Thanksgiving 2008

It's always this time of year that I'm the busiest...well, pretty much everyone is. All of this running around has left me no time to blog. I was able to go home for a whole week during Thanksgiving. I haven't been able to go home for a whole week since I was in college. It was so much fun. I was able to go and see several of my family and friends, stay up late and sleep in until whenever.

Me and Brandon eating at Shogun with Mom.

I always have fun at Dianna's house playing cards with her kids. Every time I come over there's always a house full of teenagers there and this was one crazy night of playing cards.

A trip to Amory without going to eat a Bill's Hamburgers is never an option. Dianna knows my usual order: 1 Cheeseburger WITHOUT, fries and Diet Pepsi! Bill's is kind of like the Cheer's restaurant--"Everybody knows your name"! So as always I ran into several people I knew, but I was super excited to run into Trey and his little boy Kaden. This was my first time to see him and he is such a cutie!

Another big treat for me while I was home was to get to see my sister, Ashlee and my favorite brother-in-law, Billy. Even though it was only for a couple of hours it was so great to see them.




And last but not least, I couldn't pass up this last picture and the story behind it. My mom has been keeping one of her student's cats for her for a while and for those of you who know me know my extreme dislike for animals. Well one night me and mom were watching a movie and the cat was sitting on top of the couch and I could sense he was starring at me. I looked up at him and noticed that his tongue was sticking out. I started laughing and asked mom why his tongue was sticking out and she said it's because he is missing his middle two top and bottom teeth! I could not resist getting a picture of that. This cat always has his tongue sticking out! Leave it to the Puckett's to have disfunctional animals!


Me and mom had a great little Thanksgiving with just the two of us. It was like I was the only child this weekend. Honestly though, I think I like being the center child much more! I can't wait until Christmas when the whole gang will be there.

You are invited...

...to come to my Christmas contata at Judson Baptist Church. There are 2 dates that are available for you to come-December 13 & 14 at 6:00 p.m. It is open to the public and you don't have to get tickets or anything, but I would strongly suggest getting there early.
I sing with my church choir and for the past few months we have been working on our music and so has our orchestra. The program is called "I Have Seen the Light" and I really believe it is going to be amazing.
Here is the address and map. I hope to see you all there. Look for me in the Alto section, which is on the right!

Judson Baptist Church
4900 Franklin Road

Nashville, Tennessee 37220

If you have any questions please feel free to email me: emilee.puckett@gmail.com
Hope to see you all there!
Emilee

Yes, I've been a slacker!

I have lots to blog about and several pics to post, but I have been running around like a crazy woman! I promise to post soon!

Fun times babysitting

I always look forward to getting a phone call from my friends Joey and Courtney asking me to babysit their kids. I always have such a great time with them. I can always count on Brax to meet me a the door to tell me what movie he has picked out for us to watch. The I know I can count on Bri to be at her little table making a craft of some sort and little Bear to be close to his mom. We always have such a great time. Her are a few pics from the other night.

Little Bear is such a happy baby. He was laughing at everything.

Me and Bri
(Thanks Brax for your wonderful photography skills!) Me and Brax being silly

It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing!

Well, it's been nearly 3 months since I've been able to go swing dancing with the girls and Noel. We always have so much fun. If you want to come join us sometime we would love to have you! It's at Otter Creek Church of Christ in Brentwood. It's great clean wholesome fun that and the best part is that you can come even if you've never done this before. They have a lesson from 7:00-7:30 and then after that you put your newly learned moves into practice. Plus it's only $7! They have a live Big Band that comes every other time to play so that's always cool. Here are a few picks from our latest swinging experience.

Amy, Me, Jessica, Katie D and Katie P

Me and Noel doing the Hip Dip
(Poor Noel, he is worn out by the end of the night because he rotates dancing with 5 girls all night)

Noel trying to explain to me how we were going to do the Floor Spin...it was tried and failed due to me being scared to death.

Me and the roomies, Amy and Jessica

When we were getting ready to go home, Jess was having some car trouble so we all gathered around to see what was going on. As far as me and car repair go, I'm not your gal, obviously!

Unfortunately we weren't able to fix Jess's car that night so all 6 of us squeezed into Amy's Vibe!

I look forward to the next Swing Dancing adventure with the gang! We would love for you to come too!

Can We Talk?

