Tinsley loves the sink

It all started with a trip to the master bath to wash my face...cue the cat -

Step 1: Get in (dry) sink and sniff Lyndy's new makeup bag
Step 2: Try to get my big self seated in corner, no good, sniff faucet instead
Step 3: Look at Lyndy and wonder why the heck she's takin' my pic

Step 4: Sit beside sink and be cute since Lyndy's gonna take my pic regardless
Step 5: Plan next move...that "girl stuff" is like an obstacle course between me and my prize...the fake grass I love to chew...clearly this will require strategy

Final step: Give up!

A funny thing happened...

while watching The Office. Holly's cell phone rang (on the show) and Anthony picked HIS cell phone up (real life people, catch up) and said hmm, my phone must be acting up. I don't have a text. I said that was on tv honey. He said really (with a smile)? I said yeah. He had to rewind it to be sure. SO THEN... he paused it and said text me. I did. Then it dinged (just like Holly's had) and he hit play on the DVR so Holly's phone dinged (like his)... and we laughed. This friends, is why I love my hubby. Isn't that cute?!

Oh, and The Office was bumped up a couple notches for him, too because Andy requested some Dave Matthews music at the roller rink and they honored his request by playing Ants Marching. (Yes, I said the roller rink - watch this episode because you WILL laugh... and a lot!) *Bonus: that just happens to be one of Anthony's top fave tunes of DMB...   stay warm out there y'all!

Enough already

Over.The.Snow.

Enough.Already.

Need SPRING!

A play date with Riley

Saturday (among other things) we had a play date with Riley. Isn't he just ADORABLE?! And let me tell ya- he's as sweet as he is cute. (Doesn't he look like a big boy in this shot?!)

First set: Anthony and Riley playing together. They were big buddies! After singing his ABC's Riley asked Anthony if he knew the ABC's. When Anthony replied yes, Riley said sing 'em with me. They sang 'em together (so cute) and then gave each other a round of applause. Then Riley asked me if I knew 'em. I said yes, and he said sing 'em. So of course I did.
He and Anthony always play ball (not my department) and Riley loves it when Anthony throws the ball really high. Well, one time Riley said throw it to the fan and let it go wild. ha He's apparently done that before, huh?

Second set: Riley's grandpa gave him a super cool Play Doh set. I We played with it a lot. I was especially proud of my Play Doh couple I made. Riley likes "making pancakes" and that day anyway, making black snakes. He said I like snakes Lyndy. Do you like snakes? I said no! He said I do. I don't like real snakes, I only like Play Doh snakes.

Even Anthony was impressed with my extra value meal ... hehe Riley picked up the burger and pretended to eat it and asked if it was real.

Riley is quite the talker these days (he's 2 years old). He said I told Mom I want to go to Lyndy's house and we comed (past tense of come for toddlers). I'm glad to see you Lyndy. I'm glad to see Anthony, too. One time (while playing with his iXL electronic game/toy thingy) he pushed his sleeves up and when I asked him why, he said so I can see where I'm going. ha! A couple times he'd be playing and he'd come over to me and just hug me and say I love you Lyndy. That's when I melted...

Mission accomplished (travel to my hometown)

Well, I've officially run to my hometown.
On January 9th I posted my status report and I've updated it with this week's mileage...

12/29/10      3 miles

12/30/10      2 miles

12/31/10      1.5 miles

01/03/11      3 miles

01/06/11      2 miles

01/07/11      2 miles

01/08/11      1 mile

01/12/11      2 miles

01/13/11      2 miles

01/14/11      1.5 miles

TOTAL         20 miles

So there you have it - I'm now in my hometown...

This is anti-climactic I will admit... maybe I should reward myself for running with a shopping trip or something more tangible. This good feeling isn't really "all that."

2011 monthly thank you's

Is there someone who comes to mind when you think back to significant influences in your life? It may be a teacher, a friend, a coworker or a family member who helped you through a difficult time or gave you the right advice right when you needed it. Well, have you ever taken the time to truly thank them and explain what it meant to you? They may not even know how significant they were to you at that point in your life.

Well I've decided that in 2011, once a month, I'm going to send a letter (yes, a handwritten letter via the US postal service) to a person who has been significant to me. I feel sure I can come up with one person a month who has been there for me in some way I needed them. In fact, I already know who the first one is going to be. I pray that my words bless their heart as much as their words blessed mine once upon a time. More to come...

Finally...a new look for this here blog

Ok, so I finally changed it up a bit. Be impressed. Be verrry impressed.
Not gonna tell ya how long it took me to do this here thing... just be impressed I said.

