Winner!

I wanted to thank my friend Jodi for nominating me for this blog award last week!! :) I've been following Jodi for a while now (two years maybe?) She's one of my favorites, go check out her page here. :)

The Meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, enduring, and welcome. One of the rules of winning this award was to answer 11 questions from Jodi, so here I go! (I modified the rules just a little because I don't have a lot of time to post today). :)

1. How many cell phones have you had in your lifetime?

Oh wow...I'm on my second iPhone. Before that I think I had 4. The last two before my iPhone were flip phones.

My first cell phone looked like this, except the antenna lit up red whenever my phone rang.

2. How many states have you visited? Ever been out of the country?

Unless you count the time I was a baby and my family went to Mexico, I've never been out of the country. I have visited the following states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, New York, Oklahoma (well, I took my picture at the state line, not sure if that counts), New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, 

3. Around what age did you switch from taking baths to taking showers? 

I still take baths. I love soaking in a hot bubble bath after a long day at work. :)

4. Japanese, Mexican, or Italian food?
Italian food. I LOVE pasta. Probably a little too much.
5. French toast or pancakes?
Pancakes. With peanut butter and syrup (it's really good!)

6. Your all-time favorite restaurant?

You mean like sit down restaurant? It's so hard to choose just one. I guess either Saltgrass or Macaroni Grill. I'm always in the mood for either steak or Italian food! :)

7. How many times a day do you brush your teeth?
Two times for sure, sometimes three.

8. Do you play an instrument?
I played the clarinet from 6th-9th grade. I also took piano lessons (I wasn't that good). 

9. What were the colors and mascot of your high school?

Blue and gray. We were the Knights.

10. What's your ideal outside temperature/weather?
I like anywhere from 70-75. Although the other night at the Rangers game it was 89 degrees and surprisingly that felt nice. There was a light breeze. I will confess in the winter I do like it to be cold for a little while (just because I only like eating chili when it's cold outside). Remember, cold to me is anything under 50 degrees. :)

11. Favorite all-time song to jam out to?

It depends on my mood. :)

We are almost to the weekend!!

XOXO!

A very special birthday...

I wanted to take time today to wish a VERY HAPPY 90th birthday to Mr. S. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick Fil-A. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you might notice my obsession, passion, fondness of Chick Fil-A.  Happy birthday Mr. Cathy, hope it's a special day!

S. Truett Cathy

I mentioned it was his birthday on Twitter and a few people responded that they had never heard of Chick Fil-A. I know that Chick Fil-A is not available in all states, SO, to see where the closest one to you is, go here for locations. And then go on a road trip, don't forget to get a milkshake while you are there! :) Man, I REALLY want Chick Fil-A now. 

Comedian Tim Hawkins wrote two songs about Chick Fil-A. They are greatness!! Watch them below!

Last week Lindsay over at Scenic Glory gave me this blog award.  (Please go check her blog out here, it's awesome!!)

I'm supposed to thank the person who gave me this award (thank you Lindsay, you are the best!!) and list 7 random tid bits about myself (I feel that y'all already know everything about me). What else can I say that you don't already know? Um.....

1. I started watching season 4 of The Incredible Hulk yesterday. When I was younger, I would get up at 7am on Saturday mornings to watch that show. I LOVED it "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." (That is my motto!) ;) My friend John let me borrow his season 4 DVDs this past weekend (thanks again John!)

2. I am deeply saddened by the sudden departure of  (now former) CEO Chuck Greenberg from the Texas Rangers. I can't go into it right now, it's too painful to talk about. The wound is still fresh. **baseball tears**

Thanks for the memories Chuck!

3. The lady who sings the National Anthem at the Dallas Stars hockey games really annoys me. And I mean, REALLY annoys me.

