survey saturday

        Hola everybody! I hope you all have had a productive week! I know I'm super ready for the all-too-short weekend. This week has been crazy as far as school and super crazy concerning work. My daycare center received a bunch of new kids because the daycare across the street closed down, so it's been a total tornado for us. It's a blessing, because I'm getting more hours which is an answer to prayer, but it's crazy because we went from having 3 babies (in the baby room) to 12! THAT is just nuts. NUTS. So needless to say I've been tired and headachey and Toby too. We both fell asleep doing our homework the other night. We woke up at like 2AM going, "what the heck happened?" haha.

        Anyhow, before we do the survey, here area few highlights we managed to enjoy this week:

Toby made me dinner one night: Baked Tilapia with Teriyaki sauce,
veggie fried rice and green beans. What a man I have :)

Had some lovely overcast weather. Perfect for reading spooky stories
like Dracula for my Lit courses.

Rekindled my love for LOTR the Fellowship of the Ring over coffee in my
little Hobbit mug :)

Tonight, Toby made egg custard pie. Muy delicioso!
And boy was he excited! :)

Survey, yes? Yes.

1. The CD that is playing in my car right now is an OLD mix of songs from my favorite kids movies such as Hocus Pocus, Anastasia, A Goofy Movie, Muppett Treasure Island and more! (Gimme a shout out, those of you who love these movies!!!)      

2. The worst villain I have encountered in literature so far is Hannibal Lector (yes, it was a book first). He is the worst because he has no remorse for the things he does, and yet he does possess some sort of moral code...which a sociopath could disown at any time. Yikes. Would NOT want to be on the receiving end of that exchange. 

3. The next holiday I'm excited for is PASSOVER! It is literally my favorite holiday of them all! It is a beautiful reminder of how G-D delivered our people from slavery in Egypt, and also how by the sacrifice of Yeshua His son, delivered all of us from death. WOO! (P.s. if you don't know what passover is, that post will be a' comin'.) 

4. Right now Toby and I are watching Storage Wars and laughing at the quirks of the people in the store. We love Barry most. 

5. One moment I wish I could relive is when Toby and I first saw each other after a 5 month absence which included, becoming good friends, fighting the feelings,l realizing we liked each other and realizing we loved each other. That meeting contained our first kiss which was in the airport...hehe, so sweet.

6. My favorite piece of literature right now is "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It's one of the eeriest and most beautifully written pieces of poetry I've ever read. If you like Romantic literature (meaning from the Romantic Era, not trashy romance novels, haha) then you should definitely give it a read.

7. One thing I like about being from Georgia is that the landscape is really beautiful to me. There are pine trees and lots of land everywhere. I am originally from Dallas, TX so we had a lot of buildings, highways and your occasional parks but nothing like this! Georgia's nice :)

Shabbat Shalom! Hope you all have a lovely weekend :)

~B~

survey saturday and some gratefulness

     Hello all! Well, do please forgive the absence, however, I've been out of town at a women's retreat that was totally amazing. I received so much encouragement from the L-RD and got to have a great time with my dear, dear buddies that live far from me! I definitely plan to update a tad more regularly now, but school is an unmerciful master so I'll do my best.  But, it is now time for the survey! Let us begin...

1. One thing I would love to do is to write a book (preferably a young adult series) and actually publish it! That has been the dream for a loooong time, and G-D willing, one day I will!  

2. The best prank I ever played was in high school when me and some of my friends from choir (haha, that should be a clue of our nerdiness right there) called a girl from class and told her that if she could name all the flavors of the baskin robins ice cream she would in fact receive a free panda. Yes. A panda. she believed us. and we did buy her a little plastic panda. She was a little upset that it was fake.  

