Acting Adult

Monday Round Up

2012-01-30T09:28:00.002-06:00

Play List:

Barrister's Ball! We had SO much fun this weekend! I'll post some of the pictures later this week.
Lunch with the in-laws. Cracker Barrel and I have an unhealthy relationship - I eat waaaaaay too much when I go there.
Project Life. I actually printed some of my pictures and journaled for the first two weeks of January. I am LOVING this process.

To Finish:

Errands. The oil is changed in the Camry, the Ion is picked up from the body shop after the accident, PLUS my gold watch was resized by my favorite jeweler - they even did it for free! I thought that was awfully nice of them.
Master bedroom clean up. I really need to clean up more often, because wow. When the room is clean, I feel SO much better about it! I love my new clean room.

Finish It Friday

2012-01-27T13:05:00.004-06:00

Yup, it's Friday again. I am SO excited! It's going to be a really fun, yet busy, weekend.

Play List:

Barrister's Ball! This is the annual law school formal that Husband and I went to last year and the year before. Since Hubs is in France right now, he can't exactly be my date. I hadn't been planning on going, but at an engagement party last week, all the law school kids really wanted me to go, and who am I to disappoint? The remaining question, now that I have decided to go and secured a ticket, is what in the world to wear?
Lunch with the in-laws. The errands I'm doing this weekend call for heading out to the suburb where the in-laws live, so they wanted to have lunch, too. That's always fun!
Project Life. I'm going to print pictures this weekend and journal. I will!

To Finish:

Errands. The car needs its tire looked at and I need to get a gold watch that I got for Christmas sized so I can wear it without it falling off my wrist.
Master bedroom clean up. Seriously, I'm going to fold all my husband's laundry that has spilled out of the closet, put up the ironing board and be able to walk around my bed. Seriously.

What are you going to be doing this weekend?

And God Blessed the Broken Road, Part 7

2012-01-24T09:44:00.000-06:00

To catch up, you can read Our Love Story here.

After only dating a few months, future Husband and I were already looking at rings. Crazy, I know. Let’s just say I didn’t bring that up in conversation with my parents on our weekly call! I think that might have freaked them out, no matter how much they liked the guy or not.

In those late night conversations that college seniors are wont to have, we dreamed about our future together – what types of jobs we might get after graduation (side note: before I met future Husband, I had my sights set on a cruise ship after graduation to be a cruise director! What a different life God had in mind for me), where we could live, how many kids we might have. I told him during one of those dreaming sessions that he couldn’t propose until May. Because that was so much closer to graduation (the same month even!) and that’s the only way that this thing was going to work. Mom and Dad wanted to see me close to being done with college, and know that their little girl would be on the right path and officially out of the nest. So that’s the way it had to happen.

But before one can propose, one has to find a ring. In between studying, rehearsals, and other fun senior things, Future Husband and I spent a bunch of weekends at the mall, going to every ring shop there was, over and over again. One afternoon, we were at a store that no longer exists in the Galleria, and we found it. The one. Well, it was a gorgeous engagement ring by itself, but it wasn’t until they added the wedding band on one side and the anniversary band on the other side that I fell for it. So many sparkles! [By the way, I’m still waiting for that engagement band to appear! I think five years would be a perfect time. ;)]

We picked out a few others that were also gorgeous and called it a day. We didn’t walk out of there with a ring because I wanted some kind of a surprise on the day of our engagement. We discussed what I wanted in a ring, in addition to the styles we had just looked at it. I thought color was more important than clarity, because let’s face it, who carries a jeweler’s loop with them wherever they go to see the microscopic inclusions in a particular diamond? Yeah, me neither. ;)

Our closest friends and roommates knew that future Husband was getting very close to purchasing the ring but we tried to keep it under wraps for the time being. But we had a looooong few months to go and as time passed, we started telling more and more people our little secret.

During those spring months, future Husband apparently bought the ring with his father, without me knowing it. While he waited for the ring to come in from the manufacturer (it had to be specially made to fit my small ring ringer – it’s a size 3.75!), we started planning the trip to my parents’ house in Texas for the Easter break.

Because Future Husband had to ask my dad for permission before he popped the question. Oh boy.

To be continued…

Monday Round Up

2012-01-23T08:01:00.000-06:00

I feel like I was really productive this weekend, and I think some credit has to go to my Finish it Friday post. It helped me stay accountable on the things I said I wanted to accomplish this weekend!

To Do List

Get the Camry's oil changed. Husband asked me to do this the day he left for France, since it's VERY overdue. Whoops!

Yup, got this one done on Saturday morning. But I made the mistake of asking them to run the code and see why the check engine light was on. And they told me. Something about fuel vapors and it needing more diagnostic testing. And oh yeah, it won’t pass inspection without it, and a fix in the tail lights that were out, and oh did I notice a knot in the back tire? I guess we’ll have to dump some money in that car too in the next few months.

Take our Samsonite roll-aboard suitcase fixed - the wheel fell off and it doesn't so much "roll" anymore.

Turns out that the repair place doesn’t stock the particular wheel and I have to call Samsonite and get the part shipped to us. THEN he can fix it for about $20. Wish me luck in trying to get a part for free out of that ridiculous company.

Put away clean laundry from the vacation clean up, fold Husband's clothes that are still out from the France packing escapade weeks ago and switch the master bedroom sheets for clean ones.

This one is partly accomplished – laundry is put away and sheets are clean. I couldn’t bring myself to deal with the other piles of clothes. Oh well. There’s always next weekend!

Play List

The Art of Chocolate and Wine event on Sunday at a local wine bar - SO excited for this one!

Oh my. What more could a girl want on a Sunday afternoon, but chocolate paired with wine? It was SO much fun!

Print my first few weeks of the Project Life daily pictures and journal.

I wish I could say I got these printed. But alas, I was having issues with the website to upload pictures and I really wanted to use CVS and apparently, I put in my order too late and they can’t be done until tomorrow. So I think I may end up waiting until next week and do most of the month then.

I think I was most certainly productive this weekend!

Finish It Friday

2012-01-20T16:17:00.003-06:00

Oh dear. I haven't posted one of these in over a year! Well, let's fix that...

To Do List

Get the Camry's oil changed. Husband asked me to do this the day he left for France, since it's VERY overdue. Whoops!
Take our Samsonite roll-aboard suitcase fixed - the wheel fell off and it doesn't so much "roll" anymore.
Put away clean laundry from the vacation clean up, fold Husband's clothes that are still out from the France packing escapade weeks ago and switch the master bedroom sheets for clean ones.

Play List

The Art of Chocolate and Wine event on Sunday at a local wine bar - SO excited for this one!
Print my first few weeks of the Project Life daily pictures and journal.

It is going to be a good weekend!

Raising Kids Is Not a Contest

2012-01-19T20:14:00.001-06:00

I visited one of my favorite college roommates (ok, they’re all my favorites, since I only had three!) over the weekend in DC and met her most adorable toddler. When you’re visiting a family for an extended period of time (and a long weekend definitely counts), you really get to know them, even more so than you already do. For example, you see how they drink organic milk to give their kiddo the best nutrition or how cold they keep the thermostat (my friends must have lived in igloos in a previous life – it was cold all weekend! ). You also get to know their parenting style.

I am not surprised that CR’s toddler is BRILLIANT and so verbal. I mean, CR and her husband are the two smartest people I know – so it was obvious to me that their kid would be amazing. And he is.

But watching them raise their child, I mean I literally saw their parenting going on in front of my face, watching them mold and grow their child in their faith and otherwise. It was truly amazing. I realized at that moment that there is a reason I waited to have children. Because all that work that CR is doing? How she spends hours with him on the floor, reinforcing concepts like colors, and numbers, and Latin prayers? It is exhausting. And I was only watching her do those things, not even doing them myself! She loves it. She is such an amazing mom and this kid will go on to do amazing things because he had two wonderful parental figures in his life that were SO involved wit him.

After seeing her interact with her toddler all day every day for three days, I know that being a mom is a full time job, no matter if you have a job outside of the home in addition to that or not. Period.

Towards the end of the weekend, I found myself wondering how I can stay home with my kid when I have them, how I can instruct them in all those things they should know at each development stage in their life, how I can get my kid to read before going to preschool.

And then I stopped.

Because you know what? Raising children is not a contest. It’s not a race. There is not a winner. Just because CR’s toddler knows all of those amazing things at this point doesn’t mean that MY kid would be a failure if they don’t. And they might not. Because every kid is different.

And every parent is different. I get to make those decisions when the time comes, and as long as I do my research and my husband and I are in agreement, then that’s what we’ll do. I don’t have to race my friends to a certain point with our children.

It’s not a race. I have to remember that in a few years when I’m feeling the pressure. Because there isn’t a winner, really. Except the kids that we’re trying to raise to be good human beings. Isn’t that enough?

A Long Weekend to Visit a College Roommate

2012-01-16T23:16:00.001-06:00

This weekend, I reconnected with my college roommate, CR for short, and had an absolute blast falling in love with her two year old son. Oh my goodness. He was adorable! We hung out, ate, and hung out some more. It was just wonderful.

CR is married to a friend of mine from high school, so reconnecting them was sooo much fun! I hadn’t seen CR since before she got pregnant with her little one, so it was definitely time. And with husband gone, it was great timing, too!

I love plane snacks and drinks. Bloody Mary for the win!

Such is a euphemism in DC for speed bumps. Made me laugh so hard I had to take a picture!

Apparently, parking is kind of tough in DC but they have an app for paying for that parking! What a brilliant idea. I wish St. Louis would pick up on this idea.

The National Building Museum was our stop for Saturday afternoon. I walked inside and as an event planner, basically started planning events for this space. Oh my goodness – it was BEAUTIFUL! A wedding or gala or concert, the possibilities were endless. The area is carpeted and there was a big fountain in the middle surrounded by a tile surround and plants to keep the kids from jumping in the water.

These columns went up forever, but realistically, it was probably five stories.

You could probably seat at least 600-700 people in this space. It was huge! and gorgeous.

There was a lego exhibit upstairs and CR’s son really got a kick out of playing with the blocks. We built all kinds of houses! Another part of the exhibit were displays of buildings, houses and the Gateway Arch made of legos! This one apparently took over 100 hours to design (without the aid of a computer) and over 200 hours to assemble. It even had the little windows at the top, just like the real one!

My favorite family portrait from the weekend – aren’t they cute!

Oh DC, even though you were FREEZING and I didn’t get down to Paul’s Bakery and only hit one museum, we will definitely be back again to continue all that sight seeing. We had so much fun on this short weekend on a mini vacation.

“You Take The Good, You Take The Bad”

2012-01-12T20:21:00.001-06:00

“You take them both and there you have The Facts of Life.”

This morning…

This afternoon…

This evening…

I’m home, packing for my weekend in DC, and self-medicating for a nasty headache and aching shoulders, possibly from the icy accident this morning. The car has been in the shop for an estimate and let’s just say thank goodness we have insurance! They can get me in at the end of the month to get it fixed. Until then, I’ll be driving dear husband’s car that is just sitting outside in the parking lot.

To add insult to injury to whatever, those yummy cake truffles up there? I think they upset my stomach this afternoon. Which is just so MEAN. So I’m already in PJs and trying to figure out how to pack for a whole long weekend in DC with only carry ons so I don’t have to deal with checked bags. Wish me luck!

I’ll Admit, Life is Kind of Boring Right Now

2012-01-11T19:51:00.001-06:00

Want to know how I’m dealing with the temporary single life again?

Chicago Bloody Mary at O’Charley’s. BEST I’ve ever had.

Sweatshirts to a basketball tailgate on Saturday. Love comfy clothes.

I set up the Keurig that hubs and I bought over the weekend with Christmas gift cards and returns. I used it for the first time this morning and I think I’m in love!

That, plus work, makes for a boring few days. I guess that’s why I got hit with a huge lonely bomb this afternoon on the way to work. Hubs called me on Skype and it was really good to see his smiling face. I know he’s there for an awesome reason, and getting good experience, but these weeks are going to be harder than I thought. It doesn’t help that Hubs told me yesterday he has a week-long break in his program at the end of February that we didn’t think he was going to have, and it would make a perfect time for me to come over to visit him. I just don’t know if I can change a foot surgery and work things enough to be able to get over there. Gah. First world problems, right? I’m just feeling yucky today!

Wallowing is a Good Thing, Sometimes

2012-01-08T12:39:00.001-06:00

So yesterday I said “see ya later” to my husband, while he studies abroad. We didn’t say goodbye, because that has a real finality to it. So we just said “see you in a few months” instead. After he got on the plane, I went and had lunch with my mother-in-law, who was waiting on the other side of security. Honestly, I pretty much wanted to go home and be by myself, but it was nice to chat with her after seeing hubby leave.

Besides that, I also had a SLU young alumni function later that day that I really didn’t want to go to. I ended up going, because I figured I needed the social interaction while I was down in the dumps. After being out at the basketball tailgate for a bit, I bailed and went home to be by myself. Because? I wanted to wallow in my sadness.

You know how a good hard cry can just make you feel a million times better, when it’s a long time coming and it just has that cathartic feeling afterwards? I felt the same way about being home alone last night. Lots of friends had asked if I wanted to come over and hang out, go to dinner, go to the basketball game. But honestly? I just wanted to be alone. I was sad and I wanted to alone and wallow in that sadness.

I came home and changed into pjs, poured a huge glass of white zin and put on Downton Abbey and a bunch of other DVRed shows. I went through the backlog of my Google Reader, drank my wine and watched TV. Then I fell asleep on the couch. After dragging myself to bed for a good night’s sleep, I feel like a million bucks this morning.

I allowed myself to wallow in the sadness of my husband being gone for a bit, because I knew that’s what I needed. Had I just put aside the feelings and gone out or just forced myself to be happy, I would have dragged out the sadness of being alone.

But I only allowed myself to wallow for the day. One afternoon and evening of sadness was all I was going to give myself. Now, I’m doing laundry and cleaning the house, including removing an entire Christmas tree worth of needles from my carpet. Because those things need to get done. I’m done being sad – because I don’t have time to be sad anymore!

Had I not allowed the sadness to take over my day yesterday, it would have dragged out for weeks. But now I can be productive because I know that he’ll be back just a few months. I can keep myself busy for that long, right?

Airport Goodbyes Aren’t Fun

2012-01-07T15:42:00.001-06:00

After spending a few gorgeous days in Disney and then a few freezing days, and then another good day (please don’t ask my why the weather is always crazy for New Year’s when we spend it at Walt Disney World), Husband and I flew home to St. Louis and spent an insane 32 hours of unpacking, laundry, errands and repacking.

At noon today, my husband boarded a plane for Europe; Paris, to be exact. He is going to be there for at least three months, studying European business law. Saying goodbye at the airport was maybe one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. They let me get a companion pass so I got to sit next to him at the gate while the clock ticked down the minutes we had left together before he jetted off to Europe. And then when they called his row to board? I really kind of lost it. For the second time today.

As we were leaving the house, he realized he didn’t have his phone. It must have still been plugged in upstairs. He looked and me smiled, and said he guessed he didn’t need it! We didn’t do the international phone package, because we are planning on using Skype to stay in touch. That way, we can actually see each other’s faces when we catch up! But when he said that he didn’t need his phone, it dawned on me that he was going to another continent where I wouldn’t be able to pick up the phone and call him, or text him, or get in touch with him instantly as I’m used to doing. He was going to be staying at an apartment with a roommate, an apartment where I don’t know where it is, or anything about his living arrangements. Honestly, it scared the scrap out of me. And I lost it. Literally, it was the biggest ugly cry I had let him see in a looooong while. He put down his bags, enveloped me in his big arms, and told me it was going to be alright.

And then he had me get his phone. I’m not sure if he really thought he needed it, or if it was just to calm me down, but it does make me feel better. Long distance charges be damned, if he needs to call me, I sure don’t care about those costs!

If all goes according to plan, I will see him again in May when he comes home for some family graduations. We are all keeping our fingers crossed about his internship possibilities in Europe, which would keep him there until August. I’m not sure I’m hoping that he gets the internship or that he doesn’t, because he would come home earlier if he doesn’t.

Honestly, I just want him to get the education and experience that he needs in Europe and comes back to me as quickly as possible. Because this townhouse is awfully quiet this afternoon with only me here.

2011 Recap

2011-12-30T08:11:00.000-06:00

When 2010 was drawing to a close, I thought that 2011 would be a thousand times better than the year we were leaving. 2010 was a tough one for my family, and losing my father. 2011 was supposed to be the year that I got beyond that tragedy and started to move on. I guess I can say that I did do that, to an extent. I know that my heart will always ache a little bit when I think of my dad, and that’s ok.

I’ve seen a bunch of other bloggers review the past year with various pictures and links to their previous posts and I thought that would be a nice thing to leave you all with before I head to Disney World tomorrow with the family for a New Year’s celebration trip.

January

We rang in the New Year in a hotel room in Spain, before heading back to the states for the year ahead.

February

I hung out with the law school kids a lot, watching the Super Bowl and cheering on the law school intramural teams with my favorite number 42 leading the pack!

March

I gave up soda for Lent. Little did I know that in a few months, I wouldn’t be drinking regular soda due to the Weight Watchers program and wouldn’t miss it a bit.

April

The highlight of this month? Faith Hill in concert. Oh my goodness, I was in love! I want to attend more concerts this year but the budget may not allow me to. Why are concert tickets so expensive?

Another highlight? Just another reason why I don’t like to answer the phone. Mom was ok but we had a bit of a scare.

May

May was the month of weddings – number one that I coordinated, number two that we attended, and number three that I coordinated. Add a few graduations in there and it was a month of traveling!

June

I showed my OCD about organized and redid my closet on a random weeknight. I wouldn’t recommend it.