4. When I was little, I use to make faces in the mirror. Now, I make faces into my iPhone camera. I really need to get a life! ;)

Look ma- no make-up (I know, a scary sight, right?!) :)

5. I am looking forward to March Madness. I usually fill out a bracket before the tournament starts. I don't follow college basketball closely enough to know what I'm doing, but it's fun. I LOVE upsets so I like it when a number one seed goes out in the first round (mainly Duke). ;)

In case you need a bracket...

6. I have never knowingly listened to a Justin Bieber song. I'm not bashing him, simply stating a fact. Until he guest starred on CSI, I didn't even know what he looked like. Sorry, no Bieber fever here!

7. I have never seen an episode of the TV show Dallas. I guess a lot of people assume that if you are from Texas, you watched the show. Not true. I know things about it though (i.e. I know how the theme song goes, I know someone named J.R. got shot, I know Patrick Duffy was really in the shower the whole time, etc), but I've never seen an episode.

So there you go! Just when you thought you knew everything about me, I throw out new facts!! ;)

I hope that everyone has a great week!! 

XOXO!

A Blog Award and Five Question Friday!

My good friend Katie over at Words by Katie presented me with a blog award. Thanks friend!!

The rules for this award are pretty unique. I have to list five things about myself. However, only ONE of the facts will be completely true. The other four might have a little bit of truth in them, but are ultimately incorrect. Think you can guess which one is real? :)

1. The first major league baseball game I attended was between the Rangers and the Orioles.

2. When I was in junior high, my family hosted an exchange student.

3. When I get married, I want to leave the reception in a DeLorean.

4. I didn't learn to swim until I was 10.

5. My favorite clothing store is Old Navy.

Leave your answer in the comments below (or tweet/email them to me!)

I'm supposed to pass this award along to other blogs, so I'm going to cheat (again) and pass it along to all of you!! Let me know if you participate, I'd love to see your facts!! :)

It's another Friday that I'm very happy to see! For more Five Question Friday answers, go check out Mama M. at My Little Life!

1. Can you drive a stick shift?
Now, if the question was "can you drive a stick shift WELL" the answer would be NO. A big NO. HECK NO. I can give you a list of people who have tried to teach me to drive a stick shift and they will laugh at you for asking. Now, if I was stranded in the middle of nowhere and the only way to get home was a stick shift, I would eventually get home. I can't guarantee the clutch would still be in good condition though. Once I get going, I'm okay. It's the whole getting going and starting/stopping thing that I can get down. My own personal hell is being stuck in a stick shift vehicle on a hill. **shuddering**

2. What are two foods you just can't eat?

Only TWO? You know me, I'm picky, but if I had to pick two, I would say guacamole (gag) and pasta salad. Now, I LOVE pasta. HOT COOKED pasta. The whole cold pasta thing doesn't fly with me! Blek!

3. Do you buy Girl Scout Cookies? What is your favorite kind?

I really hope I don't lose friends/followers by saying this, but here I go: I don't like Girl Scout Cookies. Now, to be fair, I don't really like many cookies (except my mom's homemade peanut butter cookies). So no, I don't buy any. No, I don't even like Thin Mints (is now a good time to mention I don't like chocolate and mint mixed together)?

4. How do you pamper yourself?

I usually go get a pedicure (the super-duper kind, where they use hot rocks and wrap your legs in hot towels. It's blissful! I even get little flowers painted on my toes!) :)

5. What is your nickname and how did you get it?

I actually did a post last year on my nicknames. Go here for that. In addition to those names, I'm also called Sniffles and Soul Sista! :)

Go make a new friend at For the Love of Blogs!

Have a great weekend lovelies!!

XOXO!!!

Wednesday Ramblings

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have noticed I wasn't having the best day yesterday. It was just one of those days at work. Don't get me wrong. I like my job, I work for a great company (and it's 1000 times better than the "evil place" that is AHFC, where I used to work), but yesterday was not one of my better days. Do you mind if I vent for just a few minutes? Really, you don't?? Aw, thanks! :)

First of all, I have to vent about meetings. We have entirely TOO MANY meetings around here. The meeting I had yesterday morning could probably have gotten terrorists to confess and turn themselves in. I was ready to start confessing stuff just to get out of it. Think about the ways they torture prisoners of war to get them to talk- this meeting would have had them spilling country secrets left and right. Oh no, I'm very serious! 

