November 30

We have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of my friend Ellyn's baby girl, Evany, especially since Ellyn's water broke at 32 weeks and she has been in the hospital for a while. I had the honor of announcing Evany's arrival tonight on Ellyn's blog after a very scary emergency C-section. Thankfully, baby Evany was only in the hospital for 11 days before she got to go home!

November 29

Every year, Jack gets so excited to get the Christmas decorations out. I had to stop him from doing it after Halloween this year. We always love getting our decorations out, especially hanging each ornament on the tree. And we watch Elf!!

November 27

We drove back from Nacogdoches today, and on the way home, we did a little day-after-Thanksgiving shopping at Staples and got me a new point and shoot camera that I had been wanting. I love it! I took a bunch of pictures tonight when our friends came over to visit at my parents' house.

November 26

Happy Thanksgiving! We spent today with Jack's family, and I did some cooking (the mashed potatoes and cream corn). It was a lovely meal with much to be thankful for.

November 25

We spent the day at Jack's parents' house in Nacogoches, and this morning took a little drive and did some shopping at some thrift shops around town. I got 32 spools of thread for $3.74! Score!

November 24

Tonight, after work, Jack and I drove to Nacogdoches for Thanksgiving weekend. I haven't been that car-sick since the Road to Hana in Maui! We took Jack's truck and we were driving at night, so I'm guessing those factors didn't do good things for my motion sickness. But we got there in one piece!

November 23

This is my friend from work, Sharon! This week at work we've been having a ball making a little for-fun video in front of our green screen. Also, today, I mixed three different kinds of Tabasco on my taco bell taco (chipotle, regular, and the green one, if you were wondering.) Exciting day for Mandy.

November 22

Tonight was game night with the Wildmans and Hocks, and I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time. Here are a few things heard at tonight's game night:

"I'm so bored. This is like fishing." -Angela, while playing Yahtzee

"Spank it for the three!" -Jason, on his special way of rolling the dice during Yahtzee

Angela, trying to get us to guess "Trojan Horse" during a game of "Catch Phrase": "It's the guy that wears a toga!"
Me: "Frat guy!"
Angela: "No, it's another word for condom!"
Me: "Rubber!"

"It's poop! From a large animal!" -What I screamed suddenly when I saw that I was supposed to get them to guess "cow pie."

"Oh! Oh! Me! This is me!" -Angela, upon seeing that the "Catch Phrase" was "life of the party."

Me: "I thought you weren't going to wear your competitive pants tonight."
Jack: "No, I said I was going to wear my less competitive pants tonight."
Me: "That's disappointing."
Jack: "At least I have pants on tonight."

November 21

Tonight, Jack and I spent our Saturday night at one of our favorite spots, Watters Creek. We did a little shopping and it was nice to spend some quality time together.

I also bought these socks at Bath and Body Works:

Oh. My. Cow.

They are the freaking Godiva of socks. They are HD blu-ray socks. The ideal-cut flawless diamond of socks. The 5-star hotel in Hawaii of socks. The batch rename of socks. The Taylor Swift of socks. The Starbucks Christmas blend of socks. The Vicks tissues of socks. The Gary Marshall movie of socks. If orgasms were socks, this would be what they'd be like.

Have I made my point?

Just making sure.

November 20

Tonight, Jack took us out for a nice little dinner at Chili's together. I love it when I don't have to cook!

November 18

We haven't had internet for the last few days, and it has been a little rough! But we have it back today, and enjoyed having it back while we also enjoyed my cheesy turkey meatloaf tonight. Yum.

November 17

Today, I made soup for our friends who just had a baby and tried to transport it in a crockpot in my car. Guess what! Soup doesn't travel well! (Though I will say that I drive much more safely with a crockpot full-to-the-brim of soup in my front seat). I think you can do the math on how that one turned out.

November 16

Today, everybody brought in their favorite appetizers for lunch at work, and we enjoyed an all-appetizer lunch together!

November 15

Today I came home and cooked. And cooked, and cooked, and cooked. I had to make Jack's dinner, Chris and Amber's dinner for tomorrow, and appetizers for our all-appetizer lunch at work tomorrow. It was a lot of work, and my kitchen is a complete mess, but I got it all done!

