Texas Lou

Archive for the ‘Ben’ Category

Good morning and happy Thankful Monday!

Today, I am thankful for the following:

1. I’m thankful for my health!  I have lost 19 pounds in the last 9 weeks and I feel really great!  I so grateful for the self determination and hard work that has taken me this far!
2. I’m thankful for my good friends and family!  Friday night, Sarah and I watched Hocus Pocus together to get into the Halloween spirit, Saturday evening, Lindsey and Greg had us over for a cook-out where we enjoyed delicious ribs and chili by the fire as their kiddos entertained us, Sunday morning, we picked Fuji and Granny Smith apples with Ben’s parents at Carter Mountain Orchard, and Sunday night, we watched The Walking Dead and enjoyed festive snacks at Robin and Craig’s house!  What a wonderful weekend filled with wonderful people!
3. I’m thankful for a nice long phone date with my cousin Megan!  We hadn’t had a good chat since we saw each other in Seattle back in July so it was nice to catch up!
4. I’m thankful for my husband.  I love Ben so much.  He keeps me warm when I’m cold, he reaches things for me that I’m not tall enough to reach, he brings me back down to reality when I’m overreacting or being immature, he takes care of the dirty work for me, and most importantly, he loves me for me.  I’m so happy, lucky, and grateful to be able to share my life with him.
5. Lastly, I’m thankful for my kitties that bring me smiles, love, and cuddles every day.  I can’t imagine life without them.

Have a happy Monday!

Good morning and happy thankful Monday!

Here’s what I’m thankful for today:

1. I’m thankful to be back home with my husband and kitties after a week away in Reston for training.  I missed them alot and being away from them always makes my heart grow fonder! <3
2. I’m thankful to my work for giving me the opportunity to attend a really informative and well-done Learning Tree course last week on web development.  I learned so much and got to check out Reston, an area I had never been to.  My hotel and training center were in Reston Town Center, a really cool place if you ever have the opportunity to check it out.  The whole experience was wonderful and I’m really grateful to my work for paying for the trip and giving me the opportunity to learn!
3. I’m thankful that I got to see my yaya Cris last week.  She lives in Northern Virginia and since I was there for training, we hung out Thursday night and went to Mister Days with some of her friends.  I had a great time and was soooo happy I got to catch up with her!
4. I’m thankful for date days/nights with my husband!  Yesterday, we went to see Gravity with free movie tickets I had and then we had lunch together at one of our favorite places, Sticks Kebob Shop.  The movie was really good but caused me alot of anxiety…if you see it, you’ll know what I mean!
5. Lastly, I’m thankful for a healthier me.  In the past 7 weeks, I’ve worked really hard and lost 14.5 pounds!  I’m at my lowest and healthiest weight since 2007 and I am motivated and excited to lose more!

Have a great week!

Good morning and welcome to my weekly Thankful Monday post.

Here’s what I’m thankful for today:

1. I’m very grateful that my work is sending me to a 4-day training course covering ASP.NET, web application development, JQuery Mobile, and many other tools and technologies.  Since I have no formal training in web development (everything I know, I taught myself or learned from coworkers), I think this class is going to greatly benefit me!  Thanks to my job for the wonderful opportunity!
2. I’m thankful for good friends!  Over the past week, I was able to spend a lot of time with great friends.  Last Wednesday, I went to the free beer tasting at Market Street Wine Shop with Sarah and my friend Marian who I hadn’t seen in months.  Then Marian, her daughter Katie, and I checked out the new Livery Stable for dinner.  I also got to spend a wonderful evening drinking wine, eating Lindsey’s homemade chili, enjoying music, and watching the sunset at Carter Mountain Orchard‘s Sunset Series.  It was great to hang out with Sarah, Ian, Lindsey, Greg, and their family!  Then Saturday, we got to hang out with my friend Becky and her family at the race we participated in.  To top it all off, we had lunch with Robert and Crystal at Olive Garden on Saturday!  What a wonderful week filled with great friends!
3. I’m thankful that a lot of important people in my life have made it through surgeries safely lately.  My dad and some friends have had recent surgeries and though they are still recovering, I’m very grateful they made it through risky medical procedures and are on the mend.
4. I’m thankful for the opportunity to help raise money for a little girl in need.  Saturday, Ben and I ran the Benefit 5K for Shiloh Thompson.  It was a really fun race with great prizes and they had a skydiver show at the end of the race where we got to watch 3 skydivers jump from a plane and land in the neighborhood where the race took place.  Ben even won 4th place in the race and 1st place in his age group!  Most importantly, it was great to help a little girl in need and her family!
5. Lastly, I’m thankful for a close family.  My brother got to go to Houston for his birthday this weekend and even though I wasn’t there to help him celebrate, I’m very happy that the rest of my family was there to help him enjoy his birthday weekend!

