Top 10 of 2010.



I can't believe we are in the last week of 2010.  It's been a good year for us.  Here is our top 10 from 2010 (in no particular order):

1.  A week long trip to California where we celebrated our third anniversary.

2.  Shaving 15 minutes off of my half marathon time at the Dallas White Rock Marathon.

3.  Celebrating with 2 of our siblings at their graduations (John Allen from NLR High School and Gina from UNT).

4.  A week long vacation cruise to Mexico with my family.

5.  Serving as a bridesmaid in my college roommate, Tate's, wedding.

6.  Gary winning a spot as a top three salesperson for Jenkins Enterprises.

7.  Celebrating Gina and Zach's marriage at OBU.

8.  Joining the community at Epoch Church.

9.  Our salon staff jumping from 4 to 9, making it possible to pay off our salon debt.

10. Buying our first car as a married couple.

What an amazing year.  I think 2010 will always stand out as a landmark year in our lives.  This weekend as we reflect on the past year and look forward to the future, I am so thankful for the blessings the Lord lavished upon us this year and I'm looking forward to what 2011 will bring.

Christmas 2010.

This past week was a busy week, full of Christmas festivities.  Monday evening, we drove back to Arkadelphia to celebrate Christmas with Gary's parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins at his grandparent's house.  We had taco soup and exchanged gifts.  Between the wedding and Christmas, we got to spend some quality time catching up with the Grant side of the family.  (Unfortunately I forgot my camera and we didn't get any photos of our Christmas gathering.)

Tuesday evening we drove to Warren to attend our friend Hunter's Christmas party.  We enjoyed meeting some new people and catching up with Hunter and his parents.

Wednesday after work, Kristin and Meghan came over to exchange gifts.  Kristin is here visiting from Delaware for a few weeks.  We laughed, snacked, watched The Grinch, tried (unsuccessfully) to hook up with the 4th member of "The Order" on Skype, and made earrings.  I'm looking forward to more time with these two this week.

Thursday evening we celebrated Christmas at my grandparent's house with my mom's side of the family.  Instead of exchanging gifts, we played games and over ate.  However, the games did provide each person with a cash prize, and I, somehow, won the big one!

Friday we were both off work, and spent the day running last minute errands and cleaning house before heading to my parent's house for dinner.  Mom made a traditional dinner of chicken and dressing, and we watched old home videos from past Christmases.  After dinner, Dad let us each open one gift early.  He had gotten Jessica and I each a Smith and Wesson 38 special revolver, and John Allen a muzzle loader for hunting.  This is my first gun, and I'm looking forward to going to the shooting range to shoot it soon.

When we got home Gina and Zach were at our house waiting for us fresh from Chicago.  We exchanged gifts with them and enjoyed looking at pictures from their honeymoon, before heading to Epoch's first ever midnight Christmas eve service.

Christmas day we woke up early and exchanged gifts with one another at home, before heading to my parent's to exchange with the rest of the family and eat brunch. 

After a restful afternoon at home, we had Christmas dinner at my grandparent's with my Dad's side of the family. 

Today we spent the day resting and shopping.  Gary got a good deal on a TV for our living room at Best Buy and we are looking forward to it arriving Wednesday.  This evening we went to see True Grit with my family.  It was excellent!

Whew, what a week.  I love all the traditions of Christmas and the special times spent with friends and family.  Now tomorrow I begin the undecorating...

We got more than we needed this Christmas. I'm reminded of how very blessed our family is at this time of year.  Hope your Christmas was merry and bright.

Mr. and Mrs. Scheer.

This past weekend Gary and I were in Arkadelphia for my sister-in-law, (Gary's younger sister) Gina's wedding.  The wedding was beautiful, as was the bride.  I was honored to serve as Gina's "Matron of Honor" for the day.  I enjoyed spending her last single night with her at the Hampton Inn in Arkadelphia Saturday night and helping her get ready before the ceremony Sunday morning. 

After the wedding Zach and Gina spent their first night in Little Rock at the Capital Hotel,  before flying to Chicago for the week Monday afternoon.

