Question Time

Today I thought I'd do something that I haven't done in a really long time and that's give YOU a chance to ask ME a question.  It can even be more than one question!  What the heck!?  Ask away!

It can be about anything, really.  Leave your question in the comments and I'll post my answers next week!  

Menu Plan Monday - January 26th

Happy Monday!

I'm feeling REALLY good about my menu this week!  Not too much pasta..., not too much ground beef...A few new recipes that I've been wanting to try for a while...It's all good!

Sunday - Bang Bang Shrimp Pasta with Salad 

Monday - Stuffed French Bread & Fries

Tuesday - Breakfast Buffet since we haven't been able to work it in the last two weeks!  Maybe this week is the charm!!

Wednesday - YOYO

Thursday - Chicken Fried Rice

Friday - Hamburger Sliders with all the trimmings

Saturday - Date Night!

Dessert for the week: Sparkling Cider Pound Cake

What's on your menu this week?  Join us at Orgjunkie.com for more menu planning and recipe ideas!

Friday Top 5

Helloooooo  Friiiiiday!!  Good grief, I'm ready for the weekend!  How about you? I'm linking up today for 5 on Friday!  Join us! 

{one.} I celebrated my birthday earlier this week!  It was a great day and I enjoyed getting to spend it with Wayne and Alise.  I can't think of a better excuse to close the kitchen for a night and eat at a restaurant with my family! And eat cake!! I'm all about the cake!

My cake was suppose to be round, but it didn't matter as long as it was chocolate!!

If you follow me on IG or FB, you might've seen some more birthday pics showing up!  I've been partying with friends all week and I love it!!

{two.} Diet Coke with lime.  Y'all.  I'm a big DC drinker.  But our cafeteria just installed one of those drink thingy machines where you can choose any version of DC from here to kingdom come!  Who knew there was Diet Coke and Raspberry {Haven't tried it yet!}?  I mean, I had heard about DC with lime, but I had never tried one until a few weeks ago and now I'm hooked!  The only thing is, our stores around here only sell it in cans and I'm use to buying two liter sizes.  Oh, well!  I'm buying cans, now and cutting back on spending my Sonic gift card.  Wayne got me a Yeti stainless steel tumbler for Christmas, so I've been drinking my DCs with lime out of it.  And y'all, I still have ice in it the next morning!  It really does keep things cold!

{three.}  I am so blessed to be Alise's mom.  I know she's not perfect.  The only thing her dad and I have ever asked from her - aside from folding a few loads of laundry {to which you woulda thought we asked her to move mountains!} - is to make good grades and to be a "good girl."  And I have to keep reminding myself that she's still a kid, but there's an expectation there that we have for her.  She can be bossy and dramatic {Guess where she gets that from!} and I know the teen years will probably send me over the edge, but one thing I've really been enforcing with her this year is be a friend.  Oh how the nit-picking and emotions have started and she complains and tattles about her friends {I have to hear it every day!}, so I'm encouraging her to rise above it!  To be the better person!  This week, an old high school friend, who has two daughters, posted this article on FB, 15 Things I Want My Daughters To Know About Being A Good Friend.  I plan on reading it to Alise this weekend and talking to her about it. Friendship is so important.

{four.}  Pave earrings.  I just can't say enough about them.  They are a neutral and go with everything!

I'm not one to match my jewelry to what I'm wearing.  I haven't jumped on the Kendra Scott or Stella & Dot bandwagons yet.  I may add a few pieces from time to time for color or bling, but I normally stick to my real stuff.  And as far as earrings go, once I get hooked on a particular style, I tend to wear the heck out of it!  I have a pair of chandelier earrings that I bought over two years ago in Baton Rouge, and I'm STILL wearing those suckers!  You've probably seen me wear them alot, too!  I get lots of compliments on them.

{five.} How about this puppy?!

Alise put Jack in one of our clothes hampers one morning before school.  The girl carries him around like he's a baby doll!  He never gets to walk because she's always holding him.  But yes, Big Mama was right when she said having a puppy is like having a baby again.  He normally wakes up at 3 AM to go out and then wants to play.  There have only been a few times we've been able to put him back in his pen and he went back to sleep.  So usually from 3 to 5 in the morning, all we do is doze, while Alise snoozes.  But she hops right up at 6:00 to take him out and feed him.  She has really been alot more responsible with Jack and I think part of that has to do with him being an inside dog.  He follows Alise where ever she goes and if she leaves the room, he starts barking.  His favorite place to hide is under our bed for some reason.  I still don't believe the crazy dog even knows him name yet!

Happy Friday Everyone!!  Enjoy the weekend!!

A Little Fashion for Wednesday

A Birthday Hangover is no fun, peeps!  I'm not talking about the alcohol kind, either.  I'm talking about the joy and excitement of the day.  January 21st is my least favorite day of the year - no offense to any of my readers out there that might be celebrating today.

We're so very proud of Baby Girl for making all A's for the first semester of 4th grade! We're just hoping she can keep up the good work, but we know she can! Alise is very smart and conscientious about her studies.  She has her written homework done by the time I pick her up from after school so most of the time, all we have to do is study for tests.  My nights of beating her over the head with a speckled notebook are very few and far between these days!  Now, if we can just get a little more practice on long division!  Ha!  Here's a picture of her on Awards Day with her homeroom teacher, Ms. O, who teaches math, science, and social studies.

And speaking of school, I attended a meeting last week for elementary baseball and softball.  Alise really wants to play school softball, but it doesn't look like we're going to have enough girls to make a team and we're really disappointed about that.  There just aren't enough girls interested in playing, even though some of them play rec softball.  Of course, the boys are a different story!  They always have enough for a team.  I guess that's what happens, though, when you go to a small private school.

