Life with the Lightbodys

"Are Your Parents Home?"

2010-12-21T18:27:00.000-06:00

A guy knocked on my door this afternoon. I opened the door, and he asked if my parents were home. I hesitated for a second, trying to figure out what to say, and told him, "No. I'm married..."

He apologized and told me to take it as a compliment. Then he tried to sell meat to me.

I know I don't look 25, but do I really look under 18?!

3 Years!

2010-12-16T13:24:00.000-06:00

Three years ago David and I were married! On the one hand, it doesn't seem like we've been married that long, but on the other hand, it seems longer. And not longer in a bad way. We've just had a lot happen, have had a good many adventures, and just enjoy being together.

It was such a happy day, but the days really have just gotten happier. Not every day, granted; we're not perfect. But overall, I love being married to that man :D

I love that he just simply loves me. I love that he likes me. I love that he knows me so well. I love the ways that we're similar and the ways that we balance out our differences. I love when he laughs.

I love that we have fun calling each other funny names, and that names like Poop Head and Buger Brain are terms of endearment (I'm so using those the next time we play Scattergories.) That might mostly be me, but he puts up with it. As Hope put it, they're names a 6 year old would use.

I love that he likes to serve. I love that he's good at fixing things (and he's put that talent to good use with our house!). I love how hard he works to provide for us. I also love that he's not a workaholic and can leave work stuff at work.

And I could keep going, but I guess that's enough lovey-dovey-ness for one day (at least for a blog :D).

But I shall leave you with some of my favorite wedding day pictures...

Nope. I'm not finished. I need just a little more lovey-dovey-ness...

I love you, David, my best friend and love of my life!

Nala's Costume

2010-11-04T22:30:00.000-05:00

I found this costume on a clearance rack at Target and decided that a good laugh was worth the $5.

And here's how we got pictures. David bribed her with peanuts and peanut brittle while I took pictures. She wasn't thrilled, but she'll do just about anything for food...

Obsessed!

2010-11-04T22:21:00.000-05:00

Nala's obsessed with squirrels. She has the famous beagle bay and lets them know that she doesn't like them in her yard.

When this audacious squirrel showed up on our back deck, I decided to let Nala have some fun chasing it off!

Peanut Butter!

2010-11-01T17:28:00.000-05:00

I decided to let Nala lick the empty peanut butter jar a few days ago.

It was quite amusing to watch her intently follow the jar in order to lick it.

I love this one because of her tongue!

I laughed and took pictures for a little while, but then I felt sorry for her and held it for her. She liked that much better :P

Spoiled (and sweet) dog :)

Vacation: Part 3

2010-10-21T16:51:00.000-05:00

Time just goes by so quickly. We arrived back home from our vacation over 1 month ago, and I'm just now getting the rest of the pictures up. I did, however, actually post our favorites on facebook.

Unlike our wedding pictures... I never got those up on facebook, but I'm finally putting them in a photobook. I'm working on one right now through picaboo.com. Picking a background and layout with just a couple of clicks is much simpler than cutting and pasting that many photos in a traditional scrapbook. And I didn't want to just slide all of the photos into slots in the really boring albums. When I finish, they'll mail me a super pretty book with all of the photos and my text printed right on the page. :)

And without further ado, here are the rest of our vacation pictures...

And these pictures were taken at the airport in Cancun. We just had a good laugh about all of the warnings and how ginormous they all were!

Vacation: Part 2

2010-09-28T18:11:00.001-05:00

One of the other days of our vacation, we took the ferry from Playa del Carmen to Cozumel to go snorkeling. It was definitely an ordeal to actually get to the fish, between trying to find a place to park, trying to find some person at the dock who had our tickets, going from ferry to boat to other boat to other boat, sitting on the top deck of one of those boats for well over half an hour with the sun very much showing its face while we waited for some lazy, slow people to come out of their resort and join us, and putting on a life jacket that went over your head and instead of having arm holes had a strap that gave you a *ehem* wedgie...

However, once we finally got in the water, it was great ;) I was really glad that we had bought a waterproof digital camera before our vacation. Read: the night before we left... great planning on my part, right? In reality, I had already bought the disposable ones to take, but when I paid for them and realized how much it was to get an entire roll of film developed (haven't done that in years!) with no guarantee of liking any of the pictures and no way to zoom or crop pictures, I started wondering about digital cameras.

As it turned out, they weren't that expensive and I'm so glad we bought it! We just had to be careful to not drop it, but the little guy survived zip-lines and snorkeling and waves. Anyway, there's my little commercial...

