A Ketchup Post

Here's what I think we all need to do regarding mine and Matthew's life - we need to do some serious ketching up. You saw my last post where I grovelled for forgiveness from all of my friends and family. Well, the grovelling is over. I'm here. Not really - I have to go to work in about half an hour and I haven't gotten dressed yet so this is going to be a Speedy Gonzalez kind of post. Like usual. I gotta start setting aside writing time for when I get home and I'm not babysitting and I don't need to fix dinner right away. Today won't be one of those days because I'll be picking up T+L on the way home from work today.

I want to give you beautiful picture updates of everything we've done, I really do. Why am I not going to do that? Because this week just so happened to be Lara's graduation from Pre-School. No connection, you think. That's where you are mistaken. You see, Matthew and I both skipped out of work for an early lunch (really early, we left around 9:30 from our respective workplaces) in order to go to her graduation at 10. We arrived at the school (he picked me up because Food Rite is on the way from his work to her school, precious right?) just at 10:00 AM, and Lara's mommy told us that apparently the note sent home was wrong, and it didn't start until 10:30. This was a problem. We both had to be back at work pretty darn close to 10:30, and now it was looking more like we wouldn't be able to leave until like 11:00. Matt did some quick finagling and called up Nanny to come watch her graduate in our stead. We stayed justttt long enough to see Miss Adorable herself looking all kinds of cute and super excited about graduating, and then we had to skip out. We gave Nanny the camera, though, so all of my pictures that I've taken over the last 2 or 3 weeks are MIA until I get it from her. She has requested a date with her grandchildren tomorrow, though, so I'll make sure to exchange camera for babies tomorrow.

What else has happened? Hm..............................................

Here are some pictures that I owe from awhile back that never quite made it into posts. That's a bit of what has happened. :)

Lara - Look Mawy I can drive with my eyes closed!! She was very impressed with herself.

Lara inside of a set of tires being a ham as usual. We couldn't get Thomas to do the same...they have very different opinions of pictures being taken of them.

Lara the future mechanic learning from Daddy

This picture warrants some serious explanation. We are in the Walmart parking lot where we had to wait an hour for our pictures (Daddy's birthday present) to be done. The kids had gotten new umbrellas for Easter which they were obsessed with, but hadn't gotten to use for real since it hadn't rained yet. I promised to keep them in the trunk of the car so we could use them if it started to rain while we weren't at home. While we were waiting at Walmart, the rain started. For awhile we played in the empty part of the parking lot, over by the pharmacy. This didn't last long, though, because I didn't have an umbrella so I was cold and wet. I had the absolutely brilliant idea to get back in the car, recline the two front seats, and open the sun roof. My car became an instant April Wonderland. The next picture is also a very cute representation of what we got up to while we were waiting.

So happy that it finally started raining!

Thomas loves science projects. We found this one in a Family Fun magazine (Thanks Aunt Sue!) We created a balloon zipline where the air in the balloon is the force which carries a drinking straw down a line of dental floss. They loooved it. We kept it up all weekend and there are still balloons floating around! Not literally floating...I guess sitting. Sitting around.

Once the balloon is off, there is serious excitement in watching it fly 10 feet by itself. See here - excitement. I'm not entirely sure what Lara is grabbing onto. I guess maybe the balloon. She caught it mid-flight!

So there ya go. A little bit of all the fun we've gotten up to. But wait, there's more! More to come whenever I get the camera back from Nanny.

See Y'all!
TFMM

Back to the 21st Century we Go!!

The internet's back on, the air conditioning is fixed. I mean, we are seriously living the dream now kids. To celebrate living that dream, I think I will go back to the dark ages and do some sewing. It only makes sense.

For those of you who read my last blog post and noticed the mention of fishing last weekend, here you go. I couldn't find them while I was writing the post, but they were hidden within the folds of my computer (Read: folders. Hardeehar)

Thomas' fish and very attractive father.

Lara's fish and very excited father.

Pretty flowers that Nanny picked for the young fishergirl.

