MegaScoob

Mother Nature

2012-01-29T13:48:00.003-06:00

Mother Nature has confused everything and everyone.

Today I wore short sleeves to church. Albeit, I was a bit chilly but not entirely cold.

I've seen a lot of birds, particularly robins, for this time of year.

Some of the trees are starting to bud.

This week, the highs are in the 60s. Next week, the 40s.

No wonder we're all confused!

I can't believe it

2012-01-27T14:05:00.000-06:00

I've been on Pinterest since I think August. In the beginning I was totally obsessed with it. I spent way too many hours during the week looking at random things and building up my inspiration boards. Lately though, it's gotten a little boring. That's probably because I don't have anything in particular I'm searching for. The awesomeness of it has faded. Don't get me wrong though, it has definitely provided some great recipes, cool cleaning solutions and a few DIY projects I'd like to try. But lately, it's just kinda boring.

Also, the Facebook thing is about to get really annoying. I just read yesterday on yahoo.com that Facebook is going to force us all to merge to the new "Timeline" feature. Ugh. Those people that have already switched to it, I don't even like going to their pages and looking at them. It's too disorganized, disjunct, complicated, too much going on in one page. I honestly hardly even update my own page with statuses. I mainly just read other peoples' updates and just get a quick update about what's going on with my peeps. With this new Timeline thing though....ugh....I'm tempting to just forget about facebook altogether. It's too much change for me.

I just can't believe that that these two social networks awesome sites that used to occupy my time too much are slowly ....not.

Hey...but it's a good thing!

I Caved

2012-01-26T15:51:00.000-06:00

I wasn't interested.

I really didn't care.

I had no desire at all.

But, Stephen kept asking me.

He said it would make him happy.

He said I would probably like it.

So I caved.

I'm now watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix.

It's actually kind of riveting.

Better than I expected and not anything like "Stargate Atlantis" which is just plain weird and terrible.

The show is actually funny and interesting to watch!

So, now I'm interested.

And I like it.

Very Interesting

2012-01-25T16:38:00.001-06:00

JCP rocks the boat.

Interesting article about the changes coming to JcPenney on Feb. 1. I know a little bit about stocks and I'd just like to note than when this news was released, JCP stock dropped a lot. And I would like to predict that it will drop significantly when these massive changes are put into effect.

We shall see.

A Tangled Mess

2012-01-25T12:00:00.000-06:00

Stephen bought himself a Power Conditioner for our electronics. You plug all your stuff into it and then plug the conditioner into the wall. Basically, it regulates the voltage for everything so if we ever had a power surge or something and the voltage is too high it will safely protect everything at a lower voltage or shut everything off completly. It's very high techie stuff.

Anyway, this prompted the reorganization of all our wires, cables and stuff on our entertainment center and in the three boxes full of wires that I found around our house.

In the process, this is what our living room looked like.

Now, it's all put back together nicely and all the extra slack in the wire is neatly twisty-tied instead of a tangled mess.

This also prompted me to detangle and twisty-tie all the other wires in our house.

I don't even know what most of these are for. Like why do we have 5 useless surge protecters, or 3 apple headphones that lost their grip (I threw those away), two mini mouses, 8 different USB cords, and countless other things.

Oh well....at lease it's all organized in one big box now!

Crested Butte Vacation Day 5, 6 and 7

2012-01-24T15:28:00.000-06:00

Monday morning we woke up to 3 new inches of snow with a forecast of snow ALL DAY LONG!
By the time we made it on the slopes there must have been at least 6 or 8 inches already and we learned very quickly that powder is hard to ski in!!! Even though they had groomed the trails the night before it really didn't matter today!

Tips for Skiing in Powder:

- Lean back and keep tips up

- Go fast on flat parts so you don't have to pole as much

- Ski on tracks already made so it's easier for you

- Be prepared to fall

Mom and I went down Panion's Run as our first blue in the powder! It was tough; we screamed and laughed the whole way down and then she fell and put up a big cloud of powder and I couldn't even see her! Then I fell! Stephen took the run next to us and he could hear us screaming through the trees!

Before lunch, Stephen, Mom and I decided we wanted to ski Paradise Bowl in the snow and powder. It was quite the challenge even getting there! We took the Bushwacker run and it has a big downhill and then uphill right after it so even in normal conditions you HAVE to go straight down just to make it up the hill. Well in LOTS of powder you can't do that. So we took it slow and at the very end we all went straight down in hopes we could make it at least partially up the hill. Well....we all bit the dust!! Out of the seven people that went down the hill the same time we did, four of us fell.

We finally made it to Paradise and it was VERY windy and REALLY snowy! We had to keep stopping because 1) the wind was slowing us down and 2) it was whiteout conditions and we couldn't see anyone in front of us! So after that adventrue we decided we stick to the greens and easy blues the rest of the day!

This is not the Paradise Bowl, but you get the idea of the whiteout conditions.

The men were much more adventurous in the afternoon and challenaged International and Paradise again. I''m pretty sure they all fell as well and Dad even got checked out by the Ski Patrol. Don't worry, he's fine, just really sore in the neck.

And look at that! Just in time, the bulldozer came and cleared our driveway as we pulled in.

After skiing and poleing in the powder and snow I think we all went to bed at 8:30 that night!

The next day, was our last day of skiing and it was near perfect conditions with a total of 15" of new snow! Everything had been groomed so it was Colorado's Best Corduroy! It would have been even better had they received just an inch of powder on top of it. Anyway, the high was like 13 and it was a bit windy so this day we all doubled up on the hand and foot warmers and braved the mountain!

Unfortunetly, 3 lifts were closed because there wasn't enough business to keep them open. Ergh. Eric and Stephen skiied the blacks again and the girls just kept skiing their favorite slopes over and over! Stephen and I cut the day short by about 30 minutes and did a bit of shopping and had some hot cocoa.

We were literally the 5th car in the parking lot!

Back at the house it was time for some hottubbing, packing up, leftovers, mario kart racing and cards!

Wednesday, we all left the house by 7, had breakfast at the Village Inn at 10, I slept the whole day in the car, we had dinner at Cracker Barrel and were in bed at our house by 12:30am!

My favorite row of trees.

Crested Butte Mountain

We don't know when we'll all be back to the ski resort as a big family and it may not happen again for years. Perhaps the next vacation will be on the beach!

Crested Butte Vacation Day 3 and 4

2012-01-23T22:17:00.000-06:00

Saturday was our first full day of skiing! Brian was back and forth deciding if he wanted to ski or snowboard and at the last minute he decided he wanted to try snowboarding. We all got bundled up and headed to the lifts around 9 and Brian hung out until his all day snowboard lesson started at 10.

As with every year, I started out on the green slopes to get reacclimated to the mountain and skiing in general. After a couple of runs, I was off to the blues.

Here is a picture that really shows the lack of snow and just how much man made snow was made. It was so weird to see this! But surprisingly, the snow conditions were really good! Mad props to the snow making crew for making great snow conditions!

We came off the slopes at four and went straight for the hot tub when we got back to the house!

Most evenings were spent playing, Mario Kart, card games and trying to stay awake until atleast 9:30pm!

On Sunday, we went to church in town and then made it to slopes by around 10:15am. Today, Brian was able to tag along with us skiiers, or I guess you could say we tagged along with him. Either way, we were all interested to see how he was doing with this snowboard skills.

And hey, props to him for trying something different! He looked pretty good out there and even did some easy blue runs with us. At the end of the day though, he said he was pretty sore all over.

Forcast for Monday....SNOW

Crested Butte Vacation Day 1 and 2

2012-01-22T11:24:00.000-06:00

This year we were once again blessed to be able to go on our family vacation to ski in Crested Butte, CO. We left early Thursday morning (Jan 12th) for the 8 hour drive to somewhere south of Pueblo, CO, to stay the night at a friend of my parents. They built a beautiful house up in the mountains to retire in. Must be nice, although I don't think I could handle being so secluded day in and day out.

Our first, and thankfully only hiccup, of the trip came when we tried to get up this small hill en route to their house. Our car was so loaded down in the back that it couldn't quite make it on the icy path. We tried three times and finally just had to call Paul to come and get us. After we unloaded our car a bit, we were able to make it up with flying colors!

That evening we had beef stroganoff with real heavy cream for dinner. It was pretty good, but I prefer it made with sour cream.

The next morning we loaded up and headed back out on the road. By 10am we had made it to Canon City and stopped in to by some wine at the Holy Cross Abbey. We bought the Syrah and the Reisling. By 12:30 we had met up with Eric and his entourage at the Gunnison airport to pick up Brian. We all said our quick hellos then had lunch in downtown. Afterwards we made the 30 minute trek to Mount Crested Butte and our house for the next 4 days.

On our way in, we got our first real look at just how little snow Crested Butte has received so far. It was really weird. Lots and lots of brown grass. And when you looked at the mountain it was especially wierd. Grass, then snow where the run is, then grass again, and then snow where another run is! I though to myself that skiing on that was going to be interesting.

So, after we unloaded the car, we loaded back up and headed to the ski resort to rent our ski boots and skis.

A closer look at the mountain and the snow and it didn't look too bad....Tomorrow is the first day of skiing!!!

We have Curtains!!!

2012-01-20T21:41:00.000-06:00

We made an impulse buy but a great buy the other weekend. We went to Lowe's to get a light bulb for our living room. That is all we needed, but as with most trips to Lowe's, Stephen suggested we just walk around a bit and see if there was anything else we 'might' need.

So we walked through the dishwashers and ovens dreaming of the possibilites of upgrading in the future.

Then we walked through the garden area to see what cool stuff we could possibly need.

We looked at getting some more spray paint, but can you believe Lowes' didn't have any flat white spray paint!

We looked at the shelving units and organization stuff for closets and kitchens and decided we definitely wanted to upgrade our pull out drawers to better quality metal ones.

Then we finally made our way to the front of the store by way of the clock and curtain aisle. We almost bought a huge decorative clock to put on our big wall into our kitchen, but it was scratched and we were not going to pay $50 for a scratched clock.

We then browsed the curtains and I said "oh this one is really pretty" and Stephen said " hey, yeah, that would look great in our office" and I was like "oh my gosh, you're so right!" So we bought them.

It has made a huge difference in the overall look of the office and the room looks so much more "complete" now. I can't believe we've gone almost 3.5 years with no curtains in our whole house except for the living room. Now, I'm totally inspired to find curtains for every room!

Christmas two-zero-one-one

2012-01-19T21:40:00.004-06:00

Okay. I know. It's nearly three weeks past Christmas. Too bad. I'm still going to post about it. I just had to add pictures to it and I couldn't do that until I had a new camera!

We had a really good Christmas this year! We made WAY too many sugar cookies and ate WAY too many of them!

We gave Janet "Just Dance" for the Wii and I wish we could have played it more while we were there! We may just have to get it for ourselves now...

Stephen and I received this name frame which I am super excited about. I've wanted one of these for about 3 years! Thanks to my parents for finding it at the State Fair....and get this, all the pictures were taken in Oklahoma! That's even better! It will hang above my fireplace just as soon as I get a nail in the brick. Not an easy task.

Stephen's best gifts were probably the complete set of Calvin and Hobbes comics. I can't even tell you how many birthdays and Christmases he's asked for this. He also got an apple tv which he is stoked about, oh...and slippers! Brian got him this really cool wooden wall hanging with a picture of the OSU stadium at night and filled with orange...it's pretty rad.

I got a wireless mouse and keyboard from Stephen. Our old mouse was really dirty and wouldn't scroll down anymore no matter how many times or how well we cleaned it. I'm quite enjoying free range of scrolling right now. I also got really bright orange nail polish and really dark purple nail polish from Brian.

As for our combined gifts, we got a wood rack and a small leaf blower (which I was probably too excited about).

I also can't wait to try out making my own mozzarella cheese!

