perfectly because we were able to watch the first quarter of the Hogs vs. Texas A&M game and then listen to the 2nd quarter on the radio while we drove to the wedding.  There even was a little fair or market or something across from the church that had cotton candy, but we thought it might be frowned upon to bring some cotton candy into the wedding.  Unfortunately they were gone by the time the wedding was over.  Sad day. Then the wedding happened during half time which was super and then we got to listen to most of the rest of the game driving to the reception.  We missed the very end because Andrea and I couldn't find how to get into the parking deck and so we parallel parked (yay me!) in front of the building and then ran inside because we were stupid.  Everyone was checking their phones for the rest of the time.  Rude, I know, but I don't think anyone really cared.  See:

This is Andrea, also known as Bandie Andie.  :)  She even caught the bouquet.  We had a little fight about it:

 Here is a picture of me and the bride:

After the wedding, some of us were invited back to the hotel with some of the groom's family, including his sister Desi.  This is me and Desi.  (And yes, I look crazy in all the pictures I took that night)

We stayed out way too late lol.  I had to get up the next morning and do the Sunday school lesson for my class, and man, I was dying. haha. 

In other and completely unrelated news, I got Lily's birthday present the other day, and I wapped it yesterday.  I decided to make a bow for it using the tutorial I found here.  I am pretty proud of how it turned out, considering that I made it. haha.

The only thing I would have done differently was use a paper that was not white on the back side, so that there was more color showing instead of the white.  Oh well, I think it is fine.  The only things that I did differently from the tutorial were that I used wrapping paper instead of a magazine page, and I didn't exactly measure the strips I cut- just sort of eyeballed it, and I used plain Elmer's glue instead of staples and glue dots.

I'm hoping to make some more of these for Christmas!

Sarah's giveaway

Sarah is having a giveaway on her blog.  Click here to visit her blog and see her cute daughter Ava!!  She is a Pampered Chef consultant and they have some awesome stuff, so go check it out!!  They even have polka dotted things, which you know gets me everytime.

And now I feel really old because I first met Sarah 7 years ago.  :)