been awhile...

so yeah, it's been a while since i've posted. i'll just hit on some of the highlights of what's happened recently i think. although who knows what i'll actually end up with.
this past weekend, adam and i drove out to chicago to see my sister in law. on saturday, we had lunch out at a pizza place. but their "pizzas" aren't standard pizzas, they are more like a pot pie or something. the filling is in a bowl, the crust is over it, then they flip in out of the bowl at your table. the place has actually been on food network before. it was pretty good. although i was in the mood for a regular old pizza. oh well. we did a lot of walking around the rest of the day. that evening adam and i went and saw "wicked" (an early anniversary gift from his parents). it was awesome. then sunday we went to anne sathers for breakfast (also has been on the food network) and holy cow, you get a ton of food. i ordered a breakfast wrap, which was huge - at least 3 eggs in it - plus you also got 2 sides to go with it. i ordered cinnamon rolls and toast - and quite honestly the cinnamon rolls (which were huge) would have been plenty to eat on their own. and the nice thing was, it only cost $8. then we walked a while up to Graceland Cemetary, where their family has a masoleum (sp?). it was a huge cemetary, and quite beautiful. after that, we headed back to erin's and then hit the road.

2 of adam's friends came up for memorial weekend. that was fun. we went and saw pirates 3, went golfing. they went out fishing, and we ate a ton of food.

i've been golfing a lot. i'm in a league that plays every wednesday. that's been fun. it's nice to golf with people other than adam sometimes.

i also joined a bible study at the church we've been going to. the bible study just started yesterday, and it is for mom's of all ages. i know i'm not a mom yet, but i know i want to be soon, so thought it would be a great way to get involved at the church and to meet people. we're reading a book called "the mission of motherhood". pretty good so far.

not a whole lot else that i can remember in the last couple of weeks really.

today i had a cleaning marathon. i can't believe how much i got done. i dusted, vacuumed, mopped, cleaned windows, cleaned all 3 bathrooms, changed rex's litter box, did dishes, did like 6 loads of laundry (including folding! which i rarely do). i never ever do that much in one day. rarely even in one week. so i was pretty impressed with myself. i just hope it stays clean for a few days....

hooray!!!

i am finally going to buy a sewing machine! hopefully today! i am so excited. i have been researching online for weeks. and i think i found a good one. at walmart of all places. but i was looking on joann, they have the same one for almost twice the price. so i figured i could drive 30-45 minutes to walmart and try that out, instead of driving 75+ minutse to joann and paying more. so hopefully it works well. it has a lot of great looking features and super reviews on joanns website. so hopefully it is as wonderful as i want it to be. otherwise, i'll probably end up getting a husqvarna/viking for $100 more, which wouldn't be the end of the world either. plust they offer classes to get to know your machine, which would be nice. but right now, if i can get a decent machine for $100 less, i'm all for trying that out first.

dreams

i hate when i have dreams that are so real, i wake up and am not quite sure if it really happened or was a dream. i often have dreams like this. sometimes i will dream that i have had an argument with a friend or someone and wake up the next morning in a very bad mood and very angry at that person. i really don't like that. usually i figure out pretty quickly that it was a dream, but sometimes it takes me a day or two to really believe that it was just a dream and stop being angry at that person.
last night, i had a dream that my mom has cancer and only has a month to live. it was a horrible dream. i woke up at like 5 a.m. crying. i almost called my mom right then, i was so worried. took me a good 15 minutes to calm down, stop crying, and realize that is was just a dream.
and then sometimes there are the good dreams. dreams that make me so happy while i'm dreaming. then when i wake up and realize it was only a dream, i get so disappointed. sometimes these are almost worse than the other dreams. sometimes i will spend days just reviewing these dreams and wishing there was a way they could be true. it's like a big game of "what if?"

it's funny though. i've always been fascinated by dreams. in our first year or two of dating, adam got me a dream journal. i've forgotten about that. i should dig it out and start using it more often.... we'll see. sometimes i don't want to tell anyone what the bad dreams were about, fearing they may come true. and sometimes i just can't put the dreams in to words to share. and the good dreams.... well i need to remember they are just dreams. better left that way. the more i ponder over them, the more i wish that parts of them were real....

