Sunday, January 30, 2011

Good luck and See yall later!


As all of you know I have been planning a surprise going away party for Jess. Well the weekend for it finally arrived! I cannot believe that we kept it under wraps for as long as we did! He had no clue what was going on and he said for the first time since Santa Claus he really was surprised! It made me so happy to hear him say that because I cant ever keep surprises from him and I worked so hard to keep it a secret! I was so worried I was going to make it all the way to time of the party and then blurt it out! My stomach was literally in knots like I was about to sky dive or something! I know Im dramatic but I cant even help myself, its just in my DNA. I just wanted everything to be perfect and kick his season off this year with a bang. Just let him know that we were all rooting for him and for him to go and tear it up! I think I accomplished that because he kept saying "Thank you, this is so awesome!", "This is so great!", "Thank you for doing this!" I think it got him pumped up and ready to go! I do want to say thank you Tom and Kim for helping plan and get all the stuff for the party together! Without yalls help It would have been impossible!

 Along with the "Good Luck and See yall Later" parties we have had for the past 2 weekends in a row comes a lot of sad feelings too. Its so nice for us to be around all of our family and friends but it reminds us how much we will miss them. We want yall to know that just because we go off for these months during season and most of the time our days and nights get mixed up so we dont really get to talk to yall like we want to we dont just forget about yall, we still miss yall and think about yall more than ever! Thank yall for being there during the offseason and making that time so special for us!

This week is our last week in Kilgo-Fo-Sho! Kind of bitter sweet....On one hand we will miss the slow pace, small town restaurants and getting everywhere in 5 minutes. On the other we love season and everything about it. Sometimes it gets hard and we miss familiarity and the small town feel but we wouldnt change it for anything. We are thankful for what we have and we know how blessed we are so it is hard to complain. Packing this year is going to be a little tough for me this year though. Im a over packer, I always always ALWAYS take more than I need. My inner fashionista makes me do that! I always think "but what if I want to wear that one day", or "I might need that" or "I might need this". I just cant tell myself no when it comes to packing! AHHHHH! My throat is closing up just thinking about it. I need a wide variety of pieces and I dont know how Im going to fit all of what I think I need and shoes that I absolutely need in 2 suitcases! Yeah, I said it TWO, 2, dos, Due, deux suitcases! Only 2! Hopefully I can manipulate the situation and pack less for Jess since he always wears less and pack more of my stuff in his suitcase. Im sure that wont happen though, my husband really doesnt have sympathy for me when it comes to clothes, shoes or purses. I will post pictures of our suitcases once they are packed so you can laugh your head off at the art of "stuffing" instead of the art of "packing".

Thank yall again to everyone who came out and made it special for my husband. He is everything to me and seeing his eyes light up over the love and support that was shown to him the past 2 weeks truly meant the world to me. Love yall!
-E

Monday, January 24, 2011

Deja Vu....

Well Hello! I am so sorry that I havent posted in a while! The days have gotten away from me and I didnt have time to post. I will stop my excuses now and get on with it :) This weekend was a busy one! Friday night we hung out with Clint and Todd, we went to dinner and then made our way to the Corner Pocket here in Kilgore. If you know what the Corner Pocket is I know what your thinking. Your thinking about how classy we are. I know, I know I just cant help it Im a classy person what can I say? Actually our time at the Corner Pocket only lasted about 5 minutes. The service was horrible and it seemed pretty dangerous for us to be there so we made like a banana and split! Jess and I had never been but now we can say we have and I dont think he ever plans on going there again if you know what I mean. Lol. After that we headed over to the Cottier's house. Bj Burns invited us over there because a group of them were playing cards. We stayed there for a while then headed out again. We went over to another couples house that Jess went to High School with and hung out for a little bit longer but shortly after 1am we left and went home because we had an early morning the next day.