We also marked the one year mark since my father’s death. That was a toughie.

July

This was a month of adventures to Branson and the ER, adventures in finding (or not finding) a safe deposit box key, adventures in Cardinals baseball games, and of course, adventures with a quesadilla maker.

August

I came clean about my high school obsession with mums, along with the rest of Texas high schools. If you’re not from the South, please go read about this one and tell me I’m not crazy!

September

We spent my 28^th birthday in the most magical place on Earth and I was pretty much obsessed with the towel animals we were graced with each day in our hotel room at the Polynesian.

At the end of the month, I had to travel to KC to say goodbye to the sweetest grandmother a girl could have. It was another tough one.

October

Husband and I got to watch our beloved Cardinals WIN a World Series game, IN PERSON!

November

Given the recent intersections our lives have taken with death and dying, I spent a few days getting our affairs in order, because you never know.

December

I’m up to installment six of Our Love Story and I’m loving the fact that I can relive our courtship here! We’re up to the “shopping for rings” part!

So 2011 was a pretty crazy one – I wonder what 2012 has in store for us?

Fighting Weight

2011-12-29T17:55:00.001-06:00

In my goals for 2012 posted last week, I mentioned that I’ve already lost 15 pounds on this thing called Weight Watchers. You may have heard of it?

When I went on the September Disney trip, I knew that I was coming back to a diet. More than that, it was a lifestyle change. I was going to start working out on a regular basis and I was signing up for Weight Watchers online. There was a discount code from our health insurance at work that saved me $10 on a three month subscription and I love me a coupon!

Katie at Loves of Life has been through an amazing transformation over the past year. Every time she would post a new blog with pictures of her skinny little self and talk about how she had done it with Weight Watchers, I was amazed. She has come so far and really has inspired lots of us in the blog world to get off our butts and work out.

After all, she has done all those 5Ks! I am not quite there yet, as running and I don’t really get along. At all. But I have high hopes! I am thinking about possibly maybe trying to consider running the Princess Half Marathon at Walt Disney World. Because let’s be honest, people. Running in Disney both onstage and offstage is the ONLY thing that would get me going for that kind of training. 13 miles?! Dear God, save me now. I don’t know if I could make it, but I know that running in Disney is supposed to be more fun because of the entertainment along the race course.

But because I’m going to be accountable for my actions and because Katie posted pictures of herself along the way, and because I want to give myself motivation to lose those last 10 pounds because I have met my first weight loss goal of 15 pounds lost, here I am on September 6….

And here I am today (er, yesterday)…

16 pounds down as of December 28.

I am starting to hear compliments from friends and co-workers who are noticing the weight I’ve lost and I have to admit, it feels good! I had to hit up Goodwill a few weeks ago to get a pair of grey and black pants so I could attend work without clothing falling off my hips. And um, that was pretty awesome. I’m trying to lose a few more pounds before going all out and buying a whole new wardrobe, but with Husband leaving for France in a few weeks, I can’t promise I won’t try to drown my sorrows in shopping. I’ll try to restrain myself.

It’s silly but I’m starting to internalize that saying “That doesn’t taste as good as skinny feels.” Now, I’m not sure that that applies to EVERYTHING, but it sure does help when we’re at Christmas dinner and I want another piece of the pumpkin gingerbread trifle. I say no because I don’t need it!

So yeah, we’re getting there. We’ve got a ways to go but it’s neat to see the transformation and know that it was ME who did it. I know it’s possible and it CAN be done.

Project Life 2012

2011-12-28T08:11:00.000-06:00

Ok, enough stuff that brings you down. On to more fun things!

I have made the commitment, pulled the trigger, and taken the plunge. I’m going to take at least one picture each day during 2012 and will be combining those prints into Project Life. For those that don’t know, this is a way to capture those little moments in life that wouldn’t make it onto a big scrapbooking page in the grand scheme of things. I bought the Clementine edition for this daily experiment.

A few days after my Project Life arrived in the mail, I opened the Amber edition from my mother-in-law for Christmas! It looks like I’ll be catching up on all the old photos with that kit as well!

So there’s a million different ways to use the kit, as they describe on the website. But I’m going to focus the Clementine edition on the daily picture and the Amber edition for the pictures from after our honeymoon up to present day. I hope they can all fit! I may have to break it down into multiple albums, but we shall see.

I’m really excited about breaking down my life into these snapshots of daily life. Since I decided to start scrapbooking after my wedding (as a way to expend my creative energies without a big party to plan and consume my life), I have struggled with the work that capturing the little things in life presented. Scrapbooking a vacation was way easier. I started out with a Disney scrapbook for my mother-in-law for her birthday and that was fun. And then I moved on to recording our honeymoon, which was really neat to relive that and remember what we did each day. But when I looked at my pictures from a random party or what have you, it felt weird doing an entire page for that. I left my crafting table full of scraps and my Cricut unused, much to my Husband’s annoyance. But I just couldn’t bring myself to work for hours on something that was just a page for a random day in my life, for some reason.

But Project Life? I think it’s a perfect fit. I can see the daily life, the ebbs and flows of what is going on right now, and that will give my kids and grandkids (hopefully) a look into what life was like in 2012. I would have LOVED to have something like this for my mom or my grandma. I’m hoping my future kids will think it’s neat! So. Project Life for the daily life and traditional scrapbooking for vacations. I have a plan and I’m going to execute it!

Has anyone else failed in scrapbooking, only to find something that helps them find their way again?

The Little Things That One Has to Deal With

2011-12-27T20:08:00.001-06:00

What do you do when someone passes away?

You can give away his suits to Goodwill if no one else in the family can fit in them; you can refit his wedding ring into a necklace for his widow to wear; you can pass along his prized possessions to his nieces, nephews and children so they have something to remember him by.

But what about all those ties he wore to the bank every day for his working career? What do you do with all those things that meant something to him during his work day and holidays and other occasions that necessitated a tie? These are the types of things his daughter remembers him wearing to church, to taking his wife to Bass Hall to see the orchestra play, to see his kids graduate high school. It’s his uniform, of sorts. Giving them to Goodwill just seems odd, for some reason. It’s giving away all those memories that we would want to keep.

In our case, one tie went to my brother, along with the matching pocket square. He has a perfect suit that will the tie will set off nicely, and every time he wears it, he will think of his father and it will put a smile on his face. Another tie is going to my husband. It’s something classic and paisley, and something he wouldn’t buy for himself, but he needs in his wardrobe. I hope that when my husband is getting dressed one day in the future and needs a simple, not flashy but classy tie, he’ll pull this one out of his closet and smile as well, thinking of his father-in-law, who purchased it all those years ago. Oh the banks that this tie has visited, oh how many Sunday masses it has worshipped at, oh how many memories lie within a tie. If only those paisley swirls could speak…

Christmas in 2011

2011-12-26T17:04:00.001-06:00

I’m still a little groggy from all the measuring, compiling, cooking, baking, assembling, transporting, heating, eating, wrapping, unwrapping, hugging and laughing that went on in the past few days. I haven’t enjoyed a Christmas this much in a while. It was definitely well deserved, I think, after the year that we had.

Mom brought her stockings from home so we could hang them all up on the, um, staircase.

Our tree was topped with Disney, of course. Thanks to Hubs for the idea!

And there wasn’t an inch to be found under the tree, either.

I got creative with the camera. I’m trying to learn all the different features and how this fancy DSLR thing works.

Then we got to the baking. We made pretzel hugs – please don’t make these if you are not ready to eat ALL of them. I didn’t get a picture after they finished with the pretzel and topped and smushed together but oh goodness, they are addicting. Be warned!

There were green beans to snap, party ryes to assemble and trifles to make!

Christmas Eve came together like a dream at Grandma’s house!

Midnight Mass at 10:30 pm was next and it was lovely as always. There’s something about to mass in the middle of the night to celebrate something so important to our faith that has always meant a lot to me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, we opened presents by fireside!

Needless to say, everyone had fun opening gifts and there were lots of Ooos and ahhs and oh my goodness-es thrown around! But really, I was just happy sitting on my floor in the craft room, under the glow of the Christmas tree, surrounded by my immediate family – mom, brother and husband. It was a pretty awesome morning.

But once that was done, we had another appointment at the in-laws! Mom and brother came with and we trucked out to the other suburb where we spent the rest of the day with Husband’s family.

More present opening and confusion by the adults on how the children’s toys go together!

In this family, even the grandpuppy gets presents on Christmas! Although I’m not sure if this was a present for Bandit the dog or Scrappy, our cousin!

Good. Moose got it figured out. Well, his dad did at least!

Got to start off the digital addiction young, right? My brother and my godson, with the exact same expression as they start into their devices.

As much fun as everyone else was having, I wasn’t feeling very well on Christmas. I picked up a cold along the way and was just kind of feeling gross. Husband was thoughtful enough to document my feelings.

But what made me feel a little bit better was the sweatshirts the family got for the trip down to Disney this upcoming week. Everyone has one with a number and their nickname on the back! They’re happy flight hoodies!

Do you have the Green Pickle tradition in your family? We do. And it is more often better to watch the craziness looking for the pickle on the tree than it is to participate! I watch from a safe distance, preferably on the couch with a glass of wine.

We never did find the silly thing, my MIL had to show us where it was! No one got the extra gift this year, anyway. But then it was just in time for more food! Traditional fare this time, but the best was my pumpkin gingerbread trifle. YUM.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year’s to you and yours! I hope 2012 brings you love and prosperity the whole year long.

What 2012 Has in Store For Us

2011-12-19T18:13:00.001-06:00

I’m going to be a single woman for the first four months of January – and I’m kind of excited about it! Sort of.

In Husband’s journey to his JD/MBA, the opportunity to study European Law in France during one of his law semesters popped up. He mentioned it to me two years ago, I think, in the middle of 1L. The program would set him apart from his fellow law students nicely, and he would be able to take the classes in French, thereby increasing his knowledge of the language and the law in another country that might help him get a job after graduation, possibly in Europe! These are wins, people.

Cut to today, when we are actually preparing for him to leave for three months in France. Paris, to be exact. He’s studying a local university for that time, with hopes for an internship after the classes end. I’m trying to figure out how to get over there and visit him, believe you me.

I know many families deal with long separations, as some of my cousins in the military have had to deal with for much longer than three months. But to be fair, he could be gone for as long as seven months with only two weeks’ break in the middle of that, should he get the internship. That’s a long time!

So yes, I’m excited about being on my own for a bit of 2012. It’s going to be hard to be away from him. When he studied in Hong Kong last year for his MBA and that was only for two weeks. By the end of that time, it was starting to get tough. I was so happy when I picked him up from the airport, even though he was crazy exhausted. I can only imagine how happy I’ll be when he comes home from this long trip.

Please remind me of this excited to be on my own bit when I’m complaining in the middle of March that there’s no one to snuggle with as I fall asleep, no one to take out the trash except for me, no one to go on an impromptu date with all those coupons I have for a night out, no one to come home to. Come to think of it, Husband may come home and find a cat in his place!

Bringing This Year to a Close

2011-12-12T21:29:00.001-06:00

I mentioned a few days ago about my proposed break in the smart phone addiction. Here’s hoping the mindless checking of my email will be able to subside soon, if I just concentrate on not obsessively hitting that refresh button. Given that we only have 19 days left in 2011 (19 days?! Where the heck did 2011 go?! Wasn’t I just ringing in the New Year in Europe?), I figured I’d look forward to 2012 and lay out some New Year’s resolutions.

Project Life – thanks to Sonya at A Day in the Life, I’m SO excited to scrapbook my daily life. Because scrapbooking the traditional way was just NOT working for me. So I’m going to take a picture a day in 2012 which will be a great way to show my dear husband how I spent my time while he was studying international law in Paris. More to come on that later.
To curb my digital obsession and to live more in the immediate moment.
Scrapbooking – seriously, I’m going to start my Disney trip scrapbooks. I printed all 1,000 pictures from five different trips and I need to start laying them out. I may have to buy some additional paper before doing so, but the goal is to start laying them out so I can get going on this silly project!

I’m NOT putting on this list the traditional “lose some weight” because guess what? I’ve already lost 15 pounds since early September. Seriously. Yay for Weight Watchers! It really does work. Thanks to Katie at Loves of Life for her amazing inspiration because it was watching her weight loss journey that forced me to get off my butt and MAKE TIME FOR ME. I’ve forced myself to work out every other day and have been doing that pretty consistently for the past few weeks. And it’s actually working! 10 more pounds to go for the goal weight, so I guess a continuation of the weight loss should be on the list too. I’ll post pictures soon when I can actually take a minute to find my camera and take some!

So that’s how I plan to make my way through 2012. It’ll be a great one!

Double Take

2011-12-11T16:06:00.001-06:00

Today at Mass, the priest mentioned something in passing that really stuck with me.

He said that in the past ten years or so, he has seen more and more of a switch in the front of Christmas cards – they went from pictures of the Holy Family to pictures of ourselves.

We talk about putting the “Christ” back in Christmas – and how to keep that central in these holiday times. At work, when I am supposed to say Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas, it irks me. I specifically give the later greeting whenever I can because I think it’s important.

So what the priest said about our Christmas cards stuck with me. Because guess what has always been on the front of the cards I send out each December? A picture of me and husband. I always make it a point to have a card that says Merry Christmas rather than Happy Holidays or Wishing You a something or another because that seems to be important. But putting myself on the card has always made sense.

And it just made me think. Why do I feel the need to have myself on the cards? Or kids on the cards when children make their way into our lives? It definitely makes one think, doesn’t it?

Hold the Phone! Literally.

2011-12-08T19:51:00.001-06:00

“Be with the friends who are here!”

I’m a bit addicted to my iPhone. If you’ve ever met me, or interacted with me on Twitter or Facebook, you know how quickly I respond to those things. I think it’s because the phone is ALWAYS in my hand. Just ask my husband.

I used to think he was just overreacting, that he just HAPPENED to look at me when I was checking my email, but that EVERY OTHER MOMENT I wasn’t looking at its fascinatingly bright little screen.

Recently, I’m starting to believe he’s right. I am addicted. I’m on the thing ALL THE TIME. If there’s that little red bubble on one of the icons, I gotta check it so it can be cleared. I don’t have push notifications on my email to save battery, so I’m obsessively refreshing the email client to see if anyone else had responded to me. Again, I have a problem!

I think for the new year, I need to divorce myself from this crazy addition. Now I’m not doing anything extreme like giving it up, but I am going to start thinking twice before I randomly pick up my phone. I’ll check Twitter and Facebook when I’m in the bathroom rather than when I’m sitting next to my husband. I am going to be truly present in every situation, rather than completely absorbed by my electronic device.

I Remembered to Put Out My Shoe!

2011-12-06T18:27:00.001-06:00

Did you remember to put out your shoe this morning?

I did!

And this is what was in my shoe when I came home today…

Ever since I can remember, December 6 was always a fun day. We would leave out our shoe for St. Nicklaus to come by and fill it with goodies. As you can see from the picture above, I should have picked a bigger shoe! I would have gotten more stuff!

St. Nick brought me adorable slippers with PENGUINS on them! Plus my favorite Wonka scrumdiddlyumptious bar and hazelnut coffee. YUM. The food is not on my Weight Watchers diet, but I can probably sneak a few bites here and there.

Sidenote: when I say that St. Nick filled my shoe with goodies, I really mean my awesome husband. He surprised me with the fun stuff when I got home from a long day at work. Ain’t he a sweetie?

And God Blessed the Broken Road, Part 6

2011-12-05T18:26:00.001-06:00

To catch up, you can read Our Love Story here.

So we had the typical first date at the on-campus Mexican restaurant. And it was awesome. That was in early October, 2005. What happened next was simply a whirlwind.

We hung out almost every night of the week, studying together over lattes, going to campus activities, doing the typical senior in college while dating thing. He met my friends.

This is our first picture together! Weren’t we babies?!

October passed, and then into November, we had to begin to deal with holidays. He stayed in St. Louis with his family for Thanksgiving, when I went home to Texas to tell my parents about this amazing new guy I met. They were happy and eager to meet him. November also had a lot of rehearsals for me, as I was cast in a studio show that would open in December. It would be the first time that future-husband would see me act, which was kind of cool [I say that, but he remembers seeing me act way back in our freshman year, I think! So not technically the first, but the first that I would remember].

My mom flew in to see my show, and so he got to meet one of the parental units. She loved him, and I checked off that one from the checklist of good things to have in a guy – the parents like him! At some point this month, future-husband suggested I go with him to Disney World for the New Year’s holiday. Unfortunately, I had foot surgery scheduled for that same time period back home and the idea of being pushed around the World in a wheelchair with a broken foot didn’t really sound like my idea of a vacation. This was before I was such a Disney fan as I am now. In fact, if I had agreed and went with him on that vacation, we may have even had our wedding/honeymoon there in the World, because the minute I got there I fell in love!

December was also the time we started to shop for rings. Only two months in, we knew it was right. We had “the talk” and said I love you a few weeks before and the idea that spending the rest of our lives together just made perfect sense to both of us. So a-ring shopping we went!

To be continued…

A December Weekend in iPhone Pictures

2011-12-04T20:43:00.001-06:00

It seems like I’ve had a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. But after seeing a Christmas review on Thursday night and then all this wonderful holiday activities this weekend, I am fully in Christmas-mode!

Saturday morning was the annual cookie walk in historic Kimmswick! It’s a fun little town with adorable shops and a great restaurant! We paid $15 to get a cookbook and a cookie at each one of 30 shops around the town, like the one below. Who doesn’t want a cookie from the Cozy Cottage?

When we got to town and picked up our cookie bag, we put in our name at the Blue Owl – and two hours later, we were able to be seated for lunch and of course, pie!!! We liked their pie even before Oprah picked it for her magazine.

