Weekend in Pictures

Friday Highlight

Josh waxing his eyebrows (before they grow together)

Saturday Highlights

Coffee and Cereal

Photo Op before wedding reception

Three flavors of wedding cake. We tasted all three.

Sunday Highlights

Old Timey Sunday Celebration

A cake walk that I was unable to participate in :(

Part of church staff

Sunday evening was also my family birthday celebration. I opened presents and ate a lot of food!

One of my favorite presents: a cupcake holder

One of the outfits my parents got me.

I got some other good gifts but didn't want to bore you by picturing them all. I will picture some delicious parts of our meal. My mom outdid herself with the help of Paula Deen.

Fried Okra Salad (EXCELLENT!!)

1 1/2 pounds breaded frozen okra

Vegetable oil for frying

2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1/2 green bell pepper, diced

1 bunch green onions, diced

6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup distilled white vinegar

Fry okra in vegetable oil according to package directions, drain on paper towels.

In a medium bowl, combine okra, tomatoes, bell pepper, green onions, and bacon.

In a small saucepan, combine oil, sugar, and vinegar. Cook over medium heat stirring frequently. until sugar dissolves. Pour gently over okra mixture, tossing gently to coat. Serve immediately.

Strawberry Ooey Gooey Butter Cake

1 (18.25 oz) pkg strawberry cake mix

1/2 cup butter, softened

4 large eggs, divided

1 (8oz) pkg cream cheese, softened

1 (16oz) box powdered sugar

3/4 cup chopped fresh strawberries

Garnish: sweetened whipped cream, strawberries

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 9x13-inch baking pan.

In a large bowl, combine cake mix, butter, and 1 egg. Press mixture into bottom of prepared pan.

In a separate large bowl, beat cream cheese and 3 eggs at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until combined. Stir in strawberries. Spoon mixture over cake mixture; bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until center is set. Cool completely; cut into squares to serve. Garnish with sweetened whipped cream and strawberries.

I know this was a random post but it was a long weekend, with a lot going on, and not a lot of time to write about it. Hope you all had a great weekend too!

Hot Date

Most of my hot dates are, of course, with Josh. Today, however, I had a hot date with another one my favorite dudes...and his wonderful mother. I met Katie and Zach at Panera* for lunch. Katie wanted to celebrate early with me for my birthday. When she and I get together we always go to Panera because we love it so much.

Mother and Son

Check out his awesome shorts!

Thanks, Katie and Zach, for a fun lunch!

*Let it be known that I am addicted to Panera. I love their asiago cheese bagels, paninis, salads, all of it really. I was really sad when I found out that I was moving to Little Rock because I would have to leave behind my weekly field trips to Panera. Well, wouldn't ya know, they have a new one opening up in LR and in a very convenient location. PTL!!!!!!!!!!!

A Buyer's Market

**UPDATE: The meeting with the realtor went great. What he thinks I should get and what I need to get are right around the same amount so that is a praise. He made me feel so much better about the whole situation. It should be all officially listed by the end of this week. Please keep praying that we will in fact get what he thinks we should get and that it will be in the perfect time. Thank you so much for praying! It means more to me than you know!

What a weekend! I took off work on Friday because I had lots of things to get done around my house before it goes up for sale. Josh came up to help me. He was a huge help. All weekend I referred to him as my hero. I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't been there.

He helped in my yard by mowing, edging, and trimming the landscaping on Friday.

While he was doing that I was organizing my closet and boxing up things I don't need at the moment. This is one of those things...

We had a little break in the action on Friday morning when my roommate and I stopped to enjoy one of our favorite groups of all time, who happen to be back together. Pump it up!

Here's Holly geared up for the big show.

NKOTB in 'da house!

On Saturday Josh did just as much as he did on Friday. He power washed the entire house and cleaned off my front porch, including the windows. Thanks for all your help, Josh! You're my favorite!

OK, so here is where you all come in. I meet with the realtor today at 6:00pm to go over everything. He's going to tell me the comps of other houses in this area. It is very important that I am able to list my house at the right price so I can sell it for the right price. I know this is a tough market but I'm believing God for a miracle. Please pray for God to sell my house quickly and for the right price. I'm not looking to make money but just to be able to pay off my loan. Thanks in advance! I'm going to post more house pictures later this week.

