IPHONE=DEAD

Well I blogged all week about everyday of the honeymoon. I had recorded pictures and memories on my phone and of course on the last day... The day I was going to post everything my phone completely died. :( Yes this is a very sad day. Thankfully everything I have on my phone (picture wise) I have on my camera. The only thing I am missing is the record of all the things we did.

Shannon let me download this app so I could see if I could pull up my old drafts but no luck! If I get my phone to work again I will be posting my week. If not, maybe I will just write them over while they are still fresh on my mind. I don't ever want to forget our wonderful honeymoon together! :)

On our way home now we left at 3am our time (4am where we were) and we only have 6 hours left. We are trying to miss all of the traffic!

Promise I will be back to blogging in no time! I have much to tell. :)

Oh and if you are trying to call or text me... Sorry I'm not answering!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Yesterday was a little busy but nothing too demanding. I woke up and went and ate lunch with in Starkville. Then u drove to West Point to tan. Someone please remind me to go to the tanning bed early so I don't sweat to death! I really need to get a lot darker for the wedding! Ah! Only one more week!!

We walked again today at the Riverwalk only this time we walked the whole track which is about 4 1/2 miles. I ran some of it but there were just too many people for me to run through so I decided to walk instead. When the summer has been here a while people will get off their health kick and go back to their every day lazy self so I will have room! :) (not nice to say but it's true and you know it). There was a lady yesterday wearing a jumpsuit that looked like aluminum foil. I couldn't help but laugh it was funny! And it was also 91 degrees!

I'm going to be nice from here on out I promise!

So, I showed you all how horrible of a cook I am. I think I was even described as a bad future wife for my cooking skills. Well kiss my foot because last night I redeemed myself!

This my dear, is perfect cornbread! It was amaze! I made purple hull peas and Chicken Alfredo to go with. We also had some of grandmas salsa on the peas. (When I say we... I mean I). Now that I have talked about my cooking let me give you some background.

Monday we went to grandmas house to get one of my bridesmaids fitted for her dress. Of course grandma is going to have vegetables every time you come over so she went out to the shed and started getting out canned vegetables. After she brought it all inside she showed us how to make homemade cornbread. I called her last night to ask what kind of oil to put in the peas... I said olive Shannon said vegetable... I won! Then she said the words that got me worried... "do you have your cornbread in the oven?"...

This is when I have to tell the truth and say... "I don't remember how to make it"

Grandma is a patient lady so she stays on the phone with me as she tells me her measurements. When we were at her house and she said one cup she just poured, 1/4 she used her hand, anything else she just poured so I was worried when she wanted me to use a measuring cup. But it turned out perfect! Don't believe me... look at the picture crazy!!

My Future Home

While in the waiting room, I find the bathtub of my dreams! Yes, those words came out of my mouth. Here it is:

This will go great in my bathroom!! Also, while eating lunch at The Java Cafe in Aberdeen, MS I found the sink that I just have to have. Yes, I went to the bathroom to take a picture of their sink.

While I'm finding new bathroom accessories I decided to go furniture shopping and this is what I found!!

I also want half of my house underground. I think it will be just fine if it looks like this!

Of course with a room located in the center so that I can escape tornados! I think I would feel a lot safer if I had this!

Of course I will not have this house for a while but a girl can dream right?

Today Shannon and I went walking with some friends at the Riverwalk in Columbus. It was relaxing the first mile but on the second mile my knee started acting up. I know I probably could have prevented this with my knee brace but it was just so hot! We walked a total of 2 miles. Let's just say I am very out of shape! I took my camera to take pictures but it was too heavy to carry. (yes, this shows how out of shape I am). Hopefully I will be in better shape soon! I swear I think I obtained abs today!! :)

Tonight I'm watching The Voice. It was so extremely hard for me to figure out which one I was going to watch... The Voice or Body of Proof. Such a tough decision! Thought I would give twitter commentary along with The Voice so that made my choice pretty easy!

Have a good night! - Jess

Confessions of a Non-Domestic Goddess

So... I have been working on my cooking since I am not that good at it. Shannon has decided that I need to cook every night this week so that I can get used to it. Me and Anna went to my grandma's house today and she taught us to cook homemade cornbread and showed us how to fix just about everything else in the kitchen. When I got home I decided to use some of the food that she sent home with me and cook some chicken to go along with the vegetables.

LET'S JUST SAY I FAILED... MAJORLY!!!

Shannon ate every bit of his and told me that it was wonderful!! I love that he loves me enough to eat my burnt food!

I am now looking for a new recipe to try for tomorrow night! Hopefully this one will work out a little better than the one I tried tonight! Wish me luck!

Saturday May 7, 2011

This...

is my best friend!!

I fell in love with this hat so I made her wear it. She was very Royal Weddingish!!