And once again, I regress. It was fun seeing so many fish up close, and to not just see them in a tank. Here are some of the pictures we took, and yes, I did try to pick the best ones. There were just so many fish, and knowing that every single one of them is different once again makes me in awe of our awesome Creator God. Who else could come up with a way to make every single one just a little bit different?

This is the coast of Playa del Carmen as we were leaving on the ferry:

And here are some fish pictures:

And here's one of David being awesome and diving deeper into the water:

Happy Fall!

2010-09-23T15:56:00.000-05:00

I like fall. I like the weather getting a little bit cooler, but not so cold that I'm miserable and want my space heater.

On a side note, I really think I might just have to get rid of my space heater. I used it a lot last winter because I was freezing (yes, I would probably turn blue and actually freeze if I lived where it got *really* cold), and we finally discovered that the space heater was the reason our electric bill was so high. oops...

But it's too tempting to keep. And I think I would be more miserable if I allotted myself just a couple of minutes with the space heater on. It might be better if I was just always cold than to have the reminder of how warm and cozy I could be.

And I regress... Today is the first official day of autumn. Granted, I wanted summer to be over so I reverted to my early elementary lessons on seasons where fall is September, October, and November. :P

But fall starts today according to calendars, and I'm excited. I like sweaters, not sweating, leaves changing, actually getting to use our hammocks in the backyard without dripping with sweat and slapping mosquitoes, and candy corn.

Speaking of candy corn, here's what I made for our front door:

I got the idea here and had so much fun making these super easy and cute candy corn. The only change I made from Sew Totally Smitten was that I added a layer of Mod Podge to the top and sides so that the canvas might not get as dirty and the sides wouldn't fray.

Happy Autumn!

Vacation: Part 1

2010-09-22T15:32:00.002-05:00

David and I went on vacation during the beginning of Septmeber to Riviera Maya, Mexico. We flew into Cancun and drove about an hour south to our resort. Can I just say that driving in Mexico is interesting? The highway didn't have a set speed limit. Maybe they wanted to keep you really alert because it seemed like every few feet (or meters) there was a new sign announcing a new speed limit. Granted, I think we were the only ones who were very concerned by this...

We stayed at an all-inclusive resort along the beach of the Caribbean Sea, so we tried to make good use of the fact that we'd already paid for all of our food. This meant that we actually drank something other than water at dinner and ordered dessert at almost every single lunch and dinner. :)

One of the days we were there, we left the resort to go to Xplor, a park where we rode zip-lines, swam and rafted in underground caves, and saw a coatimundi. I'm not sure why exactly the coatimundi was such a highlight, but he was really cute.

See, how can that not be a highlight? We were taking a break after the zip-lines to grab a snack when this guy came wandering up. I'm sure he has a pretty permanent home around there because just while we were there he got lots of handouts! I think all he got was pieces of cookies, so we had a good laugh about how the lemur was going to eventually get fat!

Here are some of our zip-line pictures. David was especially talented with some of these (one he took with the camera behind him without looking!). A lot of the zip-lines had 2 cables, so we could go at the same time and attempt to take pictures of the other.

Here are some of the picture from swimming in the underground caves. We took SOOO many pictures of stalactite and stalagmite, but there was always another awesome spot just around the corner and every area looked different.

So there was part of our vacation. I'm guessing I should split this up into multiple posts...

Summer Stories: Mailbox

2010-09-22T14:51:00.000-05:00

One of the best stories from this summer has to do with our mailbox. That's right. The mailbox.

We were awakened one night shortly after we had gone to sleep by a knock on our door. We had no idea who would be at our door at almost midnight, so David headed to the front door with the baseball bat. I followed a couple of minutes later to find out what was going on and was greeted with 2 or 3 police cars, a fire engine, an ambulance, and all of our neighbors.

After the shock of all the lights and people (you'd think we were movie stars except the lights were red and blue, not camera flashes, and the people weren't as interested in us as the fire engine), we found out that our mailbox had been blown up. Someone had heard the big explosion, thought they had seen smoke coming from our front door, and called 911.

This was a couple of weeks after July 4th, so we're guessing that some kids had some leftover fireworks. Or our mailman got tired of trying, and not succeeding, to shut the door of our pathetic old mailbox. But hey, we're renting right now and we weren't that invested in this house to buy a new mailbox (we did, however, buy a flag to put on the mailbox after we moved in. Yeah, it didn't have a flag...).

You know, there are lots of reasons you want to talk to and see your neighbors, but it's usually not at almost midnight when all the emergency vehicles are in front of your house...

On the upside, we got a new mailbox that actually closes :)

Stories from Summer: Travis & Amanda's Wedding

2010-08-27T13:11:00.001-05:00

At the beginning of July, David and I made the long trek from Victoria to Amarillo for one of my good friend's weddings. Amanda and I met at the beginning of freshman year, were in Bible study together, led Bible study together, had some of the same psychology classes, and hung out when we could. I was really excited to be in her wedding and to be a part of her big day.