Oh, and I also figured out how to make the time CORRECT on the post. It was set to pacific time or something crazy, so I fixed it for central. :o) Yay me! That's two yay me's this week, what a great start for 2011!

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.

Well, folks...it's still a white blanket out there and I gotta know - is anybody else tired of it besides me? Sure, it's fun for the kids and fine for the teachers and school staff or those stay at home workers... but for those of us who have to drive ~30 miles to work across "treacherous roads" a few towns away it certainly ain't no walk in the park.

I'm trying to be optimistic here. It could be worse... the fact that I barely made it up our driveway last night (but not before literally burning rubber on the concrete pad at the top of the drive) is not a concern today. No, because today I had to leave the car halfway. So I asked my sweet beloved to bring my (sorta) hiking boots so I could walk up the treacherous, hilly, long driveway without sliding back down it in my "Sunday shoes." Makes you rethink the whole house on a hill concept. Yeah, good for the May 2010 flood, not so much for winter snow.
(blah pic inserted here from somewhere, some time)

It's all good. It is... because this, too shall pass. Bring me spring and bring it fast!

Goal setting

There’s nothing wrong with goals, right?

I made a New Year’s Resolution when I was a freshman in high school to STOP DRINKING COKES. (Southern gal disclaimer: Coke in the South means any soft drink or soda) I was one of those heavy drinkers. I’d sometimes have coke with breakfast, coke on morning break at school, coke at lunch, coke at cheerleading practice, coke for dinner. Coke was my lifeline. LOL But every time I ran (which was rare in those days) my side hurt sooo bad. Somebody said it was because of coke. And then there was someone who said if you cut out cokes, you’d lose weight. And you know how teenagers are, especially girls – always wanting to be thinner. So I quit drinkin’ em. Cold turkey! And I still don’t, so & so years later. I’ve become a fan of “high quality H20” over the years. (That’s an Adam Sandler quote from Water Boy if you haven’t seen it.) I love it!

Ok, so enough about that. I haven’t made New Year’s Resolutions this year per se. But I do have a couple things in mind to strive for. I want to commit to reading my Bible EVERY DAY. That is NOT a difficult thing to accomplish folks. And my goodness, what is going to do? Make ya stronger and better! Why would you NOT wanna do that?

I read something the other day that said put God first, others next and yourself LAST. I wanna do more of that (the Lyndy LAST part). I really love people and I know I don’t always show it  like I should.

And now to my goal… The week after Christmas I started getting a little nervous about the January Weight Watchers weigh in I’m required to do to maintain my free lifetime membership status so I took the advice of Jenn-ay, “run Forrest run” and run I did. I kinda craved the feeling you get when you run. It’s cool. But then I thought ok, Lyndy, you know you’re going to struggle to keep this up with the weather being cool and having to make an effort to go somewhere indoors to run, etc. So I made myself a reasonable goal – to run to my hometown. I looked up the miles online and it’s 20 miles from where I live now to my hometown. And to hold myself accountable, I’ll keep you blog followers informed on my progress.

Here’s my status report thus far:

12/29/10      3 miles

12/30/10      2 miles

12/31/10      1.5 miles

01/03/11      3 miles

01/06/11      2 miles

01/07/11      2 miles

01/08/11      1 mile

TOTAL      14.5 miles

That leaves only 5.5 miles to go! By the weekend I’ll be ready for another trip… Oh, and no worries - I'm still going to my killer, butt-kickin' classes at the gym. I think they should rename the classes: Punishing Pilates, Blistering Butts & Guts, Not Yo Momma's Yoga. I heard of this 70something year old lady who had Michelle Obama arms and when asked how she kept them looking so good she said she does one pushup for each year of her life, every day. So this lady is doing 70something push ups EVERY DAY people. I thought about trying that (of course I'm in my 30s so...a little easier than Gertrude here) but I'm kinda chicken.

Oh, and Thursday was my weigh in and I'm still maintaining my goal weight. :-) Yay me!

2010...a brief glance back

I know the Bible says (in Phillipians ch 3) "...but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." But.... at the end of 2010, I think the apostle Paul will forgive us if we glance back for a minute...


Until I really started "studyin' about it" I thought 2010 was kinda cruddy. But now that I've looked back on the year, it really wasn't too shabby after all.


In 2010...

