Christmas Celebrations

The holiday season certainly was in full swing in our house!  We decked out the house with lots of Christmas decorations, pine tree smelling candles, and holiday music.  While the festivities are all over we do still have a nice festive feeling in our place....we still haven't had the heart to take down the tree.  Maybe next weekend :)

We were busy making and getting presents for everyone this December.  It's always fun starting a new project, but I have to say, this time around every project took longer than we expected!  Thankfully, we started perhaps earlier than we needed to so we still got everything done with a little time to spare.  Sadly I didn't remember to take pictures of all the presents before we wrapped them up :(  I definitely dropped the ball on that.  We made some coaster sets, decorative painted wine bottles, and a pair of decorative (and reversible) cloth covered bulletin boards.  All in all, not bad for us.  We branched out from our normal painting based projects which was pretty fun actually.

We were lucky enough to be able to spend some holiday time with both of our families.  With the distance its not really possible to see both sides on Christmas or Christmas Eve.  Instead we had a nice dinner and opened presents with Matt's parents and sister the night before we left for Wisconsin.  We stayed with my family for a few days in Wisconsin and when we got back, spent New Years Eve with Matt's parents and cousin.  It worked out pretty well.  Thankfully the weather cooperated for the most part and travelling wasn't too bad.  We even got to spend a night in Madison on the way back.  It was really nice to break up the drive a bit and we got to stop and visit some friends and their little boy and even got to have dinner and breakfast with some of our good friends!  Overall not a bad trip :)

Since nobody reading this got to come to our Christmas party I thought I'd share a picture of our Christmas tree with almost all of our presents underneath:

So besides the general holiday happenings and busyness we also had our Christmas party.  We had one last year too and decided we want to make it a tradition for us.  It's pretty much the only party we throw all year so we generally go all out for it.  We make all of the food ourselves and its a big reason that we deck out the house so much.  Here are some pictures of the house all set up:

All of our more substantial and savory food.  I have to say-our cooking ability is slowly improving!  Here's what we made: 2 types of meatballs (one with regular BBQ sauce and one Cherry BBQ sauce), baked brie with cranberry sauce, cherry salsa and cream cheese dip, spinach and artichoke dip, a cute meat and cheese Christmas tree with tomatoes.

A nice little bar area, always a must for a party :)

All the sweets!

The sweets menu (my favorite part!): cream filled strawberries, pumpkin pie dip, dunkaroo dip (tastes like cake frosting!), home-made chocolate/mint fudge and the only item we didn't make: whoopie pies.  Matt's cousin who lives across the street brought those over.

I found this cool fireplace movie on Netflix that we played on our TV all night.  It was pretty awesome actually!

So that's what our party looked like.  For those who know me really well, I feel the photos are needed so I can prove we actually cooked all that :)

I've discovered something interesting about the auto industry-it completely shuts down between Christmas and New Years.  I personally loved it....I got to have Matt home for the whole week!  It was great.  We definitely kept ourselves busy but it was nice to have some time for whatever we wanted.  We made it a point to spend a day (well it turned into an evening) exploring something new that we haven't done yet.  So we decided to go to Cranbrook Institute of Science.  I had never heard of Cranbrook before moving here but it's a crazy good, and disgustingly expensive, private school.  They also have a science and art museum on the campus.  It was fantastic!  We ended up going at 5pm because it was 50% off after that time-but the place stayed open until 10 so it was perfect for us.  As usual-we were the only adults without kids but we enjoyed it just as much :)  I even got to go to my first planetarium show (at least I don't remember going to one before so I think it's my first!).  All in all it was a lovely evening.

