survey

I saw this on Shannon’s blog and decided I wanted to do it too

Part One – Describe:

Your hair? Thick. It’s wavy when it’s long but now it’s shorter and it stays pretty straight. I think I like it shorter… it’s way easier to straighten

Your mother? She lives in KY. She just retired so she got a job at a little boutique to keep herself busy. She’s really awesome.

Your father? Lives in KY with mom. Except for recently he’s been traveling around the country driving a semi. He also recently retired and picked up this job to keep himself busy. He really doesn’t like it… but that’s probably because his trainer is (admittedly) a racist jerk. (Sorry, that may have been too forward!)

Your favorite food? Potatoes… all kinds! I also love Pazzo’s pizza (and pretzels!), Papa John’s cheese sticks and salads

Your dream last night? Don’t think I had one!

Your favorite drink? Sweet tea, coke, or water

Your dream/goal? to be a stay-at-home mom

The room are you in? bedroom

Your hobby? reading, taking pictures, watching old movies, TV shows (they’re like my football), organizing things…

Your fear? bees. I hate them.

Your TV? 32″ LG

Your Pets? None… yet

Friends? They’re wonderful. Two of my best friends live so far away But it’s lovely to talk to them when I can. My other closest friend is my neighbor… so we get to see each other a lot. I’ve never really been one of those people with lots of acquaintances. I’ve always just had a few really close friends… I just function better that way. Oh, and I also have a really great small group that has turned into a fabulous new group of friends

Your life? blessed, blessed, blessed!

Your mood? Not bad. Haven’t been feeling too great today, though and I have to work in a few hours

If you’re missing someone? always

Your best friend? Michael

Part Two – The Where’s?

Where do you want to be in 6 years? No idea… I’m completely open to anything!

Where were you last night? Work. Then I came home and hung out with Michael before we went to bed.

Where did you grow up? Oooooooklahoma!

One place that I go to over and over? don’t know? We found a really fun coffee shop downtown that I think we’ll probably go to more often

Your favorite place to eat out? Pazzo’s, Olive Garden, any kind of steakhouse or mexican restaurant.

Wish list items? It was the camera… but we just got it! So, either money or new clothes

Last time you laughed? On the phone today with Crystal.

Last time you cried? Wouldn’t you like to know… haha, I really just can’t remember

Part Three – The What’s?

Something that you aren’t? independent or chatty

Last thing you did? read Shannon’s answers to this and decided I wanted to do it too

What are you wearing? same thing I slept in… don’t judge!

Something you’re not wearing? shoes

Your favorite store? Target and IKea

weekend.

This weekend we went to a wedding. It was beautiful. It was probably the most spiritual wedding either of us have ever been to. The focus was just so clearly on the Lord and who they are because of Him. It kind of made me want to redo our wedding a little differently. Before the ceremony started there was a band playing, then the families walked in, then the bridal party walked in to the most beautiful worship song sang by the most talented female singer, and then Erica walked in. She was glowing and it was perfect.

Then there was a service. A service that explained who God is and why he wants to be a part of our lives. How we are his bride, and we owe him everything. If a husband comes home from work all day, goes and does his own thing, eats dinner alone, then goes to bed just to get up and do the same thing the next day, do you think his wife would stay with him? Would she ever feel fulfilled, would they have any type of relationship, much less a marriage? The answer is no, they wouldn’t. If even we know that is unacceptable behavior for a healthy relationship, do we think God doesn’t see it that way? The service was just so on. Definitely thought provoking and I know that I was certainly challenged.

After that there was worship. Wonderful, wonderful worship! They played two songs I hadn’t heard, but the song in the middle was Stronger by Hilsong. It is incredible. I love it! If you haven’t heard it… you should probably go listen right now. I’m trying to see if we can sing it at our church soon

And then we went to the reception. At first it was looking like we wouldn’t know anyone. We ran into a few old friends from CSF who we hadn’t talked to in ages. So, it was slightly awkward. But then we realized that we knew other people there… the boys Michael is in a band with! Having that community made the reception much more enjoyable… Definitely beat sitting at a table all by ourselves It was just such a fun night… I loved their wedding. I’m so happy for the two of them! I don’t know either of them too well, but I know that they love the Lord and it has been a blessing to be able to get to know them since our wedding.