stitches itch!

yup, that's right. stitches itch. and i don't like it. i've never really had stitches before. just once when i had my wisdom teeth removed, but those were dissolvable and did not itch. but this time, they itch. quite annoying. i had some moles removed and 4 of them needed stitches. 3 in 3 of them and 7 in the 4th. so 16 lovely stitches in various locations of my body. lovely. let's hope they heal fast, and that removing them is not too painful... can't be any worse than the numbing shots they used before removing them...

small town

so far small town life seems pretty good. especially since we are only about a half mile from the main street / downtown area. if we wer further, it might not be so good. especially since we only have one car now. which has been working out just fine. adam works close enough that i can drop him off if i need the car for the day. but most of the time i don't think i will unless i need to go grocery shopping or just want to go to another town around here. but for just going to the library or coffee shop or even the clinic, it's close enough to just walk everywhere. which will be very good for me, cuz i am lazy. i've already decided that once i get my library card i'm only going to let myself check out one or two books at a time so that i am forced to walk down there when i want a new book (which could be daily). it's also nice because adam gets an hour for lunch, which is plenty of time for him to come home to eat, or even for me to [pick him up and go out for lunch occassionally. fun fun.

bleh...

so i haven't been feeling very well for the past week. sore throat (kinda like something is stuck in there and stabbing me) and wierd chest (congestion?). and i had thought it was starting to get a little better, but then today, it's just been awful. and of course we don't have health insurance until march 1st. great. but it was just too much for me, so i decided to go to the dr. so yeah, he's not totally sure, but said my throat is definitely infected - very very red. since i don't have insurance yet, he skipped the throat culture and other tests he could have done, and gave me some sample meds that will cover strep if that is what it is. so hopefully it is actually strep and that the meds start helping me to feel better. cuz if i don't feel better by monday i'm supposed to go back and then he will do a throat culture and who knows what else, which will cost who knows how much. so yeah. what a great day this has been. hopefully it doesn't end up costing too much - they will send me the bill, so i have no idea at the moment what it will cost...

painting

so i've been painting a lot lately. first we painted the office - which turned out super cool - i will post pictures soon. and then yesterday i was sick of unpacking stuff, so decided to paint the basement bathroom. i am super happy with it. well except for the nasty cabinets. but i might strip those and paint them sometime too. so here are some before and after pictures of the bathroom.
it worked perfectly because we had just enough of the blue paint left over from painting the office to paint the bathroom - and it was the perfect color and matched our shower curtain and soap dishes and stuff.

everybody is pregnant!

well not me. not that i'm ready quite yet. well i guess more adam's not ready. but i swear, anyone i talk to lately is like, did you hear so and so's pregnat? holy moly man. gina and beth are. a girl at work is. a good friend of mine here in ohio just told me she is pregnant and that 2 other couples announced they were pregnant yesterday at church, plus there is at least 1 other couple (that i remember) at church is too. wowza.

i'm sick. i hate being sick. especially in the summer. and least in any other season, you can kind of blame it on the weather. but no, it has been gorgeous out. so i can't blame it on that. and i dont' feel good and am extra tired, so i haven't gotten outside much lately either. i actually think that i got sick from jake - the little boy i babysat this spring. they came with us for a weekend at rick and dee's and jake was pretty sick - mostly just an awful cough with lots of crud in his throat. but yeah, that's pretty much what i have, so pretty sure i got it from him. oh well though. i think he also gave it to hsi baby bro too. so me and danny are in it together. bummer.

on another note, we got a new car. i'm still in shock about it. we probably can't really afford it. and we ended up trading in adam's car instead of mine, which we had always thought we'd trade in my old escort. so i think that's what has me in shock the most, because we hadn't even considered trading in the pontiac until adam's coworker suggested it, and the next day that's what we did. eeks. rather impulsive. i mean we've been looking into buying a new car for months, but just the whole trading in the pontiac instead has got me. oh well. what's done is done. but i totally love the new car! it's so exciting!

