Friday, April 22, 2011

Good Friday - Deep Thoughts

Why is Good Friday referred to as “good”? What the Jewish authorities and Romans did to Jesus was definitely not good (see Matthew chapters 26-27). However, the results of Christ’s death are very good! Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” First Peter 3:18 tells us, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.”

Lent is almost over and I'm a bit disappointed in myself. While, I abstained from eating meat on Fridays, like we're taught.. I didn't give up ANYTHING for Lent. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for us and I couldn't pick one thing that I could sacrifice? I think there were MANY things I could have abstained from, but I was weak and chose not to even try. Wow. Pretty sad.

My husband and I were talking the other day about death and the fear everyone has of the world ending. I can tell you that one day, the thought of either just scared the crap out of me. Now that I've delved much deeper into my religion and have really come full circle with my Faith, I'm almost convinced that this life is just the "before". I guess this is what we refer to when we say that we've accepted Christ as our Savior. I trust Him with all of my decisions, I trust Him to guide me and lead me in this life. I'm content that He has a plan - whether something has turned out the way I wanted it to or has gone the total opposite direction.

I have a lot of contentment in my days because I start them with prayer and I conclude my days with prayer. It gives me peace. There was a time when I questioned "it all". I felt that there was no way that a God existed, because of things that were happening in my life and others' lives. At some point, I finally " got a clue" and realized that I left God - He never left me.
And so I did a complete 360. Started going back to church and confession and made my Confirmation. I felt that it gave me a much closer relationship with God. I'm not perfect by any means, and I'm a sinner. I'll NEVER claim not to be. As long as I'm on this Earth, I'll be a slave to sin. But I ask for forgiveness and all I can do is try better EVERY waking day to be a better Christian. I don't preach to people but I wanted to share my thoughts today. Thanks for "listening".

Hope you all have a Blessed Easter! (And the Easter Bunny brings you lots of yummy treats).

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Today's post brought to you by the number 35!

Yikes! Can I really be 35? My goodness, I don't think it's possible. I was just graduating high school. No? : ) Well, I don't feel a day over 25. I wasn't going to, but I decided to take a personal day today and just relax. I have a few errands to run but mostly I'm just going to enjoy the day. My inlaws' gave me a really nice card and a gift card to Barnes & Noble, so I'm probably going to swing by there. I love Barnes & Noble! I also saw that The King's Speech came out on RedBox today, so I'm definitely going to rent it because I've wanted to see it. I heard it received great reviews and a couple of awards. Dinner's up in the air, not sure what I want to do about that yet. Stinks that every one's working, I can't go to lunch with anyone. That's ok, I'll have a great day. I hope the weather's nice today.

I was thinking yesterday of how happy I am in my life and the only thing that I would change is my career. I was doing some deep thinking on the way to work. And then, one of those mini tour buses pulled out of a parking lot and it had the word Aries in big black letters on the side of it. I thought that was crazy since I was thinking I wanted to make a change in my life and thinking about turning 35 etc.. and here's a bus with my Zodiac sign on it, right in front of me. Weird!
Well, guess I'm off to get my day started. I was up nice and early at 7 a.m. Wowsers! Not like me on my day off but I think I got enough sleep.

Friday, April 15, 2011

birthdays, holidays, LAZY days

Well, first of all, I tried to upload some of my wedding video and it was a huge FAIL on my part. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but I can't save it and/or just pull certain chapters out. So, it'll have to wait for another day. Maybe.

