Take a deep breath....

Take a deep breath, because when you read about my busy life it is going to exhaust you just thinking about it. You will also see why I need a planner to keep everything in my life on track. This is my week starting today.

Work a 12 hour day as a group greeter. We have a special show this morning with around 20 buses to greet and a bunch of individual small groups. That means we will be seating over 1000 school kids and their chaperones. Then we have our regular shows. 

Going to go finish my Christmas shopping. Need to go to Target, Walmart, JC Penny's, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, AC Moore, Kohl's and stop by Park West Hospital gift shop for my annual Brach's Malted Milk Ball bulk buy.

Birthday dinner with the family to celebrate the upcoming birthday of my children and myself. 

After dinner - bring the three youngest grandchildren home with me to spend the entire weekend. 

Take three of The Grands shopping to help me pick out presents for their Mom's. 

Organize the line up of the Kodak Community Christmas Parade and send it on its way. Then drive a different route to be where the parade ends to make sure all children get back with their parents and to thank all the participants of the parade. 

Movie night at Mamaw's Place where we will have pizza and popcorn and have a Christmas movie marathon. 

Sunday School followed by church where we will watch the Children's Christmas play. Then out to lunch at our favorite fast food place, Wendy's. From there we are going to the movies to watch The Star. 

After movie I'll drop the kids off at their respective homes and then hurry back to church for the final practice for our choir's Christmas Cantata next week.

Then two days of working anywhere from 8 - 10 hours depending on my schedule. 

Then off for my birthday which I plan to spend making orange cookies. This is a major all day project because it makes about 72 - 96 cookies depending on size. It is a "from scratch" recipe and includes lots of steps, such as grating the zest of 6 oranges, squeezing the juice of 6 oranges, putting the frosting on every single cookie after they cool. 

Last but not least, another day off but I will be running by work to submit some of the cookies above to the Cookie Contest at work. Then back home to wrap the Christmas presents I am finishing up tomorrow. 

See, told you that this would exhaust you. And it will all get accomplished. This is why I love my life. I may go, go, go but when the end of my time here comes I can honestly say I enjoyed life to the absolute fullest.

Planning ahead to plan ahead

A post about planning for 2018 is a little premature unless you consider that I want to purchase a new 2018 planner for my Christmas gift so I can plan before New Year's. I have spent the last several mornings researching planners and have decided the Happy Planner is the one for me. I liked this one better than most but it just isn't me. I'm more a glitz and glitter gal when it comes to planners for my Thirty-One business and busy life.

So I kept looking and found a gold one. I thought "Ah-ha". Nope, this is the 2016 model. They don't make it now.

Then by accident I found it. The perfect one for me. It has some gold, but it has the signature shades of Thirty-One, pinks & turquoise. And it is affordable and at Michael's where I am going on Friday. 

It comes with monthly calendar layout pages and weekly, which is what I am looking for. 

It also comes with dividers that I just love. DREAM is one of the big catch phrases in Thirty-One so I love that one divider has a quote about dreams above and the one below that says "Stars get tangled in her hair whenever she plays in the sky." That one makes me want to reach for the stars to make my dreams come true.

I love that Michael's and Hobby Lobby carry tons of sticker packages to decorate your planner days with instead of just having pages that are bland with nothing but ink in a white space. It appeals to my creative side to have all these colors. Planners nowadays are sometimes a cross between a planner, a journal and a scrapbook. Three things I love. 

 

Not only do they have cute sayings and things, but they have little stickers for appointments, to do, etc. You can tell at a glance what you have going on in your life for any day.

 Here is a sample of how one lady has her days laid out. In addition to what comes with the planner, you can purchase inserts, note pads, etc. Or design your own pages like menus, budgets, etc. and set up your own custom planner with the unique snap ring binder.

I saw where one lady actually takes cute cards she finds and punches the holes to put them in her binder as inspiration.

You can create your own or purchase card stock pages to use to separate your sections inside each tab. 

I need this one. It is one of the most famous saying among Thirty-One gals.

You can purchase sticky notes that fit right on the calendar squares so you can see what is what at a glance for your month.

While I was on the Hobby Lobby site looking at their products, I saw a tab that said projects. So I just had to click it and oh my word! You can make your own "bling" for your planner. They are called planner charms and you hook them to the ring of your planner. Do you think I would like charms? HELLO! Have you met me? More BLING! 

Here is one sample I saw on Pinterest (well, of course you know this was all going to eventually lead to Pinterest.)

So I started looking at some Hobby Lobby charm availability. You can purchase a claw hook and chain of your choice and then you are ready to add charms.

I like the one with the state of Tennessee.

I love light pink crystals so this one is going on my wish list. Matches the pink theme with my other stuff.

I also love keys and Thirty-One uses the key symbol a lot in regards to the key to success.

I like the simplicity of the one above, but I kind of like this one as well.

I will need a pink tassel since I like tassels as well.

And I am pretty sure I will getting a 3 and a 1 charm for it.

And since the main purpose of the planner is for my Thirty-One business for next year, I have got to have a pink purse charm. 

Well, I am thinking I have probably put you on brain overload with ideas or I have put you into a coma from boredom. Either way, thanks for stopping by and let me ramble on. I tend to do that when I get this super excited.

Christmas humor

Weekend Wrap Up

Saturday I went to work at 8:00 after only about 5 hours of sleep because I was up so late watch the deer frolicking in the field. But instead of working till 10:00 they let me go home at 6:15 because I went down and worked one of the shows at our other theater, Smoky Mountain Adventures. It felt weird but it sure felt good.