Gary and I are excited for Zach and Gina.  You can tell they are truly best friends, and that is so important in a marriage.  We are looking forward to seeing where their journey together will take them over the years.

Katherine Grant Salon Progressive Dinner.

Monday night was a first for our salon: we had a staff Christmas party in the form of a progressive dinner! We had 7 out of 9 staff members, plus several spouses in attendance.  Our evening began at our nail tech, Susan's, house for appetizers.  After filling up on meatballs and winearitas, we moved on to Laura's house for salad.  The main course was chicken spaghetti at our house, followed by dessert at our other nail tech, Carrie's, house.  To top the evening off, we played "dirty Santa" with ornaments at Kate's house.

The hairstylists (minus Herb and Tessa).

The nail techs.



Our massage therapist, Mark, and his wife, Sandra.



Laura with her husband, Caleb.



Susan and husband, Bob.



Kate with her ornament, (made by Laura!) and husband, Blake.

My Christmas gifts to the staff.

 Love this group of people I get to work with each day.  We enjoyed our first KGS progressive dinner, and I hope we started a new Christmas tradition.

A Prayer Request.

I'm coming to you today with a heavy heart. My mom has a young couple in her Sunday School class who got some tough news this morning. The young woman's name is Summer. She had cervical cancer and had a hysterectomy to remove it. Recently they found cancer in her bladder and her colon. They told her her only option was to remove both through a 12 hour surgery and use bags for the rest of her life. She is 31 and has a 2 year old daughter. 

She went in this morning at 6 for her surgery. They opened her up and found cancer cells in other body parts. They didn't remove anything because the surgery would be ineffective. She will now try chemo, but the odds aren't good. Please pray for her today. I can't imagine what she and her husband must be feeling right now.

Woman Hairstyle Tendency 2011

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Year 2011 promises to bring changes on hairstyles and haircuts. The last several years we have found fewer changes for the length of hair and only the short hair has been fashionable for women. Now we see long hair tendency.

Short female hair is no longer a good alternative, long hair is the most popular this season. A long hair makes it possible to be creative, and there are plenty of hairstyles your can do with a long hair.

Long hairstyles are so easy to style 'cause they're free flowing and natural styles that are conducive to wearing everyday to school or office, and extremely simple to make; the lady doesn’t need a lot of gels, mousse, hair spray or other styling products to get a wonderful look.

Long Hairstyles Picture Gallery

Gary Makes Top 3!

Gary has been working as a sales rep for my family's business, Jenkins Enterprises, for the past 4 and a half years.  Jenkins Enterprises imports and wholesales college merchandise (shot glasses, magnets, key chains, car flags, etc. with your favorite college team's logo) for about 60 teams. 

For the first 6 months he worked in Oklahoma as the Oklahoma sales rep, before moving back to Arkansas when we got married to cover the south Arkansas territory.  About a year and a half ago, he got taken off the road and put in the office handling "house accounts" across the country.

This past Thursday, Jenkins Enterprises had their annual Christmas party.  At the party they announce the "Top 3 in Sales" for the year.  This year there were 10 sales reps, and Gary placed #3!  He's worked so hard serving his customers and trying to bring in new business.  I was proud to see him honored at the Christmas party with the 2 other sales reps who made top 3.

My Uncle Carter presenting his award.

His cup.

Jenkins Enterprises' Top 3 Sellers for 2010.

Proud wife!

Our first married Christmas we started a tradition: each year, we pick an ornament for our tree that represents the year.  As we get older we can look back at each ornament and see where our life has taken us. This year our ornament is a football with a Razorback on it, to represent Gary's success in sales at Jenkins Enterprises this year. 

We are so very blessed.  The Lord has granted us the privilege of working jobs we love.  I'm thankful for Gary's success this year and looking forward to seeing what he will accomplish in 2011.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

We are all decorated and ready for Christmas here in the Grant house. We've already attended 2 Christmas parties/ornament exchanges this week, and our Christmas cards are ready to be mailed.


I'm still needing to finish Christmas shopping, and I haven't even thought about wrapping gifts and baking goodies yet, but the house is ready for the holidays.