On a side note: Amanda was technically one of bridesmaids in my wedding, but she couldn't be there because she was in Australia at the time serving with YWAM. We thought about projecting an image of her next to the rest of the bridesmaids or making a life-size cardboard figure, but neither of those seemed too plausible. But when David and I were getting married, she was sitting on a beach in the Solomon Islands praying for us :)

So... It's been awile

2010-08-18T13:11:00.000-05:00

I guess I dropped the ball blogging because I just got tired of it. And I didn't feel like I had much to write about. Lately, however, David and I have been told that our lives should be on a soap opera. I feel like we lead pretty boring lives, but every once in awhile, we just have really weird things happen...

David and I have thought about writing a book about all of our adventures, but I'm not sure who the audience would be, much less who would buy them. Most of our stories are short enough to be a children's book, but I'm not sure what child would understand them, or what parent would let their kids read them... So I might just start recording them here for posterity (and laughs!).

Why I Like March

2010-03-31T17:05:00.001-05:00

Yes, this is the last day of March, but I just really like this month. It was the start of something really great, something I'm a huge fan of, and something I'm just slightly partial to.

David and Christy :)

March 18, 2007: David walked me out to my car after Coach Group and asked if he could take me on a date.

March 24, 2007: Our first date. We ate dinner at Carino's, walked around Central Park, had coffee at Sweet's, and saw Bridge to Terabithia. Five hours later, he asked me if we could do this again.

March 30, 2007: Our second date. We went ice skating and David made me chocolate chip banana bread. He also said that he really liked me and asked if he could date/pursue me.

That's why I like March. Pretty good reason, huh? :)

These pics are from April, but I figure they're close enough. They're from the day we got our Aggie rings and later dunked them. I dunked mine in Jello (dyed maroon), and David drank that pitcher of milk. My stomach was definitely doing much better than his afterward!

Cock-A-Doodle-Doo

2010-03-09T19:58:00.001-06:00

There's definitely one of these guys just a couple of blocks from me... I've heard it while out walking in the mornings, and Nala has been curious.

Yes, I do live in a neighborhood.

No, I can't imagine why a person would try so hard to make enemies of all their neighbors. Can't help but think that these owners aren't the most popular at 6:30 on a Saturday morning.

On an even more random side-note, thinking about that rooster made me think of Foghorn Leghorn from Looney Tunes. How great was he? Not to mention all of the Looney Tunes characters :)

*sigh* The good 'ol days of cartoons... :)

Just To Be Honest

2010-03-08T09:46:00.000-06:00

Just to be honest, I think that one of my favorite things about having a blog is changing the background. I just think it's really fun to find a cute background and then get to coordinate all the colors.

Plus, I'm just really excited about spring! I'm tired of being cold and have enjoyed the weather getting warmer. And the colors associated with spring just seem much more fun than the ones for fall and winter. Hence, the new, colorful background. :)

Why I'm Nervous...

2010-03-08T09:35:00.000-06:00

For the past 2 Mondays, something not-so-great has happened: I've seen a snake. Granted, it was a little baby garden snake, but in my book, that's still a snake!

The first time I saw one, David was away on a business trip. We had pulled lots of weeds from our backyard over the weekend (it doesn't look so much like a jungle anymore :P) and put the boxes of weeds in the garage until trash day. I was taking the boxes out to the curb and apparently we had given one little guy a ride into the garage because when I moved the first box, a little snake slithered away and under another box.

So I'm standing in the garage in flip-flops, groaning. There's no way I'm going to do anything without real shoes on, and on top of that, I'm a little worried about going after it with a shovel with my car so close. I can just imagine having to explain a dent in my door and blaming it on this little snake...

What did I do, you ask? I called David's dad. :) I shut the garage door, kept an eye on the door leading into the house, and let David's dad handle the manly job that this wimpy girl didn't want to deal with. He even took all the boxes to the curb for me. While I sat and chatted it up with David's mom. :)

Then last Monday I saw another one. I went out on the back deck to grab the towels that I'd used when I bathed Nala. I was, of course, barefoot, and when I grabbed one towel that had fallen from the railing to the ground, another little baby garden snake slithered out. He slithered away and between the boards of the deck to go under.

So I got inside and shut the door. And what about the towels, you ask? What else? I made David get those when he came home that night. :)

And now you see why I'm nervous. I'm hoping that this Monday sightings of snakes doesn't become a habit. I'm getting a little tired of being paranoid to walk into my garage or onto the back deck... I don't care if they are just little baby garden snakes; I don't like snakes.

