(Semi) Wordless Wednesday

I love eating a colorful breakfast in the morning. It makes me feel like the day is going to be good because of the prettiness in my bowl. I love color. =)

Also, on another note, every week when I type in the title for these blog posts I always type (Semi) Worldless Wednesday. I think my fingers move too fast. Of course I always catch it before I hit submit but I just think it's funny. I hope my Wednesday's are never worldless! That would be weird. Unless it's like that whole in the world but not of it thing. But I always interpret my typo as worldless being like dead. lol

Cindy

Beauty in Nature

Yesterday was so beautiful outside! I was fortunate that I was able to spend a little bit of time outside during daylight hours, too. We were waiting for a truck to come to pick up some stuff we needed delivered here at work and while my coworkers were out smoking I would go outside with them and enjoy the beautiful day away from the cigarette smoke. And then I began snapping some pictures because it was just too perfect an opportunity not to!

Isn't nature just so beautiful?? I love it! And I love being able to capture its beauty through photography. It makes me immensely happy!

This past weekend was fun! Saturday I went to a Stampin' Up workshop and made some pretty awesome cards! My favorite was the yellow and black flower one. I can't get over how much I love yellow now. It used to be my favorite color when I was little and I've always liked it but it's like my love for it has come back with a vengence. haha! Saturday evening Collin and I had a little date night and went to Red Robin for dinner! Sooo yummy! I had a mushroom swiss burger and it was extremely delicious! Sunday we had church and ran some errands and I love running my errands with Collin. He makes it so much more fun. I love running errands to begin with but doing it with my husband makes me love it to the point where I feel like bursting! So yeah.. it was a good weekend!

I hope you lovelies had a great weekend, too! Did you get to do anything fun and exciting? What was the weather like for you? We had a HUGE thunderstorm (hail included) on Friday but the rest of the weekend was sunny and fairly mild temperatures!

Cindy

Winter? Where's Winter?

You guys!! It's like spring outside! It is sooo, sooo pretty outside today! The sun is shining, it's warm and we're forecasted to get thunderstorms this evening! SPRING! Can you tell I'm excited? I love spring and all this just makes me really happy!

Is it spring-like where you're at too? I know some places, in the U.S. at least, are getting some winter weather. What about my non-stateside followers? What's it like for you guys overseas? Whatever the weather may be, I hope you are enjoying your Friday and you are surrounded by lots of blessings this weekend!

Cindy

Things That Make Me Happy

Today I just want to share with you some things have that made me happy lately. It's been a week of lots of smiles.



Making birthday cards for people I love

I bought this skirt at the thrift store several months ago. When I bought it I couldn't try it on but it was my size. I got home and tried it on and it wouldn't zip/button. I wasn't expecting to be able to wear it on Tuesday but I wanted to try. And it fit!!

Having pancakes for supper to celebrate Shrove Tuesday before going to praise team practice!

Warm-ish weather! And (mostly) sunshine!

The pile of laundry I had (and still have) to fold. This might be weird to some of you, but I love laundry. So even though I haven't had time to fold it yet I look forward to doing it.

Our church held a very touching and moving Ash Wednesday Service. I took some notes and the ones that stood out to me the most were "We can't work to be free of our guilt. We must just accept Jesus' forgiveness. - New start through the CROSS"

I love doing this and Jessica is the one who inspired me. I love her "I Smile" Wednesday posts. What's made you smile this week? I hope you've had lots of things. I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

Cindy

(Semi) Wordless Wednesday

Most people post pictures of their kids and that's great. Their kids are their life and their blogs are a way of documenting their lives. Well, I don't have any human children. But I have a fur child. My cat is my baby for now. So if it bothers you that I keep posting pictures/videos of my cat, I'm sorry but he's just so gosh darn cute and I post about him for the same reasons others post about their human children. To document life. =)

I have no idea why Stank does this. He's so funny though! He'll jump up on up the couch and his paws will touch my blanket and he just immediately begins kneading it and sucking on it. I think it has something to do with nursing and it bringing back instincts of being a kitten. If you know for real why cats do this, let me know.

