New Year, New House??

I hope everyone had a Meeeeeerrryyyyyy Christmas!! Ours has been fabulous so far - the actual day spent with K's family, with an extension of the holiday via a visit to Houston as well...

As the new year approaches, K and I have started thinking more and more about our future. We've hypothetically discussed building a new house, starting a family, etc., but 2009 will be decision making time. Tonight we met with a builder. We're talking to a couple others as well, still all very preliminary with lots of decisions left to be made. I will say that I am absolutely thrilled at the potential of the following:

• A laundry room. To not have to go out to the garage in the freezing cold, rain, blistering heat, with rats, snakes, whatever - having a dryer inside will be heavenly. I also cannot wait to have a clothing bar. To not have to hang hand-washed clothes and bras in the shower will be such a treat.
• Ability to park my car in the garage. Our vision is for a 3 car garage, allowing a space for the boat, and one each for our vehicles. Again - heavenly.
• A fireplace. One of my favorite childhood memories is watching my Dad ball up newspaper on really cold nights and start a fire from scratch. Plus I want a mantle to hand stockings from for Christmas.
• A big closet. Oh how I want a big closet. Oh how I need a big closet. A walk-in. With built-in storage. And a shoe rack. And big chair in the middle that I can throw all of my clothes on. Right now poor K has all his clothes in our guest bedroom b/c my stuff takes up the entire one in our room.
• An island in the kitchen with a built-in wine cooler. Not a necessity, but would still be cool.
• A piano so I can play looney tunes, etc.

Even though decorating scares me, every time I go to TJ Maxx or Marshalls I have to refrain from buying. I see a really cool ottoman, or matching bar stools, etc. and think, "oh this would looks great in our new house!" Irrational, I know, and I have managed to refrain thus far simply because we have no storage in our current house for such purchases. One day...

In the meantime, I leave you now with a clip of my bro inlaw tasing himself the night of the Bowen Christmas Eve beer pong tournament. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

My version of Frivolous Friday

My friend Erin has a weekly update on her blog that she calls Frivilous Friday. I thought about coming up with some type of catchy phrase as such to title my bullet-point posts, but I'm not that creative. I am finding that weekly updates are best, so if I could write my own version of Frivilous Friday [or maybe Spectacular Sunday?] this is what I would say:


--I will never go Christmas shopping during December again ever. Last weekend I went to get dog food, and the traffic itself was ridiculous, not to mention the vultures in the parking lot. Picture this: open space available in very back of store with car over the line in spot to the left and big concrete light pole in the middle of the spot to the right. Logically, I park a little over the line to the right to avoid a door ding from car on the left. As I get out of my car, a lady drives by, literally rolls down her window and asks me, "why did you take up 2 spaces?" After fighting the madness prior to actually finding a place to park, needless to say I was not in the best of moods. I said very curtly," uh - there's a big pole in that spot next to me, so you couldn't have parked there anyways." LADY!!! Please forgive me dear Lord for not practicing patience and love to the best of my ability during this joyous time of year.

--Em and Stan want me to join Facebook. I'm considering, but still very anti. I hear it is rather addicting, and I would rather not succomb to more computer time at night, especially since I'm already on it all day at work. Plus, do you really talk to random people you went to high school with on a regular basis after the, "will you be my friend?" request? And by "talk" I do not mean stalk their web page for updates on their lives.

--K proposed to me 2 years ago last Sunday. Our friends Cody and Jen got engaged the day after we did. Our handsome beaus treated us to a double date last weekend - dinner at Tolouse followed by a horse-drawn carraige ride in Highland Park to look at Christmas lights. So romantic and thoughtful!! The weather was perfectly brisk and it was such a wonderful evening.


--Today in church our closing song of celebration was Feliz Navidad. The congregation was jamming. Clapping, lights flashing, the works. Love it.

--Last night we went to the Christmas symphony. Every year K's grandfather buys tickets for the fam. My favorite part is the audience sing-a-long. Unfortunately Rich got hit the back of the head by the people in the row behind shaking their keys to "Jingle Bells," but otherwise all went well. The cousins had dinner beforehand with no adults. So much more enjoyable without their supervision.

Who says dogs don't smile??