So, that meeting ended not long before lunch. After lunch, I had two more meetings to go to. The first one wasn't that bad, but the second one was pointless. We didn't get anything accomplished in the hour (plus) we were in there. So, I basically spent half of my day in meetings and was greeted with 49 emails in my inbox when I finally got back to my desk- at 4:00. I leave at 5:00.

I've mentioned over the past few weeks that my office was closed due to "inclement weather" in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Because the office was closed for 5 days over a span of two weeks, we are behind on a lot of our projects. My job is to basically keep everyone "on their toes" and make sure projects get completed on time. I keep track of where each job is, who has it, when it's due, who needs to see it, etc. Think of me as a hall monitor, or the kid the teacher leaves in charge of the class when she leaves the room- basically, I tattle when people are late on their projects (yes, I am paid to tattle. My siblings can't believe it either!) :) Because we were closed so much, pretty much all of our projects are running late. So, when people complain that they are working on 10 projects and are overwhelmed, I remind them that I have 996 projects that I'm keeping up with and am responsible for (that's not an exaggeration, I just ran a report and that is how many projects we have right now). That usually shuts them up. Since everyone is behind on their work, they are a little "antsy" these days (that was the nicest word I could say on my family friendly blog). They feel that their project "is the most important" so I should help them first (and honestly 7 out of 10 times it's something they could have done themselves, they just don't want to because they are lazy- but that is a venting for another day). I try and remind them that I have 20 other people saying their project is "the most important" so they need to get in line. It gets ugly. People get ugly. I've really tried to have the upbeat, positive, "Pollyanna" attitude (you know, the kind of nice that is almost sickening), but yesterday I had it. No more Miss Nice Gal. I lost it. It got so bad I needed a Chick Fil-A chocolate milkshake (I don't think I'll ever be able to stick to my no fast food diet). I also needed a hug. One of my sweet friends on Twitter sent me a virtual hug, so that was nice! :)

Okay, I'm done for now! Thanks for letting me vent. I was just finishing up my venting for the day when I got a message from my sweet friend Bobbi over at DAT's so Cute. She has given me two awards. You are so awesome girl!! :)

The rules are to thank the person who gave you the award, share 7 facts about yourself and then pass the award on to other deserving blogs.

Again, THANK YOU Bobbi!! You made my day! I love your blog posts and tweeting with you! You are a sweet friend!! :) FYI friends, go check out her blog here!!

I think I've told y'all everything about myself. Let me see if I can think of anything new.....

1. I really don't like it when people say "wow, you are really tall for a girl." I'm 5'8, I don't consider that "unusually tall". I also don't like being told that I'm "too tall" to wear heels. I like my heels. Yes, some of them make me almost 6 feet tall, but oh well, deal with it! :)

2. The only time I usually eat soup is when I'm sick, and I'm very picky about what soup I eat (yes, yes, I'm a picky eater, I'm sorry!) :) I don't like really thick soups, I'm happy with a cup of Ramen!

3. My hair is naturally curly, but I usually straighten it. I know, all of you with straight hair are going to say you would kill to have curly hair. No you wouldn't. You would straighten it too! :)

4. I cannot stand the game Monopoly. It's a long story, but it goes back to my childhood when I was forced to play it for hours on end. To this day, I refuse to play it.

5. I have giddy moments when famous people reply to me on Twitter (or retweet me).

6. I am on Twitter entirely too much!! BUT, feel free to follow me!! Go here.

7. When I was little I used to entertain myself by making faces in the mirror. I may or may not still do that. :)

 

Getting ready for Girls Night Out last weekend. I took a few pictures of me making faces. :) I'm such a nerd!

