The Importance of Girl Time

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 Good morning, friends!

  I was laying in bed this morning, listening to the rain, and painting my fingernails when a big smile came across my face. 

I was thinking back to this time last year when I went on my first "date'' with who is now one of my best friends, Crystal.

  After a few personal messages were exchanged on Facebook, we set up a time to meet at her house and have a 'girl's night'. I honestly had never had one of these nights with anyone but family members, so I had no idea what to expect, especially since I hadn't ever visited with her in person. 

  Typically, a girl's night out means going out on the town and living it up with your friends and while there is nothing wrong with this, it's not who I am.

  I like personal time with friends where you can have meaningful conversations... Conversations your husbands don't necessarily want to hear. (More on that in a minute)

Crystal felt the same way.

  I finally arrived at Crystal's house after a nervous, gut-wrenching drive up the mountain, then drank a little too much wine out of nervousness and proceeded to have a great conversation while making sugar scrubs. 

 It. Was. Bliss.

 I felt like I had found out some amazing secret that only real women knew about...

 ... girl time.

  I had heard about it, but had only practiced this novelty alone with a ped-egg and The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

  Not exactly what 'girl time' meant.

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  In the last year, I have relished every single time she and I have gotten together. She has been patient in teaching me about why we only share certain facts and info about ourselves with other girls and not our husbands (not important things, but girls stuff they don't want to hear but don't have the heart to tell you), the importance of wearing something other than holy yoga pants and Monty Python t-shirts to bed, and most importantly, that I really needed to work on being a patient and understanding wife.

  I would share situations with her that were just making my blood boil and she would calmly say, "Well, do you think this may be why so-and-so said/did this?"

  "Well, yeah, you're probably right. Dang it."

Y'all, this is why friendships are important.

  God knew knew I needed some awesome friends in my life to bounce ideas off of and to help me grow. He has placed good women in my path. Of course, I already had good women in my life (my friend, Jerian, and my sister) but I hadn't nurtured those relationships.

  I'm learning as I go.

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  Recently, I've started running again, except this time, I'm running with a wonderful friend from  church. Typically, running is a chore, but this time, we use our walking times as 'girl time'. We bounce ideas about parenting, marriage, and any other topics you think of off of each other and most nights, we stand around talking for an hour after we run. It's so uplifting and I leave with new ideas and new scriptures to chew on until our next run.

 It's so important for it to be women that you share things with.
 Yes, you can share with your husband, and you should... to a point.
 BUT, men are wired differently than we are. They don't necessarily understand venting, so when we vent, they naturally want to FIX it.
"Oh, this person/ problem has made her upset. Therefore, I should  fix this, or I should be angry at this person. Why else would she be telling me?"
Men instinctively want to protect us, so this is simply nature kicking in.
And sometimes I'm very glad it does.
 But I'm telling him because I just want him to listen. Now I see that that's where having girlfriends comes in handy.

I'm slowly coming out of my shell when it comes to having a solid group of girls I can trust and that I whole-heartedly love, and it has been amazing.

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What do you like to do for girl time?
What benefits have you found from having amazing girlfriends?
Leave me a comment or share on my Facebook page here.

-Heather

Date Night at T's BBQ!

Hey, friends!

Guess what I got to do last night?

I got to go on a bonafide date night. 

I know. Most of you are probably saying, "A what night? Those things actually exist?!"

I had forgotten as well. 

Fortunately for us, one of my best friends and her husband celebrated their soft opening for their new bbq restaurant in town! It was the perfect excuse to slip out for the evening!

I had been looking forward to this night for a long time. I was so excited and nervous for them. I mean, if I didn't like something, I was going to have to tell them, and that would be unpleasant. 

Well, I'm super happy to report that I left there satisfied an my belly was quite happy. I wish I had gotten to choose a little bit of everything because it all looked So amazing. 

I ended up deciding on the brisket, potato salad, and wedge fries. 

I always eat my sides first so I jumped right in to my fries. 

Let me tell you friends, I wish I had ordered a to go wagon load of those. 

They were so good!

And the brisket? 

Absolute perfection. 

It was moist, tender, and smoky. 

(To those of you who know me well, I did the happy food butt wiggle.)

Josh had the pulled pork, baked beans, and fries. 

He absolutely loved the beans. 

I've never tasted beans like that before. They tasted like a combination of chili beans, pork and beans, and baked beans. So there was a sweet, spicy, smoky flavor. 

Sooo good!

If you decide to go, both bbq sauces are good, but we actually bought the spicy one to go.

 I think Josh is a customer for life now. 

The building they renovated was a bbq joint back in the day and has since been used as all kinds of weird stores. 

They worked and put countless hours into renovating it. It was nice to see the building used for it's initial purpose again. 

I didn't get pictures of most of the interior because, well, there were other people there, and I'm sure they didn't want their picture taken. 

But I was able to capture some of the decor. 

I wish you could see all of the cool knick knacks up on the rafter. 

This is one of my signs I made for them. And yes, I know, not the best picture quality. I made a total of five and they were so fun to make!

Here's another! When Tony told me what he wanted it to say, I couldn't help but laugh. 

Here's my handsome dinner date. 

All mine. 

They have reusable cups that you can bring back in for discounted refills. 

Also, check out their phone number...

How awesome is that?

Also, I knocked this entire drink in the floor approximately 30 seconds after I took this picture. 

I was so embarrassed. 

For those of you wanting to know prices and what options are available, here is  the menu for Crawdad days weekend. It will be changing after this weekend. 

Look at those prices! They also do carry out (which we'll be taking advantage of in the future for sure.)

I know many of my local readers have been excited and curious about T's, but now you don't have to be. Just head on in because they're open to the public now! 

Happy Crawdad Days weekend, guys!