“What if the hokey pokey really is what it’s all about?” This question keeps me up at night.

I love this way of displaying a street number on the front porch! I think I posted this same design last year but I really like it. So cute!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday afternoon was our tree shopping date! Hubs and I headed to Ted Drewes for some frozen custard and awesome tree pickings.

This was the one! Just the right height for the apartment ceiling and bushy but not too poofy. Perfect!

We also bought a real wreath for the front door, to which I added the pinecones and bow from the real wreath we bought a few years ago. It saved us about $15 to buy an undecorated one this time around!

Finally, the tree! Hubs had the great idea of adding our lit Mickey head that usually goes in our front window to the top of the tree this year. It brings our Disney fandom to the forefront, most definitely!

You may notice the multi-colored lights this year. They’re new LED strands that we bought at Target today. Hubs requested the new colored ones because that’s what he remembers as tradition from his childhood. In my usual Jessica-ness and barreling through without asking questions, we had been using a fake tree with white lights for years because that’s what my family’s tradition was. I never really asked Husband which kind of tree/lights he would like to have. So we’re incorporating his family’s traditions this year. I really should have asked sooner!

Something’s Wrong with This Photo

2011-12-02T21:34:00.001-06:00

Can you tell what it is?

I’ll give you a hint. It’s a photo book based on the trip to Spain last Christmas.

Do you see the date clearly printed on the front of the book?

That would be this year. Not last year. When the trip happened.

UGH. Anyone have a good Shutterfly code so I can get it reprinted? (Sorry, Mom. Looks like I wasted the free code you gave me!)

And that just goes to show you that THREE proofreaders are sometimes not enough.

Planning for the Inevitable

2011-11-30T20:12:00.001-06:00

So I’m a weird person. I think we all can agree on that.

I mean, I reorganize my clothing closet for fun on a Wednesday night, and I actually order a book called “Death for Beginners” to put my affairs in order at the ripe ole age of 28.

After my father’s death, I realized that I needed to put things together just in case something ever happened to me. Now, my husband is an incredibly smart man but dealing with the affairs of a house while trying to plan a funeral is a horrible thing to put on the shoulders of a surviving spouse. I don’t want him to have to spend hours figuring out which bank account the rent comes from and what bills are auto-paid and which ones have to be authorized. I want an organized transition, as much as that is possible. My dad did that for my mom, and it was really helpful.

However much I thought I should take care of it, I kept putting it off. It’s REALLY hard to think about how your spouse will deal with the affairs of the household when you’re gone. Because, um, you’d be dead. Well, either that, or in a coma or some other awful thing that I really don’t want to think about.

BUT I have to do it. I have to. It’s not fair to leave your affairs in complete disarray.

When my grandma passed in September, she had everything organized. She told my mom where the important file was and even where the “deed” to the family cemetery plot was (it was right where she said it would be, written in 1929 on a piece of cardboard. We loved it!). She had put everything together when she got remarried, because she knew that it would be easier for her family if it was all organized. There’s still a lot to do but at least we know where all the titles are and what kinds of accounts are out there.

So that leads me to my random Sunday afternoon of planning my funeral and organizing my affairs into a “Hit by a Bus File.” I read Death for Beginners: Your No-Nonsense, Money-Saving Guide to Planning for the Inevitable by Karen Jones which is actually an amusing book (and a quick read) that lays out all the options of how to handle your body after your die, what the options are for a funeral and so on. It is kind of a hard read to think about that being YOU they’re talking about burying but I feel more comfortable about the decisions for my final resting place now. I know I’m only 28 and these choices may change, but should I get hit by a bus tomorrow, my husband will not have to remember what song I wanted to be sung at my funeral. (It’s “How Beautiful” in case you’re wondering.)

Because that’s the thing – this book’s website has a full PDF download of a huge planning document. It has a checklist of the different options of burial, cremation, donation to science, all that! It has a place to record which songs to be sung and readings to be done at the funeral. Then, it has pages and pages of prompts to list things like bank accounts, passwords, financial information, what to include in your obituary, who to contact to inform them of your death, insurance information and other information like leases on random properties and more. It is a complete list that printed out, filled out, and placed in an important place (remember to tell someone about it, too!) it organizes all your affairs in a way that won’t burden your loved ones when they are grieving. In the case of a coma or other horrible thing that makes you unable to run your house, it’s also really helpful for someone to know that information to keep your affairs going until you can return to them.

I wasn’t compensated for this, but someone on Twitter asked me to post about it, and I think it’s really important to have things organized like this. Take an afternoon, print it out, and fill in the blanks. If something happens, you’ll feel better knowing that your loved ones can have all the information they need.

I Would Love to Take the Credit, But…

2011-11-28T22:22:00.001-06:00

Meghan at Unintended Housewife posted a comment on my Thanksgiving recap yesterday about those acorn treats and how she wanted the recipe. So I must be honest – I did not make them! My cousin’s wife who hosted us for the fabulous meal was the one responsible. But I sure ate my weight in those, along with the baked brie.

I remembered seeing a tutorial on Pinterest about these same goodies, so I’ll link to Kristen at We are THAT Family for a great tutorial.

But there are two points that my cousin told me about how she did hers. She had a bag of regular kisses AND a bag of cherry cordial ones and used both bags. I’ll admit that I’m not a huge fan of cherry cordials but they added a nice element to the peanut butter and chocolate.

Also, since she’s a real baker, she ended up using icing (I think) to adhere the peanut butter sandwiches to the kisses. She whipped it up real quick and that was easier for her.

For someone who is looking for an adorable dessert to bring to a party, I would recommend these from the guest’s perspective – they were YUMMY and I could not keep my hand out of them all day long. Kristen and of course my cousin’s wife seemed to think they were pretty easy.

Happy acorn making!

Thanksgiving Recap

2011-11-27T21:26:00.001-06:00

This was the first Thanksgiving without my Grandma. My only cousin on my mom’s side and his wife hosted us (his mom, my mom, my brother and my husband) for Thanksgiving this year and did a dynamite job. They still had some of the photos we displayed at the funeral up on their buffet and it made me smile the Grandma’s high school picture (the bigger one) and her second wedding day (the smaller one to the right of the big one) were in a prominent place and reminded us that she was still with us.

My mom bought the tablecloth and napkin rings last year and my cousin’s wife reused them this time around! But she upped the ante with the centerpiece. Those silk flowers were GORGEOUS. I don’t know where she found such good ones!

I almost skipped dinner to eat the baked brie. It was magical.

It was such a great combination of food, family, football and late night shopping. I love Thanksgiving!

Missouri Border War–A Thanksgiving Tradition

2011-11-26T21:27:00.001-06:00

My family loves football, even though none of us went to a school that had a particularly strong football tradition. In fact, my and Husband’s alma mater of dear St. Louis University, has been undefeated in football since 1949. Hehe. That might be because we haven’t played a football game since then!

In any case, the past few years that we’ve been spending Thanksgiving in Kansas City with my mom’s family, some contingency of the group has gone to the Border War – the Mizzou/Kansas football game. Sometimes it’s warm and sometimes it’s not. Today, it was not!

We had fun at the game, but the thing that got me was the Kansas fans. They were just plain rude. Now, I’m all for cheering on your team and booing the refs for a particularly bad call, but this was beyond that. We were sitting in the Kansas section unfortunately, but still, there were some other Missouri fans around us.

During a M-I-Z-Z-O-U cheer, we heard “sucks” right after our ‘Z-O-U’. This actually happened a couple of times before I turned around to the Kansas fans and said that it was really sad that they were doing that and that WE didn’t do that during their cheers. They had a young kid with them, which is encouraging the next generation to be as rude as the parents are.

I overheard them a few minutes later saying then why did our fans boo their marching band. I told my brother who was sitting next to me that it’s wrong to boo the alma mater, the other team’s band or cheerleaders.

When I was a cheerleader in high school, I feel like we were held to a higher standard than what was displayed at Arrowhead stadium today. We took a knee when a player from the other team had an injury, and we shook hands with the other team at the end of the game.

Am I missing something? When did it become ok to boo the marching band?! Let’s stay classy and give a nice round of applause on a good play and listen to the band as they’re marching on the field in 42 degree weather. And for the love of God, let’s get excited for that poor twirler in the middle of the field wearing only a leotard!

It’s only a game, after all.

A Thanksgiving Law

2011-11-23T20:39:00.001-06:00

Tonight at dinner with Mom, Brother, my only cousin on Mom’s side and his wife, we were delighted to hear Mom’s philosophy on Thanksgiving meals.

I give it to you in one law and its corollary, so you may enjoy your Thanksgiving tomorrow.

Mom’s Thanksgiving Law One:

There are two types of people in this world – those who want a traditional holiday meal each year, with the same dishes the same way, every time; and then there are those who want to spice it up each year and make changes to the menu.

Mom’s Thanksgiving Corollary:

In addition to the above, there are also two other types of people – those who plan and cook the meal; and those who eat the meal. Those who eat the meal can’t complain about the choices made by the type of people above, because THEY DIDN’T COOK IT.

Mom also told us that there’s a third type of person under the corollary – that’s her, because she offered to plan and cook and do everything but was told by my cousin’s wife that it was ok, and my cousin’s wife would cook everything at her house this year. So given that she offered, Mom has the right to offer her opinion on dish selection, even though she was not involved with the cooking.

Thank you, skinny margaritas at 54th Street Bar and Grill on the day before Thanksgiving, for giving us this law. We will ever be appreciative of the knowledge!

I Think There’s Something in the Water

2011-11-21T21:52:00.001-06:00

You know the expression, when it rains, it pours?

I feel like this it totally the case the past few weeks. Two girls at the office, two family members and countless blog friends. All have announced that they are expecting a precious addition to their families sometime later this year or next.

Everyone says that there is no “right” or “good” time to have a child. I’ve been told you are never “ready” – you never have saved up enough money, or have a big enough house, or done enough adventuring before a baby comes.

I know that we are still a one-income family with a full-time law student. I know that I do not want to be pregnant when Husband is studying hard core for the bar exam (and possibly taking it twice, depending on the job offers!). I absolutely know that we need to have more savings before bringing another human being into this world. I hear they like to eat, and I’d like to be able to provide enough of that for him or her!

But every time a blog friends posts their sonogram, or every time the cousin emails me the update from the doctor, or I see the gal at work waddling down the hallway with her adorable baby bump peeking out from her dress, I think… why do we have to wait again?

Someday, that’ll be me. Someday.

A Song Brings Me Back to My Favorite Place

2011-11-14T21:46:00.001-06:00

I follow a lot of blogs. My husband would say too many, in fact. I think I may have a problem.

But that’s not the point of this blog. I wanted to tell you what I found in one of my awesome blog feeds a few days ago.

Kristin from Couponing to Disney has great ideas on how you can save using coupons and other deals, and thereby saving enough money to make your trip to Disney to possible. She also posts random fun tidbits about Disney and I just can’t get enough of sites like that! A few days ago, she posted about free ringtones that were Disney related. Free and Disney? Sign me up!

She gave the link to Myxer.com and a few users who have created/uploaded (?) songs to be used as ringtones and even text tones! They’re free and if you have an iPhone, there’s a way to open them straight into iTunes and have them appear in that ringtones tab. Copy them over to the phone when its connected to the computer and bam, they’re there for you to use! You could also have the ringtone texted but I wanted to be sure to have the back up in iTunes, just in case.

I found some amazing songs to use for Christmas and Halloween but right now? My general tone is In the Big Blue World… from Finding Nemo the Musical, one of my favorites. And when my husband calls me, it sings me some of the Illuminations soundtrack, which is Husband’s favorite nighttime show at the World. For my mother-in-law, it’s the Celebration Theme from 2009, which almost makes me cry every time I hear it. Finally, I gave my mom the ringtone from Impressions de France, which is Debussy – it really reminded me of her.

I don’t want to assign any more specific ringtones to other favorite callers because I’m getting used to the specific tones right now! I wanted to be able to determine who was calling based on the ring and not have to look at the phone. That will help me out because most of the time, one of those people above calls me while I’m in the car, and I have my Bluetooth headset in and it would be great to know who’s calling without grabbing the phone. I really want one of them to call me so I can hear how the ringtones are working! But seriously, guys, don’t do it right now – you’ll call me at some point, I know.

Do you have specific ringtones for specific callers or simply a general tone for everyone who calls you?

*this blog was not sponsored by anybody – I just like the links!*

Isn’t Technology Supposed to Make Things Easier?

2011-11-08T20:25:00.001-06:00

This has nothing to do with my problem, but the app cupcakes are so cute!

I was all set to blog a long ranting post about my iPhone and the problems I’ve been having with syncing my Google calendar there with my online calendar.

Dear Husband and I use Google Calendar and Google Docs to keep organized – we each can see each other’s calendar and know when someone is in class, or when someone is free one night to set up a date with another couple or what have you. It really comes in handy!

So when my iPhone calendar wasn’t syncing with my online calendar after I added an item on the phone, it was SO frustrating. I’m addicted to my phone (seriously, I am – just ask my husband!) and when it doesn’t work properly, I do NOT like it. I was not a happy Jessica.

But the oh-so-smart Google help forums helped me out. Turns out the Google really does know EVERYTHING. A recent update somehow changed one of my settings and calendar items were being added to the calendar on the phone and not the exchange calendar. That means that it wasn’t showing up on the online calendar as well as the phone. But by changing the calendar it’s posting to when I add the item on a drop down menu, it works!

Just like, voila, it’s fixed!

And because I was so successful in fixing my phone, I’m going to spend the rest of the evening updating my podcasts for listening to at work and folding laundry after that’s done. Don’t I live a glamorous life?

The Holy Grail of Shoes

2011-11-06T22:11:00.001-06:00

While scanning my Google Reader earlier today, I noticed a coupon for JC Penney’s that ended today. Apparently, they’re having a big ole sale – and it was a BIG one!

I fell in love with these boots. Like, IN LOVE. They’re perfect! Flat-ish, wide open calf opening, and that buckle? Actually adjustable! It can go from leggings to jeans – which makes them so flexible. YES.

I needed the black ones. I already have a pair of brown boots albeit with heels. But I couldn’t get the website to show me what they looked like in black so I could make a decision. I needed to try them on anyway because I can’t seem to buy shoes online. I know you can send them back for an exchange but then I wouldn’t have them right away! So I ran up to the closest store but of course, they didn’t have them. Figures.

I had enough time to try another store before picking up my Christmas cards at Costco and making it to my 6 pm audition. So of course I had to run over there and check to see if they had them in my size.

The stores were crazy busy (why in the world is everyone at the mall these days?) but I found the shoe department pretty quickly. I tried on the brown boots because they didn’t have the black ones in my size.

That’s when the problems started – I couldn’t pass up these brown ones! They were SO perfect on and did I mention? They were on sale for $39.99. AND I had a $10 off coupon. SCORE.

So I treated myself to a pair of black and brown boots, each for $30 – less than half of what one pair was priced originally!

They’ll be coming directly to my house within the week … and I can’t wait!

A Halloween Twist

2011-11-01T08:26:00.000-05:00

On Facebook yesterday, I noticed a story posted by our local NPR affiliate about a twist on the tradition of trick or treating.

Well, in St. Louis, at least (and a cousin told me they did this in Kansas City, too), the tradition has it that you must have a joke ready when you knock on a door to get candy. My father introduced me to this tradition when I was very young, going out trick or treating in my neighborhood, plus Grandma’s short street. We had to go there in addition to our own neighborhood because she always liked to see us dressed up in our costumes, whatever they were. Besides, she always had a huge bag of candy for us – who wouldn’t want to pass that up?

For weeks ahead of Halloween, when we were debating what I would wore that year, the conversation would inevitably turn to what joke I would offer in exchange for my candy. Living in St. Louis, there was never a question whether or not I would have a joke – just a matter of which one I would use that year. Dad would always put in his two cents and suggests corny jokes as really good options.

When we moved to Texas and I prepared my costume and jokes as normal, I had no idea that the tradition did not extend south of the Mason-Dixon line. I had my joke ready for the first house, but when I knocked on the door, the family inside simply opened up, dumped candy into my pillow case, smiled and sent me on my way.

The first few times this happened, we were awfully confused. Did these people just not understand what Halloween was all about? They were supposed to ask for a joke if the kids didn’t automatically launch into it once the door was cracked open a bit.

After a few experiences followed the first we realized this totally wasn’t the tradition in Texas. It was actually kind of sad the next year to organize a costume without worrying about a joke. Dad still tried to get us prepared with a bad joke, just in case, but we were never asked for one. It sort of felt like the end of an era. Sad in a way.

So what about you – do you have a joke telling tradition for Halloween? Or is it just a midwestern thing?

From the Mouths of Babes

2011-10-31T08:39:00.000-05:00

At my Grandma’s funeral, my mom’s cousin gave the sermon and talked about a book where a little boy goes to Heaven and comes back to tell us all about it. The title of the book says it all – “Heaven is For Real.”

That’s not an affiliate link up there, I just wanted to include it if you were interested in reading more about the book.

When you lose someone close to you, you rely on your faith to get you through. You remember that your loved one is now in a better place, in Heaven, where there is no pain. Reading through this four-year-old’s account of what Heaven is like made me laugh through the tears. I don’t want to give away any details if you end up reading the book, but wow, it makes you rethink every notion you have about Heaven and definitely reinforces the others.

For those who are grieving, or just curious how Heaven really stacks up against our imagination, this is a great read. And I wasn’t paid to say that.

Road Trip to South Bend

2011-10-29T08:12:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday, the day after the Cardinals game, Mom flew up to St. Louis so we could drive up to South Bend on Friday for a Notre Dame football game! I was so excited – I had never seen the Fighting Irish play in person before!