All of the blogs I follow are deserving of both of these awards, but I promised I would actually pick blogs out this time to award, so here I go! Click on the name to visit their blog- tell them I sent ya!! :)

Brown Eyed Girl's Ramblings

Words by Katie

Freckles and Fudge

Cranberry Morning

Scenic Glory 

Travel Babbles 

Musings

Laugh Until Your Cheeks Hurt

Ashley...plus three 

Happily Ever After

May Angel Star

A Day in the Life of a Hockey Wife

 

We are halfway through the week beautiful friends! Have a good day!

XOXO!!

Winner!

So my sweet friend Lindsay over at Scenic Glory had a contest last week to name her new camera. Out of all the entries submitted, she choose my suggestion of Penelope! **insert cheering here**

She designed a new blog button for me and has it on her sponsorship wall for the next month. That way all of her lovely readers will have a link to come check out my random ramblings over here!! Thanks Lindsay! Y'all should go check out her blog here. She is awesome- and she does the best blog designs ever! I can't wait to see all the pictures she is going to take with her new camera, Penelope! :)

My ad button on her page

It's been a long day so I'm keeping this post short today.

XOXO sweet friends!!

Thursday 13 Ramblings

I meant to post yesterday but I was too lazy to update my blog (sorry). For the third day in a row, I'm iced in my apartment. The streets and my apartment parking lot are an ice rink. It's "warmed" up to 17 degrees right now. BRRR!! Now they are saying it might snow tonight and tomorrow. Thankfully Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow yesterday, so that means an early spring (I hope). Seriously all of you who live up north and deal with this for months at a time, I applaud you. I can't handle it!! :) I think I'm developing cabin fever!

 

Phil- he's a cutie!

So, I'm a few days late doing this, but my friend Jessica over at Happily Ever After gave me an award! :)

There are a few duties to follow with winning the award.

1. Thank the person who gave you the award. 

2. Share some things about yourself 

3. Share the award with other bloggers. (I am going to cheat and pass this award on to everyone I follow. You are all lovely people and are all deserving of this award! XOXO!! :)

1. Thanks Jessica! I really appreciate it! You are a doll!! :) Y'all should go check her blog out, it's great! She is so sweet!!

2. Share some things about yourself (it was only supposed to be 7 things but in honor of Thursday 13, I'm sharing 13 things). Okay, a lot of these are going to be repeats from previous posts, but if you are new to my blog, they will be new facts for you! :)

1. I am the daughter of a Heavenly King. I know I can get silly with the comments on my post, but I wanted to be serious for a moment. I am proud to say that I know and love Jesus Christ. I am grateful that He loves me and cares for me, even when I'm not deserving of it (which is a lot of the time!)

2. I don't like milk. Now chocolate milk I like (but it has to be made with Nesquik chocolate powder mix). And I can put milk on cereal, but I don't like the taste of regular, plain milk.

3. My favorite dwarf from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is Dopey (yes, this explains my whole "ear" obsession). 

4. I have a bad case of stage fright. This surprises a lot of people because I am generally talkative and outgoing. But if you get me in front of a crowd, my knees start shaking and I usually feel like I'm going to throw up.

5. I am the great-aunt to four adorable great-nephews. Yes, I'm a great-aunt. I have nieces and nephews who are married and have kids, thus, making me a great-aunt. :)

 

"E"

 

"C"

 

"B"

 

"G"

6. I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was 11 years old.

7. I am a believer of True Loves Wait. 

 

8. I'm on a "mission" to see all the major league baseball ballparks in America (and Canada). So far I've been to the Ballpark in Arlington (home of the Rangers- I know, duh), Minute Maid Park (home of the Houston Astros), Turner Field (home of the Atlanta Braves) and Yankee Stadium (well, the old one). I know, I have a ways to go!

