Fryin' to Flyin'

I recently went to Hot Springs for work for the Arkansas Sheriff's Association Summer Convention. I was very nervous about the trip because, although two male co-workers went as well, I felt like I was going it alone. Plus, I had to stay at The Austin hotel, not The Embassy Suites. The Austin was terrible. That did not help the trip at all. But I survived and I'm here to tell about it. Through the process though I realized I might just be high maintenance. Who knew.

When I arrived Sunday afternoon, my company, Tiger Correctional Services, hosted a Fish Fry for the Sheriffs and their families at what was called the Arc Isle party house on Lake Hamilton. For those of you that are familiar with Jonesboro, it was similar to The Pavilion at ASU, but about 30 years older and more... "open air". That was hard work too let me tell ya! Running back and forth getting fish, onion rings, hush puppies, cole slaw, potato salad, etc. I was exhausted, but it was a great event. We planned for about 100 and 200 showed up. Probably more actually.

The next few days were good. We made good contacts with Pulaski County and I plan to follow up with them today. We took a large group out to Bella Arti for dinner Monday evening. Interesting to be on the vendor side of a conference. I've been on the attendee side when I worked at the clinic. It was nice being catered to, but this time I had to do the catering. It was still fun though. The most fun part of the conference was Tuesday night. They had a dance & a band. I love to dance. Then I played poker til 2am with some Sheriffs and one of our competitors. Ha! I lost though....

On the way home, and let me tell I couldn't get home quick enough, I stopped in Little Rock at the River Market to have lunch with my old college friend Paul. I don't think I had seen Paul since Christmas 2007 when Richard & Laura stopped in Jonesboro to visit. We had lunch at The Flying Fish. My first experience of fish tacos. It was good. But I was mostly thrilled I was able to find the place & park without getting lost. Gotta love the Garmin! Paul and I had a nice visit. Then I hopped in the car and drove home. In the pouring down rain. Scary rain. But I was in such a hurry to get home that I didn't want to pull over, so I trudged through. :)

A Cold Day in July

My mom, sister and I had a small garage sale on Saturday. It was unseasonably cool on Saturday in Jonesboro. I wore a sweatshirt until noon. I had been wanting to get rid of some books so I won't have to move them ever again. They're so heavy. An once I've read a book, there's no need to keep it unless it's something I'll look at again. So, now when I buy & read a book I pass it off to someone else that might like it.

We made about $80 total on the sale, which I didn't think was bad considering we didn't put an ad in the paper and didn't really have anything of any value. The most expensive items we had were two chairs -- sold for $10/ea. I came away with $25. Again, not bad considering nothing I had sold for more than $1. Most things were a quarter. The goal was to get rid of some things and hopefully make a little money at the same

time. I don't like messing with getting a receipt at Goodwill. Plus, it was just a good day spent with family outdoors.

Saturday afternoon I helped my new boss prepare food for his 30 year class reunion. Kinda fun actually.

Then I came home and made cookies. Cranberry & Walnut. Made from a chocolate chip recipe of my Aunt Jackie's. Sooo yummy. I made them for my movie guests. I made the chocolate chip recipe on Sunday to take to work. I promised the guys at work I'd make cookies for them when they put my new desk together. More on that soon. A bunch of friends came over that night to watch "Election" and eat watermelon. Good day.

Last minute Salad Experiment

"Necessity is indeed the mother of invention"~quoted by Jo March at the beginning of the movie "Little Women". I have seen that movie so many times...

Anyway, I thought of this quote because I "invented" a new salad last night. It's similar to the Quesadilla Explosion at Chili's. I was home last night not wanting to eat left-over chicken pot pie so I decided to make a quesadilla. I do this sometimes when there's nothing else to eat but I want something besides cereal or cheese & crackers. I looked in the fridge and found some baked chicken my sister had left over from a meal earlier this week. I heated it and cut it up. I put it on a tortilla along with grated cheese (most of it fat free), taco sauce and fresh ripe tomatoes. My best friend from childhood, RandiJo, dropped them off at my house this week. She and I grew a garden together one summer in college so it brought back some memories. Then I had some lettuce left over from my July 4th party so I threw that on there with some low fat Ranch dressing.

Voila! A delicious salad! It was good and somewhat healthy. I'm getting better at this cooking thing. :)

My Cup Runneth Over

This summer I have had the blessing of witnessing three of my young cousins get baptized. Abby, Justice and Emily. Abby was saved at church camp, Justice probably prayed at home I am not sure, and Emily was with her grandma Margaret (my aunt) and Abby at the 4-H camp at Ferndale. My cup runneth over. These baptisms have been extra special to me and I'm very glad I was able to be there for all of them. Another of my young cousins, Tyler, passed away in May. I was able to witness his baptism a few years ago and that has given me a great deal of comfort as I still grieved.

Tyler, Emily and

Abby were all baptized at Oak Grove Baptist Church near my grandmother's house. I love going there. It's where my parents were married. Where my grandpa's funeral was. It has that smell that brings back memories. I must have gone there as a child for VBS or something. I think all old country churches smell the same. Like glue and panelling.

Oak Grove services are interesting. The sermons are short, thank goodness (ha!), but the singing is the BEST. They have Heavenly Highway Hymnals. They have regular hymnals too, which they call "the white book". Singing in that church feels different than my church. I go to a big church in a nice modern building. This church was built decades ago. It's had some face-lifts you can tell. There's nice wainscoting up to the chair rail and then they put paneling above that. Turquoise is the color of fabric covering the pews, the carpet and the hip vertical blinds. I was there on Father's Day for Abby's baptism

and Sunday night for Emily's. This week they observed the Lord's Supper. They have closed communion which is when only the actual church members can take communion. There were Lots of visitors Sunday because of the baptisms. So, the preacher had the bright idea to have all the members gather in the aisle so it would be easier to pass out the crackers & juice. A few years ago I would've thought Oak Grove was stuck in a rut and old fashioned, but as I get older I realize that just because it's a small church doesn't mean it's a dead church. Their baptismal waters are stirring and they have a mission field right in the community. I'm glad Oak Grove is there.