I can think of another project we can do to further procrastinate the bathroom remodel

2011-12-11T12:00:00.001-06:00

Let's see, January 1 will be one year that our master bathroom has been partially gutted. It's so sad.

Today we made some slight progress. Stephen took out the old vent! Woo hoo!

Anyway, in accordance with avoiding the huge undertaking of a bathroom remodel; we did two other rather large projects instead. I know right... It doesn't make sense to me either.

We built two 3'x9' raised garden beds and put in a garden path around it in the spring. All summer we tried to keep our awesome veggie garden alive to no avail. We did however reap in the bounty of our basil. Seriously it was like a bush.

Then this fall we decided to take down our shed. If I hadn't lost our camera I would have a true picture of the before. But since I did, you'll just have to imagine a seriously dilapidated, vine covered, dirty, rotten shed. It's been there for many, many years and obviously was not taken care of. It was on a 10'x12' piece of concrete slab that was 3" thick! We debated leaving it there and putting a new shed on top but we decided it too had to go. It was really messing up our water shed and creating muddy puddles on each end.

Stephen rented a jackhammer and went to town! But first, he went to YouTube and watched people using a jackhammer so he could see what he was getting into! He's going to hate me for saying that on the interweb. Oh well.

So there you have it. Two bigs ways we procrastinated on our remodel. But if you think about it, these other projects had to be done first because of the good weather and stuff. But really, the bathroom remodel is next!!!!!

Pathetic

2011-12-10T20:00:00.000-06:00

Don't worry I'm not sick. I just wanted to share the most pathetic picture I have of me being sick. This was in July when I actually missed work for 2 days because of a fever of 103 and a really, really sore throat. I had a severe viral infection and was so miserable I actually cried.

Anyway, Stephen took the picture because he thought it was funny.

Pinterest challenge

2011-12-09T15:00:00.000-06:00

I was looking for something cheap, easy, and a little fun to add to my nonexistent fall/Halloween decor. It's funny, Fall is my favorite season and I don't decorate for it at all. Oh well.

Anyway, I pinned this a long time ago, probably August, and thought "I am so doing that". So, I saved my milk jugs and pretty much copied it exactly because I'm not that entirely crafty to come up with my own version.

I set it up the weekend before Halloween and was giddy with excitement!!!! I couldn't wait for it to get dark enough to see my little ghosts light up!

Skinny jeans

2011-12-09T08:30:00.000-06:00

I'm posting about my skinny jeans because I really didn't think I could pull the look off. I posted a lot of inspiration outfits on Pinterest with skinny jeans and tall boots trying to convince myself that I could make the look work for me too.

Well one day, I just decided to bite the bullet and go shopping. I didn't allow anyone to come with me to shop for the skinny jeans because i knew it would be boring and frustrating for them. As it was I went to 5 stores, grabbed a bunch of jeans at each one and tried them all on. It took me 5 hours before I found two pairs that would work, and ultimately 1 pair from New York and Company won me over.

The jeans are more like leggings because they are pretty stretchy, but from the outside they look like denim.

The first day I wore this outfit, I felt really out of my comfort zone because it's not something I would normally wear. But I'm used to it now and don't feel so out of place, just a little bit "country".

The boots are from Jcpenny and are the brand Olsenboye. The jeggings are from New York and Company. Both tops are from Jcpenny.

*Sorry for the grainy pictures...they were taken with the iphone.

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-28T19:49:00.004-06:00

I'm so glad we were able to travel to Ohio for Thanksgiving this year! It was super fun. And even the 14 hour drive there in one day and the 14 hour drive back in one day was not all that bad. We all ran in a 5k on Thanksgiving morning. Even William ran 1.7 miles and crossed the finish line with his Aunt Megan.

We played Frisbee golf, soccer, football, and hosted a race around the block.

We went bowling where Stephen won by a long shot and Molly happily got passed around and clapped for the bowlers.

The boys made a Christmas chocolate beer which will be ready for ski time!
And we played a fair amount of Just Dance (which is kind of hard), Mario Kart, and Dr. Mario. This picture is great because Dominic discovered that he was about to come in first place after a close race!
Liesel made a fabulous Thanksgiving breakfast and dinner and crockpot soup. We found some awesome deals at T.J. Maxx, and we learned an awesome new card game called Scum and played it for many hours. All in all, it was a great time had by all and we're so glad we could come visit!

For all the other pictures....click on the link to the right! Videos will have to wait for another day.

Gobble gobble

2011-10-26T18:56:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago we went on our annual turkey hunting trip with my family. We had a great turnout with 15 people there!

Eric got an 18lb bird. The biggest bird I think anyone has caught in the whole 23 years they have been going.

Both Eric and Brian slept outside one night in the bed of a pickup truck which I thought was crazy. Apparently they slept well so that's all that matters.

I think our group picture turned out fabulous, and even though we are all holding guns and dressed in camo, it is frame worthy and deserves a spot on my living room shelves.It was pretty fun this year. I even ventured out hunting on my own and didn't get lost! I'm glad that I've gone twice to experience the adventure and hang with my Grandpa, but I know that it is truly a male bonding weekend. That said, perhaps next year I'll let the boys do their thang and I'll hang with the girls. In the end, everyone got a bird except for me, Stephen and Dad. Bummer luck!

October Date

2011-10-03T20:49:00.001-05:00

Yay for pumpkin patches and corn mazes! Stephen and I went to the Milkes family farm in Shawnee last Saturday for our date. It was a modest little farm, and just perfect for the two of us.

It was a bit hot for October, 82! So the first thing we did when we arrived was have fresh homemade lemonade! It was delicious! While we drank our lemonade we wandered through the corn maze answering trivia questions to help us either make the right turn or the left turn. I think we got quite a few wrong!

When we finally made It out of there, we played a quick game of checkers before heading to pick our very own pumpkins off the vine. We chose two medium sized pumpkins and one small one. It was so cute and perfectly round. We did find some really, really big ones too but they were still really green.

I would go again. And who says you can only go to things like this with kids... People at my office do. But I think people of any age can go. We certainly had a blast!

I do have a few pictures, but I'm doing this on my new iPad blogger app so I can't upload the pictures right now.

Monthly Dates

2011-10-01T08:03:00.002-05:00

I wish I had a more clever name for it. But I don't. That's exactly what they are....monthly dates. In July I decided that Stephen and I don't go on enough actual dates and do new things. I mean sure, we occasionally go to taco bell, catch a movie, but really, we just don't go on bonofide dates. So we, but more like me, decided that every other month one of us would plan the date. I had August, he had September, now I have October and so on. The rule in the beginning was that we wouldn't tell the other person what we were planning for our month because I didn't want the other person to think.."well, I don't really want to do that" or "Serioulsy, that's what you have planned?". So far it was worked. Kind of. Sure, we haven't changed our date ideas, but we have had to tell each other what we are doing for scheduling purposes and stuff. Oh well...we're only on month 3!

The other point is that there was no monetary value attached to the dates. But, the goal was to keep it fairly frugal.

August:

We went to Grand Lake with some friends. I hadn't planned on this being our date, but after the fact we did declare it our August date since we had never really been to the lake and just relaxed together. It was loads of fun and I think Stephen and I rode the jetski the most out of anyone.

September:

Stephen planned a camping trip at Lake Eucha near Pryor, OK. This one area of our state was not in a burn ban so we could actually build a small campfire. We had our little trip the weekend after our 4 year wedding anniversary. The weather was perfect; barely breezy and warm. The relaxing weekend was just what both of us needed. We did absolutely nothing and I didn't think about a single chore that had to be done at home. We cooked hotdogs by the fire, and had a delicious hobo dinner with smores. And we even made donuts for breakfast! We had a beautiful spot picked out right under a big tree with a great view of the lake. On saturday, we laid out on our big quilt and listened to Cowboy football, I took a nap and we played cards. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

October:

This month I only had two weekends to choose from. The 1st and the 22nd. I had already panned we were going to a pumpkin patch and corn maze! We have our date today so I'll have to fill you in later about this date!

@#$&(Q#%&@!@#

2011-08-31T20:12:00.005-05:00

This is in response...or follow up... to the first point of my last post.

Just to my suspicion, caterpillars definitely ate every last bit of my four tomato plants.

Let's count them shall we....

And as you can clearly see, my tomato plants are devoured, no longer, dead, ugh. And there were actually NINE caterpillars on the plants.

Obviously, these darn tomato killers are easier to see when there are no leaves to hide them.

I am so mad.

But have no fear...they are currently having seizures and writhing in pain in my trashcan because I sprayed super awesome caterkiller on them.

TAKE THAT!!!!!!!

(Stephen thinks I'm evil now)

Nuttin Honey

2011-08-30T21:38:00.002-05:00

There is not a whole lot going on lately. So here's just some things that are on my mind that don't really warrant a post all to themselves.

- Some bug, probably a caterpillar, is now eating the leaves of my tomatoes. This makes me mad even though they are not producing fruit. The haven't died yet because of the heat, so I was hoping that once it cooled down they would start making fruit. Now, I'm not so sure.

- I really enjoyed getting to spend time at places with bodies of water this summer and get some color on my skin. I'm really sad the pool is closing this weekend and I won't have the chance to get one last bit of color before I become pasty white for the winter.

- I really, really, really, really want a maid service to come to my house and do a deep clean. I'm going to admit that I have not cleaned my blinds or window sills EVER since I've lived here. That's coming up on 3 years.

- I'm really excited to be going to this wedding in two weeks because I'll get to wear this pretty new dress.

- I'm really impressed at the last lab nurse who took my blood. She had to take 5 viles for testing and I didn't bruise. Woo Hoo!

- We really need to get cracking on our bathroom remodel. First, we have to find our motivation that we lost awhile back. Ugh...it's just a daunting yet rewarding project to deal with.

- Lastly, I'm looking forward to some family visits coming up. Inlaws in Tulsa in September, nephews and niece here in OK in October, grandparents and other family in NE in October, maybe some aunts and uncles in OK in November, and more immediate family in January for our skiing vacation!

Obsessed with Pinterest or Pin Interest as I say it.

2011-08-15T22:34:00.004-05:00

I have become addicted to yet another time waster. However, this one can actually bring some ideas to fruition. Like...find new recipes and actually make them! Cool DIY crafts that I could actually do! And all these awesome ideas all in one place! Genius!

I like to think that I'm crafty and have the motivation to make stuff.....but I don't. So I haven't made anything on my crafty or diy board...yet.

But, a girl and her hubby have to eat! So I have made a few meals and desserts from the vast inspiration that is the internet and I shall share my brief review of them for you.

recipe found here

These cookies were the bomb dot com! The recipe called for 1/4 of sour cream which I thought was a bit weird, but I'm convinced it was the secret ingredient. I made my cookies a bit small so the double recipe probably made like 70 cookies. Honestly, this is the best recipe ever for the best most chewy cookie!

this hardly require a recipe...but you can find it here

I really like fruit smoothies and honestly, I can't believe I didn't think this up myself a long time ago. I have 9 bags of pre-made single serve smoothies ready to go in the freezer. Mine include some strawberries, blueberries and banana and some original yogurt. I decided not to get vanilla flavor just because I didn't want it to mix weird with the fruit. I had one of the concoctions on Sunday and it was awesome! All fresh and cheap!

recipe found here

I have made these black bean enchiladas twice. They are mighty tasty and mighty easy! Mix, roll and bake for 30 minutes, and still have plenty for leftovers! We decided the first time I made them it was a definite recipe to be kept in the rotation forever!

recipe found here

Greek salads are pretty easy, and I already like them, so this was a no brainer for me. Although $5 for kalamata olives is ridiculous so I nixed that from the recipe in about 2 seconds. Also, opening a whole can off chickpeas just to have a few on a salad was also not my idea of frugal. So basically this gourmet looking salad pretty much whittled down to lettuce, tomato, feta cheese and a light balsamic and oil dressing for me. Hey, it's still pretty good.

recipe found here

And lastly, we have these cute pizza bites. The one batch didn't make a whole lot, but that's alright I wasn't hosting a party or anything. I did have to go buy a muffin pan for this, but that's why I have a BB & B coupon so I didn't feel too guilty. These were tasty, but nothing too special. Good for finger food at a party, or a light snack/dinner.

