Just a few thoughts.....

Today before you say an unkind word- Think of someone who can't speak.

Before you complain about the taste of your food- Think of someone who has nothing to eat...

Before you complain about your husband or wife- Think of someone who's crying out to God for a companion.

Before whining about the distance you drive- Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet.

And when you are tired and complain about your job- Think of the unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job...

And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down- Put a smile on your face and think you're alive and still around....


I got this in an email forward...which I normally hate forwards, but I loved what this had to say and I wanted to share it with you! I hope each of you has a beautiful Wednesday.

With love,
Amanda

p.s. i just gave my blog a fall face lift!! do you like?

Hi from Miss Maddie.....

Hello blog people!

My mom let me type on the blog tonight! I just got back from the spa and got my haircut. I love going to the spa. It's so relaxing. My mom put my fall sweater on me cause it was getting chilly outside. I love my sweater.

I sure do love my dad.

Well, I'm kinda hungry now....so I better go!

with love,

Maddie

A treat from Mr. Tim!

So, the other night Mr. Tim went to a dinner for his work at this really fancy and yummy restaurant called Flame. I was sad cause I have never been and wanted to go too. He said it was incredible! Anyways.......when he got home he had something behind his back when he walked in the door. It was one of these lovely little boxes from The Cup!!!!

A yummy little cupcake shop in our town.

He got us two of these babies......

One grasshopper which is a minty chocolate flavor. And one red velvet of course! ;)

What a handsome hubby I have! Bless him for bringing us home cupcakes!

I heart the grasshopper!

It was a lovely treat for sure!

p.s. miss maddie finally went to the spa and got a haircut!!! :)

hugs!

Amanda

Wal-Mart Finds!!!

I went to Wal-Mart tonight because I needed chapstick really bad!!!! My lips were killing me! And.....I saw a HUGE section of Better Homes and Gardens harvest stuff! Can you say Ah-Mazing?! I fell in love with the rugs, throws, candles, plates and more. I wanted one of everything....but I walked away empty handed. I wanted to think about everything! And decide what I really want. lol!

Has anyone else been to Wal-Mart and noticed this glorious section of harvest home stuff???

I know I'm obsessed. But at least I used restraint. I haven't bought anything fall yet this year.

Just "window shopping" the fall decor makes my heart feel happy!

Happy Wednesday Friends!

xo,

Amanda

Miscellany Monday is here!

Well hello Monday!

1) Guess what? Our air conditioner broke!!!!!!! NOooooooo! It is the worst time cause we probably don't need it for but another week or two because fall is on it's way. But we don't want to not fix it and leave it broken all winter long. So...we have to call someone ASAP. stink pot.

2) We are cheating tonight because it is so stinkin hot in our house. We ordered pizza! haha! We haven't done that in forever. It's kinda fun.

3) I am really hot right now! ugh! okay....i'm done complaining! ;)

4) Friday night I was up really late watching videos on youtube of different christian singers! haha! That can be very addicting.

5) I am sooooooo excited because this Saturday is a craft/harvest festival in a little town close by! My mom and I go every year and we just have so much fun. We always get kettle corn and buy homemade breads! I can't wait.

6) I think I'm going to make myself a fall wreath! I made a summer one here. I'm thinking something sparkly.......

7) I have the cutest dog ever. I am starring at her right now! haha! oh she has my heart.

8) Does anyone else have a dusty house? I feel like I have to dust my house every other day! Am I doing something wrong?

9) I have a Kari Jobe song stuck in my head! I think it's called "You Are Good." God is good all the time, no matter what might be going on in our lives.

10) Happy Fall Ya'll!!!! ok, i'm a dork. :)

I hope everyone had a great weekend!!!!
Hugs!
Amanda

What I'm Loving Wednesday!!!!

Today I'm linking at This Kind Of Love for What I'm Loving Wednesday!

It is such a fun post idea and I just love her blog too!
Don't you just want to have dinner under this adorable fall decor?!
I just LOVE this picture from Country Living.

I would loooooove to own this dress from Shabby Apple! I love the style, the ruffles and the color. So pretty.

I need this apple cider candle from Yankee!!!

I'm loving that I have been doing better at waking up earlier! yay for me! :) So, I have relapsed a few times....but I am getting a routine down. I love how I feel when I get up early!

More than anything.....I love being married to this man!!!! He makes everyday sweeter. Oh, and he is teaching the lesson for our youth group tonight! I'm love hearing him teach God's Word.

I hope you all have a lovely Wednesday!

xo,

Amanda

My favorite blogging day!!!

Hi and Hello!

Happy Monday everyone! :)

I always love doing miscellany monday posts with carissa @lowercase letters!

So lets just let those random thoughts roll shall we?

1) I have had the busiest day so far on this fine Monday!!!

