Having fun with the letter B...

I am finally getting around to playing the Letter Game! My lovely friend Nicole at A Sweet Soft Southern Thrill assigned me the letter "B". Nicole did an awesome job with the letter "G"...she is so witty and creative! Here are the instructions per her blog: if you want to play, leave a comment on this post letting me know, and I'll assign you a letter. You post ten things you love that begin with your assigned letter. When people comment on your list, you give them a letter, and the chain continues on and on.

1. Bubble tea.
Last summer I was completely addicted to bubble tea! If you aren't familiar with this drink, it originated in Taiwan and contains little tapioca pearls ("bubbles" or "bobas"). My absolute favorite version to order is a Thai tea with bobas.

(Image from centurycafe.com)

2. Books.
I am slightly obsessed with books and love spending hours browsing bookstores. My book shelves contain quite an eclectic mix...topics include fashion, history, religion, psychology, cooking, chick lit, criminology, and make-up artistry.

3. The Bible.
I can't live without the greatest book of all time!

4. Bears.
Bears have ALWAYS been my favorite animal. I especially love polar bears. I love bears so much that I got a dog that looks like a little black bear!

(Image from firstpeople.us)

5. Bellinis.
My favorite drink...I love having these for brunch with prosciutto.


6. Belts.
I love all kinds of belts...skinny, wide, leather, studded, jeweled. However, I hardly ever wear belts with pants! I usually wear them over dresses, sweaters, or long cardigans. I also love to wear them with high waisted skirts.

7. Balenciaga.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. From your soft leather bags to your architectural shoes, you make me covet your works of art.



8. The beach.
Enough said, right? Sadly, since I moved to Florida I hardly ever have time to go to the beach! I am going to make it my mission this summer to spend more time there (so I guess that means I need to start cutting back on #9).

9. The Big Mac.
When I was little, I hated McDonalds. Then in college, two of my best friends were McDonald's addicts and converted me over to the dark side. Now I can't let a week pass without driving through and devouring their delicious fries and most infamous burger.



10. Ballet.
I started taking ballet when I was about three years old and have loved it ever since. I'm no longer a skilled ballerina (these days I do good to even touch my toes...ha!), so I love to go see the ballet every chance I get. Among my favorites are classics such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

I certainly missed you lovely ladies last week! I had to take a short break from the blog world in order to get my CCE finished and focus on exams. I have more exams this week, but it feels so good to be done with the written component of my CCE! Now I just have to wait and see if I passed written so I can move on to the presentation stage of the process. I will have a bit more free time this week and can't wait to get caught up on all of your blogs!

Hubby has been doing his best to ease my stress level during this hectic time. We had a fun date night at my favorite pizza place Mellow Mushroom.


We indulged on my favorite pizza in the whole wide world...the gourmet white pizza. Soooooo good!

On Valentine's night, we went to a comedy club with my cousin and her husband. The headliners were two women who were funny at times but a little too raunchy at others. I don't understand why some women comedians think that in order to be funny they need to (1) say the "F" word in every sentence, (2) continuously discuss the male genitalia, or (3) make racist jokes. My cousin and I (being the Southern belles that we are) were a little uncomfortable at times and discussed afterwards that it was obvious the comedians were NOT Southerners. Dirty jokes aside, it was still a pretty fun night.

Hubby and I on Valentine's Day

We also spent a fun evening with two of my girlfriends and their boyfriends. We decided to check out Cantina Laredo. They made our guacamole fresh at the table and my soft tacos were delicious. The dinner was fun and was filled with lots of gossip and psychobabble...a perfect evening in my eyes!

Cantina Laredo

Bear with me this week as I try to get caught up and back into the swing of things! And to all of my fellow Louisianans, I hope you are all having an amazing Mardi Gras!! I am incredibly homesick right now!

Happy Love Day!

Happy Valentines Day!

I hope everyone is having a fun day with their sweethearts and loved ones. What is everyone doing today/tonight? Hubby has a mountain bike race today, so I'm doing school work (as always), but tonight we are going to a comedy club with my cousin and her husband. As strange as it may sound, Valentine's Day has always been my least favorite holiday. My favorite Valentine's Days were those I celebrated with my girlfriends in college. Even though we had boyfriends, we always spent Valentine's Day together in what we called an Anti-Valentine's Day. We would spend the day shopping and pampering ourselves. We would treat ourselves to a fabulous dinner at the best restaurant in town, then have a girls night out.

In addition to our new Bibles, hubby and I also exchanged these books last night:



I can't wait to start reading these! I have heard nothing but good things about this book series. My sorority did a Bible study with The Power of a Praying Woman and it was amazing, so I can't wait to see the impact of the power of prayer on my marriage. And I think praying for your spouse and marriage is pretty romantic, don't you?

I am also thankful that I received the Love Ya award from Erin at Texan Couture!


Rules do accompany this honor:
“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”!

I give the award to:

Serious Shopaholic
Chic & Pink
Steak & Cakes
A Sweet Soft Southern Thrill
Park Avenue Princess
The Fabulous Life of a Southern Belle
Downtown Southern
With Love from New Orleans

Something special for you...

