i've been all over the place, lots of little cooky things going on. so yes, it's going to be a long, random post with odd pictures here and there. and it's going to be a lazy one without caps. you'll survive. i'm tired. ;)
as i start typing this on friday night, i'm just enjoying the sweet quiet stillness of our home. while tim reads news stories to me from his phone that i'm only partially listening to as i type while laying on the couch and sipping my favorite tea from the local tea shop. precious.
we are entering a relaxing, lowkey weekend. another one. i'm so thankful for the regularness of these in the winter months because later in the year they become a rarity.
we've been so blessed with a mild winter, but i'm also thankful march isn't dragging on and on, and that we've gotten some really good weather lately! this week one day the high will get up to 77. now, that's a bit too much for march in my opinion, but i am really enjoying it all nonetheless. just keep bringing on the 50s and i'll be peachy.
i ate some chicken pot pie last saturday and burnt my tongue like 4 different times. my tongue hasn't been the same since. i've been able to drink hot chocolate and hot tea a lot easier this week since my mouth isn't as sensitive.
my body always revolts when the time changes. i like more daylight at night, but i hate it being darker again in the morning, blarg. and my fibro just seems to hate change of any kind, no matter what. here comes two weeks of fibro flare-ups, guaranteed. days of getting to work late. days of taking the elevator more at work. days of pushing through the pain to just come home and collapse on the couch.
we went to church last night {saturday, when i wrote this section} so we got to sleep in a little this morning. that means the first day we'll really feel the daylight saving time effect is tomorrow {monday} when we head to work. perhaps we should have had a change in strategy.
{just as expected, it was nearly impossible to get up on monday for work. tuesday was even worse. ughhhhhh.}
last saturday we went to ace hardware for a free quart of their new primer & paint in one for our basement spare room. we got the color "roasted squash" which looks a bit more peach than we wanted, so we'll see. it's meant to be more of an orange/gold/brown type combo. hmm.
this friday night we painted a patch on the drywall that's up and let it dry to see what we think. it's SO hard to tell from just a block of paint! but i think we're going to go with it. it really looks good with one of the pictures i'd purchased on black friday! :)
the rest of last weekend was spent doing other house projects, cleaning up in preparation for a house guest, and for me lots of shopping and organizing as i prepped for a coworker's baby shower on monday night after work.
on monday for lunch a few lady coworkers and i were going to have lunch together. one of them needed to talk to the other 3 of us about something. we were all nearly bursting as we waited to hear what was going on. it was also odd that she was very specific on where she wanted to eat {she's not usually like that} but we just couldn't figure out what was going on.
first, let's backtrack a little... last july i found out one of my best friends, annemarie, was moving away to washington and i was in denial. then in september we helped them move.
so when coworker karen told us she had to talk to us about something and we walked into the restaurant ready for a meal and to hear what she was going to say...
and instead...
annemarie was standing there saying "surprise!"...
my jaw dropped. it took a minute to register that she was actually standing in front of me.
we hugged. i cried.
and i didn't stop hugging her at every moment that i could. it still doesn't seem real.
was i dreaming??
it went too fast. we had an hour plus a little bit more time alone as she drove me back to work behind the other girls. it was sweet and special.
oh what a blessing!
i'm still blown away. it knocked my socks off. what a great, great, great surprise!!!!
but i had to pull it together really fast as i was helping cohost a baby shower for a super, sweet, wonderful coworker/friend right after work. which was also amazing.
i was in charge of decorations, games, door prizes, sign-in, getting the group gift, and the gifts list at the shower. all of which i absolutely love doing!
since erika is crafty, i had the sign-in on scrapbook paper where people could fill out more than just their name, they could give advice, well wishes, etc. i also wrote her gift list on scrapbook paper so that she can put together a cool scrapbook for baby when it's all done.
the beautiful erika who is our fabulous assistant to the president. she's amazing and we all love her!!