The Funny Thing About Marriage

2010-02-22T18:20:00.000-06:00

Marriage is a funny thing. It seems like ours (and most likely others) has taken a little journey...

See, when two people first get married, they're combining two people's things. So you most likely have double of everything and probably think whatever you had is best.

Then, you grab for something one day and it happens to be what was originally the other person's. You discover that you actually like your other half's stuff better than your own.

Next, you start to ~~steal~~ borrow and forget to put back what was the other person's, resulting in conversations like, "Where did you put my _____ (fill in blank)?" and "Oops. It's over here."

And finally, you realize that it might actually be a good thing to have 2 of everything when one spouse goes out of town, leaving the other searching for that particular item.

So there you have it. One of the funny things about marriage. I'm sure you've probably figured this out by now, but David's out of town this week. And I was the one searching for that particular item that was originally his, only to find that he ~~stole~~ packed it for his trip! :)

Measles

2010-02-18T08:17:00.000-06:00

Last night was Measles Night at AWANA. This means that for every verse a kid says, he/she gets to put a sticker on the leader's face.

My girls decided to gang up on me and try to cover my face with dot stickers. I've never seen the girls work so hard on their verses than when they were trying to make my face a sea of yellow, green, blue, and red dots.

Lesson learned: A great motivator for kids is the embarrassment of their leader/teacher. However, as much as I love these girls and love that they're hiding the Word of God in their hearts, I'm not sure I want the motivation to go much farther than stickers I can remove at the end of the night! :)

Recant

2010-02-17T17:17:00.000-06:00

So I was reminded by an oh-so-brilliant person :P that the milk bottles smell, and I quote, "like poo." This person pointed out that the person bagging my groceries really might have been trying to help my re-usable bags not smell gross as well.

So there you have it. I take it back... :)

Ironic

2010-02-08T16:04:00.000-06:00

So I find it slightly ironic that when I take my cute Aggie re-usable shopping bags to the grocery store, the person bagging my groceries puts my milk in a plastic bag and puts the plastic bag in the re-usable one. Hmmmmm... If I wanted a bunch of plastic bags to deal with, why would I bother bringing the re-usable ones?

The Unintentional Novella of the Last 8 Months

2010-02-06T09:28:00.012-06:00

So I thought about copying my friend Julie and just pretending that there hadn't been a 2 1/2 month gap since the last time I wrote. However, some pretty big things have happened since then... Like, we moved. And no, not just within town, because yes, that wouldn't be that surprising. We packed up our giant U-Haul and moved 150 miles away to Victoria.

And because I've gotten so many questions about where exactly Victoria is, I've included a picture (for the whole 2 people who are reading this blog after my hiatus)

That turned out small, but Victoria is kinda in the middle of the triangle created by Houston, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi. Also important to know, it's about 2 hours 45 minutes from College Station. :)

As for how we got here, we have to take our story all the way back to May.

On May 28th, David and I made the 16 hour drive from College Station to Iowa in 1 day. It was actually kinda fun :) We packed a bunch of food (for cheapness and quickness), got some books on CD from the library, and set the cruise. We drove up there for David's cousin's wedding.

The next day, while we were having a late lunch with David's family, David got a call from his boss at work telling him that his company had run out of money and was putting everyone on a 2 week unpaid "vacation" from work with no guarantee of a call-back.

Thus began the start of a very long 2 week period in which David searched the computer for companies and jobs. He did finally get a call to come back to work on Thursday, June 11th. And we decided to drive to Schlitterbahn on Friday to celebrate. For one thing, we'd been wanting to go there. For another, we knew it would be better to go on a weekday. And, we already anticipated that David would be using the rest of his vacation days to go on job interviews. It had been a really long 2 weeks, and we were thankful to have some fun. :)

The next few months held a few job interviews and many questions of "How much can we plan?" I don't do well not being able to plan and not knowing what would happen in the next month. Apparently I needed to learn something. And I probably still need to learn something...

One of the really funny super fast decisions occurred in July. The lease in our duplex ended July 31st but since David was actively looking for a job, we really weren't sure where we were moving. We had searched for places with 3 and 6 month leases, and let me tell you, it was one of the main times I ever really regretted living in a college town. Most places seemed to think I was crazy for asking for shorter leases, but we finally found a couple of options in Bryan.

Anyway, on Wednesday, July 8, David got a call for a really promising interview at the end of July. We realized that even if David got the job, there was no way we would find out in time to move out of our duplex. Our landlords had given us the option to move out by the 15th of July and not have to clean, so we decided Wednesday to move on Saturday. Yes, we are crazy.

