Goals

I've never really been a fan of "resolutions." I think that its really the word, it seems easier for me to come up with some goals for the year, and that's my time frame-1 year. So here we go:
1. Read at least 12 books this year. So that's one a month and hopefully I will be able to do more. We will see. I'm almost finished with my first one, Water for Elephants, and I am LOVING it! I just downloaded 7 free books on my kindle iphone app, so I have plenty ready for me to sit.

2. Go to prayer every day that I am not at work. Next week starts my church's 21 days of prayer and fasting. There are some personal things that I will be focusing on as far as my prayer goes and for the fasting, I am choosing to give up several things. I'm giving up all social media. That means, no facebook, twitter, blogs, anything. I've been slowly weaning myself from all of these so I won't go completely crazy when I cut it all out.

3. Use a planner and stay more organized. I always buy a calendar every year in hopes of keeping up with it, but it seems that I really only keep it up for about 2-3 months then I just stop keeping it. There's really no reason, I just go lax on it.

4. Build my savings account up by $5000. This should be a simple task since both of our cars are paid off. It should be more than this, but of course we are already starting to plan our vacations for the year.

5. Go visit my extended family in Cullman once a month. My grandmother is in her 90s and I am going to make it a point to go and see her and my great aunt and uncle. My grandmother is hilarious! My Aunt Lee and Uncle Pat are both two of the absolute sweetest people you will ever meet in your life. I haven't seen either of them in several months and they are not in the best of health, so I want to go and spend some time with them.

So hopefully in December, I will be able to make a list and say that all of these goals have been met!

Holiday

Happy New Year everyone, if anyone is reading... Hope all of you had a great holiday and enjoyed some great time with family! I was completely exhausted after all of our tours and we enjoyed some nice down time at the beach last week. It started mid December with my family traveling to Disney. I rode with my older sis and we finally got to the Coronado Springs at 3am. We then got up and ready around 7am and headed to Hollywood Studios. We spent the full day there and Ashley and I headed to Epcot for their fireworks display. Loved it! I was totally bummed the next day when I found out I had missed the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom. Apparently they don't have those every night:( Oh well, the vacation went on... The next day we spent an entire day at the Magic Kingdom and went to Downtown Disney and ate a Planet Hollywood for dinner. I spent a lot of time getting an autograph book signed for Loni's kids, so I have tons of pics of me with characters. It's quite funny. Friday we spent half of the day at Animal Kingdom and the other half at Epcot. Kali and I got to spend some time together that night when her hubs took Aubrey back to the hotel to play. We ended up catching the bus and heading to Hollywood Studios to ride the Rockin' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror again since those are our favorites. We went back to Planet Hollywood for dinner and ordered the two most expensive things on the menu since it was our last meal to eat on our dining plan. She had an entire slab of ribs and I had a steak that we maybe ate about 1/3 of. Saturday, we went back to ride our two favorite rides as a send off and it started raining. We went to Downtown Disney to finish our souveneir shopping and headed home. I got home around 10pm to my sick little puppy. Lucy had scratched her eye and had a severe infection, so she was on 3 different eye ointments and a pain med twice a day. There was even some talk about her possibly going blind and losing her eye. Thank you Lord it never came to that! She's fine now, she will always have a small scar right in the center of her eye, but you wouldn't know it if you haven't heard about it. The following Monday started my work week back and was Christmas week so that was a definite whirlwind of get togethers and lack of sleep.

Disney World

To say that I am excited about heading to Disney World next week, may be a bit of an understatement! I am absolutely exstatic! I haven't been in over 5 years, and that was a quick trip that I only spent at the Magic Kingdom. I didn't have the funds and let's face it Universal Studios is much cheaper, so I spent 2 days there. I am spending 3 full days at the Disney parks with a park hopper so I can go from park to park whenever I want. I do however think that I will end up at Magic Kingdom every night to watch Tink fly from the castle and the fireworks display.

Aubrey doesn't really do fireworks, so I may have to do that solo, but just ask Heather, I am not afraid to travel around Orlando by myself. I've made Aubrey a couple of shirts to wear during our stay. Here's her Cinderella:

I've finished a Little Mermaid one too and plan to get a couple more done before we leave on Tuesday. This is also part of her Christmas present! I think that it turned out really good! I know that Kali plans on letting her wear it to eat with Cinderella if it's too cold to wear her dress. Otherwise, she's going to be making some outfit changes.