My dad and I took Abby, Emily, Chance & Cody to Memphis one Saturday this summer. Here are some pics.

Chicken Pot Pie

I made Chicken Pot Pie tonight. A recipe I got from hungry-girl.com a site with low fat recipes for yummy things. Here is the recipe. It was good.

I rarely cook anything this involved for just myself. And now I know why. By the time I get home, cook and get ready to eat I'm not hungry anymore and it's late and I don't really want to cook for just myself. Seems kinda silly.

I honestly think tonight might have been the first Chicken Pot Pie I've ever eaten. My mom never made it... Also, I think they are just sneaky ways to get you to eat your veggies.

Watching The Bachelorette

Oh the drama on The Bachelorette.

I didn't make it to the gym tonight. I was invited to eat at Hiro, a new Japanese restaurant, and I was waaaay too full to work out. Then I painted my toenails, which I desperately needed to do, and now I can't put my tennis shoes on anyway. I'm going to bed early.

I can't figure out Jillian on The Bachelorette. I hope she finds love though. :)

Night in Memphis

Last night I went to Memphis with some of my closest friends: Matt & Amanda Hurdle, Michael & Brittney Johnson, Andy & Lori. We saw Wicked at the Orpheum then went out to the Wolfchase area to eat at The Melting Pot. The show was stupendous, as expected, and dinner was fabulous as well. Oh, I have to tell about our waiter! So, my friend Matt is from a town called Weiner, AR. Yes that's right. That alone is funny. His wife Amanda mentioned something to him about going to Weiner soon or something and the waiter overheard this. One the led to another and our waiter, Zach, admitted to having a tatoo of a hotdog with wings on his torso. This was funny, but I really didn't believe him. I mean, seriously. Then he had a fairly believable story about helping out a tatoo artist buddy right before the guy went into the army. So, he ended with this tatoo. As the night went on, it was a joke, but I still felt like he was putting on to get a good tip. So after he brought the main course, I said, "This is all wonderful, but you know what I'd really like to have right now? A hot dog!" hahahaha So he puts his pitcher of water on the floor and lifted his shirt right there at the table and showed us! Sure enough. There was a hotdog with intricate wings tatooed on his ribs. Ha! Made for an interesting evening.

I put up some pics of the evening.

Saturday morning walk

I just got back from a Saturday morning walk and, after spilling my first breakfast, I'm now eating the second on my patio with my unsoiled peanut butter & crackers & Diet Coke. Healthy I know. But, it's what I wanted and I'm a grown-up. So there.

My sister woke me up too early this morning with her banging around & TV turned on. She has real estate class today. So I went ahead and got up and decided to go for a walk around my neighborhood since it was early & cool. I live in an older neighborhood. Est. in the 1950's. It' so cute! There are sidewalks even. :) It was not an uber calorie burning walk, but I did sweat. I just wanted to take a relaxing walk in the neighborhood to see the houses up close. It's completely different than driving by in the car. Even with the windows rolled down.

Let's see... I found 3 quarters in someone's driveway/on the sidewalk so I took it. I mean, they wouldn't have noticed it there. Quarters are silver and the concrete driveway was gray, so really... Now I'm 75 cents richer. I consider it my reward for getting up and doing something productive instead of just watching trash on TV.

I also saw a racoon! I have a feeling it was going back into the bushes after a night of scavenging. So I try to figure out what people are like by looking at their house. Probably most of these folks are old. I spotted a few wheelchair ramps. Oh, and I saw some storm shelters. My grandparents had one. There were the tacky yard ornaments as well. Oh and the most telling of features: the add-on. This is when old men decide to take in the carport to make a "den". Or they take in the patio to make a sun room. The exterior never matches the original exterior of the house. But oddly enough it's usually where a family likes to spend most of their leisure time - in the New Room. Ha ha Enough of my over analyzation of my neighbors.

The air is till today. No wind as I'm looking out on my own backyard. I've been jamming to my iPod since I walked out of the house to walk. Playing a variety ranging from Celine Dion to Elvis to Counting Crows to Michael Buble.

I love this country!

I'm going to see "Wicked" this afternoon at The Orpheum in Memphis. So excited!

Signing off,

Autumn

Keeping Up

I have decided to blog a few things that I need a great deal of discipline to actually follow through with each day/week. I thought if I wrote them out I'd have a better chance of doing them. We'll see how it goes.

I've been to the gym each night this week. I really need to lose some weight. Went to spin on Tues & Thurs. Both times we had a teacher I'd never had before. On Monday night I went to the gym and watched The Bachelorette (my guilty pleasure) for 2 straight hours while working out. And Wednesday night I went to church, then went to the gym after. I meant to weigh tonight but I do it next time. I also bought some healthier choices for food. Er... I tried. I'm still trying to get used to preparing my meals. At Clopton we had breakfast & lunch provided so actually having to give thought to the fact that I'll have to each each morning and noon has been an adjustment. I got some lean cuisines or whatever. I had one today at lunch. Not bad. And one of my fave lunch foods is strawberries & cottage cheese. Yummy. :) I also got some english muffins for breakfast. I'd been doing the bagel thing, but that's too much.

I'd been eating way too much fast food since starting at Tiger. I was feeling it big time. These frozen dinners are really easy & don't like preparing a lunch.

I'm also reading my Bible as part of a girls Bible study at church. Praying for the Lord to bless me and for a positive attitude.