We had thankfully already started collecting boxes, so the next 2 days were a frenzy of trying to box up as much stuff as possible. It definitely didn't all get boxed up before Saturday. And there were a couple of car loads at the end of random stuff just thrown in the car since we also ran out of boxes.

The apartment we moved to didn't seem ideal, but they offered a 6 month lease that wasn't too exorbitant and helped our electric bill since we were so insulated. Our study was a joke because one corner just had boxes stacked that we just decided to not unpack. I had to realize, however, that I had to be OK with one messy room in exchange for the others being neat and organized.

David interviewed at Dow Chemical for the 3rd time at the end of October. He was really interested in this position, but we didn't get an answer until the end of November. On Monday, November 30, David was called with the offer for the job. On Tuesday, he got the paperwork with all the details. On Wednesday morning, he called to accept. Then he came home for lunch early because his company laid-off the vast majority of its staff. It was one of those times I was so surprised I felt like I was going to puke (actually, I think that's the only time that's happened).

We were a little upset because it was December 2nd and David was scheduled to start work at Dow on December 28th. No income for almost a month didn't sound great, but we really were thankful that the events in those 3 days occurred in the order they did. I mean, I was surprised that he'd been laid off on Wednesday, but honestly, I probably would have panicked if he didn't already have another job lined up.

It turned out to be God's wise provision that David had the month of December off. We went to Victoria at the beginning of the next week to find a place to live and that took longer than we'd anticipated. There wasn't a huge selection of rent houses to choose from, and when we finally found one we liked, we had to apply and wait for an answer. We also had to pick out a refrigerator. Now, I feel really old admitting this, but shopping for a refrigerator was actually kinda fun. The price tag wasn't, but seeing all the gadgets they add to this machine that is simply supposed to chill or freeze food was pretty cool (pardon the pun :P).

So we came back to B/CS with a little over a week to pack up, say our goodbyes, and eat at all the places we wouldn't have in Victoria. The plan for eating out turned out rather well since hanging out with friends many times involves food, we were trying to empty out the refrigerator, and I simply didn't have time to cook. In the month of December, according to our budget, we ate out a record 24 times! Now, this included ice cream and ~~bribing~~ feeding our moving helpers and eating out after we moved simply because we had nothing to eat. This was also us eating separately because we were hanging out with different friends. But still, wow!

So we loaded up our giant U-Haul and made the (very slow) trek to Victoria on Friday, December 18th. On Saturday, we cleaned (so much!) and unloaded the huge orange truck. From there, we unloaded boxes, cleaned more, and worked on making this house our home.

Then David started his new job as Reliability Engineer at Dow Chemical on December 28th.

So there you have it. The last 8 months of our life. It really is amazing to look back and see how God orchestrated everything to work out so well. Our lease at the apartment ended January 31st, so we only had to pay 1 1/2 months double rent. It was also really nice to be going through such an uncertain time with friends we'd known for years who really cared for us. We had a really good fall semester with our home church. I subbed at Kingdom Kids at Grace Bible Church, and while I'd originally been sad that I couldn't commit to a classroom, I really had a great time subbing.

I loved getting to know lots of the kids (and seeing kids I already knew) and being able to fill the gap for about a month in the Movement room. Movement is a 20 minute period with each of the 3's and 4's classes that is pretty much like a preschool P.E. Organized chaos might be a better description, but it's so fun! Working as the movement teacher also required me floating in and out of the Older 2's room, where my good friend Linsay is the lead teacher. It was really great to get to work with her.

Wow. That turned out to be really long. I guess when you're trying to summarize 8 months of your life, there are a lot of details.

I'm really curious if anyone is actually going to make it to the end of this post... sheesh...

My Version of Cleaning

2009-11-19T15:02:00.002-06:00

I realized the rather sad state of my kitchen cleaning on Tuesday. I was at Kingdom Kids scooping cookies off a cookie sheet when some crumbs dropped on the floor.

Instead of my immediate thought being to pick them up and throw them away, the first thing that popped into my mind was to call for Nala to come lick them up! :) Unfortunately, she was several miles away, most likely sound asleep in her little bed.

Nala is a great little helper in the kitchen. She'll pick up anything except lettuce and spinach leaves. The only problem is when she's so intent on being able to snatch up whatever falls on the floor that David and I almost trip over her in our little kitchen...

The Couch, Girlie Movies, and lots of Tissues

2009-10-28T15:40:00.002-05:00

This has been my life for the past couple of days. My sinuses decided to rebel against some allergen that was floating around, leaving me with a clogged up, foggy head.

I guess the nice thing is that I've gotten to lie around and try to get better. This is such a switch from college days. Getting sick while in college was such a nightmare because tests still occurred, papers were still due, and catching up always seemed impossible.