Today was a rather chilly day here but I still opened the windows while I cleaned the house and it felt good to have a breeze coming in like that. Airing the house out is so necessary! Actually, Dr. Oz said that somewhere. Love Dr. Oz - he's awesome. So I cleaned my tail off today - swiffered under the bed and the furniture and did all the hardwood floors. Lots of work but worth it when you see a nice clean house. I am always shocked at how much dog hair you can accumulate. Under the bed? Oh my word! It's like another animal living under there. I'm glad that Spring has come to visit - I hope it's not temporary. I actually put sunscreen on today, just to go pick up my mom at work. I just felt like the sun was pretty strong and sometimes when I get home, after driving a while, I have already gotten some sun. That's a big no no. For me, at least. I don't like to resemble Snow White, which I often do, but I am way afraid of skin cancer. I'm guessing pizza is on the menu tonight since we're still in Lent .. we can't eat meat. Easy for me, because that means I don't have to cook. I may try to bake a little later though. My mom got me some Tastefully Simple bread mixes - I have actually tasted the Beer Bread and it's so good! I can't wait to have some - I just have to find something to dip it in. Maybe I'll make some Pizza Dip to go with it. I'm glad you don't really have to use beer for it; the box says soda or carbonated juice works. Good, cause I don't have any beer hanging around. : ) I was actually able to catch a couple of good movies on LMN today - I rarely get a chance to actually sit down and watch TV - I choose to read or do something on the computer. But now and again, LMN gets me all caught up and I sit there like a couch potato, taking in all the drama that LMN is. My birthday is next Tuesday - Can anyone guess how old I'll be? I don't dread birthdays like most people do. I should've taken a vacation day and just spent the day doing nothing but I'll be at work instead. BLEH. Since it's during the week, we'll probably have some birthday cake with my family but nothing fancy. We always do cake. No matter who's birthday it is. This month is really moving along, I can't believe it. Easter is around the corner and I'm bummed about that as usual. I have to work. I really think Easter should be a holiday at work but they don't observe it as one so I get stuck working. When there were 2 of us in the office on Sundays, we would alternate the holidays and I actually made it to dinner a few Easters, but now that I have been by myself the past few years, I don't get to have dinner with the family. Shoot, last year, my husband didn't even bring me a plate! How dare he? Kidding. So I may ask if I can leave a couple hours early this year - I can't see that it'd be a problem because we have a fully staffed customer service department in our corporate office. They can take the phones etc for a couple hours, right? I'm a little nervous to ask but I guess I have nothing to lose. We'll see what I decide. Not sure what's on our agenda for the weekend - Last weekend we were so busy. We painted at the inlaws' new home, and we mulched and planted our front garden. It would great if we could just relax and do nothing, but we'll see what comes our way. Well, off to order some pizza and let the dogger out for some well deserved fresh air. Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Monday, April 11, 2011

One Year

(It was April 10th, but I've been a busy little bee)

I can't believe we already hit our ONE YEAR Anniversary! The time really does fly after you get married and we've had a wonderful first year continuing to build on our relationship, taking on new home improvement projects, learning the ins and outs of marriage... etc To celebrate US, we went to play mini golf and went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse.. We had a lot of fun and dinner was delicious!

When we first got married, I really did feel like something in our relationshp changed. I've felt so much closer to my husband (even after being together almost 10 years), I feel like we confide in each other more and we're learning to be ONE. We still have our independence but are more ONE than we are TWO. I was watching our wedding video of the ceremony and our pastor said that our relationship is no longer 50/50.... it should be 100/100. Meaning we both give as much of ourselves as the other does and we never give less than 100%. I feel like sometimes I can do better with that, and sometimes I feel that we BOTH can do better than we are. Further confirming that marriage will always take work and we'll have to make the effort to keep it strong and ALIVE. I think our Faith really helps with our relationship too - maybe more than anything else we can share. We both have strong convictions in our religion and much of them are the same. It really helps us to build on the lessons we take away from it. We try to live by the ideals that we've learned.

Our Wedding Day:

I can honestly say that our wedding day went off without a hitch. I wasn't nervous at all - up to the point we arrived at the church. Of course, I swore off the tears and did well until the doors opened and I started walking down the aisle. We got up early in the morning ( the girls and I) and we headed to our hair/makeup appointments. Arrived at home in time to get the flowers delivered and checked out, we finally got me in my gown and the girls in theirs. The photographer arrived, we did all of our shots at the house and headed to the church when the limo arrived. The stretch, Hummer limo! That was a total surprise- When it came down the street, I thought it was someone else's... It never hit me until he pulled in front of my house. Evidently, it was my sister's surprise gift to Jeff and me. I loved it! I had mentioned that it would be awesome to have for our wedding but knew it was way out of my budget, and I was fine with that. But wow - it was really NICE. Awesome sister, I have. When we arrived at the church, time really started to pass. We were a little out of sorts while there. I really didn't stay out of plain view like most brides do.. so I was seen by a few guests coming in the front door, but that was ok. I couldn't hide forever! : ) Our wedding party was super small; 2 girls, 2 guys and a flower girl, so that meant we would whip through the processional. And we did! We did a full mass with our ceremony so I know everyone was probably cringing, thinking it would take forever but it didn't. We got through it all in about 45 minutes and were off to the photos at our reception site. We had a cocktail hour so that guests could have some appetizers & beverages while we did our photos on the grounds. Lucky for us, it was all right there at the reception site, so we were spared the task of driving to another place for photos and missing out on any of the reception.