Other than that not a whole lot is new.  Well, I guess except that Matt has accepted a position with a different company.  He is starting next Monday actually.  It was a nice opportunity with a good company and more along the lines of Matt's interest.  As I figured would happen when he took the job here, he got bored pretty quickly with the job that brought us here.  He is a guy who likes being in the thick of things and who works well under pressure.  His current position is a little too slow paced and not nearly challenging enough for him.  So this opportunity presented itself and we decided, why not?  We don't have to move and he'll be happier.  So he gets to start somewhere new on Monday.  I'm still looking for a position.  Still reaching out to anyone I can think of and I'm working with a staffing agency now that has some experience placing people in non-profits.  So hopefully the new year will bring new opportunities!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

8 Months!

December 1st marked 8 months of living in Michigan!  Seriously, where did that time go?!?!  These past 8 months have been a bit more interesting than I had expected but I'm sure it will all work out for the best in the end.  I'm just not sure where/when we'll get to that ending point.

The last month has been a bit busy with the kickoff of the holiday season!  I was able to get back to Wisconsin for 6 days which was nice.  I got to see my family, some friends and hang out in the woods with my dad so those were all good things.  Then when I got back to Michigan I did Thanksgiving with Matt's family and then worked in a mall on black Friday for the first time.  I have to say, it wasn't as terrible as I expected!  Surprising but true.  Only one customer was angry enough to make a co-worker cry so that's a plus.  I didn't have to work until 2 in the afternoon which also helped I think.  Funny enough working that Saturday was actually worse than working black Friday.  Maybe I was just so worn out from Friday.  Who knows.  Since then I've been working a little less and have been trying any means possible to get a job!

Clearly I still don't have a full time job-but I'm still working on it!  I've been trying to use any tiny, barely there connection I can to get my foot in the door somewhere (so far, to no avail but I'm going to keep trying).  I also graduated from my mentorship program on Wednesday so that was nice.  I'll still stay in touch with my mentor and I've kept all of the materials I got through the program and I think they'll really be of use when I get a position.  I've also agreed to take an unpaid internship at Gilda's Club as a grant writer.  I've done some research/reading on grant writing but haven't got any practical experience so it will be a nice way for me to gain a new skill.  So that's where I'm at with the job hunt-not a whole lot new to report there.

Now for fun stuff-Christmas trees and pictures!  In our house Christmas is a big deal-Matt LOVES Christmas!  I can only imagine how much more ridiculous it is going to get once we have kids.  We had our Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving night and we were all decorated within a week!  I've posted some pictures below of our tree and how we moved things around in the living room a bit and added in some Christmas decorations.  I've also got pictures of our 2 bedrooms and kitchen....you know the ones I said I'd post about 5 months ago!  Finally got there!  We just re-arranged our kitchen a bit and bought a new shelf thingy to open it up a bit more and give us more storage (something our kitchen is sorely lacking).  The spare room has been pretty well set up for a while but I recently did a total re-organization of all of the closets in our house so I was able to fit more into the closet in the spare room so it looks a bit better now.  Both bedrooms are still pretty sparse but they're totally functioning spaces which is all we really require of them at the moment.  The pictures aren't of the best quality(I just took them with my phone) but they're pictures! Enjoy.....

Christmas tree all decorated.  I made the the thing on the wall next to it.  A super cute towel stretched over a wooden frame :) 

Christmas tree all lit up!

We only had to move a couple of things to get the tree up and some decorations out.  At first Matt wasn't sure he would like it but I think we've both gotten used to the new arrangement.  

I've loved having all of the pine tree smelling candles out like the one on top of this shelf.  We had fun adding decorations to things we already had out.  For instance the two snowflake guys on one of the shelves and the ornaments leaning up against the figurine and camera.  Just fun touches that don't require a whole lot of effort :)

I've been adding little festive things to this planter on our front porch.  I really wanted to have a Christmas thing in there now and was about to go to Home Depot and buy one of their pine decor things when I realized....hey I can just make something!  So I used some branches from the tree in our front yard and some random decorations my Grandma gave us and...voila.  Matt even noticed it without me telling him I did it!

Our bedroom with a patio door going out to our deck and back yard. This patio door is totally backwards.  Instead of having the glass door on the inside the screen is on the inside!  It's one of the more annoying things about this house.  Makes it kind of hard to leave the door open on nice cool spring/summer/fall nights.  Oh well-I guess it doesn't really matter now that it's winter.