If you want to see more of my boards or get on the Pinterest bandwagon...go here

Pricked

2011-07-25T19:01:00.003-05:00

I had to have some blood drawn on Saturday to get my Collective Blood Count. I was really sick with a severe viral infection. They needed to see what my white and red blood count was. This is actually the third time I've been pricked in about 2 months, and this is the worst bruise of them all! Either that nurse was terrible or I'm just really prone to bruises! Either way, this is super gross to look at, so now I'm going to share it all with you!

#13 - Visit the beach.

2011-07-24T21:33:00.002-05:00

Well lookie there! I didn't even realize that our trip to Georgia last month resulted in checking something off my life list.

YAY!!

Now seriously....when can we go again?

Fun with Sparklers!

2011-07-05T20:00:00.005-05:00

We went to a friends house Saturday night for a cookout and some fireworks fun!

We splurged on getting 12 BIG fireworks and it was so worth it!!! We also had the cops called on us because we were disturbing the neighbors. Apparently they didn't enjoy shooting fireworks after midnight as much as we did. The visit took us all by surprise, because I don't think any of us knew what time it was. Oh, well we didn't even have any more to shoot off after he left so it was just as good.

We also got some BIG sparklers and spelled things out with them. It turned us all into giddy 6 year olds.

Swimming!

2011-07-05T19:50:00.003-05:00

We took our Whiz Kids to my parents neighborhood pool last Saturday. They didn't know how to swim, but they sure learned fast!

We ate lunch at McDonalds, then swam for 3 hours. Those kids were plum tuckered out!

From my garden

2011-07-05T19:38:00.005-05:00

Man, I feel so proud of my amateur gardening skills when I go outside and pick veggies for dinner.

Right now, we have an abundance of lettuce. We're trying to eat a lot of salads because I don't want it to get all wilty and bad and then us not be able to eat it. Because that would totally defeat the purpose of growing it!

This is what we have had to eat so far with our lettuce...

Taco Salad with black bean corn salsa

Greek Salad. Just for me, Stephen doesn't like the feta or the dressing.

Grilled Chicken Cobb Salad

Yeah for Vacation!

2011-06-28T18:26:00.004-05:00

Ok so we went to Savannah, Georgia a few weeks ago for a family reunion. It was delightful!

We rented a big beach house for our family just 200 yards from the beach. Glorious!

We chatted and ate breakfast out the enclosed porch!

We looked real cool taking the trolley tour!

We caught some major waves!

Will liked to scream at the waves!
We went the always fun baseball game and played Mound Ball!

We hung out and played in the sand!

We hung out with our big crazy family!

We had a super fabulous dinner and spent some time together!

Dom played in the waves and I tried to hold on to him so they wouldn't take him under!

Molly napped.
We played Sheephead!
We buried Will...but I don't think he liked it that much.

What an awesome vacation...when's the next one?

A Shmorgesborg of Stuff and My Birthday!

2011-06-05T20:22:00.013-05:00

I used my skills of sounding out to spell that word up there. I hope I got close!

I know I haven't posted in close to two months, but we've had a lot going on, and I don't get the urge to blog very often. Hence the reason why this post could be lengthy instead of broken up into about 5 different posts.

So here goes.

First up...way back at the end of April, Brian had his Air Force awards ceremony. If I remember right, he got the War of the Worlds awards which means that he exemplifies, honor, leadership and patriotism. Afterward, we went out to eat at Texas Roadhouse and it was delicious.

Next was the Memorial Marathon that my mom ran in. It was cold, windy, rainy and miserable. But she did it and ran the half marathon in about a 2:35. We went down to watch her run by at about mile 6, then drove home to get dry socks and shoes for Mom and Dad then came back, picked dad up then high tailed it to the finish line just in time to see her cross it! Way to go Mom!

On May 14 we went to the Whiz Kids Spring Fling. It was also surprisingly cold and windy that day, but we still had fun with face painting, inflatables, fishing, and exploring.

Then on May 24 we had a battle with mother nature and her awesome tornados. I don't mean awesome like this was a cool thing to be part of, it was actually quite nerve racking. Work let us all go home at 3:15, I think I was home by 4, by 4:10 I made Stephen come home, by 4:30 we were heading to my parents house who have a shelter, by 4:32 the sirens were going off and the wind was really picking up, by 4:50 we had made it their house and I was finally at ease. The tornado path grazed us by 10 miles. It was all pretty scary, but we know how to make a little party of sorts out of any situation.

Remember, my bedding post. Well, I finally picked one. I decided not to get any of the ones I thought I liked that we all voted on. After I received the swatches in the mail I decided the fabric was a bit too fancy for my tastes. I just wanted plain cotton. A few days before Memorial Day weekend, Stephen and I were walking about Dillards and saw this bedding by Candice Olson. It was perfect. Perfect shade of green, perfect pattern, perfect touch of the perfect grayish blue. I was almost in love. The only thing that kinda held me back was the price and the fact that it was a comforter when I had my heart set on a duvet. But alas, there was too much perfect going on that I couldn't pass it up! I love it, and I'm making my bed everyday because I love it so much.

So along came Memorial Day weekend and we bought the bedding and we took the pillow to Home Depot and found the perfect shade of gray/green/blue that I LOVE! It's called 'Contemplation' by Behr. We actually had it down to a blue and green and wouldn't you know the green was called 'Spring Hill'. (the neighborhood my parents live in!) Now our room is starting to take on a more sophisticated look which is awesome.

We've also made some major progress on our gardens. The wildflower garden is starting to fill out...

Our front garden had a mulch transformation. See, in March when all the trees were seeding and blooming and wind was seriously gusting my front garden became covered in little seeds things about the size of my fingernail. Come mid May every...single...one...of the those darn seeds had sprouted and were about 3 inches tall. Now I could finally sit down and spend some time to pull every...single....one... of them out. That required me to rake all the old much off and literally sit in my garden for 2 days and pull tiny...singular...weeds. I then generously sprinkled preen everywhere and covered the garden with a new soil conditioner mulch called Fine Pine. It's awesome and gives such a nice clean look to the garden.

Finally...we are beginning to see some major progress with our vegetable garden. Our corn is about halfway to being 'knee high by the 4th of July'. The roma tomatoes are doing great, as well as the green and red peppers. The basil is delicious as we've already used it to make homemade pesto. The lettuce is super abundant and needs to be thinned out. The snow peas are doing just ok...as well as the green beans. Onions...not so much. Oh well, you live and learn and that is what makes this so much.

Oh and also, we finally installed our pathway around the garden. It took about 5 days, but we had a deadline before it rained for a good 3 days to get it done so the dirt could settle in.

Oh...you thought I was done because I said finally already. Well too bad, i do just have one more project. I finally finished by white frame collage for the office. I used frames I got for Christmas (thanks everyone), spray painted a few I already had and bought a few more to fill it out. The arrangement took some time and then I had newspaper taped to the wall for a few weeks, then I finally decided what pictures were worthy of the college and I finally got it hung about two weeks ago. I'm really enjoying the outcome. So if you come over, you have to come back to the office and check it out.

My birthday was yesterday and it was just a perfect day. We went to Jimmy's Egg for breakfast, then went to a soccer game (Stephen is a coach), then we decided to hang out by the pool and veg in the afternoon. I also got this cool rain gauge! I actually asked for that because I'm always asking my parents how much rain is in their gauge every time it rains. I also got two lighthouse decor pieces, one for my yard and one for my house. They are pretty neat and now I might have to start collecting.

The only cruddy thing that happened on my birthday was that I neglected to put on sunscreen for the soccer game and came home looking like this. Hooray for aloe vera with lidocaine and uneven tan lines!

'Til next time when I'll blog about our vacation in Georgia!!!!!

Our Garden

2011-04-10T16:36:00.006-05:00

Well... like I said. I'm so done with gardening right now until May when I can plant my impatiens. For the past, I think three weekends, we have spent the ENTIRE weekend working outside in the yard to prepare the dirt for this: Yes. Those are TWO 3.5' x 9' raised garden beds. My wonderful husband made them for me...er us...back in January.

Of course, we had to remove all the bermuda grass first so we'd hopefully stop it from encroaching into the garden. Thanks to Carol and my Dad for being the extra helping hands and getting all 25+ feet done in ONE..day! Stephen and Ialready had about 3 feet done, but the rest of it took from 9-3 on a Saturday. Not too shabby.!We still are going to put some 12" pavers all around the beds. But that's for another weekend...

Our other project involved our back flower garden. It only had a crepe mrytle back there and I had envisioned something of a wildflower look.

Really...I think the pictures don't do it justice. It's really full and most of it is perennials, so once things start growing and blooming it's going to look AWESOME!!!

Now, we still have a bit of work to do in the front yard. We bought a little holly tree and two small boxwoods (I think) that we still need to get planted. Another day and another update. Check out the pictures here!

An Update on #17

2011-03-19T09:08:00.006-05:00

I couldn't be more proud for Stephen and I. It's amazing to see our checking, savings, and emergency savings all healthy again. In such a short time, our emergency savings is back in the double digits and we're only $3,000 away from reaching our goal. When we reach that magic number we can stop putting every penny into the account and begin focusing on our investing.

We were trying to do both, and then remembered that Dave Ramsey said this:

1. Have $1000 in your savings- finally we do, after some ups and downs

2. Pay off all debt except your house - Thankfully we could skip this step. Although I am still paying off Christmas and now a large car repair.

3. Save for 3-6 months of expenses in your emergency savings account.

4. Invest

See, we were trying to invest and build our emergency savings at the same time. It just wasn't working out. So we decided to take all the money that was just sitting in our stock account and move it to our emergency fund. BAM! That much closer to our goal! Then we took our tax refund and put that towards our goal and BAM! That much closer!

It really is so exciting to see how we've come full circ

le...and it's all our own money. I'd say about 2.5 years ago, our emergency savings was in the double digits. But, almost half of that was our home buyer credit, that we'd have to pay back. Fortunately half of that went to our lovely new bathroom.

And since then, I've been unemployed working some temp jobs here and there. It was rough, but I'm really glad for most of that time I was at least bringing in a measly weekly paycheck.

And we also spent nearly $10,000+ on our trip to South Africa.

Now, here we are not even a year later back from our trip and we're so close to reaching all our financial goals. It's hard to put it into words just how proud of us I am. Every time I look at our trip to SA, I get all warm and fuzzy and think "wow...we actually did it. We actually went there."

Here are some ways that we saved money:

1. Cut out cable

2. Program your thermostat

3. Turn the water pressure down when taking a shower to use less water - this one is hard for me and I hardly ever remember

4. Use coupons

5. Plan meals so you don't eat out as much and have to go to the store alot

6. Look at your budget and see exactly how much money you spend on things, see where you can cut back, then with that money you can save...

7. Set up a direct transfer to your savings account- probably the best thing we did

8. Don't buy anything new for awhile

9. Don't get discouraged.

The ever evolving flower garden

2011-03-13T11:51:00.006-05:00

This is what our front garden looked like when we bought. Huge, overgrown, oddly placed bushes, along with some moderately sized rocks. At first I thought it was great. I thought it was really nice landscaping. Then I lived with it for a year and couldn't wait to tear it out and do something more practical, colorful, and balanced.

There used to be another yellow green bush right where the impatiens are that I took out. That year, the impatiens did fairly well there. However, they did get quite a bit of sun and suffered towards the end of the summer.

