20 Things to Tell Married Women...Oh My!

I was browsing Pinterest, and found this link to Grace Full Mama's blog. I've posted the content of the blog below.  It's a really great list of things to tell an engaged or newlywed woman.  It's a great reminder for anyone who has been married.  Sometimes, you need a nudge or reminder of how to act with your husband. :)

20 Things I Want To Tell Engaged And Newlywed Women {Really All Married Women}

1. Marriage is made up of two good forgivers. Because every marriage is made up of two sinners. (Romans 3:23)
2. At some point, you will have to learn that life isn’t all about you. (Philippians 2:3)

3. Don’t listen to women that tell you that passion fades…it doesn’t have to! (um…all of Song of Solomon)

4. Don’t give up. Love never fails. (1 Cor. 13)

5. He wants a kind wife, not a maid or another mother. Be nice. (Galatians 5:22-23)

6. Give your husband the gift of your respect. He needs it more than you know. (Ephesians 5:33)

7. Be mindful of your expectations.

8. Honor the Lord above all things. Colossians 3: 17

9. Find your worth and security in the Lord, and don’t look to your husband to meet all of your needs.

10. Be very careful about reading romance novels, they set you up for an unrealistic view of romance.

11. Real romance is finding that one spot in the crook of his arm to snuggle into, that shared look over the dinner table when the kids are acting crazy, and the way he fixes the leaky sink when he is dog-tired after work.

12. Love is about relationship. The more I love my husband, and seek a relationship with him, the less critical and duty-bound I become. It is similar to my relationship with God.

13. Be thankful for the husband you have. Accept him as he is, not for what you want him to be.

14. Don’t compare!! Don’t buy into the game of comparing him with anyone else’s husband.

15.The Biblically “normal” marriage is filled with joy, connection, laughter, and peace. It’s not free of hurt feelings and conflict, but they know how to process their pain with one another so that they live more often in a meadow than at the scene of a train wreck. This is not the average marriage, but it normal – -because it is a visible display of Jesus’ relationship with His bride (Ephesians 5:22-33).

16. Your marriage is a testimony! “The #1 evangelistic tool in America (the world) today is a successful marriage, because it’s a living miracle!” – Dr. Joe Aldrich, former president of Multnomah Bible College.

17. Pray for your marriage. Pray hard.

18.I’ve heard that is gets better with age. I have to say in my short {13 year} experience, that is so true.

19. Where there is God, there is always hope. Even for the most broken marriages. “With God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)

20.Marriage is commitment and sacrifice. But it’s also the best, most wild ride you will ever have with your best friend.

Mississippi, Buddy, & Garage Sale...Oh MY!

I've just realized I never post my "4th of July...Oh MY!" post to facebook, so I'm posting that one and this one at the same time.   A LOT has happened since the last I blogged...

Mom & Dad went on vacation to Colorado the last week in June.  I've decided we are now going to send a letter of warning to whatever state they go to on vacation.  Last March, they were vacationing in Hawaii and a tsunami struck the island.  This year, they were evacuated from their hotel because of wildfires.  Apparently, my parents cause natural disasters to occur.  Just kidding, but I did tell them to never go snow skiing...  They had a fabulous time in Denver, Colorado Springs, Dillon, Pueblo, and a few other places.  They brought Nick & I some goodies including shirts and hoodies.  LOVE them. :)  They flew into Little Rock on Sunday, July 1st.  They met up with my cousin, Emily, and her daughter, Mady, to bring Mady home with them.

Facetiming with Dad while they were on Pike's Peak.  All the smoke from the wildfires.

My dear, sweet, talkative cousin, Mady, lives in Mississippi and came to attend a G.A. camp my sister is the director of.  She's as cute as a button, was the flower girl in our wedding, and is as talkative as I am.  LOVE her to death.  As mentioned in my last post, I got to visit with her, my sister, and my parents on the fourth.  Then, on Friday, July 6th, I took half a day off from work to get to spend the rest of the day with her.  My sister brought Mady to Mount Pleasant, and we all met up with Nick to eat lunch at Pete's.  My sister then went home to New Boston to unpack, wash clothes, then repack for a weekend trip to Mississippi.  Mady and I went back to mine & Nick's house.  I finished packing, she played with Satchel for a bit, then we headed to New Boston as well.