The other side of the view from the bedroom door :)  This is the most decorated part of our bedroom.

Like I said....our bedroom is pretty sparse but totally functioning.  Although, I am looking forward to being able to get an actual bed frame-complete with headboard and footboard.  Eventually we'll get there :)

Here's our spare room.  Or as we call it-Pablo's room.  I have a large penguin stuffed animal that Matt named Pablo.  So he get's his own room.  This room is pretty small.  When the futon is folded out there's just enough room to move around.  Believe it or not, this is where we had our bedroom for the first 2 weeks of living here.  Not the best fit ever when you add in all the boxes and clothes we also had to keep in here at the same time.  I do not miss those days!

Here's the other side of the room.  Again-small but it works.

The view from the corner of the room looking out.  As I said-this room is also pretty sparse but we'll eventually get to putting things on the big empty wall :)  We just haven't gotten there or figured out what we want yet.

On to the kitchen!  View of the kitchen from the doorway leading to the living room/rest of the house.  The lovely yellow/orange door is the color that all of the walls in the spare room used to be....now you see why we painted :)  It's a decent sized kitchen that lacks storage space (we have exactly two drawers...I kid you not).  Since we only had one day to find a place to live and almost everything else we saw was so bad we were thrilled when we saw this kitchen.  Only after we moved in did I realize how much less storage it had than our previous kitchen.  We dealt with it and got nice and creative with our storage :)

Here's the new shelf we just got.  I like the openness of it-it doesn't really block out much light from the window which is great.  We didn't overload the shelves with stuff but it's amazing how much moving just a few key things out of cupboards or off of counter tops can make a big difference.

The bar cart thing was one of my better Craigslist finds in Madison.  So glad we were able to bring it with us.

This is the view from the corner by the shelf.  We do have a great gas stove which we love.  The wood counter tops are cool-just not super taken care of.  It's defintely something I would consider in a house some day so I'm glad we've gotten to try them out here.

Well that's about it for the tour of our house.  We do have lots of Christmas lights up in the living room and we even bought some solar lights for outside (no outdoor outlets in this house).  I'll try and get some pictures of those soon.

Gloomy Days

**Fair warning:  this is a long post (sorry!) and can be a bit rambling at times...well for pretty much all of it!  I've written it more almost as a journal entry.  I've peppered it with some of my favorite quotes and quotes that I feel are good for me to remember- I hope you enjoy them as much as I do and that they make this a bit more worth reading :)**
         
             "In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."-Albert Einstein

I decided to start with that quote because I'm trying to convince myself its true.  I am a little sad to say that my optimism has pretty much been exhausted since my last post.  Perhaps that's why I haven't really felt like posting lately.  I've continued to apply for jobs, I'm still working at the store and am volunteering a little less at Gilda's Club but I just feel like I can't really catch a break.  I've had quite a few interviews and either don't get past the first round or I end up being the runner up, or the organization goes through a sudden reorganization and the job is no longer open.  Oh the joys of job hunting in a decimated economy!  The last two jobs I interviewed for had 50 and 80 applicants.  I keep making it to the in-person interview stage but I can't seem to get passed that.  This is pretty much all I think about lately-my lack of job-getting abilities!

            "Mistakes are a fact of life.  It is the response to error that counts." -Nikki Giovanni

As it so happens the only people I know that read this blog are close friends or family so I figure some brutal honesty is okay.  I was never incredibly thrilled for this move but looked at is as an adventure and I try to always be up for a little bit of adventure.  Unfortunately over the past few months I've come to ever so slightly regret jumping into this move so quickly.  I'm starting to think if we'd had more time to think about the career prospects for me here, we would have realized it probably wasn't the best idea.  We, however, did not have that much time to consider everything.  We did the best we could, but we were two 24 year olds making a big decision and didn't necessarily think of everything we should have considered (we also only had 3 days to give the company an answer to the offer they made Matt).  There are so many more considerations than I imagined-even just basic cost of living things- that we couldn't have possibly thought of everything and been completely informed before deciding to move.  I guess that in itself is a good lesson to learn.  Honestly, I am still trying to figure out what the best response is to this decision to move that I am beginning to view more like a mistake.  As long as I learn something from this it won't truly be a mistake-just a bigger challenge than expected.

