two whole weeks...

Nothing terribly eventful happened the week of Lance being at Cornerstone (praise the LORD! Cornerstone was when my mom was hospitalized last year…). Lance was gone from Sunday to Friday and came home on Friday (yes, with more tire trouble on this trip) and left for another camp on Sunday. During the approximately 36 hours he was home, this is what happened to my spotless house:

We washed pretty much everything he owns so that he could repack and leave again. It was out of control.

Sunday morning, Lance began loading his suitcases into my car. Buddy HATES suitcases because he is smart enough to know that they mean someone is leaving. He just cried and followed us around all morning. This was the heart-breaking sight I got to witness while Lance was loading the car:

(The people before us had cats, so we have a cat door into the garage. Buddy can fit through it but prefers not to. He mostly uses it as a giant peephole.)

I rode down to camp with Lance in an empty rental van (I bet we looked hysterical) and spent the day down at Three Mountain, explaining to everyone that, no, I will not be staying for camp because I have to work. I rode back with John West that evening, and he and I had a ridiculously long conversation about fruit. I didn’t think it was weird at the time until Lance asked me what we talked about, and I said “fruit” and then I realized it was weird. Evs.

To keep myself occupied when Lance was gone, I cleaned the house, watched SYTYCD, and shopped. Shopping is my activity of choice when Lance is gone. It’s one of the few things that I genuinely enjoy doing by myself. During the two weeks he’s been gone, I have purchased/ordered the following:

Plus some other assorted things... mostly things I deemed too boring to take pictures of/blog about. It’s a good thing he came back. I would have shopped us into the poor house. Well, that and I missed him like crazy.

Since Buddy was my little four-legged bestie for the past two weeks, here are a couple shots of him and his cuteness/hilariousness:

And now my love is home again, and all is right with the world!

almost caught up...

On Friday and Saturday, we got ready for Lance to go to camp and for me to help hostess a shower. We did lots of running errands and laundry and some working in the yard… I don’t even remember what all, but I know that I went to Walmart, Target, Hobby Lobby, the bank, took Lance to get a haircut, picked up a UHaul trailer, and Target again that day. Then that night I was dusting and knocked over something glass and cut my finger and started bleeding and made Lance clean up the broken glass. Yes, sometimes I’m a baby, and I’m okay with it.

On Sunday, Lance’s group left for Cornerstone during Bible class time. I always get sad when he leaves, but there were kids and parents and other assorted vagabonds (not really) all around when we said our goodbyes, so I tried to be strong. It’s times like that that I completely love my giant, Victoria Beckham-style, face-obscuring sunglasses. They hide tears like a champ. Anyway, he left, and I went to church. After church, I went back to Walmart (yes, again) and then went home and cleaned my house like crazy. I cleaned from maybe 12:30 or so until 2:30 and then got ready to head to the shower. I took my fondue fountain to the shower, so I had a ton of stuff to take – the fountain itself, the skewers, a vase to put the skewers in, the chocolate, some marshmallows and pretzels left over from the last usage, the paper goods, the glass plates and cups from the church, some ribbon, etc. I got there like 25 minutes before the shower was supposed to start (which was 5 minutes late for the early I was supposed to be) and hurriedly set up the fountain (people were already there and standing around!). About halfway through the shower, the dirty dishes are piling up, so my friend Corie and I started doing dishes… and never ever stopped. For like an entire hour, we stood at the sink washing dishes. The shower ended at 5:00… and small group was at my house at 5:30 (hence the hours of pre-shower cleaning)! I cleaned the fountain enough to stick it in the box (and splattered chocolate on the front of my khaki pants – super!) and threw all my stuff together and ran to my car. I pulled up to my house right at 5:30, and people were already arriving! I ran in, changed pants, and turned on some lamps/lit candles/tried to be a good hostess. Then, with guests there, I stain treated my pants. Um, hello, I cannot have a chocolate stain on my khaki pants. My guests can wait. We had small group until like 8:00 or so, then I ran up to Central Market to get my groceries for the week. You can tell what an exhausting day it was by the fact that this is one paragraph and one day.

I promise - more pictures/fewer words for the next post.

another busy week...

After the July 4th holiday weekend came another busy week. (Are you seeing a pattern here?) On Monday, we had Bunko, and I always have a lot of fun there. I sat with Stacey and Jenn (and another girl whose name I don’t remember, but let’s not tell her that) during dinner, and I love getting to hang out with them. They crack me up, and I don’t get to see them all that often. Plus, about halfway through the night, Jenn let me steal Abigail, so I got to snuggle a preshy little baby for the last half of the night. So fun!

Oh, plus I had a doctor’s appointment Monday morning and another one Tuesday afternoon. I did have a nurse/technician person whom I don’t think had ever drawn blood in her life. I’m a pretty easy case (I’m so pale that my skin is practically transparent), and I have had a lot of blood drawn in my lifetime without ever having any problems with it. Anyway, first this girl looked completely lost in the world when I asked her to do my left arm instead of my right since I was heading straight to work after the appointment and was worried I might be sore. She put the tourniquet on my arm and had me squeeze the ball thing and ran her finger back and forth across the inside of my elbow for – no lie – at least 30 seconds… before looking at me and going, “Do you know if you have good veins?” WHAT?! Talk about scaring a person to death! Anyway, it was a bit ouchie pouchie, but it didn’t bruise, so I guess I can’t complain too much. That’s the only interesting thing that happened at either doctor.

