Passionate Mama

Happy Mother's Day! This day is so fun spent with family and most especially honoring what a wonderful Mama I've been blessed with. To celebrate this day of recognizing our mother's, I have a special post straight from my favoritest mother - my very own Mama. She is such an awesome lady, and I hope I can one day be as good of a mother as she was and still is to me. She is such a Passionate Mama, and most especially about her girls! I am so thankful for her, and love her so very much!

I asked her to answer a special set of ABC's I wrote just for her, but all of her answers are based on when she was the same age as I am now! Some of her answers are funny, some are serious and some are surprising (because I didn't know that before, i.e. her Interesting Fact listed below). I admire her for all she is and does for our family and many more reasons. I hope you enjoy her post as much as I do! It's a little longer than my usual posts, but that's fine, and definitely worth a read!

Age: 24, and almost 3/4s!
Best memory: The best memories I have are of times that I just sat in the floor and played with Halie, or took her to the park. It wasn’t about doing anything fancy, it was about being with her—that’s what mattered. I’d have to say the most precious memory is the nightly prayer we started saying when Halie moved from her crib to her big-girl bed. We said that prayer every single night for so many years. And she wouldn’t go to sleep without it. Then later, it became the prayer that was said for Megan too.
Cooking: I loved cooking dinner every night. Tried many things, made some things better than others, and learned what worked and what didn't.The hardest part about cooking was getting it ready while also tending to a 2-year-old!
Dealing with:  The demands of working and having enough energy to keep working when I got home!
Expecting: Wow—just hit me as I was trying to think back on what I was expecting when I was 24…I was “Expecting” Megan Secille Trammell (although at that point, even though I knew I was having another girl, she was not yet named).
Favorite Color: Purple
Greatest accomplishment: Wasn't there then, and still not there yet. My greatest accomplishment will be achieved when I stand before my Lord and Savior one day and He says to me “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
Hobbies: No time for hobbies…I was busy chasing a 2-year-old (the author of this blog) around the house! Best I could do was sneak in a crossword puzzle or two while she was napping! And somewhere there are several unfinished cross-stitch projects that just fell by the wayside because they were so much less important than my baby was.
Interesting fact: I had a (borrowed) .357 Magnum…for safety reasons of course!
Job: Assistant to the Statewide Prosecutor at the Florida Attorney General's office.
Kids: Halie Renee Trammell, born January 29, 1988, by C-section, after 16 hours of labor and Dr. Clements telling me I was going to have to go home and come back the next day! I told him “No, I came to have a baby today, we’re having a baby today.” Uncle Keith heard that, went back to the waiting room and told Grandmother that everybody better start praying. Not long after that my water broke but things didn’t progress. My blood pressure spiked, the baby was in stress, and Dr. Clements decided we had to do a C-Section.  Mine was the 7th he’d had to do that day—and he had it done in 7 minutes!
Learning: That there’s nothing quite like being a mom; nothing that compares with the overwhelming feeling of joy (despite anything else that might have happened) that you get when you pick your child up and they wrap their little arms around your neck and hug you tight, and they are so incredibly happy to see you. And for that moment, everything is right with the world and nothing else matters!
Movies: I didn't have time to go to movies. We watched movies at home—the movies that she, the 2-year-old, wanted to watch.  Which was, by the way, The Little Mermaid!  Imagine that Ariel is still her favorite Disney princess to this day! We watched Rock-A-Doodle quite a lot also!
Nicknames: Family nicknames: “Little One” or “Sissy”; Friends called me “Ames” (some still do!)
Obsessed with: Didn’t really have any obsessions when I was 24—at least not that I can recall.
Pet Peeves: Where should I begin with these?!  Seriously though, would have been the same back then as it is today…CRUNCHING…ice, chips, candy, etc.  Ask anyone close to me, and even some who aren’t close to me, they’ll tell you! I simply cannot tolerate it!!
Quick fact: I was once told by one of my bosses that he “felt comfortable to burp and fart in front of me!” (And it just might have been the boss mentioned above.)
Realizing: Realizing that for all intents and purposes I was already a single parent.
Songs: This one’s a no brainer…“When I Call Your Name” by Vince Gill.
TV Shows: 48 Hours, 20/20, China Beach, The Cosby Show, L.A. Law.
Unaware of: How drastically my life, and the lives of my daughters, would change over the course of time; and the fact that even though things were pretty bad for a number of years,  that wouldn’t be how our story would end.
Vehicle: Red Toyota 4-Runner (don’t remember what model year it was).
What you wore: Nothing good I’m sure. I wasn't a fashion maven or anything even remotely close!
X-rays: I can’t remember having any X-rays during this time period oh so many years ago!
Year:1990
Zoo animal: Really? Zoo animal? Oh good grief…

And of course we scrounged up some old school pictures to scan in and include in the post! All are from 1990, when my Mama was 24, just like I am now!