            "Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength." -Corrie Ten Boom

For me the biggest thing I overlooked was how I would handle this big change emotionally.  I also forgot to consider how I would deal with the challenges of finding a job here.  Clearly that process was complicated by my taking the hospital job only to find out it was a less than properly run organization.  I have always been a driven person and I never thought it would take me this long to find a job that was a good fit (and at this point I'd settle for any job that pays a living wage-it doesn't even have to be a non-profit or a good fit necessarily).  I didn't fully appreciate what the lack of employment would do to my self esteem and how I identify myself.  I think its a very American thing to tie one's personal identity so much to your career and employment.   I have been trying to think positively about the situation but the truth is I now find it hard to find anything positive in my current situation and in the whole move.  I was hoping this move would do a few things- give Matt a chance to fast track his career and be closer to his family, allow me to become closer to Matt's family, help us grow together as a couple, and teach me about adjusting to foreign surroundings.  Some of those things have happened, but mostly just the ones that concern Matt (although I guess they truly concern us both as we're pretty tied to each other!).  I guess it has definitely brought us closer as a couple and has given us a whole new vast array of experiences together.  We're learning how to be much more communicative and we're learning how to help each other out in new situations and surroundings.  Sadly I don't feel it's done a whole lot as far as helping me become closer to Matt's family and I'm not sure how I'm doing adjusting to new surroundings.  Although, I officially have a friend here that isn't a professional connection (don't get me wrong-Debbie from Gilda's is a great friend and has been a great sounding board for professional things).  Stephanie is the eye doctor I found here and we got to talking and realized we're both recent transplants and neither of us have kids but are engaged or married so we have a decent amount in common-well at least enough to become friends in a strange place!  Beyond Debbie and Stephanie though I mostly spend the days by myself looking for jobs or just hanging out at home.  Anywho, I've gotten sidetracked.  I guess what I'm mostly trying to say is I'm having a harder time as of late than I ever thought I would.  I have struggled with depression in the past and have always been lucky to have people who are supportive and understanding to help me.  I am thankful now that I have Matt who is doing the best he can to understand the things I struggle with and to find ways to make me feel better.  It's a lot for both of us to deal with but we figure if we can make it through big changes like moving some place new and surviving on one income while I desperately search for a job it will make things that much easier as we face struggles later on in our marriage.  I find I am constantly worrying about pretty much everything lately.  I know that my worrying frustrates and, ironically enough, worries Matt so I'm trying to let things go a bit more....we'll see how that goes!  We are trying to find the good side in things.  I'll be the first to admit Matt is much better at that than I am.

            "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on!" -Robert Frost

So I've rambled (quite depressingly...sorry 'bout that) for long enough without really telling you anything.  Lately we've been decently busy.  I've been having to work weekends a lot so we've been trying to spend more time together during the week.  We've been blasting through seasons of the tv show Bones and slowly chipping away at wedding planning.  I think we're at a good point for planning for as much time as we have.  Although, I know it will go by quickly especially with the holidays coming up so soon.  We've been working on getting the house and yard ready for winter.  We finally got most of our leaves picked up by the city today.  We even put out Christmas lights yesterday!  It was so warm out that we decided we might as well get it done.  We decided to go with solar outdoor lights. Our house doesn't have outlets outside so it was the easiest option.  I also really liked the idea of not using up electricity throughout the holidays.  We need to go buy one more string but then I think we'll be good.  We aren't putting up a ton but just enough to be festive.  We'll probably decorate for Christmas next week-maybe Thanksgiving morning.  Since I'm working retail I have to work Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving week.  I'm not going to lie-I'm a bit terrified to see how people get around here on black Friday.  I do have a few things to look forward to besides decorating for the holidays.  I'm making a trip back to Wisconsin this week.  I'm looking forward to spending a few days in Rhinelander, I am not however, looking forward to the 11 hour drive.  At least I'll have company for half of the trip there-I'm picking up my cousin in Chicago on my way home and giving her a lift to our Grandma's.  I've also requested a bunch of books on cd from the library so hopefully I'll get some of the before I leave.