3. The scariest place I've been was the Woodman Circle house in Sherman, TX. I used to live in Dallas and many years ago the same friends mentioned above and I heard a scary story about it. So naturally we went to check it out. The story is too long to write here but it was CREE-PY. Everything was broken down and in the bathtub there was this nasty red liquid from leaves and stuff (and yes, I totally thought it was blood and freaked out). Also, no matter how many stairs we climbed, we NEVER could reach the third floor. We would go up to the second, go up another staircase and end up literally on the first floor again. WOWZA. weird. It has NOTHING to do with ghosts, but it was just old and creepy.

4. When I have kids I will make sure they know how much I love them and that G-D is always watching over them and will guide them even more than me.  

5. My favorite bible verse is Isaiah 43. Why? Because in that verse G-D promises that though trials may come, they will NEVER overtake us. Though it seems like there is no way, G-D makes streams in the desert. He loves us so much and always guides us through the desert!      

6. A song that makes me think of happy times is "There is a Mountain" by Donovan. I used to listen to this song in the summer and would go to art festivals and other things just playing this song over and over. It is a fun hippie, happy song. Being raised by my hippie mama had it's perks :)

7. If I could meet 1 literary character it would be Mina Harker from Dracula. I know it sounds weird, but I had to read this for my English class and she just seems like someone I would be interested to talk to.

And now for this week's gratefulness...

Far away friends that stay in my heart always!

Jessie, Me, Claudia and Ruti!

 I love these ladies and I am SO thankful for them. They are such strong women of G-D and they encourage me with every word, laugh and silly phrase, such as "beer me that (insert noun)" hehe.

What a weekend!

~B~

the lateful grateful and weekend recap.

   
     Another crazy week passed and another relaxing weekend as well. This weekend I got to go to a friend's baby shower which was so fun! All us girls got together and played games, gave gifts, and stuffed our faces with cupcakes and cookies. I probably gained 15 pounds. Whatever.

This leads me to this week's gratefulness which is:

the blessing of new life.

The mama! She looks BEAUTIFUL and so happy :)

    Also, after the shower the hubs was with a friend, so I took a trip to Goodwill all by myself! It was so fun! I didn't think to take pictures of the things I bought but I had more fun just looking around anyway.

Found this! So funny and slightly true.

I LOVED this movie as a kid!

The outfit for the day. I kinda like it!

How was your weekend?

~B~

Survey Saturday, dears.

     Boy, oh boy, am I happy to see this weekend. It has been a trying week fraught with many novels, foreign languages, work and very little play. However, all the craziness makes me so much more thankful for the weekend and especially for the Shabbat (Sabbath). G-D knows how we are designed (obviously, haha) and He knows that sometimes we just need to STOP, DROP, and ROLL around in His presence!

(Why yes, I did take a fire safety course today and learned a little song about 'stop, drop, and roll.')

     Now on to the survey...

 1. The most meaningful item I own is my bible. Seriously. There may come a day when we can't have His word physically, so until that day I want as much of it as I can get. It's the best road map you could ever have.

2. My favorite drink is Earl Grey tea.Last Autumn I switched from coffee to tea and I am now obsessed with it! It's so yummy and way easier on the ole belly for me.

3. The best kind of job would be one where I could write about the things I love and be able to share all the amazing things the L-RD has done for me! Oh, and travel...with my love, of course! 

4. I'm looking forward to our next trip to the beach. I don't know when it will be, but I am so so ready for the wind, waves, and wonderful RELAXATION! 

5. The best thing about this week was when Toby came to my rescue. Ok, no I was not dying or in danger, but I was very exhausted and stressed with everything going on and I was just emotionally shutting down. He got me up and put me to bed, took care of dishes and other things and just took care of me. I so needed it and it made me love him even more than I did before. What a man. G-D's faithful...so faithful :)   

6. If I wrote a book about my life I would make it set in another place and another time. The events, for the most part, would remain the same but I couldn't just write about my life. It's too personal, but also, I see my life through strange, other worldy eyes sometimes...those sort of things aren't captured among cars and planes. My imagination is rather more like Middle Earth than Middle America :)  

7. One thing I will do this weekend (besides homework you mean) will be to babysit for a friend and to just CHILL OUT and do nothing while in pajamas. Yes. Yes I will. 