Saturday morning did come fast like I thought it would but I didnt mind because I was excited to get on the road! Our first stop was at Navarro. Jess wanted to throw so we stopped there so he could. Its always so weird going back there. I get this odd feeling of being young and how far we have came since we have been there. We were just kids when we were there and now we are in our Mid 20's. That is just crazy to me. Time has just flown right on by! I asked Jess if he had Deja Vu being there too and he was like "Oh yeah!" He ended up throwing a bullpen and his old coach there gave him some good advice he said. We were starving once he was done so Jess took me to his most favorite chicken place in Corsicana. I had never eaten there but it was awesome! If you ever see a Bush's Chicken pull over and eat there, you wont be disappointed!

After that we headed to my parents house. We just hung out the rest of the day and Jess went duck hunting out on my parents pond in the back of there house. Later on we went to my aunt and uncle's BBQ restaurant to have dinner. Surprisingly to us all of my friends and some of my family were there! They wanted to wish Jess good luck on Spring Training and see me again before we left. It was so sweet! Some of my friends that I hadn't seen in 4 months were there so I was happy to see them. We just hung out and caught up on everything. It was so thoughtful and I am so blessed to have friends and family that wanted us to know they were thinking of us. Being with my friends also brought back the feeling of Deja Vu. When all 6 of us girls are together again it kind of makes me sad, just the other day we were in Jr. High and now we are all grown women. We are all so different than we used to be, we have all shaped and grown into different people. Being with them reminds me that even though I want to choke them sometimes I love them to pieces and I will be there for them anytime day or night.

Sunday was a pretty fun day too! My cousin and his little girl stayed at my parents house on Saturday night with us so Sunday morning my parents got up and made us a "breakfast feast" as Jess called it. I love mornings like that! The smell of coffee and conversations over breakfast just make my heart feel warm! It was a good start to monumental day for my sister. My sister is a Junior this year and that means she gets to go to PROM! I cant believe she is old enough to go! We went Prom dress shopping after breakfast. We went to the same store that I got my first prom dress when I was a Junior. I was hit with another dose of Deja Vu when we got there. I seriously think in a blink of an eye time has flown! It doesnt seem like it was too long ago that I was there shopping for me and now my baby sister was shopping for her first Prom. We found the perfect little dress for her little body. She looked beautiful and I cant wait to see what she looks like all done up in her dress! My mom cried a little of course like I knew she would. I think she is just as shocked about Emily being this old as I am. All in all it was a great day and I am so glad I was able to share that special day of shopping with her.

We only have 11 days left here in Texas and the countdown has begun. I again cant believe its time for season to start. I think the overall lesson of this weekend for me is that time flies! I need to start soaking up the moments I have with the people I love and appreciating the time I have at the places I am having them at. That is what Ive learned in the past couple of days....
love always,
E

p.s.
I want to thank you all for following my blog! I appreciate it so much! I am going to start posting pics with my blogs so please keep reading. Love you all!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Toot! Toot!

If you all know me like I know yall do, yall know that I would never ever Toot my own horn unless it was completely, utterly necessary! Well, today its necessary! :) I made an entree and a dessert today that I have never in my life made before. Jess' great aunt is in town because granny had to have surgery and her and granny's brother are staying with granny until tomorrow. We were over at granny's yesterday after she got out of the hospital to visit and share some of that Pig Cake I made. We were all talking about desserts and this and that when the topic of Dawn's (Jess' great aunt) famous Pumpkin Roll came up. I love those things! I could eat the whole roll of it. When Jess and I were moving into our house and all of my family and Tena and Perry were down helping us get situated we had one over at Tom and Kim's and I know I at least ate 3/4 of the dang thing. Its a scrumptious combination of pumpkin, powdered sugar, cream cheese, cinnamon and vanilla. The actual roll part is basically just pumpkin bread and there is a filling inside that is a mixture of the rest. Perfect around Thanksgiving to have on the table! Anyways Dawn offered to teach me how to make them since she was in town. Of course I didn't refuse because A) I love them and B) I am always up for a sweet treat! And you know what?!? For it to be such a decadent beautiful dessert there is really nothing to it. You cook them at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, pop them off the pan onto a terry cloth towel and then roll them up. After its cooled for about 2 hours you unroll them and then put the filling in. Then roll them up in wax paper and foil, set them in the freezer until the next day or for up to a year if you dont want to eat it anytime soon. Very easy and I am very grateful she took the time to teach me how to make them! Jess doesnt care for anything pumpkin so I will just have to enjoy it by myself!

