A Good Hair Day and Yummy Lunch!

Well, I had the day off today from work and it has been a pretty productive day so far! I got about 80% of my homework done, which means I will be able to observe Sabbath on Sunday! I have started making a point to observe Sabbath every Sunday starting from Saturday night at dinner to Sunday night after dinner. It has been such a great, relaxing time for me and I know Scott enjoys having my time :-) I feel so refreshed by the end of the weekend! God knew what he was doing when he created a day of rest! I highly recommend it!

So, I have developed a habit of not showering since graduate school started... Okay, so that's not entirely true. But my poor hair gets washed about every 3rd day, and when it does get a good scrubbing, man! The difference! Another good thing from God--hygiene. I highly recommend this, too! My hair was suffering from the Houston elements, natural (but not too much) grease, and 2 days of hair elastics for my ponytails. I took a long, hot shower this morning, blow dried my hair, and voila! Perfection!

My clean, fresh hair!

I also wanted to share my delicious lunch with you all... I made myself a pita sandwich with cream cheese, peanut butter, honey, and apple! The combo may sound weird, but it was every bit of creamy, nutty, sweet, and crunchy that I wanted :-)

(I had already taken a couple of bites by the time I got out my camera! I couldn't resist!)

Scott and I are going on a retreat this weekend with our Bible study group to Hearne, TX!! My grandparents' stomping grounds! One of the elders at our church, Jack Wisdom, and his family own property out there and they graciously offered it to us for the retreat. We leave tonight when Scott gets off of work and we will return on Sunday afternoon with smiles and lots of pictures to share!

Well, I need to make some cookies before we go!

We love you all so much and wish you a restful weekend!

Tracy Porter!

Friends and Family--

I know this is kinda random, but I follow the Tracy Porter blog and she is just a fireball of inspiration, good design, encouragement, and life! I really enjoy reading her blog and soaking up her good ideas for food and design and now she has a new radio show!

Click on the link to the right to check it out.

Blessings.

Halloween party

Well, we hosted our first BIG party in our SMALL apartment and it was a flying success! We spent the first several hours of our Halloween day doing a deep-clean/reorganization of the apartment, which ended in a decent pile of things to put in our garage sale next weekend, hurray! Before we knew it, it was time to start making a few treats for our guest and decorating the house. My ONLY decorating purchase was a $3.00 bag of fake cobwebs and a $1.00 bag of plastic spiders. I was determined to use what I had around the house to make things look creepy and fun! After pulling and stretching the polyester webbing across various surfaces in the house and tucking in spiders here and there, I believe we achieved the spooky, old, haunted look we were going for! Scott made a delicious appetizer of mozzarella cheese, cherry tomatoes, and basil on a toothpick while I made homemade sugar cookies with orange-colored cream cheese frosting. We also made a cranberry-raspberry punch that was pretty tasty.

The table! I should have zoomed in for more detail pics, but this will suffice.

Creepy cobwebs....ooooo.....

And spiders!

As I mentioned before, Scott and I went as the Mac and PC characters from the Mac vs. PC commercials. People definitely caught on once we introduced ourselves. There was a variety of fun costumes present at the party including skyscrapers, an African woman, a parrot, a bear, a baseball player, and Superman, to name a few. I think the overall turnout was about 25 people and yes, they were ALL crammed inside our little apartment! It was so much fun though. Our neighbor, Sarah, brought over some old scary movies that we played on mute with Michael Jackson's "Thriller" record providing the audio--it was quite a hilarious combo! By midnight, everyone had left and we, surprisingly, had little clean up to do the next morning.

Hannah: "Hello, I'm a Mac." Scott: "And I'm a PC."

I really hope you all have seen these commercials...

Scott and our neighbor's boyfriend, Tim, crashed on the couch after everyone left.

Sarah and I just laughed...

We had such a great time putting everything together and spending time with all of our friends. We will be hosting a Christmas party in December! Fun, fun!

Well, I am approaching my last month of class for this semester! After this week, I have 2 weeks of class, Thanksgiving, then one week of class and finals! I can't believe this semester has come to close so quickly. It wasn't as frightening as I thought it was going to be. Stressful... yes, at times. But, overall, a wonderful experience and I look forward to more!

