Self-Defense

Nope, I am not talking about a karate class but some time spent at a shooting range. When I was home for the holidays, my dad took Amy and I to a local indoor shooting range. This is something I have been wanting to do mainly because I've been giving serious thought to having some protection in my home and that would require knowing how to use it. Dad brought the equipment and we got all the necessary safety items at the range. My first thought was how loud it was, even with ear protection and I was definitely nervous. I do not take holding a gun in my hands very lightly. My dad went through all the basics including safety, loading, etc. and I made Amy go first. She did great her first round but I was actually lucky just to hit the target...mostly because I was having trouble with the sight view. Second time around...I nailed the target exactly where I wanted. We spent about a half hour taking turns and by the end I definitely felt comfortable and somewhat empowered. I pray, of course, that I never EVER find myself in a situation where I would actually have to draw a gun on someone, but at least I now know how use one.

Amy practices shooting at the target

Now it's my turn....watch out!

Pictures from Christmas Day

I'm so late in posting these but thought I would post anyways. Christmas Day is another tradition filled day which begins with being woke up early by Elaysha, coffee and fresh danish rolls, stockings, more presents and then off to Grandma's house for lunch. Here are some pictures I took:

Stocking...it's a must have even at 33 years old.

I have to talk about the next two pics you are about to see. My mother was so excited to give me this "surprise" gift that she took the time to type out a letter preparing me for this surprise. Seems that teasing my mother about her Thanksgiving sweater (something along the lines of the colors being hideous like that old afghan we once had) led to the unveiling of that family "heirloom" of an afghan. I was crying tears of laughter! It really was the best surprise.

Amy's surprise was a very LARGE umbrella.

Elaysha was excited to get her easy bake oven. I remember having one but it ran on a light bulb.

Evening pictures with my sisters.

Home for Christmas

Well it's good to be home for Christmas! It's been a great two days filled with family fun and traditions. I have taken a lot of photos and some video to...now it's just a matter of getting everything uploaded and organized so that I can post. I am enjoying the time off from work and love hanging with my family.

I wish you each and all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve Traditions

Well it's great to be home for the holidays. Our holidays are rich in family traditions and quite frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way. Our festivities begin on Christmas Eve when my parents host the family over for dinner. The "family" consists of my immediate family, my mother's brothers and all their extended family, my mom's parents (aka Grandma and Grandpa Quirey) and my dad's sister, Aunt Sue. It has been this way for as long as I can remember. I realize as I get older that it's truly a blessing to have a close-knitted family. After we indulge ourselves with a feast, we go to my grandparents house to exchange presents, eat desserts and watch holiday movies. I, along with my dad, usually attend the Christmas Eve candlelight service and this year I participated in the service by singing one of my favorite Christmas hymns, "Silent Night". We got home a little after midnight and it was fast to sleep for me as it's early to rise on Christmas day for more traditions.

Me and Elaysha by the Christmas tree

Christmas Eve dinner with Amy and the family

Tiffany and Tammy and I in height order :)
All of the girl cousins (and we are missing some)

Baby Lincoln (son of Josh and Hannah Quirey)

Baby Savannah (daughter of cousin Andrew)

Elaysha and I at Grandma's house

Elaysha and Baby Lincoln in their festive attire.

Christmas with the Jeffers

Another wonderful holiday tradition is Christmas with my friends, Caron and Michael Jeffers and Tam Clark (and his girlfriend Margaret). We did our celebrating in the new music room at the Jeffer's home this year and a good time was had by all. Here are some pictures :

Caron and Michael Jeffers and Chewy

Caron and her presents (love Michael's wall of guitars)

Caron, Margaret and Terah
Margaret and Tam

Christmas with the Girls

I have been incredibly blessed to make some new friends from our Singles Sunday School class at church this past year. And one thing that I enjoy at Christmas time is getting to take time out of your busy schedules to hang out with your friends. On Tuesday night, Amy, Brianna, Heather and I met for a holiday dinner at J. Alexanders in Franklin. Not only was I excited to see the girls but I had never been to this restaurant and I had only heard great things about their food. I was not disappointed by any means.

Amy and Brianna

Terah and Heather

Then on Friday night, Stacey organized the Annual Girl's Christmas Dinner which is a tradition that they have been doing for many years but this was the first year I was able to attend. They decided a couple years ago to go to a nice restaurant and have dinner as a group instead of buying each other gifts and I think that is a great idea. I mean, Christmas is so much more that buying gifts. This years dinner was at The Midtown Cafe which was absolutely wonderful. It's so great to enjoy amazing food and splurge a little on a nice meal and the fellowship with these friends is simply priceless.