it was a really good time, and all of us ladies really love excuses to get us all together! :)
not the best pic perhaps because it was my cell phone, but alas, it's all the hosts together with our guest of honor so it's special regardless. love these ladies!
we cleaned up and then i waited about an hour at work before my guest for the week arrived. tara, one of our off-site editors, was going to be in from monday night to thursday morning, and i was soooo looking forward to having her! she arrived at work by car service about 8 pm monday and we headed to our house to get her settled and to catch up.
it was really fun to have a girl to get ready for work with for several mornings and to have a companion in the car! i loved it!! tara is such a sweetheart and i've really grown to love her dearly over the years. i think what really helps is that she also has a chronic illness, severe fatigue, and struggled with infertility for 10 years. we relate to each other so incredibly well that it was like almost having a bit of a twin here! even tim commented one evening "well you just fit right into our family!" love it! so glad he enjoyed having her here too and it was not stressful.
{admittedly though, whenever we have guests we love having them, but we are also thankful for when they're gone! ;) }
with tuesday morning came a HUGEEEE relief so i had to take a screen shot of my phone the exact moment that i received the text, because it's just a really big deal....
WHEW!!! PRAISE GOD!
{I'm writing this on a new day and just came back to reread this and noticed I changed my capitalizating. I know I'm going to drive some people bonkers with this post, but I really hope you'll forgive me. It's been one of those weeks and I just don't have it in me to go back and edit it again.}
Shortly after that text I had a meeting with a couple coworkers and one of my very favorite authors! What a perfectly timed reminder of how much I dearly love and enjoy my job. It was such a delight to meet with him! I was like a giddy teenager... :)
I took him back to one of our designers to talk about the new map that will need to be drawn up for the front of his latest fiction book, and it was sooo much fun to watch them go through the details!
So I couldn't help but be giddy this weekend when I just had to bring a little bit of work home with me. Heeheehee.
On Tuesday afternoon Tim's brother Paul was back to work a little bit on our basement room again. We came home to a new window, so we were excited about that!
Tuesday night was interesting. I can't say much here, but let me just say I'm thankful for one very low-key, laidback, chilled-out house guest!!! Tara was amazing! We enjoyed some sweet time together later that night after the interesting drama and she kindly let us show her the Chuck finale {she'd stopped watching at season 3, so she had a sense of what was going on}. Good, good stuff!!
Wednesday, Tara & I definitely needed our doses of caffeine {thank you Starbucks} as we both wanted to just go back to bed!! It was a crazy busy day at work and I was exhausted by the end of it all. Tara had a dinner planned with our boss, Al and his wife, whom she's known for many years since they'd worked together at a previous company. So while she did that, I had a great time hanging out at Brian & Monica's. I got some sweet time with Parker & Nolan. The only picture I grabbed though was a moment on the couch with Parker as we watched Curious George.
Love.
Did I mention that all of my lunches last week were also full? I barely had a chance to breathe lol!
Thursday morning Tara & I got a little extra sleep, and we were ready surprisingly fast so we headed out early for Midway airport. Have I ever told you before that this country girl loves going to the airport?
Yes, you read that right. I'm an airport geek. I love it. Really, really love it.
I giggle and nearly explode in glee.
It might be crazy, but the one I really get a kick out of is O'Hare. It is one crazy airport, but trust me if you've ever had to drive around or be around or even slightly take a peek at LAX, O'Hare is a cakewalk. LAX makes me want to hyperventilate.
O'Hare is a hoot.
Anyway, enjoyed the trip and extra time with Tara before dropping her off and whipping my way back to work. I remember the times I was scared of driving the interstates near where I grew up where there wasn't traffic but just the extra lanes were intimidating. Oh how far I've come....
Then poof, Thursday was over. It's amazing how getting to work a couple hours late can do that to ya.
