Long.

Oh, the places you'll go...

...and Mickey is king...

...and the Beauty loves the Beast...

...where dreams REALLY DO come true...

 

Painted faces...

...and the beach...

...beautiful sunsets...

...and CROCODILES, oh my!

Nurse with a Purse and Bad at Blogging.

Catchy title, huh?  This past week has been really hectic, hence my lack of blogging.  Oh wait, that's nothing new. 

I have been organizing, though!  Here are some shots of my newly organized purse shelf:

Before

After

We went to Lubbock this past weekend to visit Korey, so I haven't done much organizing since.  While we were in Lubbock, we met up with one of my best friends from College, Christie.  Christie is one of the strongest, most beautiful women I know! 

Christie is working on getting her own hunting show!  She is a champion rifle shooter and has recently started posing for gun posters!

You can also check out the trailer for her first hunting video coming out in April by going to YouTube and searching "Ultimate Varmint Hunt".

I miss you Christo!

PS: Did you notice the necklace she's wearing in our picture?  It's a baboon tooth!

I'm alive and here is the proof.

I know you thought I had totally given up on blogging.  I had.  I was uninspired in every sense of the word but, here I am.  Back. To. Blogging.   My dear neighbor Heather has inspired the uninspirable (dictionary, please) through her 30 (ish) day challange.  Now, given my blogging history, I am not saying that I am going to blog every.single.day. but I do promise to TRY my best.  Scouts honor.

For the next 30 days I will be attempting to GET ORGANIZED.  Can I get an AMEN, please?  My husband jumped right on that one.  I guess I deserve it.  I like to consider myself a fairly organized person but there are certainly areas of my life and home that could use some tidying up. 

So, withoutfurtheradieu, I present to you dear readers (all 2 of you) my junk drawer:

before

....and after

To tell you the truth, I don't know how half of the stuff in the before picture actually made it into the junk drawer. Wierd.  By the looks of it, you'd think we are chain smokers or pyromaniacs, I mean, we only have about 846,465,463 boxes of matches and 27 lighters in that drawer. *Cough, cough*.

I have officially conquered day 1 of my first 30 (ish) day challenge.  It's time to start thinking about what I can organize tomorrow!

A Christmas Gift.

A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.

Proverbs 22:8-10

A few weeks ago, Cody and I took his mom and step-dad out for their 20th anniversary.  As we were paying for parking at the un-manned parking booth, I looked down and saw a folded up twenty dollar bill.  I swiftly grabbed the money and thought to myself  shouted with excitement, "Its my lucky day"!  As we made our way into the restaurant, however, I began to fill a sort of tugging within.  Although I desperately wanted to keep the money, I began to feel convicted, almost as if God was trying to teach me a lesson about giving.  Still hesitant about these feelings, I gave the money to Cody for safe-keeping, knowing that if I kept it in my wallet it would get spent.  We both resolved that we would give the money to the church on the following Sunday.

We didn't make it to church that Sunday, though, and the money remained in Cody's wallet for another couple of weeks (he's so frugal!). 

Last week, a close friend of mine called to ask if I would be willing to make a piece of jewelry for her to give to her sister-in-law as a Christmas gift.  Of course I agreed, as I was excited and flattered that she had even asked.  She eventually decided on a piece that I already had made and we agreed that twenty five dollards was a fair price.

Last week I received a Facebook message from a friend of my mom's.  The friend explained that her nephew was recently diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and that she was trying to collect canned goods and money for the family, since the illness left both he and his wife unable to work.  I passed the message along to my mom as the friend had asked. I started to read the friend's Facebook page since she was intermittently posting updates about her nephew.  After several days of reading the updates, I knew that there had to be something Cody and I could do to help this poor family.  Since my mom's friend and her nephew both live in rural Missouri, I knew that shipping canned goods would be very costly, so Cody and I decided that we would use the twenty dollars that I found in the restaurant parking lot to buy a WalMart giftcard.  I purchased the giftcard, placed it in a Christmas card and put it in the mail, hoping that it would get to the family in time for Christmas.

When we returned home from Cody's grandmother's yesterday, there was a check in the mail from my close friend who had ordered the necklace.  The check was made out in the amount of fifty dollars, despite the fact that we had agreed on twenty-five.  My friend PAID ME DOUBLE the price we agreed on!

Isn't it amazing how God works?  When we give from our hearts, God bestows his blessings upon us. 

We now have twenty-five dollars more than we planned on having, and God has once again placed a burden on my heart to give generously.

Don't get me wrong (and please don't think I am self-righteous), spending the money on a new pair of shoes, a new purse, or any number of things I could have spent it on would have been lots of fun; however, the lesson that God has taught me this Christmas season is worth more than anything tangible.  Litte did I know, finding that twenty dollar bill led me to the gift of a lifetime.

A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes other will himself be refreshed.

Proverbs 11:24-26

True Love.

Divinity Shmivinity.

No, I don't mean divinity as in Our Lord, Jesus Christ.  I am talking about divinity, the candy, the most wretched finicky of all christmas candies.  I'll tell you more about that later. 

We visited my parents in Bowie yesterday.  We went to the flea market and had a pizza party! 

I spent 5 hours in the kitchen today, baking all of my Christmas goodies.  This was the first time that I have ever attempted to bake in such large proportions and I am exhausted.  I made mini friendship bread loaves, peanut butter balls, thumbprint cookies and...ahem...divinity.

The final product!

So where is the divinity, you ask?

Right here in the trash can where it belongs! G'night.

Forever in Pictures.

Well, here I am again.  I'm staring at my computer screen trying to find a reason why I haven't blogged in

 F-O-R-E-V-E-R.  Instead of giving you some lame excuse, though, I am just going to recap the last few weeks with pictures (because I really don't have any excuse, much less a lame one).  So, what have the Krupalas been up to the last month...

...visiting Dina from There's No Place Like Home at her Christmas open house!  Love her!  If you have not visited her site to check out her house, you should...

 ...attending a memorial tea with Brooke.  Here black and leopard table was adorable!  The picture above is from Brooke's Mom's table.  The one below is Brooke's table...

...finding some bargains, like this one, at garage sales. We bought this fixture for $40 at a garage sale and...

 ...purchasing a new dining room table and chairs at Trader's Village for an awesome price...

...stuffing our faces at Mimi's on Thanksgiving...

...enjoying our Christmas tree...

...seeing Megan and Ashley at Ashley and Wesley's wedding reception (Note: this picture is me after 36 hours of not taking a shower...major plumbing problems...lovely)...

 ...having lots of fun at the reception...

...taking Christmas card pictures.  Thanks Brooke!...

...wrapping Christmas presents...when the dogs weren't running off with the wrapping paper...

                                     

 ...and finishing some custom jewery pieces for the holidays...

Whew!  It has been a busy few weeks!  What have you been up to?