The World According to Leslie

Wow!  I totally didn’t post yesterday. That means I didn’t tell what I am thankful for.   Day 20—I’m thankful for my friends. They are always there to help when I need them. I’m pretty sure that some of them are “sisters from other misters”.   Sometimes, they are my therapy sessions.   Day 21—I’m thankful for 2nd chances. It’s the little things that count. I forgot to post yesterday, but I have a 2nd chance to do it today. I have had many 2nd chances for big and little things in my life. With Christ, I’m thankful that He keeps giving me 2nd chances every time I mess up.   Yesterday, during my planning period, we had a meeting. It was only the 9th grade English teachers in it. We were discussing pacing, and how far along we should be in the curriculum already. Then we talked about the fact that next week, we have 2 days. When we come back after Thanksgiving, we have 3 weeks in December. Once we come back in January, we have 2 days the first week beca...

Before I tell why my heart is heavy, let me get some good news out! 1.  Chasity sold over 1000 boxes of cookies!  WOW!  That's a new record for her.  We are excited.  It means she will get a Kindle Fire.  (I think she is going to take my Kindle full time for now and we will share the Kindle Fire!) :)  2. Today is Friday!  That means that tomorrow is Saturday!  I get to scrapbook tomorrow for 12 hours! :)  LOVE IT!  Can't wait to see my triplets! :)  3. Our first softball practice is tonight!  We are going to get to meet team and see how things are looking. Now, for my heavy heart. On Wednesday, I got a message from my mom that my Uncle Bud (my Papaw Paul's brother-in-law) was in the hospital in critical condition.  It wasn't very long until I got a message that said, "I hate to tell you this over text, but Papaw just called and Uncle Bud passed."  :(  So, tonight, I will be getting in a car with ...

A couple of weeks ago, we had the girls make invitations to take to school.  Each girl got like 8-9 invites.  They were to invite friends from school to come to Girl Scouts tonight!  We are having an ICE CREAM PARTY tonight.  We will do a couple of games too! I'm hoping that by having the girls bring their friends, the friends will be interested in becoming Girl Scouts for next year!  Wouldn't THAT be cool?  It worked a couple of years ago, so we will see. After work today, I have to get the Princess from Girls on the Run, get the ice cream and toppings, and get to the fellowship hall to get everything set up! I'm interested to see how many friends come tonight! :) 

Are you tired of reading about Girl Scout cookies yet?  I'm tired of talking about them.  However, they have consumed my world.  Maybe...just maybe...after next weekend, I will get my world back! It won't be long after that, though, that softball starts! :)  Then we will be crazy with that! :) However, people say some really weird things when they buy cookies from you.  Like on Friday night, we had a guy come up and ask a really strange question, but I had been told people would ask it. Man: "Are these cookies made with genuine Girl Scouts?" Me: "Yep.  This year they ground them up a little better than in the past though." Man: "Good!  Last year they got stuck in my teeth!" Gross right? However, I was prepared and it shocked him.  He thought he was funny! :)  The girls thought it was DISGUSTING!  lol

Cookie season is going well.  We have had at least two booths (sometimes 3-4) every weekend.  Last night, we sold about 100 boxes at WalMart. Today we have a booth we set up as a troop.  I'm really hoping it will go well.  I'm a little nervous.  The place is normally PACKED the first couple of weekends a month.  However, I think that the threat of "snow" will possibly hold some people back.  Why is it that every weekend during cookie booths there is a threat of "snow"?  Why "snow"?  Because in NC we don't get the large amounts of every where else.  We get little bits of MESS that causes traffic issues for DAYS after a 1/2" falls! :)  Of course, after it "snows" here, it's 60 degrees the following day so it goes away!  RARELY do we get anything REAL in NC.  Bring on the "snow"!  I'm ready for it! :) 

So, I am home.  I went for my biopsy this morning.  I have such a wonderful support system.  My mom was there .  Tony was there.  My dad, who isn't supposed to be in waiting rooms, was there.  One of my best friends, Nannette, was there.  I was there, but didn't want to be.  All I wanted to do was cry!  So I did. While I was on the table, they said, "Go to your happy place".  Where is my happy place? This morning it was in prayer.  So I was on the table praying silently. They kept asking "Are you ok?"  So I would answer, "God's got a plan".  (That's the family motto!) For now, the tears are gone.  The waiting has begun.  I should have results by Friday.....or so they say.

I guess the title sounds a little more dramatic than needed, but in reality.... aren't those the only two things we are GUARANTEED!  lol As far as death goes, we have had a few deaths in the families of friends lately.  There is a pastor friend of ours who is just holding on.  We all thought he might be "waiting" to go home on a Sunday, but Sunday came and went.  He's still holding on.  I know it has to be really hard for that family. I think I know of 4 people (friend's relatives) who have died recently.  It really is quite sad when it all starts happening at one time. As for taxes.... Well... ours are done.  My sister-in-law, who normally works for a tax prep company during tax season, does them for us.  She sent a message last night that they are done.  The IRS has accepted them.  I should have them next week.  Now.....  what do I want to spend that on????  I will have to think about that!  Think I w...