Can't say that I have much more to write about, but I figured everyone would appreciate a little bit of T+L as usual.

Whatever is Wonderful Wednesday

Ignore the fact that I have probably failed to post this for the last 4 or 5 Wednesdays. I blame the internet. WHICH starts me off on my first most very wonderful thing that has ever happened to me ever:

1. The internet is back on, home skillets!!

This is how I felt yesterday when I finally sat down with the confidence that I could finish a blog post and a conversation with my brother without having to be interrupted by the worst internet ever. I asked the technician fellow what was wrong with it and he said, "What wasn't wrong with it is the better question." Apparently the wire going from our house to the nearby telephone pole was all sorts of beat up and had water in it and shorts in the wire. Well good! I like it when they can actually find a problem, not just keep fixing random things and "hoping it helps." But I am a little worried that someone took off their shorts on our property...;-)

2. It was Matthew's birthday and he is just the wunnerfullest. I sure do like him a lot. I think I may marry that guy. We both consume too much coffee for our young age, love Top Gear, and know all the words to a wide selection of Weird Al Yankovic songs. If that's not the ABC's for a happy marriage, then I don't know what is!

3. Need I say more? Well alrighty, I shall. On Sunday I got to be at church for like...4 hours. Which I kind of missed. When I get home on Sunday afternoon after morning service it's hard for me to not feel obligated to clean up the weekend messes from hanging out with T+L or work on the yard or something. (Or help Matt with the Datsun, since Sunday is normally his big day to do a good chunk of work on it) So it was sort of refreshing to know I could just go back to church at 4:00 PM this last week! I decided to try out choir practice, which is why I went back for an evening service which I do not normally attend. And I'm really glad I did! Between choir practice and evening service, they do Discipleship Training, which really goes back into the morning's sermon and picks it apart in a more scholarly fashion. I felt like I was actually learning the backstory of the sermon, which is pretty interesting to me. So I think I'll go again. Matt came with me and read a book during choir practice, and we stayed for the whole Discipleship Training and evening service. He said he liked it too, but I do feel bad that we would be taking such a huge chunk out of his day of rest/productivity if we made a regular thing out of it. :-) We'll see.

4.  I taught myself how to play Freecell while our internet was down, no big deal. :P

5. My wedding is in 1 month, 1 year, and 1 day. ^_^ Be there or be LAAAAAAAME, BRO.

Well there ya go!
See Y'all!
TFMM

Celebrating Matthew

Hey All. There are a lot of updates I owe you. A lot of things have happened. Weather has changed, the kids have gotten taller, our internet is rubbish, Matthew got in a bike wreck, but I haven't the time for all those things. Here's what I need to talk about: my fiance is an old man. That's right I said it. He turned a whopping 24 years old on Saturday, right smack dab in between Earth Day and that other infamous holiday in which illegal things are done that of course I know nothing about because I've never known anybody that ever did anything illegal, especially drugs. I've just heard of the day from those rogue ne'erdowells over back in England, and of course, Amsterdam.

So what did we do? Well, since it wasn't on either day, we didn't take part in either festivities. No illegal substance consumed, no trees planted. We did, however, have a big ole day of fun-filled adventures!

Originally, the plan was to do some more fishing like we did last Saturday.

That wasn't an option, though, because the weather was disgustipating. So, instead, Matthew told me he wanted to run his first 5k in 8 months. Sure, why not? Mr. Muscles and the family all drove down to Dyer
School and stood out in the frigidity. Lara seems to be lacking a lot in coordination these days...when Matt picked her up from Granddaddy's house on Thursday, she had a huge gash on her leg from falling down the stairs. Then on Saturday she tripped at the 5k and got a bloody nose and skinned her knee, ripping her jeans. She hasn't quite figured out that when you're as delicate as a china doll, ya can't run around like a sumo wrestler. Oh well, it only looks a little bit like her father beats her, and I'm sure anyone that knows Matthew knows that's not the case.