Reception:

We were able to save time by the photos being taken at the reception so the wedding party, Jeff and I all spent some time relaxing and taking the edge off in our bridal suite downstairs... It was so nicely arranged and chock full of yummy fruits, cheeses, beverages, etc. We then were called upstairs for the grand entrance as husband and wife. It was so much fun! We all waited in the hallway to be announced. My niece was so cute!! My sister and I often told her that we all had to dance our way into the ballroom when it came time to be announced and she really did boogie down when she was announced - It was priceless. I don't have video of that part but I sure wish I did.

We had our wedding party, including parents, walk out to Get the Party Started by Pink, and Jeff and I walked out to Down with the Sickness by Disturbed. (that may shock some of you who don't know me, but we HAD to have it). It was more the beat than anything and we knew a long time ago, that would be our entrance song. Kind of funny when you think that our actual wedding song we danced to was "My Baby You" by Marc Anthony. It was either that or a song by The Stylistics but we settled on our original song that was "ours". The rest of the reception was so wonderful. Lots of dancing, mingling, laughing. The food was excellent as was the cake that we waited months for! : ) Just like I remembered it at our tasting. By the end of the night I had such a bad headache and my legs were near falling off.. I guess I was tired but also hadn't really eaten anything except for dinner and sure could've used some coffee at some point. It was a wonderful day though - it went so quickly but I remember it so vividly. It does go so fast, as every new bride claims. I wouldn't change a thing about it. Ok, maybe I would realize that my gown still had straight pins in the bottom BEFORE the ceremony. Yes, they weren't realized until we were getting our photos at the reception. How funny! Oooops. No wonder my gown seemed to be a little "short". HA! I feel like I remember practically all of our wedding day but there are parts that I don't recall. I often worry that I didn't get to spend equal time with all our guests, but we tried. We kept our guest list to just under 80 people - so it was fairly small but perfect.
Our life together has just begun; it feels like each day is a new beginning. I love our life. It's not always sunshine and lollipops but we move forward. Marriage is a big deal and it's not about a beautiful gown, a big reception, or one day to shine. A lot of young girls are so engrossed in that lately and it's sad because it should be so much more than a material thing. It's a committment. A promise. A journey. I'm really enjoying it with my soul mate.




Friday, April 08, 2011

Recap #1



Hard to believe that just about this time last year, I was geting ready for our rehearsal dinner. The girls and I were headed to our mani/pedi appointments and getting the last minute beauty touches all done. We had 2 days before the BIG DAY.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Steppin' it up

Life has been so busy here lately. Lots of house projects and running our tails off to and from Home Depot and Lowe's. Whew. We finished the bathroom finally ( as you saw) and last weekend we finished putting up our privacy fence. We already had it around the perimeter of the yard but we finished the gate and the other side of our house as well. It looks way different but I'll get used to it. It really gives us our privacy now. Not that we'd run around the yard naked or anything but our neighbors are used to being chummy and sharing yards etc. (with our home's previous owners) and we're not unfriendly BUT we don't get into that kind of neighborly socializing either. The little boy next door used to poke sticks through the fence at our dog and more recently we caught him in our driveway, creeping up on her through the gate and tantalizing her. So, in a way, the privacy fence has put a stop to the nonsense. You can't pick your neighbors, I guess. But we're civil.

Last Thursday, I got out with a girlfriend for some much needed "girl" time! We went and had some yummy food at a favorite pizza place of mine and we chatted for what seemed like FOREVER. We probably could have talked all night if we'd had the chance. But we didn't. ** sigh **
After we ate (way too much) we stopped in at Walmart to get some things. And we both forgot milk. How funny! So that was our long awaited Girls Night Out..... We put Girls Gone Wild to shame!

The weather has been screwy lately - We get a really nice day and then we get a really crappy day. I heard that this weekend may be really nice. In the 70's maybe? I can't wait to get the mulch all laid out and our flowers all planted.. I guess we don't really need to plant much but at least hope that what we planted last year, holds up again this year. I'm not looking forward to bees and wasps of course but I've been trying really hard to overcome my fear of both. It's hard but I'm making an effort. Not easy when we already have a couple of "mud" spots on our window on the front porch. We have a captain's window there and for some reason, that is where the bees/wasps set up camp each year. My dear husband usually gets to it early - He knows how crazy I am with it.

In other news, my inlaws bought a house and they go to settlement on Friday - Everyone's excited for them having a home of their own, again, after all these years. It just makes more sense to them considering what they've been paying in rent each month. They could be paying a mortgage and not have all the restrictions of the apartment complex. They can't barbeque or plant a garden; all things they really enjoy. So it'll be nice to have a place to really call and treat as their very own. Luckily they hired movers, so we really only have to help with painting etc. It should be fun.

My week is moving along quite nicely and I'm so looking forward to having another Sunday off. AWESOME.