Have a wonderful week!

Good morning and welcome to my weekly Thankful Monday blog post!

Here’s what I’m thankful for today:

1. I’m thankful that I got to watch the Houston Texans game on TV here even if they did lose against the Baltimore Ravens.  Very rarely do they show the Texans games here but since they were playing a team that is based not too far from where I live, the game was shown on CBS.
2. I’m thankful for winning the Big Greasy Office Pool last week!  I’ve played the last two years and never won, but last week, I had the most accurate NFL picks for the week and won a $30 McGrady’s Gift Certificate, a Wild Wolf Brewery Prize Pack, a Gift Pack from Century Link, a $30 University Dive & Hobby Center Gift Card, and 4 passes to the Virginia Chili Brews n’ Brews Festival in Waynesboro!  Sarah, Ben, and I went to the Chili Cookoff/Festival on Saturday and even though it rained, we had a blast and tasted some interesting chili!
3. I’m thankful that my husband is so handy and seems to have fixed our TV!  With everything that we’ve had break in the past couple of months, it’s nice that there is something that seems to have been an easy fix (fingers crossed it is actually fixed and will stay that way)!
4. I’m thankful for the opportunity to start mentoring at Computers 4 Kids again.  I’ve mentored two students in the past and had taken a break during wedding planning and house searching but now I am ready for student number 3!
5. Lastly, I’m thankful for the cooler weather.  Although I’m not crazy about the shorter days and it getting dark earlier, I am loving the cooler weather, especially with two broken AC units!

Have a great week!

Good morning and happy Monday!

Here’s what I’m thankful for today:

1. I’m thankful for a healthy body and strong legs that allowed me to have a wonderful 6.2 mile run on Saturday morning in support of the Special Olympics.  Ben, Sarah, and I ran the Gene Arnold Memorial Special Olympics Pepsi 10K.  The weather was beautiful, the temperature was perfect, and the company was great!  And we got to catch up with our friend Jamie who we hadn’t see in a long time!  My time was an hour, 4 minutes, and 53 seconds which I think is pretty great!
2. I’m also thankful for free tickets to the Charlottesville Top of the Hops Beer Festival.  Ben and I went the previous 2 years and had a blast but we decided not to go this year because tickets are pretty expensive.  Well last week, I won tickets on Facebook from Champion Brewing Company, one of the newer local breweries, so we were able to go for free.  We had a great time together, tasted some amazing beers, saw a lot of friends at the festival, and even tried a new restaurant, Now & Zen, for some delicious sushi!
3. I’m grateful for my in-laws and the endless supply of fresh eggs and homegrown vegetables they give us.  This weekend, they sent us home with 3 dozen eggs laid by their chickens, basil, salad greens, and beans.
4. I’m thankful for such a hard working husband.  Ben works hard as a programmer every day and then comes home and spends hours taking care of our yard, house, plants, and cats.  And he always finds time to workout too!  He is my superman!
5. I’m grateful to get the chance to see good friends for dinner tomorrow night at the Tavern on the James!

