Dreams

Have you ever not dreamed because you didn't want to be disappointed if it didn't come true? I didn't think this was true of myself until recently.

When I was little I dreamed of what I would be when I grew up, and I wasn't afraid to dream BIG. I remember dreaming of being an Actuary. An Actuary, of all things. You probably don't even know what that is. For fear of boring you I will just say that they work with statistics. And I didn't just want to be any Actuary. I wanted to be an Actuary for DISNEY! You see, my brain concluded that since Disney was a huge company they surely would employee Actuaries. I have no idea if that's true or not, but I dreamed it.

Wondering where or why I came up with this dream? Simple, someone told me that there are very few Actuaries in the world and therefore they make LOTS of money. Well that was a cinch...I wanted to do something that very few people did and makes lots of money doing it...and possibly get to know Cinderella while I was at it.

Since then I've had other dreams too. I've dreamed of meeting the man of my dreams, falling in love with him and having a spectacularly beautiful wedding. I dreamed that for a while. And then it happened. My dream came true. But what happens after your dream comes true? Do you stop dreaming? I guess I did.

Besides the man-of-my-dreams dream, I can't remember the last time I dreamed something wonderfully fantastic. I was thinking about this the other night and I just couldn't remember. Then I wondered, why not? Why haven't I been dreaming? And I think it's because I was afraid they wouldn't come true. Let's see - my dream came true and then I concluded that I shouldn't dream anymore because they wouldn't come true. Like, I used up my one dream ticket. Maybe I don't want to get my hopes up, or have people think I'm unrealistic, or looney, or whatever. Just let things happen and if it's meant to be then it will be. I don't know if that's totally bad, but something in my soul has started stirring.

What if I started dreaming BIG again? And yeah they may not come true, but what if they do? What if by dreaming I open myself up to opportunities that may not have been possible otherwise? What if I dare to tell God what my BIG dreams are? Would he think I'm nuts? Tell me that those types of dreams only happen to other people? I don't think He will. You know why? Because he knows the desires of my heart, even if I never speak them. I think that many times He's waiting for us to open our hearts up and dream. To not be ashamed of the desires of our hearts but proclaiming them and then waiting with anxious anticipation for Him to make our dreams come true!

Because of this, I'm going to proclaim one of my BIG dreams right here on this blog. I dream of one day raising a family in a large, gorgeous stone house. There I said it. Whew. That wasn't so bad. Dreaming about a stone house led me to Google (because let's face it, almost everything leads me to Google nowadays) where I found some amazing homes that I wanted to share with you.

Are you scared to dream BIG?

Christmas Tour 2009

Welcome to our home! I'm so excited about participating in the 2009 Christmas Home Tour hosted by The Nester. This is our first Christmas as a married couple and I was thrilled to decorate our house for the holidays. We got a great deal on our tree from Lowe's and most of the decorations came from Old Time Pottery or Target. You can check out the story here and here.


















All of the shopping is done and the presents are wrapped! The only thing left to do is send the Christmas cards.


















The stockings are hung on the mantle with care....we made sure our little pup has her own stocking as well.














My sweet friend brought me a Rosemary tree for my birthday last week. John and I are so excited to make rosemary chicken with the fresh rosemary. And the best part is that the tree fits right in with the Christmas decor.


















Thanks for dropping by our home! May you and your family be abundantly blessed this Christmas season!















MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Wrap Up

The shopping is done! I bought a few things online but the majority of the shopping was done last weekend. I wrote out my list, planned my route, and set out to fight the crowds. Of course I can't divulge all my stops, for fear that someone might figure out their present before Christmas. I will say that having a plan was the best plan I could have had. My entire shopping trip took about 2 1/2 hours and that included a stop for a Big Gulp.

Once at home, I got to work on wrapping. I had the time and it allowed me to feel completely accomplished at the end of the day. My big helper sat close and supervised the whole time!

My Birthday Week

On Monday, December 7th, I turned 27. I still can't believe it. I'm not quite sure where 25 and 26 went, but alas, 27 is upon me. Monday was a really low key day for me - spent the day at work, went home and heated up left overs and watched shows saved on the DVR. John got home around 9pm, I beat him at our new favorite card game, and then we headed to bed.

Don't feel sorry for me though...this girl did her fair share of celebrating.

The Friday before my birthday, John took me out to dinner at Houlihan's. I had some really great fish tacos (for free!) and John had meatloaf and mashed potatoes. We were both in food heaven.

The Sunday before my birthday was a full day of celebrating. After church, my brother and sister in-law took me out to lunch at Chili's. They are so sweet and I feel so loved by my in-laws. While they took me to lunch, John was able to shop for my birthday present. :) After lunch, we went back to John's parent's house for more birthday celebration - burritos & ice cream cake! That's my kind of dinner! John's mom fries the tortillas and they are marvelous! This year, his brother, Luke, helped with the ice cream cake, and I must say it came our fabulous. Oreo crust, vanilla ice cream with a layer of oreos in the middle...with no hint of real cake any where in sight....yummmm!