memorial weekend

well, it's been awhile since i've posted. what's new with me. well still working at the scrapbook store, and still love it!!! my family got back last week and i babysat thursday, but the mom has decided to quit her job, so i'm done with that now i guess. for the weekend, we went to adam's parents. on saturday they had a party for erin - graduation/birthday/new job/new apt in chicago. so that was fun. lots of people were over. and it was a gorgeous day. spent most of the day by the pool. sunday the relatives came over again and hung out at the pool and listened to indy 500 (it's not on tv around indy until after the race is over) on the radio, and ate lots of course. monday, adam, erin and i went out for breakfast with rick & dee, then erin left for chicago. we went back to the house and hung out at thepool. then adam's college friend and his girlfriend stopped over for a bit. we hung around until about 3:30 or so then drove back to dayton. we arrived to a starving cat (oops, we forgot to feed him before we left...). but he could stand to lose a few pounds anyways. tuesday i had a meeting at church about mops / moppets coordinator for next year. i think that will wokr out great for me. then i ran a bunch of errands. today i worked all day and will hopefully get to some scrapbooking tonight.... we'll see about that. so my exciting news is that gina is coming to visit in august!!!! i'm super excited! and it's perfect timing too, because i will just have been home like a week before, so it will give me something to look forward to when i come back. ok. well not a whole lot els enew at the moment. better go so i can try to find my desk and do some scrapping!
(the pic is of adam's parents' house - backyard)

i love my job!

so yeah, i love my job. the scrapbook store is awesome. i only work like 10-20 hours a week there, but it's super! definitley not difficult or strenuous work. and it's great to see all the new products and techniques. www.livelovescrap.com hooray!
so this past weekend we went to indiana for my sister in laws graduation. nice to see people. typical long graduation. and like always we ate way too much all weekend. on sunday, adam's family was moving erin up to chicago, so we were on our own for the day and ended up drivign down to a newer shopping area and met up with adam's friend. there was the coolest organic grocery store there! it was HUGE! thankfully we don't have one closer to us, or we'd go completely broke. i love those stores. especially how you can buy spices and flour and stuff in bulk for pretty cheap. we stocked up on a few things.
this week i worked today and again on wednesday. on thursday i have a meeting with a lady from church about our VBS crafts. so i have to go do some price checking and buy a few things for that tomorrow. i also need to get groceries and do lots and lots of laundry and cleaning. hooray. not a whole lot else going on.

hooray!!!

i got a part time job at a scrapbooking store!!!!! i am so excited! it's kinda funny - i was going to the grocery store the other day on my way home from babysitting, and i saw a sign and i was like, what? a scrapbooking store!? so of course i had to go check it out. and i knew it was a fairly new store cuz i hadn't seen them there before, and i go over there once a week or so. so i went in, and asked if they were hiring, and she was like, maybe.... we're looking for someone to work days. and i was like, that's exactly what i want! so i got an application and also had to scrapbook my resume and then brought it back the next day and had a very short, informal interview. and i start tomorrow! hooray! i can't wait. the store is called live.love.scrap. it's really cute store. and the people seem super friendly. it doesn't pay a ton, but hey, it's a job. plus i get a discount. starts at only 5% but works up to 30% by 6 months of working there. so yeah, i'll be working 2-3 days a week. they're pretty flexible and willing to work around my babysitting job (with notice of course) so hopefully i will now be working 4-5 days a week! yay!

moppets!

so i have been asked to be the mopppets coordinator for the mops (mothers of preschoolers) group at our church. and i'm pretty sure that i am going to do it. (moppets is a daycare/preschool type thing for the kids while the moms are at their mops meeting). i would be in charge of making sure there are enough nursery workers and teachers in each classroom, keeping supplies organized, planning the curriculum for the 2-5 year old groups, training the teachers and workers, etc. i think it sounds like a lot of fun. i went to their meeting today just to kind of meet people and talk with the girl who is currently doing it - and some people said oh my gosh, what a ton of work, and the girl who is doing it, said it's no big deal. but she hasn' tbeen doing any lesson planning this year because she kind of got the job dumped on her when someone else moved. but i don't think it should be too difficult with all my experience in lesson pllanning and that kind of stuff. and it will be a good experience to put on my resume whenever i get around to finding ateaching job (dumb ohio licensure....). oh well. this will also give me a chance to get more involved in our church and meet more people. i've met some people through our adult bible fellowship, but not a ton. and i'm also going to work at the vacation bible school this summer and am excited for that.