Family Reunion 1990. Uncle Orvin, that precious little blondie is me, and Mama is holding cousin Hunter.

My sweet Granddaddy and my Mama, from way back in the day, circa 1990.

My Mama in 1990, pregnant with my little sister, Megan! And even though it looks like a nightgown, it's actually a maternity dress...or so I've been told at least. :)

Partial to the Weekends

It's almost the weekend!! And obviously I'm a little bit looking forward to that, because I'm a little bit Partial to the Weekends. Not because I always have the best weekend ever planned, but simply because it means I get two full days of "me time," in whatever form it might appear, where I don't have to be at work, and I don't have to indoors if I don't want to be...

Tonight's me time begins with a lovely date with my sweet boyfriend. My boss gave me a gift card a few weeks ago for Administrative Professionals Day to Olive Garden. It can actually be used at any Darden restaurant though (Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Longhorn & Bahama Breeze), so we're going to dinner at Longhorn, because we also have a coupon for a free appetizer. Score! So we're "treating" ourselves to a fancy date tonight, just because we can. :)

Tomorrow's plans aren't cemented in stone yet, but hopefully it includes at least a little bit of outside time in the nice weather. I'm thinking either a morning bike ride or some afternoon pool time. Or hopefully both if I'm lucky enough. Then tomorrow night will be a party for a girl at Jeff's church to celebrate her graduation from FSU Grad school. Congrats to her!

Sunday of course is Mother's day. So that means presents first thing in the morning for my sweet Mama. Then we'll all go to church together and head home to change clothes before heading to lunch. We will all meet at my Grandparents' house and celebrate my Mama, Aunt Q, and my Grandmother with yummy food, lemonade cake (which sounds delish), and some more presents. Then we'll spend the evening back at home again enjoying time together with our little family.

(And for Mother's Day, I have a special post planned that features my dearest Mama, that I for one am looking forward to posting and sharing with yall. So look for that on Sunday!)

I'm looking forward to some time spent doing a few things I want to do, as well as some time enjoying the company of people I love! I'm so thankful for two full days of weekend :) Only a little over one hour of work to go until it get's here - hurry, hurry, hurry please!

LOVE YALL!

A little bored on my afternoon break today - this is why I need a couple of days away from the office!

Pile Up the Joy

Some of the best things in life are often the smallest, most seemingly ordinary things. And sadly we don’t take the time to recognize those things or thank those special people in our lives.  Even “silly” things are sometimes instrumental in cheering me up or changing my attitude. And all the "regular" people in my life make me so happy. It’s so much nicer when I can actually recognize those things and people, take time to enjoy them, and make a small memory of something that made me happy.

When we take the time to Pile Up the Joy in our daily lives, we realize how much we're blessed with. Then those "bad" or annoying things in our lives are more tolerable, less stressful, and we have less of a reason to complain when things may not go our way. I wish everyone could be more in tune to things like that. I wish I could be more in tune to things like that. I think if we all were, each one of us would be happier, more joyful, less stressed, and more thankful for the tiniest of blessings.

Tiny things that brighten my day and bless my life might include:

The smell of coffee in the morning
A bright blue sky
Super sweet “good morning” texts from my super sweet boyfriend
A nice email at work from my Mama
Someone talking to me about my recent blog post, who I didn’t know even read my blog
Excited greetings from cute little doggies
A funny little sister who loves me so much
Swimming
Compliments on my cute outfit or jewelry
Listening to a good CD repeatedly in my car
A loving Papa who comes to get the giant Palmetto bug out of my shower
That I am able to have my own iPhone-car-laptop-room-new bike-etc…
Grandparents who help me out constantly
Bike rides
Getting to be a part of the lives of some awesome teenagers
Movie rest night at the house with Jeff

And I could continue on and on with a much longer list...

The list isn't what's important though. What's important is that we (including myself), don't forget to recognize the mundane, daily things that add joy to our lives. So many of the tiniest blessings often get overlooked, because we don't realize they're actually blessings. And they are! We have sooooo so much to be thankful for. I know I'm going to take some time to thank my Lord for those small, tiny, awesome, glorious blessings. Because they truly do make a huge impact in my life!

And since I don't like posts without pictures, here are past pics of mine that represent the joy in my life.

My dear, sweet boyfriend Jeff.

My wonderful family.

My funny little seester :)

My bike that I love riding.

Beautiful blue skies.

