Alive and Well

Yep, I'm still here. I know that I have taken a very long break from blogging, but I am BACK! My schedule got a little crazier and the job that I had that I sat at a computer all day went away for the last three weeks. Therefore my internet time was cut by 3/4 and blogging went out the window. But here I am...I've missed it. It is always kind of fun to type my thoughts out. Even if no one else even reads it.

I am headed to work shortly, but I thought I would share a funny story from work the other day. It had been a really slow day and I was becoming very bored. I looked at the clock and noticed I still had 2 hours to go. I had cleaned everything possible in the entire store and was starting to daze off when I heard a loud engine revving. Just when I heard it I looked toward the window anticiapting a motocycle to go speeding past the window... to my surprise a little old man in his amigo appeared and putzed across in front of the window followed by his wife in her matching beige button down sweater and amigo. HAHA
I laughed right out loud. Soon after the cute old couple passed by the window a motorcycle went zooming past with music blaring. I just smiled to myself.

The story is not extremely funny, but I was completely bored and at that moment that tickled my funny. :)

Well, I am off to work. We are having a big sale this weekend. Chamilia and Staxx buy 2 get 1 free.

Production at its Finest

This weekend was absolutely A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! The hubster and I were super productive and we had tons of fun along the way as well. The weekend started on Friday night when we had a date night. Hubster parents were heading to CT to visit Kelli and David. They had Loons tickets for Friday night and asked if we would want to go in their place. Well, of course.... the hubster and I LOVE baseball! When I got home from work hubster took me out to dinner at Logan's and then we headed to the game. The best part was that there was firework's after the game. I absolutely LOVE fireworks. They seem so magical to me, I love the glow they cast on the faces of those gazing at them, the sound of the booms and pops and the graceful way they float through the night sky.

Saturday started with the hubster watering his parents flowers, getting my oil changed and then picking me up to go shop for flowers for our yard. We headed to Essexville and left with beautiful blooms. We then headed back for our planting adventures. Before the planting began hubster power washed the house. My hubby is absolutely amazing and dug each hole and placed each flower in the ground as I handed them to him in the order of color that I wanted and told him where they went. (It seems he is very particular about how to plant flowers.... which makes our yard look great) We had great teamwork and knocked it out in no time. I will add pictures shortly of the finished product. In all we planted light purple and white Alysum around our light post in the front yard, a planter for our front porch that include pink and white geraniums, ivy, impatiens and a spiky plant thing, a strip of flowers along the sidewalk and side of the house that include snapdraons in shades of pink, orange, yellow and white. Next we planted shades of pink and white impatiens by our fence and rose bushes and lastly we planted two plantes for by our back door and the back corner of our yard. These included pink and white geraniums, diamond frost, ivy, spiky things and pink impatients. The day was interrupted briefly when I locked us out of the house and had to climb through a window to get back in.
Such a fun and productive day.

Saturday evening we headed to Brent's house for a cookout and hanging out. Talk about a fun time filled with ladder golf, ladderball, redneck golf... whatever you call it and simply sitting around and talking with friends.

Sunday we had church and then hit up Pride and Country Village of Unique Shops on the way home. We had a gift certificate from our wedding and we had to use it by August. They had some of the cutest stuff. I have a hidden love for country decor and that is exactly what this was. I found some really cute stuff including a large red star for our door and a candle holder. It was a great sacrifice on the hubsters part, definitely not up his alley. :) Then we headed home to paint his Grandpa's shed. It was HOT, but we got it done. We just have to paint the roof. As we were painting the hubster said we needed to get it done at a certain time because we were going on a date that night. :) WHAT?!?! Sweet!
We headed home to shower and then jumped in the car headed for Frankenmuth. They were having the Dog Bowl festival and there was Hot air balloons there. They had a balloon glow and fireworks at night. It was so much fun. We had dinner at Tiffany's and it was so nice to not leave smelling like smoke... thank you Michigan Smokeless Law.

The fun continued on Monday as we headed home for a party with old friends. My youth pastor from high school moved to PA when I was a senior and he was coming back to visit. So we got the old group back together for a party. It was good to see some old faces again.