The wedding took up the majority of Saturday. Sunday we went to church (where we met our realtor!) and then came home and relaxed for the rest of the day. Michael grilled steak and potatoes It was a perfect Sunday! We watched Liar, Liar (so funny!) and then went to bed

About our realtor… Her name is Kelly and we go to church with her. I’d met her before but never knew she was a realtor! She and her husband are probably two of the sweetest people in the world and I’m so excited to be working with her!! It’s definitely neat to have someone you know helping you… She’s already e-mailed us some houses and we just need to look through them to see which ones we’ll actually go look at. We’re not in any rush or anything, but it is a lot of fun to be looking for houses!

Also, yesterday we walked to the library, I wanted to read Twilight but, surprise!, they’re out… but they said it should be in soon. So, in the mean time I’m reading The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks. It’s actually really good! I started it yesterday and I’m already about halfway through it. And… just got an e-mail that Twilight is now at the library! Sweet!

thanksgiving

Last night was our Early Thanksgiving We had it at Mark and Maria’s. So much fun! She made probably the best turkey I have ever had… I’m so excited we’ll get to do it all again with Michael’s fam in a couple weeks! I made a pumpkin pie… and it was a hit Thankfully, we didn’t have any left. (Um, the last time I made it – we ate the whole thing, just the two of us!)

We also had a thankfulness basket. We each wrote down 5 things we are thankful for, put them in the basket, then we all took turns passing the basket around and reading something that someone is thankful for. Really neat idea, I think it’s a tradition we’ll probably start with our family someday. It was fun because you could definitely tell whose were whose on some of them. (That makes sense, right?)

5 things I am thankful for:

1.     That I get to live with my best friend

2.    Thursday night TV! (for example: everyone knew this was mine )

3.     The fact that we may (possibly) be able to buy a house soon! (and this one too!)

4.     Such a sweet husband…

5.     Such a fun small group to get together with every week! (Okay, I just made this one up, I completely forgot that last thing I put in the basket)

And, it was the first outing for my camera! I didn’t take too many pictures, and I’m still learning how to work it… but it was lots of fun! I’m definitely in love with my new toy

And now I have to get ready to go to a mandatory work meeting. Woohoo!

house hunt

and tonight I am proctoring.  Since I have an abundance of free time… how about an update…

We met with the realtor and found a house we love and is it our price range and we could even build it ourselves and pick everything out… the floors, counters, appliances, paint… how fun would that be? I know we’re not going to buy it yet. I mean, we just started looking 4 days ago! We certainly couldn’t have found our future house that fast. Right? I think we’re going to try to look at some older houses too, just because we haven’t yet and I think thats definitely something that needs to happen before we decide.

Tomorrow night is our Small Group Thanksgiving… I’m so excited! Mark and Maria are frying a turkey! I’ve never had fried turkey before so I’m pumped We’re making pumpkin pie… and I think Faith has a yummy secret dish she’s bringing. Have I mentioned I love our small group? I’m so excited about early Thanksgiving tomorrow!

And I think I may have found yet another show to watch… Parks & Rec. My boss was telling me about it tonight and I’m pretty sure we have to watch it now.

And that’s just about everything we’ve been up too. Exciting, I know

food pyramid

Michael found such a fun website… mypyramidtracker.gov. You set up an account, you can log your workouts and what types of food you eat. Right now, I’m getting plenty of grains and saturated fats… but not a single vegetable. Yeah, I’ve got some work and grocery shopping to do… But, it’s neat because it shows it to you in bar graph form… So, you can see what you’re not eating enough of.