The horrid fall of 2006 comes to mind. I had I don't know how many sinus infections before my doctor sent me to an ENT who ran a CT scan. He told me that the anatomy of my sinuses were all messed up, that I had a deviated septum, and that I needed surgery. Yup. That was a fun semester. Can I just say that my grades weren't exactly the best? However, after the surgery, this crazy thing happened: I could breathe through my nose. And crazier than that, the number of sinus infections significantly decreased. :)

David's been wonderful about insisting that I rest and not do anything more than watch TV. He watched Becoming Jane with me (it's a movie about the life of Jane Austen), rented more Gilmore Girls DVDs for me, washed dishes, and hasn't complained about the lack of real dinners, the sink full of more dishes, or the fact that the only place to find clean socks and underwear is in the laundry basket (they've been washed; I just somehow couldn't put them in drawers until this afternoon).

But as much as I've enjoyed an excuse to watch hours of TV (specifically, girlie stuff that I try not to torture David with) and getting to sleep 10 hours (at least...), I was getting a little tired of walking around with the tissue box, blowing my nose, and talking with a stuffy nose.

Here's to life not sick :)

46 Days

2009-10-14T15:08:00.003-05:00

That's how long David and I shared a car. :)

We bought a second car almost 2 weeks ago, and life has seemed to get a lot simpler. Sharing 1 car is do-able, but it's not very convenient. Plus, little things were happening to David's car, like the driver's seat getting stuck a couple of times in my position...

Anyway, we found a 2000 Nissan Altima that seemed in decent shape with not a lot of miles, so we made an offer. Can I just say here that I have an awesome husband? :) He decided what we should pay and totally stuck to it. We even left when they didn't accept our offer. I thought we were finished with that car and started looking again, but the place called back twice. The first time they asked us if we wanted to pay what we could and finance the rest, and the second time they agreed to our offer. :) I totally would have caved, but David was determined to not pay any more than what we'd agreed.

Granted, the car is older and needed a couple of repairs, but David is working on those and doing a great job. The car also needed some serious cleaning. The dealership vacuumed the carpets and greased down the steering wheel and dash, but they didn't get all the details. I scrubbed the cup holders and had David completely take the backseat out of the car. I didn't even know you could do that. The people before us definitely had kids, and messy ones at that. There were food, toys, crumbs, wrappers, and just grossness under the backseat. Lysol's great :)

All in all, it's a pretty nice car (especially after being attacked by Lysol). It has leather seats, a sunroof, and the driver's seat raises. That's become a requirement in a car for me. What can I say, I'm short...

Ode to My Husband

2009-09-30T14:09:00.002-05:00

I was talking with a sweet and wise friend this week about encouraging our husbands for working so hard and providing so well without always saying, "Thank you for working hard." I want to say thanks in different ways and in ways that will build him up and be applicable to what he's thinking about and going through.

So as I was thinking about this, God put this fun little idea in my head to write an ode to my husband. While it's a little Hallmark card cheesy and definitely isn't perfect, it's all about my wonderful husband. Those cards I read and try to pick out are never just right.

Anyway, here is my ode to my husband (to be read in a Dr. Suess-type rhyme), so that I can publicly encourage my husband as well (to the whole 3 people who read this blog...). I'm a total dork because I sent him a quick chat before he came home for lunch telling him that I had a surprise for him and then was really excited to read it to him over lunch. :)

An ode to my husband
Composed this afternoon,
Eagerly awaiting
His coming home soon.

Diligent is my husband
And persevering as well.
In light of this week,
Pride makes my heart swell.

With deadlines and meetings
and six to six days,
By end of this week
He'll be in a haze.

But how thankful I am
For your very hard work.
Your busy job means
We don't eat canned pork!

My hero, my sidekick,
My beloved, my friend,
I so cannot wait
Till this project you send!

Since oh how I miss you
On these very long days.
Your exhaustion and stress
Are not normal ways.

This weekend relaxing
And sleeping quite late
Shall be your reward
For meeting this date.

Hooray for my husband
And very best friend.
Such a great job you do-
You excel to the end!

Hip-hip for my hubby
Who provides oh so well.
I want all to know
So all shall I tell

Of how wonderful he is
And marvelous too.
Babe, I hope you don't mind
My bragging on you.

My very fun ode
This now shall conclude
To a husband so great
He will never be booed!

So there you have it. This Friday is a big deadline for David and his company, so he's been working some VERY long hours this week and last week. Only 2 more days! :)

And Speaking of Acorns...

2009-09-29T13:34:00.002-05:00

Here's the new blog background all ready for fall!