the influence of toddlers...

so i've realized that i've been treating the cat differently since i've been babysitting more. it's kind of funny. last night, rex (the cat) was getting in to some of my yarn, and i was like "rex, no, no!" and shook my finger at him. and then i was like, holy crap the cat is not going to respond to that - i am a total dork. (heck, half the time jake doesn't even respond to that) i think i've done some other stuff like this too, i just don't remember any specific examples. at least regarding the cat. so sometimes, i like walk my fingers along and "chase" jake until i get him and then tickle him. so i've been doing this to adam sometimes too now. and as soon as i start, i'm like, oh my gosh, he is not a toddler, why am i doing this?
anyways on another note, not a whole lot new with me. (as anyone could probably tell from the above paragraph). babysitting is going well. i've been working pretty regularly lately. and danny is adorable! unfortunately, they are going to texas for most of may, so that stinks. i'll ahve to really try to get some subbing jobs. although, i dont' know what else i can do that i'm not already doing. oh well. today i'm going to plant some more flowers i think and work on a sewing project for adam (he needs a bag for his airplane wings....)

cake

so yeah...for the past month, i have been taking a cake decorating class with missy (the mom of the boy i'm babysitting). and tonight was the last night of class. so this is a pic of my final cake. kinda dorky with the yellow dots on it, but i wanted to use up some mroe of the frosting. it was a lot of fun to do, and i think i'm going to try to take at least the next level. i'm kinda bummed that this class is over. but oh well i guess. it was a lot of fun - which is good, since i went overboard and bought the big expensive kit with everything instead of just the class kit. but i'm glad i did. i really think i'll use the stuff in the future. maybe not often, but as often as i can. so if anyone needs a cake, just give me a call! i'm glad i took the actual class too - because really you could probably teach yourself the stuff just with the books, which i semi-did anyways, but the instructor was really cool and had a lot of other good tips and techniques. i wish she was teaching the 2nd level right away, but she's not, and i'd like to take the class with missy, who needs to take it asap since she's having a baby in march and won't have time after that really. so i think we're going to try to take it at another store, which will actually be better for me, because it's only 5 minutes away instead of 20. cool cool. cake is good.

long day

so today i had a subbing job. which i have known about for a month. but it never showed up in the computer system, so i was like, am i actually supposed to go? or did they make a mistake. so i called yesterday to check, and the lady was like i don't see you in the computer. so i'm like, ok, so what do i do? still show up in the morning in case, or not at all? she's like call tomorrow at 7. ok. great. so i'm assuming that i don't have to work since i'm not in the computer. so i stayed up later than i should have. so get up and call this morning, and i'm needed. still not in the computer but i'm supposed to be there. so i'm like, crap. haven't showered or anything and don't have time to. so hurriedly get ready and get to the school. and the day went fine and all (actually quite well) i was just so tired and not prepared to be there. plus i'm babysitting 9 hours for each of the next 3 days and monday. so it's goign to continue to be a long week. but oh well. i'm finally making some money! hooray! now if i can actuaally start paying off some of my debt....

but anyways, most likely will try to post again soon while babysitting, since the boy takes 2 - 2 hour naps a day.

hooray!

so it's been a pretty good weekend so far! we cleaned up all our christmas stuff yesterday and then did some other house cleaning. ok not the most fun. but the rest of the weekend has been much better! nick and jesse came over yesterday and we watched football and ate tacos. this morning adam and i made french toast and bacon (my favorite breakfast!) then made some homemade crackers and spinach artichoke dip, which we brought over to nick and jesse's to watch some more football. unfortunately all the teams we watned to win this weekend lost. tonight, adam and i watched shrek, and figured out all the extra excursions we're going to do on our cruise. i'm super excited! in st. thomas, we're going to do a scenic drive and mountain top tour, and then in the afternoon sail to turtle cove for some snorkeling. in st. maarten, we're going on a catamaran out to some beach where we can swim, snorkel, whatever. then in the afternoon we're going to do a tour of the island. the last port we stop in, is an island in the bahamas owned by the cruiseline, and is kind of a beach day. so we're reserving a transparent hull 2 person kayak. they also have some shops and markets that we'll probably go check out. fun fun!

