Happy Friday!!! Woo Hoo!!

It’s been a long pretty while since I’ve linked up for Friday Letters with Ashley and since my post was going to be less than stellar today anyways, I thought this might help spruce it up a tad!

This photo is just because I love y’all, you’re welcome!

Dear Friday, I welcome you in with my usual trip to Starkville.  I’m excited because this weekend is BULLDAWG BASH!  Hopefully it’ll be full of exciting things that provide me with exciting topics for this here blog.  Dear Part-time job, I loved you while you lasted… and although potential is still there for the future, I appreciate the opportunity to make a little extra cash for now while you figure out where your business needs to go next.  I’m glad I was able to catch you up to speed so quickly after not having anyone in your office for roughly 2 months!  Dear legs, I’m so proud of y’all.  You’ve been doing pretty great this week with your runs.  You’re getting faster, I can tell… but slow down my little walking sticks because there will be more than just 4-5 mile runs ahead…. Dear Arbonne, I love your products and I can’t wait to share about the party I attended last night.  Dear Disney, my oh my… my little heart is a pitter-pattering thinking about how I’ll get to see you in a little over a month!! We will finally meet again and I have NO doubt that I’ll be flooded with a rush of emotions. eesh… Dear blog friends, Seriously… love y’all.  How do you love people you don’t know?  Honestly, I’m not sure… but somehow I do!  You keep me coming back and I greatly appreciate it!  This little space has grown to be more than I ever expected and I hope it continues to grow to be more than I expect each and every day!  Thank you for your support and kindness!  Hence, why you lucked out today which the picture above… I know, stunning, right?!

Have a wonderful weekend.  I debated about taking my laptop to Starkville, but I decided to just ENJOY the time I have there and not worry about my computer or my blog.  I’ll have some reading and catching up to do, but I’ll get to that on Monday.  Afterall, I’m back to the no job thing… so I’ll have time!

I also want to thank each and every one of you who kept my sweet friend in your prayers and thoughts this past week.  Unfortunately, they lost the sweet baby and she was forced to deliver extremely early.  They are heartbroken, of course, and your prayers and thoughts will continue to be a blessing in their lives.  We have a funeral for her on Monday.  I was blessed to see a picture of her after delivery and she looked beautiful… not completely formed of course, but beautiful… and she looked at rest, very peaceful.  Continue praying my prayer warriors, and if prayer isn’t your thing, I still appreciate your heart felt condolences.

You may be aware that I just started offering sponsors.  I don’t want to be someone that promotes my “sponsorship options” like a crazy person, but I wanted to mention it a few times here in the beginning so you know they are there if you so choose to use them!  I’m excited to have my very first sponsor on this little blog.  For my large and medium spaces, I chose to ask questions to my sponsors at the beginning of their sponsorship.  This will give me a chance to get personal with them {because the questions come from me reading their blog!} and it gives you a deeper understanding of who they are besides their age & type of blog!  I can assure you, I work hard at creating my questions because I want them to create interesting answers – answers that people would want to read.  If you’re interested in sponsoring, you can do so here.

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I live in Mississippi.  She lives in Mississippi.
I’m a Southerner.  She’s a Yankee.

These are some of my favorite posts from Hillary
Homemade Egg McMuffins Recipe
His Biggest Fan
Ooe Goey Homemade Brownies Recipe

I was lucky enough to meet Hillary through a box exchange earlier this year!  She was so wonderful to talk to and she actually came into my life at the perfect time!  I loved getting her e-mail responses back and keeping tabs on each other.  Ever since that exchange, we’ve been able to keep in touch and she just so happens to be my very first sponsor.  Hillary is a little fresh and new to this whole blog thing, so be sure to show her some love because I can assure you, her recipes and other information will NOT disappoint!  I sent Hillary the following questions to answer for us!

I had a really hard time when I first moved here 5 years ago!  I experienced HARD CORE culture shock, I was definitely not expecting that.  I expected to have culture shock when I went to China, but never in a million years did I expect to have culture shock crossing the Mason Dixon line!  The people here are different.  Southerners consider northerners to be rude.  We aren’t rude persay, we just say what we think and get to the point.  This is a major no no in the South.  When I first moved down here I was “talking” (you know that awkward stage between just friends and dating) to this guy that was a true blooded southerner.  We had been friends during my 1 1/2 year stay in Virginia, but he was from Georgia, and was a true Southern Gentleman.  Let’s just say He couldn’t handle my Brazen Yankee Tongue.  I wasn’t afraid to say what I thought about things, or to share my opinion … and he told me I was MEAN, and ended it!  If you know me at.all. the LAST word you would use to describe me is mean.  Slowly but surely, through my years hear, the South has tamed my Yankee Tongue, and I’ve learned to adapt to the culture.  

I’ve been around cooking & baking my whole life.  My mom always cooked “real food” meals, which I’m learning was not the norm for most families.  Most everything was made from scratch, and if it was something canned or frozen, it was because my mom canned or froze it!  We didn’t really ever go grocery shopping, because my parents own a road side fresh fruit & vegetable market and deli where I spend most of my summers slaving away in the deli.  When I was 16 our baker had to have surgery and was out for a good portion of the summer.  My dad decided that it would be a good experience for me to fill in, and so I baked for the summer, and I became really good at it!  I knew the basics of baking before I started, but I learned a lot from that experience! I started putting together meals when I was in 8th grade.  My parents decided to home school me starting my 8th grade year, so I had a lot of extra time at home.  I would pour through my mom’s cook books and make these elaborate meals with 3 or 4 new dishes, which most of the time wouldn’t really go together.  My dad calls this experimentation.  Some things turned out good, some things . . . not so much.  My parents were always so graceful and they always told me that dinner was excellent.  (Even though when my MR. asked my dad to marry me, my dad warned him about my experimenting in the kitchen).  Through the years I have learned to fine tune my skills in the kitchen.  I love to experiment with things, and I am known to just start throwing things in a pan to see how they turn out.  There are a couple of dinners that I make that are our favorites, and they came about by me just throwing stuff in a pan, like the Adobo Chicken that I’m making Thursday night!  I don’t usually measure, which also means nothing really turns out the same twice!  When I look up new recipes, I usually look up 3-5 of the same dish to get different perspectives on how it’s made, and then I kind of put it all together, and tweak it to make it my own!  

Just one quirky thing???  I don’t know how to pick just one.  The first one that comes to mind is that I refused to wear jeans until I was in 7th grade.  I was always a little on the pudgy side growing up, and kid jeans are made to go all the way up to your belly button, at least they were when I was a kid!  I HATE things being anywhere NEAR by Belly Button.  I would always wear some kind of stretch cotton pants to school, much to my sister’s dismay.  Looking back at pictures now, I don’t know why they let me out of the house!  Finally in 7th grade my oldest sister got me to start wearing jeans.  I’m not gonna lie though, to this day, if any pair of pants or a skirt comes up to my belly button, I won’t wear it.  Don’t even get me started on the way socks fit!

Ya’ll go check Hillary’s blog out!  She’s been putting out one good recipe after the other, I tell ya!

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