            "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." -William James

Speaking of the library-I have a request for anyone who is willing to leave a comment or email me.  I've decided I need to start exercising my brain a bit more during the day.  While searching for jobs all day is exhausting it isn't exactly intellectually stimulating.  So, I've decided I want to start reading a book a week.  If anyone has suggestions on good books please let me know!  I'm looking to learn about some new things and discover some new authors.  I'm hoping you all have some good suggestions.

            "It always seems impossible until it is done." -Nelson Mandela

I love this quote...and Nelson Mandela.  If you've never read his autobiography I suggest putting it on your must read list, he is truly an inspiration.  But anywho, thank you for making it to the end of this crazy long and probably kind of depressing post!  It is amazing how cathartic writing this all out can be.  It also serves as a good reminder that I do indeed have a lot of good things going for me, among them are the great family and friends I've accumulated throughout my life.  I appreciate you all taking the time to check in on me :)  I truly hope next time I write that I will have more uplifting and exciting things to tell you!  Until then, I am doing my best at staying positive and upbeat.  I continue to try and learn more about myself and life in general and I figure as long as I continue to learn it's all worth it!

Fall

I think fall is one of my favorite times of year.  I love watching all of the leaves turn, the start of football season and the knowledge that it will soon be acceptable for me to start listening to Christmas music constantly!  This year however, I seem to have many more leaves around but fewer trees, I've been missing football games-but watching more baseball and I'm still looking forward to Christmas music.

I'm learning the joys of having a yard and maple trees in the fall-oh the fun :)  I spent the afternoon on Monday raking and bagging all of our leaves only to have even more the next day.  It seems like my raking has just encouraged the tree to shed more leaves, faster.  Apparently though, Matt loves to rake leaves so I don't have to do it on my own again.  We've slowly been working on getting ready for winter, although warm sunny days like today make me think how nice it would be if we had a nice three or four week long indian summer.  I'm sure winter will be here sooner rather than later though.

The first weekend in October I got to head back to Madison to spend a weekend with my parents.  Matt and I decided when we started planning this trip that it'd be better if I flew there seeing as how I don't do well staying awake in cars.  I'm pretty sure I spent more time in the airport than I did on the actual plane-but at least it was a nice quick flight!  My parents got there a little later than I did so I was able to spend a some time with my friends Stephanie and Noah and there adorable little guy Noah.  My parents and I spent all day on Saturday downtown Madison-it was much colder than I would have hoped but still a ton of fun.  I even got to take my parents to their first Badger game!

Since my trip to Madison I've been keeping pretty busy.  I've been working a few hours a week at a store in a local mall and Gilda's Club had the event that I was a committee member for so I was busy helping get ready for that.  I've also been applying to jobs and doing a few interviews.  So far nothing has come of them besides me being the runner up for a job but at least I'm getting out there.  Matt and I also went to our last wedding of the year.  It was loads of fun but I'm glad we don't have any more to go to this year.  We've had a very busy summer.  This last wedding was in Indianapolis-Matt was the best man at this one so it was a nice way for him to see a little more what a wedding will actually be like.  Boy was he exhausted on Sunday!  We did find time on the drive home for a quick pit stop at an adorable little pumpkin patch/farm place in Indiana.  This is the first time I ever remember going to a pumpkin patch-it was so adorable.  As usual when we do these kind of things, Matt and I were the only ones there without a family.  Either way it was well worth the stop-seeing all of the adorable little kids running around the farm was great and we got a few pumpkins (extra small, small, medium and one big guy) so we finally have at least a little seasonally festive decor at our front door.  Here's a picture of me at the pumpkin patch (Matt's much better at thinking of taking pictures while we do these things than I am-I have to get better at this):

That's pretty much all we've been up to lately.  I seem to have made my first friend here so that's been nice.  She's actually my eye doctor.  We're both recent transplants to the area and, at least for the moment, we're both home a lot during the week so its been nice to have someone to go get coffee with or talk about how we're adjusting to the area.  It's nice to have someone that isn't connected to Matt or his family or friends at all-nice to have a connection that's just my own.