-Heather

Things I'm Obsessed With: YouTube Edition

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Hey, friends!

I've recently become quite obsessed with YouTube. Before this last month, I've purely used YouTube to find episodes of the Golden Girls, craft tutorials, but mainly for music.

Recently YouTube put out a mass marketing campaign advertising vlogger channels and fortunately two of those women were Bethany Mota  and Rosina Pasino.

Well, let me tell you, friends, I'm a television connoisseur (meaning I like to sit in pajamas and watch television while shoving my face full of food), so I know what good watching is (note: The Golden Girls).





First up we have Bethany Mota:

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When I watched the first video of hers, I immediately thought that I was way too old to be watching her channel. I didn't understand her style, but her attitude just pulled me in. She's so upbeat and she helped me remember that I can like neon lamps and cute purse swag even at 27.
I especially love her roomspiration videos because it gives me a million ideas for Sofia's room!
I've been watching her videos all day and it's become something that Sofia and I bond over. She loves, loves, loves, make up and pretty stuff, so she gets excited to watch Bethany.

If you would like to visit her vlog, check it out here.







Next is Rosana Pasino (host of Nerdy Nummies):

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Can I just say that I LOVE this woman with all of my nerdy heart?! Y'all, her channel on YouTube is home to some of THE coolest nerdy foods ever! And she's hilarious to watch. I may just be saying this because time and time again people have said she reminded them of me (which must mean I'm awesome).
In all seriousness, the ease of her food projects is easy mode and they turn out looking phenomenal.
May I personally recommend the Muppet episode? We've watched that episode too many times to count.

If you wish to check out her channel, here is her channel!
(You won't be sorry)






Up next is Courtney Joseph with Women Living Well ministries:

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I stumbled upon this ministry last year and it's encouraged me so immensely. Courtney is most assuredly old fashioned when it comes to marriage and the roles of men and women, but hey, so am I! 

She is also a co-founder of Good Morning girls, which is another encouraging ministry who put out some extremely-easy-to-relate-to bible studies.

My perspective on so many things has changed thanks to this ministry. It's helped my parenting and marriage immensely as well as helped me to understand key parts of the Bible better.

Give 'em a look-see!

Women Living Well channel here.
Good Morning Girls channel here.





And last but not least is Mama Natural:

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Okay, I love this woman! She tells it like it is about being a crunchy mama. She's definitely more extreme than I am, but she just blows me away with information every single episode. If you're one of my peeps who are looking to educate yourself on clean, natural living, this is where you start. She explains everything so well and clearly. Love, love, love her!

Check out her channel here.

Well, friends, this wraps up this edition.
If you have any other ideas for the "Things I'm Obsessed With" series, let me know in the comments!

Also, follow me on Facebook here!

Happy Thursday, lovies!
-Heather

I'm Ba-aack!

Hey, friends!

I'm back finally!

 It's been a busy month, so blogging has taken a backseat unfortunately.
BUT! Here I am!

Here's a peek into what's been going on:

I made my first wedding cake! It was actually my first cake that I've made in about three years. I had to do a lot of googling to find tutorials on how to make bows and burlap flowers and to learn how to smooth buttercream, but by golly, I got it done! 

Props to my cousin for asking me to do this for her wedding when I had no experience.

She likes to live on the wild side....

We have a new kitten.

We may have acquired this kitten by me playing dirty using the super cute Sofia pout.

I'm a terrible wife, aren't I?

 Our great state of Arkansas was hit with some wicked storms. It was a somber week as the images of the aftermath flooded social media. The stories from survivors were so personal and it was absoutely heartbreaking. 

Fortunately all we had happen here at our house was a branch broke and almost fell on the car. 

Really, after knowing what could have happened, this was absolutely nothing.

Please keep Vilonia and Mayflower in your prayers, friends.

 Isaiah's birthday party was this weekend. He wanted a Dr. Who themed party and I happily obliged. 

I mean.. come on... 

It's Dr. Who.

I made chocolate dipped pretzels, bow ties made out of fruit roll ups, marshmallow adipose, and of course a Tardis cake.

It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, so I won't share that picture. It would have turned out better, but I was caked out at that point.

 This is my gorgeous niece! She had a DEBS dance to go to. (It's like prom for Jr. High) She asked me to do her makeup for the dance and I was so happy to do it!

                                                


                                            

                                                  

                   

                                               Also.... She may take after me some....

I've entered a new business venture (yes, another one) and I've been making cake and cupcake orders for friends. This cake was made for a friend's daughter and I was fairly happy with how it turned out!

And I may have danced a little when the order was finally done...

 

This, friends, is my nephew. My sister's storage unit had been broken into, so we were cleaning up the mess when I persuaded him to joust with a Swiffer and tricycle. I even made him pose for 5 minutes while I got the picture just right.
I was laughing so hard the pictures were coming out blurry.

I'm such a good aunt...

And finally, this was my "Josh-is-gone-for-two-weeks-so-I-need-to-keep-busy project". 

 I've seen other tutorials that used a projector, but since most people don't have those hanging around, I had to improvise.

This wall originally was chocolate brown, so I painted it the same sky blue as the rest of our bedroom.

Then, I found a picture of a branch silhouette that I liked to use as reference. I used a pencil to free hand the branch and I printed and cut out swallow silhouettes, placed them on the wall with tape, then traced around them as well. 

Then, used a watercolor brush to fill in the whole thing except for the thick part by the light switch (I actually got to use a normal paintbrush for that) with black paint. 

It took forever since I had to use such a small brush, but if I had used any bigger, it would have been sloppy.

  

I'm pretty stoked at how this turned out. 

Like, super happy. It made me smile when I woke up this morning.

So that's what this lady has been up to lately.
I would love to see some projects y'all have been working on!

Happy Wednesday,  y'all!

-Heather