2) Tonight Mr. Tim and I are visiting a low income apartment complex in our city. We just signed up for this ministry called LifeBuilders. We are going to have the opportunity to work with lots of people at our "adopted" apartment complex every week. We will be playing with kids, talking to teens, holding different classes like cooking, crafting etc., singing, doing Bible studies....but most importantly....showing them God's love! I'm really excited about this! It is going to be very challenging, but I can't wait. We are just observing tonight at a different site that is already up and running.

3) Over the weekend Mr. Tim and I celebrated both of our dad's birthdays! Lots of sweets were consumed by all! :)

4) Saturday= we did absolutely NOTHING!!!! But we looooooved it. We seriously just slept, ate and layed around. It was so relaxing. Days like that don't come around too often.

5) Oh wait....I did cook a little something Saturday! It is one of our favorite fall recipes that I cracked out. It's called Amish Skillet. It's just a lovely skillet of potatoes, carrots, onions, beef, cheese and a little cream of mushroom. Simple and delicious.

6) I feel like a bad momma. Little miss Maddie needs a haircut bad!!! The precious thing is just a shaggy monster and her ears are getting really tangly. This is my reminder to call and make her an appointment at the spa! :)

7) One of my favorite parts of the weekend: My sweet and loving hubby gave me a pedicure!!! He normally does my toe polish for me, cause he is way better than me and has a steady hand. But, this time he clipped my nails (lol!), painted my nails, and used the ped egg! woah! He laughs at me and always makes jokes about my crazy rough heels. He said I needed some caulking for my heel cracks! haha.

8) I'm normally a Diet DP/Coke girl.....lately my taste buds are taking a liking to Diet Pepsi. Anyone else? It's got a crispness to it.

9) I have decided I really shouldn't watch the Today Show anymore! I will have it on in the mornings while I get ready and sure enough they will report on a really sad and tragic story and I start balling and ruin my makeup for the day! This has happened numerous times. You would think I would learn my lesson. haha! (I watched it today.....started crying!) I have got really active tear ducts. ;)

10) I love nightly walks around our neighborhood with my precious hubby. Nothing better.

That's about it for my random thoughts today! Did everyone have a nice weekend?

p.s. I just love all of my blogging friends! I tell Mr. Tim about everyone or about different posts that were funny or touched me....he thinks I'm funny! I never thought I would find so much joy in blogging! :)

Lotsa Love!
Amanda

Happy Saturday everyone!

Yesterday was my daddy-o's birthday! He is the most wonderful, Godly man and I just love him so much!!! This is my dad.....he ALWAYS has a cup of coffee in hand! Seriously. I have no idea how many cups he drinks a day, but I'm sure it's in the double digits! haha! Coffee makes him so happy. Soooo... we got him a Starbucks gift card of course! :)

This is me and my dad over 5 years ago at my wedding rehearsal! I LOVE looking at this picture because just months before my wedding he had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and was very sick. We were not sure if he would be able to walk me down the aisle. Praise the Lord he was able to do so! Happy happy birthday daddy! I love you!

I don't have much planned today! We slept in and are just laying around the house today. It is enjoyable!!! :) I think I want to go window shopping today too! I don't know if I can convince Mr. Tim to go with me.

I hope everyone has a happy and blessed weekend!

xoxo

Wake up early or NOT???

Good Morning! I'm struggling with something....

Now that Mr. Tim has a new work schedule...he leaves the house at 6:30 every morning. He gets home a bit before 4pm everyday. So, he has time to get his workout in before I get home. (i don't get home until 5:15)

Here is my struggle: Should I try to wake up when he gets up and do my workout then? I normally lOVE all the sleep I can possibly get and will roll out of the bed at the last minute! :) If I don't do that option, that means when I get home from work I will have to find time to fit my workout in sometime between dinner, activities, studying etc.! Plus....since Mr. Tim will have already done his workout, I will have to be self motivated to leave "our evening together" to workout. Ugh! I think I am answering my own question as I type! haha! I don't want to cut into our time together in the evenings. Plus most nights of the week we have something going on....so finding time to workout is very hard!

I have never got up early to workout! I am struggling with this concept. However, I think it is so important to move and be active everyday. I always feel so much better when I have been active.

What do you do? Does anyone out there willingly wake up early to get their fitness on? How do you do it....do you just get in the zone or something?

I would LOVE your nuggets of wisdom!!!

I love being active....it's just finding the time!

xoxo,

Amanda

i'm on an organizing craze!

Well hello! Happy Monday....I'm joining Carissa at lowercase letters for another miscellany monday! How is everyone? I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. :)

ONE) I got a ton of stuff done this weekend! I'm so excited. I even found time for some r&r too. I organized our medicine cabinet, the linen closet, the entryway bench, the spare bedroom and I did some cleaning too! It felt great. I have some more spots in the house I want to overhaul as well. Maybe this coming weekend.....