This website made us think a lot about our food choices last night. We’re definitely not the healthiest eaters, but we’re trying to get into healthier habits. Looking at the food pyramid, if we are to eat everything that is recommended, there would be no room for anything else! If I eat the 6oz of grains, 2 and 1/2 cups of vegetables, 1 and 1/2 cups of fruit, 3 cups of milk, and 5 oz of meat and beans… there is not room for me to eat Oreos or chocolate chips or leftover cake. I should be completely full from all of that other food – that is so much better for me! I’ve just never thought of it that way… in my mind I never completely took away the sugary foods that I love oh so much. But, if I can follow this guideline for healthier eating, I definitely won’t have room for all the sugar I currently eat. Not that I’m going to stop eating sugar altogether or anything… But, for now I think we’re going to do our best to cut it out as completely as possible, in order to get into a healthier habit. Then once we get a better grasp of that, maybe we can bring back some sweets Also, I’ve found lots of dried fruit cookies and things… which I’ll probably make. Because they’re sweet and healthy!

 

We loved the website, though. It definitely makes it easier to see in chart form what we’ve been putting into our bodies. But maybe we’re dorks. I don’t know if everyone would have fun with this

 

In other news, we’re meeting with a Realtor tonight when Michael gets home… yeah! I’m excited… house hunting is about 1,000x more fun than apartment hunting Right now we’re looking a lot at BallHomes… has anyone ever heard anything about them??

 

Also, I haven’t had the chance to take the camera out too much yet. Right now I just have loads of pictures of things around the apartment… I promise I’ll put pictures up the next time we do something fun

V

ABC has a new show called V. It premiered last Tuesday, and so of course Michael and I watched it via Hulu on Wednesday.
It is a show about other intelligent life, basically. The main characters are in NYC. The only recognizable person from the case (for me anyway) is Juliette from Lost… which is one of the only reasons I was interested. But, they are in New York and you see all of the different characters and it looks like an earthquake is happening. Everything starts to shake and no one knows what’s going on. Until they go downtown. There is a huge spaceship covering the sky. It turns out there are 7 other spaceships around the world, too. But this spaceship has Anna in it. She’s the spokesperson for the V’s (V stands for visitor). The bottom of the spaceship turns into a screen of light and we see Anna’s face. She tells everyone they are peaceful and are only interested in learning more about us. In return, they will give us some technological knowledge in return.

Well, some people are in love with the V’s. They are healing people from all different diseases and taking people up to look around the Spaceship. And then there are a few who are concerned with what is going on. The preist, Juliette (who happens to be an FBI agent), and a few other people.

I think the rest of the show will be about how some people trust the V’s and some don’t. But, we have reason to believe that they’re not trustworthy. Example: They tried to explode the building where a secret meeting was going on about why the V’s are actually here… Interesting.

It’s a sci-fi show, so if you’re not into that I wouldn’t recommend it. Not that I am into sci-fi, but thanks to Michael it is a little more amusing.

 

I know this was random, I was going to do yet another a post about us… But, nothing new is really going on. So, for now, I’m telling you about this

erm. work?

Today at work I had a few assignments… mail these to someone, scan these and e-mail them, enter this into that, etc. Among one of my tasks today was to sharpen 4 boxes of pencils. ahem. 4 boxes? There are 72 pencils in a single box and our pencil sharpener sharpens around 6-8 before it overheats and won’t work for 15 minutes. I know, fascinating, right? I’ve sharpened too many pencils today. I just had to share the ridiculousness. A seven hour shift and my job is to sharpen pencils. Neat.

In other news… my camera arrived at 6:00pm last night. yeah! I haven’t been able to play around with it too much. Honestly, all I’ve learned is that I have a lot to learn! I’m excited about it though… I love taking pictures

Last night was the women’s event that I mentioned. I went and sort of wish I hadn’t. Yes, it was wonderful to hear Michael sing and everything but it just wasn’t what I was expecting after that. It was basically just one woman explaining her life and how she found our church. Yeah. That was all. For one and half hours. Now I know to continue to avoid women’s events unless it’s something very specific. Like… decorating something, eating together, or going to a movie. Really, just anything specific.