Also, my husband went back to the store to get what I forgot, and then he did a load of dishes for me even though he was exhausted. Plus? He brought home gingerbread coffee creamer for us. It was really sweet. I love being married to him.

November 14

Tonight after the tournament, we went to a party with Jack's taekwondo friends. One of them had won fajitas for 40 from Abuelos, so we had some really good food and some fun time with good friends!

November 13

Tonight, Jack competed at the Coppell tournament and got a 1st in weapons, 2nd in forms, and 3rd in sparring.

November 12

Tonight, I was supposed to a aerobic dance class (!) with my friend after work, but I forgot my tennis shoes in Jack's truck. So I bought new ones! It had been a few years since I got new ones, so it was really needed, and I really love them!

November 11

"Close your eyes and hold out your hands," he said, as he walked through the door last night.

"I saw these, and I thought they were pretty, and then I thought 'she's pretty too, so she needs them!'" he said.

November 10

I redesigned my craft blog tonight! I am really, really happy with how it turned out.

November 9

Today after work, I went to my parents' house to get my dog, and was surprised to find some guy holding her when I opened the door. Since nobody introduced me to said random guy, I figured I had met him before and didn't say much to him. All of the sudden, my buddy Angela came around the corner, and I put the peices together and figured out that the random guy was her boyfriend! They were only in town for the night, but it's always nice to see Angela!

November 8

This morning Jack got up and cleaned the dust and plaster out of the guest bathroom, which is now pretty much done, except for the trim around the floor and the mirror. It looks fabulous!! And most importantly, we have a working toilet in there again!

November 7

This is kind of a boring picture, but evidently it's the only one I took today. I was flipping through my neighbor's recipe book and I wanted to remember this recipe, so I snapped a picture of it. It was while we were sitting outside visiting, like we do all the time, like we've always done.

November 6

I got a call from Jack's mom, Cathy, early this evening while I was still at work.

"Where's the nearest urgent care facility?" she asked, anxiously. I told her, and then asked what was wrong.

"We think Jim has kidney stones," she answered, and we chatted only a few more moments before she hung up quickly to get Jack's dad to a doctor. Evidently, he's had kidney stones before, and from what I hear, they're not very fun to have. In fact, most people describe the pain as the worst they've ever felt.

About an hour later, I headed home, and when Jack called on his way home from work, I told him about his dad, so he headed to the urgent care place to wait with his mom. I had some work to do, so I stayed at home.

They finally sent Jack's dad to the ER to get a CT scan, and along the way it seems that some pain medications were administered.

And that's where the fun started.

Cathy said that when Jim got the first shot, he was in the middle of a sentence when all of the sudden his face went completely blank, and he trailed off to silence. Then, a few seconds later, he looked back up at her and said "I, um, forgot what I was talking about."

Later, when they were waiting for the test results, Jack's dad kept telling Jack and Cathy that he would "be just fine as soon as he went home and had a beer." He also wanted to go home (as in, back to east Texas) to his own hospital.

Looks like hard-headedness (especially while under the influence of drugs) is a just a genetic Hornbuckle trait.

When they all got home, Jack's dad was feeling goooooooooooooooood. He was feeling "I want to put trim in the bathroom tomorrow morning" good. "I want to operate a chop saw" good. And I'm not going to lie, watching your father-in-law slur all his words because he's all loopy from pain medication? Hilarious.

I think my favorite part was when he was trying to read all the big medical words from the hospital bill. There's not much better entertainment in this world than watching a stoned East-Texan try to say "nephrolithiasis."

But in all seriousness, we're really thankful that he's relatively okay tonight, and I am sad for the fact that he has to be in pain and evidently pass a kidney stone the size of 5 stacked dimes (ouch!!). I'm sure he could use some prayers for the next few days.

But for tonight? While he's feeling no pain in my guest room? I'm just going to hope he wasn't serious about not having to get out of bed to pee in the container the doctor gave him to collect the stones.

November 5

It's been a while since I've gone couponing shopping, but I did it tonight and I got great deals on stuff! It's so much fun when I actually have time to do it!

November 4

We painted pumpkins at work today. Can you guess which one is mine?

(It's the gingerbread one on the far right.)

November 3

I voted today. Jack didn't.

November 1

I started a sewing project today - my first from a pattern! Now let's just hope I can get it finished in time for its purpose!