That night I decided it was a nice enough day for a car wash, without any rain in the immediate forecast, and after having added a good amount of gook to my car after driving around the city & expressways. I'm one of those who loves automated car washes, especially one at a Shell station near my work. Seriously, love. It's sooo relaxing and I really wish it would last longer. So funny because everyone is always in a hurry and you want it done soon - but truly, I wish those things were longer. *sigh*
I can't totally explain the funk I was in on Thursday though. It was a combination of events that lead me to feeling the way I did and posting that mom club post. I really appreciated all the comments, emails, and conversations about it though - God is good! I'm not worried friends, I know God has a plan for us. But thanks for letting my blog be a place of comfort and healing for me when I need to just get my thoughts and feelings out there.
Friday came and went in a whirlwind. Had a good day. Fun times with friends at lunch. Painted some of our basement room when we got home, as you saw above. Enjoyed a nice weekend together, reconnecting after company and enjoying just hanging out together, and getting more house projects done. I've just been really thankful to have the energy to do all this! We even enjoyed time together fixing up our flower garden!
The leaves and gook that were around all our flowers for the winter {I'd heard a long time ago that this helps fertilize the flowers/soil during the cold winter months} are all cleaned up now. And of course I took a picture before we cleaned it up, but not after. Doh!
We also cleaned up our bedroom and replaced our bed frame. We've spent a lot of time looking for a new mattress and we thought we'd settled on something, but still the price always makes us take a second look. Tim did some research and found out that getting a new frame can really help breathe new life into a mattress. So we got a new one, ditched the box springs, and wham! New life to our 10 year old bed!
And yes indeedy, I was surprised to also find out after a few nights that this really does seem to work!!
I don't know how long this will go for, but for now it's working great!
You may notice that we have blue walls and pink carpet....
The blue walls were our idea to match our bedding, but the pink carpet was there from the previous owner {who had bright pink walls to match it} and it was in such great shape and hidden by our king-size bed in our queen-size room so we opted to leave it alone.
Saturday night after church we had a wonderful date night, with super yummy food at Red Robin. I should not have taken part in eating this... but it was soooooo good, it's hard to care, lol.
Followed that up with some marvelous Cold Stone ice cream! We had a really good time reconnecting and focusing on each other and building up our marriage. It was really nice!
We were very excited at church to pick up our copy of the DVDs from this controversial conference that our pastor lead back in January. I was at last year's event and even though I knew there was some hype over the type of event it was, ultimately it honored God, exalted the name of Jesus Christ, and got a lot of people talking. This time, the hype was mostly negative and all in response to one person who was invited to speak there.
We weren't able to be there this year, but we read a lot of blogs, tweets, and concerns from multitudes of people. I cried a lot and got sick to my stomach for days when it all started. It effected me more deeply than I could even put into words at the time. We prayed. I talked to people involved who we deeply trust and respect, both at work {since some of it is directly linked to my work} and at church. We sought out a lot of wisdom and counsel. We spoke with our campus pastor and an elder.
I'm not going to specifically name the event on here because I don't want that kind of publicity or controversy here, that's not what my blog is about. So those of you reading this not getting here by a search engine, you can see the picture below and see what it's called, and google it if you want. But I caution you to read with a grain of salt the various things being said and debated, and grab your Bible.
Those of you who know me personally know that this really, really hit me hard. All that you really need to know is that we went through the steps that we needed to in order to make sure we understood the heart of our pastor and the others involved. We may not agree with everything he says and does, but we know our pastor to be a godly man who follows his convictions but who also apologizes when he knows he has done wrong. We support him, love him, and pray for him and his family regularly. We are not changing churches, we are not changing our support of him, and we are not saying anything more than that. This controversy is too close to home for me to say much this publicly. Those who know me and know my email address, feel free to email me and I'm happy to talk with you more one-on-one.
Anyway... starting to watch what really transpired at the event has been really good. Being able to figure it out for ourselves and know how to respond personally instead of just hearing about it from everyone else was also really, really good.
Thanks for sticking with me through a blindingly long post and random topics!
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