Cindy

Living for the Weekend

I told you guys last week that Collin and I were having a little mini in-town getaway this past weekend. It was great!! Friday afternoon when Collin got off work we packed an overnight bag and drove up the road to the La Quinta Inn and checked in for the evening. We ordered pizza, mozarella sticks, and buffalo wings from the local pizza place next door to the hotel and just relaxed all evening long.

The hotel was really nice and cozy!

Even though we were staying in all night I still wanted to look cute for my husband!

We played Phase 10 for a bit and Collin ended up winning. Such a fun game!
We watched a little bit of 30 Rock on Collin's computer, ate our dinner, played Phase 10, and just relaxed. It was so nice! And something really funny... it was getting kinda late, probably around 10 or so and the people that were in the adjoining room had just gotten to their room for the first time that evening. We could hear everything! But the funniest part was that during some nice relaxing snuggling one of the men starts sneezing. And not just quiet sneezes but LOUD and crazy sneezes. We began laughing and then calmed down until he let out this huge sneeze that sounded like he was starting a lawn mower or something and we lost it! We could NOT stop laughing. It was so, so funny!!

Saturday was great, too! I'm really sad I didn't take any pictures of anything but I was thoroughly enjoying myself! We actually woke up fairly early, around 7 and went to the hotel's complimentary breakfast. Then we just hung out in the hotel room until check out at noon. We then went to downtown Leonardtown (we've been many times before but it's just a neat place) and we decided to check out some places we've never ventured into before. We started out by getting some yummy milkshakes from the Comic Book store and then we went into all these neat shops. I ended up buying a new book and Collin got Rocketman on DVD at the used book store. We also got to try a new (to us) kind of wine at the cooking store. We walked in just curious about the cooking classes they offer and we ended up staying in there chatting with the lady at the counter for about a half hour! She was so informative. And the wine we tried was Cocoa Di Vine Chocolate Espresso Wine. Collin and I don't like wine. And honestly we don't drink that much at all. But that sounded interesting so we got to taste it and it was really good! It tasted like a mudslide! We'll definitely buy a bottle for ourselves at some point. And it was reasonably priced, too! Only $13 for a bottle. It was very thick and not necessarily something I would drink straight but it would be perfect for making mudslides or for drizzling over ice cream or the like. Have you ever tried chocolate wine? If so, what do you think? Anyway... it was a really great day roaming around downtown and experiencing new places and things!

This weekend I also got a belated birthday present! I got a new purple fleece jacket and scarf from my friend Denise. I love it!

And I couldn't not post this picture of my sweet, sweet boys. =)

Oh and guess what! It snowed this weekend! It wasn't very much. Maybe an inch to and inch and a half and it mostly snowed over night and melted early on yesterday, but it was nice! Very beautiful! I hope you had a great weekend! Did you get to do anything fun and exciting?

Cindy

Fill in the Blank Friday!

You guys, I haven't done a fill in the blank Friday in a long while!! Crazy! But what a better week to do one than Valentine's week when the theme is all about love! You can participate with Lauren or see other blogger's blanks by visiting the little things we do.

Image credit to Lauren

1. The love of my life is Jesus! And of course Collin, too!

2. Falling in love is not just a one time thing. Sure you fall in love with someone but you continually fall in love with that person. That's what keeps the relationship and the love alive. Deepening your love is such fun (but it can be work, too).

3. Marriage is wonderful! But it's not easy. It takes lots of hard work to make your marriage last. But it's oh so worth because the benefits of marriage far outweigh the work needed.

4. The longest relationship I've ever had was so far 4 years! 2 of dating and almost 2 of marriage so far! Here's to many, many more!

5. The key to a good relationship is communication, honesty and respect.

6. I feel loved when someone goes out of their way to make time for me. Quality time is very important to me.

7. My favorite quote about love is "Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter, unless it is about loving God and loving the people He has made?" by Francis Chan.

