Forgive me!

I'll post a real post again soon! I've just been swamped with schoolwork. Hopefully I will be able to spare a few minutes this week. I have a huge paper (10 pages) due on Sunday. Then I will be more free!

Post Wedding 2

Brr! It snowed all morning and there is at least 3 inches on the ground. The roads are getting slippery. Caleb is out shoveling the walkways. I made him some cocoa for when he comes in. I really want to make my mom's snow ice cream, but we don't have freezer space right now!!

I got a lovely hair trim today when we went to town. Last night we went to small group, and it was just us and our hosts! So we played a game, and then just talked. It was fun. And she had made some wonderful banana bread! Tonight we have another meeting. And I work tomorrow. But, without further ado, here's some more weekend recaps.

----

I was very pooped at the end of the wedding. We got home at 7:30. At 10:15, my mom in law called. One brother was making his signature meal of chicken cordon bleu. So, of course we had to go. We arrived at 10:30, and I looked at wedding pictures. We finally got to eat at 12:45 (yes it took a long time) and were home by 1:30, and in bed by 2. So I woke up on Sunday truly exhausted.

We had Thanksgiving on Sunday. SIL had to work all day and C had to work until 5, but came on his lunch break. But all the brothers were there, and won't be here on Thursday. So we did it! It was fun and spread out the holidays more for C and I.

-----
C has a much needed 3 day weekend. Next week is the start of finals for me, so I need to get busy. I also am working 5 more days this week. Thursday, we will head out East End with my parents to my brother's house for Thanksgiving there. I can't wait for more good food!

Post Wedding

The wedding is over and I am so relieved. Here are some recaps.

Saturday morning came way too early after our late night. We got to the church at 10:40, ten minutes after we were supposed to be there, and we were among the first to arrive. Funny how that works. It worked out fine, but I wasn't sure that it would. I helped Tracy set up her photography stuff and got to be her model yet again while she positioned everything the way she wanted it. Then I hung out with the guys while they got ready...not that there was anything to do! I went to check on the bride and her crew a few times. It was soon time for pictures. It was a lot of fun and Tracy got some awesome shots of all of the brothers, but it was hard to corral everyone. Tracy had the brilliant idea to ask the soundman for a microphone. She was able to get everyone's attention without yelling, so it was a great idea for a photographer.

I had to run off with my sister in law (SIL) to the reception site to put the cake together, and to make sure the music and mic would work. We went after 1 and the wedding was at 2. It was a bit tense, with a time crunch and technical difficulties, but we got back around 1:30. I ran around with my camera the entire day, capturing my favorite moments and then some. There was a bit of a kink, waiting for a grandma to arrive, so the ceremony didn't actually start until 2:30. Oh well!

They got married off, and Karen, me and Erika all helped coordinate getting everyone in their place. We sat in the back, and I ended up sitting next to my dad. The ceremony was good.

On to the reception. It was just like any other. It was fun, hanging out with Tracy, and the family.

K, More recaps later. I need to go to bed!

Pre Wedding: Brother in law's

Today's been a long day, but fun. After working all day, I went to rehearsal for my brother in law's wedding. It was a fun time, and I got to stand in for 2 different roles: a groomsman (C) and the bride's grandma. Lots of wandering around, and then we went out for pizza. Everything was fun family time. I was a bit depressed at the end, cause C was going to hang out with the guys, and I was just going to go home. I ended up renting a movie with Karen and we watched it at her house, with my mom in law and a brother in law's girlfriend. "Baby Mama" is weird, but ended up being kinda cute, if not predictable at the end. Ah well. It was still fun to hang out with everyone. Now I am home, waiting for C, and it's 12:30. He is with his brothers at a a friends house and they had a bonfire. One brother in law managed to put the car in the ditch in the driveway, and it is now high centered. C called 10 minutes ago, saying that and they were wandering around looking confused. Not a good sign. I'll wait up for a little bit, then go to bed around 1, probably. There is a wedding tomorrow, after all.

update: C got home 5 minutes ago. They got out. The car is a bit dented, but he is home. K, time for bed!

