Need to Get Busy!!

Well hey there! I hope that you all had a very Merry CHRISTmas! We had a wonderful time w/ our family over in Panama City. We came home CHRISTmas night and went to spend a little bit of time with some dear friends from church. After that we came home and Jarred and I had a CHRISTmas with just the two of us. That was nice. I believe that it may have been the first time that we have done that. Jarred received tons of stuff of course and was very happy! I got some really great stuff too and am very thankful for the thoughtfulness of all my friends & family. But my best present of all was finding out that my dearest friend Shauna is pregnant!!! What a CHRISTmas blessing. I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of her little ones :)

On Friday Jarred, Shauna, and I went to Pensacola. I think that I wore poor Shauna out!!! We went to a lot of places. I got a few sweaters from Old Navy for $10 each. They are so pretty! I am hoping that is will get cold again so that I can wear them. It was actually down in the 30's on the Monday before CHRISTmas, but come CHRISTmas day I was in shorts because it was 70!!! Crazy, I know.

Saturday was a relaxing day. We were so exhausted that we just stayed @ home. On Sunday between church services we went over to Shauna & Jeremy's house for lunch and just to hang out. That was a lot of fun. We had some REALLY good mexican food, thanks Shauna, and played CLUE & Skip Bo. Shauna actually beat me in Skip Bo so there's one to write down, lol!!

Jarred went home with his best friend from church to spend the night on Sunday. His buddy's father was taking them camping Morning and they are coming back today. From what I hear he has had a TON of fun. I am glad that he had the opportunity to get out and do that. It is such a blessing that as a single mother there are other fathers/men in the church that include Jarred in their family activites and he is able to get some "boy time" in!

Well, while he had his "guy time" I had some girl time of my own. I slept in late on Monday and got up and went shopping all by myself. I didn't really buy much, but it is really nice to just get out by myself some times. I am sure that you moms understand that :) On Monday night a bunch of us girls from church whose children went on the camping trip got together for a sleep over. It was a great time!! I regret that I didn't take and pictures, but we were too busy having fun. We played a ton of games and talked till about 3:30 am!!

Needless to say I was pretty tired by yesterday! So I spent that day not doing much at all. For those of you who don't know me well, I am very lazy by nature, lol!! I really enjoy just laying on the couch reading, watching a movie, or knitting.

With all the relaxing and fun that I have been having it is time for me to get busy!! I need to get the whole house cleaned today. I like to start the new year off with a clean home. I would also like to get all the CHRISTmas decorations put away. Don't know if I will accomplish all that today though. Tonight @ church we have a watch night service. This will be the first time I have been to the one at my church as I am usually out of town every year. It begins @ 8pm and lasts till midnight. Being with church family and praying in the new year is the best way to start I think!!

I will post some pix tomorrow~

Have a Happy New Year!!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Yes, this is an actual speed limit sign!! I would like to know just how one goes 34 MPH?????

2 Sleeps Till CHRISTmas

It has been just lovely having the opportunity to just relax the last two days :) Here are a few highlights......

We went to see the CHRISTmas lights in Defuniak with some friends from church. It was a lot of fun. A little cold, but fun :) Supposedly there were over 7,000,000 lights. I would like to know who counted them ;)















































Today we did some cleaning, some crafting, and a lot of relaxing!!! My kind of day :)
I have been working on making some stocking stuffers for my family and we finished up the last of them today. They are little boxes made out of card stock and filled with yummy goodies.




We also finished our gingerbread house today. I must say that it is not nearly as easy as it would appear to decorate one of these things. We had icing dripping all over the place and candy dripping right along with it. Jarred managed to eat a ton of icing. Thankfully he didn't damage the walls to badly after bouncing off of them for a few hours, lol! Our gingerbread house did still turn out pretty cute though. And now I just have to keep Jarred from eating it!!! Although, I am quite tempted to take a bite out of it myself!


I hope that you all have a very Merry CHRISTmas :)

My Weekend

This has been a very busy weekend.

Friday night we had our CHRISTmas party at church.

Me

My new friends (and new members to our church) Danny & Rachel

Shauna & me

Saturday Jarred had play practice, and I spent about 11 hours in the kitchen baking and cooking. By the end of the Day I was EXHAUSTED! Shauna came over and we finished our CHRISTmas baking. I also baked several loaves of bread. I have been given two starters, one for Amish Friendship Bread, and one for regular bread. So I am on a baking frenzy!! It is really nice to have fresh bread all the time though!!