Love and joy and blessings to each one of you :)

Periodically Updated

I love periodically updating the template of my blog. I don't do it very often, but when I do, I make sure everything is just right, and then leave it for a long time.I pick out a new background image, then spend a good amount of time matching up the fonts and border colors and link colors, until it all looks so pretty, and I'm always quite proud of the changes.

This time, I went for some bright, pretty colors for the summertime, and I'm loving it so far! The last template was up for 6 or 7 months, so we'll see how long I keep this one! For now though, it's pretty close to perfect, and I just wanted to share this random post, so that I could share the new prettyness. :)

Love and kisses and hugs and warm wishes to everyone :)

Oh, and here are some pretty pictures from Monday night when we went out for a fancy dinner at Harry's to celebrate Jeff's birthday with his parents!

Pining For Summertime

Summertime is almost here! The summer months are definitely loved by this girl, and they bring so many happy things: swimming, watermelon, sunshine, tan skin, long days, exciting nights, a more relaxed feeling, beach days, river tubing, popsicles, and so much more. But another one of the reasons I love summer, is for all the fun activities that I get to do with my youth group!

We call the whole ordeal "Y.E.S.S." - which stands for Youth Extreme Summer Spectacular. And it is indeed spectacular. We do about five or six fun, crazy, sometimes messy events during the summer, and then our final event to culminate the summer is always Rock the Universe at Universal Studios Orlando. It rocks! .... I'm punny, huh? :) Anyways, if you want, you can check out an old post of RTU from 2010. Also, the summer events are when we invite the upcoming 6th-graders to start joining in on youth events, so we get to welcome some new members to our Rooftop group!

The YESS agenda for this summer includes the following:

1. Speed Switch Game Night - this is one I'm super excited for, based solely on my love of games. It's set up like speed dating, only when the bell rings, each person on your team rotates one spot to play a new game, rather than rotating to flirt with a potential date. If you win a game, your team gets a point. The team with the most points wins!
2. Bonfire & Luau - don't really need to explain this one, we understand what it means. There will be grass skirts, flowery lei's, smores, games and fun. Count me in.
3. Real Life Clue - I don't want to give too much away (for those few of my youth who read my blog) but this is going to be a fun night. It will be way more fun in fact than simply playing the board game.
4. Beach Weekend - um hello?! Who doesn't want to spend a couple of days at the beach? I plan on taking us to St. George Island, and spending some quality time not only in the glorious Gulf water and sunshine, but also some quality time with some great teenagers.
5. Extreme Paint Night, Part 4 - This one is always a big hit, and one of the only summer events we ever repeat, and definitely the only one we do year after year because of it's popularity. We play some "regular" games, but the twist is there's always paint involved somehow. For example - kickball where you have to slip-n-slide down a tarp full of paint to each base. Or Twister where each circle is a big blob of paint. So. Much. Fun. (See some of the 2010 action here...)
6. Rock the Universe - and last and most-certainly-not-least-but-in-fact-arguably-the-best we have Rock the Universe. We get admission into Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure (which now includes the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!) for two days, as well as awesome concerts from some of the biggest and most popular current Christian artists. It's extremely exhausting - but the fun quotient certainly outweighs the exhaustion quotient.

So many fun events, so much excitement, and I can't wait to get it all started. The first event is still right at a month away (June 3), but I'm ready to start the fun and games now! I love my youth group, and I love hanging out with them, and I super-duper love summer events with my youth group.

Parents & Youth - click HERE for a link to our church website to download the forms :)

Also, I had a hard time narrowing down all the amazing pictures from last summer's awesomeness (imagine that), so here's a giant pile of picture overload for your viewing pleasure! (Sorry they're not in any kind of order - that was too much work for me and I didn't feel like doing it...)

Super Duper Messy Night

Rock the Universe

Rock the Universe - I think this was Switchfoot.

Rock the Universe - roomies.

Super Duper Messy Night

Super Duper Messy Night

Extreme Paint Night, Part 3

Extreme Paint Night, Part 3.

Rock the Universe - Harry Potter World.

Rock the Universe - from on top of a little ride

Rock the Universe - Islands of Adventure.

Tubing at Bear Paw.

Pinstagram Weekend Photo Dump

Since my last few posts have been very wordy, we're going for a less-is-more theme with mainly photos. Here are some of the moments I loved from this past weekend, all portrayed through Instagram.

I love the weekends. I love Instagram. I love combining the two...

Got donuts and coffee as a treat for the boyfriend Saturday morning.

Jeff's birthday wish was to see "The Avengers" in IMAX 3D.

So of course I'm a good girlfriend, and took him on Saturday!

Then we did a little shopping - such a good price on those shoes!

Jeff actually really likes shopping with me, and especially for shoes.

