Another new nephew!

My sister, Kiki, had her third child Thursday morning--Wyatt Eli at 8 lbs. 5 oz., 20 in. A friend of mine and Kiki's, Jamie Garner, took these pictures at the hospital:
I am very sad that I wasn't able to be there for the birth and that I can't hold him and see him in person. I'll see him in December, though, which won't come fast enough! :)

Home decor advice needed

My mom and I have been talking about doing a painting for my dining room. I finally bought a huge canvas (3' x 4') from Hobby Lobby last week--used a 40% off coupon, woohoo! The idea I have is to just add some color (I'm thinking orange) in there by doing some sort of abstract art piece. Something like these, maybe:

I really want something more like layers of color, all blended into each other. I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for online, so I just went and painted this on cardstock with acrylic paint:

So tell me what you think. Keep in mind that this was done in about 2 min.--the real one would have more depth of colors and shading. Is it too bland? What else do you think it would need? Or should I just leave it simple like that? Or do you think I should use shapes (squares or circle)? Do you like any of the ones above better? Your opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Civility

I watched a show last week that Oprah did on civility and it has really made me think. It does seem that civility has all but gone out the window these days. They had a list of questions that the audience answered with one of those hand-held voting mechanisms. Here are the questions to show whether you are a rude person or not:

• Are you chronically late? This is rude! They mentioned that someone else's time is just as important as yours so why would you make someone else wait on you?
• Have you ever typed an email while on the phone with someone? I used to do that all the time when I worked (multi-tasking) and I've done it from time to time here at home but I will try not to do it anymore.
• Have you ever interrupted a face-to-face conversation to take a non-urgent cell phone call? I don't think I do this but I will definitely make sure I don't now.
• Have you ever gone through the supermarket 10 item express lane with more than 10 items? Nope, I always count my items and make sure I don't have over 10 if I want to use the express lane.
• Have you ever let your dog "go" on your neighbor's lawn? No. We hate when other people do that to use so we don't let our dog do that to others.
• Have you ever stolen a parking spot from someone? No, I'm pretty patient and would rather just go and look for another one than make someone else mad at me.
• Have you ever gossiped? Uh, yeah, and I don't personally know of anyone who hasn't. The audience poll showed that 97% of them had gossiped and one of the people who answered no said she hit the wrong button so really 98% of the audience has gossiped. This is something that I really try not to do but it is very hard!
• Have you ever taken someone else's food or drink from the office fridge? No, I never did that when I worked. I wouldn't have the heart, plus that is stealing.

A really cool quote they stated on the show is: "We never touch people so lightly that we do not leave a trace." --Peggy Tabor Millin

This is so true! We really need to think about the way we treat others. Think about how you feel when people do things to you, like in the list above. Why would you want to make someone else feel that way--whether you know them or don't know them? Even if it's just a 2-minute interaction with someone at the check-out counter, we can make an impact on that checker for either good or bad. There's just no excuse to be rude to others just because we're in a bad mood or whatever. Just food for thought.

Some pics of Brenna

Here are some pics of Brenna that I took when I babysat her on Tuesday:

{Such a smiley girl!}

{Ya gotta love a chubby baby! :) }
{I could look at this beautiful, angelic face all day.}

LSU beat South Carolina last night, yay! I went and watched the game at my brother's house after going to a wedding reception. The first half was a little nerve-racking but the 2nd half we did much better and pulled off the win. We're at #11 now. I'm hoping we don't lose anymore games but that would be EXTREMELY tough with Georgia next and Alabama a couple weeks after that. I'll be pulling hard for my Tigers!!

Sheri Dew

So I went and saw Sheri Dew Saturday night and she was amazing!  She said so many things that I really needed to hear.  Here are just a few of my favorite parts:

·        She told a story about how she went and saw the male ice skaters at the 2002 Olympics.  All of the skaters looked beautiful as they were warming up/practicing but when they did their actual skate for the competition, almost all of them fell—21 out of the 24 top skaters.  Obviously, they could do the jumps, etc, but not when the pressure was on.  Her point was “can you do it when it counts?”  My thoughts on this:  It’s easy to live the gospel when everything in our life is going good but, when things are hard, we tend to want to give up.  I want to prove that I can do it when it matters—follows the teachings of Christ, even though I am struggling a lot right now.