1. I recaptured my goal weight, which involved starting the running thing again....it's so nice to NOT have indentions in my tum-tum from the button of my britches. hehe


                                             December 31, 2009        October 9, 2010

2. We finally got a really good snow (for the first time since we built our house in '07). And might I say it was AWESOME playing outside with Bryson, McKenzie and Dawson...and the grown ups, too. ;-)

3. I put a team together for the March Madness Basketball challenge at work... weather did NOT permit the REAL hoop challenge, so we had to play inside, which kinda stunk, but that probably contributed to MY TEAM WINNING. ha
I feel I owe you an explanation on our team name and "uniform." We were all "bald" (by virtue of a quick trip to a costume store for bald caps) to imitate (or is it emulate) our Senior VP who is naturally a "chrome dome." hehe We surprised him with our getups! He got a big kick out of it.

4. My friend Lisa (our high school choir teacher) asked me to sing in her choir show (for filler) and of course I took it to the next level once I knew it was a 60's themed show. Halloween only comes once a year, so any chance I get to dress up and be a little silly, I'm so there! We sang Please Mr. Postman and another friend of Lisa's was my emcee partner. We cracked the crowd up! Riley did NOT like Lyndy as a blond... he saw me, started backing up and said (with a frown) No, Lyndy, no...

 5. For the first time, I was involved with the production of our church's Easter drama. It was a lot of hard work, but it turned out great. Yes, that's a live cow you see and live birdies in cages, too. The foyer was transformed into a marketplace and really made people feel like they had stepped back into Bible time.

6. I helped raise some $$$ for Junior Achievement... got a team together at work for the annual bowlathon. That's literally the one and only time a year I bowl.

7. We had a newsworthy event...a FLOOD. Unfortunately, that morning we decided to try to 4WD it through the neighbor's yard to make it to church and by the time service was over, our road and even the main highway to our road was shut down, soooo we were stranded at Anthony's sister's house... thank Heaven for Dollar General. We ran by there to buy toothbrushes and pjs. Ha Oh well. It could have been much worse (and it was for many). We just lost a night at home and some gravel off our driveway because the creek got out, way out. 

8. I finally finished reading through every book of the Bible. Something I should have accomplished a loooong time ago.

9. 24 ended. We miss you Jack, come back! 


10. Anthony & I went to the Zac Brown band "eat & greet" fan club event. Pretty cool. Hangin' out and chatting with the band was fun. They're just nice fellas like you'd expect to see/meet in our neck o' the woods. Joey & Rory and Mac McAnally were there, too.

11. I played in the summer volleyball league at my work for the first time (after work in very humid heat). I had never played in the sand, so we won't talk about that game that had to be stopped so my coworker/coach could massage my feet and toes. Luv ya Nik!

12. One Friday night around 8, I got a call from a young friend of mine who was trying to find a fourth gal to go to Six Flags...b/c of buy 1-get 1 free tix. Totally not like me to be spur of the moment, but I figured I'd regret it if I didn't go. We drove down and back in the same day and rode tons of rides and sweated like pigs in the August humidity, but it was fun and I'm glad I went. Made memories with these cool cats.

13. I made zucchini bread...first time I ever attempted makin' bread and it was delish! Anthony's uncle (who lives next door to us) supplied the zucchini from his garden, and his aunt's recipe worked out great.

14. Skunk... sprayed our central unit... Need I say more?

Woke us up in the middle of the night stinkin' the house up so bad we literally hopped in the car and went to spend the night with my inlaws. It was awful. I can't begin to explain how putrid the smell was. It stunk for weeks. People at work could smell it on me the first couple days... ugh!

15. Riley spent the night with us for the first time. It was unplanned, but I was glad that line at the consignment sale was so long. hehe Sorry Lisa & Alan! 

16. I was asked to once again participate in a couple training videos for work, and as usual I brought down the house... in the retail video I only had a few lines, but in the orientation video, I was asked to be a server. It was going so well until... the glass of coke spilled all over my coworker. Oh well, accidents happen.

17. I started this here blog. Aren't ya proud?

18. Anthony and I went to the Vandy/SC football game (what fun!). Jump to my blog entry about it - Vandy/SC This was only my second college football game ever... I know, I should get out more. :-P

19. 2010 was the year I finally started balancing the checkbook again...haven't done that since like...uh, I don't even remember. Years...

20. We celebrated our 11th anniversary. Awww. It doesn't seem like we've been married that long in a way, but I sorta can't remember life without my beloved. I sure do think he's grand!

Well, folks, that's a wrap. 2010 was filled with fond memories and fun spent with friends and family. It was a hoot, and I hope 2011 is EVEN BETTER!