I love fall! I like the weather getting cooler and less humid and getting to wear jeans and sweaters and cute jackets! I also love being from Texas where I get chilly when the weather is in the lower 80s. :)

Enemy of Squirrels

2009-09-29T12:59:00.003-05:00

I'm pretty sure squirrels hate my dog. I think if I were a squirrel, I probably would.

For one thing, my little hunting dog bays when she sees them and chases them up the nearest tree or telephone pole. I usually try to keep her quiet around our apartment, but every once in awhile I let go of her leash and let her chase them down. It's really pretty funny. She darts towards them and then runs and jumps around the tree like she's somehow going to climb it.

The other reason the squirrels probably hate Nala is that she's been eating acorns. All the rain lately has caused a plethora of acorns to fall to the ground. And while I'm thankful for all the trees around our apartment that provide some shade and good atmosphere, taking her outside gets a little interesting as she constantly tries to grab one to eat...

So there you have it. If the squirrels of the world start uniting against dogs, I have a pretty good feeling that they may come after Nala first. :P

Panic Attack

2009-09-21T15:26:00.002-05:00

David and I went to Elkhart/Palestine this weekend to visit my parents and for my 5 year reunion from high school. When we got back to Bryan, we decided to go through a car wash since we had hit so many gross love bugs on the trip.

We paid our $8 (for what ended up being a pretty crummy car wash) and drove in. As the water sprayers started going over us, Nala tried to climb from the back seat into the front seat. At first we scolded her, but then we realized she was shaking. We hadn't thought about how the car wash might be traumatizing for her... Anyway, I climbed into the backseat to try to calm her down while David grabbed my camera to record how much she was trembling. I was trying to calm her down, but at the same time, it really was pretty funny.

Here's the clip of poor Nala and her doggie panic attack :)

And for anyone concerned, yes, she's fine. She was panting a lot after we got out of the car wash, but she got dinner when we got home, so that made everything better!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame...

2009-09-14T15:52:00.009-05:00

So I'm a little behind on the blog, but here's a fun catch-up story.

David won a raffle for Astros tickets at his work, and we got to go to the game last Saturday (5th) for really cheap. I used to go to games all the time with my grandma and aunt, but I don't think I've been to one since starting college.

I was just excited that he'd won because I'd been wanting to go to a game for a couple of years, but I was really excited when I found out that they were such awesome tickets that we never would have bought ourselves. They were 4 rows up from the field right above the Phillies' dugout. That was the only problem with the tickets. We ended up having some Phillies fans around us who cheered at all the wrong times. :)

It was a great game to go to because Hunter Pence hit a homer,

Roy Oswalt was pitching,

and they won in the bottom of the 9th with a come-from-behind victory!
Now we just need to get David to win some more tickets like that. I'd go for Aggies tickets, too. :)

A little explanation for this picture... I get made fun of at David's work. Well, I guess we both get made fun of because of our height difference (almost 1 foot). David has one of our engagement pics on his desk at work where we are both sitting down, and several of the guys at work think it's funny to say that the pic is deceptive since our heads are at the same level. One time after I visited him at work, he told me that later someone told him that he was surprised my feet could touch the floor in the chair I was sitting in.

Anyway, the other couple who won tickets mentioned that, so we took this picture of me standing on a chair next to David so that I would look taller. I still don't think it helps much! :)

And for any Astros fans out there, yes, that is an original Jeff Bagwell shirt, circa 1994. It's been well-loved :P

Guess Who Stepped in Gum?

2009-09-03T16:27:00.004-05:00

Yup. Nala.

She was biting her paw last night, and when I looked at it, there was something blue on one of her nails. Now I'm not sure where she stepped in gum or how she only got it on only one nail, but she did. So David came to help me pick the gum off and snip a few hairs. Nala definitely appreciated the treat afterwards, since it was such torture, you know. :P

Apparently We're Getting Old...

2009-08-31T10:33:00.002-05:00

David and I both woke up around 8:00 on a perfectly good Saturday morning to sleep in. I never wanted to get to the point that my body was adjusted to 6am Monday-Friday...

There may have been another reason we stayed awake though: the apartment above us was doing laundry and we could hear all the noises of the washing machine quite well. Who does laundry at 8am on a Saturday morning???

But I guess I can't complain about that apartment too much. They play a big part in insulating us from the hot sun and keeping our electric bill pretty cheap! :)

Limbo Land

2009-08-28T14:50:00.003-05:00

David and I've had some circumstances over the past few months that have led me to think of our life as being in "Limbo Land." We're not really sure why things have happened nor do we have any idea what our life will look like anytime in the near future. This is definitely a growing time.

The definition of "limbo" is: an intermediate, transitional, or midway state or place.

