when you feel like you have no words....

We don't have cable anymore, so Heath and I spent the afternoon on our respective i-devices keeping up with the Boston bombing news on Twitter.  After spending an afternoon in disbelief, I sit here full of emotions and thoughts, and no idea how exactly I feel.  I wasn't looking at pictures of a city I'd never been to, or a city I've only seen in movies or visited as a tourist.  I was seeing pictures of sidewalks I've walked on many times, stores we shop in regularly, and a city I've come to love.  We Christmas shopped in the 'marathon sports' store.  Boston has always been Heath's favorite city, and I have fallen in love with it more and more each time we visit, which is quite frequently.  We had a friend with her family there today supporting a sibling in the race, and we thankfully heard of their safety early on.  The pictures and videos were eery and all too familiar, the first time a tragedy like this has felt very close to home, and the first time I know that I will eventually walk on those same sidewalks, buy wine glasses at that Crate and Barrel, and I know the memories of today will linger there.

It's days like this that make me hug my husband extra long, call my parents twice, and cherish every snuggle my cat gives me.  Many have been posting on social media sites about how watching the reaction of the crowd gives them hope, and I share that sentiment.  It's amazing to see that in the face of tragedy so many are willing to run towards the danger with hopes of saving others.  Hug your loved ones tight tonight, and remember that you don't need to wait for a tragedy to care for and lend a hand to strangers.

holiday craft time.

Christmas this year gave me a chance to dust off the ol' sewing machine and get my craft on.  I learned to sew back in the days of 4-H, and while I've never been one for perfection or exact technique, I can find my way around a sewing project.  After a couple of brainstorming sessions, and one evening of arguing over the proportion of a stick figure's head to his arm, our homemade Christmas gift ideas were born.

Portal is a video game which allows the player to solve puzzles by using two portals.  What goes in one portal comes out the other, wherever it is placed.  I'm not sure where the idea came from, but we decided the iconic (to the nerdier population at least) orange and blue circles would make for a pretty mean set of couch pillows.  I guess a sign of a good sewing project is when you want to keep the finished product for yourself, but alas, these got wrapped up and given to Heath's sister.

The next big holiday craft project on the list came in the form of my first ever quilted blanket.  My brother is a huge NY Giants fan, and lives in a small apartment with his wife so finding gifts can be a challenge.  I decided that a Giants themed couch blanket wouldn't take up an obnoxious amount of space in the already full apartment, as well as add a little cheer to the room during the game.  You know you have officially moved to New England when finding NY themed fabric takes you to 4 different fabric stores.  

Now it seemed like a great idea, you just follow the easy online tutorial that you found which claimed a total project time of 10 hours.  Sounds easy, right?  I neglected to read that most quilt bindings are hand sewn and machine sewing them can be difficult, so instead of risking the chance of destroying my first blanket, I decided to take the adventure of hand stitching the binding.  A long 8-10 hours of hand sewing later, the blanket was completed, and I'm proud of it!  Although I have no pictures of the finished product (I blame that on the sheer excitement of finishing it hours before we left for NY), there's a few pictures of it midway with my little helper.

It was great to get back into doing some sewing, and I hope to one day have a room that I can spread my craft supplies out and not have to pick them up right away!  One can dream, right?

so come on, steal me

So we did it! We got married. Despite the 40 degree weather, it was an absolutely perfect day, with all of our friends and family present. I don't think we could have asked for anything more. Surprisingly my favorite part of the whole day was the ceremony which is what I was most nervous for. It was personal, and it felt like we were the only one's up there. I remember it all, the whole day, every minute of it. It wasn't a blur, it was full of friends and family, and although I know we didn't get to spend nearly enough time with each and every one of them.....it makes me smile to realize they got to spend that time with each other. We had guests travel from Montana, Washington, North Carolina, Colorado, and many other places-and I hope they all know how much it meant to us for them to all be there!

The week after the wedding I took vacation. Heath was off until Thursday, and we were reminded of why we got married. We had a blast spending time together, filling our days with mini road trips, cooking, and just being care free and happy. It was the first time in a while that neither of us had to worry about work or school, and it was nice to be reminded of how that felt. Next up on the agenda? Get back to that more often, find a job that doesn't come home with me. I know that the possibility of me finding 'that' job, the job that makes you smile and feel like you're doing good is small, but I want to find one that makes me want to do that good when I get home. The one that doesn't fill me with dread to go to.

i'm loving you for all the right reasons.

Lets ignore the fact that I haven't blogged in 6 months. I'll use the "I've been busy planning a wedding" excuse, although that's not true, I've just been a little too jumbled to write anything.