We have dinner reservations to eat at the SciFi restaurant.

This restaurant is so much fun and I just can't wait to pretend like I'm 5 again! I'm still a little bummed that Kent "can't go," but I know that I will have fun no matter what!

Catch Up

-Well, I must admit, I have let my blog go by the wayside. My life has been so filled with "stuff" that I really haven't made time for much computer time. I haven't been keeping up with blogs much less updating my own. Life has been complete chaos for the last couple of weeks and it doesn't look like I will have much down time until next year. Here's my December line up for the rest of the year. Other than working every other week, on my off weeks I will be saying hello to Mickey and friends in 9 days. I leave for Disney world with my family in a little over one week. I'm really excited about it! I'm just nervous that I signed up to stay with the parentals. Kent can't go, so my older sis and I are leaving when she gets off work next Tues evening. I'm not really looking forward to a 10 hour drive/ride, but it will all be worth it when I see tink fly out of the castle:). FYI-that's my favorite part! I come back just in time to go back to work for a week and shuffle myself around to see everyone for Christmas. It's really difficult to enjoy the holidays sleep deprived. But that's another drama filled post. Then, on my next Wednesday off, we head to the beach to celebrate the ringing in of 2011. I'm really looking forward to some good downtime spent on the balcony with some coffee and a good book. I still have a stack of new books that have yet to be cracked so my plan is to read 2. We'll see how that goes.
-A couple of weeks ago, Kent called and said he could get me tickets to the AL game vs Georgia State. It was on a Thurs night and I was off, so it just so happened that Loni already had a babysitter, so she and I had a girls night out to Tuscaloosa to cheer on the tide. We won really big and we went to eat at Pepito's-YUM!!! It was a lot of fun and for the first time in forever, Loni and I had a night out that did not include sewing, cutting fabric, making bows, and without husbands, children or dogs.
-This past Wednesday night, I had some friends over from work and hosted a Southern Living inspired party. It was so much fun and such good food and company! I cooked all day long starting with the desserts: Maple Brown Sugared Pecans, Peppermint Bark, & Salty Nut Brittle. Then I started with the roasted turkey, Maque Choux (really good corn dish), garlic and ginger green beans, & squash casserole. Everything turned out really delicious! Then I topped it off with some caramel apple cider. The only thing that was not homemade were the rolls. I was not about to tackle that one, so thank you sister shuberts!
-I was really happy yesterday for all of you Auburn tiger fans out there! I think that it would be really awesome to have 2 years of teams from the state to have the National Championship. Also, having 2 straight years of heisman trophy winners would be amazing! There is something to be said about how good the SEC teams have been doing these past few years! I love football Saturdays! I'm really liking football Sundays more and more too with the Saints. That's exactly what I'm doing now. Watching the Saints while Kent naps:) It's really a nail biter too! We just scored to go up by 4 with 30 seconds left-not that you care.
-I love my house decorated for Christmas! I catch myself just staring at my tree. Kent thinks that its all totally too much, but I really don't care. It makes me happy!
-Having 3 dogs in the house is a little too much most of the time. As I am typing this, Max is wandering around aimlessly and Lucy & Frankie are napping on top of Kent. It's too expensive too! Especially when 2 have constant pancreatitis requiring lab draws and special formula food and the other has to take arthritis meds. It's really ridiculous! And Kent wonders why we don't have any $$.

New Orleans

For the last 3 years, we've gone out of the country mid October on either our honeymoon or anniversary trip. This year, we decided to go to Gulf Shores for an extended vacay in Sept, then have a weekend in New Orleans to hang out and watch the Saints play. I was never into NFL football before I started dating Kent, but now I love it and am even remembering names of some players and who they play for. I mean, after 5 years, you are bound to catch on to some things right? Anyway, the Saints have always been Kent's team and we've seen them play in Atlanta twice since being married. So we headed out this past Saturday for our road trip to New Orleans. I really want to ride the train, but since we were limited on time, driving was a better option. I booked through priceline and our hotel was about halfway between the Superdome and the French Quarter. We got there 2 h before check-in time, but within 15 minutes, they had us in an upgraded room and gave us a discount on our parking. Thanks Quality Inn! After settling in, we headed to eat. The Acme Oyster house was on Kent's list, and since I've only been there once in my life I don't really know what/where to go.

