Non-Adventure # 42 SiNg sOnG!

It has been a couple of years since I have been to Sing Song mostly because I haven't been in or known anyone in Sing Song but my sweet friend Baylee pledged Siggies this year and I was determined to go and see her. My best and fun loving friend Robin agreed to go with me, even though she had no clue what Sing Song was and I had no great way to explain it to her. Our crazy schedules prevented us from leaving earlier than Saturday morning but we still had plenty of time to make the afternoon show. We headed out somewhat early on Saturday morning and chatted and talked and caught up on things. It made the drive fly-by and before we knew it we were in Abilene and we were starving, we were ready for lunch, and I knew the perfect place...
La Popular!

We had a delicious lunch! I had my favorite burritos and they were just like I remembered them~FANTASTIC!

We then decided to head back to ACU to park and pick up our tickets at will call. Since we had some time we cruised around the campus center and it is soooo different. It looks really cool, modern, and bright but I miss the Hilton Room. I have great memories from ACU and a lot of them were in that room. But enough of that. We also cruised through the bookstore where I picked us this cup:
By now we figured we should REALLY head over and pick up the tickets. As we were coming out of the campus center I was explaining that everyone wears costumes as I pointed out what was clearly Siggies in their Piggie costumes, I recognized my favorite piggie~Baylee! She chatted with us quickly before she had to get going and we finally hit up will call, got our tickets and headed in to find our seats. Our seats were portrayed online as further back than when we actually got there and got to sit in them. We were in the front row. We couldn't have been any closer or we would have been a part of the show! Here we are getting our pose on in front of the stage before the show began.
With out a flash this was the best I could do with my iPhone to get a picture of the Siggie Piggies.
The finale with everyone coming back in.

After the show Baylee wanted us to come with her and her family to eat dinner and she chose:

Fuji's!

Here I am with my sweet Siggie Piggie Baylee! I just love her!
After dinner we decided to head on home. We made a quick stop at the Luttrells to say hello, I couldn't just pass through town without saying hi to that sweet, wonderful family. Then we filled up with gas at Walmart got some blizzards for the road and headed home. We had a great time and I enjoyed seeing Sing Song again, even though the Siggies were beat by popcorn. Robin liked the show too. She said her favorites were the Grad students with their Super Mario Theme. I'll leave y'all with one more picture of Robin and I hamming it up before the show.

Non-Adventure # 41 Black Heels and Marlboro Man

I'm sure many of you remember when I went and waited in line for hours for the Pioneer Woman~Ree Drummond to sign my cookbook, if not you can read about it here. Well she wrote another book, this book is called Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.This book chronicles the story of how she met her husband, The Marlboro Man (so called for his likeness to the ruggedly handsome Marlboro Man in the cigarette ads) and adjusting to life as newlywed and ranch life.

It just so happens I found out she was doing another book tour and this time she would be stopping again at the Borders on Preston Road, on Valentine's Day! Unlike last time I was a little more informed about the process this time and my sweet and very kind father offered to head over to the bookstore when it opened, purchase my copy of the book and thus obtain my golden ticket~
a purple wristband~the first color in the wristbands they were handing out. This guaranteed me a short wait later that evening! Thanks dad you truly are the BEST!

I got to the store managed to finally find a parking space and head inside to this:
Tons of people! I was told that I could either line up now and not see her while she was doing her Q&A session or wait and watch that and then line up . I just got in line. From my spot in line I could kind of see the back of her head.

Oh yea she also brought Marlboro Man and the kids. Here is the back of him.

After they came out she answered audience questions for about 15-20 minutes. She was very funny and kind.

Here is the line.

Waiting in line
Getting closer
Rounding the corner
The last stretch
Only one person left (in front of me)
MY TURN! She said well aren't you cute! Then we chatted about somethings I had made that weekend (wishing I had brought her some because she said she was hungry), seeing her last time, and how much I loved her cookbook. Then my turn was over and I headed off. I still have a broken camera and I only had my iPhone but I think my pics turned our ok. After I was done I ran into Olivia and Rebecca from college days, and Rebecca had a real camera! If only! Oh well the iPhone got it done.
I had heard Marlboro Man (his real name is Ladd but after hearing MM so much it seems wrong) was signing the book too, and that he was quite chatty and nice. So I waited in the line that had formed for him to sign. I must interject that the man in person is quite handsome, dazzling so, and pictures don't quite do him justice. We chatted about how he felt about all this (loves it, gets them to see all kinds of new places), what his fav meal really is (the sandwhich, and he taught her to make it) and if he liked the book (yes, of course he did). Then he signed my books.
Here is my signed book:
After all this excitement (I had spent almost 2 hours in traffic to get there) I was tired and ready to head home. I always love getting to meet her, she is so beautiful, very kind, genuine, funny and down to earth. It was a nice treat to get to meet Marlboro Man too. Happy Valentine's Day to me!