Entry Hall.

Our hand sewn stockings are "hung by the chimney with care."

Dining table.

Kitchen counter.

TV cabinet.

This year I did 2 trees for the first time. One is the artificial tree with the bright, funky, jewel toned decor I have used the past 3 years, and the other is the real tree I showed you a few posts back. The artificial tree is in our home office, and the real tree is in our living room.

Hope your holidays are off to a cheerful start. Let's all be sure to remember the reason behind our traditions and celebrations this year.

Dallas White Rock (half) Marathon.

Saturday morning Gary and I drove to Dallas to run in the Dallas White Rock Marathon. We stayed Saturday night with his parents in Ft. Worth and left around 6:00am to head to Dallas Sunday morning for the race.

The race started at 8am so we had 2 hours to get there, park, and get to our corral at the starting line. This seemed like plenty of time, but it was 7:45 when we pulled into the parking lot. Traffic from the 20,000 plus runners was insane, but we made it to our corral just in time.

Although Gary did not train for this race, we opted for the 2:15 minute corral. We didn't stay together this time, because I was set on reaching my 2:15 goal.

For the first 10 miles I was running a steady 10 minute mile and feeling good. But, at mile 10 I hit a wall. The guy I was trying to pace myself off of headed the other direction for the full marathon. I had been pushing myself to keep this guy in my sight, because I could tell he was maintaining a good pace. When he turned off, I felt a little discouraged. I also began to feel an intense pain in my right knee that was causing my right leg to give out.

My knees started giving me trouble at the last half I did in Conway. I had slowed my running routine to about once or twice a week since that race to give my knees a break. I've been icing them after every run and putting heat on them every night. This has helped tremendously, but by mile 10 they were worn out.

For the final 3.1 I had to slow my run to about an 11 minute mile and walk for a few minutes here and there when the pain got too intense. I finished just over my goal in 2:16:52. This sill broke my personal record of 2:19:48 that I had set just a month and a half earlier. I felt pretty good about my time considering I had slowed my training down considerably since October due to my knee pain.

Gary finished in just over 2:30. This was a great time since he had run only once since running a 5k back in July!

I'm hoping to get my knees back in shape soon so I can run the half at the Little Rock Marathon in March.

Overall, we had a great experience in Dallas.  I'm proud of our times, and I'm looking forward to setting new records for myself in the coming year.

My Luke 11:9-13 story.

On this week last year, Katherine Grant Salon and Spa re-opened in its new Park Hill location.  Our lease at our original location was up and was not being renewed.  When we moved we had only been open a year and a half.  Our old space had room for 3 stylists and a massage therapist.  Our new space would be 3 times the size of the old one.  Kate, Laura and myself made up the staff.  As you can imagine I was extremely nervous about the future of our business.  I wasn't sure how we would find the staff to fill (and pay for) our new space. 

About a month before I found out we needed to move our business, Gary and I had written the final check to pay off our initial start up costs for the first location (equipment, supplies, remodeling, etc.).  Now I would have to borrow money again and start over.  Our new space needed some major remodeling and we would need more equipment to fill our space.  This factor combined with our small staff seemed overwhelming.  However, both Gary and I felt we needed to continue in our business endeavor and ask and trust God to provide for us as he did at our first location.

A year later, I am here to prove He is faithful.  Our staff grew from 3 to 9, and this morning I wrote the final check to repay the money we borrowed to remodel and equip our new location.  Never in a million years would I have thought I would own a successful salon with a staff of 9 people at the age of 25.  I tell you this not to boast in myself,  but to attest to the Lord's faithfulness when we trust Him to provide. This morning I want to encourage you with a verse I've been clinging to this year.  "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and  you will find, knock and  the door will be open to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks the door will be opened.  Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:9-13)  Ask, seek and knock.  He is faithful to provide!

 

I know God answered our prayers for a reason, and I can't wait to see how he wants to use a salon in North Little Rock, Arkansas to bring His kingdom glory.

(All photos were take by Grant Harrison.)