oh, so i lied... the weekend hasn't been all totally good. jenean called me yesterday and one of our friends dad's died from injuries in a car accident. super sad. i had only met him a few times at cross country events mostly, but he was always so nice and supportive.

so last wednesday i started a cake decorating class. holy cow. it should be fun, but it would have been nice if they had mentioned beforehand how much extra stuff you have to buy. yikes. not a cheap class. and of course, me being me, i have to go all out and get the bigger kit that has more than i really need for this class. but my logic is, that if i take the other 2 or 3 levels of the class, i should already have the stuff i need and not have to get any more tools or anything. plus it was maybe $30 more than what i would have spent anyways, and i've gotten tired of worrying so much about money. so i just went with it. no changing my mind now. the box has been thrown away and i've been experimenting with stuff already. but i'm excited for the rest of the class. there are 3 more nights. and we have to bake a cake to bring in each week. holy cow we're going to be eating alot of cake. i think i'll send most of it with adam to work. it should disappear quickly there.

let's see. since i haven't written in a long time... christmas was good. i got to spend about 2 weeks in minnesota. i got to see all of my family and lots of friends. that was fun. got some good presents. lots of scrapbooking stuff(hooray for my sizzix!) and a sewing machine were probably the highlights. i was pretty bummed that it was so warm up there, cuz i had gotten adam ice skates for christmas, and we didn't get a chance to use them. bummer. we went to ikea one day and spent our last wedding gift card. we got a great desk for me to use for scrapbooking (and sewing). i love it - it has tons of storage on the shelves avbove it and so much work surface. it's great! i finally am able to have everything all in one location. my birthday was fairly uneventful. went out to eat with my family and my aunt, uncle and cousin. that was cool.

so yeah, like i said the other day in a post - jenean is coming to visit me! i'm so excited! she's coming the second to last weekend of february (and we leave the last weekend for our cruise) so that will be an exciting time. unfortunately the way the flights worked, jenean won't get here till saturday around 6pm, and has to leave mon around 6 pm, but hey, a visitor is a visitor and i will take what i can get and i will enjoy every minute! i can't wait! unfortuanetly despite living here for almost 7 months, i still don't know of anything really interesting or fun to do around the area. but i'll have to come up with some options before she comes.

so yeah. i really think that about sums things up for the moment.

hooray!!!

jenean is coming to visit!!!!! i am so excited!!!!

snow!!!

it snowed last night! hooray! it's funny though. like yeah it snowed maybe 6 inches or so, which yes is a lot at once. but it was done snowing by like 10 pm or so. which in minnesota, would be plenty of time for the roads to be nicely plowed by morning. but no. not in ohio. i think every single school around was cancelled for the day. even the air force base had a 2 hour delay. and when i went out at like 11 this morning, some roads were decent. but others were still full of snow and you could only go like 30 mph. and it's not like they were just side streeets to nowhere - they were pretty main roads. plus they don't know how to sand here. i think i saw one road that was sanded. everywhere else had no sand. which was not cool when i'm exiting off of the freeway and the exit ramp is plowed yes, sanded no, and quite slick. (you know how when people drive on snow before it's plowed it makes a nice slippery crusty layer of snow that the plows typically don't get, but then it's slippery to drive on) so yeah. lots of fun. but anyways. i'm just so excited we actually have snow. hooray! although it will probably be melted within a week or so i'd bet. who knows though.
so i spent the afternoon putting plastic on our windows. our windows suck because they are impossible to shut correctly so they are never quite sealed. so i'm hoping the plastic will help with drafts and the gas bill over the winter....