9. I've been known to watch a Christmas movie in the middle of the summer (sometimes I just need to hear Bing Crosby sing!) 

10. When I was in high school, the band Butt Hole Surfers (yes, that was their name) filmed a music video at my school, and I'm in it. I was a band nerd (more specifically, a color guard nerd), and we were in their video for the song Underdog. It was part of the album Saturday Morning Cartoons Greatest Hits. I believe the video aired on The Cartoon Network in 1995 or so. Here is the video. Seeing that this was filmed 16 years ago, I can't tell you exactly where I am, but the color guard wore white shirts in the video.

11. I usually fall asleep with my TV on (it's set on a timer to go off after about an hour or so). I like having the low "background noise" when I fall asleep. And I'm not a fan of being in the complete dark. The "flickering" light helps me get to sleep. Please don't make fun of me! :)

12. I never learned to parallel park in Driver's Ed. Okay, if you have ever ridden with me, this is no surprise to you. On the last day of my driver's ed course, the instructor said the only thing I had left to complete was parallel parking. He looked and me and said, "are you ready?" and I said no. He was like, "well, that's okay, we'll just say that you did it", and he marked it off as completed. Thank you Austin Driving School!

13. I can see about two minutes of any part of an episode of The Brady Bunch and can tell you which episode it is. I know, that is just sad!

You know you are singing along with this too!

For more Thursday Thirteen entries, go here. 

For my Thirsty Thursday, since I'm once again iced in at home, I think I will have another cup of hot chocolate (thank you Swiss Miss, you are wonderful!) For more Thirsty Thursday entries, check out For The Love of Blogs here. 

Happy Thursday everyone!!

XOXO!

Blog Award

 

My sweet friend Shalyn gave me a blogging award! Thanks girl! :)

The conditions:
1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about this award.

Thank you so much to Shalyn over at Laugh Until Your Cheeks Hurt. She is awesome (and not just because she also likes toe socks). She is adorable- go check out her blog. Tell her hi, make a new friend! :)

7 Things About Myself. For some of my long time readers, a few of these might be repeats (I'm forgetting what I've listed before!) ;)

1. I love chocolate milk. I don't like the "pre-made" stuff. I prefer to make my own. And it has to be made with Nestle Quik Chocolate Powder (I'm sorry, it's NesQuik now. It will always be Nestle Quik to me). My parents decided to try another brand one time when I was younger. My mom told my dad I only liked Nestle Quik. He said I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I took one sip and was like, "What is this? This is not Nestle Quik!" I'm sorry, I'm a chocolate milk snob like that.

 

Old school Nestle Quik

2. Breakfast At Tiffany's is probably my favorite Audrey Hepburn movie. It's hard to pick a favorite Audrey movie since I love them all, but Breakfast At Tiffany's is the one I've seen the most!

 

Me having "breakfast" at Tiffany's when I went to New York City in 2007.

3. I'm a YouTube junkie. I spend entirely too much time on that website! I might need an intervention..

4. I would like to play a dead body on CSI (or any of the other crime shows I watch). I'm not an actress, but I feel I could lie there and not move. Oh I'm very serious about this! Someone make this happen! :)

5. I love peanut butter. I put peanut butter on my pancakes and I've been known to enjoy an afternoon snack of carrots dipped in peanut butter. Don't knock it until you try it! :)

6. I don't like pie or cake. It's not a health thing- I'm just not a fan of it. My co-workers always give me a hard time about it whenever we have cake for someone's birthday or anniversary. I've always been like that, even when I was little. You can ask my mother.

7. I dislocated my knee while playing soccer in high school. To this day I still have issues with my knee. It acts up a lot when it gets cold or rainy. I can predict rain the day before. I'm better than a meteorologist! :)

 

Freshman year, 1993-We've already discussed my awful bangs, no reason to bring it up again...