We’ve always cheered for Mizzou when they play, because that was the nearest college football to Dad growing up. But there’s something about Notre Dame – that’s where Dad met Mom in law school. So when Mom said she had an extra ticket to the big ND-USC game, I jumped at the chance to go. Road trip, here we come!

After six hours on the road, we met up with Mom’s friends and headed towards campus for the pep rally on the Irish Green.

They even had a trojan horse with an Irish army inside! Hehe.

The mascot was a guy dressed up in a Leprechaun outfit, complete with a shillelagh! Awesome.

Even though we were all bundled up, it actually wasn’t as cold as we had been warned it was! For the pep rally, we didn’t wear our long underwear and we were fine. The next day, however, since we knew we wouldn’t be back to the hotel in between walking around campus, the tail gate and the game, we opted to wear our long underwear the whole day. We were actually hot and ended up carrying around our coats rather than wearing them. But I’ll take that over 30 degrees and raining, any day!

So the next day started out with breakfast at the hotel and then walking around campus. Man, I know that I visited this place when I was looking at colleges and I know that I loved my experience at SLU, but this would have been an awesome place to go to school. Other than the cold. And the snow.

Who doesn’t want to see Touchdown Jesus giving you the ok to run for a touchdown in the stadium? This mural is painted on the side of the main library on campus and from one side of the football stadium, you can see Jesus lifting his hands up like a referee, hence, Touchdown Jesus!

Notre Dame also has a beautiful administration building with a big gold dome on top. I think Mom said that the statue is of Our Lady of the Lake, the full name of the college – Notre Dame du Lac.

After a good walk around campus and a trip to the Grotto and the lake, we headed to my mom’s friend’s tailgate. I have never been to a real tailgate and it was a blast! But it made me wish that I drank beer.

Finally, it was time to head to the stadium and find our seats.

Once we sat down and I had this look over the field, I burst into tears. My dad would have so loved to have been there to see his Fighting Irish take on USC! It’s a big rivalry and so everyone was really pumped up. There are still things that make me hurt so intensely that my dad isn’t there to experience with me. After the Cards won the first game of the World Series this year, I wanted to pick up the phone and tell him how awesome it was. It feels like a sucker punch when I realize that I can’t do that anymore.

But I had my mom there and we got some good pictures. It was good to be there with her.

I’ve always been a sucker for marching bands – and the Fighting Irish was no exception! Their lines were perfectly straight and the sound was spectacular.

We were given rally towels when we walked in and the student section really got into using them – it was neat to watch!

The game was pretty good to watch, even though our team didn’t do as well as we had hoped. But we got to see the band form the ND logo during halftime!

Notre Dame lost but we had a blast anyway. What more could you want from a road trip weekend?

Fall Scarf Swap–the Reveal!

2011-10-28T08:15:00.000-05:00

Oh how I love getting mail. And I love shopping. So blog swaps are just up my alley – I get to do both!

I signed up for the Fall Scarf Swap at The Adventures of Mrs. Smith and was paired with Rebecca of I Wanna Be a Domestic Goddess.

I forgot to take a picture of her scarf before I mailed it, but I’m sure she’s going to post about it soon. I wrapped it up in pink tissue paper and sent it off, while waiting for mine to arrive in the mail.

My husband brought me the mail yesterday, while I was home sick, and sure enough, I had a package from Rebecca! I was too excited to find the real camera before I tore into the packaging.

My scarves were wrapped up in pink tissue paper too! Even cuter were the cupcake stickers on there! Love it.

The scarf on the left is actually more pink in real life, but that’s an iPhone camera for you. I love the patterned scarf because I don’t think I would ever pick that one out for me, but seeing it in person, I think I’m going to find LOTS of outfits to wear it with!

I so love getting things in the mail and participating in this blog swap was so much fun. I hope that there are more coming up – besides getting things for oneself, it’s fun to find other bloggers out there through the swap.

Check out the other lovely ladies who participated at the scarf reveal post.

World Series–that’s a winner!

2011-10-27T11:14:00.001-05:00

That’s one to cross off the bucket list – watching a World Series game in Baseball Heaven.

It was the best game and not just because we won!

“I’m here for the toasted ravioli” – nice sign, even for a Rangers fan!

Scott McCreery, winner of American Idol, sang the National Anthem. I thought he did a really great job!

Our seats in the bleachers were awesome. I brought a blanket to sit on and one to sit under. It was just annoying when the guy next to me went and got a beer – because I got really cold with the wind blowing and him not there to block it!

We were up and down all night but on the final pop up that the Cards caught to win the game, it was so worth it.

Now they’re looking to win it at Busch Stadium – I’m going to quote the Rally Squirrel and tell you to “Go Nuts!”

Go Cards!

2011-10-19T13:37:00.003-05:00

I have been a Cardinals fan since I was a very little girl.

See? I have proof!

Ok, so I borrowed Dad’s jersey back then. But I got one of my own soon after. I lived in St. Louis when growing up, from age two until about third grade when we headed to Texas. San Antonio, Houston and Arlington to be exact. Baseball was always around, but the Cards were always the favorite, even when we watched the local teams.

The entire family has been saying these past few days that my dad has a hand in this year’s World Series contestants. You see, the Cards have always been his team, after growing up here. There’s even a family story that Dad was pulled out of seventh grade (I think) religion class by his uncle because somehow they had scored 1964 World Series tickets at the Busch Stadium II. It’s built up to lore and Dad loved telling that story.

But when we moved to Texas, it was ok to route for the Rangers because they were the American League team and didn’t directly compete with our beloved Cardinals that often.

It took Dad a year and a few months since getting to Heaven, but he was finally able to get St. Peter’s ear and arrange for this match up. I know that he’s sitting up there, score card in hand, pencil at the ready, a cold O’Douls next to him, ready for that first pitch at Busch Stadium III.

And his daughter will be in the bleachers, screaming her lungs out, knowing he would have LOVED to be there with her.

Fall Scarf Swap!

2011-10-07T19:29:00.001-05:00

My good blog friend Mrs. Jones posted on Twitter about a blog swap coming up. It’s for fall scarves!!! I absolutely loved participating in my first swap, when I get an awesome keychain from New Teacher Wife. You can see my post about it here.

So when I saw Mrs. Smith’s blog about the swap, I definitely wanted to participate. If you love scarves as much as I do, please join in! I promise that it will be fun. Who doesn’t like shopping for gifts and then getting one in the mail in return? I love getting mail – but only when it’s a present.

Go sign up now! I promise it’ll be fun. Really!

The Car Saga

2011-10-06T07:15:00.001-05:00

This is a continuation of the car saga.

Last Sunday, we had to take the car to the shop AGAIN because it was doing the same scary check-engine-light-on and shaking-uncontrollably and losing-quarts-of-oil-at-a-time-over-few-miles. NOT FUN. Monday morning, we were told the car needs a new engine. After $2,400 for the first fix in January and then other smaller fixes over the past few months and countless mornings when I stopped by to have them record the oil level in an attempt to discover the source of the leak, the mechanic decided a new engine was the only solution. We were losing compression in the other cylinders and without a solution, the problem would just keep coming back throughout the whole engine and so, we should just replace it.

Then Tuesday morning happened and I was off to Kansas City in a rental car for the week. I went back and forth with my cousin (a car guy) and his friend (a mechanic) and a second cousin (a big motorcycle/car guy) and finally at the end of the week, decided that we did indeed need the new engine but that we needed a second opinion before spending that kind of money.

Husband was a doll and dealt with getting my car from the one shop to the other shop earlier this week to let them do their thing and give us the second opinion – it was the same as the first. A new engine, here we come!

Because the rental car was due back Tuesday, and we couldn’t get up to the airport then, I submitted a Priceline quote for a new (read: cheaper) rental car for the rest of the time the car would be in the shop. I picked it up yesterday morning. And then promptly forgot how to drive a car.

The rental car I got was a Fiat 500. It was that or a Versa and Husband said I should get the Fiat because it was fun and small and he thought it would be fun to drive. Ok, so that’s what we picked. I got into the car and tested all the buttons and figured out how to adjust the mirrors – you know, the usual.

Husband then took off, and I drove the car off the rental car lot and thought everything was fine. When I headed towards the highway, I noticed that the car was awfully loud – as in, sounded like a diesel in my tiny little car. The engine was really close to the dashboard, though, since the car was so small, and I just thought that was it. But when I increased my speed, it got louder and louder and almost red-lined when I was getting towards 40 mph. VERY strange. I called Husband and told him what was going on and he said it must be because the engine was small and he was sure it was fine.

It was very hard getting the engine up to speed, and I noticed the dial in the middle of the dash did keep going from “1” to “2” to “3” when I pushed it. The gear shift also had a “+” and “-” next to the “D”. When I accidentally hit one of those, it changed the numbers in the dial. So perhaps I’m accidentally driving a manual? This is probably not a good thing. In order to get to work, I kept hitting the gear shift into 2 or 3 to keep it from redlining when going over 40 mph. I arrived at work in one piece, thank goodness.

After some Googling, I realized that the Fiat 500 has a fancy dual engine – it can be automatic or semiautomatic. But NO WHERE could I find instructions on HOW TO SWITCH IT from one to the other. Even a call to the front desk of the lovely rental car company didn’t solve the problem (her solution if I wasn’t happy with the car? Bring it back and they’ll switch it out). If you car can go from automatic to SOMETHING OTHER THAN AUTOMATIC, perhaps your front desk clerks should be able to explain that to a driver. Or maybe leave the manual in the car. Something.

Husband came up to my office to switch cars with me because I was so worried I was going to strip the engine or do something horrible to the poor car. Besides, he wanted that particular car in the first place, and he was excited about driving it. In about two seconds of him driving the car – the time it takes to pull out of the spot and go around the line of cars parked in the lot – he rolled down the window and called out to me that he had fixed it.

Let me explain with the picture above – see the D? See the extra area to the right of the D where you can put the gear shift? There’s also the plus and minus there. To put the car into semiautomatic mode and be able to change gears without messing with a clutch (which the car doesn’t have), you put the gear shift as close to the D as possible, so you can hit up and down to change gears. To be an automatic? You pull down and go around those other gears but you DON’T push it closer to the D.

Now I’m a smart lady, I think. My husband was able to figure it out in seconds. What in the world is wrong with a car maker/rental company that they wouldn’t make this easier to figure out?!

Goodbyes Don’t Get Easier

2011-10-04T21:56:00.001-05:00

Things have been quiet around here, I know. I’m sure you kept checking in, expecting to see the continuation of the love story of me and my dear Law School Husband. Unfortunately, a bit after I published last Tuesday’s post, I was at work, preparing for a big event, when I received a phone call from my mother. She was in Kansas City, with my grandmother her mother, who was now in the hospital and not expected to last 48 hours.

After sobbing a bit in my boss’ office, I made the decision to leave the event in my capable collegues’ hands and high tailed it across the state to be with my family.

You see, my mother is one of two daughters of my grandmother. I have one cousin – so my grandmother has one granddaughter and two grandsons. We are a very tight knit family on that side. My cousin recently bought a house near my grandma and near his mother’s apartment so everyone could be closer together. They spend a lot of time together.

I am so grateful that I was able to get a rental car quickly (the Saturn is in the shop again, which is a story for another day), prep my coworkers about the event and drive across the state so quickly (I may have broken a few speed limits along the way).

When I got to the hospital, I found her room and was able to see her while she was still lucid. It was truly a blessing to be able to say goodbye in person.

We spent the afternoon chatting in between her morphine shots and her dosing, and I got to spend time with my cousin and mother in the hospital room. It was a late night but my brother and I finally went to hotel room to get some sleep, but early Wednesday morning my mother called us back to the hospital. Grandma was in a lot of pain, having even more trouble breathing and she was thinking that she might not last the day.

At one point on Wednesday, the pain management doctor suggested a test to determine where the bad pain was so they could get a better pain medicine for her to deal with it. When the admitting doctor explained the path that it would take us down, and we asked Grandma what she wanted, she said as clear as day - “I want to go to heaven.”

And so she would, a few hours later. Those might have been the last words she said, as we think back on it. She was given a bed in the hospice wing of another hospital and transferred around dinnertime on Wednesday. We got settled in the new hospital room after dinner and she started going downhill even faster.

By 10 pm that evening, the hospice nurse suggested we call anyone who might want to say good bye at that point – she was going to be leaving us in just mere hours, according to them. Her husband of 14 years, my step-grandfather, was able to say his goodbyes by the nightly news.

And then, thirty minutes into Thursday, she passed into her Eternal Reward. She was reunited with her first husband, my grandfather, her twin sister and all her other siblings, and of course, my father. We can only imagine what a reunion they are having right now!