For the past 7 weeks I have attended a Bible study with some ladies from my church called Can We Talk? by Priscilla Shirer. Last night was the final night. This was my first time to attend a group Bible study before and I absolutely loved it. It was such a great group of ladies. I really only knew one of the girls prior to coming to the group so this was also a good time for me to meet knew people in my church. I can safely say that Lord spoke to me so much over the past 7 weeks in so many different areas. I feel like the Lord knew that this was the particular study I needed to attend out of all of the others that were offered. From day one it seemed like each topic and scripture that Priscilla coordinated for us to read was exactly what the Lord knew I needed to read, hear, think about and evaluate my life. After each passage of Scripture there were 5 things we did with the verses: Pore & Paraphrase, Pull out, Pose and Plan & Pin. This method in general has given me a whole new way of doing my devotions. I learned how to really dig in and disect each verse and then turn around and see what I am doing or not doing in order to continue to grow spiritually. I recommend this study to everyone because it can really make you think about things in a way you may have never thought of it before.

Here is most of the group on the last night of the study.

One of those days

Do you ever have one of those days? One of those days that you wish you could just call-in at work and take a day off and catch up on sleep. Today has definitely been one of those days. I don't know why I've been so tired lately. I think it's because it's starting to get dark earlier which makes you sleepy earlier. It's not like I do like I used to do in college and run on 3 hours of sleep per night.

I am reminded of the Seinfeld episode when George starts sleeping under his desk. Even though I do have the perfect office space and desk set up to do this, I am going to refrain and just go get some caffeine to keep me going for the rest of the day!

Weekend Update

This weekend my mom came up to visit. It was very last minute. Thanks to Ms. Peggy (whom I've never even met) for playing the piano at church so that Mom could come up. We got up early Saturday morning and went to downtown Franklin to look in all of the shops. Then we went to eat an early lunch at Meridee's Bread Basket. It's such a great little place and Mom LOVED it. That afternoon we continued on and wend shopping around in Cool Springs and Brentwood.

That evening it was finally time for me to make my Amish Friendship Bread that my friend from work gave me. She gave me 2 starters and you are supposed to do something to it every day for 10 days. Well yesterday was day 10 so me and Mom added the rest of the ingredients and finished the bread. The 2 starters made 4 loaves of bread and 8 more starters for me to give to people. I must say that I was impressed with how the bread turned out because I'm not that great of a cook. I have 2 starters left so I'm going to try it again and add a few things to it the next time.

It had such a fun time with Mom this weekend. It seemed like it went by so fast. I'm glad you had a good time Mom!

She's the one that...

Have you ever had someone that you can always count on to be there for you?
You know, that person that you know is going to be cheering you on in everything you do.
Well, I have been so blessed throughout my life to have many of those people in my life. But the one person that comes to my mind numerous times every single day is someone who probably knows me best.
She’s my best friend.
She’s the one that I talk to by phone or email every single day throughout each day.
She’s the one that I can call and many times don’t even have to tell her I’m having a bad day because she can hear it in my voice even when I’m trying to act like nothing’s wrong.
She’s the one that always calls me to tell me about a new great recipe I need to try.
She’s the one that encourages me to use my talents to the fullest of my ability.
She’s the one that will give me her honest opinion about things even if it’s not what I wanted to hear.
She’s the one that I love to go shopping with because we love to find great sales.
She’s the one that I confide in to tell things to when I just need to vent.
She’s the one that I call first when I have big news to tell about.

She's the one that let's me try new things on to her hair (such a brave soul!)
She’s the one that has made more of an influence on my life than she’ll ever know.

She's the one that can make the me laugh so hard I can't breathe.

She's the one that just knows where I coming from when no one else quite does.
She’s the one that I watched growing up and tried to be just like her, even if I didn’t want to admit it.
She’s the one that strives to be the best wife each day.
She’s the one that lights up a room when she walks in and everybody loves to see.

She's that one that I could go on and on about to tell you what a godly woman she is.
She’s the one that I admire and am so honored to have her as my sister and my best friend.
She’s my sister, Ashlee!

Sis, you mean more to me than I can ever express and I just want to say thank you for being my best friend and I love you!

Em

A Spicy 21st Birthday

This past weekend me and my roommates celebrated our friend, Katie's 21st birthday. I must say that this was one party that I will never forget because it was the Spice Girls theme. Katie's best friend Jenny flew up from Florida to join us in the festivities. Now I am all about having a good time and acting crazy as many of you know; however, I must admit the day before the party I was getting cold feet. It's not really my cup of tea to go out in public and We all got dressed up in our designated Spice Girl costume and met up with some friends at Mellow Mushroom for pizza.

After that we ventured on down the Centennial Park and took pictures and made a video. It was fun to run around and act crazy in the park. I think we gave the original spice girls a run for their money!