Non-Adventure # 40 IBC Christmas Women's Dinner

Sometime back I got an email from Leah asking me to be part of a decorating team. For the last couple of years, Leah, Amy, and their mom Nancy have been in charge of putting on a Christmas dinner at the Irving Bible Church. Every year the women at the church decorate tables and come for some delicious food, fun, and great entertainment and raise some money for a good cause in the process. Well last year Nancy, their mom, decorated a ton of tables all on her own and barely finished in time. So this year, Leah had asked some of us to help and be on a team that could help her mom out.

So early one cold December morning I met up with my friend Jennifer and we headed out to the Irving Bible Church. When we got there tons of tables had already been decorated but there were still tons in progress, and some still waiting to be done. Here is what the scene looked like when we arrived.

Our team (minus me) Jennifer, Tiffany, Lindsey, and Leah
Once there we set about to get things decorated. Nancy does a wonderful job of planning these tables out during the year and then sets them up at home, takes a picture so even if she isn't setting the table up someone could easily use it as a guide to set up the table. We divided into two teams Tiff and Lindsey, and me and Jennifer. Nancy even had stuff to decorate the bathrooms. Here is the girls bathroom:
And the boys (no boys were actually there so it was used as a 2nd womans bathroom)
Jennifer and I's first table was a black and pink table with a pink christmas tree. I loved this table it was girly, glitzy, fun, and of course it had one of my favorite things, it was PINK!
The pink Christmas tree, it had a pink feather boa and black feathers and sparkly ornaments in pink and black.
The place settings
Nancy had provided these back loofa scrubbers to decorate the chairs but they were too short to put on the way she had and so we changed it up and tied them on and added some leftover ornaments. There were two different chair types. It kind of reminds me of an old perfume bottle.

The centerpiece was a cute hatbox and it also had these cute crosses
and some small purses
It ended up super cute and we totally loved it. I would have loved to have sat at this table. Our finished product! Our second table was a little more difficult. Nancy had put a box together of black, red, silver and white, but didn't really have a plan. She told is we were free to make it look however we want, to play around with what we had. Here is our start, There was a started centerpiece and we played around with the fabric till we found something we liked.
This was our planning process. We kind of made a huge mess. we drug everything out of our tub and we started looking at everything


The finalized place setting
The final product:
from another angle
Sometimes people don't show up until too late to decorate their table or don't show up at all so we have to set up some tables really quickly. The last table I helped with was one of these. The theme for this table turned out to be: Peppermint Candy Canes! The chairs had cute candy cane striped ribbons.
The place setting
The centerpiece
The final table! Not bad for 15 minutes!
Some of the tables were raffle tables, meaning some part or all of the table was up to be won. All you had to do was buy raffle tickets and drop a ticket into the glass bowl on the table. One of the tables decorated by Amy had a coffee theme because part of the prize on the table was Keurig coffee maker. It was super cute!
Leah had also made it possible for us to stay and enjoy the dinner, and entertainment by getting is a table. Here is my name holder at our table. It is a cute pin that can be used for other things like your hair or pinned to a sweater.
The dinner in full swing. It was tons of women walking around, laughing, talking, hugging, dropping off their tickets, and having a great time.

The dinner was delicious! And after dinner we had some great entertainment. They had an improv group called Pavlov's Dog come and perform for us. They were hilarious and had everyone laughing. Here are Jennifer and I all glamed up at dinner.
Leah, Amy, and I
And how cute are these ladies in their aprons! Leah, Nancy, and Amy. It's hard to find a cuter, sweeter, kinder trio of women! I just love them all. Thanks Leah for asking me to help and Nancy I had a blast! If you need help next year, I'm in!!!