Coming home early

I spent Tuesday coming up with ideas to decorate the house. I put up some more pictures and planned to actually put paintings up. As you can see, the project isn't finished, but I ran out of picture frames that can hang on the wall! I got the top frame on the left from Salvation Army that afternoon.
So C went to work at 7 yesterday. I wrapped some more Christmas presents and a wedding gift. I went to town at 2:30, and did some errands. I also picked up some pasta salad from Latitude 59 for lunch (yum!) C called at 4:15, wanting to know if I wanted pizza. "Not right now." "Well, would you want some in the future?" "Oh sure!" "K, I'll be home in a few minutes!" "What?!" So yes, they finished with inventory about 4pm, instead of like 8. So that was really nice, and it threw me off pretty good. We decided to stay home from youth group so he could relax some. I ended up reading nearly all of Ted Dekker's Red after he got home. (I have 50 pages left) And then we watched a Voyager.

Today I am forcing myself to do homework so I don't have to worry about it during the wedding. It's snowing like crazy outside. It's accumulating, but slowly. So maybe we'll have a snowy Thanksgiving :)

Feed the Kids

I forgot one thing for yesterday's post. Thursday was "Feed the Kids," where the local churches take turns providing lunch on Thursdays to the high schoolers. A local church is just below the HS and the kids walk down. This past week, I helped out. It turned out be really nice (and I got a free meal!) and I actually knew a lot of the kids. I said hi to my boss's son and a friend's little brother and got to talk to my nephew. So it was fun for me to see all of them and get to chat. It was also fun to just be able to help out.

Skipbo and Sopapillas

On Friday at work, my coworker brought in Skipbo, because she had received it as a gift and wanted to learn how to play it so she could play with her grandkids. Since it was so dead that day, she and I played a game of Skipbo for an hour or so, and weren't interrupted with customers once. So that was different. Anyone else play games at work?

My boss learned how to text message this week. She was in meetings all weekend, so when I needed to talk to her, I sent texts...so weird to do that with one's boss!

I picked up my brother in law and his fiance today and took them to meet their photographer. They were ecstatic to be able to have photos done, which made me happy. They are treating it as an answer to prayer and stuff, so C and I don't feel that we need to disclose the origin of the funds. I'd rather them not focus on us. But the meeting went good and then I took them to the city clerk's office to do their marriage license. A random Russian in there heard they were getting married and handed them $100 and "have a happy marriage" ! Boy they were excited. So anyway, I think they are having a blessed week and hopefully it will only get better!

Tonight, the small group went to the local Mexican restaurant for sopapillas. The group has been meaning to do it for probably 2 years and just hasn't. We had only 6 people tonight, so we went ahead and did it! (Sorry you weren't here Lori!) It was fun. I ended up eating more chips and salsa though...C has tomorrow off, and then Wednesday has inventory at work ALL day...7 am to 8 or 9 pm probably. He will be pooped and tired. I feel bad, especially because the wedding is this weekend. We are also potentially having Thanksgiving this weekend, because all of the family will be here. So it should be fun!

Hopefully I'll have more to say this week as the weekend gets closer. If not, a wedding post will be soon!

Link Love

Haven't done one of these in a while, so some of these are old!

Cat owner reunited with "dead" cat - After 9 years!

Anti-theft lunch bag - a little gross/weird, but a good idea!

$10 worth of Sharpies decorates basement - Interesting idea!

Experience Wii Video - Watch the whole thing!

Campaign ads from a 6 year-old POV - Yes, I know, a week too late. Still clever!

Eyeball jewelry - So strange!

Peanut Butter slices - I am not this lazy!

Palin as President - Yet again, a week late, but I got a good laugh out of it.

Icon War - Clever little flash movie.

Eureka Carport in Melbourne - Fascinating pictures

Sugarcube sculptures - I don't have that kind of patience!

