Category Archives: Need to Know

Plinks

I wanted to spread some love around today so here are some links to some of my favorite things I’ve either recently purchased or received as gifts from Etsy.  I love handmade items and supporting small business, though to be honest and in an effort to seem less self-righteous, I should tell you that I also love me some Target and other big box stores.   Disclosure:  This isn’t an ad, this isn’t a paid endorsement, these are just things I like.

Several people at Blissdom commented on my super cute camera strap cover, it came from this shop, Red House Seamstress.

My husband bought me this purse for Christmas from Paco and Lupe, I love it!  It’s very exotic, it comes from a foreign country!  Canada!

Since many of the men in my life love hunting and guns and man stuff, I’ve purchased two gorgeous rifle slings from this shop, LeatherPro.  I don’t have a picture, but just trust me, they’re manly and slingy.

I got these rings for Christmas, too, ONLY $10!! Such a deal! From Forevermore Creations.

For their birthdays, we bought both of our moms beautiful, framed stained glass from Beaded Glass. I don’t have pictures of these, but they are lovely and I wish I had one for my home.

And finally, I just bought the compassion heart bracelet from Sistacreations, a local shop here in Knoxville.  100% of the proceeds (100%!!!) go to Manna House, a food pantry that feeds hungry families in Knoxville.

Wigilia!

My friend Pauline wrote a book and it came in the mail on Saturday.  It was an early Christmas present to myself and Carson and Ella.

She’s my Polish-American friend who has taught me so much about her culture, through her recipes and stories…and now her book, Wigilia.   I can’t stop walking around saying it, vee-GHEEL-yah!  vee-GHEEL-yah!

Her book is beautiful, both the story and the illustrations, and tells the tale about her family’s Polish Christmas Eve celebration.  You can order a copy of Wigilia (vee-GHEEL-yah!) for your family, today is the last day you can order the book to get it in time for Christmas.

Disclosure:  I bought this book with my own money.  Pauline has no idea that I’m writing about her book.  I hope she knows how much I loved it and how proud of her that I am.

Remembering

for maddie

Please remember the Spohr family in your prayers today.  Sweet Maddie, you are missed.

Love, the Playgroupie Family

For a friend and her dude.

Hi everyone, I received this email from a blog friend WAAAAAY up in Canada.  I’ve never met her, but she is one of the very first people who ever read my blog and she’s one of the funniest people on the entire Internet.  She asked me to post a plea she’d written about her dude and I hope you’ll take a few minutes to offer your prayers or good thoughts or crossed fingers.

**

My name is brandy. And I have a blog.

And a plea.

I use my blog to showcase the crazy I meet everyday, share the stories of the kids I teach and document my love for tequila, dairy products and the abdominal muscles of Ryan Reynolds. Rarely do I talk about personal issues on my blog- as personal as the dude that I adore (who I actually met through my blog- single ladies, let that be a very good reason to blog, the possibility of meeting someone as wonderful as my man), but I need your help. And it involves my dude.

He’s a guy who made math comics for my class, so they would love learning about addition. He’s the kinda guy who sends my friends gift cards when they are having hard times, who remembers every story I ever told him, who was the first person I celebrated with when I got a teaching job. He’s the guy who sent flowers to me at school- dozens of my favourite pink roses just because he loves me. He’s a guy who has spent a year patiently explaining (and re-explaining) everything there is to know about football during the important games when silence is preferred. He’s made me word puzzles and comics and stayed up late playing Scrabble with me (even though I beat him almost every time). He’s listened to me cry about school and family and jobs. He is everything I never knew I needed and everything I always knew I wanted.

The holidays have hit us hard. He’s recently been told he may have something called multiple myeloma- an incurable cancer, that gives a person an average of five years of continued life. Though this news has came as a shock, he continues to be exactly who has always been- spending his time worrying about me, rather than worrying about himself. He’s the most selfless individual I know- (he stayed late on Christmas Eve to work, so his co-workers could leave early) and a post like this would never be something that he would promote or encourage but when I’m overwhelmed and feeling helpless, the blogging community has always given me tremendous support and comfort, two things I desperately need at this time.

As I write this, the future is uncertain and we aren’t sure what’s happening. He’ll need to see an oncologist soon, to verify what’s going on in his body. My hope is that everyone who reads this think positive thoughts and if you are a person who prays, could you add him to your list? (You can refer to him as ‘brandy’s hot awesome dude’). If you don’t pray, please keep him in your heart.This cancer is only a possibility and I believe that the prayers and positive thoughts of people can make sure it never becomes a reality.