So then Wednesday, I picked up dinner and went straight to church after work (like always). I knew there was a girls’ lock-in, and I had planned to stay for like an hour, but I ended up staying until almost midnight. Yikes stripes. I am too old for that. I think the girls had fun though. They turned on the blacklights, wore neon clothes, and had a girls-only hilarious-dancing dance party.

This picture was my attempt at taking pictures of the dancing without a flash. It simultaneously makes me happy and makes me dizzy. (Notice that Jesus looks really sad in the background. That somehow makes these pictures more entertaining.)

Obviously, I was sleepy on Thursday (I AM 25 now, you know). Then Thursday night was a summer youth series at Richland Hills. It was great to be there (I saw Sister’s bf Brent), and the speaker was fabulous (as if Patrick Mead is ever unfabulous), and it was a lot of fun. I got home at like 8:30 and was just wiped out. I basically sat on the couch for like an hour until Lance got home and then went to bed. I’m so much fun.

I'm almost caught back up to real time...

july 4th

I guess the next major event post-birthdays was the July 4th celebration. I had July 3rd off work, which was just fabulous. Lance and I had a great Friday together, spending all day just hanging out and having fun. We touched up the paint in our bedroom and set up our brand new chair in the corner of our bedroom. It looks fabulous, and I love it.

That night, we went to the Rangers game with Philip and Jocelyn. We had the best seats in the house – the all-you-can-eat seats! It was hot, hot, hot out there. Our seats were in the top deck of the Home Run Porch, and if you went up the steps, there was a buffet of ballpark food – nachos, hot dogs, drinks, popcorn, peanuts, and grilled chicken sandwiches. I think the grilled chicken sandwich thing is weird, but I most certainly enjoyed my fair share of nachos.

Let’s be clear that this was for some reason an incredibly unflattering picture night. I’m not exactly sure why it was so bad for me. I had a great time, but I look pretty homely.

Lance and me...

Philip and Jocelyn... (and she looks better than me, and she's 8 1/2 months prego. FAB. She is a super cute pregnant girl though.)

The four of us...

There were fireworks after the game…

On Saturday, Lance and I went and saw Transformers II… and then we’d planned to go to Kincaid’s, but it was closed for the 4th. We went to Chili’s instead. Don’t worry – after church on Sunday, Lance took me to Kincaid’s so that I wouldn’t be disappointed. Then we went home, and Lance made homemade ice cream with our new ice cream maker to take to small group.

All around, it was a fantastic holiday. I'm super thrilled to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave... especially when it involves baseball, ballpark nachos, going to the movie theater and Kincaid's! What a great country!

our berfdays

Okay, so I am like WEEKS behind on major life events… but I have a good excuse: I have been ridiculously busy. That’s always my excuse… but I am always behind… and I am always busy, so I think it’s a valid one.

Well, for any of y’all that don’t know, Lance’s birthday and my birthday are super close together (his is June 25th; mine is June 27th), so we always have lots of birthday festivities. On Thursday night (his actual birthday), he had a summer youth series, so I went and got him a cookie cake while he was gone. (And yes, if you’re wondering whether I am just cheese enough to light candles and sing “happy birthday” by myself, I did.) We had some cookie cake and talked for awhile (since we hadn’t seen each other yet that day), and then it was bedtime.

Our tradition has been to celebrate birthdays on the 26th since it’s the day between, so we went to Cheesecake Factory on Friday night. I was so full that it was truly painful to breathe… and I brought home fully HALF of my meal. It was just fun to go on a date and spend time with my love. And I love this picture of us from just before dinner…

Saturday (my actual birthday) was the birthday marathon. Well, first of all, I had my Cheesecake Factory tiramisu for breakfast. Yeah, I’m pretty much a health nut. Then we drove to Arlington for birthdays with Lance’s family. We went to Splitsville, which was a really cool place. Apparently, I am WAY out of bowling shape (was I ever IN bowling shape??) because my booty was sore for days. The food was really good, and it was the cleanest bowling place I’ve ever been to. SUPER clean bathrooms too – bonus!! Then we came home and cleaned house for awhile, and then my family came over that night. It was great to see them and spend time with them. We don’t get to do it nearly enough. Aaaaaand it turns out that this is my ONLY picture from the day. Swell. Why do I carry a camera and then only take one picture?

I should point out that Patty made a cake, so we had cake with lunch… and my mom had made a cake, so we had cake with dinner (and take this moment to remember that I had tiramisu for breakfast), so we felt pretty roly-poly when we went to bed that night. It was definitely a fun weekend.

It’s pretty hard for me to believe I’m 25 now. I know, I’m still among the youngest of my group (my summer birthday has almost always made me the baby of my class), but it astounds me that I’ve been alive a quarter of a century. It just seems like a long time. In some ways, I still think of myself as like 18… but in other ways, I feel super old… so I guess 25 is a pretty good age for me. It’s just now beginning to sink in, which is saying something since my birthday was 2 weeks ago!

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“I lie down and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me.”
Psalm 3:5

a new place to call home

Well, I blogged for a good long while at my last blog address... but I have decided to turn over a new leaf. A blogspot leaf. Some of my old posts were full of happiness, but many were filled with struggles and trials. I am hopeful that I can start over with a new URL, a new look, and yes, a new outlook as well. The Lord was incredibly faithful and amazingly mighty in every single situation I blogged about in my many wordpress months, and I am going to work hard to remember that through any trials that may come my way in the future.
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"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."
Zephaniah 3:17