My apologies in the horrible Photoshop job, but privacy, ya know

Sunday morning, we piled into a town car from the funeral home and made the trek to Northern Missouri to inter my grandmother’s ashes in the family plot. Her family has relations in the cemetery that go back to the homesteading of the state – we even found their plots. I love that I can walk through that cemetery and see people who are listed in my genealogy plots. It really does make you feel connected to my past. The sun was shining, the weather was beautiful, and we got to meet some of Grandma’s high school classmates (!) that came to the cemetery to pay their respects. We sang Amazing Grace and it was about as perfect as it could be.

~~~~~~~

My grandmother has been on oxygen almost as long as I can remember. My earlier memories of her were of course cooking me breakfast when we visited (always a treat – real bacon grease!), reading at the kitchen table (we used to have an awesome booth around their table too before the renovations), and bringing back garage sale finds (I think that’s why I get the thrifting bug). She smoked for a long time and her being sick was just a part of my life for a long time.

Being with her as she passed, surrounded by her daughters and grandchildren, made me so happy that I was able to get there in time. We know that she is in a better place, that we grieve not for her, but for us, those who are left behind.

But planning another funeral only 16 months after my father’s – not a fun time. I am quite done with bad news delivered via phone and funeral homes. No more for a while, please.

My cousin read this poem at the burial on Sunday. It pretty much sums up the way we all feel.

Poem by Unknown

God looked around His garden and found an empty place

He then looked down upon the earth and saw your tired face

He put His arm around you and He lifted you to rest.

God’s garden must be beautiful, He only takes the best.

He knew that you were suffering, He knew you were in pain.

He knew that you would never get well on earth again.

He saw the road getting rough and hills were hard to climb.

So He closed your weary eyelids and whispered “Peace is thine.”

It broke our hearts to lose you, but you didn’t go alone

For part of us went with you the day God took you home.

Though the smile is gone forever, and your hands we cannot touch

We will always have sweet memories of the one we loved so much.

And God Blessed the Broken Road, Part 5

2011-09-27T08:51:00.000-05:00

To catch up, you can read Our Love Story here.

Where we last left our fearless actress heroine and adorable hero, they were on a quest for dinner in a date-not-date scenario in the student union.

Future-husband was hungry that evening and so was I, so rather than the coffee we had planned on grabbing, we ended up in the on-campus Mexican restaurant in the student union. We ordered our food and then found a table, and then had that first real conversation. That was when I realized we were on a date. Yup, I realized on the date that it was a date [to be fair, Husband has a different version of events – which I might have him tell you at some future date. But not now].

We were talking about our backgrounds, and somehow past girlfriends came up. I have no idea how. Husband said that he had only dated three girls and all three of them were the daughter of lawyers, so he only knew how to date lawyer’s kids. I laughed and said, well, “I guess that makes four, since my parents are attorneys too!” We both had that awkward look at each other because I had mentioned the elephant in the room – the fact that we were on a date. I am sure that I looked like a deer in the headlights, but the moment passed, and then we settled into the traditional first date conversation.

And that’s how I realized that we were on a date, while actually on the first date – I put my foot in my mouth. But then again, if I hadn’t done that, we might not be together. Which would be really sad.

Flowers Make Me Happy

2011-09-26T15:14:00.003-05:00

When my plane landed back in St. Louis after my long weekend in Walt Disney World earlier this month, I knew that things would not slow down for the rest of the month - and that has proved to be true!

We had a HUGE event at work - multiple locations within one venue, with multiple parties going on simultaneously and then a huge theatrical presentation with lots of audio/visual elements to coordinate on top of it! There were also issues with parking and RSVP lists, but we won't go into that here.

All in all, it went really, really, really well. :) Everyone was pretty pleased. And that makes me happy.

To reward myself, I picked up some gorgeous fall flowers at Costco last week, per my 101 list goal of having fresh flowers in the house once a month. Every time I do this, I remember how much I love having them.

The Most Magical Place for a 28th Birthday Celebration, Part 5

2011-09-20T20:54:00.001-05:00

Sunday morning and it was finally my real birthday! In Disney World! Don’t worry, I had been wearing my birthday button all weekend long and probably had about 50 cast members wish me a happy birthday. That’s the neatest feeling!

We started the day with a trip on the railroad around the park, something we hardly ever do. It’s nice to just be taken around and know that you’ll end up where you started, and can continue your trip down Main Street.

I love spending the day in the Magic Kingdom. It’s my favorite park by far. I love the fantasy, I love the magic and I love the imagination. I could spend every day there if they would let me!

That afternoon, we headed over to Epcot and ate at Via Napoli. I had the most amazing quatro formagio pizza – seriously the best pizza I ever had in my life. Wow.

After lunch, I got to chat with my mom on Skype back in the room. I love that technology allows me to see her smiling face wishing me a happy birthday when I was on vacation. She and the in-laws and husband gave me my birthday present which I’m keeping a secret for now – someday soon I can reveal it, I hope!

There’s something so much more special when Cinderella Castle is lit up at night. I made sure that we got to see it after dark on this trip. I also made a requirement of the Main Street Electrical Parade. It replaced SpectroMagic, the only nighttime parade I had ever seen, and I had to see the classic original for the Magic Kingdom.

Tinker Bell leads it off, after all!

We tried to find a space on Main Street but with so many people there on Sunday night of a holiday weekend, it was almost impossible. We ended up in Frontierland and there were a few spots up front. Hubs was standing on something up behind me to get this picture – see me in the middle, right under the “e” in my ears? :)

The Fairy Godmother was with Cinderella, of course, and saw my birthday button as she went by. She waved, smiled and said Happy Birthday, princess! I grinned from ear to ear the rest of the night.

This parade was amazing. The lights, the song, all the cast members that participated. I love Spectro but I can see why people wanted this one to come back so much!

On the way out that night, a cast member had grabbed a broom to doodle a Mickey on the ground in the remaining rain from earlier in the night. It’s just one of those extra touches that make this place more than a theme park. Sorry. I’m starting to sound like a brochure!

It’s so hard to say goodbye to this place. It’s my favorite place to visit. I’m even more excited to come back this time around - I’ll be taking my mother and brother for the first time in recent memory. We visited when we were kids, but this time? I know how to get around the crowds, which rides to avoid, and how much fun we can really have. Mom will have a better time because she won’t be dealing with a 7 and 12 year old and all the stuff that goes along with that. I’m hoping that they both have an awesome time – brother is already getting excited, and helped me picked out some dining reservations.

But we had to say good bye to the King Kamehameha Club, the concierge loge at the Polynesian. We’ll be back someday when we have another big thing to celebrate.

We had to say goodbye to the Polynesian, which has become our favorite hotel to date.

We had to say goodbye to the monorail, perhaps the most awesome mode of transportation.

I made a wish in the wishing well and I know it will come true… in December!

I can’t wait to go back!

102 days and counting… :)

The Most Magical Place for a 28th Birthday Celebration, Part 4

2011-09-17T16:34:00.001-05:00

Saturday night was the big dinner to celebrate my birthday. The California Grill is one of Disney’s signature dining restaurants. I have wanted to eat there ever since I learned of its existence.

This restaurant is on the 15th floor of the Contemporary Resort and has the most amazing view of the Magic Kingdom, since it’s so close. We checked in at the desk downstairs and wandered a bit before our pager went off, telling us that our table was ready.

When we gave them our pager, we were shown upstairs in a private elevator to the restaurant. We followed the hostess to our table and was delighted to find our space was a table for two right next to the window, with the most perfect view of the Castle!

Unfortunately, I had a slight issue when scheduling the reservation. I thought Wishes would be held at 9 pm that night but apparently they changed it to 10 pm at some point. So we were seated at 7:45 pm and had plans to watch the fireworks from our awesome seats. I explained it to the waiter, who said it shouldn’t be a problem.

To make up for taking up one of the primo seats, Hubs and I decided to share a bottle of wine to spend the evening before our entrees arrived.

When faced with a big fancy menu, I always gravitate towards the steak. This night was no exception. Hubs and I had planned on sharing an appetizer, an entree and then a dessert. But once we got there, we both fell in love with our own entree choices and we threw caution to the wind and ordered both!

But Hubs’ dinner was by far the winner. I mean, my filet with teriyaki barbeque sauce was amazing but his pork tenderloin with cheesy polenta? TO DIE FOR. When we both professed our undying love for this dish, the waiter told us that the dish was created by the original chef for the restaurant and it is the only thing that has never gone off the menu (they change it up frequently with fresh new dishes, based on the seasons).

With such amazing food and a great bottle of wine, we were both happy campers that evening!

I was made even happier when our waiter brought me the.most.amazing chocolate cake I have ever had. They had heard it was my birthday [well, I told them that when I made the reservation!] and wanted to wish me a happy one. Hubs and I shared the cake, rather than ordering the chocolate crème brulee I had planned on getting. We will leave that for the next time we’re there.

What could top such an amazing dinner? The fireworks right outside our window. We took video on our little camera but the finale came out better than the rest. Love it. I wish the camera had got the music, but this is enough to make me remember that night!

It was truly amazing. Best view ever!

It was a most magical birthday celebration, indeed. :)

The Most Magical Place for a 28th Birthday Celebration, Part 3

2011-09-15T21:55:00.001-05:00

Saturday morning was another early one, because Hollywood Studios had early extra magic hours and we couldn’t miss the chance to get even more done.

They do rope drop here, too, and prevent you from going to the rides until it’s really time to open up. I took pictures while we waited.

Once it was officially opening time, the cast members walked everyone slowly back to the different parts of the park – some to the adventure rides like Rock N' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror and others like us to Toy Story Midway Mania. They have the entire back of the park decorated with various characters from Pixar, in fact, it’s called Pixar Place.

I love the Toy Story ride. It’s got fun decorations in the queue and the interactive game is so much fun.

Once Hubs beat me in the game, as usual, we got to experience the new Star Tours.

We rode it twice and got the pod racer ending and Nabuu for the other one. I wanted to ride it all day long, if I could have! The 3D experience that they added – it really takes the whole ride to a new level!

I even got up my courage to tackle the Tower of Terror again. When I rode it for the first time a few years ago, I had a full blown panic attack. As a kid, I was stuck in an elevator at one point and heights have always bothered me. I really wanted to try the ride but Hubs kept needling me and by the time I got on the ride, I was so freaking out that I was sobbing when we dropped the first time. I got off the ride and had to sit down for a while, to calm down. But this time around? I actually enjoyed it! I conquered the fear and had a good time doing it.

I love the Muppets. Whenever we go to Hollywood Studios, we have to see this attraction. But this time, when standing in line, we noticed eyeballs on top of the lights!

And those aren’t Miss Piggy’s evening gowns… I’m sure those boxes are mine!

Later on in the day, we went back to the Polynesian to get dressed for California Grill that evening to celebrate my birthday!

The Most Magical Place for a 28th Birthday Celebration, Part 2

2011-09-14T21:35:00.001-05:00

The next morning, Friday, was an early one. Why is it that getting up in Walt Disney World before 7 am is easier than doing so at home? Could it be because of what lies ahead? I think it might.

In any case, we got up early so we could be at the Magic Kingdom when the gates open. We had planned to get something to eat at the concierge lounge and then be on the monorail by 8:15 am.

We weren’t used to being so close to things, staying on the monorail line, and we ended up in front of the gates by 8 am. Since we were early, I picked up our Tables in Wonderland card for $75 that would save us 20% on food all weekend and when we come back in January. It even saves on alcohol – so worth it. We didn’t need to upgrade our park tickets since the concierge had been able to do that the night before. Things were going swimmingly well!

Hubs and I made our way to the front of the line, as far as they would let us go, to the right of this picture, to stand underneath the train tracks. We struck up a conversation with another family and chatted as we waited for the opening show to begin. Since we were so far over, though, we couldn’t see the characters show up on the train. I had seen the show before so it wasn’t a big deal.

Once the show was done, we were let in and I got to see this!

It’s the best feeling in the world, seeing that sight again. But we didn’t have much time to reflect – we had rides to ride! Since we were so early and the lines were almost non-existent, we were quite productive in the first hour. We rode Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Dumbo, Snow White’s Scary Adventure, it’s a small world, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and a few others I think. It was awesome. We aren’t used to the lines being so short!

I hadn’t ridden on Dumbo before, so we had to get a picture of me riding it, of course.

We saw this sign all over Fantasyland and giggled every time they mentioned it. Hubs made me get in first every time, claiming he had to follow the signage.

Later that day, we took a break at the hotel and then spent the evening in Epcot. We ate at Restaurant Marrakesh and had chicken bastilla – if you have never had this dish, you must try it. The one at this restaurant is almost as good as the one we had in Morocco on our Spain trip last December. It was so good!

It was a great first day, hitting up both Magic Kingdom and Epcot, two of our favorite parks!

The Most Magical Place for a 28th Birthday Celebration, Part 1

2011-09-11T20:32:00.001-05:00

Oh, Disney. Where do I begin?

We had been planning this trip by starting the countdown at 220 days. Then we hit the mark when we could make dining reservations. And then it was double digits. By then, it was summer and we were running all over creation for graduations and baptisms. Then school started again, Husband got on the law clinic and there we were, starting to pack because it was less than 10 days away!

And then last Thursday, off we went! I took so many pictures, and I haven’t even received the Photo Pass professional pictures that we took too.

To start off, we arrived at the Polynesian late, around 9:30 pm. We were the only ones to get off at the Poly from our Magical Express coach and there was a cast member waiting there with a clipboard. I told her our last name and she said to wait there, that she would find someone to take us to the concierge building in a golf cart. What service!

We drove around the resort and the cast member driving pointed out the other buildings, how to get to the Transportation and Ticket Center to pick up the monorail for other parks and other neat things. The tiki torches were blazing, but unfortunately, I could never get a good picture of them.

The lovely Hawaii building is reserved for club or concierge level guests. We were treated so incredibly well there – the service is beyond imagination! It was worth the extra cost of our club room, but I am sure glad we got the discount we did. Or else, we certainly wouldn’t have been able to afford it, even for a special birthday celebration.

The cast member swiped his keycard at the front door to the long house to let us in and told us that we’d have to do the same whenever we came back to our room, because the Hawaii long house is reserved for club level guests. They didn’t want other people wandering in and stealing our food! Good thing, too, I told him.

There were two cast members waiting there in the lobby for us, and offered us a seat at the desk. It was more like a personal banker’s desk rather than a reception desk at other hotels, even in the main part of the Polynesian. They said they had been waiting for us! They had our packet ready to go, with information on food serving times, our room keys, celebration pins and everything! They were even able to upgrade our park hopper tickets for annual passes so we can use them at our next trip for New Year’s. It was so incredibly relaxing, all of it was made so easy. I can see why people pay for the extra level of service!

We made our way up to the room and because our luggage wasn’t there, we didn’t have a lot to do. We dropped our carry on bags and went out the back door and to the beach outside our long house. Lo and behold, it was 10 pm, straight up, and Wishes was starting.

Standing on the Polynesian beach and seeing fireworks over Cinderella castle, hugged by my husband, at my favorite place on earth to celebrate the second birthday since my father’s death, I cried. Like a baby. It was very overwhelming. It wouldn’t be the first time I would cry at the fireworks over the long weekend.

Back in our room, we puttered until our bags were delivered and we could unpack and get ready for bed. The next day was going to be a long one, so we had to get a lot of sleep.

We noticed something on the desk when we got back – a note from the staff thanking us for being there and chocolate! Lots of chocolate! It was painted with an edible picture of some kind and we brought it home with us, because we couldn’t bear to eat it there. The mousekeeping staff had also turned down our bed with an additional mint. They would continue to do that every night and oh how nice it was!

The real celebrations would start up the next morning!

A Retrospective of Towel Art

2011-09-09T20:30:00.001-05:00

Last week, I had the most magical birthday in a most magical place!

While I’m still trying to gather my thoughts about all the stories I want to tell you, I figured I’d memorialize all the towel decorations we received over the few days we were staying at the Polynesian Concierge level!

Hidden Mickey!

Elephant towel mama and baby complete with my sunglasses

We even found a towel figure in the bathroom that first day!

There were leis above the TV - we were at the Polynesian after all.

Cool dog and do you see the monkey hanging in the background?!

Turtle, turtle!

Alligator spotted!

Our mousekeeper from the trip at the Poly Concierge was AMAZING. Every time we came back for a nap in the afternoon we had a new decoration in the room, and then after a long night in the parks, we had the beds turned down and a mint added!

I am so incredibly spoiled. I don’t know if I can ever stay in a regular room again!

When You Wish Upon a Star

2011-09-01T09:25:00.000-05:00

Later today, my dear husband and I will be jetting off to the most magical place on earth – and I cannot WAIT!

Over the past few days, I’ve been remembering all the little things I’m excited about for our big Disney trip! We’ll be gone through my birthday on Sunday and then back on Labor Day! Yay for vacations!

So here’s what I’m looking forward to on this Disney trip…

1. Seeing the Tiki Room as it was originally intended

2. Eating at California Grill for the first time

3. Watching Wishes from the California Grill

4. Seeing the Magic, Memories and You Show for the first time in person

5. Eating at Via Napoli for the first time

6. Tonga Toast – never had it before

7. A vacation with my husband and no other family! First since our honeymoon

8. Having a birthday in Walt Disney World

9. Wearing a birthday button and having people smile at me and say happy birthday!

10. Staying at a monorail resort

11. Dole Whip on the Poly Beach

12. Concierge level at the Polynesian!

13. Space Mountain. It’s my favorite ride.

14. Spending a vacation in my favorite place on Earth with my amazing husband

My Fall Wreath

2011-08-31T20:15:00.001-05:00

I am so very proud of myself – I put forward a goal and met it in less than a month!

Now, granted the goal was to make a wreath via inspiration on Pinterest, but it’s the little things in life, right?

Yesterday after work, I got the urge to craft. I saw Katie’s cute yarn wreath at Loves of Life and it pushed me to get off my butt and head to the craft store after I finished for the day. The Joanne’s Fabric store that used to be right near our house had recently moved and I hadn’t had the change to check it out yet! So this was the perfect opportunity.

I started with a grapevine base (rather than a foam core as in the inspiration tutorial), a few bunches of fall flowers, another few sets of foliage decoration, brown wire to tie pieces together and a glue gun.

Here’s what we started out with:

One grapevine wreath (preferably purchased with a 40% off coupon!)
Many bundles of fall foliage, all 40% off
Other fall accessories, at 40% off – those are the spiky things with the white nubs on them. More on that to come
Wire strands to help affix the leaves to the wreath
Glue gun and glue gun refills, just in case the wire strands don’t hold things on

So after preparing my supplies, and my glass of wine, and setting Netflix to play the next episode of Friday Night Lights (yes, I’m addicted), I got down to business.

I removed all the leaves from the stems that connected them together in a bundle. I ended up using three of them in total. There were lots of leaves everywhere on the coffee table!