Fast forward to this past summer and we obviously tore out everything. Even the huge crepe myrtle and replaced it with a smaller one that we can prune to a nice tree look. If we live here that long. The overall look of the garden is still evolving though. It is quite large and hard to imagine it all filled up with mature perennials because everything is still so new, only about a year old. I have found though, that the impatiens are forever going to live in that little but long space against the wall...in the shade. One little plant mounded up to about 3' wide last year. It was fantastic. We have some great wildflower looking plants that should show off a bit this year like, coreopsis, echinacea, and blue daisy.

This spring we moved a couple of things. We moved one boxwood tree down about 4' and moved our hydrangea to the boxwoods' old home. It will really be in the shade then, and hopefully will bloom this year and not get scorch

ed.

And this year, we decided to get rid of our dwarf alberta spruce tree and replace it with something more tolerant of our summer heat. I loved this little tree because it would have filled out the space, and provided a great evergre

en look year round. However, as you can see, the little bit of sun it got, and our summer heat took it's toll. Another year of the same, and the tree was just not going to make it.

We have until the end of march to take it back to TLC and exchange it for something better. So we're on the lookout.

We were drawn to these two plants:

Purple Lilac

Golden Forsythia

I love the bright yellow, and the lilac is so pretty. However, we think these two plants will compete with the rose that is in close proximity, and they are not year round evergreens or very tree like. So...we're going to look some more this week.

A Life List

2011-02-27T14:52:00.004-06:00

I was inspired by one of my friends in college, Laura, to start a life list. She made one called "30 Before 30". I decided to just write a bunch things down that I'd like to do in my lifetime. Although, I'm sure most of them could be accomplished within the next 5 years. I wrote them all to the side of blog so we could all follow along and I'll blog about each one I accomplish, starting with...

#4. Go to Maine

For some reason I have always wanted to visit Maine. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because it's really far way from Oklahoma. Or because of the beautiful fall spectacle. Or because I imagined it to have a quintessential small town feel. My husband and I decided to go to Maine for our honeymoon 3.5 years ago. It was perfect. We went a few weeks after our wedding to take advantage of the full fall colors. They did not disappoint. Although the locals still said that the real colors would come in about 3-4 weeks.

The trip was everything I thought it was going to be. Beautiful, chilly, quaint, and perfect. The best quote from the trip was a local telling us that the only people that visit Bar Harbor Maine are "Newlyweds and Nearly deads!!"

Swimsuit

2011-02-19T12:14:00.005-06:00

I thought I would share the new swimsuit I purchased from Lands End Canvas. I have never bought anything from Lands End or their new line of Canvas stuff until recently. BowerPower did a post about her spring wardrobe and it featured a lot from this line. I was intrigued by some of the things that they had and I really liked the sale prices too. This whole suit cost be $24.oo and it fits perfectly!

I also got these cute 5" Chino Shorts. I thought because having some nice shorts to dress up or down would be useful. Sadly, I had to return them. I was afraid it might happen, but you can clearly see all the pockets and the zipper flap. They are clearly see through white shorts. And also the 5" length was a bit awkward. It wasn't too long, but I though the 3" ones would be too short.

Anyway, I guess I'm still on the hunt for some nice shorts. I'm just praying my capris still fit from last summer otherwise I'll be hitting the shops, and sometimes that's just not fun.

Bedroom Dilemma

2011-02-12T12:18:00.006-06:00

For about a year or so, I've wanted to get a new duvet cover and spruce up our master bedroom. It has no style right now, except beige and boring. We want to change it to something with more of a classic and sophisticated feel.

With our bathroom remodel we want to do white cabinets with brushed nickel fixtures. This will work well with the smokey blue I have wanted to paint our room. This will also give our room a more light and airy feel.

However, I have recently figured out that they better way to go about changing our rooms decor is to pick out our new duvet first.

This is a major challenge.

I have looked and looked constantly for a duvet that doesn't break my bank, has just the right pattern, and just the right color.

So far, I have these options.

Option 1: This is from pillowsandthrows.com. I love the graphic pattern because it's really different. But I'm worried it's probably too edgy for our tastes and look of our home. Also, the plum color is really cool and would work well with a smokey blue wall.

Option 2: This is from West Elm. Again, I like the pattern because it is stylized and different. However, the gray is a little boring and cold. I also was looking for an all-over pattern.

Option 3: I was drawn to this because of the colors. Cool blues, dark browns, and cream. I will compliment our dark furniture and will accommodate different shades of blue accents. It's also reversible which is a plus.

Option 4: This is from Westelm. I really like it because of the stylized flowers and the different colors of blue, green, and yellow which will make bringing in accessories and art that much more flexible. It is also bright, cheery, and modern. However, I wish that it didn't have so much white because that will yellow over time.

Option 5: This is a nice blue, but is it too much blue? I'm not sure, however, the right orange accents like pillows, might make it looks cool. It is light and airy and has a slight pattern. But it reads like a solid to me and I was really look for a bigger pattern.

Option 6: This is my ultimate favorite. It's reversible. Has a large, sophisticated pattern (that I've been looking for!) and is just perfect. Except for one thing...it's green. I actually love the green color but I've been set on painting my room a smokey blue and this would clash with the overall design. I could paint our room a light tan, or light yellow and go with dark finishes. I'm torn, because I absolutely love this pattern, but I'd have to change my whole design plan.

Option 7: This is my other favorite. The pattern is not quite as awesome as the other, but it is the overall pattern I was trying to achieve. The accent color they used for the pillows, even though it is more of a blue green, allows me to visualize how this could look in a smokey blue room. I think it would look pretty cool and grown-up. Hence, with this option, we could still go with our original design plan.

Option 8: This is the one Stephen was drawn too. I think it was because of the color, and the geometric design. The geometric design is not doing it for me, I think it's predictable and boring. However, this is reversible and I do like the underside because it looks like a nice swirly pattern. I wish it wasn't so brown though, something brighter would be better.

So, as you can see, I have my work cut out for me. I still need to get a few prices for some of these duvets. A few of them are labeled as a package deals which include the duvet cover, the duvet insert, and two pillows, or even an accent pillow that totals almost $460!!!! That's a bit expensive even if you do get a lot of things. But, we already have a duvet insert, so I don't need another one.

Which one do you like best? Leave a comment!

Snowmageddon Part I and II

2011-02-10T16:58:00.005-06:00

Can you believe that the weather people actually called the snow storm last week Snowmageddon? Please.

Anyway, here is what my house looked like on February 1st.

How much snow: 12"

Drifts: 3'

Length of time schools were closed: 4 days!

This is what my house looked like February 9th.

How much snow: 7"

Drifts: 2.5'-3'

Length of time school was closed: 2 days (lets hope)

(taken around 9am after I had shoveled half the driveway)

(taken after the nice man plowed our street)

Grateful and a Good Samaritian

2011-02-09T14:19:00.009-06:00

Why am a I grateful?

*random thought*

I looked at that word and thought "wait, do you spell if greatful? Because grateful didn't look right, but neither does greatful.

*end random thought*

Now onto why I am grateful. When we moved into this house and then started thinking about what renovation projects we wanted to do, we noticed that the texture job in the master bathroom looked like cake frosting. Cake frosting is actually good, but as a wall texture it is gross and gloppy.

We went back and forth with the idea of finding a way to remove it or just dealing with it. To remove it we thought we could sand it down, but that would yield a lot of dust. We thought about tearing out all the drywall and just replacing it. But then that was escalating the project to a whole 'nother level that we didn't want to go. Then one day a long time ago, we took off one of the outlet covers and noticed some paper, and the color red. Well!

At first I thought "How stupid are they to wallpaper something, then paint over it, then texture over that!?"

And who would use this wallpaper anyway!!!

Perhaps you've figured it out by now, but that texture came off fairly easily because of the wallpaper. Now, I'm really grateful they textured over it!

For the most part, it came off in good sized chunks. Some were about 4 times the size of the one in the picture!

Here are the before pictures of our sink area.

And here are the afters. You may have noticed that I didn't take off the texture on the soffit. That's because we're going to take it out completely. I also didn't take the texture off on the wall with the mirror because I was doing this alone and I'm betting that mirror weighs a lot. Also, we're keeping the mirror so I didn't want to risk shattering it to pieces.

Now for the final touches to get the walls ready for new texture and paint, I have to steam the rest of the paper backing off and clean up all the edges where the texture/wallpaper didn't quite come off. And unfortunately, there are three small areas, like the one just to the right of the door near the mirror (for some reason I didn't find wallpaper there so thetexture really doesn't want to come off) and two areas near the baseboard in the shower area where the texture was being stubborn and didn't quite come off, that I have to deal with.

I'll post our paint color options next time, but for now, check out this video I took of some man on our street graciously plowing people's driveways and half of our cul-de-sac.

Yeah, I turned the camera off right before he dumped the snow because I realized he was turning straight towards my window and I was taping this through my open blinds and I was afraid he might see me and and then I'd get caught taping him doing a nice thing for our street of neighbors and I would feel weird.

This is really hard...

2011-02-06T15:06:00.002-06:00

I've been unemployed for quite some time. They do stories on the news about people that have been unemployed for months and years and mention how it can be really depressing. It really can be.

1. At first, it's great. Sleeping in. Watching Ellen at 9am. Or Tivo it and watch it at 2pm when all that is on TV is soap operas and infomercials. Or maybe you woke up at 10 and missed it. Sometimes you wake up at 8 and are able to get a lot of things done that day. But then time passes and you don't want to sleep in, but you do anyway just so you don't have to be alone and bored for the whole day. Now you only have half a day to work with. And that's alright. My body is now used to waking up at 7:45. I feel guilty that I don't spend the morning with Stephen. I don't know why I can't make myself get out of bed...for him.

2. In the beginning I was so motivated to do little craft projects, clean the house, get the laundry done. It was awesome being productive because I had the whole day to do it. But then time passes and it is very hard to find the motivation to do any of it. It can take me 4 days to do laundry when it used to take 1.

3. I've almost lost my desire to cook new things. I feel guilty that even though I'm home all day, I still can't have dinner ready for when Stephen gets home. What's wrong with me?

4. Because of this blizzard we had last week, people all over the internet were talking about how they had major cabin fever after 3 days. I didn't know what to think about it. Because I haven't been working for quite some time, I'll go days without leaving the house. I get cabin fever all the time. Now that's probably my own fault. But, when you aren't making an income and you know money is tight, why go somewhere and be tempted to spend money? It was hard to justify the occasional mocha frappe. But I will say, I did leave the house. For my sanity. I'd go to the park, the library, visit Stephen for lunch. Everyone has their own perspective, I guess.

5. Spending the day at home, I pretty much felt like I vegged all day. Even if I did get some things done. It's quiet, sometimes lonely, and boring. So when Stephen gets home, I immediately want to talk to him, see how his day was, do something together, anything for some interaction. But I forget sometimes that he might want to veg for awhile. Have some down time. It's been hard to find that middle ground.

6. Then you always have that underlying fact that you need to look for a job. Trust me, I've applied for lots of things. Lots of different things. But you begin to feel like you aren't good enough. You don't have the skills, the experience, the knowledge. No one calls you back. You're worthless.

7. And that's depressing.

8. To feel like you haven't wasted a year and a half of your life is hard. To feel like you aren't good at anything is hard. To be alone all day is hard. To have some days go by where you don't talk to anyone is hard. To be reminded at times by terrible memories as to how you became unemployed in the first place is really hard. To forget about those and move on is hard. To know that God has a plan for me during this trying time is even hard. The guilt is hard.

9. It's hard to find yourself. What do you want to do for a career?...I don't know. That's scary.

10. Anyway. Here's what I've come to terms with. I want to be happy and I know that part of being happy is just by doing something. Something that will get me out of the house and be productive. Something that will make me feel like I am contributing to our financial peace and the future we want to have. I'm not looking for a climb the ladder corporate career. I just want to leave my house everyday and go to work. Then come back and be motivated to do the things I need to do at home.