I hope you guys have an awesome weekend! I'm so excited for my little romantic in-town getaway with my hubby tonight! See you all on Monday!

Cindy

Book Review: Smitten

I've got another Booksneeze review for you guys! This review is LONG overdue. I finished this book in December, right around Christmas time! But I didn't want to post about it then because I didn't want to interrupt all the Christmas goodness. Anyway... the book is called Smitten and it was a collaborative novel between four author friends, Colleen Coble, Kristin Billerbeck, Denise Hunter, & Diann Hunt.

I just want to start off by saying I loved this book! It was such a fun read and easy to read, too. Anyway... Smitten is about four friends who are all from the town of Smitten, VT, a town kept alive simply by the logging factory at the top of the hill. When the factory must close due to bankruptcy the four friends devise a plan to turn their small little town into a romantic tourist destination capitalizing on its charming name. Each of the women takes on a business venture related to romance and tries to gather the support of the whole town. The other women in the town are eager to help but some of the men take a lot of convincing. The four main characters, Natalie, Julia, Shelby and Reese work very hard to save the town and make it a honeymoon destitation spot and along the way they find romance of their own!

Like I said above, I loved this book. It was so cute and definitely a fun romance novel! And I especially loved that each character's story was told by a different author. The book is broken up into four small novels each one about one of the women. And though the authors have different writing styles, they all compliment each other well and each new character's story picks up right where the one before it left off! It was so fun to read the story like this with different characters and different points of view! And each story was sweet and had me excited to see how it would end! If you want to read a book about overcoming obstacles and finding love along the way then this is definitely a book you should pick up!

Cindy

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines.

Love Day Celebration!

Collin and I have praise team practice at 6:30 every Tuesday night. Because of that we couldn't celebrate Valentine's Day properly on the day itself so we had an early celebration on Monday evening! I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it here on my blog before but in case you all don't remember (and for the new followers) Collin and I had our first date at Chick-Fil-A. Romantic, right? But honestly, it was such a fun and memorable afternoon together so therefore Chick-Fil-A is "our" place. It doesn't hurt that the food is oh so yummy, too! Anyway, we had our Valentine's dinner at Chick-Fil-A and it was great! We got and ate our food and then sat in the booth next to each other just talking and planning for our romantic weekend! As a sort of continued Valentine's celebration Collin booked a room at a local hotel for tomorrow night just so we can "get away". And Collin amazingly enough has off work on Saturday so we're just going to do whatever we please and enjoy a NORMAL-person weekend! Hurray! My scrumdiddlyumptious original chicken sandwich. So, so good. We had a coupon from our Chick-Fil-A calendar so we got the new chicken tortilla soup. That stuff was spicy! But it has a good flavor!
This man makes my heart so happy!

Our actual Valentine's Day wasn't completely without celebration. We were able to have lunch together and that was very nice. And after praise team practice we made grilled cheese and tomato soup and watched some tv together while cuddling on the couch and it was just relaxing and nice.

I will say though, I had a meltdown in the afternoon. After work I went to Target to finish getting Collin's Valentine's gift together. I was planning on printing out a picture from our first Valentine's together and the picture of us from above where we're both smiling at the camera and I was going to put it into a notebook and begin a year-long journal where I write down what I love about Collin each day. I was going to give it to him with the two pictures and the first day filled out and then give it back to him next year completely filled. Heh. That did not work out so well. I spent an HOUR AND A HALF at the Kodak Picture Kiosk in Target. Never again will I use that machine. Anyway... I was literally so frustrated with it I was almost in tears standing there in the middle of Target. And it was not a user-error either. The dumb thing took 45 minutes to LOAD the pictures from my phone. And then once they were loaded it kept glitching and scrolling past the picture I needed. And then it wouldn't even let me select it if it would land on it. It was as if every time you touched the screen it would move the scroll bar even if you weren't touching the scroll bar. So yeah... after an hour and a half at the machine I gave up. I ended up getting home over an hour after I was planning to and Collin's gift wasn't complete and I was so frustrated with the picture kiosk that I just had a meltdown. But Collin was so sweet. He came into our bedroom and sat with me and let me blubber out what was wrong and then he of course told me that it was all okay and that he appreciated the thought. He told me he was sure what I did get him was great. And of course he loved it. I still gave him the journal sans pictures but I also bought him lots of Twizzler Nibs. They were the only thing he asked for so I got him lots! I'm so blessed to have such a sweet and understanding husband. Someone who loves me despite my meltdowns and takes the time to encourage me and love me even when I don't deserve to be loved. I thank God daily for my wonderful, wonderful husband.