Once I had all the leaves separated, I began to arrange them on the grapevine wreath. No rhyme or reason, just started adding the leaves willy nilly.

I kept going around and around, adding leaves in places that seemed empty.

When all the leaves seemed to be happy where they were, I went over each of them and bent back their stem around the grapevine, to make sure they would be held in place. Then, I picked it up and gave it a little shake, to be sure everything was still ok.

The last touch was thanks to my husband. Remember those little white nubs? I grabbed four bunches and arranged them at the bottom to look like a finishing bow! I stuck those into the grapevine just like the leaves.

The finished product…

My brand new wreath on my six panel door! I was excited when the property manager replaced our falling apart door with a fancy one like this – not everyone in the place gets one! But you can see why I needed a wreath. It needs some color on that door! What you don’t see, because I didn’t want it in my pictures, is the drain spout that is immediately to the right of the door. It’s ugly and I dislike it. So there.

Here are some more details…

The white nub things at the bottom really set it off, I think!

I am so happy with the way this turned out. Coming home from work tonight and having this greet me before I come inside made me grin from ear to ear. I love having some color on my door!

Now I’m determined to have a wreath on the front door for every season – I think I already have my inspiration picture for a Christmas one!

The Weekend in Review

2011-08-30T07:26:00.001-05:00

This weekend seemed to fly by, as they all do lately. So let’s start at the beginning! It’s a very good place to start…

Friday night – no football unfortunately, or Friday Night Lights, but soon we’ll be in the midst of college football! Did you know I always wanted to go to a big state school so we could have a football tradition to follow? Notre Dame would have been great, but then again, it’s north of St. Louis and therefore would probably be too cold for me to live for most of the year.

Oh right, Friday night plans. Yes. We hauled it to Chesterfield to say goodbye to one of my college friends who is moving away from here to follow his girlfriend as she continues her education in theatre by getting a masters at Boston University. We’re gonna miss him and I’m awfully sad that he’s leaving us. Once those hugs were done, we headed back to the city to meet up with one of Husband’s friends who was in town to surprise his sister at his nephew’s first birthday party. We were in on the secret and hung out in the beautiful almost-autumn air at the rooftop bar at the Moonrise Hotel. If you’re coming to St. Louis (or are already here) and haven’t had one of their yummy cocktails under the moon, you must go! Any place with this kind of decoration is ok in my book!

So, knowing me and my reaction to booze, we went home relatively early because we were both exhausted. Saturday morning was time for cleaning and an eyebrow wax. I got my hair cut earlier in the week, to prepare for our quick Disney jaunt, but looking in the mirror earlier, I decided that the jungles above my eyes needed to be cut back. So off to the spa I went. I was so happy when I was done!

I came home and puttered, watched a bit of Bachelor Pad to catch up for tonight’s episode, and then Husband and I headed out again to a first birthday party. Those are the best! Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay to watch the kid devour his cake. Hubs still owes me cake for that one. We had double-booked ourselves with the Sunday night dinner crew and went to Chesterfield to meet up with them. We put a lot of miles on the car this weekend.

Sunday was church, of course, and I was the first lector at Mass. I really do love proclaiming, especially when I prepare ahead of time and know what the reading is about! The afternoon was for packing – because we leave for Disney on Thursday! We are most definitely prepared…

And then I had to get ready for an audition. I believe my sabbatical or hiatus may be drawing to a close. It was great to print out my headshot and resume and look at it, realizing that I need to get new photos taken. My hair looks completely different than that picture! So it was a great show directed by a friend from college and I just had to go. This community theatre is supposed to be one of the best in the area and by attending their auditions, I can agree on that point! It was so organized and really well run. Unfortunately, I wasn’t cast, but I did get a call from the assistant director telling me how much she enjoyed my audition and that she really hopes I’ll come back and audition again, because she would like to see me on their stage. Which I thought was really sweet!

My acting professor once told me that we as actors must fall in love with auditioning – because it may be the only acting we ever get to do! I enjoyed my audition, met some fun people, reconnected with old friends and made the directing staff laugh. I say that was a success!

Teacup Anything Sounds Good To Me!

2011-08-26T17:42:00.001-05:00

Husband did something he really shouldn’t have done this morning – he showed me the following picture:

In retrospect, I’m sure he thought I would love it. Puppies? Check. Small puppies? Check. Bows in their hair? Check. But really, didn’t he know that I would immediately expect him to run and find me one of these adorable little pups?

It’s besides the point that we can’t have dogs in the apartment. Or that we don’t have the money to properly outfit a little pup in cute little bows or outfits befitting her adorable nature. Or that we spend more time at work and in the car between events than we do at home, and therefore, would leave our little Gizmo at home for too many hours a day to be fair. And yes, Gizmo is the name of our future dog, whomever he/she might be. I saw the name in a Google search and fell in love with it! So it shall be.

So this is what I share with you on a Friday afternoon. Love in the form of a tiny little furry pup. Don’t I need one to be complete?

What I’m Loving Wednesday

2011-08-24T21:30:00.001-05:00

Oh Wednesdays. You’re here again? As my coach from the lunch room in junior year of high school used to say, “Wednesday, Hump Day, working your way to the weekend!” I always thought it was strange that he was talking about a hump day to a bunch of {AHEM} excitable teenagers.

In any case, it’s Wednesday again. The days are much longer when one wakes up at 6 am to either walk or run, in preparation for a 5K in October.

{one}

So in that trying to lose weight and run thing, I’m also using LoseIt on the iPhone to track my calories. I’m loving it when I add that walk/run in the morning and it boosts up my calorie allowance for the day! It’s the best feeling to know I can splurge on another snack.

{two}

Eight days and counting to the wonderful birthday trip to Walt Disney World that my husband I planned for Labor Day weekend. As I told someone at work this week, I’m going to be insufferable on my half-day of work next Thursday. It’s getting to be thisclose to the vacation and I cannot wait!

{three}

During this crazy hot summer, I’ve been addicted to my Oregon Chai Tea Latte Concentrate. Mixed with some milk makes a great morning drink. I was sad this week when I ran out of it – I have to run by Target to restock!

{four}

Chocolate peanut butter fudge from a craft mall in Branson, MO. Fudge in tourist-type places is just so much better than anywhere else. While we were on vacation last week, I picked up a half pound of peanut butter fudge swirled with chocolate. It’s not helping my diet so much but it is SO good. And seeing as it’s not Husband’s favorite flavor, I pretty much have it to myself. I’ll be happy/sad when it’s gone!

What are you loving this lovely Wednesday?

I Believe I am Certifiably Obsessed

2011-08-23T09:45:00.000-05:00

I woke up yesterday to an awesome announcement by my husband – 10 days until Walt Disney World!

Other than it being very close to our vacation, this particular announcement is great for another reason. Yesterday was the day that I could check us in online and confirm our reservation with Disney. It’s the last thing that has to happen before we arrive in the World for our birthday vacation weekend. Mostly, it just makes our check-in next week even smoother when we get there.

Then, a friend posted this video on my Facebook wall. For 90% of the statements, I can say yes to – I think that makes me obsessed!

And God Blessed the Broken Road, Part 4

2011-08-22T09:34:00.000-05:00

To catch up, you can read Our Love Story here.

Now that future-husband and I had reconnected after poster-ing a Bread Company, we were now chatting on Facebook every few days.

But we had a show that was opening shortly and there was lots going on with that. I was a senior, and had an internship at a local professional theatre. Big things were happening and a boy really wasn’t in the cards.

Even more than being busy as a senior, I was going to audition to be a walk-around character at Disney or maybe be a cruise director and see the world. I was graduating in the spring and wanted to set myself up to hit the ground running when that happened. There didn’t seem to be any time for dating.

So when future-husband suggested we go have coffee, I thought that would be nice. He was such a cute guy and he seemed really interested. But then again, I was really busy. I ended up saying saying yes and we set up a time to meet at the student union to grab a cup of coffee.

Future-husband claims that I stood him up three times but it totally wasn’t the case. Like I said, I was busy! And I honestly thought “grabbing coffee sometime” wasn’t a date. Would you have thought it was a date? I didn’t think so.

He would email me and set up a time, and then I would call him as we got closer and say that I couldn’t make it because there was another monologue to rehearse or something had to be done for the professional theatre’s street team.

Finally, we connected at the student union. Third time’s the charm, right? I showed up at the place we were agreed to meet and he was so cute sitting there, with his backpack and spiked up hair.

We headed up to the coffee shop, but halfway up, I asked him if he was hungry. Turns out he hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and neither had I. So the only logical solution was to get dinner rather than coffee. Which is exactly what we did.

To be continued…

Apparently, I Am An Old Lady

2011-08-21T20:50:00.001-05:00

Source

This weekend showed me the epitome of my old lady-ness as of late.

Example A: staffing a work event on Friday evening at the local science museum with over 380 people in attendance and cooing over one of my volunteer’s most darling two month old baby! I spent a lot of the event cuddling her. Made my uterus ache something fierce.

Example B: going to bed early after previously described work event on Friday night. I’ve always been exhausted after a work week, but I spent three days on vacation this week in Branson with the family. I shouldn’t be that tired after two days of work!

Example C: waking up early on Saturday morning to run with my husband. And not being able to get through the Couch to 5K program, even though I was doing the third week of it on the treadmill a few months ago. Working out is definitely in the sucking position right now.

Example D: eye exam and shopping at Costco after our run. What a Saturday morning

Example E: picking up a bottle of Arbor Mist for the party with the law school kids that Saturday night, rather than drinking their Bud Light

Example F: after drinking that bottle of Arbor Mist at the hours-long party, needing to nap in one of the bedrooms while Husband continued to hang out with his friends

No, ladies and gents, I am not proud of that last one. Everyone apparently kept asking where I was and Husband explained that I had a bit too much to drink and had to sleep it off. An hour after I laid down, he came in to take me home. All the kids were asking if “Mrs. L” was ok – they call me by my full name for some strange reason. It was sort of awful.

The next time Husband wants to go out with the law school kids, we are definitely taking two cars so I can put my old lady self to bed at a reasonable hour. Because that was ridiculous.

This Fall, I Will…

2011-08-20T09:56:00.000-05:00

It’s been entirely too hot this summer. Something like two and a half weeks of an extreme heat advisory in the St. Louis area made me cry when I woke up every morning and had to get dressed for work. I just wanted to lay in a cold bath all day. Alas, I had to get my butt in gear and get going. I just focused on the fact that this too shall pass! It must, right?

The heat wave has finally broken and I’m so looking forward to the fall. Lots of people on Twitter and the blog world have said they’re looking forward to the fall because it’s their favorite season. I realized that I don’t have a favorite season. Each time a new one comes around, I get excited about it, no matter what! I don’t love the end of winter, with the cold and snow, but then again, I don’t like the end of summer with the heat. I just like getting to switch it up clothing-wise and the various activities that the different seasons bring.

So to celebrate the new season, I’m borrowing the idea from Centsational Girl, but adding a fall twist!

A Fall List, via Pinterest

This fall, I will…

Bake something with pumpkin. This Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle sounds like a good contender…

Giggle at the outfits that kids wear for the season…

Decorate with fall flowers. This would be a great centerpiece for Thanksgiving!

Make a fall wreath for our front door. It’s always decorated at Christmas and I feel like I should start earlier with this DIY fall wreath!

Make a roadtrip with my mom to land of the Fightin’ Irish – South Bend, IN! We’ve got tickets for Notre Dame vs USC – cannot WAIT for this one.

Speaking of football, I plan to watch a bunch of episodes of Friday Night Lights to get caught up!

I love the fall!

And No, I Did Not Buy The T-Shirt

2011-08-15T16:46:00.001-05:00

This kind of sums up my first few days in Branson. The wine was a-flowin’!

I love vacations. :)

They Sell That In Kids’ Sizes?!

2011-08-13T12:34:00.001-05:00

“Beer is not just for breakfast anymore”

A local brewery has this slogan and sells shirts at its stores. We were at Baskin Robbins last night, eating our ice cream cones, and we saw this little girl walk into the store. We all burst out laughing when we read her t-shirt. Two of us pulled out our phones to get a camera – at the same time.

I understand that we’re a beer town and all but honestly – this type of shirt should be sold in kids sizes! It just seems wrong.

And with that thought, I will be quiet for a few days, as we’re spending a bit in Branson with the family. Silver Dollar City, here we come again!

The Beginning… Again

2011-08-10T20:52:00.001-05:00

Remember when I removed all excuses to getting into shape? Well, they’re still gone. But getting myself out of bed at 5:45 am to work out has not gone as well as one would have hoped. It’s kind of unfortunate. I’ve always been that person that needs at least 8 hours of sleep (on a side note – I have no idea how I’ll function when I’m faced with a newborn who doesn’t have the same ideas of sleep as me). So in order to get up to run that early, I must go to bed a bit earlier. Which sometimes proves more difficult than one would think (what? Those Friday Night Light episodes on Netflix will NOT watch themselves… and I do have to turn in the library book soon, so I have to read another chapter!).

In any case, this morning when the alarm went off at 5:45 am, I hopped out of bed with a plan. I saw two of my inspiration images next to the phone and that helped me to not hit the snooze button. I woke up Husband and we got dressed for a quick 2.2 mile walk down the greenway near the townhouse. He decided to get up with me and we had a great conversation while walking in the relatively cool (72 degrees!) morning air.

Why did I wake up with such vim and vigor this morning? Because my dear friend, the Bachelorette from the 2011 Quesadilla Adventure and I made the decision to train for a 5K in October. We are going to run 3.1 miles that Saturday morning in the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce Pumpkin Run! We are both going to use the Couch to 5K program and get ourselves ready to run in the race.

This is my first organized race and to be honest, I’m ridiculously nervous that I’ll fall on my face. But the Bachelorette will be with me and if we end up walking towards the end, the main thing is that we will finish it together. It gives us a goal and something to work towards. So getting up at 5:45 am from now on is going to be a way of life – because working out after a long day at the office just is not going to work for me. I’m excited to finally get my butt in gear!

And God Blessed the Broken Road, Part 3

2011-08-09T08:27:00.000-05:00

To catch up, you can read Our Love Story here.

My future-husband and I spent most of college apart, not really hanging out. Every once in a while, I would see his name pop up in the AIM friends list and wonder what he was up to. But he had his friends and I had mine.

Our paths crossed again in our senior year of college. We hadn’t seen in each other in at least two years.

It was September, and I was once again involved in a production in the college theatre. I had auditioned, and unfortunately, wasn’t cast. Over the years, there were many auditions that didn’t go my way, many parts that I didn’t land. That’s the life of an actress and I am prepared for it. But as a senior, it kind of sucked that I didn’t get a mainstage role in my last year at the theatre. I thought I kind of deserved it after all the blood, sweat and tears that I’ve put into the program. So not getting cast – kind of sucked. And I wasn’t happy about it.

My assignment that semester, instead of being cast, was the publicity team for the production. It was an obvious choice, because PR was my major after all. Since I was the only one of the committee that had a car, I was assigned the role of putting up posters in the Central West End, since no one else could easily get there without a car.

To be fair, I should have put up those posters earlier. I was sulking for most of the production, annoyed that I wasn’t cast, and wondering what was going to happen if I didn’t get cast the next semester and didn’t have any recent credits on my resume when I graduated. But things were busy with school and my internship, so I avoided putting up those posters until the week before the show opened. I put it off as long as I could.

One Wednesday after classes, I loaded up the posters and my route list in the car and drove to the CWE. It’s a neat little neighborhood of great restaurants and coffee shops and old homes near the campus. Lots of the managers of those places allow us to put up posters to promote the show. We had a list of those, and that was where I was supposed to go. St. Louis Bread Company was the first stop on my list.

I walked inside the restaurant and started looking around for the manager, to get his permission to put up the poster. As I stood in the entrance, holding a poster and push pins, I heard someone call my name.

Thinking that it was someone calling another “Jessica,” I didn’t turn around right away. When he called my name again, I did turn and saw him. Future-husband sitting on one of the comfy chairs near the window, with a book in his lap. He was smiling.

I went over to say hello and we started to catch up. Honestly, I have no idea what I said in that meeting. It went by in a blur. I remember I put up the posters and then went back to hang out with him some more.

We exchanged phone numbers and a promise to Facebook each other when we got back to our dorms. We had graduated from AIM to Facebook in those few years of college. He asked me if I wanted to get a coffee sometime and catch up, and of course, I said sure.

I had to finish putting up posters and he was waiting on someone for a meeting.

The best part of this story? Husband wrote down the time wrong – he was an hour early for his meeting. I put off the poster work until the very last minute. Something pushed me to do the posters that day.

And the name of the play we were producing that semester?

“All in the Timing.”

Mums

2011-08-08T08:37:00.000-05:00

While I was sick with a 36 hour stomach bug last week, the only thing that made it a bit better was streaming Netflix. A few friends on Twitter had suggested Friday Night Lights as a great show that they were all addicted to recently. Since I didn’t have anything else to do, I started up an episode – and boy howdy, was it addicting!

It’s about a Texas town and their love for football. And with Texas football comes Homecoming. I know other high schools and colleges have Homecoming, but in Texas, it’s just special. We take it to another level.

For those that aren’t familiar, Homecoming in many Texas towns has a special tradition – mums. And we’re not talking the normal flowers:

We’re talking fake mums that guys buy their Homecoming dates so they can wear them to the big game the day before the dance.

Enter exhibit one:

This is a sophomore me, with T, the love of my young high school life. Boy, was he wonderful. He’s now a Navy man with a beautiful wife and a few kids, I think. It’s crazy how things change.

Tradition in Texas has it that a gentleman purchase his lady a mum before the big Homecoming game. In the beginning, that was a real mum but over the years, people started using plastic flowers so they would last longer (I’m guessing in the Texas heat, because in October, it’s still awfully hot). They started adding ribbons in the team colors and little trinkets to make noise when they walked. Then, more elaborate ribbons and teddy bears in the middle of the mums. And then you have my wonderful mum from sophomore year.

Homecoming tradition also holds that the lady purchase her gentleman a garter to wear. If he’s on the football team, he can wear it during the school day, but if he’s just watching the game, then you can wear it the whole day.

Yup, that’s right. We wear these things to school that day, to classes and then to the big pep rally at the end of the day, before the big game.

Enter exhibit two:

This is my senior year of high school, after I transferred from one Texas city to another, hence the different colors in the mum. Typically, the mums are in the color of the mascot – whatever that may be. The teddy bears in the middle of the mums were usually dressed up like little cheerleaders and carry megaphones.

But as a senior? Your mum got to be special. Yours got to be white – to denote your seniority of the school. I waited three years to be able to wear one of those white mums! I was so happy when I finally got to do it. This one was particularly big – the ribbons went to my knees. It was so heavy that I had to wear overalls to the Spirit Day that year, because pinning the thing to a regular shirt would have pulled my shirt clean off me! Lots of the girls came to the same conclusion, so we all matched in our overalls that day.

I was never one of the extra special girls who got a double or triple mum – multiple flowers on one thing. Those were extra expensive and my boyfriends never loved me that much. ;)