So how did he do? 2nd in his age group, which I say is not half bad given his herniated disc and pinched nerve and he hasn't run at all since September. Not bad at all my friend, not bad. Although I have been keeping him in shape and on his toes since February when he started chasing me all over the place to try and tickle me. Apparently the squeals are cute, and by cute I think he means torturous and I'm not responsible for any injuries inflicted. I'm a pretty quick little whippersnapper, so he's got to be fast to keep up with me. I also always wear socks if I'm inside, so I can slip around the hardwood floors that he sticks to in bare feet. Mwahaha.

Aside from being 2nd in his age group, he also placed 24th overall. I told him I knew he would have gone faster if it wasn't his 24th birthday, but he decided to be cool and come in 24th in celebration of his age. In fact he counted all of the people in front of him to make sure that he was in exactly 24th place by the finish line. :) He's so clever.

Crossing the finish line!

Then we relaxed at Matthew's house for awhile, and gave him his birthday present from all of us - a big framed print of this:

That Lara is just a pretty lady isn't she?!

The rest of the afternoon was spent...asleep. Everybody fell asleep without meaning to, for two hours. This was great and refreshing, except that I was the first one to wake up and look at the clock. That mean ole clock told us we only had about 10 minutes to get ready before we had to leave for a birthday grill out in honor of Teri (Matt's sister whose birthday was last week) and Matt. So Matt jumped in the shower (still gross and sticky from the 5k, bleck) and the kids got socks and shoes on and we headed out for an evening of fun and festivities!! And cupcakes. A huge number of cupcakes. Toni (Matthew's other sister) made beautiful vanilla cuppycakes with blue frosting and sprinkles, super cute. And I went crazy on the chocolate route and made Nutella-filled cupcakes with Nutella frosting, and Mocha cupcakes with chocolate frosting. We all felt a bit dead after the dessert course.

After a grand ole evening of hot dogs, burger, spicy sausages, and mac n' cheese...and cupcakes o' course, we all headed home serenaded by Silly Songs with Larry and put the kids to bed.

And now the internet seems to be fixed! Yippie kie yay!

Still don't have a real job apart from subbing. If anyone wants to help me out here, I would appreciate it! I need a regular paycheck!

See Y'all!
TFMM

Whatever is Wonderful...Thursday

Sorry folks, again I am a day late on my hardly regular Wednesday post. This time I have a better excuse, though, because the internet was down litttt-er-all-y all day. Sounds incredibly frustrating (trust me, it was...especially with the job and college applications on which I spend most of my productive hours working), but really it spurred on the wonderfulness of yesterday:
1. The lack of productivity inside the house kept pushing me outside and outside and outside! Oh boy was it ever worth it! Just now I am watching the sunrise outside the back of the house on the back porch. The whole weather and look of things reminds me very much of this:

Which is great.

2. I got a sunburn yesterday. This is one of my tricky ones that doesn't sound all that wonderful until the explanatory process is finished. Here's why it was wonderful: it was March 14th. In the middle of March, I was able to go on a walk at 11:30 AM in 80 degree weather with a gentle breeze. My walk lasted a bit longer than an hour...I think about 3 or 4 miles, and I have a nice bit of color on my cheeks and shoulders. It feels great. Also, I made a new friend on my walk!

He stuck around with me for about 1/2 a mile before he stopped in the middle of the road and watched me keep on walking. He said he was very sorry, but he's not allowed to go any further from his house, so enjoy my walk and have a great day. Haha, I have another closer picture of him, but I don't want to embarrass him...he was using the facilities when I got around to getting my camera out.

Today I doubt I'll be adding to the summertime skin, since it's forecasted to thunderstorm (again, March. Schwa?) but I hope to continue the walking thing regularly until it's too hot to step outside for that long. I know those days are coming!