The Fruit (or sweets I should say) of our labor!


The childrens CHRISTmas play was Sunday night. It was about sheep, and was so very cute. I regret that I didn't get any good pictures. My camera was on the fritz that night. Thankfully my cousin Jennifer brought a video camera and taped it for me. THANKS JEN!!! Jarred had a solo in the play and he did so well. It was just adorable. I told him that now that I know he can sing so well he will have to do some songs specials at church!! We had a lot of family come over for the play. It was so special to us both that family came to share the special evening!!

Me and my little sheep :)

















Grandma B & Jarred

I am off until the 5th of January. WHOOOHOOOOO!! I'm not too excited or anything, lol! Really I am so happy to have some time to ourselves. It has been such a hectic semester.
(Side note: Since I work at a college and am in college I seem to live my life by semesters.)
Usually we go to Wisconsin for CHRISTmas. I will really miss the snow and spending CHRISTmas with my family up there, but it will be nice to be home and just relax as well. It is a nice feeling knowing that there is nothing I HAVE to do over the next two weeks. Yes, we do have some plans, but I am going to try really hard to keep my OCD in check and not over plan my time off!!!

It is about 2pm and we are still in our PJ's :) We both slept in really late, ahhhhhh :) Then got up and had a BIG breakfast & Bible time. We are making a gingerbread house today. I will post some pix once it is finished. I think that we may go see CHRISTmas lights tonight as well.

We will be heading over to Panama City for two days to spend CHRISTmas with family over there, but will come home CHRISTmas day and have a CHRISTmas celebration at our house with just the two of us. I don't think that we have ever done that before, so I am really looking forward to it.

Jarred is preparing to go deer hunting soon. He will go practice shooting on Saturday. He is also going camping next week with some friends from church. I know that he will enjoy all that "boy" time, and I will sure enjoy the girl time :)

I hope and pray that you all have a very Merry CHRISTmas!!! We love you all!!

Jill & Jarred

Nothing like a new do.....

OK, So I told you that my hair was going to drastically change soon....

Today I got new color and bangs :) I just love my new tresses!!!!

I plan on going darker, but it is a "process."




p.s. obviously this is a "self portrait!"

Shauna.... YOUR THE BEST!!! LOVE YA GIRL :)


Tomorrow is our church CHRISTmas party, so I will post some more pictures then

Have a great evening!

Let the Merriement Begin.....

I am so glad that I can now put school behind me for a few weeks and relax!! Even better I will be off of work for 16 glorious days. Not that I am excited or anything, wink ;) wink ;)

Friday Shauna came over and we started our CHRISTmas baking. I regret that I didn't take more pictures of our finished products. We had a ton of fun and are looking forward to doing some more "baking" on Saturday.

I have been battling a cold for the past several weeks. I was very sick for a few days, but I took some Nyquil which subsequently made me very dopey for a good day after!!! I have my Nanny's beautiful Anniversary clock in my living room now, and it chimes every hour. It has been a real comfort because every time I hear it chime I am taken back to being at her house and relive all of the fond memories associated with that. However, while I was so sick I was up a lot one night and I swore that it was chimming CHRISTmas songs and couldn't for the life of me figure out how that clock knew CHRISTmas was so close!!! HA HA HA.....

So today, I am still a bit under the weather as my cold has setteled into a cough and all over achy feeling. :( I am ready to get feeling better so that I can get on with the merriment and spreading CHRISTmas joy!!!

I am going to share some random pix since I have been a total slacker in that department lately.
So here ya go!!!

My ever-changing hair style.... I am wearing my sister's glasses and couldn't see myself in the mirror, so I had to take a pic. I am about to get my hair re-done...... It will be VERY different!!

Jarred being silly!! Taken in Orange Beach, Alabama

This is a cotton field near where Nanny used to live

This is my family in Panama City, my mom's side. This pic was taken on Thanksgiving day.

Shauna, the "Meringue Master," doing her job!

That's all for now folks......

Very, very, very tired of school!!!

I feel as if I have been in school FOREVER!!! I am so looking forward to my 28 day break from classes (can you tell?)!!! I am currently working on a big project for my Humanities class that I managed to procrastinate on until the last minute, it is due on Wednesday! I am actually going to take the day off of work to finish it up. I just keep telling myself......TWO MORE DAYS!!! Yippee!!!!!