Mady fell asleep on the way to New Boston.  Camp wore her out!

My parents, sister, Mady, and I all headed to Mississippi after everyone was home from work on July 6th.  Nick had to stay home and work.  I felt like that was the longest trip to Mississippi I've ever been on (and we've been plenty of times in my life).  We were detoured due to some construction and a wreck near Little Rock, Dad was pulled over for a stupid rule that none of us knew existed, and the detour consisted of a lot of time on a two lane roads with slow moving vehicles.  We FINALLY got to my cousin, Jan, and her husband's house a little after midnight.  I was exhausted!  But, the weekend with family was a lot of fun.  My Aunt Sue & Uncle Richard celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday.  Tons of us traveled to the party and enjoyed getting to visit.  We ate, visited, then had to hit the road back to Texas on Sunday.  Lots of traffic and detours again, only this time, the air conditioner went out too.  But, it started working again, and all was well.  I arrived back home around 9:00 to start another work week.  It was a fun weekend with family though!

My Aunt Sue, Uncle Richard, their children, grand children, and great grandchildren.  Wow!

Had to put a picture of my cute cousins!

Thursday, July 12th, Nick & I went to eat dinner with Joe, Melanie, Tovah, Owen, & Nick's aunt, Rhon.  We ate at 1-55.  Rhon came down to go on vacation with Joe & Melanie to Colorado.  She was absolutely ecstatic to travel there.  Melanie asked me a while back if I would design a camping shirt for them to wear while in Colorado.  I was able to, and she surprised Rhon with the shirt at dinner that Thursday night.  They all loved them.  I made purple shirts for Rhon and Melanie, and a gray shirt for Joe.  Nick & I have been keeping Joe & Melanie's dog, Buddy, while they've been gone.  He's an interesting puppy, to say the least.  As Melanie says, "He has ADHD."  I really think he does.  He has been all over the place, and Satchel has been none too happy to have him in the house, but it hasn't been too terrible.  We had a bit of a hiccup on Tuesday.  Buddy decided he wanted a snack.  Two RAW, boneless, skinless chicken breasts later, and Nick had to call a vet friend of his to figure out what to do.  Nick ended up getting Buddy to throw-up the chicken.  It was not a pretty sight, and I'm glad I was at work when all of this happened.  "Disgusting" is what Nick said.  But, other than that, the week has gone well with Buddy.  Joe & Melanie will get home on Sunday, and I know he'll be super excited to see them.  We'll be excited to see them too.  We've been getting fun updates all week about what they were doing, and pictures of Rhon being awed by the mountains. :)

Buddy amazed (and slightly scared) of the tower fan in our bedroom.

It's like a circus with these three in the same house. :)

The t-shirt I designed per Melanie's request for their camping trip.

I spent last weekend cleaning up and organizing the garage.  I'm preparing for a garage sale that I want to have in September.  Lots of fun... NOT!  We visited Efurd's peach shed, had ice cream, and then had dinner with the Mayben's on Sunday.  I LOVE Efurd's and their peach/strawberry swirl ice cream.  I also bought a jar of pickled okra (my favorite!).  Mitchell requested that I bring banana pudding for dinner, and he'd provide the rest. :)  We dined on ribs, chicken, corn, and baked beans.  It was DELICIOUS!  Then we drove around on the ranger, visited with the Gilberts, then headed home.

This weekend is going to be lots of fun.  Bray family get together at my parents' house, and Joe & Melanie will be getting home from vacation.  I'm sure I'll do some cleaning, and Nick will do lots of work.  His business is doing great, and we're praying it continues to thrive!  I love how happy he is when he gets home at night.  I can tell this is what the Lord wanted us to do for sure!

4th of July...Oh My!

The fourth of July this year was celebrated with all of my family!

Nick woke up early and smoked a brisket for lunch.  Alan, Tovah, Owen, Melanie & Joe all came over for lunch.  It was potluck and we feasted in style.  Sadly, I didn't take any pictures other than of the cake I made.  I know, awful me...  However, the cake was delicious and quite fun to look at once you cut into it.  The instructions for the cake are on Glorious Treats' blog.  The icing was homemade as well.  The directions for the icing are below the picture. :)

Ingredients:
2 - 8 oz packages of cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup heavy whipping cream (cold)

Directions:
Whip everything together and apply to cake.  It's yummy.