Life has been crazy, we got our marriage license today (crazy!), which I thought would be no big deal, and not seem like any sort of milestone, but responding to the question "what last name will you be using after marriage" was pretty big, and something I'm pretty excited about. I can't wait to be officially a family, Jack will now have one last name (he's feeling much more settled now) :-), and Heath and I will finally be able to do things as a family. Simple things like pick up each others mail, prescriptions, etc. We'll both finally have health insurance! The wedding is just the icing on the cake, a time for us to be with family and friends, but I can't wait until the dust settles, and we're just back to being us.

The wedding planning has been awesome, I think we've really got a great day planned. The ceremony will be very us, a little camp mixed in to a traditional wedding ceremony. I can't wait for people to experience camp, I hope everyone sees why we love it there so much! The reception will be great, I have no doubt that our friends and family will make it that way. I can't wait for it to be here, for all the planning to come together and to see our closest friends and family celebrate.

Work has been stressful, and I'm constantly searching for my little slice of happiness. It's out there somewhere, and I'm lucky to have someone in my life that supports me and my search. I am more stressed about work than I am the wedding-and there's something wrong with that. I know that there's more out there for me.....we'll just have to see what that is!

week 2

So week 1 was successful, I've been trying to run semi-regularly, which is better than the never running that I was doing before. I'm also learning to not feel guilty when I don't go, which is hard...but I'm working on it. Something is better than nothing, right?

Week 2: Now it's time for something good for the earth. I WILL remember those pesky reusable shopping bags. We have so many of them, and I somehow never remember to grab them on the way out the door. Heath also brought up the point that they can be used at stores like Target and the mall. Our goal for the next coming months is to open the cabinets under the sink where we store the plastic bags for future Jack litter box cleanings, and be forced to leave the reusable bags behind so that we can collect more Jack bags!!! It will be quite a challenge since the cabinet is full, but I have faith.

a leaner greener me.

So lately I've been in a life rut. My daily routine hasn't changed in months, I've been working my tail off, and I need something new in life. Every day I get up, go to work, come home 10ish hours later, and sit on the couch to watch tv until it's bedtime. Then I repeat daily. Recently while at a closing Borders, I picked up a book called "Sleeping Naked is Green" by Vanessa Farquharson which has inspired me a bit. I haven't finished the book yet, but so far I'm really enjoying it. It chronicles a year in the life of the author, who decided to challenge herself to make one 'green' life change each day for a year no matter how small. Some days she learns to accept that she's not perfect, and knows that the switch to recycled paper towels makes a difference, even though not as big of a difference as not using paper towels at all. I think I'm enjoying it so much because it focuses more on the possible, and not being perfect, just aware. This has inspired me to do something similar. Each week I will challenge myself to make a greener, or healthier life change and blog about it. We'll see how long it lasts, but it should be fun!

Week 1: Work has been stressful, it's been playing on my biggest insecurities and causing a great amount of anxiety. It's a terrible feeling to have constant anxiety about things I know are silly, but can't help. For both my mind and my body, I have decided to make a conscious effort to go out for a jog when I'm stressed, instead of picking up the pint of ice cream or bag of chips. I've been doing this for about a two weeks now, and so far so good. Now to figure out how to de-stress and not worry so much! I'm trying to figure out what I'm passionate about, what will make the stress worth it.

cause it's gonna be the future soon

I've been thinking a lot about buying a house lately, and I daydream about what it would be like. Apartment living is nice, there's nothing to worry about fixing, no driveway to shovel, leaves to rake, or things to pay for (other than rent), but every Saturday as I sit and stare at the beige walls, which match the beige carpets, and the beige kitchen cabinets, I dream what it would be like to roll up my sleeves and make my space, mine. I keep dreaming about what life will be like in a house, and here's what I came up with:

- Recycling. We try, but it's hard here. We don't control our trash/recycling pickup, and so far all we can recycle is newspaper and cans/bottles. Someday when we actually control these things, and have room for the awesome sorting system we want, life will be good!

- Gardening. We made a really great attempt this year, utilizing as much of the 8x12 balcony as we could, and enjoyed fresh cherry tomatoes, and as many herbs as we could fit in a window box (Jack enjoyed the catnip!).....but I can not wait to be elbow deep in dirt planting tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, and anything else we can dream of.

- Mowing the Lawn. I know as soon as I have this chore back again, I'll retract this statement. There's something therapeutic about being able to see progress in what you're doing, and the nice straight lines make me happy.

- Projects. I want weekend projects. Painting rooms, doing minor repairs, landscaping, and other odd jobs. Other than sewing, I have no hobbies, and beautiful Saturdays inside an apartment make me long for flowers to plant and leaves to rake.

- Outdoors. There's nothing like sitting outside when it's nice. Right now we have a nice deck, but nosy neighbors make sitting outside not all that fun. It's also covered. I want a yard, and outdoor chairs.