As for my new entree I was completely blown away! I made a healthy version of Chicken Parmesan. Chicken to me is hard to cook. I mean seriously! I am 23 going on 24 and I barely boiled my first "Hen" this year. When we have chicken Jess is the one who grills it or it is the instant Tyson Chicken from the freezer bag for us! I am just not that good of a judge when it comes to it being done or not and I dont want anyone getting sick on my account! So today was the day that I was taking the "Bull by its Horns" and cooking chicken! It required me to sautee the chicken for 3-4 minutes on both sides after I breaded it with Panko Bread Crumbs. Then pop it in the oven for another 5-10 minutes. Luckily for me after a ton of times of things not being ready when they were supposed to I figured out my oven temperature is off. So I set it at 350 degrees instead of 300 like it said to. All of the chickens came out beautifully except for one. One was still raw! Eww! We only figured this out after my Official Taste Tester took a huge bite out of it and with a look of disgust said "Good flavor but its not done!" Haha! I thought poor thing, he just ate some raw chicken but still tryed to assure me that it was good. He knows me too well! He knew I would have probably cried if he said anything different. Dont worry though Im not that big of a baby, I wouldnt dare cry over a little uncooked chicken! The rest of the chickens were done so I put that one back in for another 5 minutes and after that it was perfect! I served the Chicken Parmesan on top of whole wheat penne pasta with sauteed zucchini and squash. It was definitely a recipe we will be having again! I would like to give a shout out to Steph, she was making chicken fried steak and due to my experimenting with a new recipe Jess and I decided to sit it out and not have a one. Thank you for inviting us and so here is to you Steph! Im sure the chickens fried were amazing! Until next time....
Love,
E

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Monday, Monday....

Whew! How about that weekend? I dont know about yall but the rain that we had all weekend long sure did make for some days full of watching Bathtastic! and House Renovations on the DIY channel. I like days like that though. Its nice to leisurely get stuff done around the house while catching some informative shows about fixing up houses and also getting started on my classwork for the semester. I dont know if all of you know but I am going back to school. If and when the occasion occurs I want to be prepared to get a good job. Yes, I could always be a Paralegal but being a Paralegal didnt make me happy. I realized that once I was working as one and had already finished school! I dont want to have to go back to being one if the event occurs that I have to get a job. So I am taking the opportunity now to go back and get a degree in Business. Business is so broad and Jess and I have so many ideas of what we want to do when he retires and having a degree in Business will come in handy with those things. I am blessed enough to be able to go online and be with Jess while he pursues his career and that is so invaluable to me. This semester I am taking Microeconomics....EWW! I was very good in Economics in high school so I figured this would be a breeze. Ehh, not so much! The class officially doesnt start until tomorrow but my Professor has all of our work posted for the semester already. I was like "Oh yeah! This is great! I can finish all the work before the semester is over and then pick up another class! This is going to be awesome!" Then I clicked assignments, opened one, started it. Opened another, did it. Got to the 3rd one, It was MATH!!!! MATH?!?!?!?! What does Economics have to do with MATH?!?!?! Apparently my husband is smarter than I am because when I screeched from the shocking sight of Math problems on my page he said "Erica, all Economics is; is Math". I almost fainted, my heart was beating out of my chest. My palms were sweaty, I wanted to cry! Another little fun fact about me is that Math makes me sick. No, really it makes me sick! I dont get it, once I see it somewhere its like my brain turns off and goes to sleep. Numbers look like Japanese sign language to me. I dont get it and I never have. I come from a long line of over-reactors so the first thing I did was throw a humongous fit. Yes, I know sounds juvenile but I am very anal about my GPA and the thought of a bad grade makes my skin crawl! Now I know how my mother and father felt when they received my grades after my first semester of college. YIKES! Like my mom still says today "Its a little different when your paying for it." That lady knows what she is talking about because I know if I do not get a good grade I get so mad at myself because the money was wasted unless I pass. So, after I was done overreacting and throwing myself into the walls and onto the floor I did what I always do and introduced myself to the teacher and let her know that Math is not my strong point and that if it was a huge part of the class I was going to be asking a ton of questions. Thank goodness she replied quickly and said to not be discouraged Microeconomics does deal with math but not an overwhelming amount. She assured me I would do fine, my blood pressure then returned to a normal level and I now feel better about the course. I am also talking a Concepts of Fitness and Wellness class. I am looking forward to that because we are pretty active people and I would love to know more about what is good for us and what is not.