I think Michael and I are going to find a realtor… not that anything will come of it, but we’re going to look at houses soon I might be a little excited about it…

new layout

So, I changed the layout! Yeah! I like it a lot… I had a hard time finding a picture I liked though. The one there currently is from a neat flower I found in the jungle near Victoria Falls last summer. But, it could change at any time. Just a warning

(The following paragraph might be me bragging about my extremely talented husband… just a tad)
Also, I just found out Michael has an opportunity to do an interview with David Crowder. Neat, right? But, very, very, very unfortunately he has to work during the time the interview would be For those of you who know him… T.D. (from Southland) is interviewing Crowder on being a worship leader and they wanted to interview other worship leaders and they immediately thought of Michael. He’s so good at leading worship, he has such a beautiful voice and his face just lights up… He’s wonderful. I’m not surprised they wanted him to interview with T.D. and Crowder

So, that is both a really awesome thing and a really not so awesome thing because he has to work. And tomorrow from work he is going straight to church to lead worship for a women’s event. I’m going to go to it, too. Sometimes I get nervous going to women’s events at churches because I feel like I’m going to be the youngest person there. But, I’m going anyway and just banking that I won’t be the youngest… and even if I am, it will still be good to be around more spiritually mature women who I can learn from! So, hopefully tomorrow night will be good for both of us (even though Michael will be leaving after worship, lol)

And today, I am going to help tutor elementary kids with Ashley. I’m excited, I hope it’s fun! And then afterwards… our reset group is coming over to finish up our bible study! I made a really yummy pesto-cream cheese dip!

(Recipe and pictures to come!)

Also… our new camera is supposed to get here tomorrow! Saying I can’t wait is an understatement…

steps

… make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-8

 

I’ve been thinking a lot about steps lately. As in, what step am I supposed to be taking next? I realized this morning one of the most basic steps I need to do now is to add goodness and knowledge to my faith. So that’s where I’m going to start.

The other day we ran into a friend at Panera… we hadn’t seen her in years so it definitely seemed like an out of the blue kind of meeting. I’m positive that it wasn’t. She was so encouraging and filled with joy. Seeing her heart and just how open she was about her life… and how obviously close she is to God because of that – I realized I want what she has. I want more of my God. I need more. But, what steps can I take to get to that point? I don’t think there are specific steps. I think the point is just that we’re making an effort to be taking our steps with the Lord.

She said something that was so encouraging to me, and maybe it will be for you to… Whenever you take a step, you never know what’s going to happen. It’s like you’re standing in front of the sea… God will either part the water for you or he won’t. But if he doesn’t then you just have to walk on the water. Which is scary, but just be confident in that you’re never walking alone. Sure, we will all stumble, but God won’t let us fall when we’re walking with him.

Sometimes I want to just take leaps on my own… but, I’m not strong enough to do that yet, I’m much too unsure of myself and even unsure of my faith. So, for now… I’m just going to do my best to add goodness and knowledge to my faith. I think these are the steps that will get me closer to the sea.

 

halloween

Before:

After:

Our first attempt sort of looks like balls, doesn’t it? That’s what we all thought and so that is why now we have two short ghosts! At least it was fixable! It did make for a very fun laugh though The other night we went to Ashley and Justins apartment and ate yummy potato soup, carved pumpkins, drank wassail and watched Casper It was a perfect fall double date.

Saturday night we had the murder mystery… it was so much fun! I also made this cake I can cross is off my 101 in 1001 now! Yay! It turned out so good! I got the recipe from MckMama’s blog and knew I wanted to try it. If you make this cake: Use a much bigger bowl than you think you will need for the icing and start it at least two days before you need it. In total it didn’t take a lot of time… but it was nice to just spend about 30 min to an hour on it each day… Instead of trying to work on it all day for just one day.

And the murder mystery was a lot of fun! There wasn’t actually a murderer, more we all had secrets that we needed to keep. For example: I was a ‘missionary’ but that was just my cover – I was actually a German spy. Michael was supposedly a big game hunter, but he actually was a British spy… that’s right – we we’re on completely different sides. He even tried to arrest me once! If you ever have the opportunity to do one… I think you should

Michael is off at work and I’m trying to find something to do for the day… Any ideas?