The more I started thinking about "Life in Limbo Land," I realized that, as a believer, my life is always in limbo. I don't mean that in a negative, pessimistic way; I simply mean that my life is always changing as I strive to become more like Christ through the process of sanctification. I don't want to stay the way I am. I want to be constantly learning and growing so that my life is a reflection of Christ's. I want my life to be "transitional" (to take from the very definition itself).

I also know that this life on earth is not my final place. I'm eagerly awaiting the day Christ returns and believers get to spend eternity worshiping God. Therefore, to use another word from the definition of "limbo," my life here is an intermediate or midway place.

Therefore, if I want my life to be transitional and this earth is only an intermediate place for me, wouldn't that mean that my views of "Limbo Land" should be not only positive, but also joyous?

James 1:2-4 reads:

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Not that I've been joyous throughout this whole process, but I truly desire to have a spirit that is "overflowing with thankfulness" (Colossians 2:7) and a heart that trusts God completely. It's not like life is going to get simpler or have any fewer transitions and questions.

Maybe I should rename my blog... :)

One Car Family

2009-08-26T19:14:00.004-05:00

David and I sold my car last Monday to get rid of a car payment, lower our car insurance, and generally just save money. But here's the catch: not only do we have to coordinate errands and figure out who gets the car on what day (not too big of a deal), David's car is a stick shift.

He had given me a few lessons when we started talking about selling my car, but I definitely had a crash course. I'm pretty certain that David had his doubts and was concerned that his car wouldn't survive the lessons, but it has. He's a wonderful teacher, giving encouragement and challenges at exactly the right time, but I don't hesitate at all to let him drive whenever we're together.

So, here are a few of the more interesting aspects of driving a standard car:

~I hate hills now. I never used to think about them, and while the animosity has been slowly decreasing, it still causes stress. It's especially bad when someone decides to pull up right on my bumper at a stop light (at least, that's how it appears to me...). Funny how something as little as learning how to drive a new car has produced a greater dependence on the Lord as I beg Him to help me not roll backwards into the car behind me! :)

~David and I have to allow a couple of extra minutes when we get in the car for readjusting EVERYTHING! This has nothing to do with the fact that it's a stick shift; it's just that 2 people who have a difference in height of almost 1 foot are sharing a car.

~If you've driven a standard, you know that it takes a minutes to shift into first gear. Well, what makes this interesting is our timing in deciding to go to a 1-car family. You see, thousands of people have been making the yearly voyage back to this great town, and some of them have a tendency to be, well, impatient. David got honked at earlier this week as he was going into 1st gear at a stop light, and he's a MUCH better driver than I! So there's a little bit of anxiety, especially at lights, that I'll take too long, get honked at, and stall out, thereby causing even more honks. Thankfully, the Lord is merciful, and that hasn't happened yet.

~I guess one of the good things about driving a stick shift around town is that my mind definitely stays more engaged. I'm sure that this will get to be more second nature, but I'm constantly calculating which gear I should be in according to the speed. I can't just coast anymore and accelerate when I want. I have to downshift and figure out what gear I need to be in so that I can accelerate again.

That's been one of our latest adventures, and I sure there will be many, many stories with me driving a standard... Have I mentioned that I left tire marks on the little hill in a parking lot when David was teaching me how to stop and start on a hill? oops...

Ever Changing and Never Perfect

2009-08-21T14:14:00.005-05:00

So I've decided to start a blog. I've been thinking about it for a while because I have so many friends who now live in other cities, countries, and continents. While I enjoy reading about their day to day lives, they know absolutely nothing about what is going on with us. So yes, it's yet another networking tool. What did we do before computers, internet, and cell phones? I also wanted a place to chronicle random stories that may not be remembered otherwise.

However, I've been putting off starting a blog because I'm a perfectionist. I knew that I would want it to look just right with the cutest background and most fun fonts. I also knew that it would take me a long time to get everything just right.

Well, I sat down this afternoon to get it all set, and I learned several things:
1) Blogs can get super expensive! I found some cute backgrounds for free, but I thought I wanted something a little more fun. I found sites that would sell their apparently amazing blog templates for anywhere from $25 to upwards of $100! That's when I decided that I would just stick with my freebie background. Granted, I couldn't find a matching banner for the title and I think the font is boring, but I'll live.
2) Like almost anything else involving the internet, a blog can be super time consuming! I just spent way too much time trying to find a background and banner. The really sad thing is that after all the searching, I stuck with the one I had picked out at the beginning...
3) My blog can be a process. I can change it as I want to and it doesn't have to be perfect right away- or ever...

So here's to my ever-changing, never perfect, attempt to keep up with friends... Blog. :)