After my little scare from my evil nemesis Math I needed a pick me up. I have been eyeing this cake recipe for about 2 weeks now and I thought I should make it. All my teeth are sweet teeth and nothing puts me in a better mood than a good ole dessert! Its called Pig Cake. The Pioneer Woman-(who I aspire to be like) posted it on her website and it looked like it was to die for. I do our grocery shopping for the week on Monday so while I was there today I got all the stuff to make it. It was delicious! Its a yellow cake mix with mandarin oranges mixed into it, while the icing is cool whip with 1/2 a cup of powdered sugar and crushed pineapple. It is AMAZING! I will put the link to the actual recipe I used so yall can take a gander at it if yall want! I had to restrain myself from eating more of it tonight after dinner! Jess loves the icing, its light and it just tastes so good! Hopefully I can make it for you all one day. Until then I hope yalls MLK day was a good one!
Love,
E
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/01/pig-cake/

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Texas Two Step Fundraiser!

Well after a fun filled Friday with my family in Dallas, Jess and I returned home early Saturday morning. Our plans were to just hang out, I was going to clean a little and wash clothes then we were going to head over to Longview for Date night! We were going to have a nice dinner and then catch a movie. Around 5:00 I got a call from one of our friends here asking if we were back in Kilgore. I was kind of confused because he is a guy and he is close with both Jess and I and had both of our numbers but called me. His mom is a very sweet lady that I worked with at Kilgore Heights and we still get together for lunch sometimes. He was calling to see if we wanted to come to a Charity Event for the Boys & Girls Club of Kilgore. His mom is a "Chair" on the board for the Boys & Girls Club and wanted us to come eat and dance the night away. She had previously asked us to be a part of the event but we declined because we thought we were going to have already shipped out to Arizona for Spring Training. As he asked me if we wanted to come my heart sank. I told him I would talk to Jess and get back to him once I had an answer. We had already made plans for date night and Jess had just woken up from a nap. (Jess is not in a good mood when he first wakes up from a nap) I knew talking to 200+ Kilgorites about baseball was not something Jess wanted to do on a Saturday night and might I add a Saturday night during the offseason. At first he shut me down, he said "Erica we already have plans and we aren't going". So I turned around and went back into our bathroom and continued getting ready for date night. As I stood there, heart heavy and all I knew we had to go. So I put down my my eye shadow brush and marched back into the living room. I said "Jess we need to do this, we need to go!" He looked at me and laughed and said "Babe I'm not going, I dont feel like talking to a bunch of people about baseball". What did I tell you? I knew it! Im sure your thinking to yourself what's the big deal about talking baseball with the people of Kilgore? The first couple hundred times its not bad, but when they ask questions off of wrong information they have that is annoying for Jess. So in reply I said "You are very blessed in the talent God gave you, don't you want to do something good for the town you grew up in while you can". Thank goodness that God gave me the right words to say to my husband in order to get him to go! He said "Fine! I will go, but Im not happy about this!" So we both got ready and headed out the door. The event was held at a place here in Kilgore that has Quincenera's, so it was a pretty big place. After rubbing elbows with some of Kilgore's finest Jess was asked to autograph a ball so it could be auctioned off. It was a dirty old little league ball that had been thru at least 7,000 innings of baseball. Then Jess had an idea! He said "You know all those balls I had autographed by different players after games?" I said "Yes", (with a puzzled look on my face). "We should donate one to be auctioned off too!" Jess said. "But