Anyway, sorry for that rant. I'm quite pleased with my gift from Collin! I got a gigantic bag of Lindt chocolates!! Soo yummy!

How was your Valentine's Day? I hope you were able to spend it with the people you love most and that it was a day filled with love and sweet surprises!

Cindy

(Semi) Worldess Wednesday

Such a beautiful sunrise this morning. It was the perfect compliment to yesterday's day of love. This sunset reminded me of the unconditional love my God has for me. He knew I'm not feeling well this morning. He knew I was running late and a little flustered. And yet when I walked out the door He had this beautiful display for me. That's some true love right there. Doing little things just to make me feel better. =) Thank you God!

Cindy

P.S. Tomorrow I'll share with you about our Valentine's Day and how my husband also shows me true love on a daily basis! He never ceases to shine the light of God in his life!

Happy Love Day!!

I've always liked Valentine's Day. Even when I was single and yes, a little sad to be so, I still liked the day. Maybe it's because my parents always showered us with gifts and love, maybe it was because I was surrounded by lots of friends and family who loved me. But regardless of the reason, I think I've just always liked Valentine's Day because I love love. I have always loved the idea of love and seeing others in love. And not just romantic love either. This day is about loving all those close to you! And boy do I have lots of people close to me to love!

So today, whether you're celebrating this day with your spouse/signifcant other, or spending it with your friends, or even just spending it by yourself, know that you are loved. And share the love you have in your heart with those around you. Just tell your friends you love them. Call your family. Enjoy this day filled with love!

And I'm especially thankful for the gift of love given to me by my God and Savior. I know that in all things I have the greatest love ever surrounding me today and all days through!


1 John 4: 7-21
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Love to you!
Cindy

My Week via Instagram

Since I haven't really had too much of a "real" update in the past week or so, I thought I'd show you what's been going on in my life!
I bought some new shirts at Old Navy last week and they are so super comfy!
My daily reminder here at work.
This isn't the best quality picture, but that bright blob is the moon. It was HUGE and sooo bright.
Think it's time to take my Christmas tree home from the office?
(just so you know I took it home that afternoon)
Chocolate peanut butter drink. It wasn't a milkshake and it wasn't a smoothie. It was basically chocolate peanut butter milk. So good!
He gets so cozy and actually loves being covered by a blanket.
The sun was extra bright on my way to work Friday morning. The sky was filled with orange.
I love wearing blue and I especially love it when my hair is wavy.
I much prefer to sit barefoot at work.
We watched an IMAX movie called Sharks and Stank was intently watching the tv. During the movie there were 3 (out of 4) animals sitting with us. Collin playing around on his ukelele.
It snowed Saturday night! Just a dusting but it was pretty on Sunday morning. My boys napped on the couch after church while I addressed my Valentine's.
Addressing the Valentine's I made on Saturday. I made 14 cards!

It's been a fun week! I didn't document any pictures of my card making with my friend Jeannie, nor did I document any pictures from our evening with Jeff and Jeannie. We went to Olive Garden for dinner with them and then back to their apartment to play some games. We had a blast! And then yesterday after church our youth group made 120 Valentine's to deliver to a local nursing home. The kids really enjoyed making the cards and I should have taken a picture of them in all their creative-ness. It was so fun to watch!

Anyway, what have you been up to this past week/weekend? I hope it's been filled with lots of fun and happiness as mine has been!

Cindy