I want to give a big thank you to the blog owner who scraped their original blog plans and graciously put this up. My goal is to get as many people as possible to see and read this post. If you are reading this and want to help, copy and paste my plea into your blog or send a link through twitter, so more people can keep him in their thoughts. I would be so very grateful (even more grateful than I am to my friend who first showed me the picture of Ryan Reynolds on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. If you haven’t seen it, google it. You. Are. Welcome).

I realize this all sounds dramatic, a Lifetime movie in the making- but this is life. Right now. And I’m throwing away any hint of ego and am humbly asking for you to pray or think kind thoughts. If you are able to pass this on, thank you and if you know anything regarding MM- please email me (my email is on my blog). This isn’t a call for sympathy or a plea for pity. It’s just one girl hoping you can think positive thoughts for the person she adores. If my current heartache provides you with anything, let it be with the reminder that life is short, love is unbending and no one knows what could happen next. Maybe it is silly, but I really do believe that positive thoughts can make a huge difference. Thank you for reading this and if you haven’t already? Please tell someone you love them today.

I did.

The hope of magic

One of my children’s favorite books is The Polar Express.  They’ve been begging to have it read to them nearly every night since the first Christmas commercial was broadcast back in October.  I also love this story, it’s beautiful illustrations and the reminder about the true magic and spirit of Christmas.

On the other hand, BAH HUMBUG.

I think I first began to lose the magic of the Christmas season the first December after Tate and I were married.  Instead of looking forward to all the merriment and celebration, it started to feel like nothing more than a to-do list.

1.  Attend the same Christmas party that had been cranked out every year before.
2.  Fret and stress over over every gift purchase.
3.  Travel long distances home for the holiday and bounce from one relative’s house to another, trying to keep everyone else happy.
4.  Unpack 1,000 ornaments out of their boxes to decorate the tree, only to have to repack them three weeks later.
5.  Hear the same sappy Christmas songs on loop, no matter your location.

And the list could go on and on.  So for the past several years, I’ve invited Scrooge and all his angst into my heart to endure the purgatory of December.

Will Jennifer allow Scrooge to dominate this holiday season?  Will she soften her anti-Christmas stance?  Will she post a video of her singing Christmas carols while hula hooping?

Find out!  Click on over to Blog Nosh Magazine to read the exciting conclusion and learn more about this Blog Carnival, sponsored by the Tide Loads of Hope program.

Out of the goodness of my heart

40 years

My parents are THE HARDEST PEOPLE to buy gifts for.  Hands down.  If there was an award for “Couple who is most difficult to buy gifts for,” my parents would win, blowing their competition out of the water.  If they were to win such an award, the people giving the award wouldn’t even know what to give them.

So, I felt a little bit like a gift-giving genius when I found this personalized sign on Etsy, for their 40th anniversary.  Isn’t it cute?  I think my parents even liked it.  And it wasn’t yet another gift card to a restaurant or framed picture of my kids!  (Sorry I had to pixelate their last name!  The sign looks REALLY great without the pixelation!)

I found this sign at Define Your Space.  I was able to get the sign personalized and I was able to choose the font and colors.   It’s super heavy duty and I love that it’s 100% unique.  Don’t tell my parents (HI MOM!), but it was NOT at all expensive, yet it doesn’t look cheap.  She has all kinds of different styles of signs (not just anniversary gifts!) and vinyl wall decals.  Possible Christmas gift?  Hmm?   Just so you know, if you were thinking about ordering something as a Christmas gift, you have to place your order by December 6!

Hey FTC, I’m not being paid and I wasn’t even asked to post about this!  All I received for this post was the satisfaction of being a pretty awesome gift-giver.  I’m just telling you all about this because I thought you might like it, too.

Aiming HIGH for Anissa

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Anissa, I know you’d appreciate this.  4 PM, Ella still in PJ’s, John Deere PJ’s, nonetheless.  Please don’t hold it against me that she was wearing boy’s dress shoes, I aimed as low as I could.  She put the shoes on herself.  I guess to dress up her look?   (Not pictured:  Me, at 4 PM, still in PJ’s, with unbrushed hair and mascara raccoon eyes.)

My whole family and my Bible study group, we’re all praying for you.  Get well SOON.

For those of you who don’t know the vibrance that is my friend Anissa, or what’s happened to her, she suffered a stroke and is in ICU.  More information on her condition and how you can help her family during this difficult time can be found at Aiming Low.  You can make a donation to the Mayhew family by clicking the button below.

(Comments Closed, if you want to offer support, please leave your comments on Anissa’s CaringBridge site.)