What a weekend!! It was a lot of fun, a lot of work and well worth it. Now I start the adventure's of Gems by Em and working every weekend! Oh well, I will just focus on the moola!

Pictures will be added to this post at a later time, but for now enjoy the mental pictures.

Another Itch that I Better Start Scratching

I find it interesting that as I look back over the blog posts found in the content of this blog, I dream a lot! I like dreaming and usually a dream begins with a little itch that I get. Yet again, I've got an itch. I believe I have shared with the blogosphere about all of the downtime I have at work. Well, it isn't getting any better. So, today I spent sometime on Craig's list and other random websites dreaming... again.

This time my search took me to houses. The hubster and I are not at the point in our lives where we are planning on buying a house, financially we could, but it just doesn't seem practical for us right now. Hubster is looking for other job opportunities and I am not even at the job market stage yet, so who knows where we will end up. However, this does not take away the fact that I really, really want to call something my own and decorate something exactly the way that I want to. During my searches I found some very reasonably priced humble abodes in the area. And then there it was.... I fell completely in love. Super cute on the outside, three bedroom, two bath, nice size back yard.... (insert big sigh)... I fell in love.

To add to my dreaming my gorgeous sister-in-law decided to do a giveaway on her blog and of course it had to be for a gift card to csnstores.com. They sell so many cute housewares items that I could decorate my "new" house....er... DREAM. Check out her giveaway here.

I will be scratching the itch as soon as I push Publish Post, but for now it is fun.

Nervous Nancy

From the time that I was little I have always had a nervousness about me. I'm not really sure why, but even making a simple phone call brings little beads of sweat to my forehead and makes the heart race just a little faster. No matter how much of a pep talk I give myself the outcome usually doesn't change.

I often find that this nervousness has negative effects on my brainwaves and causes me to have a humongous brain fart. This was definitely the case yesterday at my new job.

***Pardon the interruption***
I have recently started my job at Gem's by Em. This is a very cute store that sells Chamilia, Staxx, jewelry, Littlearth, purses and other accessories. I finished up my last day of training yesterday.

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Yesterday as I was completing my end of day routines the training manager decided to tell me that she was there a half an hour after closing because the girl that trained yesterday was not able to count down the drawer and take out everything above a certain point that we keep the drawer at. As soon as she told me this guess what happened to me?? You guessed it. The heart began to race, beads of sweat started to form on my forehead and the brain seemed to go dead. It took me almost an entire half an hour after closing to figure it out and after I couldn't for a while she tried a couple of times. Finally we figured it out.

I really don't understand this nervousness, but it can go away at anytime.

On a side note: I work my first day today all by myself. Wish me luck and wish away the Nervous Nancy side of me. :)

So Fresh and So Clean

It never ceases to amaze me the differences that the hubster and I discover about our upbringings. There were a few things right off of the bat that we realized and had to discuss and form our own way of doing things or our own belief system. But I guess I never thought about the little things that would come up out of the blue. When we visit the grocery store together some things surface, like the brands to buy, the types of cleaning supplies and the way things go in the cart. As I am sure you can imagine, mini tiffs have come from some of these topics. However, not big enough that I would give up our sporadic trips together. (For some reason we are not on a schedule for groceries and simply go when the cupboards are bare or we realize the milk is a week and a half old)

The latest discussion has been over the choices of cleaning supplies. I grew up as a Pledge and Swiffer girl. Mostly the Pledge, but the smell seems to give me a headache. The hubster grew up on Murphy's.... Murphy's Oil Soap that is. Oh the tragedy when I finished dusting the entire house and he walked in the door from work only to tell me it didn't even smell clean in our house and it doesn't ever seem clean to him unless he can walk in the door to the frangrance of Murphy's tickling his nose.

Being the stubborn person that I am I was determined to get him converted to Pledge and show him that it does clean. So through headaches and dust clouds I attempted to prove him wrong. Attempted is the key word.