3. None of us fell victim to the Dreaded Pink Eye, miraculously! Not even I, who lacked the caution one night to wash my hands after administering eye drops to the invalid's eyes (Matt pointed this out when I started to rub my eye about half an hour later), or who hung out with her a whole day alone on Friday. In fact, it seems she managed only to infect her little brother Hudson since Sunday at Mommy's house, and he's doing much better. Hooray for jumping that hurdle! Let's hope it stays jumped. Also, on that note, did you know that kids are prescribed Amoxicillin for pink eye nowadays? Isn't that weird? I mean, in our family, half of us developed an immunity to Amox* by the time we were 10 because it was prescribed for every little thing, but now pink eye? Isn't that just going to further immunize kids against it? I was a little confused. Especially because Lara was given this ginormo bottle and only takes a tsp. twice a day. If she stayed on the bottle until it was finished, it would take months! All for pink eye? Perhaps this is totally normal. It seems extreme to me.

4. Coffee is. Enough said :D

5. It's Thursday! Which are always wonderful when they come around every 7 days or so becausseeee...Matt gets to start his weekend with the kids! And I have lots of babysitting this weekend because Matt has to get orientated to Walmart on Saturday, plus I'll probably pick them up from school today and tomorrow. :) Hooway!

This is what it looks like outside right now. I'm so blessed!

Now I'm going to head inside because the sun started to come up...and now is hiding behind clouds, presumably for the rest of the day. And it's cold.

See Y'all!
TFMM

Whatever is Wonderful - Woopsie!

Haha so in case you didn't realize, folks, it's Thursday. I didn't realize it, so I thought I would bring it to everyone's general attention in case you, like I, were a day behind. Man, I don't know how people keep up with these crazy blog things! I guess, maybe, it's more motivation to write a post when you don't do the same thing every single day, unlike myself. Anyway, there's my excuse for skipping Wednesday's regular post. At least I have to regular posting days! I need to just keep adding a day every few weeks, and eventually, I will be updating every day.

Here's what was wonderful yesterday ;):

1. My wonderful future-mother-in-law got me introduced and into the system of substitute teachers at Mckenzie School District within about an hour of arriving there! It sure does help to have connections sometimes, huh? I haven't gotten any assignments yet (oh just trust me there WILL be a post about my first day, whenever it may come), so I'm considering applying to a few other school districts just in case it takes a little while for a reputation to build with local schools. The point is, though, Shelia was the biggest help and I just could not have done any of it without her.

2. Matthew is just...wonderful. He deserves a whole Wednesday post dedicated to him. Did you know: Exactly seven months ago today, he was driving me to the airport in Jacksonville after John and Jessica's wedding. Such a gentleman :) and still proving himself today. But really, only seven months! I can't believe he's only been in my life that long.

3. I was sick on Sunday! That wasn't wonderful at all, but after just two days of feeling awful and wanting to sleep allll day (which is what I did, which is why I think I feel so much better) I am almost 100% better! I have a lot of chest congestion still, but the general fog has lifted and I am back to my normal level of energy. I know, watch out world. Hehehe.

4. Matthew got a second job! I'm posting this as wonderful mostly to convince myself that it is. It means he'll basically have a whole second paycheck every week just for savings, which is great. It also means he will work from 8:00 AM until 10:30 some nights, so I'll hardly see him. Luckily, it's all very transient and he will only keep the job for as long as he can stand it. I feel his bad for his poor leg that hurts so much after just an 8-hour day! What on earth will it feel like with an extra five tacked onto that four nights a week? Sheesh! Pray for him and his leg!

5. On Tuesday, Matthew's mom and I went over to his sister Toni's new house over in Milan. It is SOOO gorgeous! I am really happy for her. This is one of the ones I would have taken pictures of, but I didn't want to seem weird for going around her new house taking pictures of random stuff. Anyone who is friends with Toni can wait and see for themselves. All other Pennsylvanians will just have to imagine how nice it is. Not bad, not bad at all for a first house! Man it's pretty! Another wonderful part of this was Matthew's mom brought with her fixings to make a snack which was, if I do say so myself, super delish. It was basically an entire can of crescent rolls, rolled out on a cookie sheet, cream cheese spread on top of that, cooked ground sausage on top of that, and another full can of crescent rolls on top baked in the oven. It was crazy good! I encourage y'all to try it. Mom, if you can think of chicken packets, these would be sort of like sausage packets instead of chicken. Supahgweat.