When I brought up my love of Homecoming mums, my Sunday night dinner crowd looked at me like I had two heads.

I explained what it was, and then the laughing started.

So let me ask you – did your high school have any traditions that other people might find ridiculous? Because I loved my mums and wouldn’t have traded the tradition for anything in the world.

And God Blessed the Broken Road, Part 2

2011-08-06T08:42:00.000-05:00

Read Part 1 here.

I hung out with future-husband’s friends for the first few weeks of school, and they were a lot of fun. I would join them for dinner or snacks after class. On the first anniversary of 9/11, I was there outside the residence hall for the memorial service hosted by one of his friends. He was from New York and was very close to the attacks. It was an emotional experience, lots of tears in the darkness, punctuated by candlelight in the parking lot.

But as things happen in college, people come together for a time and then float apart. With a good distance between his residence hall and mine, and his classes in the business school and mine in the theatre, it got harder and harder to find the time to meet up. After all, I was dating someone and so was he. He was just a friend I met that first week of school and somehow, things just start drifting apart.

Whenever I signed on to AIM, I would look down the lists of friends and every once in a while, I would notice his screenname at the bottom and wonder what that cute kid from the local high school was doing then.

A few months into my freshman year, the boyfriend that I followed to college broke up with me. And immediately started dating the girl he insisted he wasn’t into. That was a tough pill to swallow. I was 18 and thought the world was going to come crashing down on my head.

And still, every once in a while, I would see future-husband’s name on my AIM list and wonder about that cute guy in the residence hall across campus. But the thought would pass and I would head to rehearsal. That’s where I spent most of my college years, in the theatre.

I never realized that the cute guy I saw on my AIM list would eventually come back into life in a HUGE way.

Removing Excuses

2011-08-05T08:35:00.000-05:00

You know how you can always talk yourself in or out of something?

I don’t know about you, but I can always convince myself that one more piece of candy won’t hurt my waistline or that the extra half hour of sleep is SO much more worth it than working out. Later on, those decisions always tick me off, because they really were the wrong decision.

Pinterest has a bunch of inspiration pictures that I’ve been pinning lately – they’re helping remove the excuses that I’ve thrown up to not run in the mornings. Like this one. Or this one. And this one just makes me laugh. I tried to insert the images here but Pinterest isn’t playing nice right now.

In any case, I’m trying to use these quotes to really remind myself why getting up at 6 am and walking/running 2.2 miles is a good idea. In the mornings, when no matter what I put on my body to clothe it for work, nothing is looking the way it should. I am not liking what I see in the mirror. And seeing a picture of me at the work event last week? Yuck. I want to scrub it from the internet.

So I am removing all excuses. I realized I didn’t have any comfortable work out shorts that weren’t inappropriately short to wear in public. So on Monday, I stopped by the thrift store on the way home and found some black work out shorts for $4. Awesome. That’s one excuse I can’t use – I have outfits to wear.

Another excuse is being tired in the mornings when the alarm goes off for the work out. So I need to be in bed by 10:30 pm and that means lights off – no more reading until 11:15 pm because I’m not tired yet. No matter how awesome the book is.

They say that nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels. I’m really trying to concentrate on that one and prevent myself from eating crap. I don’t know if it’s working. But there has to be a change. Something has to give.

One last quote I’m centering on? A year from now, you’ll wish you had started today. I so do want that. I’m starting today.

A Bit Like a Voyeur

2011-08-04T17:46:00.001-05:00

Am I the only one who loves seeing how other people set up their iPhone folders? No? Really? I guess I’m kind of a weird one.

I really do like peeking into other people’s phones and look through their folders. What apps have they downloaded? What’s on their homepage? What’s in the quick access bar at the bottom? I think it’s similar to peeking into someone’s purse or their medicine cabinet when you’re a house guest.

In that vein, I thought I’d share my organization. After the Great Screen Shattering of 2011, I had to start over and reload all my apps from last back up done in June. Because I had the chance to spend some time reorganizing, I thought I’d reorder the apps.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the folder option! But there’s something overwhelming about ALL of those apps, even in folders. I read somewhere about gathering up all the apps into a logical folder order, but having that at the beginning of the line, and then having three of your most used apps on that line. Seeing your favorite apps on the line makes it easier to remember what’s in the folder at the end, even if you have the name of the folder listed there.

So if any of you love to see how others organize their apps, here are my screen shots!

My main screen. My favorites. Calendar in the corner, Remember the Milk Pro (to do list) and of course, maps and the Disney countdown. 28 days until the Poly – not that I’m counting down the days or anything.

Twitter, Facebook, Gowalla (check in game), of course.

Games like Words with Friends – I’m clearly behind in my games.

Photos, Instagram and Camera not in a folder because they need to be easily accessible.

Here’s where it gets a little more complicated on the second page. Some random apps and then around – things like Yelp and Urban Spoon. Awesome apps. then we have entertainment things and shopping of course! Gotta have my Groupon.

Third page continues from the second. We’ve got travel and my beloved TripIt app. Seriously, it’s the best itinerary planner out there. And then Lines – thank you for my Disney fix! You can see how long the waits are for any ride in WDW or Disneyland at any given time, and carry your touring plans for the parks in your app as well. Awesomely worth the yearly membership fee if you’re a fan like we are.

And finally – the dregs of the apps. Random things that I can’t delete or don’t want to have on more readily accessible pages.

On a side note – how adorable is that cupcake background? I can’t remember where I found it but I love it! So cute. :)

Ok – am I weird or was this interesting? How do you organize your phone?

Organizing My Basement Storage Room Almost Killed Me and My Husband – But It Was Worth It

2011-08-03T20:51:00.001-05:00

Saturday morning…

10:18 am – Husband comes in, pokes me, tells me it’s time to wake up, that’s it past 10 am. I slept in after staying out late on Friday night for a work event.

10:26 am – Managed to drag ourselves out of the house and into the car for a quick donut run. Decide on one dozen in order to get us through the cleaning weekend.

11:12 am – First fight of the day. It revolves around the question of what someone means when they offer an item up for either the trash or donation pile. We resolve this and move forward. I won’t say who won it, because I’m pretty sure it might bring up the fight again.

2 pm – It’s time for a break. There was a donation run as well as a snack at QT. Do you know how awesome those fountain vanilla cokes are? They’re my addiction lately.

4:52 pm – The doorbell knocks as we are just starting to place boxes back where they go. There’s lots of extra room and we have combined many boxes. I’m feeling good! I go upstairs and who is standing there but the Sunday night dinner crew. We spent that night drinking and playing video games. It was an awesome diversion.

Sunday morning…

10:45 am – We woke up late. It was a late night driving home after playing games. :) But we get moving and finish going through boxes and finding new ways to stack all the boxes we were keeping.

2:03 pm – Husband and I stand back, and admire our work. We have lots of room for a laundry folding table, Husband’s tools and even an organized corner for luggage next to the deep freeze.

5 boxes and a few random things to Goodwill… 15 bags to the trash… and an entire pile of empty moving boxes that need to be broken down to be recycled. It is awfully impressive. I’m so happy – I even want to fold laundry in there! It is so true that if you like the spaces in your house, you’ll stop avoiding chores there. When we get the next house with a real laundry room instead of space in the basement, I’m definitely going to be decorating it to make me happy there too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wish I could show you pictures, but unfortunately, my iPhone took a nose dive this morning and the replacement I got today didn’t allow me to back it up beforehand. Plus, taking pictures in a basement is just so boring. And hard to really show what it looks like. So there’s just my little narrative!

I Love My Friends

2011-07-31T15:28:00.001-05:00

After a long day of cleaning out our basement storage room, the Sunday night dinner club came and abducted us for a night in Chesterfield - complete with gourmet pizza at home, Andre champagne and Rock Band. I can't imagine a better Saturday night.

Going out with friends is on my 101 list.

My Adventure with a Quesadilla Maker

2011-07-27T18:24:00.001-05:00

I have never been a very good cook. I can make things with a recipe (ham and cheddar risotto, anyone?) but simple things like pancakes and eggs and grilled cheese sandwiches are somehow beyond my cooking ability.

So when I realized I had to cook for my standing date with my girlfriend to watch The Bachelorette, I knew there were only a few things that I could cook. My friend, whom I’ll call the Bachelorette (until she gets a blog of her own that I can link to – hint, hint, lady!) because she got me addicted to the show, has certain things that she’s allergic to that make it hard (for me) to cook for her.

I came up with a bunch of ideas but I was worried that there might be the bad allergy item in there, so I asked for a suggestion from the Bachelorette on what to make. She said quesadillas are always a good choice. We have a winner! Quesadillas with fresh salsa from Trader Joe’s it is.

When she came over last night, I had to get her to help me make the silly things. I told you, I have no idea how to cook the most simple of meals! The Bachelorette saw an unopened wedding present above my cabinets and asked if we could use it. Sure enough, I had a quesadilla maker that I had never used.

She thought I was kidding that I had never used it, but it was still in the packaging and had the instruction booklet. With recipes, even!

We did have some issues with the red and green lights on the machine. The booklet said to wait for the green light to go off, and that would let us know it was hot enough to cook. The green light didn’t come at first, so it was touch and go there for a minute. But does it make any sense for the green light going off to be the ready signal? Yeah, it didn’t make sense to us either.

But five minutes later, we were happy munching on our warm quesadilla, complete with the lines that showed us where to cut the portions.

So it just goes to show you that with a machine designed to do one thing and one thing only, I can officially cook a quesadilla. If only I realized we had one of those machines earlier!

And God Blessed the Broken Road, Part 1

2011-07-25T18:12:00.002-05:00

When I posted a few days ago about blogger’s block, Meghan of Unintended Housewife suggested I write about my wedding day – how it went, and how I would change things, given my profession as an event planner now. I thought it was a great idea!

But before giving you the wedding detail, I feel like I should back up and tell you how the whole thing started. See, in the beginning of this blog, I gave a very brief introduction of how I met my husband and got to where I am now. After reading the Pioneer Woman’s novel on my nook last week, I’ve got the urge to write down the full story for all posterity. Or at least as long as I keep this blog. So stay tuned for the whole story, in segments!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I picked my college because of my boyfriend.

Ok, so that’s not entirely true. But it’s close!

My dad went to SLU back in the day for multiple degrees. When looking at colleges, he insisted I tour his alma mater, just as I toured my mom’s. Hers wasn’t really my style (it’s ok, because my brother fell in love with it, and it was the right choice for him) but SLU had a beautiful campus and was a really great education, and it was good that we visited.

The boyfriend of mine at the time had chosen to go to SLU right around the time that I had visited the campus. He was a year older than me. Knowing that it was Dad’s alma mater and falling in love with the campus, it all came together. Seeing a show at the campus theatre that fall just sealed the deal. I wanted to act upon that stage. I turned in my deposit the day that I got accepted. It was the only school I ended up applying to.

Fast forward to orientation, the week before classes started. The boyfriend was still in the picture, and I was so excited to get started on the college adventure. Both Mom and Dad went with me to help with move in and all that jazz. I can remember the specific moment when they pulled into the driveway near the Olive Compton garage, to drop me off for a big game of kickball with all the other rising freshmen. We were sectioned off into groups and I was looking for mine across all the other fields but couldn’t seem to find them. While I was looking around, starting to get anxious, because my parents had left and I didn’t know a single person (that’s what the orientation groups are for, so you can have a familiar face on campus), one of the groups popped over and asked me if I was lost. I explained that I couldn’t find my group and a sweet Indian kid who would later be one of the groomsmen in my wedding came to my rescue and asked me to join their kickball team.

As I was being introduced to everyone, most of them I wouldn’t remember their name the next week, I came across a cute guy from a local high school. He had this great short hair cut spiked up with gel and was great at kickball. I found out later that he played rugby in high school, and hence had some awesome thighs, perfect for sports. That was a nice thing. :)

We exchanged AIM names [remember AIM!? This was WAY before Facebook]at that point, to stay in touch. A bunch of soon-to-be-husband’s friends lived in one of the dining halls south of campus, so I joined them for dinner.

I didn’t know back then, but it was the beginning of the story that I would tell my future children about how it all began.

To be continued….

A New Blogger on the Block

2011-07-22T15:50:00.002-05:00

Did you know that my husband is a blogger? In addition to writing papers, studying the law and being an all-around awesome husband to a crazy event planner wife like moi. He had a great blog a few months ago, but the combined JD/MBA schedule he has been juggling since last May has really taken a toll on it. So, with the recent completion of his summer class schedule, and on his first extended break from school since beginning his graduate work in August 2009, he has five weeks to concentrate on what HE wants to work on. And his blog is top on the list!

Now, if you're interested in the silly, mundane or ridiculous stories you find here, then his blog is not for you. His new blog has a great new name, 7 Continents, 7 Days.

He's going to blog every day, and focus on one continent each day. He'll find a particular story from that continent and expand upon it, maybe offer additional reading, and of course, his unique take on the subject. This is such a perfect outlet for him. One of the reasons I love my husband is his global viewpoint. He speaks multiple languages, has lived abroad and wants to take our family abroad someday, and has such a passion for people who are different from us. He wants to know about their past and present and ideas for their future, and the knowledge he gains from them informs on his own life experience. It's fascinating to hear him talk about a particular article he found about the creation of a new country (did you know there's a new country in Africa?) or really understand the environmental issues facing a country halfway around the world (I really would like to visit Australia to learn about it in person, methinks).

I'm still wondering what stories he'll find about Antarctica, but I guess that's why we should check out the blog to find out!

So join him at 7 Continents, 7 Days and tell him I sent ya. :)

Bad Movies are Just So Bad!

2011-07-21T20:45:00.001-05:00

I love bad movies, just like the next person. If you ask my husband, I don’t know what a good movie is, because all I watch is the bad stuff. I love romantic comedies, silly action flicks whose ending is so obvious it hurts when you figure it out in the first five minutes of the film, and any TV movie made by Disney. But the list of movies we have recently been working our way through? I think they take the cake.

The Sunday night dinner crew stumbled upon Asylum Films a few months ago, God only knows how. While I wasn’t there that night, I was told later that they found Titanic 2 and had watched it, giggling the entire time. It was so ridiculously bad that it was funny. Titanic 2?! Really? How could you create a sequel to a movie where the BOAT SINKS?! And my dear friends actually WATCHED the silly film.

Well, this has now become a game – find the most ridiculous Asylum production and make the group watch it. My husband is very excited about the new game. Recently, I was forced to watch 2010: Moby Dick and Mega Python vs Gatoroid. I’ve been able to avoid such cinematic masterpieces as #1 Cheerleader Camp and 18 Year Old Virgin.

Many of these lovely movies are available on Netflix streaming. Oh goodie. We don’t even need to wait for the mailman to deliver the disc before we are subjected to the fruits of their labor!

Needless to say, the script is awful and the special effects are worse. The boys have done some research and found out that the production timetable is laughably short, the scripts written in a week in some occasions.

But I have never seen these movies in the theatres – have you? So one is left to wonder how in the world they are making back their money, even if the investments aren’t very big like some other movie studios.

The best part about this whole thing? Mega Python vs Gatoroid featured two 80’s pop stars – Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. Do you remember them? “I think we’re alone now…” Oh yes, that Tiffany. But even better than old musicians trying their hand at a movie was Tiffany’s classic lyrics showing up in the action thriller. As serious lines. I think we’re alone now. There doesn’t seem to be…anyone…around. WOW.

Ok, I have to confess – I fell asleep during that movie. As I did with Moby Dick. Because who in the world can stay awake during those silly movies? Husband filled me in on the classic lyrics insertion and I feel like I watched all 90 minutes of ridiculousness.

Guest Post: So Sonderful So Marvelous

2011-07-19T11:57:00.002-05:00

Hi, strangers!

I think I'm going through what one might call "blogger's block" - there lots of posts in my to do list, but when I sit down to write one, nothing intelligent comes out.

So it's a good thing that I sent Michelle of So Wonderful, So Marvelous this guest blog a few weeks ago, for her to publish when she was on maternity leave. Now that she has greeted her beautiful daughter, Tate, to this great big world, she posted my guest blog!

If you don't know Michelle, she's an awesome lady who has a permanent place in my "Good Reads" folder on Google Reader. No matter if she's talking about her neato son, Finn, or sweet husband, Dave, or any number of random things that tend to pop up in a blogger's life, I love reading every post she publishes.

So do me a favor, go over and say hi to me over there, ok?

And I promise I'll try to come up with something interesting to tell you soon.

Fights about Future Issues

2011-07-12T19:50:00.001-05:00

After spending the better part of last Saturday at Silver Dollar City, it got me thinking about a conversation I had with Husband a few months ago about taking children to our favorite vacation place in the whole wide world, Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

On one of the many road trips we have taken in the past few weeks, the subject of vacationing to Disney with kids came up. I said that I couldn’t wait to take our kids to Disney. Walking around the parks that I love, seeing their expression when they meet a character, getting their first hair cut at the barber on Main Street! What’s not to love?

Ok, yes, there might be issues. A cranky baby in a crowded park doesn’t sound like my idea of a vacation. Having to lug all their stuff in a diaper bag plus a stroller to deal with isn’t exactly the easiest way to travel. But won’t those little inconveniences be trumped by the awesome experience?

Husband firmly disagrees. He thinks we should leave our kids home until they are older and able to travel more easily. It would be easier to travel with an older child, as they might not need a stroller or special food.

I can’t imagine how having a baby should interrupt our vacation plans – it absolutely shouldn’t! If I were to get pregnant with a trip planned, THAT might change things. After all, there would be the plane trip to consider and I probably couldn’t ride many of my favorite rides once I got there.

But taking an infant to the World? We’re so good at touring that taking a baby along doesn’t seem like it would be that hard.

Honestly, I don’t know why we’re arguing about things that don’t even matter yet. We are years from having children and we will have LOTS of trips ahead without having to think about taking kids along. There are more important things to fight about!

THIS is the Way to Watch Baseball

2011-07-09T17:27:00.001-05:00

Last night was my third Cardinals game in five days. After all, it’s baseball season!

Wednesday night, I had a work celebration at the stadium and I got a yummy cookies and cream Dippin’ Dots. Did you know they’re the ice cream of the future? They’ve had that same marketing slogan for about twenty years. Isn’t it the future yet?

Friday night, Husband and I were invited to the game against the Diamondbacks. We were told to enter through the third base gate, near the Stan Musial statue. Man, those are where the good seats are, we thought! We had no idea what we were in for.

Here was our view:

We even had the red, cushioned comfy seats! Although we weren’t in the very front section where you get food delivered to your seat, our tickets weren’t anything to shake a stick at! If these were the seats we always got, I would be at the ballpark EVERY home stand. What a view!