K, that's all for now. Don't want to overwhelm you!

Random thoughts

Random thoughts that I've had this week...

- I am so grateful for our apartment. We went to my Brother in law's place and they were complaining about how they can hear everything their neighbor does. As we were there, you could hear a guitar being played and stuff. I realize that is a consequence of apartment living, but we hear nothing that our neighbor does! I think it's the way that the building is laid out, but still. It's very nice not to be able to hear him all the time.

- Got to see two of my "new" nieces on Sunday. Hadn't seen one of them since last Christmas, I believe, so that was cool.

- I have been reminded lately just how blessed I am to have a husband like I do, from looking at circumstances and hearing stories from other people. My husband is good with money and doesn't spend it frivolously (and keeps me in check!), he's caring of my feelings, is faithful, and I never had to wonder if he had my parents' approval. Just a thought.

- C just turned on the Christmas lights and turned off the overhead light to see how much they would light up the room. Not too much, but it looks cheery in here now, so we're keeping them on.

- Said brother in law's wedding is in a week and a half!! We tried to help them out a bit yesterday with the planning. Hopefully it helped.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Scrapbooks

Dawn at Joys of Boys made an interesting scrapbooking post. So I'm taking her idea (well, not really her idea as she got it from someone else) and answering the questions here.

• How many albums have you made?
• How long have you been scrap booking?
• Where do you like to buy your scrap booking supplies?

*Goes to count* I have completed six 12x12 albums with most having 30 pages or more, and am working on two. One of those albums is one I made of concerts I have been to. Four of them are just my life, from birth to current. The last one I finished is one I made about C and I - from the beginning until we got engaged. We displayed that one at our wedding reception and the guests loved it!
Right now I am working on another album about current life. I have it up until this past summer. I also am working on my wedding album. It involves everything wedding related, and I am continuing it as the next "us" book.

It's hard to devote time to scrapping during the school year. I feel bad about doing something that I want to when I have piles of homework to do.

I love scrapbooking because it calms me down and lets me create something permanent with all of the hundreds of photos I take.

I've been scrapping since I was pretty young. Whenever my mom became interested in it was when I did. I made pages for myself, but they turned out fairly awful. I think it was at the beginning of high school that I really became serious about it. I also redid a lot of the pages that I had started with.

I buy my supplies all kinds of places. I get my albums and pages from Creative Memories. I get my paper and stickers all places. Michael's is my favorite place, but I have to drive 4 hours to get there! We have a scrapbooking store in town, so I do go in there sometimes. I basically pick up supplies wherever I find them. It's my expensive hobby, but I think it's worth it!

I have been taking photos of my pages and uploading them to Photobucket to share with family. Here are some of my favorite pages:


If any of you scrapbook, feel free to post your experiences too!

Like Taylor Swift

I just ordered and downloaded Taylor Swift's new album Fearless for $3.99. She's rather teenage, but for some reason I really like her music. So if anyone is interested, this is a great deal!

We woke up to snow. It's still attempting to come down. There's less than an inch, but if the roads are still slippery like yesterday, it will be worse now.

I need a new name for my husband on here. I guess I'll just call him C.

The plan for today is to go to my brother in law's place, to talk about his wedding. I also want to go into my work to talk Christmas presents with C.

If everyone could pray for this wedding, it would be great. It's becoming very stressful for the couple. They both lost their jobs this past month, and they haven't planned much for the wedding, so they are not in good shape. We are helping out and decided to pay for the photographer (a good friend). But they really need guidance and wisdom in their finances, and in making decisions. The wedding is in a week and a half, so there isn't much time now. Thanks everyone!

Have a good rest of the day, everyone!

Frozen roads

The husband and I are about to watch a movie. Mondays are usually small group night, but it was cancelled, due to our leaders being exhausted from a trip. So we got to stay home. Good thing, too, as today was very stormy and once I left work, the roads were very slick. The rain and snow that fell today froze on the roads. When I got out of my car to get my mail, our road was pretty slippery. So I'm glad we didn't need to go anywhere tonight :) And I'm also so grateful that I no longer have to drive to AP on such roads!