BONUS:  I’m thankful the Texans won yesterday!  I didn’t get to watch the game because it wasn’t shown here, but I hear it was a close game ending in overtime!  Go Texans!

Have a great week!

Good morning and welcome to this week’s Thankful Monday blog post!

Here’s what I’m thankful for today:

1. I’m thankful for the opportunity to attend the wedding of Scott and Shelly this past weekend and share in their special day as well as getting to hang out with so many awesome people who I don’t get to see often enough.  Scott and Shelly threw a beautiful and amazing wedding and the weather was perfect for the outdoor ceremony and reception.  I’m so happy for them and am thankful they allowed me to celebrate with them on Saturday.
2. I’m so grateful for a husband that knows what is important to me and accompanies me to events even when I know he’d rather be doing something else.  Ben attended the third wedding of the summer with me (1 in June, 1 in July, and 1 in August) and they were all for my friends or family members.  He’s a pretty strong introvert so I know going to these big social gatherings takes alot out of him.  I’m just so thankful that he realizes how important it is for me to attend and how thankful I am for him to be there with me.
3. I recently stopped taking a medication that I’ve been taking for over ten years and I am so happy and grateful to report that I feel a thousand times better both mentally and physically!  I was especially worried that the side effects and coming off a medication I’d been on for so long would be adverse so I am very thankful that the side effects have been virtually non-existent.  I feel so good that I wish I had stopped taking it years ago!
4. I’m thankful for wonderful friends!  After the past week and weekend of spending time with awesome people, I look around and realize how lucky I am to be surrounded by these amazing friends.  I’m so happy to have them all in my life!
5. I’m thankful for a successful surgery for my dad.  He had back surgery recently to remove a very painful cyst he had on his back for a long time.  He seems to be recovering quickly and successfully and I’m so grateful for that!

Have a great week!

Good morning!  I apologize that I haven’t written a Thankful Monday post in TWO WEEKS!  But, I’ve been a very busy girl.  I spent 10 days in Seattle and Victoria, Canada celebrating my cousin’s wedding, site-seeing, and spending time with family, came home for 5 days, and then left for a 4 day weekend at the beach in Nags Head.  I’m feeling refreshed but I’m super sad my fun trips and time with family and friends are over.  I think being grateful will help cheer me up, so here’s what I’m thankful for today:

1. I’m thankful for an amazing trip to Seattle and much cherished time with my family.  I LOVE my family and just saying that makes me feel that it doesn’t give my feelings about them justice.  I’m such a lucky person to have these people in my life!
2. I’m thankful for a wonderful trip to Nags Head in the Outer Banks with Sarah and Cris.  We had the best time celebrating girls weekend and I’m extra grateful to Cris and her parents for letting us use their condo at the beach!
3. I’m thankful for my husband who has spent so much time traveling with me and then putting up with me being gone on trips without him.  He is very supportive of me and my love for family and traveling and has even been a wonderful shoulder to cry on when I’m sad that my trips are over.
4. I’m thankful for my family.  I can’t say how much they mean to me and spending time with them only makes me realize how lucky I am to have them.  I wish I lived closer to all of them.
5. I’m thankful for a very smart and skilled friend who helped us diagnose a problem with our air conditioning so we didn’t have to pay to have someone look at it (I’ll of course buy him dinner as a thank you).  Between the new house, fixing up the condo, my car payment, and Ben’s car being in the shop for the past month, we need to save as much as possible!

Hope you have a wonderful week!

Good morning and welcome to my weekly Thankful Monday post!

On a side note, I know I have been only using this space for my Thankful Monday posts for the past few months.  I enjoy writing about other topics, but time constraints are what have mostly kept me from blogging about my usual stories and ideas.  If there is anyone out there that actually reads this, I can tell you that I do plan to get back into regular writing again once things settle down with our new house, traveling, and fixing up our condo.  In the meantime, I feel these posts about gratefulness have been a benefit to me so I have continued to make time for them in my busy schedule.