Stomp

Tonight I had a fun outing with my friend Shannon. First we went to The Common Grounds for dinner.

Actually we decided we wanted to go some place where we could get a light dinner and a heavy dessert. It didn't take long to decide where we wanted to go. OK, so I'm sure most of you are thinking to yourself, "I thought she was desperate to lose weight?" Well, I am. But even Bob from The Biggest Loser said that every week after the weigh in they would get a splurge meal to help boost their metabolism and feed the cravings. And I decided that my splurge meal should mostly consist of dessert (and some pizza that I got so Josh could eat the left overs this weekend). Here's what I got...

Simply Delicious!

After dinner we walked across the street to go see Stomp at the Walton Arts Center.

It was so good! I loved it! If you haven't seen it then you most certainly should.

House Cleaning and a Faulty iPod

This weekend Josh came to Fayetteville again. We spent most of our time doing things around the house. I'm trying to get it ready to put on the market. I'll post more about that later. I changed the batteries in one of the 5 smoke alarms (Josh did the rest) but mostly spent my time cleaning baseboards and wiping off walls and doors. I also boxed up a few things that might seem like clutter.

Josh changed my air filter, replaced batteries, dusted the ceiling fans and walls, and cleaned the glass on all the high windows. He was such a big help.

On to another note...my iPod is "faulty." Last Wednesday when I decided I needed to get motivated to lose weight and shape up I figured the best way to do that was to get serious about going to the gym. I wanted to make sure my iPod was ready for our morning activity. I plugged it into my computer to sync and charge but it did not go as planned. This is the screen that I got.

At first I didn't think anything about it because it always says that. But then I noticed it wasn't charging (this picture shows a full charge but at the time it wasn't). Hmmm...that's odd. I opened up iTunes and that's when I got the message, "iTunes detects a faulty iPod." I tried ejecting it, nothing. I tried updating a newer version of iTunes, nothing. I tried everything and nothing! The only thing I knew to do was pray. I laid hands on it and prayed. You think I'm kidding but it is true. I really felt like my new attempts to get in shape were being challenged and I needed some encouragement. I called Josh and my mom and let them in on my frustration. My mom reminded me that my iPod was still covered under a service plan so I was glad to know that. As soon as we got off the phone I searched for the information and was successful.

For the mean time I let the battery run out (to get rid of the screen) and then charged it with the wall charger I bought at Wal-Mart. It works when I do that but when I hook it up to the computer I get the same message. Looks like some work is going to have to be done.

It's in!!

Last night after working out with Chalene (aka Turbo Jam) I saw that I had missed a couple phone calls. One was from my dad and the other was from The Briar Patch informing me myWEDDING DRESS WAS IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Most people would have been excited but I was scared out of my mind. You see, when I tried on my dress it didn't quite zip. But since it fit perfectly every else and was so close to zipping they encouraged me to get that size. Not to mention I was in the middle of losing weight and thought for sure it would be no problem. Well this...

combined with this...

...has equaled an 8 pound weight gain including tons of excess water. So please pray the Lord will have favor on me and bless my new efforts to work out hard, drink 3 quarts of water a day, and eat a healthy balanced diet! So far so good! Yesterday was my first day back at it hard core and it's amazing how well desperation can lead to motivation. Consider me motivated.

Blogging Blues

Friday night I surprised Josh by having dinner ready when he got to my house. It wasn't the fact I had dinner ready but the fact I actually cooked something. Don't get me wrong, I love to cook, but when I come home from work on Friday that is usually the last thing I want to do. My reasoning behind our dinner was because I already had all the ingredients and I wanted to eat something healthy. I made one of my favorite recipes, Black Bean and Rice Enchiladas.

I found the recipe last year on the internet. With the brown rice, whole wheat tortillas, and minimal oil, it's a very healthy meal. And to top it all off it's spicy! I added a side southwestern salad and it was just as delicious.

Saturday night my cooking wasn't as spectacular but it was still delicious!

Unfortunately I don't have a lot to report on from this weekend. Josh studied all day and I worked around the house and worked on our wedding website. Fortunately Josh finished his finals today and I'm almost finished with the website.

I feel that I should apologize for my lack of blogging lately. I've been really busy but not much is blog worthy. And a lot of the time I'm just too tired to figure out what to blog about. So if you have any ideas, send them my way!