I've been meaning to post, just haven't had much to say, nor the time to really do it. I don't usually work Mondays (but I did today), and on Friday, we kept the store open an extra 3 hours, so I worked a later shift. It's been a busy week.

I'm getting frustrated with my classes. My professors annoy me at times, one in particular is very inept somehow. (If you are teaching a distance class, why do you have to be so bad at computers?) I am also getting rather burnt out. 4 online classes is hard to handle at once. I'm trying to decide what to do in the spring as far as my classes go. I will keep you all updated!

I just thought I would check in. I hope to maybe post a real post tomorrow. Time for the movie!

Vote!

Just wanting to encourage everyone to vote if you haven't yet! Voting in town here took a sweet....10 minutes? Not sure, but not longer than that! I'm going to start watching CNN.com for the beginning results.

We woke up to fresh snow...

Caleb is making a "Funfetti" cake because he wanted something sweet...so it's about ready and I can't wait to eat some of it!

Small group was really interesting last night. We've been going through the life of Abraham and yesterday was the subject of Hagar and Sarai and waiting for the promised son. The sermon series at church is the same, and we've been following it in our group. The sermon was really well done and it kept coming up in our discussion. What kept coming up in my mind was, "What am I trusting God for?" Like, what am I hoping for, longing for? Right now, at this stage in my life, I am content and happy. I am married to the love of my life, and life is going well. I am not sure. The only thing I am longing for right now is to be finished with college...so I guess that can count.
What are you trusting God for? Hoping, yearning, but not yet receiving?

Decorating!

I drove to AP this morning and boxed up tons of books and stuffed animals from my old bedroom. I have a garage sale box and 4 boxes still in my car of stuff I am keeping. It was good to get rid of stuff!

From there, I went to my friend's house. I got to meet her new baby, and was entertained by her little girl...I think she's 19 months old. I got to hold the baby for a while and then I got to read to Alinna three books. I was just amazed there, though. My friend has two kids now and is thriving in it. I admire her energy and her willingness to be a mom. I'm definitely not ready for it anytime soon!

Once I got home, I set on my goal of decorating for Christmas. I don't have much, but I was able to put lights in the window and set up my little tree. The tree is a fiber optics one, but unfortunately, I think it's broken and doesn't work...so I put lights on it instead! I also put up my nativity set that I got from work. Most of the ornaments that I put out, I got from work. Most of them were free, so why do I care that they say Alaska? :)

I hope that whenever your family decorates this year, (probably after Thanksgiving, I know!) that you have a wonderful time and please share your photos as well!

5 o clock sunsets..

We had my brother in law and his fiance over last night. They hadn't been to our place yet, so we gave them the (small) tour. We talked wedding pretty much the whole time. It was nice to have them over, but a bit depressing. They both lost their jobs this month, so things are getting more and more tight for them...not to mention planning a wedding. So if you all could pray for them, that would be awesome.

And we got the apartment clean! =P

Today, not much happened that is worth noting really. Had lunch with my parents, then did grocery shopping with them. Always a good time. I just finished the last of my homework about 10 minutes ago, so now I am chilling before heading to bed.

I hate the time change! Now the sun sets at 5pm....so early! I hate having my sleep schedule off as well. Oh well...I'll get over it.

Tomorrow I think that I will be going to AP and cleaning out my old bedroom. Boxing up stuff I want to keep and bags for Salvation Army. I've been wanting to do it before we really get snow, and it could be soon. So I'll do it tomorrow! I also plan on popping in to see a friend who just had her second baby a couple weeks ago. So insane that she has two kids already! She's a year older than I am, but still!

I also want to decorate for Christmas this week.....*looks sheepish* It always excites me to decorate and I can't wait to decorate our place, so I just want to do it. We'll see when it happens and I will probably post pictures.