Three Day Weekend

I am so looking forward to this weekend. It will be nice to take a much needed break from work and home improvement. I've decided that I'm not going to work on the house at all during our holiday, I'm just going to enjoy the time off!

On Saturday our good friends Rob and Lily are going to come over with their little girl Hazel. They are so much fun to be around, and Hazel is a hoot and a half. She's got so much personality and she's already addicted to RockBand. She's so cute when we turn on the game, she gets in the chair behind the drum set and tries to hit the drum pads. It seems that we always have a good time anytime we're able to spend time with these people and it's always nice to have young couple to hang out with.

On Sunday, we will finally be celebrating our anniversary! I'm excited. I went and got Jeff his annivesary present and I can't wait to give it to him. We will be defrosting our cake top and seeing how it tastes, but I think I might make a back up desert just in case!

I think Monday will be low-key and we'll probably end up going to the lake for the day with Doug and Sara. We haven't been to the lake all summer, and it's kinda bumming me out. I think it will be nice to get some sun, and go float around the lake for while. It might be just the thing I need to reduce some of this stress I seem to always be carrying around.

The Hot Rod

Since Jeff had to go out of town and our work is currently out of company vehicles, Jeff had to take my car to Reno with him. That means that I’m driving the Camaro this week. I’ve been driving it on my own for a while now, but it still scares me that I might wreck it, or someone might hit me.

When my car got hit in the parking lot at work I was whining to my mom that I didn’t know what to do because we wanted to get a new car, but should we keep my old one so that we have two cars to drive. My mom suggested we sell the camaro. I got really quiet and asked her if she had a fever! If we were ever in a position where we needed a lot of money quickly because we were going to lose our house and our babies couldn’t eat, or someone in the family were sick, then of course we would sell it. Even then though, I would do my part to make sure I had exhausted all other options. Jeff’s had the camaro since he was 17 years old. Numerous people have asked to buy it, but he isn’t selling. And I don’t want him to. I know that we could easily take home a few thousand dollars and our life would be much easier if we were willing to part with it.

I’ve learned to love the car. I understand what it means to Jeff. To him, it’s not just a car, or a possession. It represents a whole lot of other things as well. Jeff’s family has a tradition. Most of the Honea boys end up with a classic car at some point. In that family, when a couple gets married, they ride in a classic car to the reception. If the groom doesn’t own his own, then an uncle or cousin lends their car to the newlyweds. It a lovely tradition and I’m glad that Jeff and I were able to take part in it.

So, I’m driving the car this week. She’s been great. She’s starting when I ask her to, and she’s just a joy to drive around. It’s a little hard for me to see over the steering wheel, but luckily I’m not driving too far. I think my neck would get tired from craning it too much! I just love to see people’s reaction. It’s usually older men and young boys that turn their heads as I drive by. I know they’re probably wondering what a girl like me is doing in a car like that. I was in Safeway parking lot yesterday afternoon, and there were two little boys standing next to their mom’s car and their mouths were wide open! It was too cute!

I hope that one day soon, we’ll be able to put some money into it and make it the kind of car that Jeff’s always wanted it to be. We’ll get there; it just might take 20 years or so!

I Miss My Honey

Jeff is away on training this week and I’m lonely. I’m finally getting used to the sounds of our house settling or the trees scraping the roof, but I still find it hard to be home alone in the house.

I get bored. I go home, eat dinner, and then try and find something to do until I’m tired enough to sleep. I really wish we had Daisy now so I would have a companion.

Jeff gets to come home on Friday, but that feels like a long ways away.

Something To Be Proud Of

I’m still on the weightloss bandwagon, it’s just going to be a slow process. I’m okay with that. It didn’t take me a week to put on the weight, so it won’t take a week to take it off. But it sure would be nice!

So far, I’m down 7lbs, and it feels good. I can’t see any difference yet, but it feels great just the same. I’ve been having a problem remember to eat on the weekends. I usually get so involved in working on our house that I forget to stop and make myself something to eat. Big problem. You have to eat to lose weight, and I can’t remember to do it! I’ve remember during the week because everything is regimented. I get up to go to work, lunch is at 12:00, and then I make dinner in the evening time. I eat because I know that I can’t get away during work to grab a healthy snack.

Then, there’s the cardio. I bought Jillian Michael’s DVD. She’s one of the trainers on Biggest Loser, and it totally kicked my ass. It was hard to walk for 3 days! I haven’t gotten enough courage to turn the DVD on again, but I figure the work I’ve been doing in the yard can count as my cardio for the moment.

And…..I baked a cake from scratch last night to take to my parent’s house. It was yellow cake with chocolate butter cream frosting. I didn’t have a large piece, I had just enough for a couple bites. That in itself is a big accomplishment!

Stressed

When Jeff and I were going through escrow I started to get this really tight fist -in- throat sensation. It was so uncomfortable. It made it hard to sleep, or eat, and sometimes it even made it hard to breathe.

I went to the Dr. and he basically told me that it was stress. I understood that at the time because escrow is probably one of the most stressful things a person can go through. So, I dealt with it for the month and a half that we were waiting for our house and figured it would go away once we were living in our house.