I'm supposed to pass this along to 15 FABULOUS bloggers, but I'm running out of time (it's later than I thought). I'm going to do a cop out and say to check out the lovelies under "sweet bloggin' friends" and "favorite blogs". They are all deserving of this award. If I follow you, PLEASE post this award on your page. You are all wonderful! Love and hugs to you all!! :)

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We had some snow in Dallas yesterday and we had ice this morning. I am late leaving for work because traffic was so bad due to icy roads (I have a 30 mile commute to work, I didn't want to risk it). I'm about to get ready to go out and brave it. Supposedly the roads are a little better. We shall see. If I skid on any ice, I'm turning around and coming back home!

Happy Monday beautiful people!!

Blog Awards and Blog Journal Day 21

Wow guys, y'all are too sweet! :) I got two blog awards this past week. Deanna at Musings and Bri over at Just a Day in the Life of Brittany and Murray both gave me the following award:

I'm supposed to pass this along to 5 newly discovered blogs, but there are so many I like, I can't pick just 5! :) Check out my favorite blogs on the sidebar (yes, I have a lot). Discover a new blog- make a new friend! :)

So, as my longtime followers know, I was a huge fan of the show LOST. For all of you going through LOST withdrawals, I think there is a new show out there for us: The Event on NBC. I honestly think it's like LOST meets 24. It stars Jason Ritter (son of the late John Ritter). I watched the premiere last night and I really hope it catches on. Now, if you aren't a fan of shows that leave cliffhangers at the end of each episode, this might not be for you. But, I think you should give it a chance! If you want to check it out, NBC has uploaded the premiere episode here.

I can't go into a great review of the episode without ruining anything. If you watched it and want to talk about it (or wanna know more about it), email me here! :)

Day 21: A recipe

Now, if you know me (or have read my blog at all), you know I'm not the world's best cook. If it can't go in the microwave, I pretty much avoid it. If there are more than three steps after "boil a pot of water", I just don't try it! ;) I'm getting better though. I think I am now up to 7 meals I can make (not using the microwave). So anyways, I had to steal this recipe from my mom. If you know me, you know my mother is a "mad woman" when it comes to baking. She loves to bake. And she just can't make one or two dozen cookies. Oh no. I went home one weekend and she said she had made cookies for me to share with my friends at work (it's like elementary school all over again. "Wanna be my friend? Here's a cookie?" It's amazing how many people you meet when you have free cookies at your desk). Anyways, a "normal" person would think, oh, she made a dozen, maybe two dozen cookies. Oh no. She made EIGHT dozen cookies. Yes, EIGHT. And she doesn't just make the cookies. She individually wraps them in Saran Wrap (they stay fresher that way). Here is picture proof!

She usually makes chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cookies. After a suggestion from my BFF Brandy, she now also makes peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips mixed in them. Anyways, my favorite of the cookies are the peanut butter ones (I have no clue where I would be without peanut butter!) So, here it is. Georgeanne's Secret Recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies (actually, I think she took it off a Crisco wrapper so it's not so secret!!) ;)

FYI, the temperature is set for an electric oven. If you have a gas oven, you'll have to adjust the setting (and no, I don't know how to do that!) ;)

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter (my mom prefers Jif but you can use whatever brand you like)

1/2 cup (or 1/2 stock) butter flavored Crisco shortening

1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 egg

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

Heat oven to 350 F. Place sheets of foil on countertop for cooling cookies. Combine peanut butter, Crisco, light brown sugar, milk, and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Add egg. Beat just until blended. Combine flour, salt, and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture at low speed.. Mix until just blended.  Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto sprayed cookie sheet. Flatten slightly in crisscross pattern with tines of fork. Bake at 350 degrees for 7 to 8 minutes, or until set and just beginning to brown. Cool 2 minutes on cookie sheet.

If you so choose, after they are completely cooled, you can wrap them in Saran Wrap, but that is not required! :)

Happy baking my friends!

:)