holy crap

Has it really been three months?

Sorry.

Not sure what to say really.

The hubbs & I are in a strange place in our lives.  We've had a lot going on professionally and personally.  So contrary to the lucky-go-happy bloggers out there who have nothing better to do than post their daily outfits or talk about what they're feeding their kids - I've stayed away from the blogosphere for a while cause a whole lot of perkiness wouldn't have been what you see here.

But today's ok.  Today is Friday, which means I have 2 days off from work.  And this week I found out that I will soon be relieved from my 4th attorney which will relieve a TON of stress in my life.  HOPEFULLY they will make good on their promise.

And its a beautiful day.  AND I had some labwork a couple days ago and I had a great appointment, I didn't even come close this time to passing out.  It felt amazing to feel strong. 

SO tonight...I'm planing to put on some soft music and bake a vegetarian lasagna for the hubbs when he gets home from working outside for 13 hours in 95 degree heat.

There has to be more people...I'm ready for a change.

A Whole Lotta Yumminess!

Now that I have a man home EVERY evening - I am cooking WAY more!!!

I love to cook and discovering new recipes!  But when it was just me home alone, I had no desire to prepare anything other than cereal or toast. 

It's been a few weeks now and I feel like a real wife with getting to plan out a menu for the week and making out a grocery list.  So fun!  It would be even more fun if I wasn't so dog-gone tired when I got home from a long day at work.  Geeez...

Anyway - had to share some of the fun recipes I've discovered!

First off - Chicken Club Pizza!!  YUMMMMY!!!!

This was fairly easy to make and tasted so freakin good!!!  For the recipe, go here.

Next up - Chicken Marsala with Spinach, Tangerine & Glazed Almonds Salad

I've had this recipe for a while and had just never got around to making it and I have no idea why I waited so dang long!!!  The chicken was so tender and flavorful and the mushrooms delish!  Next time I'm serving it over linguine though.   For the recipe go here.  And the salad recipe I don't actually have right now, its something Jason's grandmother passed along.

Another favorite we made - Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

I ADORE this soup.  It's so hearty and so flavorful and even good for you!!  I've made it a few times now and we eat leftovers for a few days after.  Just the best thing for cold stormy nights :-)  For the recipe go here.

For a little something quick & easy, we made - Turkey & Avocado Panini's

A fast-crunchy-melty-goodness sandwich. As a matter of fact, we're having them again tonight!  For the recipe, go here.

Excited to try out new ones the rest of this week!

Walking for Mulitple Sclerosis!

This Saturday, I'll be joining some friends to Walk for Multiple Sclerosis! I've never done anything like this before, and super excited at the chance to raise funds for such a great cause! AND it's not just a random fundraiser that I chose, I picked this one because my best friend Tina Frees was diagnosed 5 years ago with MS. From what I understand, thousands of people participate and join together for this amazing cause every year! I'm super pumped and already have met $125 of my $500 dollar goal!

Tina & I have been friends since the 2nd grade, no joke. And I know how blessed I am to have a friendship that's withstood years of trials, joys, tears, triumphs and adventure. And I would love nothing more to know that I'll have another 50 or so years left to experience even more with her! Please join me in supporting an amazing cause like this by making a small (or large!) donation to help with finding a cure for MS, so that friendships like mine aren't limited by time or ability ;-)

When I told Tina I wanted to do this on her behalf, she responded with this note:

"It's such an honor to have Kim doing this on my behalf. If you know me and if you don't, I was diagnosed with MS 1 month before my 30th Birthday (March 15, 2006). I feel blessed that I can still see, throw a baseball with my son, paint my daughters bedroom, laugh with my older daughter and travel with my husband. Not everybody does as well as I have done, and I know that at any point I could wake up and everything could change. But I don't worry about that.

MS is a crazy disease that has no cure and no known cause. There is a ton of great research going on right now and all the fundraising makes a huge difference. Not only does it go to helping find treatments and cures but it also helps with things like the summer camp my 2 younger kids get to attend this summer to meet other kids who watch their parents struggle like I do. They will get to play, learn, connect, and share with others what MS has meant to them. Your donations help pay for that. So thank you in advance for giving and helping Kim make her fundraising goals!"

You can donate by clicking here.

Library Smitten!

I have to blog about this before my sister gets the chance to! See, I typically find something pretty cool online and then she steals my thunder by immediately blogging the heck out of it ;-)

Haa haa, love you Katydid!