Once class is over with I can have a life again, and hopefully catch up on my crafting, blogging, cooking, CHRISTmas celebrating, etc...... So in a few days I will happily rejoin society both here and virtually!!! I have an exciting week planned, and I am really looking forward to it. My buddy Shauna is coming over Friday night so we can get working on some CHRISTmas treats and on Saturday I am going to have dinner and play games with my friend Tara. It will be so nice to relax for a while.

I still have a lot of CHRISTmas crafts to do. We haven't even decorated the tree yet!!! It is up though and it does have lights and ribbon on it. I am hoping to get that done this weekend as well. I need to work on my CHRISTmas cards, Oh boy do I have a lot to do. But that is ok because it is all fun stuff that I LOVE!!!

God's Grace in the Storm

It has been incredibly difficult for me to sit down and blog lately. There has been so much going on over the past several weeks and frankly I have been on an emotional roller coaster most of the time. However, today I remembered that it is important to share my trials as well as my triumphs in this blogging world. More importantly to testify to God's goodness, grace, and mercy through this most recent storm.

I feel as if I have been in a whirlwind the past several months. When I found out back in September that my Nanny (my great-grandmother) was doing very poorly physically I knew that I wanted to be there for her. I am so grateful that I was able to do so in her last few months with us here. I am also grateful that it prepared me for the inevitable. My mother passed away when I was 19 and pregnant, and that I was not at all prepared for. I didn't allow myself time to grieve, and I was not a Christian at the time. It was a very difficult thing for me and caused a great deal of pain for several years. Thankfully that pain was healed when I came to Christ, accepted His forgiveness and in turn learned how to forgive.

My Nanny was an amazing and wonderful woman. I spent a good deal of my childhood with her and my great-grandpa, I called him Papoo. So very many of my cherished memories stem from being with them. There are so many wonderful things to be said about her character and life. I knew before she passed away that I would speak at the funeral. At the time the mere thought of it left me sobbing. So, I turned to the Lord and asked Him over and over what He would have me say about Nanny. After several days I felt Him impress upon me to read 1 Corinthians 13 and speak about how she loved others.

Here is a snippet of what I said at the funeral:

Since I was a little girl Nanny shared the gospel with me and prayed for me without ceasing. I was gloriously saved in September of 2005 by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. I am so very thankful that I was blessed to have a woman like Nanny in my life who always pointed me to Jesus and His saving grace. She lived every day of her saved life for the Lord and knew the importance of walking with Him and living and obedient life. I am also so very grateful for the sweet fellowship that we shared in Christ over the past three years.

Of all the memories that I shared with Nanny and all the precious time spent with her, the thing that stands out to me the most int he love that she had foe me and everyone else in her life. Because of Nanny's love for me I am able to have a better picture of how our heavenly Father loves us. I have always been so undeserving of her love and unworthy of it, but she gave it anyway just as Christ loved us and died for us while we were yet sinners. Her love was unconditional and she truly grasped one of the greatest concepts of the Christian life, loving others.

1 Corinthians 13
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.


It amazes me at times how God will speak to me and then I receive confirmation of what He told me. My Nanny had actually put on paper a detailed listing of how she wanted her funeral services to go. She thought of everything down to what to wear, what songs were to be sung, and who she wanted to preach the funeral. She also said that 1 Corinthians 13 was her favorite chapter, and she wanted it read. I didn't know that before hand. When I found out I knew that the Lord had truly spoke to my heart. WOW!! Yes, I serve a risen Savior!

When we got to the church the day of the funeral for the viewing an amazing calm and peace came over me unlike anything that I have ever experienced. I could feel God's presence, and His grace was MORE THAN SUFFICIENT for the day. His strength overwhelmed me. I still sit here amazed at how He enabled me to go through the motions of the day with hope and joy.

I do miss Nanny a lot, and I know that I always will. I am still having a hard time and get choked up quite often, but I am so glad that I know that I will see her again in Heaven one day. I am so glad that I am saved and know where I stand for eternity.

The purpose of my blog is to share my desire to commit myself to God with others. In this most recent trail I can see the rainbow and also know that I can lean on God's promise that His grace is sufficient and that He will be my strength when I am weak. The Lord has taught me that I need to focus more on loving others and being merciful just as he loves me and is merciful to me.

"And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." 2 Corinthians 12:9