11. Now...I might have that chance. I was offered a job to work at a call center for HP for InsureOklahoma. Not a huge call center, just like 25 people. And it's not even really a call center like most people would think of one. I would be helping people enroll in the insurance program and doing some paperwork. Easy. I hope. It's not anything glamorous, and that's okay with. I have a friend that works for HP so that will be really nice to see her at work. Granted I still have to have a phone interview with the HR department of HP and then be sent an official offer even though the manager in OKC already wants me. Honestly, he'd probably just take a warm body, but I had a pretty good interview and I have a degree so there.

12. Plus, I'm worth something. I'm so better than all of this emotional crap I've had to go through over the past year or so. I can't wait for me to be working again and then in a few years can honestly have put all of this behind me.

Cold

2011-02-03T13:16:00.002-06:00

Our furnace has shut off twice since this winter storm plowed through Oklahoma. It happened Tuesday evening while we were watching tv. We just noticed that it was quite chilly in the house, even with a fire going. We didn't think anything of it for awhile, just thought that it was cold because it was like 3 degrees outside. Then we thought about it and it occurred to us that we hadn't heard the heater turn on in awhile. Sure enough it was about 65 degrees in the house. That's not anything too drastic, but in the winter, it's pretty cold.

We actually had to turn the thermostat off for awhile and then turn it back on. After a few minutes it was working again.

But it happened again this morning. We woke up and were super cold. It was hard to get out of bed. Stephen checked the thermostat and it said 61. Brrr! It's working again now, but our poor furnace just can't keep up with these cold temps. Please, please, please, don't break on us this winter. That would be really bad.

An Afternoon with Photoshop

2011-01-12T17:03:00.003-06:00

My parents were witnesses at their friends wedding on New Years Eve. They took some photos for them and then asked me if I could work my (amateur) photoshop skills and make them awesome.

Well I gave it try on one of my favorite photos and this is what I could come up with. If anyone knows how to get rid of the glare in that window...let me know.

I like most of the edits I've done, but I can't quite get the perfect warm and cool effect. Too warm, everything looks really yellow because of the lighting and background. Too cool and the subjects looked washed out.

Another Remodel

2011-01-09T15:21:00.007-06:00

We started the new year off by demo-ing some of our master bathroom. Here is what the before was like.

And here is what it looks like now.

We are going to raise the ceiling of the shower about a foot. Basically, attic level. We'll need to take out the supports for the can light and move it all up so it can be ready for new drywall.

Other things we are going to do:

- Remove the old vent/light/heater

- Patch drywall

- Replace with new awesome vent/light

- Take the current light switches from this:

To this: - Tear out the shower floor and replace shower pan.

- Level the floor to actually drain to our offcenter drain...instead of next to it.

- Tear out the tile of the floor.

- Re-tile everything.

- Maybe replace toilet. If we don't we will get a new toilet seat that closes gently.

- Get new flex piping and fixtures for shower

On the design side of things we plan on using some dark tile and cool mosiacs using the same design we did in our other bathroom, just darker and with brushed nickel finishes.

We are also scheming how to build in some cubby holes in between the studs instead of using corner shelves, and working on doing a small corner build-out whose soul purpose will be to put my foot on so I can shave my legs without putting my foot on the wall.

Christmas Gift

2010-12-27T13:48:00.005-06:00

Stephen got me this great console table to put in our entryway. I have been looking for just the perfect one for like 2 years. I totally love it, as now my entryway feels complete.

Of course, every table needs some decor on it. I already had the vases which now have a home while they aren't on the mantle during Christmas. The green and white basket is from Longaberger (a Christmas gift). The wooden box is from my grandparents and this is the perfect place to showcase it. The frame I already had in a another room with a picture from our African Safari.

What's in my closet.

2010-12-20T16:21:00.004-06:00

Hoodie: New York and Company

Shirt: Target

Skirt: Target

Leggings: Target

Shoes: None

Clean Slate

2010-12-20T14:15:00.007-06:00

I've mentioned it before, but I'm obsessed with blogging. Not really writing my own, but following others. I don't think I have the creative writing skills, nor that exciting of a life to post something about every day. I mostly like to follow DIY blogs, home decorating or crafty blogs. It gives me such great ideas that I can store in my brain as something I'd like to do for my house someday. A lot of the crafty ones I look at from time to time are a little to0 "country" or just make me think "okay, seriously,why would I take all that time to get those supplies and

then make that." But such was not the case when I decided I wanted to make a desk out of a door.

Surprisingly, I don't think my idea even came from a blog, but it could have. I just finally decided that I had had enough of our corner desk. I wanted a custom look, something that was not too big and had plenty of work surface space.

To get some ideas of what others had done and what mine could look like I started looking at blogs and google images. I first found this one on the younghouselove facebook page.

I was like “yes, perfect”. Although, the legs weren’t doing it for me. I wanted mine to be a bit more streamlined like the one younghouselove had actually done for their house (seen here).

After some more looking around I decided that I wanted a door, probably stained, some straight legs and possibly a shelf or two to accommodate the shelves I was losing by not having the corner desk anymore (which had shelves, or levels really).

First step, I knew I could find a cheap door at the Habitat Renovation Station downtown. Just like I thought, I had more than enough to choose from . We ended up picking a 36” by 80” hollow unfinished door. Since at that point I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to stain it or paint it. The large door also gave us the ability to make our own custom size.

We decided to make our a desk 27” by 72”. That also enabled the 9” excess to be our shelves.

In the beginning, I thought making this desk was going to be really easy and take no time at all. I was wrong. It was pretty easy, but it took forever.

First, after we cut the door to size, we had to cut away the cardboard filler, insert some 1x2‘s so we could have something to screw the legs into, fill in the sides with 1x1's, let everything dry, then give everything a good light sanding. We also had to fill in the edges of the shelves. Then we had to stain everything and apply three layers of polyurethane.

In the end, after taking an afternoon to put it together. I am totally in love with my new desk.

I really like Shout and my washer

2010-12-17T23:23:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I spilled one drop of polyurethane on my "good" jeans. Or should I say the only pair of jeans I'm wearing these days. I've tried to find them again and buy some more, but I don't remember where I bought them exactly. Could be JCP or Macy's.

Anyway. I was devastated. I thought I had ruined them. But because I'm cheap and crazy, I was down to keep wearing them despite the really obvious spot if it didn't come out.

I quickly applied some Shout and put them in the wash on the "stain wash" cycle. 2 hours and 45 minutes later I think the spot was gone. But I couldn't really tell because now my jeans were wet and dark, same as the spot. I let them dry overnight because I was really afraid of heating them to dry and therefore setting in the stain.

To my amazement, my jeans turned out just fine. YEA!!!!!

Gobble Gobble

2010-10-21T21:55:00.006-05:00

Last week I went turkey hunting with my Dad, Brian, Grandpa, Uncle Jack, Paul, Stephen (not mine) and Rich.

The weather was perfect. The veterans noted that this was probably the nicest weather they had ever had in all of the years they had been hunting.

That would be 21 years. My Grandpa has been to every spring and fall hunt. Dedication. He just loves being there. And I find that really heart warming.

I'm only the 2nd girl to be allowed in camp to actually hunt. I feel like a part of the cool kids club. It was fun to go because now I can actually visualize the place when the men talk about it.

I was "voted" allowed to return to camp if I wanted to. We'll see. I like the idea of it being a guys weekend. I have to say though, it was so nice to be out in the middle of the rolling hills looking for turkeys because I never once thought about my list of things to do and worry about back home.

So here's the turkey I shot. Dad heard it clucking in the trees, and of course, I didn't hear anything. I turned around and Dad was like "okay Megan, it's right there, aim and shoot!" After a bit of fumbling with the safety and aiming just right, I shot it. And then I shot it again. Dad went and got it out of the bush and said that it might be full of lead because I was only 20 yards away.

Hahaha, and notice that I'm not actually touching the turkey.

Dad laughed at me for that.

But I was like "that's gross Dad."

Anyway, we took it back to camp and Dad cleaned it up for me because again...that's gross.

We found no bb's (how do you spell that?) in the breasts so I must have shot it in the head!

Go me! Yeah for aiming high!

Anyway it was good trip and I'm glad I got to visit my family.

Gobble Gobble

2010-10-14T10:20:00.002-05:00

Today I'm going to go do something I've never ever done before in my whole life.

Go Turkey Hunting.

It should be awesome to spend some time out with the guys and out in the wide open plains of Nebraska.

Bad Picture Day

2010-10-13T21:59:00.004-05:00

Just to be funny. Here's a picture of Stephen that I took a few weeks ago. It's intentionally bad.

And here is one of me just to be fair.

Please do share your crazy pictures with me!

Impatient

2010-10-04T21:39:00.008-05:00

Spring time came...And the summer warmth let them grow...They love the shade...More than you'll ever know!! Little did I know that my impatiens would love this shady spot of my house this much!!! They are so huge you can't even see the two hostas and three coral bells that are hiding below the beautiful mounds. Man, if only these flowers could last forever and bring cheer and color to the coming winter drear. And in case you were wondering, each mound is only ONE plant.

Here's a look at my garden so far. It is still in the early stages of growth, but I'm excited to do some more experimenting as it all comes together!!

Garden Path

2010-09-12T13:00:00.007-05:00

Here is the before picture...at least of the massive crepe myrtle. Half way through our path project, we decided it would be a good idea to take it out. It had grown way too big and had at least twenty trunks.

Here is where we laid out the rocks, taken from our backyard garden. It's like a big puzzle to find out which ones are going to fit just right. Luckily, we did have one triangle shaped rock to finish out the curve.

In the end, we now have the perfect little path to access the hose without getting all muddy. And the brand new Siren Red crepe myrtle will finish off the look. We still like the look of a crepe myrtle but we bought one that will only get about 7-8 feet tall.

If we prune it correctly, it should turn out looking like this...

Not this...

Finally

2010-08-28T19:35:00.004-05:00

12x12 inch shadow box frames from Walmart - $30

200 used wine corks from California (ebay) - $22

82 wine corks from my Mom - Free

Finallly finishing the art project for my kitchen- Priceless

I vow to...

2010-08-02T10:06:00.001-05:00

...sweep and vacuum my house at least once a week.

Why you might ask....

If do that much...maybe I won't find 5 tiny spiders, 2 dead roly-polies and a beetle like I did yesterday while sweeping.

Gross.

In better news...Stephen completely dusted the living room and rearranged the pictures and stuff on our built in shelves. They look awesome.

Not Feeling It

2010-07-28T17:36:00.001-05:00

Please don't hate me. I just haven't felt like blogging lately. I blog in spurts...that's just how I roll.

A Different Kind of Paradise

2010-07-09T21:38:00.005-05:00

The Simbavati River Lodge. We arrived at our lodge and were greeted by a young man giving us fruit cocktails and warm hand towels. This was our room.

Each morning, Desmond knocks on your door at 5:30am. By 6, you're having coffee or tea in the open dining area and by 6:15 you load yourself into the jeep for a morning game drive. When you get back around 10am, breakfast is being served. Homemade omelets, potatoes, bacon, cerel, fruit. Oh yeah, and when you return to your room for a nap...your bed has been made, the curtains opened, and your room tidied. The afternoonis on your own to sit at the viewing deck, your porch, play cards or sleep.

2:45pm...a light lunch is served and at 3:15 you head out for your evening game drive. But don't forget your drink order for the sunset break. Wine was my choice...because I'm on a safari...why not. When you return at 7:30, the best surprise awaits you. Your bed has been turned and the heated blanket has been turned on. It was AW

ESOME!!!!!

They fed us like kings and queens with all fresh foods and authentic South African cuisine.

The second we pulled up to the lodge, we noticed how quiet it was. So peaceful and utterly amazing. Every view was gorgeous. We were constantly amazed by the fact that we were actually in Africa and actually on a safari.

