More to Come!

Just wanted to let you guys know, I am back safe and sound from vacation! I have several updates to do, but today is not the day for that. You guys will just have to wait until I have a little more time on my hands!

One little update on me....I've decided to stop making plans.

I might have a mental breakdown since not planning goes pretty much against every thing I believe in. I've determined however that this is necessary. It seems as if every time I try to make a plan it goes to crap.

We got back from vacation with excitement that Michael is going to be on normal hours to find that my hours changed as well. I'm working Monday through Saturday and he is working Sunday through Thursday. Joy.

Oh well, that's just the way life goes. I'm sure one day I'll look back on it and find that I learned something from it. In the mean time, I'll just get my satisfaction out of knowing that I'm at least giving God some good laughs.

On another note, I can't believe how hot it is outside. In all seriousness, my fire alarm went off when I opened the back door because of the sudden rush of heat. That's a tad ridiculous I believe.

Be on the lookout for book reviews, trip summaries, and a Lola update!

To My Husband on Our One Year Anniversary

Today is our one year anniversary. It has gone by faster than I could have ever imagined. It's hard to believe and so many things have happened since the wonderful day we got married.

I've always heard that the first year of marriage is the hardest and I have to admit that it hasn't been as easy as I originally expected. The downturn of the economy and the time our jobs have taken from us presented us with problems we hadn't dealt with before.

I believe we have learned a lot over the year. Mostly how good we use to have it and what we plan to get back to – the simple things in life.

I can't wait to get back to our old life of cooking dinner together, cuddling on the couch with Lola, and working out. Having the weekends back will be amazing and we can actually plan fun things to do again.

I'm so excited about your promotion and it couldn't have come at a better time. I feel like both of our sacrifices are paying off now. I'm proud of you and appreciate all the hard work you do to ensure the best life for us both now and in the future.

Everything we have been through this year has just made us stronger as a couple and is preparing us for things to come. I look forward to the next set of challenges that life will bring because I know that we will make it through them together.

I love you and I hope our second year is starting off on a better foot (meaning I hope we are on the freaking plane as scheduled this time!). If not we can just think of it as another fun detour that life insists on taking us.

Packing Up....

Tomorrow my husband and I will be on our way to Jamaica! Before we jet off, I do have a funny little story to share...

We had decided to go to St. Lucia for our honeymoon last year and smartly planned to fly out on Monday rather than Sunday so we would have plenty of time to get to the airport 3 hours away. We spent the night in a nice hotel near the airport and got up in plenty of time to go through security.

After getting through the very long security line and checking our bags we decided to eat before we went to the terminal. BIG MISTAKE!!! We got to the terminal in plenty of time, but it seems as if it is first come, first serve. When you get to the ticket counter, they assign you your seat numbers, and unfortunately they overbooked the flight.

They had no seats for us.

I was almost in tears. What the crap was this airline thinking? Everyone was on their freaking honeymoon. No one is just going to skip out!

The bad news was there were no flights until the next day. We spent a few more hours at the airport getting things straightened out. Thankfully, we actually got a full refund on both of our tickets due to them not having a flight for 24 hours. They set us up in a hotel and we even called our resort and they were kind enough to extend our stay at no extra charge. Things were shaping up.

I believe the worst part of this experience was the next part. The hotel. I knew that they would set us up with a cheaper hotel. I'm was fine with that. I didn't expect the Ritz by any means and in fact when we walked in, the lobby looked perfectly fine. The room on the other hand was a different story. The shower was filthy and there was blood on the sink.

Yeah you read that right...blood.

We called the front desk and asked them to come clean and left for several hours to go grab dinner and get some other essentials since we were without our luggage for the night. We came back to an unclean room, but were too exhausted to do anything about it. Let's just say there definitely were not any honeymoon activities happening that night! I was way too utterly disgusted.

Thankfully the next day we were on our flight to St. Lucia where everything was wonderful! We had a great honeymoon with lots of fun excursions. I believe this time around we are just going to enjoy being lazy though and try to do as little as possible! Ahhh - Miami Vice - HERE.I.COME!

See you guys in a week! I do have a special post for tomorrow honoring our anniversary. Enjoy!

My Engagement Story

Since our one year anniversary is coming up (in just two days people!) I figured I would share our engagement story.

By now you all know that I love plans and since I desperately try to plan my life out to a T, I knew that I would be getting engaged sometime during the year of 2007. We had already gone to look at rings. I’m not one for surprises, especially when it comes to something I’ll be wearing everyday for the rest of my life!

Thankfully we did look because I ended up hating what I thought I would love. Anyways….the idea was that I would pick a couple out that I liked and let him make the final decision. Well after some very intriguing experiences with certain jewelers I decided to go local and pick from one place that we found the most helpful. I fell in love with one ring and only one ring. It was exactly what I wanted.

One weekend Michael suggested that we drive up to Gatlinburg to look at some more rings just to make sure. I pitched a fit saying that I had already found a ring and was tired of looking. He convinced me that it wouldn’t take too long and we could go to the outlets after so I said alright. (Outlet malls get me every time!)

The next morning I woke up to see a vase of Lily’s on my bedside table with a note which read “Celebrating 3 Years – List of Events”. This envelope contained the first event which was to call a phone number. It happened to be my favorite salon and they let me know I had an appointment for a massage (my first) and a manicure. I knew when I woke up to such a surprise that this day was going to be THE day! I cried and did a little happy dance and jumped in the shower to get ready.