Blessings to all and to all a good night.

Cooler Weather

Friends and Family,

Houston has been graced with chilly weather on this All Hallows Eve! The high today is 65 and it has only just hit 62 degrees! Fall in Texas is my favorite time of year, easily. Sunshine, cool breeze, long-sleeve shirts, and soup! Such a yummy season.

This week has been so relaxing. This was my first week without midterms in about a month, so I have just been floating because nothing is baring weight on my shoulders! I find my feet inches off of the ground sometimes! It's refreshing. Scott is happy, too, because I have not been spending every minute of free time studying.

Scott and I are hosting a Halloween party at our place tomorrow night! We invited friends from our Bible study group and neighbors in the complex for a night of costumes, Halloween movies, and food! It is the first Halloween party I have ever hosted, so hopefully all goes well. Scott and I are dressing up as a Mac and a PC, like the commercial. It is truly fitting for us since I use a Mac and he uses a PC and we often have the "which one is better" debate. Plus, we had no money for costumes so dressing up in normal clothes will be perfect! I hope you all have seen these commercials, otherwise this costume probably makes no sense!

Work was really slow today, but it was nice to pick up a few extra bucks. The usual Taft Street Coffee faces came through today, despite the chilly weather. Soup and lattes were a popular buy and for good reason! I think I had three cups of Earl Grey tea throughout my shift to keep my innards warm!

Here is part of our week in pictures:

Just cleaning the house!

Our friends were having a "pumpkin party" last weekend and Jesse and Scott decided to see how far apart they could get and still catch a tossed pumpkin. Well, they found out when it busted!

Scott made a really yummy pumpkin pie cheese cake! It was de-lish!

Scott made us gallo pinto for dinner one night, topped with a fried egg, and a glass of orange juice! It was FANTASTIC!

Well, that is all to tell for now! We love you all.

Have a safe and candy-filled Halloween!

Sickness and health

To all of my faithful readers (i.e. my grandparents--I love you for reading this blog and keeping up with us!),

Sickness:

I have been sick this week with some sort of weird cold. Not the flu, thank goodness. I had a pretty bad headache for 5 days, a sore throat, and a little cough. I kept my headache under control by way of modern medicine (ibuprofen and Tylenol), but as soon as my brain assembled the troops for answering questions on my midterms this week, the headache would resurface. I came out of midterms just fine, though! Hurray! When not forcing myself to study, I was snuggled deep in the depths of our wonderfully broken-in navy blue leather couch (a donation from Mema and Papa--we love it!) with my head buried in a feather pillow and a bottle of ibuprofen close by...

Health:

Oh, what the healthy must do to care for the sick! Scott, bless his little soul, tried to take care of me despite our distance during the day. I would receive text messages on my cell phone in the middle of the day saying things like, "Have you taken more medicine?", "Why don't you go home and rest", and "Skip class so you can sleep". He cooked me dinner, cleaned the house, and watched movies with me all week. And shared a bed with me at his own risk... I will probably be returning all favors in the next week or so.

I am feeling great today, though! I asked my boss for a shorter shift at work today so I could go home and get more rest, to which he agreed. Thanks, boss. I went to Bed Bath and Beyond after work and bought WAY too many candles! I had this brilliant idea to make some cute Fall candles by gluing acorns in neat little designs around the candle holders, so naturally I bought $75.00 worth (oops) of votive candles, candle holders, and big candles. Not to worry, though, I bought all of it with our left over wedding gift cards and actually came out of the deal with $50 left! What little fancy will I indulge in with the remaining money.... time will tell! Once I have completed the project, I will post pictures. Some of you may be getting one of these as a gift sometime soon :-) I used some of them just around the house to add a little extra sparkle and shine. You should have seen me flitting about our little apartment like some sort of candle fairy, lighting as I went! Here are some pics:

Four candles above our entertainment center...

One on our dining room table...

And... let's count... 9 on the entertainment center!

I dotted the rest of the house with candles as well... They are just so elegant and serene :-)

Have a great weekend!