The day after my birthday, we invited some friends over for pizza and you guessed it...more ice cream cake! (Can you guess what makes my mouth water?) It was a great time of hanging out with people who are near and dear to my heart.

Four days after my birthday, we celebrated the December birthday's at work and guess what we ate....yep....ice cream cake! This 27 year old girl was in ice cream heaven.

Summary of my 27th birthday.................food, food, ice cream cake, food, ice cream cake, ice cream cake.

It was a fabulous birthday!

(Unfortunately, John and I didn't take one picture the whole week, so there are no pretty pictures to accompany this post. Stay tuned though, I'm going to post a tour of our home all spiffed up for Christmas on Monday, December 14th.)

December 7th

You might be asking yourself...."Why does December 7th sound familiar? Did something significant happen on that date?" Well, I'm so glad you asked.

December 7, 1941 was the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese aircrafts. They bombed the US Naval base in Hawaii, and as a result, the US entered World War II. The US lost 2,402 people that morning when the Japanese attacked unsuspecting battleships, cruisers and destroyers. Interestingly enough, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor before they officially declared war. President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed it "a date which will live in infamy."

No, that's not what you were thinking about?

Hmm, well it's also the day of my birth, 27 years ago.

Not that either? Maybe you're thinking about one of these monumental occassions:
December 7, 43 B.C. - Marcus Tullius Cicero was assassinated

December 7, 1732 - The Royal Opera House opens in London

December 7, 1787 - Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution (way to go Delaware!)

December 7, 1900 - Max Planck discovers the law of black body emission (I hope it wasn't based on personal experience)

December 7, 1946 - A fire in an Atlanta hotel kills 119 people

December 7, 1963 - Instant replay is used for the first time in a football game (Army vs. Navy)

December 7, 1982 (my actual day of birth) - Charles Brooks, Jr. becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the U.S. (that's pretty morbid)

I share a birthday (not the year, but the day) with Jamiel Chagra (an American drug trafficker), Mark Hofmann (an American forger and bomber), Larry Bird, Damien Rice, Terrell Owens, Sarah Bareilles, Aaron Carter, and my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Loutzenheizer (not pictured). Of course there are many others, but those were the interesting ones.

Did you know that December 7th is also National Cotton Candy Day? Seems that one is somewhat overshadowed by the rememberance of the thousands that gave their lives for our country.

The #1 song on December 7th, 1982 was Maneater by Hall & Oates. Hmm. That's somethin'.

Had enough? Ok, ok. I'll stop :)

Her New Favorite Toy

Layla can't get enough of "Mr. Snuggles." She just loves that little guy.

But after a long day of playing with Mr. Snuggles, she's one tired pup.

Time for bed. Don't worry, she made sure Mr. Snuggles came with her to bed. Absolutely adorable!

Layla & Mr. Snuggles

Last night Layla's boyfriend, Nigel, gave her a few gifts. Her favorite is a green oversized mouse who we've named Mr. Snuggles. We haven't seen Layla this excited since she discovered her first squirrel!

The Fireplace

This weekend, John and I were able to make a quick run to Target to pick up the rest of the Christmas decorations. We got stockings and stocking holders for the mantle. The red one on the right is Layla's...could you tell by the paw prints? :)

Our First Tree - Part 2

The tree is up....

and decorated...

John and Jackie are happy.

Layla would rather eat treats then take pictures, but she likes the tree too.

Our First Tree - Part 1

John and I celebrated 6 months of marriage on November 24th. We kept it low key since it was right before Thanksgiving and we had other things going on. Now, I don't normally wake up in the wee hours of the morning and go fight the mobs on Black Friday. Only a really really good deal will get me up before the sun rises. And this year, I found a FABULOUS deal at Lowe's. With this being our first Christmas, John and I needed to get a tree! Since John's allergic to real Christmas trees, and I hate cleaning up the mess they make, we went artificial. We had been pricing trees for a few weeks and actually found a reasonably priced tree at Lowe's that we were planning on getting. So when I saw that Lowe's was running a sale on Christmas trees, I decided it was worth getting up early and fighting the cold. This pre-lit tree was originally $98, on sale for $38! And on top of that, my mom gave me a $25 Lowe's gift card as an early birthday present.....that means I paid $15.47 (including tax)!! Deal of the year for sure!

John and I spent the day putting up our $15 tree. We played Christmas music, moved our entry table out of the way and started getting all the decorations out.

Layla stayed next to John the entire time he was putting up the tree. She didn't really know what to think about it all.

Part 1 down, 3 to go

On Tuesday, November 17th I took the Audit section of the CPA exam. It went really well. I'll get the results in about 4 weeks. Since tax season is starting soon, I'm going to wait until July to take the next section of the exam. Wish me luck!

To recap, there are 4 sections to the exam and I have to pass all of them in an 18 month window. Here's my timeline:


Section 1 - November 2009

Section 2 - July 2010

Section 3 - Aug 2010

Section 4 - September or October 2010