This is how we celebrated Cinco de Mayo. So yummy!!

Then he asked for birthday ice cream, so we got Marble Slab. Yum!

Pretty drive on a country road on the way to Lauren's wedding.

Lauren was such a beautiful bride!

Wedding reception.

Found my old friend Callie at church, on her birthday!

This was for the #photoadaymay Instagram challenge. Day 6 - You.

Sunday lunch with the fam at Gordo's. Love my Leetle Seester!

Sunday lunch at Gordos. Cuban food is so good!

Pleasurable, It Was Not

Last Thursday, I had my wisdom teeth removed. (Hence only one other post in the last 16 days). What's funny is that when I was younger, I was told that I wouldn't have any wisdom teeth, mainly because my mouth was too small to get any. So imagine my surprise when visiting the dentist in February with pain complaints, they told me I had four of those bad boys. Awesome. And they were impacted, and some of my jaw bone had been growing the wrong way to compensate for the teeth. Even more awesome. So a week ago, I went in and had them all surgically extracted.

I was nervous right before the surgery, but that laughing gas kicked in pretty quickly, and I was good. I remember laughing so hard, and I remember thinking, "Hey Halez, chill out. Nothing funny is even happening. Ok for real - why are you still laughing crazy woman?!" But in a heart beat, I was passed out. I woke up later thinking it was too fast and they couldn't possibly be done, only to find out it had been almost an hour and a half, and they were completely finished.

I was super sleepy, my whole face was incredibly numb (from jaw to eyebrows), and I didn't really care about anything, nor have any sense of pain. Later that night though, that all changed. As the numbing effects started to wear off, I became very aware of how much my head hurt. I was taking the pain meds they had given me, but those offered zero relief. I slept very little Thursday night (like maybe two or so hours), and Friday morning my head hurt even worse. Mixing in some Tylenol didn't offer much more relief either. I was using ice packs as instructed, but continued to be in so much pain.

Fast forward to Sunday morning after two days full of excruciating, tearful pain - I continued to only sleep a couple of hours each night, was running a fever all the time, and my head was hurting so bad it made me cry multiple times. I called the oral surgeon to check on all this, and he was basically no help at all. So on Monday morning, I left the house for the first time since Thursday to go back to the oral surgeon again. They carelessly shoved those medicated treatment packs in my empty sockets, but refused to write me new prescriptions even after I practically begged him for them. I was still in so much pain and growing more fed up with it by the minute.

Tuesday, I attempted to go to work, but only lasted for two and a half hours before calling it quits and heading back home to curl up in my little cave. Finally on Wednesday, I went back to the oral surgeon for another time. They changed out my treatment packs, and he finally wrote me new prescriptions. Basically - my mouth was too tiny for this procedure, and it was put under severe stress during the operation. It then caused my jaw muscles to freak out and have constant spasms, which resulted in a major headache.

My new meds are specifically for muscle relaxers and headaches, and I can tell they're finally helping my head, and helping me sleep. In fact, it's extremely difficult not to curl up under my desk and take a nap during work. I haven't been able to keep my normal schedule, and I miss things like zumba and bike riding and hanging out with my boyfriend. But mostly I'm just extremely tired of my head hurting. I'm seriously ready to be over this and just move on. I go back to the oral surgeon one last time this afternoon to get the medicated packs removed, and then all I'm wishing for is the remains of my headache to go away once and for all. And then I'll be one happy, wisdom-tooth-less girl.

Luckily for me though, I did have some pretty great caretakers during this whole ordeal. My parents, grandparents and boyfriend did all they could to make me comfortable and take care of me. They brought me soup, pudding, mashed potatoes, ice cream and other goodies that required no chewing. My aunt and uncle also brought me some yummy soup from Newk's as well. Thank you to those that cared for me during my pitiful, whining week of pain, and to those of you who said extra special prayers for me as well. Prayers are always much appreciated.

At least I had plenty of entertainment in the form of Netflix. I was able to watch three or four movies, and catch up on about a season and half of One Tree Hill that I had missed. I also made some cute bookmarks on the day my head was still mostly numb, and that was fun. But I'm really just ready to be myself again. I'm finally getting better, and the new meds are a blessing. But this has definitely been the worst experience of my life so far! Thank you Lord for bringing me through it.

Love to all my friends and family :) Thanks again for all the prayers, encouragement and love during this rough week! And thanks for reading my extremely long, wordy post today!

P.S. - The title is dedicated to my dear (albeit nerdy) boyfriend in honor of Star Wars day today. And yes, he's managed to make me a nerdier girl as well... But anyways, the title is written how I think Yoda would say it. And remember, May the 4th Be With You...