Most of you have already received [or will be receiving soon] our cheesy Christmas card for the year. It's an annual tradition to include our precious daughter, Abby, in the picture we send out for all to see. This year we decided to snap one of her wearing a Santa hat - how festive.

Needless to say, she was not thrilled about the idea. K wasn't home from work yet, so I decided to try and capture a few images on my own. You can see from the first picture below she has a look of, "seriously Mom, this is ridiculous and I'm so mad at you for making me wear this stupid Santa hat."

In the midst of the photo shoot, Uncle Ryan showed up to work on the boat in the backyard [winterize it for the cold weather, etc]. It is important to note that Abby LOVES Uncle Ryan. Like seriously LOVES him. Since I wasn't having much luck with the pictures, I decided to take her outside to say hi. After we came back inside, I snapped the 2nd photo below. I mean really - who says dogs don't smile???

Pre Uncle Ryan sighting:

Post Uncle Ryan sighting:

Bake Day!

So every year K's Aunt Kathy hosts a fabulous Bake Day at her house. The girls labor for hours on end in the kitchen with dough, flour, chocolate, butter, etc. strewn all over our Christmas aprons. Dozens of batches of cookies and a few glasses of bubbly later, the guys show up for BBQ hamburgers for dinner afterwards.

It really is a festive time, one that I'm coming to greatly enjoy despite my lack of cooking ability. My contribution this year was a package of slice and bake cookies from Tom Thumb. I was promptly scolded and told that I was "cheating" if I cooked those, so ended up making Holiday S'mores which was okay by me. I did have to mix ingredients over a skillet, which to be honest was way complicated. I felt it necessary at the end of the night to admit to K that I likely will never be a good cook, as in EVER. He very sweetly told me that was okay, as long as I can make sugar cookies with icing [here's where my slice and bake comes in] and chocolate "krinkles" [a little more complicated, but still manageable].

K is currently at a gun show with his Pa [don't ask]; however, this afternoon the Christmas festivites will likely continue as we pick out our tree from Home Depot and begin decorating the house. We've got some great "new" ornaments from his grandfather that will look so beautiful and serve as wonderful reminders of loved ones. I wrapped a few presents in advance this afternoon, so tonight we should be done decorating. I love this time of the year!!!

Title: None

So I've started like 5 different posts within the past couple weeks but haven't finished any of them. They're not good really at all - no purpose or central message. Not that any of my posts are ever "good," but I'm feeling the need for some meaty depth these days. Instead, I come up with pointless rambling not worth broadcasting. Ugh.

Some people tell me I should write a book, but I'd have a serious problem coming up with a consistent theme. Writing does fulfill me - maybe not the actual writing itself, but the satisfaction that I feel after going back and reading my words. Perusing through my old journals leads me to feel "known" by what I've written - does that make sense? It's like I can clearly see my heart and have insight as to who God is making me, and it provides tangible evidence of the ways in which I've grown over time.

This is what I wrote 2 years ago to the date:

12/3/06, Sunday

So I’ve been preparing several journal entries from the past for K to read. I did this once before in our relationship – printed out a couple entries mostly related to how I felt about us in the beginning of our relationship – to help him understand the things I’m not able to fully express through words. Writing is so much easier for me. Maybe it’s because I can erase and rewrite and make everything sound okay after endless editing, where as with words it’s a lot harder to edit what you say once they’ve already come out of your mouth. Regardless, it’s been fun going back and reading what I wrote over the past 2 years.

This is the theme in my old entries: searching, lack of direction, desperate to find my purpose, a need to solve everything in the whole wide world right now at this very second, to be in control and make things fall into place, wondering if I’m doing things right, anxious to figure it all out, confusion, more searching, more questioning…

I feel like I’m reaching a new stage in life. Maybe it’s maturing, maybe I’ve finally figured things out, maybe I’m just learning how to live fuller given my current circumstances instead of searching so much. I no longer feel this pressure to present myself to the world in a way that makes it seem as though I have it all together, that I know exactly what I’m here for. My life is constantly evolving and changing, and there’s no way in the world I could ever expect it to conform to some pre-set pattern I’ve created in my mind. In retrospect, God has brought me so far, and is still bringing me to new places and teaching me new things. That I might never fail to recognize the joy of the unknown, that I would remain hopeful into the future, while continuing to be ever thankful for the present…