Stay tuned for some interesting Safari stories!

I'll keep your car safe.

2010-07-07T20:24:00.002-05:00

I can't tell you how many times we heard this phrase while in South Africa. Almost every time we parked our car a man in a yellow traffic vest (no doubt stolen or found somewhere) would run over to us and tell us over and over that he'd "keep our car safe", "no scratches", "I'll keep an eye on it for you."

At first we didn't know how to react or respond, but after a few times we just went along with it and then gave the man like 40 cents.

Also...here are some of the awesome and crazy things we encountered.

- The guy who helps you parallel park.

- The guy who then helps you get out of said parallel spot and not run into traffic.

- The men who try to wash your window shield at an intersection with soapy water in a 2 liter bottle.

- The men who walk in between the lanes selling SA car flags...on the interstate!

- The homeless who will walk along side you and tell you to root for Bafana Bafana and have fun at the World Cup.

- KFC is really popular.

- When you order a coke...you get a 300ml coke can. Which is heavier than in the US.

Scavenger Hunt to the USA vs AUS game

2010-07-06T19:48:00.003-05:00

We arrived at our hotel in Johannesburg at 8:30 am on June 5th. Our soccer game was at 2:30pm that same day.

We were still pretty jetlagged and all I wanted to do

was take a shower and take a long nap. Instead we got settled in, cleaned up and at 11:30 decided to get some lunch and make the "30" minute trek to Roodeport to see the game. I put 30 minutes it quotes because that's how long google maps said it would take but that's definitely NOT how long it took.

We took our trusty city map and our trusty Garm

in and got some general directions from the hotel front desk. All we really had to go off of was that we needed to get to the Ruimsig Stadium which we figured was in the town of Roodeport.

So...off we go for a few miles on the N1.

-We decide to ask for directions because we're not sure where to go from here.

- Some guy at a gas station tells us to go this w

ay, then look for the car dealership on your left, then go over a hill then ask for directions again.

- So we follow his directions...or we think we do.

- We ask for directions again, this time from a soccer fan at KFC where we finally got some lunch!!!

- He tells us we 'aren't very far' and to follow this road, then you'll come to a T and then go left and then ask for directions again.

- This basically happens about about 4 more ti

mes, until we are finally are out in the middle of nowhere crossing over some hills and we can see the stadium lights.

- We finally pull up to the stadium and it is called the "Roodeport Athletic Stadium"

That....my friends...is in the Garmin.

So anyway...it was quite the adventure and we made it to the stadium just minutes before kickoff. Oh and our tickets just happened to be reserved for the midfield.

Where are they all going?

2010-07-01T21:04:00.004-05:00

We arrived at the Joburg airport at 6:50am. Ouch. Went through passport control and immediately got sucked into the locals helping us out by taking our bags and showing us where the clearly marked Avis Rental Car place was. We then had to tip them...in american dollars.

They looked mad. We vowed to just take care of our own bags from then on.

So we got our car...a tiny Honda Getz and sat in the parking garage psyching ourselves up for the adventurous drive ahead of us through morning city traffic. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

Thank you Garmin for showing us the way. Although you did take about 20 minutes to find a satellite. Tall buildings and being on the other side of the world really threw you for a loop.

Driving in on the highway there are people walking along the road...in a very well worn path. I was fascinated by it. I mean, how far have they walked and where are they walking to? Like take for example the distant from Edmond to Guthrie, in that same amount of time we'd probably see about 100 people just walking from/to somewhere. I just didn't get it.

Once we made it to the city there were people EVERYWHERE! People crossing the street at crosswalks, crossing the streets right in front of you, people walking in between the lanes, people trying to sell you car flags at the intersections, people just congregating at bus stops or something, people setting up shop on the sidewalk, people hopping into taxis that are just randomly pulled over.

Obviously I don't have very many pictures of the city life while driving around because the guys didn't like me just flashing my camera out when there were so many people standing around staring at us...Americans. No just kidding...but they did seem to just look at you a lot. It was a little unsettling.

The Longest Plane Ride EVER!!!!

2010-06-29T22:05:00.010-05:00

I'm sorry that it has been forever since I have posted about anything. And I'm sorry I've beenhome a week and haven't shared any South African stories. We were supposed to "practice pack" over memorial day weekend just to make sure everything would fit in our bags and we didn't go over our weight limit. 44lb s was the limit, 40lbs was our goal. Well, all we got done was laundry and the cleaning of our house. That left a 3 hour packing excursion the night before we left, and then just the odds and ends on the morning we were set to leave. We packed for about 8-9 days with plans to do laundry and wear it all again.

Our plane was leaving OKC at 4:20pm June 3rd. Ryan and his mom came to pick up at 2:00pm. We were all very excited to be in Africa...but none of us were excited about the two days it was going to take to get there.

Once we made it to Houston we boarded our huge plane and headed east to Frankfurt, Germany. It only took 10 or so hours to get there, but crossing over 8 times zones can really mess with your body. Thankfully I was able to sleep for a few hours here and there thanks to the Fennessy gene of being able to sleep almost anywhere.

We arrived at the Frankfurt airport at 11am June 4th.

That airport is ridiculously Huge!!!!! Just look at this revolving arrival board.

At least we had 9 hours to familiarize ourselves with it. Yeah right. It's impossible to find your way around that airport, and not because it's in German. The nearest bathroom is like a 5 minute walk. And it must have taken 10 minutes

to figure out how to get downstairs to the mall area.

Once we made it downstairs. We treated ourselves to bratwurst and beer. Probably Germany's idea of fastfood type brats, but it was still good.

The rest of the day was spent not getting lost, playing card games and trying desperately to not fall asleep. We figured since it was during the day, and our flight was at night it would be better to just stay awake and sleep on the plane so as not to mess up our sleep schedule anymore. It was VERY hard to do.

At 8:30pm it was finally time to board South African Airways. Really great airlines by the way. Good food and leg room.

On our next 10.5 hour flight we were able to see the sunset over the Swiss Alps.

And the sunrise over Zambia.

Next up....Our Johannesburg adventures.

Oh...just go away.

2010-04-16T14:55:00.004-05:00

So I finally decided to do a little google search and figure out what kind of bee has been lurking around my garden for a good week and half.

Two of them in fact.

Just hovering and buzzing and generally being very annoying, interrupting the solitary joy of working in the garden and constantly putting me on edge.

I forgot to mention that the little buggers are HUGE.

Turns out they are carpenter bees. Which would explain why they hover around the corner eave of my house ALL day...EVERY day.

They make a little hole in the wood of the eave with their mandible. Lay eggs and keep watch.

Great....

The other day, I thought about swatting them with a fly swatter, or better yet a shovel. But then I thought that probably wouldn't do anything since they run into the gutters about 100 times a day and they aren't even phased.

I need to get rid of them...any ideas?

Job

2010-04-16T09:39:00.002-05:00

I had an interview yesterday and I feel it went really well. It is a temp to hire position through a staffing agency. Please pray that all goes well and that they think I am the perfect candidate for the job!!!!!

Dallas

2010-04-13T21:34:00.008-05:00

This past weekend we went to Dallas to celebrate my Aunt Linda's Retirement. She had NO idea about the surprise party we planned for her.

It was also a perfect opportunity to go to here:

The store was fairly modern for my tastes but I still could have dropped a hundred bucks there if I had the money. Oh wait...I still dropped $100 on this:

I have been wanting a bench for our front porch for quite some time. We had a hard time finding just the perfect one until we spotted this beauty. It is just the right size and perfectly our taste. And the best part is that it took 20 minutes to assemble. Way better than the piece of crap Lowe's bench that took about 3hrs.

My Grandparents came down for the event, too.

My Grandma got me inspired to actually put some flowers in my garden...

...and Grandpa helped Stephen learn more about Sheephead.

Fancy Spring

2010-04-09T15:19:00.008-05:00

Sometime I think I know what I'm doing in my garden and other times I just look over the obvious. As in, I planted my tulips in complete shade last year. Therefore, only about 5 bloomed.

I had forgotten that I had planted the spiky ones!!!!

In other news, my mom took my to get a manicure and pedicure and this time I decided to do a french manicure. It gives the illusion that my nails are longer and I feel extra fancy which is good for my self esteem.

Finished Product

2010-03-31T15:01:00.003-05:00

After a lot of measuring, sewing and re-sewing I finally finished my Re-purposed/Tank Top Re-fashion project!!!! My skirt is not as full or as short as this one I found because the full skirt looked ridiculous on me. I'm pretty proud of it and it was the perfect thing to wear on this super warm spring day!

Take Two

2010-03-30T16:07:00.004-05:00

I've discovered McDonald's McCafe.

I wish I never had.

It's too good.

But I allow a treat to myself every now and then.

Their small Mocha Frappes is just enough for a little cold pick me up at $2.79.

It is the perfect consistency. No ice chunks. And you don't ever have to swirl it around to get more goodness through your straw. All very important things to consider when enjoying your drink.

Now lets compare this to a Starbucks Frappaccino.

First of all a Small MOCHA Frappaccino will set me back $3.55.

So I opted for a plain coffee one that totaled $3.18.

Second, it was smaller than the small at McD's.

Third, the ice chunks kept getting stuck in my straw and I had to chew them.

Fourth, I had to keep swirling the drink to get a good sip through the straw.

What to take from all this:

McDonald's is better.

The weekend.

2010-03-28T20:32:00.002-05:00

Stephen's parents came over on Friday afternoon and stayed through Saturday evening. I was glad they could come over and it was a nice relaxing weekend. We went and saw Hot Tub Time Machine which proved to be a really funny movie, although quite crude, and they must have said the 'F' word at least 500 times.

We, actually Stephen, was going to fix a repair in the house by texturing a small bit of the wall. Well....turns out we didn't have any texture left over from previous projects. Imagine that. Luckily you can buy spray knockdown texture in a small can instead of a 5 gallon bucket at Home Depot. Woo Hoo!!

Is the repair done? No.

Are we that much closer to finishing it? YES!!!

Here's to finding my 8-5

2010-03-19T16:26:00.004-05:00

After some searching at JcPenney's, Dillards, New York and Company, and Express, I finally found a new suit for my job search at Macy's all for a whopping $70. It fits great and I totally look like I mean business when I wear it. Here's to finding a new and awesome job in 2010.

Tank Top Refashion

2010-03-19T16:09:00.002-05:00

Okay... I'm not much of a sewer but I think that I can master some seams to recreate a dress for like $5.

You know these tank dresses that are so "in" right now...
That particular dress is $65 but I've seen them for like $30. All that is is a tank top, some elastic and cotton fabric for the skirt. My thinking is that I will take an old tank top of mine that is too short, sew it to some elastic banding, and find some basic fabric for the shirt from Hancock. TaDA....new dress for summer.

Stayed tuned to see how it turns out.

Green Thumb

2010-03-15T23:29:00.007-05:00

Spring is giving us a sneak peak at its beautiful weather in between days of cloudy skies and cold winds.

Our new garden is just about ready for showing off! Last fall we completely took everything out. 5 huge ugly bushes, an old tree stump, a lot of roots, and a few hostas that we actually saved. This is what the garden looked like when we moved it. It looks great...but at a closer look it wasn't the best plan.
All winter, our garden looked like this. Depressing.

But, after a great trip to TLC Garden and Nursery center, we know have THIS!!!
After some tilling and digging, and putting in some really cool plants, I think our garden is going to look awesome. We put in a Dwarf Alberta Spruce, Graham Blandy Boxwoods, Indian Hawthorn, Ebb Tide Rose Bush, Hydrandra, Corel Bells, Hostas, Violas, small Pine Bushes, and a Honeyhill because it looked really cool.

Looking at it all now it looks so bare, but after we put in our path and it all starts to bloom, I know I'm really going to love it!

Gee thanks...