Terah, Brianna, Jill and Heather

Meredith, Stacey(standing), Kim and Alisha

Surviving the Hustle & Bustle

Well obviously I have not been able to post a blog all week because I have barely been able to survive the seasons hustle & bustle. I knew that after last week this week would be busy but I dont think I knew it would be this crazy. I wont go into all the details as I am just thankful that I was able to survive (barely) but am glad that the past 2 weeks are behind me and that Christmas time with my family is right around the corner. Just the thought of being able to enjoy time at home with my family and to NOT have anything really scheduled to be done is the best gift of all.

Snow in Tennessee

It's a rarity to see snow in Tennessee but I do love waking up and seeing the ground covered. We didn't get anything more than flurries in Nashville but Franklin (south of Nashville) got about an inch or so. I had to drive there early Friday morning to run a work errand and couldn't resist snapping this photo. I LOVE SNOW!

It's snowing...outside and inside...

Will this dreary, wet weather ever end? It's making me have seasonal depression I think?!? I will say that the only good thing about the wet weather was by late afternoon it was transforming from rain to sleet to eventually snow and we all know that I am quite the fan of SNOW!

Since my week has been so busy, I was looking forward to a productive night at home. I am going to a Christmas party tomorrow night and we were asked to bring our favorite Christmas snack/dessert, so I decided to bake my favorite Christmas dessert that my mom always makes for us at Christmas called Gooey Butter Cake. It's a sweet concoction that consists of yellow cake mix, butter, cream cheese and confectioners sugar. It's so delicious!
Now it's no secret that one place I don't belong is in the kitchen. I by no means possess any type of culinary skills or domestic bliss. I'm usually doing good to bake frozen pizzas or cookie dough without burning them. So to attempt (in my mind) a 2 step/baking process dessert was adventuresome and naturally it was just that. I was following the recipe that my mom emailed me to a tee. All was going smoothly until I naturally started to clean up after I completed the first step. I was breaking down the cake box and cream cheese box because I live in a house that recycles paper/cardboard/plastic/aluminum/glass. Before I began step 2 that required the Confectioners Sugar, I thought I would be the proactive recycler and break down that box as well. I opened the box and naturally yanked out the bag of sugar thinking that it was lose. To no surprise, the bag ripped open and powdered sugar went flying everywhere. It looked like it had snowed in the kitchen. What's a girl to do but to LAUGH OUT LOUD and I had to call my mom as I knew she would totally appreciate the beauty of my mess! I promptly cleaned up my mess, finished the second step, placed in in the oven and am happy to report that it turned out perfectly. I can't wait to try some tomorrow.

I cleaned up the rest of the kitchen, made some soup for dinner, wrapped more Christmas presents, made some cds and prepared some birthday packages that need to go in the mail tomorrow. A very productive night, indeed!

More Hustle than Bustle

I know the season is full of the hustle & bustle but let me tell you....this week has been absolutely INSANE! I knew looking at my daytimer that it would be a busy week for the simple fact that I had things planned almost every evening this week, but what I didn't anticipate was cram-packed days of running back and forth between the office downtown and the home office. I don't mind driving but the past 3 days has been nothing but gloomy, wet weather and most people in TN don't know how to drive in wet weather....add in extra traffic in the Green Hills area for holiday shopping and it equates to my road rage :( Boo Hiss!

And if that isn't enough to put me in a bit of a sour mood, I realized that my digital camera has died...that's right...dunzo! I noticed that it wasn't holding a battery charge very long on Saturday night and I suspected that the rechargeable batteries I have been using forever had finally tuckered out but when I put in brand new, fully charged batteries and got the same low battery warning (which keeps my camera powered off) I knew it was over. Now I am sure that I could take it to a camera shop and that some weird battery connection in my camera needs to be fixed, but for the cost to repair, I could just buy a brand new camera. SO, looks like I'll be treating myself to an early Christmas present, as I can't possibly go without a camera.

And on a happy note, my friend Crazy Amy and I went to see Jon McLaughlin and Colbie Caillat. This concert has been the bright spot in my week so far but then again that really is no surprise given how much I love music. I think I actually liked Jon McLaughlin better because well, not only is he easy on the eyes :) but his piano playing/vocal ability was quite mesmerizing. Unfortunately he was the opening act, so his set was only 7 songs deep. Colbie Caillat was also good...sounded just like her recordings but her stage presence was lacking. Nevertheless, it was a fun night out!

Saturday Stuff

I actually went to bed on Friday night feeling kind of sickly (running nose and achey all over) and didn't sleep that good during the night so I most definitely slept in on Saturday and once I got a cup or two of coffee in me, I didn't feel so bad. I cleaned my bathroom and downloaded a bunch of Christmas music to my Itunes so I could create a fun Christmas mix of music. Jen and I have decided to invest in a housekeeper so she came by in the early afternoon to look at our place. I can't even tell you how excited I am to NOT have to clean my bathroom.