TWO) I taught my first Sunday school lesson yesterday and I think it went well! I'm so happy about that. I have some very sweet girls in my group that always talk and participate, so that helped! Thanks for all the encouragement from everyone about that. :)

THREE) My football oreos were amazing! Only problem is.....I WANT MORE!!!!

FOUR) I did a small craft project for our bedroom that I can't wait to show you! I was inspired by the lovely Pottery Barn as always.

FIVE) I really need to go to the grocery store. blah! Out of bread, milk, cereal....all the essentials! Sometimes I like going to the grocery store and sometimes I just can't stand it.

SIX) I had a coupon for a buy 1 get 1 free frappe at McD's! We enjoyed our frappes on Sunday. I just love a good coupon.

SEVEN) I want to go on a picnic really really bad. The weather is calling me.

Well, that's about it for today! I'm off to bed now!
xoxo,
Amanda

Friday FALL LOVES!

I'm a happy camper today! Thankful for Friday. I have sooooo many random thoughts and ideas flooding my mind lately. It is crazy! For instance....I have a gazillion things I want to do this weekend, but I obviously can't do them all. I think this time of year just makes me SO excited I can hardly stand it and I just flip out! haha!

We found these football oreos at the store this week! We got them for Saturday.....since we are kicking off football season then! (i am a total sucker for all things seasonal, miniature, colorful....i am an advertising persons dream! lol!) I just couldn't help myself.

I LOVE Pottery Barn soooooo much! I could stare at their catalog all day long. I never purchase anything from them sadly, but I love to dream. I found these gorgeous pics on their website. If these don't make you excited for fall somethings just wrong with ya!!! :)

Sigh!!!

Just lovely!

These are all the thoughts running through my mind right now......

(that i want to do this weekend)

*organize closets, cabinets and redo rooms

*bake something

*deep clean the house

*watch saturday football and eat my oreos with mr. tim

*get up early for the farmer's market

*sleep in

*have numerous cups of coffee

*do landscaping

*read some more of my book

*scrapbook

*spray paint something....anything

So, I know I can't do ALL of that! But that is a look into my crazy crazy brain at the moment!!! :) I hope everyone has a beautiful weekend!

With lotsa love,

Amanda

Fish....Yay or Nay?

Today I'm talking about FISH!

Yep! So....if you hate fish, or can't even stand to think about it, maybe you shouldn't read my post today. haha! Well, I used to be one of those people. Just the thought of taking a bite of fish, smelling it, looking at it....made me want to....well you know! You might remember from my vacation recap post, that I told you I tried some fish for the first time in my life while in Florida. Yes, first time IN MY LIFE! I have never been strong enough to just try it. One time several years back, we were at a restaurant and my dad offered me $500 to just try one bite of shrimp!!!

Can you believe that I said NO? What was I thinking?

On vacation, I finally mustered up the courage to try it. I have problems with certain foods if I think it looks funny or smells weird. Or texture even.

I had to make this decision completely on my own. No one offering me hundreds of dollars or twisting my arm.

I watch a lot of Food Network. I had been thinking a lot about how the chefs always try EVERYTHING! Then they know if they like it or not. They just try it. They have to know how hot or mild a pepper is before they can cook with it, etc. I realized...."what if I like the taste of fish?" I eat chicken, beef and pork already. All those animals look strange too. So why not fish?

Anyways, after a lot of pumping myself up, I took my first bite. I took a bite of my dad's entree. He ordered Grouper. It was prepared blackened. I held the bite of fish on my fork for about 5 minutes just starring at it....I put it in my mouth and chewed slowly. Guess what? I really liked it. A LOT! I actually liked it better than what I ordered. Which was a parmesan encrusted chicken over pasta. Mr. Tim was SO proud of me. He really was. It was adorable. My dad was proud of his girl too! :) After all these years......

So as you can imagine, my culinary horizons broadened quite a bit! During the rest of my trip, I tried bites of Tim's food to see what I liked.

Here is what I tried:

Tilapia

Salmon

Grouper

Cobia


I liked everything except the Cobia. I'm not sure what it was....I just didn't care for it. My favorite way to eat all the fish was blackened. I was never courageous enough to order my own entree of fish. I think I am almost to that point now!

Oh, and best part! Mr. Tim was so proud of me, he bought me a prize! lol! We went to the store Under Armour and he got me a workout outfit. I have never had "real workout" clothes. I got some cute capris and a tee! They are both the dry-fit material.

So blogging friends.....what do you say?

Fish= Yay or Nay?

What kinds of fish do you like and how do you like it prepared?

What should I try? Or do you simply loathe it?

xoxo,

Amanda