So there's some wonderfulness to get you through the day. If any Tennesseans are reading this right now, you might need it with this weather! It's forecasted to be gloomy and doomy for the whole weekend. Blergh!  I think some serious puddle jumping is in order!

See Y'all!
The future Mrs. McCaslin

Whatever is Wonderful Wednesday

There's a lot of wonderfulness right now, guys. Prepare yourself.

1. It is so unbelievably warm outside...I'm just in shock! Yesterday night when Matt and I were working on the car, it was so warm outside at 9:00 PM that we didn't need coats on! The high yesterday was 75 degrees. 75! It was even that warm after a big ole thunder shower right before noon. Crazy talk. I am soooo not complaining. Hopefully I can handle the summer heat, with as warm as it is right now!

2. My darlingest future mother-in-law. She is being so incredibly helpful with finding me a job. I mean, she's practically doing all the work for me! I'm so thankful for such a generous and helpful person watching out for me and helping along the way. I may not be unemployed forever with her help! Wouldn't that just be nifty?!

3. My Fair Wedding, Say Yes to the Dress, AND Whose Wedding is it Anyway? are all available for Instant Download on Netflix. How cool is that?! And that's not all either because it also applies perfectly to Matt's boy TV needs, as we can also get every episode of Top Gear, Sons of Guns, and Top Shot. Best. Investment. Ever.

4. I am a registered voter. I have a driver's license. I've been fingerprinted and applied to substitute teach at Mckenzie Special School District. I have a car. My application is being processed at the University of Tennessee at Martin. I guess I really live here guys! So cool.

5. The church is just great. The pianist/Thomas' music teacher/pastor's wife told me I had a lovely voice and should sing a special last Sunday. Isn't that lovely?

Okay, there's my five ;) off to work on a Datsun update!

See Y'all!
The future Mrs. McCaslin

Whatever is Wonderful Wednesday

1. Last night before I went to Dyersburg to meet Matthew for our date to go eat sushi and see The Vow, I put in a load of laundry and completely forgot about it until this morning. Knowing for sure that it would all have mildewed somewhere in the space of 20 hours, I opened the washing machine to start it all over again. By some Washing Machiracle, none of the laundry had mildewed! What a great way to start my chores for the day!

2. Matthew didn't crash his bike on the way to work today even though it had rained, and this is the first time he's ridden it since summer. Hooray for fiances staying alive!

3. This Saturday, there will only be 15 months until Mr. McCaslin and I are getting married. We will certainly have to celebrate.

4. We're finally out of ice cream and brownie scraps, so I don't feel obligated to eat dessert after every meal...when there's pressure like sweets that need to be used up, it's a lot harder to resist the urge to eat junk food.

5. My second box of clothes and things I need for my bedroom arrived yesterday. Now I have more or less a full wardrobe! Hooray!


Edit as of 12:18 PM, Wednesday got even more wonderful.
6. My FREE replacement Kindle just came from the UPS guy (who looked about 16, weird) and is charging on my laptop as you read this! Thank you again to Andres, you random Amazon customer service employee who decided that my leaning on my Kindle screen with my elbow was "involuntary damage" and I could get a replacement one for free. I have no idea why you thought so, but I'm glad you did.

Think on these things.

Positive thinking - putting things into perspective and realizing which mountains are really molehills - is one of the most important parts of my life. I am not one to dwell or hold grudges for even a second longer than I have to. The title of this blog, not to mention my whole life, blossoms from my very favorite Bible verse that encourages believers to put that into practice, Philippians 4:8.

Finally brethren, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.

The next two years are going to be full of adventure for me, so I thought a blog covering the many things I'm  figuring out would be fun documentation as well as an excellent way to keep in touch with all of the many many friends I have all over the world. I can't wait to see where God takes us next.

Until next time,

The future Mrs. McCaslin