For those of you interested in the financial series at my church that I've been raving about, I have a special treat for you! I just discovered that the church website hosts videos of each week's sermon, along with the sermon notes. The video from the first sermon in the series is up and can be found here.

Check it out when you have some down-time. The second sermon in the series should be up this weekend. Enjoy!

Sometimes all you need is a cup of tea...

I can't believe it's already Thursday. When you don't have enough hours in the day to do everything, the week certainly flies by! I have one more week to work on my CCE before handing it in. I also have a very difficult exam next week, but last night I received a great blessing! I was also supposed to have a Stats exam next week and it got postponed. I am so thankful because I would have had no time to study for it. Once I get through this rough couple of weeks, hubby and I have some fun things planned that I can't wait to share with you.

Meanwhile, during these times of extreme craziness and stress, I try to find joy in the small things. So this week I was absolutely delighted to discover this tea:
It tastes almost identical to the tea used in Starbuck's London Fog tea latte! I have been sipping on this during class...which makes learning about the amygdala and hippocampus a little more bearable.

Another incredible joy that has come into my life this week is this Bible study:


I am doing this study with the girls from my life group class and it is AMAZING. Have any of you ever done a Beth Moore study? This is my first one and I'm just blown away. I've been doing the independent study assignments each morning before class, and I feel like it's been a great way to start my day.

Well, I'm off to school to learn how to do therapy (not my favorite thing in the world). We'll see if my new tea helps me get through the afternoon :)

Life changing...

I apologize for having been a neglectful blogger lately. I am still working on my CCE, so life is still crazy.

Last week, I mentioned a new series we are starting at church on becoming financially free. This series is literally changing my life. I feel a joy and contentment with my life that I haven't felt in many years. I highly encourage you all to pick up your Bibles and read Matthew 6:22-34. It really puts things into perspective and is so applicable for life today.

After attending church and our life group yesterday, hubby and I decided to forgo our original Valentine's gift plans for something much more special. He was planning on getting me a necklace from Tiffany and I was going to get him some expensive thing he wanted for bike riding. Instead, we decided to go to the bookstore together and buy each other new devotional
Bibles.

Here's the new one I got:

And here's the new one he got:

We had such an amazing time picking these out together, and I can't wait for us to have devotional time together each night. These Bibles are so much more meaningful than a Tiffany necklace or an expensive gadget. I am so blessed to have a hubby who is a Christian and can share in this journey of spiritual growth with me.

Although I am feeling incredibly stressed, I am filled with so much joy today. I hope that it finds you as well.

Love at first sight...

I will be the first to confess that I have an inner nerd residing deep inside of me. It pretty much takes someone with an inner nerd to devote themselves to 500 years of school right? (As much as I joke about being a career student, even I am sometimes taken aback by the fact that I have now been in school for 21 consecutive years.)

One of the fun things about doctor school is that we all have inner nerds. We all get excited over fresh school supplies, newly revised psychological assessments, and gadgets that make our stressful lives a little easier. In doctor school, it's perfectly normal to see someone fish a pencil bag of brightly colored highlighters and Post-It flags out of an expensive designer handbag. Immaculately dressed girls manage to pull around suitcases full of research articles and dissertation materials while looking fabulous in 4 inch heels. We speak in psychobabble even on martini night. Yes, doctor school is the perfect place to feed your inner nerd.

So you can imagine the delighted squeals of my inner nerd when I spotted these popping up at school:


It is perfectly tiny and PINK! A classmate sitting across from me in Stats tonight had hers out typing notes and I must have stared at it all night. I sat daydreaming of pulling my own little pink computer out of my bag during class, happily typing notes. Or toting it with me to my clinical training so that client reports would always be at my fingertips. I always worry about toting my Vaio around at school and training because I'm so worried that something is going to happen to it. But this little cutie will fit right in my handbag!



Naturally, I ordered one as soon as I got home from Stats. And the price on these little lovelies is amazing...perfect for any student or recessionista on a budget. It should be here sometime next week! Maybe I will actually enjoy stats now...

Thought of the Week

Well, I have nothing fabulous to report today because, as yall know, I have been crazy busy with my CCE (see previous post). However, I really wanted to share with you something I heard at church yesterday.

It's no secret that a lot of people are struggling financially these days. And a lot of people, myself included, are striving to become more financially secure this year. I have been a hardcore shopaholic for, oh, about 26 years (I think I came out of the womb screaming "I want!"). So needless to say, trying to become financially responsible has been a HUGE challenge for me. The past few months I have prayed about it constantly.

Well, my prayers were answered because yesterday at church we started a series on becoming financially free. It turns out that Jesus had a lot to say regarding money. I am super excited about this series. I found a lot of the message to be incredibly profound, but this one thing REALLY stuck with me:

"We buy things we don't NEED with money we don't HAVE to impress people we really don't LIKE."

I started thinking about it, and this is so true! I mean, really, do I NEED $300 jeans? (No.) And do I really HAVE the money to buy $300 jeans? (No.) And who even cares if I have $300 jeans? (I wouldn't want to be friends with someone who judged my character based on the fact that I have $300 jeans anyway.)

I have a feeling that this 7 week series is going to be life changing for me. Will I become a reformed shopaholic? I can't wait to find out :)