Since I was in town this weekend, I went to our Singles Sunday School Class Christmas party..and because I am on the planning committee we had to be there at 4pm to decorate. We used the clubhouse at Amy's condo's community and at the space was really nice. We got tables and chairs from the church and it actually turned out to be a nice setup. We did a carry-in dinner with an Italian theme and it was quite delicious. It only took us about an hour to get setup so we went to Amy's house to kill sometime and we got to watch some of the AL vs. FL game. We had about 25 people show up and it was a nice evening.

The Clubhouse at McKay's Mill

We had a Tacky Christmas Sweater Contest

I am so thankful for my friends: Heather, Bri & Amy
Bri, Jill and Me (I look like a giant next to them)

We did a $10 Santa Swap and I must say that the $10 Itunes gift card I brought was the first gift to be stolen and frozen. Timmy ended up with my giftcard...I knew it would be a hot item. And since I got to go second to last, I ended up with a $10 giftcard to Trader Joe's. Fun times! Everyone helped to clean up afterwards and then Patrick and Tim and myself headed over to Amy's house to unwind. It ended up being a pretty good day.

Crazy Amy and I by her tree

Making the best of it...

So despite my lingering disappointment of not being in NYC, I decided to make the most of being home and enjoyed a day off from work (well besides answering a couple emails). I slept in without an alarm, ran a couple errands, got out all the Christmas decorations from the attic and cleaned a bit. Jen got off early from work so we could get our Christmas tree and once again the selection at Home Depot did not disappoint. We loved our tree last year so we once again got a Frazier! Here is a pic of our beautiful tree:

Jen headed downtown for the Christmas parade and I decided to join the evening in. I made a run to Target to get some goodies and bought to holiday movies to watch. I picked up a delicious burger from Jonathans and watched "The Family Stone". I also got most all my Christmas presents wrapped and put under the tree. It was such a productive day.

Making the best of it...

Well right about now I would have been in NYC enjoying the hustle & bustle of the city that never sleeps with my best friend, Ruthann BUT sometimes plans change. I haven't heard from her today but just praying that everything gets better with her health and that the baby stays healthy.
I told myself last night before I went to bed that everything would all work out but I woke up to a dreary day outside and I have to say it sort of matched how I felt on the inside. I was really looking forward to spending time with Ruthann. She is my longest and dearest friend and I miss her dearly. Anyways...so once I chatted with myself to "snap out of it" I preceeded on and got ready for a day of work. I stopped by my bosses house to touch base before their flight out and got a little reorganized. To my surprise...she gave me money to treat myself to a mani/pedi and also invited me and a guest to watch the Titans game on Sunday from their suite. What a nice treat given this otherwsie gloomy day.
So I'm having a very productive day from the office downtown...getting reorganized and caught up on all sorts of things since I plan to enjoy the day off tomorrow. I am going to do my best to get a silver lining out of this gray cloud :)

Change O' Plans :(

Well life is constantly changing and you have to learn to deal with the changes...like not being able to go to NYC! I actually could be very selfish and go but the whole purpose in even going was to spend time with my friend Ruthann. However, she is currently experiencing some pregnancy complications (PLEASE PRAY FOR HER AND BABY) so it's not the best time to visit. So I'm trying to push forward and turn my frown upside down. My boss (who was letting me fly with them privately as they have a conference in NYC this long weekend) is the best and told me that when my friend is better, she will be happy to pay for my flight to visit Ruthann...such a blessing! AND if that is not enough...she told me to still take some time off while their gone so I am going to work tomorrow (as I have plenty to do) and then enjoy a 3 day weekend. So I am looking forward to some down time this weekend but I'm still a little sad. When life hands you lemons....make lemonade :)

Busy little bee...that's me

Well it never stops...work and errands and more work and more errands. At least this week is a short week as I fly out to NYC on Thursday morning. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am and for so many reasons. Most importantly, I get to spend the long weekend with my closest and dearest kindred friend, Ruthann. It's bonus really that she lives in NYC and it's Christmas time. We plan to squeeze in as much as we can and I just can't wait to see her. Of course a short week always means that much more to do in a shorter amount of time but I will push through because I know that fun is right around the corner.

Back to work....

God in our Midst

So last night I got to witness GOD literally work through one person that touched another person. I promised that I would not mention names but it was a very "awe" moment to witness and it gave me goose bumps and tears were shed by all.

HE is very real and is all around us. I wake up every morning and know that with every breath I breathe that He is the I AM. He is constant and intertwining our lives with others and weaving relationships...and though you might not always feel His presence, He's always there.