It did. For a while. Now it's back with a vengeance. I couldn't sleep last night and today, I'm sitting at my desk trying to take in slow deep breath's to see if it will help ease the tension that is building in my throat. Nothing is working. The worst part is that I have no clue what I could be stressing over. We are doing fine financially, our house is coming along nicely, we're getting a dog, our marriage is strong....I don't get it. It's frustrating to not be able to pinpoint the cause of my anxiety because that means I can't do anything to alleviate the problem. Maybe it's time for a real vacation?

We're Thinking of Adopting...

A dog! I've been wanting a dog for years, but I've never lived in a place that allowed pets. Now, we have our own house, and no one can tell us no.


I always thought that I would like to buy a full bred boxer puppy. Then one day I was watching Oprah, and she was doing a show on puppy mills. I was horrified. I can't believe that our country would let this happen. These puppy mill owners keep all these dogs in a cage so small that they can't even walk, and they have litter after litter of puppies. They get tumors in thier breasts from having to nurse so many puppies throughout thier lives. When they can't reproduce anymore, they are taken out and shot.



I know that there are responsible breeders out there, but after seeing that Oprah episode, I felt like adopting was something that I had to do. The dog that we're looking at may not have come from a puppy mill, but she's in a shelter and she needs love. We go meet her today, and I can't wait.

Just When Things Were Going So Well....

My car got hit in the parking lot at work last night. The damage isn't bad, it's just a 6 inch wide scratch down the drivers' side doors. I don't even really care, because Jeff and I were looking into getting a new car by October or November anyways. It's just that we want to be able to trade it in for whatever it is we're buying, so we'll need to get it fixed, or the value of the car will go down. The real kicker is, the guy who hit the car is an older gentleman, and he works in the same office as I do. I feel bad because he seemed embarassed, and he asked me to go get an estimate and he'll pay out of pocket. He doesn't want his insurance to know about it because then his deductible will go up.

So, now I'm in a real pickle. I don't know if it's worth going and getting fixed if we're just going to try to get a new car anyways, but I do want to be able to trade it in for some value. Shoot!

Back on the Wagon!

When I was about 17 or so, I was very overweight, unhappy, and ready for a change. My mom introduced me to WeightWatchers, and for some reason, it ended up working! I stuck with it for about a year, and ended up losing close to 50lbs. I loved my new body, and I loved that I could go into almost any store I wanted, and find something right off the rack.

I've been off the program for five or six years now, and I've slowly gained all the weight back. I knew it was happening, I just didn't care to stop it. Now, I only have a few clothes that fit me, and I'm refusing to buy brand new clothes in these sizes. So, I'm back on the wagon. I went out this weekend and got all of the food I needed and bought a new exercise dvd. I'm hoping that I'll be at least half way to my goal weight by Christmas. I would like to lose 60lbs, but I'll be happy with just being back to the weight I was when I met Jeff.

I'm looking forward to feeling healthy again. Jeff and I would like to start a family sooner rather than later, and it will be better for me to lose the weight now instead of just adding baby weight on top of lazy weight. I've been on the program for three days now, and I'm hoping I can keep my optimism and excitment until this becomes a healthy habit.

A Quilt....

My Granny has always been very talented when it came to sewing. There are tons of pictures of me as a baby in handmade dresses and bonnets that she made for me. When I was a little girl, it seemed that she always had a quilt in her lap. As she has gotten older, she’s decided that she’s done quilting. I was fortunate enough to be given one of last quilts she’s made. She put it in my hope chest and I didn’t really have a chance to look at it until now. It’s just so special to me because it was made by my granny’s hands. It’s one of those things that I’ll look at 20 years from now and I’ll be closer to her because the same thing that I’m holding in my hands, she made with love years before.

Decorating Woes Part 1

Man oh man! I have really had a lot of fun deciding what to do with our new home. That being said, I’ve also ran into quite a few frustrations! When we first started painting, I went to ACE to get the paint for the kitchen. It matched perfectly! So, I when we decided to move onto the dining room and living room, I figured I’d just go ahead and get all the paint I would need, just so I wouldn’t have to make another trip to the store.

When we were looking at paint for the living room, we knew we wanted to do a warm, welcoming color. I was looking at browns, but didn’t really like the yellow undertones in the paint. I found this color called Crossroads, and loved the way it looked. It was still a brown, but it had a gray sort of tone to it. I went to Ace and purchased the three gallons that I would need.

We started painting the dining room that night. It was looking good so far, but it was still wet. By the time we came to the house the next day, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing…I had PURPLE walls. Now, I really do like purple. I liked it enough to have it be the main color in my wedding, but I didn’t want a purple dining room and living room! Jeff swore up and down that it didn’t look purple, he kept telling me that he thought it looked great, and not to worry.

Well, as soon as my mom comes in, she tells me it looks purple. Then, Jeff’s cousin Amy came over and said she like my purple dining room. That was it! I told Jeff I couldn’t handle it and needed to change it before we moved everything in. Thankfully, we had only painted parts of the dining room, so we didn’t add to much work to our already growing list of things to do.

I head back down to ACE, hoping that they might take my unused, unopened, mixed purple paint. No deal. I hated wasting the money, but it’s all a learning experience. This one just happened to cost me $65.00! I keep telling myself that I’ll paint our master bath that color, but the more I look at it, the more I hate it.

We picked out another brown and even did a darker accent wall where the tv sits, and we couldn’t be happier! Now, I just need to pick out some cute stuff to go on our bare walls!