I even got another cookies and cream Dippin’ Dots. They’re just the best ice cream at the park!

Tomorrow, we are back at the ballpark with Husband and a few friends to enjoy a game from the bleachers on his birthday. I’m so excited! That means more Dippin’ Dots. :)

I Try to Be Organized, I Really, Really, REALLY Do!

2011-07-07T22:09:00.001-05:00

Source

Do you ever put something away in a particular place because you don’t want to lose it, and if you put it in that particular place, you can’t POSSIBLY forget that you put it there?

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s where our safe deposit box key is. Hiding somewhere – probably where *I* put it to keep it safe.

No, it’s not in Husband’s sock drawer (where I’m told ALL men keep important things, Husband and my father are evidence of this one).

No, it’s not in any one of the MULTIPLE bags that I use to shuttle to-do items between home and the office.

No, it’s not in the hanging mail organizing by the staircase. Not in any one of the pockets in that organizer.

No, it’s not in my car.

No, it’s not in the important file box.

And it’s not in any one of the random piles of things around the house.

I have prayed to St. Anthony [patron saint of misplaced things], I have prayed to St. Jude [patron saint of lost causes] and I have cursed to high heavens when I.just.can’t.find.it.

After learning of the $150 re-keying fee imposed by my bank, I must ask you, O Internet…

WHERE is my safe deposit box key?!

A Holiday Weekend in Bullet Points and iPhone Pictures

2011-07-04T22:19:00.001-05:00

This weekend, we headed down to Table Rock Lake to spend some time with friends M and K, our Sunday night dinner friends. Another couple joined us at M’s parents’ lake house. Three of us brought our fancy DSLRs, and I was determined to get some great pictures of the fireworks, the lake and friends. You know what they say about the best laid plans..

This weekend, we…

Hit lots of traffic on the way out of St. Louis, on the way to Branson. I hate traffic.
Ended up meeting our friends at Lamberts’ Cafe in Springfield, about an hour from the lake house. It was my first time and I was *SO* excited to get rolls thrown at my head!

Were served the biggest drink I have ever seen at a restaurant at Lamberts. It sure does cut down on the refill runs that the waitress has to make!
Made a Saturday morning trek to Silver Dollar City in Branson. SO much fun!

Did not eat the mountain cookies that were as big as my head at SDC that morning. We ate a cinnamon roll as big as my head instead.

Purchased SDC season tickets for cheaper than a one-day ticket, so we can go back with my family in our trip in August. I’m very excited about this. I mean, who doesn’t want to spend a hot summer day in a place like this, with lots of trees?

Tried on lots of silly hats, and Husband was looking away when I caught this one. :)

Spent Saturday afternoon spelunking. Well, sort of. As much spelunking as one can do underneath a theme park. The views in Marvel Cave were gorgeous.

Were able to get a good iPhone picture of me and husband, and he’s actually smiling! This one might be bumped up to Facebook profile picture status.

Went out on the boat on Sunday morning and the jet skiis too.
Ended up in the hospital Sunday afternoon with a friend after a jet skiing accident. Surgery is definitely necessary and we’re just praying at this point that it’s not as bad as they say it is. They have said that she had a clean fracture of the pelvis, so yeah, it’s kind of scary. The jet ski went into a wave and then immediately into another big wave, and they lost control, causing the two riders to go up and over the jet ski and hit the water pretty hard. Sunday afternoon was a scary time at the lake house, waiting to hear how she was. If you’re the praying type, please pray. We need all the good thoughts we can get!
Drove back to St. Louis on Monday afternoon after spending the day at the hospital with our friends. Literally, it was the longest three hour drive in the world. Ugh.
Will not end up doing vacation laundry tonight because I’m exhausted. So there.

So here’s to a four day week ahead, ending in Husband’s 27th birthday!

A Plan to Get My Butt in Gear

2011-07-01T08:09:00.001-05:00

I found this little beauty of an exercise plan the other day on Pinterest:

Original Source

I’ve really been slacking at the Couch 2 5K program that I said I started literally months ago. It’s been hard to get up early and get in a work out, even if it’s only for 25 minutes a day. When I can’t wake up early enough, I promise myself I’ll come home and do it right away. And then I don’t. Because I’m lazy!

But this little breakdown sounds relatively easy. It is designed to get slackers like me working every day until you’re ready to exercise regularly. It even gives you break days!

The trick? If you stop for one day, you have to start at the beginning again. Now THAT’S motivation.

When I get back from the holiday weekend (the last traveling we’ll do for a while), I think I’m going to try this. Why not? I’ve got nothing to lose!

I Met the Most Beautiful Baby in the World Last Weekend

2011-06-30T12:45:00.001-05:00

I was honored to become the godmother of the most precious little girl in the whole wide world. Her name is gorgeous and melodic and can be abbreviated in a great nickname. On this blog, I’m going to call her Bee. She’s so gorgeous that I really almost took her home. Really.

See? I’m not lying. She’s precious.

I had a wonderful time in Denver for the quick weekend. We saw Bee and her mom, S, my first cousin.

Frontier Airlines gave me a cookie before we landed in Denver. It was even hot!

The sunset when I landed

My lovely goddaughter, doing what she did for most of the weekend, sleeping.

My silly first-cousin-once-removed

After the Baptism, we took a drive on Sunday up to Boulder to visit the Celestial Seasonings factory and got a tour.

And no, there are no pictures of me in that awful hair net. Because I will delete them from my mother’s camera as soon as I can.

We got our “tea-kit” – a packet of honey vanilla chamomile tea. When they called that flavor, that would be our cue to get in line for the tour!

We had such an amazing time in Denver visiting my cousin and the new baby, Bee. Oh I wish I could live out here! Maybe Husband could get a job in Denver? I could stand the cold for views like this!

Technology Sometimes Is Smarter than I Am

2011-06-29T18:59:00.001-05:00

I have an iPhone, a Canon point and shoot camera and a DSLR. I love taking pictures, even if I’m not the best at it. It’s fun to look back and see what was going on at a particular moment in time. It’s very hard, though, since Husband is a bit camera shy.

I was writing up my post on my goddaughter’s baptism that I attended in Denver over the weekend when it occurred to me I have a bunch of photos on the iPhone since the DSLR died halfway through the weekend.

That made me wonder – for those of you with an iPhone, how do you back up your images, or even organize them on the phone? Is there an easy way to pull them off the phone and get them on my blog, for example?

I need some help in this whole technology thing. Seriously.

“The Ruin of Most Men Dates From Some Idle Moment*”

2011-06-20T21:19:00.001-05:00

Productivity.

It’s a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, I love how I feel after I complete a project. I even add things to my to do list so I can cross them off and get that sense of accomplishment. Cleaning out my closet on a random Wednesday night? Awesome. I went to bed with a smile because I loved the idea that I would wake up and be able to see all my clothes at a glance.

On the other hand, I despise productivity. No matter WHAT I accomplish, there is always something more to do. So I can be as productive as possible but I will always want to be more productive.

So it’s good and yet not so good. I am determined to clean up the entire townhouse this summer. Every Saturday, I’ve assigned ourselves one room to declutter. This weekend doesn’t count because I have to head to Denver to be a godmother to my cousin’s second daughter – which is going to be awesome, by the way. I love little babies and I’ll get to hold this one all weekend! Can’t wait. :) But after that little jaunt, we spend one day each weekend cleaning out one room.

But then there’s the whole thing of KEEPING the room clean. I guess I’ll worry about that after the room is decluttered and clean? Hmm.

*title quote by Hillard

Organizing is a Tricky Thing to Do on a Week Night

2011-06-17T22:54:00.001-05:00

The next time that I suggest on Twitter that I want to clean out a particularly big area in my house (ie – anything bigger than one singular drawer in a singular room), please refer me to this post.

I have got it in my head that the entire townhouse must be decluttered. I believe it’s called nesting – I have the most urgent need to throw things away, gather like with like and reorganize every single space in the house. And it must be done RIGHT NOW. I have no idea why it has suddenly started but it has but boy, it’s insistent.

I was so proud of my work on the pantry and the fridge that I organized over the weekend that I thought I should tackle my guest bedroom closet one work night when Husband was at class. Because that was a good idea.

Right in the middle of the whole thing, I tweeted out this picture -

And this is why one should undertake such a large decluttering project when really one should be watching the SYTYCD performance show. Because who does this on a work night? Seriously.

So here are the before pictures of the great closet decluttering adventure. It’s a large closet that takes up most of one wall – I love having this much space for all my clothes! Hubs has all of his clothes in the smaller closet in our master bedroom so I get this one all to myself.

Left side:

Middle:

Right side:

After removing almost everything from the closet, purging and reorganizing, here is what I was left with at the end of the night:

Left side:

To the left are my dresses, which are nice to hang here because they can hang beyond the second shelf. Below is my stepladder so I can reach those things on the top shelf. Plus pillows and a box of blankets for those in the guest bedroom.

Middle:

Here’s where I’m very proud of myself. I rolled all of my tshirts and stood them up in the buckets on the top shelf. I hardly ever wear them but still need access to them. I actually donated a bunch of old shirts that didn’t fit to Goodwill – because why do I need to store them if I’m not going to wear them?

In addition to the buckets purchased at the Dollar Store, I also got those red fabric boxes. They’re holding tank tops and other light long-sleeved shirts that don’t need to be hung up. It’s a great place for them.

Next to the drawers of undergarments are my shoes. You can sort of see more buckets on the floor with additional shoes. There’s another shoe holder at the foot of the guest bed, but I definitely needed more shoe storage. I thought the buckets would do the trick!

Right side:

Here we have all my love suit jackets and skirts below. Up above is our traveling stuff – pillows and packing cubes. There’s also a mirror in there that needs to find a home but I don’t know when that will happen.

Although I’m very happy with the space that I have now, I still need to do more purging and cleaning. But baby steps are good steps, right?

I Love Flowers

2011-06-15T21:40:00.001-05:00

I came home from a long day of work yesterday, plus an hour and a half long baptism preparation class so I can be a godmother to my cousin’s second daughter next weekend. It was exhausting because of a major meeting at work I had to set up, exhausting because of the meeting we had with SLU regarding the donation in Dad’s name plus a mass said for the repose of his soul. I was on the verge of tears for most of the day.

So I got home and saw those lovely flowers sitting on my kitchen table and couldn’t imagine who they were from!

My mom’s cousin, Helen, had sent us red roses – one for each of us in the family plus my Grandma. Wasn’t that the sweetest thing? She wanted us to have a smile on the anniversary of Dad’s passing. Well, it definitely happened. We smiled the rest of the evening and again this morning when we walked downstairs to see them.

This totally counts for my 101 in 1001 list!

Thank you, cousin Helen!

One Year Ago Today…

2011-06-14T21:53:00.001-05:00

One year ago today, my world was irrevocably changed with a call I received while making coffee for a mid-morning meeting. I always knew that I would have to deal with my parents’ mortality, but I honestly thought I thought it would be many more years before I was faced with the situation of one year ago.

I still find it hard to believe that my father is gone. On the way home from an important meeting or a particularly fun night out with friends, I still find myself reaching for the phone to call him and let him know how things went.

My first post after the blogging break due to his death really says it all. It’s very raw, and it hurts me to read it.

Needless to say, I’m still hurt. I miss him terribly. I know that those feelings will never go away. They are a bit softer now, one year later.

I spent the day busy at work, while mom and brother were at my apartment, puttering around and waiting for me to get home.

The afternoon had a nice symmetry to it – we met at SLU and my mother passed along a donation in Dad’s name to the Service Leadership Certificate program. It aims to get business students involved in service leadership to the community in order to really make a difference in those communities. It’s the perfect way to commemorate his life. He even gets a conference room named after him! It was very exciting.

Then we gathered in the chapel and had mass said for the repose of his soul. That also was full of symmetry. Coming back to our faith time after time during this past year has helped keep me center.

We believe that he is not gone, but has simply passed on to his Eternal Reward. It’s what we strive for all our lives – to die and be reunited with our Heavenly Father. So it’s very hard to be sad for him because he has what he has always wanted. We grieve for ourselves, because we are left behind.

But I know that with each passing year, he is with me. And someday, we will be reunited in Heaven, when it is our time to leave this earth. It’s important to remember that.

Oh yeah, I meant to do those.

2011-06-13T07:38:00.000-05:00

So I totally ignored my 101 in 1001 list for months and then picked up a few of them in a short span of time. I decided to blog about them together.

When I go through my whole DVR recorded shows, I’m forced to turn to Netflix. It’s really quite addicted how many shows are available to stream straight to Husband’s XBox or the Wii in my craft room.

99. Watch 26 movies, each one starting with a different letter

I decided to focus my next few movie watching experiences on those classics that I just never saw for some reason. This time, it was Royal Wedding, starring Fred Astaire and Jane Powell. Oh how I love Fred. They don’t make dancers like that anymore. [sigh]

10. Send 10 cards to friends just because (0/10)

So I think I may have cheated on this one. I came home from the $ store with some great greeting cards that I had to have. And then I saw my mother’s mother had sent me a card, just because. I had some cute cards so I sat down to reply to her. Now that I have some stationery, I’m planning on doing this more often. I love getting mail, and I know others do too!

I only have a little over one year to complete my 101 list. And I’m not so sure I’ll complete everything. But there’s always the next list, right?

Tush! Tush! Fear Boys with Bugs*

2011-06-12T18:42:00.001-05:00

There is something so wonderful, so fun and so perfect about experiencing Shakespeare for free in a public park, outside under the stars. I really think it adds an element of magic to the thing that is live theatre.

Here in St. Louis, we are very lucky to have an amazing company that produces that free Shakespeare show each year in Forest Park. Last night, a group of our friends went down to the park early with a picnic basket, cooler and our lawn chairs to see the show.

We got there around 6 pm and were surprised to find so many people already there. It was starting to get cool and there wasn’t rain in the forecast so I think everyone else had the same idea as us that night! In any case, we were able to set up our lawn chairs a bit up the hill where it was relatively flat and wouldn’t cause it to come tumbling down the hill when we sat down to watch the show.

We were treated to Juggling Jeff and Josh the Clown’s antics before the show. I even asked them to redo their bit so I could catch them in a picture!

I am always impressed by their acts – they’re also the nicest guys in the world. Hence, the redo of their act so I could get a picture!

We nibbled and chatted for a bit before the show started.

And then there was a drunk in the crowd, followed by a policeman. And no, it wasn’t one of our group for once!

Definitely part of the show. I knew the play (it was the first Shakespearean show I was in during high school) and remembered that the play-within-a-play plot that Taming of the Shrew employs actually starts with a drunkard. Hence, the wandering thru the audience. It was really funny.

Right before the show started, we settled in, refilled our beers and margaritas, and then I was faced with this:

REALLY?!

We had been sitting there since 6 pm and a lady came in a few minutes before the show started and squeezed herself and her lawn chair right in front of me.

Oh well. I was still able to see if I tilted my head to the left and she did end up leaving during intermission. It got too cold for her, I overheard.

It wasn’t blazing hot during the day, but I didn’t realize that it was going to get so cool when the sun went down! Husband’s good friend D gave me his sweatshirt because I was so cold [such a nice guy, that one!] but then he ended up getting chilly too. So being the inventive one that he is, he grabbed the covers for the chairs and put one on each leg. That sure kept him warm! I was much better when Husband found a t-shirt in the trunk of our car and I was able to cover my cold toes with that.

But all in all, it was a wonderful night with friends and comedy onstage. If you’re in St. Louis, you still have until Father’s Day to see Taming of the Shrew in the Shakespeare Glen in Forest Park. It’s a hoot!

*Post title is one of my favorite quotes from The Taming of the Shrew, Act i. Scene 2.

Part of my 101 in 1001 list - Go out with friends at least once a month. One more down!

Inspired to Declutter

2011-06-11T15:30:00.001-05:00

After reading about Sonya’s awesome summer o’ decluttering over at A Day in the Life, I was inspired. I wanted to spend the weekend cleaning. This afternoon after the Costco run, I set down to business.

I meant to attack the master bedroom – I hate that room right now because it’s so messy. They say to eat your frog first, or do the thing that bugs you most or that you don’t want to do. Then, you’ve completed something and it makes the rest of the projects seem easier.

But as I was putting away groceries, I decided the pantry wasn’t going to fit all the new food we got. Plus, I was pretty sure that a bunch of food was expired. Since, well, um, I don’t even want to say. Let’s just say it’s been a little while since I’ve cleaned out the pantry or fridge.

Ok, so it doesn’t look horrible, but there was a lot of wasted space. The reason there are jackets hanging on the back of the door? Well, this is the pantry and the coat closet and the vacuum storage and the home of the trash can and reusable bags, plus our food. Not fun.

Many trash bags and a trip to the dumpster later, we now have a more organized pantry full of food that I know is actually ok for us to eat.

I now have containers for cereal and baskets to corral things like rice packets and snacks of various types. The white trash can is recycling and the step can is for regular trash. The recycling can is sitting on top of two containers that have hats and scarves and such for the wintertime. This way they’re by the door but still hidden. I’ll switch all the coats out when it starts getting colder again.

I’m so excited about my newly organized pantry!

Getting Mail is So Much Fun!

2011-06-10T20:08:00.001-05:00

After all the traveling that Husband and I have been doing over the past few weeks, I finally decided that the small roll-aboard suitcase we have wasn’t cutting it. I feel like such a dork walking into a hotel for a one night stay with a rolled bag rather than a duffel bag. Husband has a duffel that he’s been using and it’s so much easier for him to grab it and run.

I had just decided to find a duffel bag when I saw someone on one plane had a matching duffel and tote – well, of course, I needed one like THAT!

Plus, on the last wedding weekend, one of the wheels of our roll-aboard fell off in the parking lot. I hope that Husband can fix it, but either way, another small bag for my things would be nice to have around.

That’s where Etsy comes in. I love Etsy. I spend way too many hours looking at the shops there and drooling over the gorgeous things that much more creative people than me have created.

I did some searching and came across Vicki’s shop – Deerpath Designs. She had some really cute bags with customized monograms embroidered on them – I fell in love with the damask pattern. But she only had the tote bag so I asked if she could get the large duffel in the same patterns. Turns out she can!

My order arrived today and I am officially in love. I can’t wait for our next trip where I can use them!

There’s even pink bows with white accents on each bag!

Plus, my monogram is embroidered on both bags in the matching pink thread.

I LOVE IT. The big duffel is going to be plenty big for a long weekend’s worth of clothes and the tote bag is HUGE. I can carry my nook, a smaller purse for the trip, magazines, my toiletries and even snacks if I wanted to! It’s going to be so perfect.

Thanks, Vicki!

This is just one more thing I’ve bought from an Etsy store that counts towards my 101 in 1001 list.

I Ran Away to the Circus!

2011-06-09T18:48:00.001-05:00

Last night, I went to our local circus, Circus Flora. The big top gets set up on a parking lot in the arts district in town and they play for about a month. It’s a European-style circus and conducted in one ring instead of the American three rings like Barnum and Bailey’s.

We had such an amazing time. I went with my in-laws and a cousin-in-law. It was great!

There was one act was made up of all kids – some younger than my cousins! They had little kids that were tossed all over the place and even used as a jump rope at one point! So funny.

But my favorite act was the Flying Wallendas. Oh. My. Goodness. Incredible doesn’t even begin to describe them.

This video was only a portion of their act, taped a few years ago.

After they did this trick, they did a four person pyramid. On a bicycle. It was crazy.

If you’re in St. Louis, please go see this Circus. You will not regret it. The story is great, costumes are fun, there are even horses and dogs to get in on the act.