let's see. our whole christmas plans have changed now. adam got called to get his lasik surgery done on december 21st. he'd have to stay with in like 2 hours of here for 7 days afterwards in case anything happened and for a follow up appt. so that means he can't go to minnesota for christmas. but if he didn' ttake it, he'd be put on the bottom of the list and have to wait another 2-8 months. which he really didn't want, since he's been waiting since july already. so now. he's having the surgery the 21st. we're going to his parents (in indiana) the 22nd. then i'm flying out of indianoplis to minneapolis on the 23rd. (which i really hope i make, because i have a layover in chicago, and the flight from there to msp was to the point where you can't reserve your seat, so i hope i'm not bumped or anything). so adam will stay with his parents then come back to ohio for his follow up on the 27th, go back to his parents. and then drive up to minnesota on the 28th. so pretty crappy that we won't be spending our first christmas togehter. but it's ok. plus then we're going to stay up there until the 5th i think, so i'll get some extra time at home now.

well i think i'm getting hungry and adam should be home soon, so i'm going to go start dinner. tacos! YUM YUM YUM!

what's new in the life of me....

so i don't seem to be very good at keeping up with this. but hey i try. and when i do, they're typically pretty darn long. not that too many people read it, but whatever. so what's new with me. not a whole lot really. well some stuff i guess. but yeah.
so let's see. for thanksgiving, we went to adam's parents for the weekend. that was nice to get away for a long weekend and eat lots of good food. adam, erin and i went and saw RENT. it was good! it was nice because i had seen the play a few years ago, but didn't really know the story and musicals can be kind of hard to understand and follow. so this helped me understand the story much better. and i love the music!
the monday before that, i spent the majority of the afternoon/evening in the e.r. lots of fun. i went in for chest tightness and breathing discomfort. so long story short, after some testing eventually they thought i might have a clot, but weren't sure so had to more testing, and eventually decided there wasn't a clot. so yeah. it was kind of a freaky day. and of course i had trouble sleeping like the whole week after that because i was so nervous about it. unfortunately they never figured out what was causing the tightness and wierd breathing. so that didn't help any. but they did have me follow up with my dr. and he had me go in for an asthma test, even though he doesn't really think that i have asthma. so i did that test, but have to go back in a week or so for the results. so yippee. more waiting.
ummm. so adam and i finally booked our honeymoon. i'm super excited. we're going on an eastern carribbean cruise! should be a lot of fun. we were going to go to sandals in st. lucia, but we eventually decided to do the cruise, cuz it's less than 1/2 the price and then we'll get to see 3 islands instead of 1. so that should be awesome. we're going the last saturday of february. a great time to escape the winter.
so i really have no time sequence to this blog, because i keep jumping back and forth in time. the weekend before thanksgiving - saturday we went to louisille, kentucky, which is only about 2.5 hours from us. the st. scholastica women's cc team was running at nationals, so we went to support them. that was fun to see a lot of people, even though i really didn't know most of them very well, since they were all younger. but i was surprised how hard it was to say goodbye to them all, despite not knowing them well.
that night we went and saw the new harry potter movie. it was good, but it did leave out a lot of stuff from the book. a lot of which i though was fairly crucial to the story. i know you can only do so much in a movie, but still. adam was pretty confused by a lot of things that happened and felt that things were missing. so unless you've read the books, it'd be somewhat hard to follow the whole story.
other than that, not a whole lot else new. i got heather and carly's wedding scrapbooks done - well almost, i think i want to add a few more pics, so i need to get them printed. but now i've finally started working on my own wedding scrapbook! which i'm super excited about. that's been about all i've been doing the past week. i'm trying to get it all done by the time we go to minnesota for christmas. which at the rate i'm going, i think will be no problem. although it's tricky cuz it's a hallmark album that i got as a gift and the pages are like 9.25 by 12 inches (standard scrapbooking is 12x12) so i've ahd some difficulty squeezing everything i want to on to the pages and have had to toss some pics out. but it's ok. i think it will look good in the end.
well. i think that's really about all that's new in the life of me. so ttfn!

less than 3 weeks till i'm in minnesota!!! hooray!