I came across the website Beautiful Libraries and I have been drooling ever since! My dream is to one day have a gorgeous library of my own with overstuffed chairs, couches, a fireplace and expansive windows - maybe even 2 story!

Here are some drool-worthy pics from some gorgeous home libraries featured:

Love, love, love!!!! At the rate I'm collecting books, I'll need a bigger house in order to keep them for sure!

Jason turns 40!

This cute little nugget just happened to turn 40 a couple weeks back!

And because he was born in 1971, I felt it only appropriate to throw my main squeeze a surprise 1970's birthday party!

It all started with an elaborate plan and some very awesome friends ;-) Saturday morning of March 12th, I left Jason a note that I would be heading out to get him breakfast in bed and snuck out of the house to pick up Tina & Jay from the airport.

You couldn't ask for two more selfless & amazing friends than Tina & Jay. They flew all the night before and got in around 9am. We snuck into the house where I was confident to find a snoozing husband and Jay, pretending to be me, climbed into bed with an unsuspecting Jason to give him his coffee & muffin.

It all went down like this - Surprise Part 1:

Then Jay & Jason spent the day on the golf course, while Tina & I did a little shopping for Surprise Part 2 wherein we had a dinner party planned at Jason's favorite restaurant Park Cafe. Seriously, every little detail went off without a hitch! Check out our stylin' & groovy friends!

All the ladies...

We laughed till our sides hurt...

And how could we pass up a photo montage?!

Matt & Amy Walter

Jason with Julie & Tabby

Jenni & Heath Adams

Chad & Tabby Coombs

Jay & Tina Frees

And us.

And it wouldn't have been a REAL birthday without a little candle & big ol' round of Happy Birthday sung by all :-)

For party favors, the table was decorated with mixed tapes of 1970 classic hits and homemade salted caramels for everyone.

Surprise Part 3 - a getaway for 3 days to Chattanooga, TN with Tina & Jay and rooms booked on The Delta Queen Riverboat!

We stayed up till the wee hours of the morning playing Skipbo and eating more junkfood than your average teenager.

We toured the city and had some serious BBQ at Sticky Fingers - yummy!

And to top the weekend off, we took a little detour through Cleveland, TN to pick up the newest member of the Frees family, Miss Ruby Mae. Here is she checking out the same rest step we first brought our own boys too when we picked them up!

It was an awesome 4 days spent with the best of friends and making the best of memories together.

You only turn 40 once, better make it count ;-)

What a weekend!

This last weekend was a heck of a ride for us! Saturday morning I woke up at 7:30am to Jason walking into the bedroom. I thought maybe he had just let the dogs out or something, and then he came over to the bed and said that he had food poisoning and had been throwing up since 3:30am! Yuk! I don't know how I slept through that! For those of you that know me well, you know that I don't deal with puke at all. AND in the course of our 5 years of marriage, we've never had to cross that bridge together, cause neither one of us has ever gotten that sick. He's quite the trooper though and other than a trip to the store to pick him up some chicken noodle soup and 7-up, all I could do was stay by him and keep him company (but not in the bathroom - nope, that's where I draw the line). Hey at least I stayed in the same room with him - that's improvement for me!

Later Saturday night, I had plans to meet up with my girl Julie for a fundraiser event featuring authors Ron Hall & Denver Moore, from the book Same Kind of Different As Me which we read in book club last year. It was an awesome experience and we even got our picture taken with them and some other friends of ours Jill & Denise who also came! The place was packed out, probably somewhere between 600-800 people showed up! Julie knew the coordinators of the event, so we had seats reserved at their table and I ended up sitting next to some guy that I didn't know. I'm so bad in these situations and usually feel extremely overwhelmed with crowds and a bunch of strangers surrounding me. After Julie & I talked for a while, this man next to me turns to me and asks a little about ourselves and if our spouses are involved in the music industry. We in turn answer and I go on and on about how the music business has been quite the roller coaster experience for Jason and I, with having so many close calls. We must have talked about music for 20 minutes before I asked him if he also was in the business. He responded he was and yes, in fact he's a country music songwriter. Here I am blabbering away for 20 minutes as if I know anything about the industry, when I finally ask him his last name and find out that he is one of the biggest songwriters in town!!!! Holy crap people! All this time I had no idea who he was and in fact, was the only other person at the table who didn't know who this guy was! I of course in true Kimberly fashion, proceeded to turn a deep shade of crimson and began sweating like a stuck pig. I mentally started coaching myself to calm the crap down! So we go back to talking and bantering about small things like someone trying to take his cake, the gentlemen hired to do the readings, ect...and I really enjoyed getting to know him. He asked how long Jason has been trying to break into the business here in Nashville, his style, who he knows ect... and then he said that he doesn't normally do this, but if an opportunity presents itself where he can help another writer out, he tries to take it and asked if I thought Jason might want to write or meet with him? WHATTT????? Are you kidding me?! I got his personal email address and then we went back to listening to the evening speakers. Ron Hall & Denver Moore were so inspiring and Ron said something that really stuck with me. When they were trying to get their book published and they were continually getting rejected by publishing companies, Denver told Ron that they needed to bless all those that rejected them right then and there. I felt convicted myself of all the frustration & anger I've held toward those that have given Jason the brush off over the years or who have not held up their end of the bargain. So later that night, I prayed in the shower and blessed those that have let us down.