Katie--I hope you had a very memorable 21st birthday! Love, Em

I'll be home for Christmas...

...you can count on me! I just got the best news today. The Lord worked things out as usual. Why do I stress myself out when He has it all under control. I found out today that I am going to be able to go to Mississippi to be with my family for Christmas for 5 days now instead of the 36~hours that I was expecting due to the day that Christmas falls on this year.

My Adopted Family

This past Sunday afternoon I went to visit a family that has become very special to me. I used to go to church with them while I was in college. The Balthrops were pretty much my adopted family while I was in college. I would go out to there house on the weekends and stay with them. Mrs. Sandra is such a great cook and has even taught me a few things over the years. She even made me fried pickles on Sunday and they were delicious! There is no telling how many loads of laundry I have washed at there house over the course of 3 years! It's also fun because me and Linda shoot guns a lot when I go out there. It's really fun because we make our own targets (which can get really creative sometimes). I always love going to their house to visit because they live way out in the country and its such a beautiful drive. Sunday's drive was really nice because it's beginning to look like fall. The leaves are beginning to turn and also the tobacco barns are smoking and its such a wonderful smell. One of the reasons for my visit was because Linda had called me a few weeks ago and told me she got a new gun and she wanted to try it out. She got these new targets that are really cool--they are black and you can just stick them on whatever you are going to be shooting at and the place that you shoot it, it turns orange. So we shot at that for a while and then her mom had some pumpkins that she let us use as targets. So we slapped a sticker on the pumpkin and blew it to smitherines!!! It was cool because there were pumpkin chunks flying everywhere each time we shot it! Needless to say, we had a great time and I look forward to my next visit.

Fall is in the air!

I am so excited because it's Fall! This has always been my absolute favorite season. I love to see all the trees turn as they turn shades of firey red and burnt orange. My absolute favorite smell comes in the fall~burning leaves. Someone should make a candle with the scent. At my house in Mississippi, we have this HUGE oak tree that can shade the majority of our yard. We have had so many tires swings hung from that tree I probably couldn't count. The only thing I didn't like about the fall when I was growing up was raking all of those leaves from the oak tree. My mom would always try to make it like a game for me and my sisters or even try to act like it was going to be the most exciting thing for us to do as "family time". I could think of a hundred different things I'd rather do than rake our yard. However, many times we would spend all day raking the leaves into the ditch forming this massive pile of leaves so that when we were done we could take turns on the swing and jump into them. This was one of my favorite 'games' we played as a kid and me and my sisters had it down to a fine art of the whole process. There were three positions for this game: The jumper, the pusher and the raker. Obviously the jumper had the funnest part. But if you were going to be the pusher you knew you had to do a good job so that the next person would push you on the swing so you could get really high for the jump. The the raker was in charge of keeping the pile together.

When we were kids, my mom was always so crafty with us and we would help us make the coolest Halloween decorations and she always made our Halloween costumes. Me and my sisters have been skunks, bumble bees, little red riding hood, pumpkins and so much more all made by Mom. I am so thankful for Mom taking time to do all of this with me and my sisters. She would take time out from doing house work or many other things she needed to do and spend quality time with me and Ashlee and Laura. I look forward to doing that with my children someday too!

Back from Michigan

As many of you know, I'm one who likes to squeeze everything in so that I have to miss nothing. Well, this was one of those weekends. Saturday morning at 10:50 a.m. my plane left for Detroit. I went from the airport to the salon to meet Jessica. We always have the best times when we are together. Here's the run down of the weekend. When I got to the salon, the stylist had just began (I made it just in time to supervise and put in my 2 cents if needed!). Actually Jessica is one of those gals that looks beautiful no matter what. She could have wore a side ponytail with a big ole bow and looked like a million bucks! As soon as hair and makeup was done we rushed to her house to pick up a few things for Jess and grab the iron for me and off to the church for pictures (we were like 30 minutes late, but that's never a shocker for us!) We got to the church and I saw Jon and Stephanie and many of my friends that I went to college with and it was such a great time. After the wedding we headed over to the reception that was decorated so beautifully. I also learned an apparent 'northern' tradition for receptions--everytime people 'clank' their glasses the bride and groom have to kiss. Every time I heard it I kept looking around thinking someone was about to make a toast. Luckily I wasn't the only one who was introduced to this tradition so that made me feel better. When the bride and groom left, it was clean~up time. I know that Jessica and I have met our quota for washing dishes for the rest of the year! But somehow we managed to have fun. We finally got to bed around 2:00 a.m. and it seemed like only 30 minutes later our alarms were going off to get ready for church. One of my favorite things about going up to visit Jesse is going to her church. I have gotten to know many people over the years that I've been visiting and everyone in the church is so welcoming I just feel like I'm at home. After lunch me and Jesse made a fast break to her house and got a quick 30 minute nap and then back to the airport. That was one of the fasted 24 hours I've had in a long time, but WELL WORTH IT!