And of course I had my sprite and crackers... if only I could have had one day this week that I was not nauseous.

And our mom's finally meet, how fitting the day before mother's day!

My grandparents, Shannon's Mom, My Mom and ME

Me and Shannon's Family

Me and My Twinkie!

Me and My Bridesmaids!!

I think it is safe to say that I had a wonderful bridesmaid luncheon Saturday! Me and The Best Friend went for a massage, shopping, and The Olive Garden afterwards and had a blast! I felt like an old lady driving an hour and a half back home by myself at 10:30, I think we know who hasn't been out lately!! Not much longer now until we say, "I Do!"

Late Night Blogging Gone Wrong - I forgot to submit!! Oops!

Thought I would share this while I still cannot fall asleep! As you know I printed out my own wedding invitations and although I sometimes wish I had not I will always remember spending this time with my mom.

The printer was acting up and would only let you put one piece of paper in at a time. Other than that, every time it would print one page it would have to wait for at least five minutes before it would print another page.

I am going to go on the record and say that the gender of my printer is... Female!

Obviously there is a cleanliness issue that she just has to solve right away before she can complete the original task at hand.

But then it gets worse!! She is going through Menopause!!

The lady is having a hot flash for goodness sake! Give her some breathing room!

Memories are made in a second so make sure you make the best of every second you have!

Night y'all! :)

05-05-2011 Happy Anniversary To Us!!

Well... it is anniversary time around this household! Today, Shannon and I have officially been together for 2 years! Thankfully my hair has grown out in this time and I am able to make cuter pictures. But since I guess we are already here I will show you some of our first together!

Here is our first picture together:

Obviously we had a little finger in the way thanks to Cassie but we still got our first picture out of the way. It looks like I was not the only one who was having a bad hair day! (Sorry babe!)

Our First Holiday: (Halloween)

Our First Hunting Trip:

Our First Christmas Tree:

Our First Christmas Picture:

Our First New Years Together:

Our First House:

Our First Get Together at The House:

First Braves Game:

My Engagement Ring!!:

My First Sign and His First Job as an NP:

First New Vehicle:

Okay, I guess I just have big dreams!!

Happy 2nd year anniversary to Shannon and I! By the way, I am sure that there will be a post similar to this May 15th - The Day We Became Engaged!!! and probably a week after May 21st - Our Wedding Day!!

Thanks for reading and I feel a pretty nifty project coming on soon! :)

Happy Thoughts!!

Well since I just spend 2 hours on my last post I decided that I needed to cheer up my blog a little bit. There was just a little bit too much sadness in that last one! I have to admit I cried a little. On to something a little happier...

1. On Thursday Shannon and I will be a happy couple for 2 years! Yes it is hard to believe that two years ago on Thursday I sat in a clothes basket in my parents laundry room and talked to that boy for 6 hours. Well, obviously I did not sit in the clothes basket for the full 6 hours because my phone continuously died but, you try keeping a full battery for 6 full hours!! Just to wierd you people out a little bit the first thing we realized we had in common was our interest in John Wayne Gacy and crawl spaces. I wrote a paper about him in High School I am sure in those six hours we talked about high school and this is how this subject came up. Strange I know!

2. On the 15th of May Shannon and I will be engaged for a year! He proposed at the Botanical Gardens in Atlanta, Georgia which I believe is one of the most beautiful places! I do not have the pictures uploaded on this computer so I will share them closer to the fifteenth!!

3. We are getting married the 21st of May!! I know, we broke our rule of 5. We started seeing each other on the 5th, were engaged on year later on the 15th but the 25th landed during the week so it was not ideal for the wedding! Oh well, at least we got almost ten days apart!

4. We will be headed to the Mountains for our honeymoon and I cannot wait! I have never been to the mountains so this will be a new adventure for me. I am not really outdoorsy I am more of a beach bum. Maybe nature will be nice to me!

5. We get to come home and relax as a happily married couple and then I leave for the beach. I know, I know, I am going to be a horrible wife by leaving my husband two weeks after the wedding but he seems to be okay with it. :)

I will be so busy between now and the wedding... I have to:

1. Write thank-you cards for the wedding gifts. (Seriously if you would like to help me sort through all of them I would appreciate it, they are stacked and stacked in the living room until we have no room to walk!)

2. Call the photographer - I really forgot what I was suppose to call her about but it has something to do with pictures I am sure!

3. Call the lady who is doing the cake! Oh my goodness do not let me get started on this one! I am so far behind! I should probably meet her in town tomorrow, in fact I am writing myself a note right now to do that!

4. Finish my observation hours in my classroom.

5. Write 2 more papers and 2 more power points for my class assignments. All work and observations have to be finished by the 16th.