Yesterday morning, before I could get awake good, it started snowing.  On Friday, it was 60 degrees, so nothing STUCK!  We did out cookie booth at Lowe's Home Improvement and sold a fair amount of cookies.  It was cold, but the sun was out; so it wasn't unbearable. Last night, we had a booth at 5pm at the OTHER Lowe's Home Improvement in town.  It started snowing as we were leaving the house.  It was snowing so hard (and directly into my windshield) that it was hard to see.  So we got there, about 10 minutes away, and there was already about 1/2" of snow on the ground.  It was freezing outside.  We stayed until the booth was over at 8pm.  My legs and hands were so cold that I slept with the electric blanket ON most of the night. My feet and hands are still a little numb this morning.  Hopefully they will warm up today.  If not, I might have an issue. :) :( 

In case the title didn't scare you off, I am not going to have a political rant here.  I typically keep my politics to the voting booth.  Although, sometimes, it is impossible not to say something....one way or the other. Here is what I am going to say about the speech last night.  I did not watch it.  I had some things on DVR I wanted to catch up on.  In all honesty, I forgot about it until the news broke in for a "Special Report" at 9pm.  I was already on the way to DVR land by then. :)  I did flip through a few times, but I did not listen to more than one or two sentences.  So that makes me pretty unqualified to have an opinion of the speech. I will say, I personally think the state of our union is in a mess.  We have soldiers stationed and fighting all over the world. We have rich people who keep getting richer and never have to pay taxes or face consequences for their actions.  We have poor people who are getting poorer an...

A friend of mine owns a Creative Memories business.  (If you need anything, contact her here .) Anyways, she is extremely creative and very talented.  She makes cards and die cuts for all occasions.  Over the weekend, while I was scrapbooking with the Scrap Happy Divas, she said something about trying to get her name out there for people.  She said she has an Etsy shop.  She has Facebook.  (We are working on getting her a website.) :)  Then she said, "...but I've heard that I need a blog.  I don't know anything about blogs.  I'm not much of a writer."  Of course to that *I* said, "I have a blog.  I try to write on it every day.  You design your stuff, and I will blog it for you."  She said, "Okay," but we never set anything definite.  If I do it, I will have a different blog and email attached to it.  However, I will definitely tell you guys where it is so you can find it. :)  I will hopefully find ...

You know, if I had enough people who would do it, I would start a "bloggy party" on Fridays.  It would be called "Fractured Fridays".  It would be where we would share all the randomness in our brains.  :) For today, I am going to give you MY Fractured Friday.  (Maybe one day, I will have people to do it with me.  Any takers?) 1. My birthday is a week from today.  What does any good teacher do on her birthday?  Take the afternoon off and give a test! :)  2. Softball sign ups are now.  The Princess isn't sure if she wants to play because her really awesome coach from last Spring isn't coming back! :(  One of his kids made a traveling team.  One is going to be on a team from a different church (and we would have to play them!) 3. My Girl Scouts planned out most of the rest of the year last night.  It's cool having older girls!  They can help plan things. 4.  Cookies come in on Tuesday!  I am excited! :)...

I went to scrapbook with my Scrap Happy Divas.  That is ALWAYS very exciting.  We are going to be going to a different location (less than a mile from the normal one) on Jan. 26th to scrapbook.  We are scrapbooking to help raise money for Relay for Life.  :)  When the lady came to pick up our registrations, one of my "triplets" said she didn't know where the place was.  What did we do?  ROAD TRIP!  We, my other "triplet" and I, took her to show her where the place it.  Then we came back to scrapbook some more! About an hour later, a lady (whom I met for the first time yesterday) was talking to her daughter on the phone.  We heard, "They just put out the peanut butter chocolate donuts?"!!  What did we do?  ROAD TRIP! We went to Sheetz (in Salisbury) to get donuts.  Unfortunately, there for 4 of us in the car and they only had 3 peanut butter filled chocolate covered donuts.  There were 5 more people wai...

You know how sometimes life gets a little nuts? You know how sometimes, as women, we don't take time for ourselves? Well, I have found a group of women to hang out with, and it's better than therapy! I have been scrapbooking for about 3-4 years now!! (WOW! Time has really flown!)  Anyways, I started very simply.  I put pictures on a page and made sure there was pretty paper behind it.  Now, I take a little longer because I have been doing it longer and I like to embellish.  A year ago, my friend, who is a  Creative Memories consultant, got a group of us together.  We did not know each other.  The only common thing was our friend.  Now, three of us, "The Triplets" are best friends.  We call each other, have "Girls' Night", and help each other out! When we arrive at the crops, sometimes we have had a hard week (day/month/etc.).  After about an hour, these women have me laughing and crying and everything else.  With my dad ...

If you want to catch up on this Year in Review, you can get Part 1 and Part 2 .   August arrived!  LOVE AUGUST! August is Chasity’s birthday!  She is the best kid ever!  We have the simplest, but the best, parties for her.   This year, the theme was “Princess and the Frog.”  Unfortunately, I was so consumed with school and work (I started work the week before her birthday!) that I forgot to order the cake!   What does ANY good mom do when she forgets to order the birthday cake?  Well, duh, she calls her own mom in tears!    Then her mom (my mom!) said, we can just make a cake!   What does any good daughter (me) do when her mom says that?    She goes and gets a cute pan and lots of M&Ms and icing.  Then she shows up at her mom’s house to make the cake!   So remember this is the DAY BEFORE the party—Friday night!  Mom has worked all day. She’s kept Chasity so Tony and I coul...

Today, I'm going to go to a Scrapbooking Crop. There's a lady from my church who is a Creative Memories consultant. She holds these a couple times a month. We pay to use her tools (like $5 for a day) and we can stay for HOURS to scrapbook. I don't get to do this often. Actually, I just started in September. I have only been ONCE to do this. However... I worked for about 5 hours and (since I was just learning) I finished 6 pages. That's actually good. I have friends that are there that work 6-8 hours for 2-3 pages. I'm not THAT much of a perfectionist...yet. I can't wait to see the difference in the pages that I do now versus the ones I do in a year or two. That will be an interesting thing, I think. Anyways... if you like to Scrapbook and don't have a Creative Memories consultant, you can go to Nannette's page here . Tell her that Leslie sent you. They have cool new stuff out for Valentine's Day! They have all kinds of neat stuff anyway...