2010-03-09T15:47:00.003-06:00

My cousin Sarah informed me that I don't update this blog enough. So sorry. Sometimes I get the urge to be a real awesome blogger and then I'll go weeks thinking of things I could/should blog about but I just don't. I have more fun reading the 20 some odd blogs I follow.

Maybe if I write down my ideas for posts here it'll give you all something to look forward to reading and it will keep me accountable to actually writing about them.

1. Gardening
2. South Africa
3. Working
4. Decor
5. Lent friendly food

That's all I got for now. On to mopping my kitchen floor!!!!!!

43 degrees

2010-02-02T22:21:00.002-06:00

Yes, it was warm today. Everything on the roads melted and water was everyone. I wore white pants to work which was ambitious. I didn't even get the dirty which was a triumph.

Edmond and OKC schools were still closed today...I think that was stupid.

I made it out for a short run after work. I was so happy to get out there, but it was a disappointing run. My right knee is really hurting and it took a good 5 minutes of limping/jogging to get into a good rhythm without trying to favor my left leg. Even though I sorta felt like I was going at an even pace, my legs were getting so tight and I know it was because I was just so afraid to put any real, natural weight on my knee being afraid that it would give out or something. I barely did 3 miles, but I walked almost half.

With a 5 mile race next weekend and yucky weather...this is just so annoying.

Flowers and another weekend project.

2010-01-29T11:39:00.007-06:00

Stephen sent me these flowers Monday morning to my work. It was a total surprise and I got a little choked up when I read the card. "To spruce up your new office Love, Stephen"

Right now it is snowing outside and it just looks so pretty.....but beware .....there is a 1/2 inch of ice underneath there!
And here is our weekend project that we'll have to do sometime. That's my driver side door without a handle. My car was covered in a sheet of ice yesterday. Stephen chipped away the ice to get in, pulled the handle and it just snapped right off. Now I get to climb into my car....awesome.

Thank you Home Depot

2010-01-25T22:11:00.005-06:00

After a couple of setbacks, 5 trips to Home Depot, and an entire day of plumbing repair, we ...well actually Stephen...finally fixed our broken pipe.

Here is the before. We cut the pipe and put a compression stop on it so we could work on getting the broken pipe out of the wall. First we had to remove this random metal plate that was nailed to the stud. We pulled from the outside and realized that one end of the pipe is actually bigger than the hole so we couldn't pull it through. Luckily, we were able to finish the break off and pull one half out from outside and one from the inside.

AWESOME!!!!!

And here is Stephen's handy work!
Obviously...the hole isn't patched yet...nor is our carpet put back...our bed is still practically in the hallway...and camping out in the guest bedroom was only fun the first night.

Owning a home is awesome.

I had nothing better to do this weekend

2010-01-22T21:59:00.004-06:00

Driving home from work I noticed my car was really dirty. When the sun hit the back window I could hardly see out of it! Because the weather was so nice I decided that I wanted to wash my car at home before the sun went down.

hmmm??

Why is the water pressure low?

Man, this is really weird.

Let's see if our hose is leaking.

Nope....

Hmm....well let's ignore our instincts and wash my car anyway.

Man...ya know...this really isn't cool. Go see if our carpet is wet inside.

Yeah...I had nothing better to do this weekend.

And now my car is dirty again.

Shooting

2010-01-14T21:41:00.005-06:00

Stephen and I went sporting clay shooting last weekend with our friends Cara, Cory and Shanna. It was actually a lot of fun. It was probably about 38 degrees, but hey that was warm compared the 2 degrees last week. We went to a place in Guthrie that was kind of set up like a golf range I guess with different stations that you shot from. Now I had never really shot a gun before, at least not a time that I could remember. So the first shot I took I didn't know what to expect and the kick back into my shoulder totally scared me! But on my third shot I actually hit the clay! By the end of the day I had only hit 8 out of 50. But that's pretty good for a first time I think!

Anyway, It felt really great to get out of the house for a while and do something fun and different. I could actually see myself doing it again!

Merry Christmas

2010-01-05T22:22:00.006-06:00

Instead of re-telling the story about trying to drive to my parents house on Christmas Eve. Here is a drawing depicting our 2 hour adventure that got us nowhere except back at our house for the night. Christmas just wasn't Christmas when you literally can't got to church, and when you don't get to open presents until after lunch on Christmas day. But, we do have some great stories to tell now!

We made the trek up to Tulsa to see Stephen's family and it only took us almost 2.5 hours on all the icey, snowy roads. That was the most stressful drive ever!

I drove by this on my way to work one day and it definitely put a smile on my face!

Stephen and I once again donned our New Years Eve fancy clothes and bet all our (fake) money at the Casino Night party held at our church. We bid on a baby monitor...and won! It was hilarious!

Christmas Eve Blizzard 2009

2009-12-24T20:20:00.002-06:00

I wish I had clever titles.

2009-12-22T20:30:00.006-06:00

We spent last weekend in Tulsa attending the Christmas Train and hanging out at the in-laws.Rashad, Crysta, Ashley, John, Megan & Stephen

Phyillis, John, Janet, Scott

This event is put on by Tulsa's Church On The Move. They have taken a old west town themed camp area in Dry Gulch USA and made it into a really festive holiday attraction. There are cute shops to look at, a few places to eat, go-karts, bumper cars, and of course the Christmas Train. It's a short 5 minute ride that takes you along a journey of Jesus' life through large painting and real life scenes from his life like the Nativity Scene, Crucifixion , and Resurrection. There was live sheep and everything! It was actually all pretty neat. Dominic would have absolutely LOVED the train...that's why I took a video.

I also sorta got my first unofficial Christmas gift. Janet gave me her old sewing machine! Her mother gave her hers so you could say she had a spare one that she was happy to pass on to me. Now I can do all my sewing at my own house. Only bad part is I can't go crying to my mom when something breaks or doesn't work right, now that I won't be using hers very often.

One more thing....I started work with a Temp. assignment this week. It's with Midland Mortgage which is part of Midfirst Bank. I file. Literally. All day long. I file hundreds of mortgagey papers into their files. At least I am busy and I am getting more money, but I'm on my feet all day. The first day I wore heels because I knew I had to dress nice and I didn't know what I was going to be doing. Bad idea. My legs hurt so bad the whole day and night.

I also had an interview with a temp-to-hire position at Chesapeake Energy today. It went really well and it would be FANTASTIC if I got the job. Say a prayer!!!!

Merry Christmas!

All tied with a bow.

2009-12-14T22:38:00.002-06:00

I have one more gift to wrap. Then it's off to the post office and waiting until Christmas morning.

Thanksgiving

2009-12-05T21:42:00.003-06:00

I know the video is small but the audio wouldn't load with YouTube because of copyright issues. So anyway....here's the movie on my blog!!!

Last Batch

2009-11-18T11:57:00.002-06:00

I just pulled these peppers off the plant last week, and pulled 4 more yesterday. I can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving and I'm still getting fresh green peppers. I think it was the last batch though. I have plenty buds still, but it's too cold now. Growing these was so much fun, and I can't wait until next year to do it again!

Do you see what I see?

2009-11-13T20:42:00.005-06:00

Do you see that? Look, right above this post title. Yes, in little letters. It is almost 6 months until we leave for South Africa. Nothing is planned. But at least we will get there and have a place to stay...for the second half of our trip. crap. I have a lot to do.

I wouldn't mind seeing an elephant..but I hope this doesn't happen.

promises promises

2009-11-11T18:14:00.001-06:00

I will go run tomorrow. I will. No matter what....I will go run tomorrow.

Lemons

2009-11-04T16:00:00.003-06:00

I made this Lemon Caper Chicken last night for dinner. Next time it will be better. It looks quite delicious and gourmet...but had way too much Lemon flavor. We ate it very fast with sour looks on our face. It was really easy to make, so next time I can use my own discretion as to how much lemon it actually needs.

Trash day was today and so yesterday afternoon I finishing digging away this random dirt mound in our front yard to put in the trash bin along with some branches from a bush. Well apparently I filled the bin too much and it was too heavy. I came home this afternoon to see the bin all bent out of shape and fallen over in the street with everything still in it. crap.

My mom was nice enough to let me come long an a mani/pedi outing and I am so thankful I have nice painted nails now.

That is all.

I told you I had the crafting bug....

2009-10-28T14:04:00.003-05:00

I made this little tote bag yesterday. I just got super inspired from seeing this. It was not as easy as she makes it sound since it literally took me from 10:00 a.m to 4:30 p.m. Luckily my mom talked me out of doing the piping...and hey, the lining fabric made a nice border anyway.

I also made this today. Sitting at that chair is way more comfortable when you have some support. Take an old throw pillow, recover it, and walah!!!

Frustrating....

2009-10-26T22:09:00.008-05:00

Today was an all around really frustrating day. However, in the end my project is finished and I'm having tea...so things are good right now.

First off...I could not fall asleep last night for the life of me.

Here's why:

Problem #1: I was thinking about 15 different things while trying to fall asleep and I just kept repeating themselves in my mind, I guess because I didn't want to forget about them in the morning.

Solution #1: Got up and wrote them all down to try and clear my mind. It worked for a few minutes.

Problem #2: After being so cold in bed while my husband was gone, I remembered that he is furnace, so I was really hot. We had the fan on, which helped, but I also didn't like feeling the breeze on my face.

Solution #2: Put some shorts on, and tried to cover my face with the blanket, but not my nose because that makes me feel clastrophobic.

Problem #3: The neighbors across the street have really bright outdoor lighting on their garage which was making me room brighter than I'd like it at night.

Solution #3: See if turning the blinds up instead of down would help....not really.

Problem #4: I simply just could not get comfortable, nor were my eyelids staying closed. I was also getting hungry by now since it had been 2 hours since I had gotten in to bed.

Solution #4: Get up and go do something and try to get more tired.

Finally...at 3a.m. I came to bed. By 3:15 I was finally asleep.

I didn't wake up until 11:30.. a bit over 8 hours, but my morning was also all gone. Which was not the plan for the day. In the afternoon was I able to go to the fabric store and by some fabric for the 3 crafts I plan on making soon. They didn't really have a good selection of what I was looking for, but I made do and got it all on sale which is a plus.

I came home, half the laundry wasn't folded yet, dishes were still out, and I still haven't swept my floor in like a week. All of that just kind of irked me. First project was to recover my office chair. Easy right?! Take it apart, staple on new fabric, put back together. Right.....

Staple Guns do not work on really tough plastic. I got emotional over this. My easy project suddenly just got really annoying. I cried.

Stephen wants to solve my problem, so we go to Hobby Lobby and buy hot glue sticks because that will surely work. We are super hungry so we had dinner at Chick-Fil-A and it was really good, but we also talked about my job search and that made me emotional, and I cried.

We came home, I hot glued the chair, Stephen put it together, and now everything is fine.

This could be multiple posts, but I'll just do one.

2009-10-21T10:29:00.012-05:00

I've been obsessed with redoing our garden area. First I raked and pulled out all the weeds and grasses that were growing wild in there. Then I tilled all the dirt and debated whether to plant my tulip bulbs and put mulch down and just be done with it until spring, or just tear it all out, get the shape how I want it and then plant my bulbs and start over in the spring. I think it's obvious by the pictures which one I chose. Now I just need some serious help making my vision come to life considering i know nothing about plants.

We are still working on getting the middle bush out. Its root system is horrendous!! The crepe mrytle on the right is staying however.

Stephen and my Dad loaded a bunch of free firewood to our house last weekend. There is more than this now...but I think we are stocked for the next three years.

So I finally discovered Dr. Mario on the Wii after probably 15 years of not being able to play it on the old Nintendo. I'm addicted, my mother-in-law is addicted and my parents are really addicted. We have been known to have many "quick challenges" in one night. And the best part about this is that we can play eachother online!!!

The finished Bathroom!!!!!

2009-10-11T14:42:00.006-05:00

The beautiful after!!!