Well, that's all she wrote, but one more thing...

My husband started a blog! WOO HOO! So excited to share the blogosphere with him!

I'm so proud of him. Go get to know his heart! You'll love it for sure :)

~B~

 

Grateful 52 continues! (and a weekend recap)

Well, it's funny because as soon as I mentioned my favorite kind of day on Friday, 

We got tons of rain and storms all weekend! G-D must have known :)

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend, we sure did.
G-D spoke to us in some mighty good ways
and we had such a fun time as just us birds.

And so you know, we ran out of turkey bacon so we fried turkey deli slices haha.
It tasted more like jerky, but we don't hate on the turkey for that.
The verse that G-D really put on us this week was Psalm 46. We all feel defeated at times

and we all struggle with the fact that everything in this life can be so temporal.

But sometimes, many times, we need to just stop striving and know that our mighty and loving G-D will take care of us. Even if the earth gives way...He never will :)

And now onto the third week of gratefulness!

I love having tea on Sunday mornings with Toby. 

We sit down and talk about he L-RD or just our silly things we always discuss

...important things too of course :)

He is my best friend and the best thing G-D has given me. Love you Toby!

What are YOU grateful for?

~B~

Survey Saturday

     Well, it's that time again!  I, for one, am very thankful for the weekend. 

Tonight we had Shabbat dinner and are preparing to just

RELAX.

Toby has already started relaxing because he is currently passed out on the couch next to me!

Poor sleepy thing. I'm not far behind!

Anyways, survey time!

1. The best kind of day is when the weather is slightly cold and the sky is overcast. I can sit inside and read a book, drink tea, and wear comfy, sweatery clothes! Ahhhh yes!
   
2. My favorite thing about today was when we sat down to eat the dinner I made and Toby looked at it and went "oh wow!" I love being a wife :)
   
3. I never thought that I would be a person that gets excited about things like crock-pots, cookware, and other kitchen appliances. I have a specific journal entry of mine in mind where I expressed my disdain for the fact that marriage and adulthood produced a boring and and too-docile form of enjoyment. Naturally, I grew up and that changed. I love marriage and adulthood...and kitchen appliances!
   
4. When the clock strikes midnight I am usually still awake doing homework, watching a movie, blogging, instagramming or all of the above.
   
5. When I wake up in the morning I hit the snooze way to many times and generally get out of bed late. L-RD help me!
   
6. I pick out my outfit for the day about 10 minutes before I have to leave, haha! I'm not much of a planner (although I wish I was) and even when I try to plan an outfit, I'll ending changing because I like something else or don't like what I picked. Ah, what a fickle, fickle creature I can be.
   
7. Before I go to bed I'll do all the nightly cleanliness things (brushing teeth, shower, etc.) then get in bed with my birdie, watch some TV (usually the First 48 or Forensic files), then we pray over each other and then SNOOZEVILLE. Blessed sleep. Sweet blessed sleep.
   
   
   
   Have a happy weekend and stay tuned for The Grateful 52 week 3!
   
   
   ~B~

Surprise Date Night!

So as you know, school is in full swing and, surprise surprise, Toby is actually in school too!

He got accepted into the English as a Second Language certification program (that's my bebe!) so we are both coming home and cranking out the homework.

Needless to say we are tired and stressed. 

I've been really praying for G-D to just calm us down and give us some down time. 

I come home, and Toby calls me from the road and says "you wanna go on a date?" My heart melted!

So, we had a gift card to this place called Mirko Pasta, which is really yummy, and we went! It was SUCH a nice break for both of us. We were laughing and joking like nothing else! These lovebirds know how to make a date fun :)

A display of the types of pasta they have.

Their dinner cards have little Italian sayings! Bellisimo!

P.S. I wore my new shoes :)

At the end of the night, we settled down with some hot tea, Ginger tea for me,
Kava Tea for him.

G-D is so sweet. He totally gave us the break we needed. We had a good time. 

Have you ever had little unexpected dates?

~B~