My Life in Pictures

Time for new pictures!

Enjoy! :)

View from my back yard

Savannah Bound

At the rodeo!

My Sidekick & I at the George & Martina Concert in Atlanta

Rodeo!

Our newest member of the family, Stella.

Fireballs on New Years Day

The Hub & I at George & Martina's Concert

Martina McBride

George Strait

Zoe Bug!

Bonefire with the girls!

New Years Eve with the girls!

Court & I

Sweet Zoe!

Songs = Memories

This morning it came across my newsfeed that CMT was playing a new video by the Eli Young Band called "Even If It Breaks Your Heart." I love music, especially country music and if you know me, I love to know all of the words to every song.

Somehow, I relate every song I hear to a memory or to a time period in my life and when it plays, I begin daydreaming. Sometimes a song brings me back to a good time and sometimes a not so good time but no matter what, I remind myself that the time, place, or memory that a song brings me back to has led me to where I am now.

The new Eli Young Band song states
"Some dreams stay with you forever,
drag you around but bring you back to where you were.
Some dreams keep on gettin better,
gotta keep believin if you wanna know for sure."

This is one of the truest things that I think anyone can relate to.

Some dreams do stay with you forever, one example for me is a wedding. Yes, I am married, but I still have this dream of my dream wedding that I began planning as a little girl. I know it is not realistic due to the price it would have cost, but I still can see that picture in my head. When I hear Dusty Drake's song "Say Yes" or Tracy Byrd's "Keeper of the Stars" it always brings me back to that dream.

No matter what I dreamed or wanted in my dreams, I am so thankful that I am where I am today. All of the wishes, hopes, and dreams has led me to where I am today.

Always dream. Dreams help you to keep believing and to keep goals.

Christmas Party

As I am getting ready for my Christmas party at our house this year, I cannot help but think about all of the great recipes that I want to prepare. How does one decide if something is proper or not to serve at a 6:30 Christmas party? Well, I started thinking along the lines of soup and sandwiches and then my husband mentioned smoking a Boston butt and making barbecue or grilling hamburgers and hot dogs. I love the hamburger and hot dog idea but that is one of our summer cookouts that we have and that seems sort of like a birthday party idea so we had to keep thinking! Well, finally after a lot of discussion, we decided to serve:
Pimento Cheese Sandwiches
Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Hawaiian Ham and Swiss Rolls
Cocktail BBQ Weenies
Apple Pie Dip with Graham Crackers
Cream Cheese with Pepper Jelly Ball with Ritz Crackers
Sweet Tea
Coke & Diet Coke
and
Wassail.

On top of this, since we are newlyweds and most of our friends are young without much money, all of the girls were asked to bring a dish. So we have someone bringing chips, a cake, brownies, some kind of dip, cheese biscuits, and other things!

Also, I asked each girl to bring a wrapped ornament for an ornament swap! I think this could be a great tradition for years to come!

We are both so excited.... IF ONLY the house would clean itself. I know that no one receives an award for the "cleanest house" but I like to entertain, therefore I want my house to be spotless! It is difficult to get any cleaning done when my pup, Zoe wants all of my attention. Therefore, tonight she is going to stay with my parents for a while so that I can get some much needed cleaning done!

Next on my agenda after all this party planning has been consuming my mind all week is my internship. I am finishing up week 15 of my Dietetic Internship through Cedar Crest College. I cannot believe that I am halfway done. I have three weeks of foodservice left in January and then I move on to Community Nutrition until the end of April and then I am DONE! I cannot explain how excited I am that I will be Registered Dietitian Eligible come May. I am so excited to begin looking for jobs in January! This whole working for no pay is worse than being a college student because at least during college I was able to work two or three part time jobs. Currently, I am working 40 hours a week, taking 12 hours of graduate classes, and working zero part time jobs. I keep telling myself that May will be here before I know it.

Girls Night Out and the gym are the only things keeping me stress free and sane right now. Projects, papers, work, and life gets very overwhelming not to mention that I should be studying for the RD exam now! I am so thankful to have my friends around though when I need them and thankfully most of them are home from graduate school on break for a few weeks! Here is a glance at how my fall has went so far since it is  now coming to an end!

Millie & I

The Nutrition Girls at Emmies Wedding!

Emmie!!

Sarah & I at Jenna's Wedding

The Hubby & I

Jenna Suzanne's Big Day!

The Hubby's Graduation Day!

At my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's wedding!

Me & my sister-in-law

Whit & I at the fair

After the concert!

Hannah & I

Zoe Bug loves to have her picture taken!

Whit, Meg, Me, & Nat out on Christmas Break

Millie, Jenn, Me, & Whit before heading to dinner

Wedding season for me has officially ended. I attended my last wedding of the year in November for my sweet friend Laura.

 I love weddings but my poor husband thinks it is torture to have to go to so many of them. He had no idea that his wife had so many friends getting married :) Too bad he is my wedding date for all of them, but he is off the hook until next spring :)

Well, I better get back to work, so many projects left to finish and so little time!

Until next time.... I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

-MES

February

It's hard to believe that it is already mid-February.I finished up gathering all of my preceptors information and forms and put them all in order, made copies, filled out a rotation schedule form and was so glad to be done with it! Then I completed my personal statement and updated my resume and spell-checked everything on my application on Sunday morning. Finally, I submitted my DICAS application and mailed my supplemental things to the University of Northern Colorado on Monday. I signed up for D&D Digital and now I get to play the waiting game until April 6th at 6:00pm to find out if I will be in the 2012 graduating class of the University of Northern Colorado's Distance Dietetic Internship. I am praying that all goes well, but I know that it is in God's hands what happens and everything will work out for the best.

So for a backup plan - I am applying to Liberty University online for a Master's in Health & Wellness.

As for wedding plans, with one shower out of the way (thank you Caitlin & Mrs. Joni Towns for being wonderful hostesses) I am a little over 3 months away from marrying my best friend and love, Benton! He and I are starting to meet with my old youth minister, Daryl next month for premarital counseling and I am excited! It's always great to have someone who has been married for a long time and not to mention has four adorable little girls to be a mentor and talk with us about all aspects of marriage and how God views it and everything.

Now that I have engagement pictures out of the way, I am getting down to the nitty gritty details of wedding planning. I have all of my registries complete and have a second shower coming up March 3rd for all of my Statesboro friends! I cannot wait to see everyone!

Not to mention, I will be in my sweet friend Holly's wedding in June and in Jenna's in September! I also have a wedding almost every month from May through November to go to. How exciting! Benton will be busy being my wedding date this year! :)

School is in the full swing of things with twelve hours this semester I thought it would be easy, but no, I am busier than ever! I have Metabolic Nutrition Therapy II, Experimental Food Science, International Studies, and Quantity Food Practicum. Every Wednesday morning, I am going into Nevil's Elementary School at 6:30am sharp and working in the lunchroom for practicum! Learning the flow of foods, sanitation and safety issues, delivery mechanisms, procurement, and everything else is helpful and makes for a long day! I thank Georgia Southern for making it be a requirement though, because I definitely have learned to appreciate the lunchroom staff more because by no means is it easy work or a short day! In experimental, I am working on developing a new product: Candied Couscous Cornbread. Soon, I will begin my trials and we will pray that all goes well! The idea is to make cornbread a sweet bread, since that is what I prefer! I am interested to see how everyone elses products turn out this semester.

Well, I better run so I can work on my experimental food science proposal and my metabolic nutrition therapy II case study on diverticulosis! :)