which one?" (Jess) "Hmm...Idk" (Me) "Well how about Mark Texeira?" (Jess) "Uhhh" (Me) "He played for Texas and you know everyone here like Texas" (Jess) "Yeah" (Me) "Yeah! Let's do him! Because there is no way Im giving up my Mariano Rivera ball!" (Jess) So I agreed and Jess made a call to Kim, he asked her if she could go get the ball from our house and meet him with it. Thankfully she did and we got the ball to the auction in time for it to be auctioned off. At this point in time Jess was in the Charity Event spirit and was having a good time. Then....the unthinkable happened! They asked him to get up in front of everyone at the auction and speak about the balls! You all know my husband, you all know how he has a career where he is in front of millions of people and has to perform his job. So whats the big deal about speaking in from of 200 people? Well like he says he is an athlete, not a public speaker. So he said no, they then asked me to do it. I obliged because I like doing stuff like that and I was so proud of Jess for getting in the spirit to help out that I couldn't say no. When it came time for me to speak I just kept it basic. I told them who I was and that the signed ball from Mark Texeira came from the Indians vs. Yankees series and that the significance of that series was that A-Rod was due to hit his 600th home run and luckily Jess struck him out and sat him down with bases loaded and 2 outs! I don't know if it was my wonderful story telling skills or that it was Jess Todd's baseball's but those baseballs ended auctioning off for $1,200.00! The 2nd highest thing sold that night! The baseballs beat out a football that had been signed by Troy Aikman! I know that was so awesome for Jess! After the auction ended they had a band and we hung out with some of Jess' old classmates and danced. It was a great night and we both had a wonderful time. We decided that we are going to do more because it felt so good to give back and help out a good cause. I hope we can continue to give back and give help where it is needed because last night was irreplaceable in my heart and I will never forget it.
Love,
E

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Christina Taylor Green


Im sure you all have read about or saw on the news the devastating shooting in Tucson Arizona last Saturday. Among the fatalities was a little girl named Christina Taylor Green. She was just 9 years old and her birth date was September 11, 2001. Her funeral was today and since she was a 9-11 baby they hung the flag that was damaged from ground zero outside the church. Jess and I caught a part of them hanging the flag live on CNN. Christina had just been introduced to how our government worked at school and wanted to learn more about it, so a neighbor took her to a "Congress on your Corner" rally to meet a real live Congresswoman. Due to a 22 year old males senseless acts little Christina was shot and killed along with 5 others in his rage against Arizona's Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Christina was the daughter of Dodgers Scout John Green and granddaughter of Dallas Green, former manager of the Yankees and Mets. I wont go on because I am sure you all are aware of what happened but I just wanted to tribute my blog for today to Christina Green. A little innocent girl whose life was cut so short just because someone wanted to be so awful. I hope Christina is shining down on her family today as they lay her to rest. Hopefully people will see how something like this hurts and devastates people so much that they will stop and think before they act on their careless and evil thoughts. May God be with her family and give them strength through this terrible time.
Love,
E

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Helloooo World!


Hello! I have finally decided to join the rest of America and the free world and start a blog. I have been back and forth on the idea for almost a year now and I finally think its time! This will be a little glimpse into mine and my husbands crazy and beautifully unusual life together. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I know I will. If not, don't tell me just pretend like you do :)