Fun~filled Weekend Coming Up

This weekend I'm so excited because I'm jumping on a plane Saturday morning and flying up to Michigan to see my best friend from college, Jessica. Her brother is getting married Saturday night so it's going to be a fun~filled weekend with the Locklear's! The good news about my flight up to Detroit is that I found out that I will be having a flying buddy on my plane. One of my Bible professors from college, Dr. Reid, just so happened to be on the same flight. I'm really excited we are on the same plane because he was one of my favorite teachers I had while I was in college. I will never forget my first day of college and walked in to Dr. Reid's class and we all had to write on an index card where we were from and a few other things and he came up to me the next class and asked me, "You're from Amory? Have you ever heard of Bill's Hamburgers, because they are the best!" I thought that was the coolest thing for two reasons-1) He actually knew where Amory was 2) He had actually been to Bill's Hamburgers! He is such a knowledgeable, godly and down to earth man and I have a great respect for him. I'm sure we will have a good time and great laughs on our flight. I will have pics from the weekend soon to follow the trip.

It's Official!!

I'm now an official resident of Tennessee! I spent my entire morning running around to get my Tennessee driver's license, voter's registration (Mom, I know you're proud!), emmission's test and Tennessee car tag. I had heard the horror stories of how long it takes to get your driver's license here so I was determined to get there early so that I could be one of the first one's there. When I arrived at 8:10 a.m. the line was already coming out the door. But I was trying to stay positive and I knew it was all going to be okay because I had my yummy diet coke that I would drink while I waited in line and my zune if I needed to listen to some tunes. As I approached the entrance I saw this huge sign that read, "NO FOOD OR DRINKS INSIDE THE BUILDING". Now, I have been told that I am notorious for making facial expressions that can say 1,000 words without me even speaking--I'm sure I made a fun face when I read that sign. I took my drink back to the car and then I went back to wait in line.

I finally got to the registration desk and I knew all the documents I needed to bring and I had ever so carefully set my book with all of my personal information the night before(thanks mom, it's been such a lifesaver!). Well, I handed the lady my Social Security Card, MS Driver's license, 2 pieces of mail proving my TN residency and my birth certificate...well, at least I thought my birth certificate. Somehow, I managed to get my car title instead of my birth certificate. However, I did have a copy of my birth certificate with me, but the lady behind the desk (who could easily win the prize for Miss No Personality) said that I had to have my original. So I had to drive back home and find the original copy then go back and get in line all over again. I finally got my driver's license though!!

Then I had to go to some other places for the Emmission testing and car tag place, but its all taken care of now! And now I'm off to my church for our first volleyball game!

Favorite Foto Friday!

Last Sunday was Grandparent's Day and me and my sisters have been truly blessed to have such wonderful Christian grandparents who love each of us to pieces. From birth all the way high school graduation we were so fortunate to live about a mile from Mamaw and Papaw and about 30 mintues from Mommy-o and Daddy-o which was great because we were able to spend so much time with them. These are pictures of Mamaw and Papaw (and yes, me and my sisters are well aware we have the cutest little Papaw ever-suspenders and all!) I can't wait to go home soon so that I can see them!

What's with the name?

Hey friends!

Getting started is always the hardest. I thought that explaining the blog name would be a great way to start off. Many of you may know that I've always loved cutting, coloring, and styling hair and I've always said that one day I want to open my very own hair salon and call it Curl Up & Dye. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the name (watch Runaway Bride), but this name just seems to fit with my personality and humor. One day when I open my salon I expect you all to come to me for your hair disasters you may have (like many of you already do), except then you will have to pay me for it! ha ha.

As far as "The Center Child" that's what my mom has called me since I can remember because she always told me that I was in the center of her heart! Plus, it's something different, which is what I LOVE to be!

This picture was taken a couple of months ago while I was at work. During one of the many crazy days at work, my office was occupied by someone else for a little and I was desparate for a computer right then. The only one that wasn't being used at the time was the one in our supply room. So I just pulled up a handy dandy bedside commode and finished my work. Nancy was in her office and turned around and just burst out laughing. I was so in the zone at what I was working on I completely forgot I was sitting on a toilet with my feet propped up on the cart! We all got a good laugh out of it.