6. Get dresses fitted and decide to tell bridesmaids that they just need to wear shoes I do not care if they match. Too much trouble for them to get matching anything.

and... BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

I can really make a happy situation turn into a stressful one! I got stressed out just typing that last part! Oh well, guess that means bed time is coming soon!!

Busy day tomorrow!! Goodnight Loves!

End Of April

Well, I just wanted to get this out here so maybe it will stop bothering me as much as it has. I really do not think that it will for a while but this is worth a try. For those of you who do not know I am from Monroe County, Mississippi with over half of my family living in Smithville. The day that the tornado came and destroyed the area I truly believe that God did not want me to see or know what was going on at that second. (I say second because it did not take very long to take so many lives). The power went off at my house, my parents house, my brothers house, basically everyone's house that I tried... the power was out. Of course I wanted answers because I wanted to know what was going on but no one had any at that time. But then I called my mom who was crying as she picked up the phone. The only words that came out of her mouth were, "You're grandmothers house has been hit by the tornado let me call you back." Like I mentioned before, I had no television, no internet, no radio (because who keeps 8 C batteries just sitting around?)and no way of getting in touch with my family because by this time all of their phone lines were tied up.


After I say that no one answered the phone to tell me what was going on I forgot to mention that Stephanie and Rick let me know that I was going to be okay. Thank goodness California still had power!! :)

My grandmother lives in the small town of Smithville, Mississippi where I can remember spending many of my summer days and nights. We, the neighborhood children and I, would walk up and down he street because there was rarely a vehicle that came through. Everyone was everybodys friend and your family did not have to worry about where you were because they always knew that so and so were outside and they had their eye on you. This was also a place where you got a whooping by your neighbor because they were either family or close friends who knew your mom or dad would disapprove of how you were acting. Overall, this was the place that you wanted to call home. For the most part, I called myself living just ten minutes down the road but Smithville will always be a second home to me.

I knew my dad had gone to Wren (a community about 25 minutes West of Smithville) to help people who had recently been hit by the same tornado that was taking it's toll on Smithville so I decided to call him to see if I could find out any information. There was no answer. Since my dad owns a wrecker service this is very rare for him and really got me worried. I knew where my dad was but had he made it okay and were the storms over whenever he decided to go. Finally my phone rang and it was my mother. I asked her where my grandmother was and she said that she was at my brothers house. WHEW!!! HUGE RELIEF! I asked if she wanted me and Shannon to come help them at my grandmothers house. My mother being the calm person that she is, with worry in her voice asked me to please stay where I was she did not want anybody else getting hurt. Little did I know that my mother was standing in Smithville helping find people who were taken from their homes after the storm had hit.

Later we find out that my grandmothers house is only missing some of the roof and the doors were blown in. They had built a shed and it was gone but for the most part my grandmothers house was very lucky. I heard a lady tell my grandmother that she was very lucky and to that my grandmother replied, "I do not have any neighbors all of their homes are gone and destroyed, I am not lucky." My grandmother has lived in this home since my mother and uncle were born and all of her neighbors have been there as well. I do believe that we are all lucky that my grandmother had decided to come back down to the campground (which is her second home) instead of being in Smithville.

I will post some pictures that I have gotten from facebook but I honestly cannot look at most of them anymore. None of these pictures were taken by me and it has been almost six days since I retrieved them so forgive me if these are your pictures. It will take a long time to rebuild the great community that we once had but we can do it!


This picture was taken in the Wren community off of HWY 45. The tornado looks like it is on its way to Smithville but at this time it had not yet made it. From the picture it looks like it is just going through the norhtern part of Wren.

This picture actually looks fake but after you look at it a while it just looks like it has been zoomed in. The surrounding area looks like the picture was taken right as you are coming into Smithville before you get to the Lock and Dam. If anyone else knows more about this picture or who took it let me know.

This is the church beside my grandmothers house which is completely destroyed. I have kept the pictures in the order in which the tornado traveled so if you look at the previous pictures it looks like the torando is growing. Which now we know was the case.

These are AFTER pictures

This is the Piggly Wiggly which I remember my grandmother giving me my first driving lesson to. This is also where she sent her 13 year old grand-daughter to pick her up some milk. Sorry I broke the law when I was 13!

The Dollar General is fairly new. My grandfathers wife started working there when it opened but she was not there this day.

Here is a sky view that I found on facebook. There were multiple pictures but this one showed the corner of my grandmothers house so I just had to pick this one. The other pictures showed the actual line of the storm with the ground having a path. You can kind of see it on this picture but maybe not as well.

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Isaiah 40:29

I am thankful for all of my friends who called to check on me and my family. Stephanie who has not known me long at all, Anna who had power and was letting us all know what was going on, Kristen who was out of the state on a business trip who texted to check on us all, Ashley who of course had to check on my grandmother! I do have great friends old and new and I thank the Lord for you every day.