Saturday

2009-10-11T00:00:00.003-05:00

So some awesome things happened today and one scary thing happened.

We decided in the morning that we would head over to my parents house and watch the OSU football game since we don't get espn on our antenna tv. I tried calling my Dad to let him know but could not get a hold of him. Despite this, we headed over there anyway. I tried calling him again and still couldn't get a hold of it. Hmmm...interesting. I wonder where he could be. Not that he doesn't have a life or anything. This is not the scary thing that happened today. I called my Mom, who is in Georgia visiting her sister and she told me he was at a wedding. Okay...cool.

So OSU won our game...it was a bit sloppy but we won. I saw Stewey on tv and rewound it to show my Dad and then texted Stewey to let her know. She is a true Cowboy fan going to the game and all. I have to admit, knowing my husband who really likes to watch College football, hence then knowing that we'd be watching A LOT of football today, scrapbooked during most of it. But I am proud to say that I have finally finished my Honeymoon scrapbook. It's fairly amateur but I really like it.

We then went to church on Saturday evening. I haven't done that in FOREVER. It was a small crowd compared to our normal time of 11:30. Yeah..I still like sleeping in on my weekends and that time seems to work for us. Since Brian was coming home and since I had just shown my Dad the Dr. Mario game on his wii, we headed back for more football, some "quick challenge" games during halftimes, and me catching up on Project Runway.

After all this, a full day of being away from home, which was pretty fun and relaxing because i didn't have to look at or deal with the pile of dirty dishes and clothes at my house, we came home to realize that our garage door had been open the ENTIRE day. That's a little scary.

More Weddings....

2009-09-28T23:05:00.002-05:00

These are pictures of people I know who have gotten married since I have. Enjoy the awesomeness.Me and Ashley at her wedding. She was my maid of honor.

My cousin Lindsay and her husband Steven saying their vows.

I had to add this picture of Lindsay because I think it is gorgeous.

Weddings!!!

2009-09-25T15:25:00.003-05:00

Well man..I said that September was going to be wedding month and here it is almost October and I haven't posted a darn thing about weddings. Well, better late than never.This is my favorite picture of me and the girls

I also really like this picture of Stephen. He's probably thinking, oh no...what have I gotten myself into...or that he loves me.

I loved all the flowers I chose for my wedding and the colors were amazing for the fall!
Here's a crazy picture to remind you of all the fun you had!!!!

Observations of being at home: Television

2009-09-22T16:34:00.002-05:00

Since I've been unemployed I spend a lot of time at home. Sometimes I like to take a break from job searching and everything to watch a little telly. Mind you, we don't have cable so there is almost never anything good on. Here are my observations:

1) The View, with it's constant chatter is really annoying. And why is Kate Gosselin a guest host?

2) Dr. Oz is stupid. I watched one show, okay one segment of one show, to see what the hype was about and it was just lame. It's like they threw together a bunch of random topics at the last minute and then made people feel awkward while talking about them for 2 minutes.

3) Drew Carey's new hair-do is really gross. He also doesn't fit the role of being the host of Price is Right very well. It's like bbq sauce and carrots...they don't go.

4) Soap Operas are silly.

5) I have sometimes caught myself literally spending 10 minutes watching completely pointless infomercials. Abcircle Pro, some awesome Weed Eater, Hip Hop Abs, A thing that works the muscles in your neck, Magic Bullet, Lifestyle Lift, Swivel Sweeper, etc.

5) The Today show is kind of fun, but checking the weather every 8 minutes gets really old. I feel sorry for the weathermen in your local area that have to stand by and do that for 2 hours.

6) Ellen is the best thing to happen to morning television. And so is Tivo so I can watch it whenever I want.

7) Family Fued is pretty awesome and a great way to wind down at the end of the day. You can even kinda play along. I don't know the host's name but he's perfect for the job.

8) This anchor on Fox25 needs a new haircut.

9) This guy is my favorite news guy.

He literally tells the news just like it is and that is refreshing, unlike Kevin Ogle who is just down right obnoxious.

10) I have to go to my parents house to watch Project Runway. Love that show!!!

11) Network television is still a saving grace at primetime though. Here is what I have planned to record for this fall season.
- Biggest Loser
- The Office
- Community
- Mercy (I'll give it a shot)
- House
- Ellen
- Flashforward (we are intrigued to see what people saw in their future)

No Title

2009-09-20T21:09:00.006-05:00

For dinner, I just made this really awesome chicken soup with wild rice and it was amazing! And we have leftovers which makes it doubly amazing. It is a Rachel Ray recipe that I got from this blog. Speaking of Rachel Ray...have you noticed that every.single.one. of her recipes calls for that apparently oh.so.vital. EVOO (extra virgin olive oil for you non rachel ray peeps) ?! Sheesh...it's like the food can't cook without it. All I'm saying is that 95% of the time you probably don't need it.

A while back I remember my running group discussing trying out a new route for our runs, but we didn't know how far they would take us. Someone suggested they would try and find something online that would map their run. Well go figure...today I finally googled "map my run". Low and behold, the site is pretty cool. I suggest all you people who walk or run or even bike to check it out!!!!

This past weekend, my family did some serious football tailgating. And by that I mean, eat ribs, drink beer, and play ladder ball.
And finally the moment we have all been waiting for...............................the final placement of tile!!!!!! With only this much thin set remaining.....

Happenings as of late.

2009-09-18T12:41:00.005-05:00

My green pepper plants are making me so proud. I have about 23+ growing right now. Last week we were able to harvest two of them and eat them that night all grilled up. They were so delicous!!!!
Stephen and I ran in our first 10k at Lake Hefner on the 12th. Stephen ran a 56:36 and I ran a 1:07:57. Pretty darn good for 6.2 miles in humidity I'd say. That's the farthest I had ever ran, and I'm so thankful the course was flat. There wasn't as many people attending as I thought there would be, so I'm grateful that I was still able to pace with people that go my speed. What's my speed you ask...about a 9-10 minute mile.
My next race is going to be the Juke Joint Jog in Stillwater on Oct. 24. It's only a 5k but I'm going to shoot to come in under 30 minutes. I've got to shave 2 minutes off my previous 5k time!! I'm hoping all this training for a 10k is going to pay off!

To celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary we went to The Melting Pot. I had never eaten there before and it was awesome. Probably really overpriced, but heck..for a special occasion I didn't really care. I love the dress I was wearing too. And you better believe that I bought it, wore it and returned it the next day. I'm so bad.
And I know you've been oh so curious about our bathroom project. We're almost done!!! I know I keep saying that, but really we are. We're going to have all the tile finished and grouted by Sunday afternoon. We installed the vanity and the granite guy has come by and measured for our countertop. So seriously...we just might have a usable bathroom in two weeks!!!!!

Slacker

2009-09-11T00:03:00.002-05:00

I've been slacking on my post this past week and half. I'm sorry. I will post some tomorrow.

Bye.

Food Friday

2009-08-28T21:48:00.006-05:00

Comfort Food. Totally awesome.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved grilled cheese sandwiches. The trick to making them awesome is by using Monterey Jack cheese. When I was little, I just called it "white cheese". Grilled cheese sandwiches are perfect for a quick meal any day of the week. If I'm ever having a bad day, a grilled cheese sandwich always makes it better.

Back in high school and college my comfort food was chicken nuggets. I made sure to always have a bag on hand. Instead of ketchup, I use honey. I'm not sure why, I just do. These little delicacies were always the perfect pick me up.
On a more grand scale, hashbrown casserole is utterly amazing! The more cheese the better I say. Granted this dish is made mainly for special occasions I still consider it a comfort food because it just makes you all warm and fuzzy inside.
Stephen says that is favorite food is "Bratwurst...they make me feel good and I can eat them over and over again."What's your favorite comfort food?

Random Thoughts Thursday

2009-08-27T13:39:00.003-05:00

So...a lot of blogs I read do random thoughts thursday. I think just this once, I'll be like everyone else.

- I kind of bothers me that my living room is always so dark. Sure I've got a huge sliding glass door in there, but the light never shines through it.

- I should make a menu and and go to the grocery store and get everything for the next wekk or so, but i just don't have the creative juices to do that right now. Instead, I'll just get toilet paper and sour cream for creamy cooker chicken.

- I really really hope that my knee injury doesn't hinder my last two weeks of training before my 10k.

- I would like someone to volunteer their time to come over and dust my whole house.

- If you read my blog...please leave me a comment. Sometimes I think I'm writing to no one.

Thanks!

Theres a storm a coming!

2009-08-26T21:08:00.001-05:00

Twice before I've stood out in the middle of the road and felt a brewing storm rush straight over my head. It is so awesome to hear the rustling of the trees in the distance knowing that any minute you're going to feel the cool wind rush through your hair.

Stephen and I experienced this awesomeness just tonight. We went out in the front yard to wait for it and passed the time by throwing the football around. I still haven't lost my touch from the flag football intramural days of college.

The air began as super still and really muggy. Then our flag started rippling in the breeze. Lightning danced in the background as the sun set creating a purple pink sky. Then, just as if you had flipped a switch, the cool wind swept over us. It was awesome.

South Africa here we come!!!

2009-08-26T08:06:00.003-05:00

That's right people. We officially bought our airline tickets for the World Cup last night. We were able to find an awesome deal flying out of OKC for at least $800 cheaper than anything we were finding before hand. It's super exciting. Now there is no turning back...but who would want to!

Two slightly unfortunate things though:
1. It will take two days to get there...literally two days, with a 9hr layover in Frankfurt Germany
2. All the money we saved up so far is now gone. We have to start all over.

Woo Hoo!!!1

My fab idea

2009-08-25T15:56:00.002-05:00

Okay...so some other blogs that I follow do cool things like have theme days or months when they write their blog. It just occurred to me that this is a neat idea.

Since I got married in September that is going to be a month all about weddings. Most people get married in May or June so those months would make more sense to do this..but this is my blog I can do whatever I want.

Food Friday could be another good one since I kind of like finding new things to make at home.

Okay...so keep looking back here for awesome new posts!!!

Update:

2009-08-25T14:18:00.005-05:00

Alright...so this past weekend we worked on our bathroom project. We had the intention to tile on Saturday but didn't quite get to that. We did however pick up our cabinetry, intsall the lights, hang the mirror and finish painting.
After Stephen's soccer game on Sunday morning we cranked out some tile. We borrowed a wet saw from a guy I knew through my previous job, but didn't get very far with it because it kept shocking us. Hence we only made a few cugts with it and then just laid the full tiles down.
Since our bathroom is pretty small, I had the pleasure of standing by the door and watching Stephen do all the hard labor as I just handed him tiles. Here's what he have done so far. We seriously have so much to do before Labor Day weekend. That's kind of our goal to get this done.

Do it yourself...

2009-08-18T16:48:00.015-05:00

Alright...I've been telling myself I was going to blog about our bathroom project so here it is!!!!

When we moved in, our bathroom looked like this:
After taking off the foam like textured wallpaper, texturing and painting the walls we had this effect: (a cheery yellow that the camera didn't capture)The following summer comes along and we decide to rip everything out and start anew:
First things first is demolition!
Here is Stephen grinding away at the tile and thinset and didn't come off just by pounding it at it.

Next we had to get our drywall repaired and some new wiring for sconce lighting.Then our plumber came in to remove this old tub
And replace it with this taller, wider, beautiful Kohler tub and some new plumbing too!In the meantime we finally picked out a field tile and some accent mosaics to use around the tub as a border, picked out our new cabinets, installed a new vent/light, and painted.
This color is called "dried basil" by Behr and it is awesome!we also had to make one wall thicker by putting up some more drywall so our tile could actually fit around our tub because it's 2" wider than before.

Still left to do is: Give the room a second coat of paint, install cement backer board, tile the floor and walls, install cabinets!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah...and then we have to look into getting a sink and counter top. It's going to be so awesome!