She's crafty...

DAR State Conference is in a couple of weeks. One of my jobs as the State Chairman of the Outstanding Junior Member Contest is to attain 2 corsages to be presented to the State Winner and State Runner-Up on the Thursday evening of the conference. There are two stipulations for these corsages: they must be silk flowers, and they must be yellow roses. Okay, the second might not necessarily be a stipulation, but I've only ever seen yellow roses as the corsage in my 10 years of DAR.

The previous chairman went to Michael's and had them make the corsages. I was out running errands yesterday and decided I should go ahead and get this taken care of, since it will be March 11 before we know it. I stopped by my neighborhood Michael's and was completely unimpressed in their floral selection and their lack of staff to assist. I decided to give Hobby Lobby a try today on my lunch break. While I was looking for someone to assist me in the floral section, I came across an aisle that had everything you needed to make your very own corsages. Of course, they seem to only think that people use silk corsages for WEDDINGS (which I have seen done well, but none of the displays were of that calibur)... but that's another story.
I gathered everything I needed and it came out to a grand total of $17.07, that's way cheaper than I thought ordering the corsages would be! I brought everything back to the office and in less than 30 minutes, this is what I made (the pen is for proportion reference):



I have to admit, I'm kind of impressed with myself! Who knew I could be so crafty?

Valentine's Day

This past weekend was Valentine's Day, and my parents did something they haven't done for me since my CHILDHOOD... they sent me flowers! Originally, the flowers were scheduled to be delivered to the Capitol on Friday, but I wasn't at work. Not sure what happened with the delivery since no one in my office ever saw it, but the flowers showed up on my doorstep Monday night. Very bizarre. But flowers, are flowers... no matter when they show up!

Of course, since they arrived I have remembered why it's a good thing no one ever sends me flowers.... Smokey finds them VERY tasty. She started chomping on them before I could even get them fully arranged in a vase. I first put them on top of a book case that is out of her reach, but she is determined. Last night I caught her several times jumping up onto the shelf below and trying to get her fat booty on the next level. Instead of sacrificing my book case, I had to resort to putting my flowers here....

Snow!

I went home to Lufkin on Friday for a funeral (my cousin's grandmother), and I got to witness beautiful SNOW! It NEVER snows in East Texas, and it was so pretty to see while driving. From College Station to Lufkin, there was snow everywhere. The Davy Crockett National Forrest was absolutely beautiful with snow-covered trees. Of course, when I drove back to Austin on Saturday, the snow was gone. And my car got gross from the slosh on the road, but it was due for a nice wash anyways. Here's some pictures of our house with snow, there had been more in the morning, but I didn't have time to walk around and take pictures before the funeral.

Frightening statistic and strange news...

Carolyn found a news article last week that said some pretty scary stuff! A recent study shows that by age of 30, women have cycled through 90% of their eggs. Nice. Though the discovery of that information doesn't really set my biological clock ticking, guess that has to do with the fact that my mom was 34 when she had Jay and me. But I just thought I would share that with all of you in case you wanted to be freaked out!

In other strange news, a man was arrested yesterday in Massachusetts after shoving 75 full-sized bottles of lotion down his pants at a Bath and Body Works. Given my extensive knowledge of BBW products, I can't even begin to imagine how big those pants had to be AND how heavy it must have been to walk! I would have loved to witness that, though. If someone started shoving bottles of lotion down their pants, you would have to notice pretty quickly...

This and that...

So much for posting more in 2010... I'm really not sure where all of the time goes! I can't believe January has come and gone, I'm not even used to writing 2010 down yet.

Work has gotten a lot busier with the start of 2010. We are planning to hold one hearing a month to discuss the interim charges, so just about the time you get everything wrapped up from one hearing, it's time to move onto the next! I'm not sure how we did a hearing a week during Session. I guess it's the difference in the amount of research required. During Session, you are holding hearings on house bills... so you are dealing only with the specific information in front of you. During interim hearings, you are dealing with broad topics... and that means lots of research!

I got to visit with my cutie patootie niece a few weeks ago. She's at such a fun age! She loves her Aunt Jamie and was so excited that I came to Dallas to see her. She really wanted to come back to Austin with me, so I'm trying to arrange my schedule so that she can do that sometime this month.

I'm thinking about joining the Junior League. I'm probably crazy for getting involved with another organization, considering I keep on getting asked to do more jobs in DAR and C.A.R.... but oh well. I really admire all of the work they do within the community, plus it's just another way to network. Not to mention the women in the Jr. League are a much younger age than the average DAR member.

Also starting training for another 1/2 marathon. There's an all-women event at the end of March that my co-worker Carolyn and I want to do. Once again, we shall see how my schedule allows for this. I went on a 3 mile trail run this past weekend with some of my running friends, it was quite an experience! The trail is actually a bike trail, so it consisted of lots of steep hills, roots, and even running through streams! Needless to say, it's pretty dang amazing I didn't fall flat on my face.

I'm heading to Lufkin this weekend since I don't know when I'll be able to visit again (March-May is almost completely booked every single weekend!). Looking forward to seeing the fam and the kiddos. I'm also contemplating a cell-phone upgrade while I'm there. I guess 4 years as a Razr user is long enough...

STILL HERE!

I'm still here, even if from the lack of blog posts it doesn't seem like it. Perhaps my New Year's resolution should be to blog more than once a month! I will post pictures from Christmas after I get them uploaded to the computer, but just thought I'd check in while I was thinking about it.

Enjoyed Christmas in Lufkin, even if it did come with a tornado, family death, and lots of craziness! Got to spend time with my Stinky niece, who has officially become obsessed with her Aunt Jamie. I love it! Also got to hang with all of my favorite kiddo cousins, there's getting to be so many with the additions of Brax and Will this year.

I'm really looking forward to 2010. I think it's going to be a fantastic year! 2009 definitely made me stronger, but I'm glad to see it go. It's so nice to start off the year gainfully employed, to say the least. I think this year I am really going to focus on ME. I've never been a selfish person, but as I'm getting older I'm starting to realize that it's okay to prioritize for me, after all, no one else will.

The next few months are going to be crazy-busy for me, but I wouldn't have it any other way. We are gearing up for our first interim hearing next week in Houston. So I guess it's time to officially dive into the world of tax code, should be interesting stuff... to say the least.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Here are some pictures of my beautifully decorated office. I guess the 9 years at BBW has really paid off when it comes to my decorating and bow-making skills. This afternoon we are hosting our first of 2 Christmas parties... should be some good times! Also, according to blogspot, this is my 100th blog post. Yippee!

the wreath on our front door

garland in JJ's office



by the way, I personally hung every single ornament (minus the tree... Carolyn did that)

I'm super proud of my bow on top of the book case.

garland in the main office

our little Santa scene that JJ made

view of mine and Carolyn's desks

wreaths and garland in Rene's office

our tree!