It was delicious and we watched the first half of the Auburn/LSU game. After that we walked around and went to Jackson Square, watched a street show and headed to Bourbon St.

We watched football in various spots and had a really great time. Sunday morning, we headed to Cafe Du Monde to eat some beignets and stuff ourselves with powdered sugar! I asked Kent to take a pic of me eating one, and I'm posed and ready when he blows the sugar all in my face.

Thanks hun! It was funny though. Then we headed out to the Superdome.

Our seats were 3 rows from the tip top but right on the 45 yard line. The Saints played like crap and handed the Browns the game on a silver platter, but we still had a great time with the experience. The ceiling of the superdome still has some holes from Katrina. After the game, we headed to eat at La Bayou on Bourbon St. Kent had a roast beef po boy and I had a New Orleans poboy (shrimp, fried green tomatoes, and remoulade sauce) that were delicious!

We went to Pat O'Briens piano bar which was a lot of fun and then just kinda made rounds listening to live music and watching other NFL games that were on. We also found these two Browns fans that I HAD to have my pic taken with!

I must say, that hair is amazing! Especially after wearing a hat all day! Haha!

It was a much needed weekend with the hubs! Now we are back to reality with sewing, monogramming, nursing, etc. Now the countdown is on for Disney!!

Tailgating...

So my birthday gift from hubs was tickets to the Alabama Homecoming. We've never been to an AL game together before and it's been almost 5 years since I've been to a game in T-town, so you can see why I was uber excited about my gift! The game started at 8pm, so we had all day to tailgate. We ended up trading our two tickets for 4 tickets and had another couple that met us there. We timed it perfect and got to park right beside each other in a field, so we just set up our tailgate right there. We brought the satellite, TV, grill and snacks. It was soooo much fun! We watched the Auburn game and grilled hamburgers, bratwurst, and andoille sausage. Yummo! We might have turned into slight rednecks when the sun was going down though:)

After the Auburn game, we packed up and headed to Denny Chimes, said hello to a coworker and went in the game.

It was a little bit closer than we all expected, but we pulled out a win. Bummer of the night, was that I had to go straight to work afterward. Thanks Savannah for staying for me:) I was only 2h late, so that wasn't too bad.

Ankle Problems

December will mark the 10th anniversary of me being hit by a drunk driver. I was heading to work one morning and BAM! my life changed in an instant. I was incredibly fortunate that my only injuries were a "crushed" ankle and a knee that was cut wide open. I was in an ankle cast, using crutches and going through therapy on and off for about 2 years.
Fast forward 10 years, and the ankle is showing signs of rebellion. I've always had some struggles when I stay up on it for extended periods of time, such as going to Six Flags or working doubles, but lately it has been unbearable. Working these arts and craft shows have proven to be much more difficult than expected. By the end of the day, I am limping from place to place, sometimes crawling from the bedroom to the bathroom.
I took the initiative to go to the doctor and have it checked out. I had just had enough!
So essentially, I will always have problems. I have severe arthritis in my subtalar joint, which is the most used joint in your foot that supports walking. Isn't that wonderful! I'm 28years old and I have "severe arthritis." I was really throwing myself a pity party after going to the doc. I'm just not that happy about it. But we are taking it in three phases.
Phase one is starting Mobic-a prescription arthritis med, changing shoes, wearing an ankle brace and wearing new insoles to my shoes.
Phase two is having a CT to evaluate the joint and doing shots in the joint.
Phase three is having my ankle bones fused together.
So far phase one is doing the trick and I think that I am going to cancel my phase 2 appointment. I've been to New Orleans walking around half the country, and did great! I must say that it's a relief! I am sure that I will eventually have to move to the other stages, but hopefully that can wait until much later on.

I did get to look at my new xrays and compare them to the ones from years ago which was pretty cool. Here's my CT from the day of the accident:

If you look at the ankle on the left, you can see in the middle there is pieces of bone just floating around in there:)

And here's my xray from the other day:

On the picture on the left, you can see a white line in the middle of the ankle. That's arthritis!

This is how you walk around if you are me:

Just because I need to wear a brace at times, doesn't mean I can't still wear cute shoes!!!