I got to the salon and the poor masseuse kept trying to tell me to relax. Unfortunately I couldn’t, I was just too damn excited. All I could do was just squeal that today was the day I was getting engaged!

After getting pampered the lady at the front desk said everything had already been taken care of and handed me another envelope which contained a Panera gift card and instructions on where to find my next envelope. So I grabbed some lunch and immediately went to find my next set of instructions.

The next envelope had a note that said “Get dressed for a nice dinner and meet me at World’s Fair Park at 7PM sharp!” Obviously I needed a new dress for such an occasion. I figured I could allot one hour to find something and make my way back to get ready in time. I rushed to the mall where I found shoes I loved as soon as I walked in the door as well as the first dress I tried on! This never ever happens! It was certainly a good day.

On my way to the park, I got a text message saying my next note would be by the Sun Sphere in a construction cone (apparently there was a problem with his first plan of giving it to the security guard). When I got to the park, I saw other people reading my note. I waited my turn and read “Say Yes!”.

(Sunsphere in background)

I went up the elevator of the newly renovated Sun Sphere to meet Michael and the 15+ other people who had also read the note. He got on one knee and told me lots of sweet things. I said yes way too early and then about a billion other times. Everyone applauded and one lady even took pictures for us!

Dear Blogger

Today I am combining two prompts from Mama Kat's Workshop: prompt #3 "What have you been busy doing that's keeping you from updating your blog? How hard is it for you to get back into the swing of blogging when you take time off?" and prompt #4 "Write a letter."

 

Dear Blogger,

 

I am trying to be patient with you, but patience is not one of my strongest virtues and to be honest I'm almost at the end of my rope. I have several gripes with you right now including the fact that at this moment your site won't even let me post this letter. Maybe it knew what was coming or maybe it's just a sign to me that I should just give up.

 

First of all it's summer, I'm busy, and too be honest I haven't had that much time to reflect on anything and therefore I haven't been able to come up with as many creative posts as I had in the past. When I do get the urge to type furiously on my blog and let my creative juices flow it seems as if I'm being blocked either by the fact that blogger will not work correctly to post or it will post but it takes hours before it even shows up in the reader. Ugh! I'm sick of it.

 

It's been difficult to get back in the swing of things in general. Several of my favorite blog reads have decided to call it quits and sadly it makes me feel like I should give it up as well. But I can't. It's my outlet. It's my hobby. It's something I enjoy. Let me back in blogger please!

 

Signed,

A Frustrated Blogger Junkie

 

P.S. I'm trying out posting via email for the first time. Hope it works!

Check, check, and check!

Michael and I have been busy, busy, busy. Painting walls, picking out counter tops, and cleaning the house from top to bottom. Basically checking things off my master to do list one by one and it feels great.

Now I am in the mood to organize everything.

I've already started a pile of things to go to Goodwill. I am an admitted clothes horse and am determined to narrow down my closet before my next move. I actually still have stuff in my closet from the 8th grade which amazingly I can still wear and is amazingly still in style. I typically pick out things that I know I can wear for years with a few trendy things here and there just for fun so I tend to hang on to things. Unfortunately, I think my body shape has changed somewhere between 18 and 25 and I just need to come to terms that certain things are never going to fit like they used to again.

I don't know if this is just my spring cleaning phase or what, but I am just twitching to get stuff done. I can't help myself from purging and cloroxing everything! There's just not enough time in the day to get everything done! Can somebody do something about fixing that?

Also, I am in need of some suggestions for baby gifts. I have a couple of friends who are expecting and would like to get them something unique. I've looked at Babies 'R Us and Target and I'm just not seeing anything that says buy me. Any cool websites out there? Fill me in!

Have I Stressed You Out Yet?

I'd say I am experiencing a bloggers block, but that wouldn't be true and if you know me then you know that I'm incapable of lying. I have a lot of things worth talking/blogging about. The problem is that my thoughts are all jumbled up. My email keeps putting those annoying little lines under all of my sentences signaling that I have in fact not even made a sentence at all. I keep putting in words that don't make sense or that are really in the next thought that I'm having. You'll probably be lucky to be able to understand what I am even writing right now. I have so much going on right now that I can't even think straight.

The sad thing is that the pressure I'm under is my own fault. I made the To Do List with the strict schedule and unfortunately I didn't plan for life popping up as it always does. (Oh yeah, and I didn't die of heat stroke by the way. The AC is thankfully fixed. Thanks for worrying. You were worried, right?) I also forgot that my husband isn't a robot and can't just jump and do things when I want him to. Also I forgot that things don't always go smoothly. Oops. I guess I was living in dream world.

All of this is beginning to make me feel antsy and anxious. Then I immediately feel ridiculous because I really don't know what the big deal is. I think I just enjoy having stuff to do and being under pressure for whatever reason. There's no reason to be in such a rush. Apparently I'm just in the mood to get crap done. To make plans and to stress. (See - I'm pretty sure that's not a sentence) Argh. I hate myself right now. I can be a pain in the ass. I'm sure my husband agrees.

I need to just focus on this.....11 days till Jamaica.

Hmm that should be followed with a sigh. BUT NO! It makes me more stressed because I only have 11 days to finish up my monster to do list. Forgive me - I'm crazy.

All Hot and Bothered....

It's officially summer here in the south. Heat wise anyways. And it is hot...so hot that the bank sign read 99 degrees today when I drove by.

It's 10:45 PM and it's 82 degrees. INSIDE!

Not happy, not happy at all.

I think I'm suffocating......help!