·        She mentioned that a lot of people talk about how the Lord doesn’t give us more than we can handle.  But she disagrees and said that He gives just a bit more than we can handle so we will turn to Him for help. 

·        Heavenly Father speaks to each of us differently.  We each need to pray and ask Him to help us know how we personally receive answers to prayer—we need to learn how to speak the language and we need to practice often.  We will continue learning throughout our entire life.  This is definitely something I need to work on!

·        We spend too much time acting like we’re here on Earth to stay when we can’t and we won’t.  We worry too much about mortal things, not thinking enough about the big picture, about eternity.  So true!!

 

So I said in my previous post that I was gonna go straight home after the Sheri Dew talk to watch the LSU game (even though a bunch of my friends were going out to eat afterwards).  Well, I called Jared  as I was leaving the church and he told me I should just go out and have fun eating with my friends because the game didn’t look good and I would just get ticked off if I went home and watched the game.  So I went out to eat and I’m so glad I did!  First of all, I had so much fun!  I got to really catch up with an old friend and the food was great (Copeland’s Cheesecake Bistro). Secondly, LSU ended up losing 51-21.  So sad.  I was half expecting LSU to lose but I really thought it would be a better game, that we would give Florida a run for their money.  And now we’re out of the top 10 at #13 (we were #4).  Oh well.  I’ll still root them on for every game left in the season and hope that we make it to a good bowl game.

 

Sunday, we went to my SIL’s parents’ house for a steak dinner and cake to celebrate my brother’s birthday.  The birthday boy made the steaks and they were delish!

 

I get to watch my 4-month-old niece today.  My SIL just brought her and she’s sitting here with me now as I type this.  She is such a good baby—so happy and smiley.  And, of course, over-the-top cute! J  I’ll take some pics and post them later.

 

 

Quick update

I got the results for the MRI on my neck on Monday. The dr. said I have a ruptured disk. There's not much that can be done for it--just keep doing physical therapy and see if that helps and take meds and use a TENS unit (electrodes) to help relieve the pain. Very frustrating, since I'm always in pain! He also ordered an MRI on my back and pelvis, which I did yesterday (took 2 hours!). It will be a couple of weeks before I get the results. In the meantime, he ordered another 4 weeks of therapy--oh joy; going there 3 times a week is getting really old! But I'll keep doing it if it helps me feel better in the least bit.

Not much going on besides that. Jared is in Houma today (south Louisiana)--lots of people from our stake went down there to help with the hurricane clean-up effort. I can't help, of course, because of my back and neck so I'm home until I go see Sherri Dew speak tonight in Baton Rouge. Then, I'm coming straight home to watch the LSU vs. Florida game. GEAUX TIGERS!!!

Oh and a huge congrats to LSU's Golden Band from Tigerland for winning ESPN's Battle of the Bands. Seven schools (Florida, Univ. of Texas, Auburn, Clemson, USC, Georgia, & LSU) each played their own version of the theme from Indiana Jones. You can see the video of each band here: http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/indianajones/index They announced this morning that the Tigerband won! The prize isa $25,000 donation from Paramount and Lucasfilm Ltd.--which they REALLY need since they are in the process of building a very badly needed new band building!! You should see how small and old the current one is--way too tiny for a 360+ member band. So congrats to Tigerband. I'm a very proud Tigerband alumnus! :)

Picture Personality

My mom sent this link to me in an email. I've done something like it before but had fun doing this:

If you do one for yourself, let me know!

SCATTERGORIES

I got this in an email but thought it would be fun to post it here.

Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things.. nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.


WHAT IS YOUR NAME: Dana
BOYS NAME: David
4 LETTER WORD: Dang
GIRL NAME: Danielle
OCCUPATION: Dietician
A COLOR: Desert sand
SOMETHING YOU WEAR: Denim
BEVERAGE: Dr. Pepper
FOOD: Dill pickle
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Dial soap
A PLACE : Denham Springs
REASON FOR BEING LATE: Drying my hair
SOMETHING YOU SHOUT OUT: Darn!

Put your answers on your blog and leave me a comment telling me you've done it! :)