Since we had a busy group day and I'm a group greeter, I decided to take my pedometer. From 9:00 when groups started arriving at Dixie till 6:15 when I was done with the last group at the other show I walked 12,341 steps. That is over 6 miles. I worked for 4 of the shows so that means I average about 3,000+ steps for every show we have. That's a lot of walking. No wonder I crash when I get home. 

I did get time for lunch and since it was a little cold being out all day, I opted from chili from Wendy's. I love their chili.

Sunday at Children's Church we did some fun decorating the hallway for Christmas after our lesson on the birth of Jesus.

I had a couple of helpers in the hallway while the rest of the class made candy canes from pipe cleaners.

Then they lined up and hung their candy canes, snowmen and snowflakes on a line down the wall.

I forgot to get the picture of the finished project. After they were done, I had some Christmas photo props so we took some pics. 

I came home and had some hot chocolate and donuts before heading out to work.

It was a great weekend. 

Sunday Song

These songs are from the Christmas movie The Star. I hope to take the grandkids to see it next Sunday.

The little things in life....

Sometimes in life we let things aggravate us and upset us. But sometimes if we didn't have those aggravations we would miss out on something joyful.

I got home from work around 11:40 last night. Movement caught my eye at the fence across from my driveway. It kind of scared me and i looked to see what it was. It was a big buck. Just standing there staring at me. I watched him about 10 minutes, I didn't move. Didn't want to scare him off. I carried stuff in the house and went back out to get my work bag and he was still there and had been joined by by two more that looked like does. The moon was out and full so I could see pretty decently. I stood there and watched and saw movement behind them and to the left of them. I came in the house, kept it dark and watched out the window. Every so often I would go back on the porch where I could see even better. They were frolicking and running all over the field. I counted about 11 or 12. They were playing so much it was hard to count. Never in my life have I seen such a sight. A siren sounded on 66 and they took off bounding back into the woods.

I was supposed to get off work at 10:00 last night. But one of the managers asked me if I could stay over to do a few things in the office. So I said yes. Normally, when I stay over it is only 15 minutes. But I forgot the show had a late start so it was even over till 20 after and then we had a few guests with questions and a couple other delays.

So instead of being home by 10:30 as I would have been, it was 11:40. We have a five show day today with more groups than I have ever worked with since I have been there. It is sure to be exhausting so my plan had been to come home and hit the bed. But these deer were so beautiful and I had never in my life saw so many just hanging out and playing the way they were. I was so mesmerized I couldn't quit watching. Bottom line is I was up until 1:10. Outside. Watching deer. Knowing I was getting up at 5:30 or 6:00 today and that I had a long day.

But as I sat there all I could thing was this. If I had left at 10:00 like planned, I would have been in bed when this all happened and look what I would have missed. So even though it was a rough night at work and ended up a little different than it should have, I wouldn't have missed what I got to see for anything.

And because I was so tired, my mind kept thinking "So this is what reindeer games looks like."

December is here!

Hello December! I have been waiting 12 months for you to arrive.

December is such a special month to me. First and foremost for the wonderful birthday of our Savior.

December is also the month I became a mother. God blessed me with a beautiful set of twins.

It's also my birth month. I was just a few days old in this picture. 

December. A time when winter coats come out and you can be all warm and cozy.

Getting to set on Santa's lap on your birthday.

December is a great time to get selfies with the grandkids. We finally captured one with all of us. Just wish the sun hadn't been so bright through the window. But I remember how many takes it took to get us all in there so I am not complaining. 

Christmas has always been a time for family. Here's one from when my twins were little and we were at Mom's with family. At this time, I had 2 nieces and one nephew. I look back on this and remember how that Christmas we were so excited because there were FIVE children in our family. Wow, we couldn't believe Mom had five grandkids. And I had THREE nieces and nephews. Now we have grown so much that I have one sister, two brothers, two children with spouses, five grandkids, six nieces, three nephews, five great nieces, and seven great nephews. And we thought this was a crowd at Mom and Dad's.

I loved seeing my babies faces on Christmas morning.

They didn't waste any time checking out the new toys.

One of our favorite Christmas's was when me and my sister got matching dolls. We got two dolls that year...the ones in the picture and we got babies in cradles. I always got dolls with the light hair and Rachel always got the dark haired. They matched us way before American girl dolls were even thought of. Check out one of our vintage Barbie cases in the floor. This was an awesome Christmas.

I miss a few years back when Santa and Mrs. Santa lived beside me. I went next door one day to take him a letter to Santa that my granddaughter Shelby wrote and asked me to deliver. He was in full attire because he had been skyping with kids in England and Russia that day. He was one of the most amazing men I have ever met. He let me take a picture of him reading Shelby's letter so I could show her he got it. He loves children. I hated when they moved.

For the past few years, I have had a visitor every Christmas. My daddy bought Edgar for me over 30 years ago to hang on a ladder Daddy made for my tree. Now Edgar hangs out with me wreaking havoc wherever he goes. Although, he can be helpful. I'm working on my Christmas menu and trying to decide for my desserts for the holidays. He's helping me look up some new ideas to try. I just wish he would leave my reading glasses alone. I need them to look at the recipes too.

I would love to reminisce all day about Christmas past. But the fact is, this is the month of Christmas present and I have a lot of stuff to do. Going to be a busy day with an even busier weekend. Then from there, it's going to stay busy until New Year's day. Hopefully I will have lots of fun to share with you. Have a great weekend.