When I got home that evening from the dinner, you know I just had to play it up and get Jason going. I told him that I had made a friend and that he was also a songwriter and that I got his contact info for him to write with. Like I knew he would, Jason took a deep breath like, "oh boy, here we go." Haa haa, then I told him, "His name was something like ....(pause).. _____" Jason looked at me with huge, shocked eyes and said, "Are you kidding me?!" And then again, "Are you kidding me?!" I had myself my own little dance party in the living room - "that's right baby! whohooo!"

The next day when Jason was feeling more himself, after a horribly long day of being sick, he got on the computer and emailed this songwriter. It was brief and sweet, with a link to his MySpace music page. Hours later, the songwriter emailed him back, said that he really liked Jason's music and that he had the talent, he just needed a break. He said that chance meetings like him and I meeting at the fundraiser, are what he likes to call, "meant-to-bes" and that hopefully something will come out of it. He asked for Jason to meet him at his office on March 22nd ;-) Y'all I know I'm once again on a high on this music business roller coaster, but this man seemed very genuine and he could be an open door for Jason's music to be really heard! So be praying! And when I say this man is a huge songwriter, I'm talking 21 #1 singles, and over 50 top ten hits! He's gotten cuts with the likes of Reba McEntire, Trisha Yearwood, George Strait, Billy Currington, Randy Travis, Keith Urban, Lonestar, Neil Diamond, Brooks & Dunn, Sara Evans and Jason Aldean among many others. So please be praying for an awesome meeting and for us to continue to trust God in His timing.

Well if they can keep their Christmas lights up...

As I drove home from work last night and saw the strands of Christmas lights STILL lining some trees on our block, I couldn't help but think - "Hey I can post about Christmas on my blog, if they can still keep their Christmas lights up!" I know, I know, I'm ridiculously behind on updates. But the thing is, I've been pretty tied up with some other personal matters and blogging has not been one of my top priorities right now.

AND what with Facebook, I figured everyone has already been inundated with Christmas photos ;-0

Anyway - let's begin.

You know that tender Tennessee Christmas I was hoping for? Well we woke up to snow Christmas morning and it couldn't have been more magical!

We must have gotten close to 6-7 inches maybe? It was breathtaking all around us.

The icicles hung so far off the house, that we could break them off and give them as treats to the boys.

The property did not have a fence, so the boys enjoyed some rare roaming privileges wandering through the forest.

And Seven loved the snow so much that he would literally roll around in it like it was grass.

A few different times Jason would take the boys down to a nearby kids camp that was closed up for the season and get some of their energy out.

And then later that afternoon he would soothe his muscles by sitting for hours in the hot tub out back with his brother-in-law Scott.

The guys surprised us with a little tree, which Grandma set right away to decorating and the rest of us filled up with presents!

The house was so cozy! It was better than we could ever imagine and had every amenity we could ever ask for! You can see Grandma and Sherry working the puzzle in the living room below.

And while the women puzzled, the men played a few rounds of golf (cards that is).

For most of the family, it was their first white Christmas ever! I believe this is Jason's self-portrait snowman he made.

Jason made this little guy on the front porch railing outside our bedroom. I woke up every morning to this tiny snowman and he held steady until we departed our final day. How cute is that carrot nose?

Kelley's Boston snowman.

Christmas morning snuggles with Jeep. He was pretty distraught most of the vacation since we had a fire continuously going. He is terribly afraid of fire and had to stay behind the couch where he couldn't see it.

I married a nut.

Jeep & Seven conked out from a long day playing in the snow.

Jason said he would build me my own cabin someday - so he got started right away on the prototype.

Seriously, how cute are my boys? They are inseparable and the best ever!

It was a wonderful time and I hope that we can spend another Christmas there in the future!