I left around 3:00 PM to head to Lakeview Baptist Camp in Lone Star.  My sister is a G.A. camp director and their camp took place this week.  My little cousin, Mady, from Mississippi, came to the camp this year.  She was taking a nap when I got there.  She was exhausted from all the go, go, go of camp, and needed to rest for a bit.  My sister and I hung out for the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening.  My parents came and joined us around 6:00 for hot dogs and watermelon.  I took Satchel with me because all of the girls at camp absolutely LOVE him.  He was still exhausted this morning.  We had a great time.

Mady getting ready to go down for hot dogs and watermelon.

Best buds...

Dad with Mady & Satchel. :)

The feast!

Nice lake view...

It was a fun evening!

Afterwards, my parents followed me to Pittsburg to go see the Fireworks.  I love the fourth.  It is quite possibly my second favorite holiday (following only Christmas).  Thank you to our service men and women who have fought and died for our country's freedom.  I'm most grateful to be an American!

DIY Colored Skinny Jeans...Oh MY!!!

So, I posted a picture last week on facebook of a pair of skinny jeans I made.  I had numerous people ask me for the instructions on how I accomplished this feat, so I decided to do another pair and blog the instructions instead. :)

The "mint" jeans are the first pair I did.  The "tangerine" jeans are the ones I blogged.

I had seen many blogs on Pinterest on how to make your own skinny jeans.  The one I followed most was the Pretty Providence Blog.  However, I did do a few things differently than she did.

First off, I want to explain that these were both pairs of blue jeans I never wear anymore.  They were both a dark blue when I started this process.  I used one whole bottle of bleach on each pair to get them fully white.  You have to have patience when it comes to bleaching the jeans.  It took me a full day to get them completely white (there may be a little blue left in some places, but I was impatient and didn't want to bleach them one more time... I couldn't see the blue after dying them though.).  The mint pair were actually already skinny jeans, but the tangerine pair were not.  So below are the instructions on how to create a skinny jean out of a pair of boot cut jeans.

I started with this pair of boot cut jeans I never wear anymore.  There's a few paint splatters you can see from when I painted our guest bathroom. :)

Turn the pants inside out and pin down the leg to where it fits snuggly on your leg. 

Closer up of the pins down the leg.

Sew down the pin line.  Try the pants on (inside out) before you cut the excess off to make sure they'll fit.

Cut the excess off, flip them right-side out and try them on one more time.  Yay!  They fit and one side is done. 

Repeat those steps for the other side and voila, new skinny jeans out of boot cut jeans.

To achieve the tangerine color, I used Tulip Permanent Fabric dye in Bright Red and Rit Liquid Dye in Sunshine Orange.  I mixed half of the bottle of Rit and the entire packet of Tulip with hot water and 1/2 cup salt.  I stirred it constantly for about 20 minutes.  I felt the color was where I wanted it to be, so I rinsed them until the water ran clear, then washed the jeans by themselves.  I think they turned out pretty fun!  Here are the pictures to do with these instructions.

Putting the jeans in the bleach bath.

NOTE: I've had a few friends try this, and they've had a problem.  Make sure you always dilute your bleach.  Bleach will eat straight through most fabrics if not diluted.  You may have to do the bleach process two or three times, but it will save your clothes! :)

The jeans after going through three rounds of hot water and bleach.

Yay!  After the dye bath and one more wash.

To achieve the mint color, I used Tulip Permanent Fabric dye in Green.  The instructions say to mix the packet with hot water and 1/2 cup salt.  It also says to stir constantly for 15 minutes then occasionally for 45 minutes.  I didn't want the full green, I wanted the mint color, so I only left it in for the 15 minutes.  I then rinsed until the water ran clear, then washed the jeans by themselves.  They turned out perfectly!!

Funny enough, I wore the mint jeans out this weekend with Nick, and I found this pair of jeans at Target. :)

Mine cost a lot less!

I'll leave you with two self-portraits of the skinny jeans!

NOTE: I've had a few friends try this, and they've had a problem.  Make sure you always dilute your bleach.  Bleach will eat straight through most fabrics, so diluting it will save your jeans.  You may have to do the bleach process two or three times, but it will save your clothes! :)