Yesterday, I finally gave in. I had the entire day off and decided to spend it doing a semi-spring cleaning of the house, trim and all. I pulled out the scrub bucket and filled it with water from the tub and poured in some of the famous Murphy's. I'm not exactly sure it cleaned any better than the Pledge does, but it put a smile on my face as the hubster walked in the back door and immediately said, "It smells so good in here." I had to confirm what he was smelling since I was doing laundry, I had scrubbed the kitchen, washed dishes, cleaned the bathroom and of course Murphied (I created this word. :)) He confirmed the smell by telling me it smelled so clean and he loved the smell of the Murphy's.

Well, I am glad he is happy and I will admit it does smell pretty darn good in my house and it seems to sparkle. Maybe that is just to my own eyes because I feel accomplished, but none-the-less it looks B-E-A-utiful!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

I remember quoting a little rhyme as a child on each day that the sky was filled with gray clouds and droplets of wet junk would fall from the sky. I hadn't a word of this rhyme for a few years since I have come to enjoy these rainy days. They have turned into great cuddle/movie viewing days. However, on Friday my thoughts changed a little.

My alarm went off at the dumb time of 6:00 am and indstead of rolling over and hitting snooze a couple of times I was wide awake and jumped out of bed. I left my groggy husband in bed and hit the shower. I think I like this showering first thing the water is always HOT! (sorry, Kyle)

After my HOT shower I made my way to my personal beauty salon. (aka the guest room where I have a floor length mirror to apply my makeup and do my dair) The primping lasted a little longer than normal today because today I had to look REALLY good. :)

I finished my primping routine almost an hour before I had to leave for work and spent some time online before I headed out the door. I made it into work and into about a half an hour of my day when I looked out the window and saw it..... the trees were swaying, the sky was dark and the puddles were forming before my eyes. UGH! I HAVE AN INTERVIEW TODAY AND DID NOT BRING MY UMBRELLA!!!

Normally, those few minutes on my computer before I leave for work is used to check the weather, but no, not today. I also, do not care what my hair looks like, but yes, yes today!

Luckily, my co-worker had an umbrella that I could borrow, but on the way to the interview I realized something.

I smiled knowing that God was showing me that it did not matter what I looked like on the outside, but instead what was on the inside was what really mattered. :)

PS. I got the job! Thanks, God.

Times are a'changing

I've noticed that this blog has turned into something other than its original intention. I have been thinking about this and decided that I am okay with that. I enjoy writing and have always been one to keep a journal. However, I find that finding time to journal is not as easy as it used to be, but I spend a lot of my day in front of the computer at work. I do not consider myself a good writer by no means, but I enjoy it and that is all that matters.

Motivation is something that has been lacking lately in my life. I started working out and then my birthday hit.. which of course through everything off. Then I started convincing myself that I should simply be okay with my new weight. But I know that I am not okay with it and will be even less okay with it when swimsuit season hits. I want to put my honeymoon bikinis back on this year. I am not enjoying any of my work out dvds at the moment and simply want to be outside, however I am a little paranoid. You see I would love to venture out and go rollerblading, go for a walk or even a run, however I am afraid to go by myself. This is the one time that I really need a dog.

I know that being outside will help with my motivation, but I am lacking a partner. It seems there is just never enough time in the day for Kyle to go with me and all friends live too far away to decide spur of the moment. GRRR!!

Eating healthy is still going okay. I say okay because Kyle and I kind of cheated on Monday night. But it was waaayyyy worth it. Kyle has started softball again, so every Monday and Thursday night from here on out is booked. With a few sporadic times when we don't have games. Which means we are going to have to try a little harder to eat healthy. By the time the earlier game gets over it is already almost 7:30 and we are both extremely hungry. Usually by the time we get home it is almost 8 and it is getting late to eat. Therefore, we are often tempted to run out and get something quick, which equals unhealthy. (Like Culver's on Monday night. At least I had a BOGO coupon) We usually don't come home before the game because there just isn't time so we are either forced to eat really late or grab something. I am going to do everything I can to have us eat late, instead of grabbing something. This might be nights that I actually venture out into the crockpot world. I asked for a crockpot meal book for Christmas and haven't taken the time to use it yet.

I guess I just needed to talk it all through. Maybe the motivation isn't as buried as I thought it was. Tonight is going to be a rollerblading, walk and possibly run night. Thanks for letting me talk it out.