And now, here’s what I’m thankful for this week:

1. I’m thankful for a husband who has similar interests to me and for date night.  I can remember always arguing with my ex about what movie to see, but luckily, my husband and I don’t have that problem.  Friday night, we tried the new Sedona Taphouse for dinner.  The food was good, but a little overpriced.  The real reason I wanted to go there was for their beer selection…they have over 500 beers available and update their draft list daily which often includes many local beers.  Then we went to see Pacific Rim which we both loved.  It was a great night and made me suggest that we try to have date night more often!
2. I’m thankful for family.  I must be very lucky because I have a wonderful and supportive family who really enjoy spending time with each other.  I’m going to get to be around alot of my extended family very soon and we are all very excited about it!
3. I’m thankful for my cats.  They always bring a smile to my face.  They are so cute and each have their own individual personality.  Yesterday, Ben and I let them go outside briefly to explore.  It’s so fun watching them absorb all of the new sights, sounds, and smells around them.
4. I’m thankful that our good friends had a healthy baby boy on Wednesday.  I’m so grateful that both mom and baby are doing well and that our friends are finally starting this new phase in their family.  Ben and I were lucky enough to get to hold the little guy on Thursday when we visited them at the hospital.  I’m wishing them all the health, love, and happiness in the world for their futures!
5. I’m thankful for life.  Everyday there are struggles and things can feel rough, but I just have to remind myself that I am alive and live a pretty good life surrounded by amazing people.

Have a wonderful week!

Good morning and welcome to my weekly Thankful Monday blog post.

Here’s what I’m thankful for this week:

1. I’m so happy and thankful that I got to see my good friends Cheryl and Dan and finally meet their new baby, Lillian!  They moved to Tennessee last summer before Lillian was born and I’ve missed them so much.  Lillian is the sweetest, most adorable little baby and being around her made me want to have one of my own.
2. I’m thankful for my amazing and patient husband who spent 1100 miles and 18 hours in the car with me this weekend so we could make the trip to Nashville to see Cheryl, Dan, and Lillian.  What a man!
3. I’m thankful that no matter how much my current job gets to me, I always have the option to look elsewhere.  It’s nice to live in a free country where I can change jobs, careers, and employers if I want to.
4. I’m grateful for the feeling of hope.  It’s what gets people through tough days and I was having a few tough days last week.
5. I’m grateful for new friends and old friends…I’m so lucky to be surrounded by wonderful people.

Have a great week and love to you all!

Welcome to my weekly Thankful Monday post.

Things are a little stressful at work today but I’m going to try to remember to be mindful and grateful for a good life so here’s my top 5 for today:

1. I’m thankful for 7 years together and 1 year of marriage with my wonderful husband.  He is a good man and strives to make me happy.  He also makes me strive to be a better person and treats me right.  We celebrated our 7 years anniversary and 1 year of marriage on Saturday and Sunday respectively and the occasion makes me so grateful for our time together and hopeful for our future together.
2. I’m thankful for lovely weather this weekend.  We were able to spend alot of time outside and get alot done on our house and condo.  I love getting my Vitamin D!
3. I’m thankful for reunions.  My friend Cris was in town this weekend and I hadn’t seen her since February so it was wonderful to spend time with her and my other friends after a long week of work.
4. I’m thankful for another opportunity to run the Charlottesville Women’s 4 Miler .  Every year, the race gets harder and harder to get into.  This year, race registration was full in 5 hours so I’m thankful that my alarm clock woke me up so I could register at 5 AM and I’m glad I got in.  This will be my 6th year in a row to run the race!
5. I’m thankful for technology.  I was able to share pictures of our new house with friends and family all over the country by simply taking pictures with my phone and posting them to Facebook.  We live in a wonderful age where you can still be so close to the ones you love even when they are far away.

Have a wonderful week!

P.S.  I already feel better after writing this post! 😉