I am no fashion blogger.  Let me just go ahead and state that for the record. However, I do feel - front time to time {ahem!} - that I've pulled off a rather cute look.  But my arms are too blasted short to get any good pictures and I'm not a selfie person so I'd rather not have my face and if I don't have my face, then you can't see my feet, which means I'm too short and it just goes on and on.  I'll never feel comforatable taking pictures of myself and that's why I don't normally join in on the fashion links.  Having said all that, I want to share three styles that I pulled off within the last few weeks!

Y'all don't know how many tries I had to pull off to get this one shot!  Ha!  And I still had to crop the stupid thing because our bed was unmade.  Whatever....so I wore this on our date night a few weeks ago.  Love, love, love lace and leopard! I wear leopard with everything without lace and lace without leopard and then back together...they're just classic together.  I opted for cowboy boots that night, too.  The necklace I'm wearing is my favorite and so I tend to wear it alot.  I picked it up from a local boutique.

Love my semi-puffy vest I bought locally right before Christmas.  I've worn it with so many different things!  And you can't tell it in this picture, but the zipper and buckle are gold, so that's a new twist for me since I don't wear much gold these days.  I wore this outfit to work.

You probably can't tell it, but I have about three layers on in this cropped-to-death pic!  But I love, love it!  I have on an offwhite blouse with a thin, v-necked, lace, button up duster and a brown velour adirondack jacket.  I topped it off with a light organza scarf.  How's that for detail!  This picture was taken on one of those oh-so cold mornings but by the time I got to my office and got settled, I was burning up!!  I had to ditch the jacket, but the duster hides my butt because I was wearing leggings.  This is one of my all time favorite outfits!

So that's it for style-me-Laura!

Except for...

Remember last week when I showed you the kiss-lock purse from Charming Charlie's?   Whell.  I did a little shopping in Tuscaloosa on Saturday on our way home.  I always like to go in stores at other locations to see if they have anything different than we have here in Louisiana. Whell.  I sent Leigh this picture and a text: Guess what I found!?!

Leigh and I share the same passion for the color purple!  But I just wasn't in the mood for a purple purse, so I kept looking and Alise found a red one for me, so I bought it!

And I love it!  After a little research after we got home, I realized it wasn't the exact purse I showed here on the blog last week, but it's got the kiss-lock and that's all I care about!  I plan on taking it on our cruise in the Spring!

And one more thing!  Pave chandelier earrings!  I've been in love with these suckers for nearly two years.  I just love their sparkle!  I found two pairs this weekend at Francesca's.  I wore one pair on Monday and the other yesterday for my birthday! The picture makes them look a little dull, but dull they are not! They are gold and silver and really sparkle! 

The Bobeau fleece cardigan I ordered last week from Nordstrom came in on Monday.  I haven't worn it yet, but I did try it on and fell instantly in love!  The color is not quite as bright as I thought, but I love it too much to return.  it's a keeper!!

Happy Wednesday everyone!  I'm just working for the weekend!!  How about you?!

It's My Birthday (And I'll Cry If I Want To)!

It was a long way to Alabama late Thursday night.  I'm not going to lie.  I'm not a very good car rider.  After about the first three hours, I start getting restless and antsy, so I insisted on driving the first leg to Jackson, Mississippi, where we stopped for supper.  Wayne normally drives on all our road trips because he has a really good sense of direction, where I do not.  You could blindfold me, spin me around three times, and I'd be lost!  But he drives all day for UPS and I knew he was tired and we had a long night ahead of us, so I offered. We didn't even get to our hotel room until 12:30 AM Friday. 

So while Wayne was driving, I was catching up on email, blogs, FB, & Twitter. I found THIS great article on FB and although parts of it were bittersweet, most of it was dead on.  I use to not do well with age.  I remember being so, so depressed when I turned thirty.   Finally, a sweet friend I worked with set me straight and said, "Laura, just think of the alternative.  Just think if you were no longer here."  Lydia made me realize how shallow I had been and so now, I really CELEBRATE my birthday! Wayne and Alise spoil me!!  Birthdays are always a big deal in our house!

To all my over-40 reader friends, if you've got a few minutes, read the article and let me know your thoughts. I was so surprised to see how many on the list are really true for me.  Here are a few of my comments:

#2 - I don't drink coffee so I wouldn't know what a killer cup tastes like.
#7 - I miss going out on NYE!
#10 - Who's kidding?  It's STILL embarrassing!!
#15 - Who or what the heck is Didion?
#17 - I'll never ignore the trends.
#23 - This one totally cracked me up!!  As much as I wanted to see Garth Brooks last month, we sat through most of the concert, but that's only because we had dead heads sitting around us!  
#30 - I always drive 5 miles over the speed limit.
#39 - I still struggle with this one!

And YES!  The best is yet to come!!

So yea!  The big forty-two today and I'm excited about it!  

It's crazy because I distinctly remember my dad's 42nd birthday.  I was either fifteen or sixteen and my best friend and I made my dad a birthday cake.  I remember we frosted the cake with white icing and made the numbers 4 and 2 out of blue candles. We lit the candles and sang, Happy Birthday.  And I remember thinking, Gosh!  My dad is 42 years old!  Will I ever be 42?  What will I look like?  What will I be doing with my life?  And now, today, I'm thinking about 1 Corinthians 2:9: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those that love Him."

God has truly blessed my life and more than I could have ever imagined.  His dreams and plans for me have been bigger and far better than I ever thought possible. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!