Hopefully the coming weeks will be full of excitement.  I'm still trying to stay positive that I will get a job soon, hopefully the Tigers will do well in the World Series and I'm hoping we'll have lots of trick or treaters so we can see lots of cute costumes!  Until then I hope all of you are enjoying a lovely fall and I will do my best to write more than once a month :)

Deja Vu

Well its almost like being back in April!  Back to looking for a job and trying to find ways to fill my time.  Thankfully it isn't as hot as it was during the first few months we were here!  I can't believe how quickly fall got here-I'm definitely still adjusting to the temperature change!  But anywho, back to what I've been up to.

Like I said I've been looking for a job; there are some pros and cons to doing this again right now.  The good thing is I think I'm in a slightly better position this time only because I know a few more people and am a little more comfortable with the area.  The not so good thing is the timing.  Since it's getting to the end of the year a lot of places are slowing down hiring-especially non-profits as they find out their budgets aren't quite in the shape they thought they were.  But, I'm working really hard on staying positive about the whole situation.  I'm getting myself in the mindset that a job is a job and it doesn't have to be a non-profit job.  I can take any job and always do fundraising and volunteering on my own time.  I did take a part time retail job at Loft (a division of Ann Taylor).  Good news is I absolutely love their clothes!  Bad news is its retail which means kind of junk hours sometimes and it will make it really hard to go home for the holidays.  It isn't by any means a replacement for a full time job but it helps me bring in a little money and gives me somewhere to go and hopefully meet some new people (plus a sweet discount on clothes I love!).  Other than that I've jumped right back in to helping out at Gilda's Club.  It's funny timing for me to be able to help again because they have another big event coming up at the beginning of October-so I'll now have helped with both of their big events this year :)

Besides looking for a job Matt and I have been keeping ourselves pretty busy.  We've made some good headway on wedding planning and even done a project or two already :)  I think I've created a craft monster in Matt, but I like it.  Crafts were always a big part of my family growing up so I'm excited that Matt is interested in doing projects now too.  I have to laugh-my mom and sister were always crafty ladies and I just never fully got into it.  I now understand the draw of crafting-only took me 25 years to get there ;)  Other than wedding planning and projects we've mostly just been enjoying some time together with nothing to do but watch football and enjoy the cool weather.

We're about at that time of year where I need to start emptying out some of my potted plants and storing stuff for colder weather.  I'm thinking we'll maybe start that this weekend....maybe.  I'd also love to find a cider mill or pumpkin patch thing to go to.  I don't ever remember going to one to pick out pumpkins or anything.  I'm hoping we can do that this weekend.  Then, next weekend, I get to go back to Madison and visit my parents!  We're going to a UW football game (hopefully they play better!) and doing a few wedding things and just hanging out.  I'm so looking forward to being back in Madison-its so great there in fall.  Not to mention how excited I am to see my parents, especially since I most likely won't see them again until December at the earliest.  Hopefully these next couple of weeks will go great and will include some job leads!

A Mixed Few Weeks

Well the good news is-it hasn't been a month since my last post!  I say that's a positive.  

Other positives in the last few weeks: Matt and I got engaged!  So that's pretty exciting (and oddly stressful already).  We're both looking forward to planning the wedding together and obviously about getting married.  Even more positives-we've finished more projects!  I think I've created a craft project monster.  Matt actually asked for more craft projects the other weekend.  I thought I was in the twilight zone :)  I'm really pretty happy about that.  It's nice to have someone to work on things with you.  So here are a couple of pictures of what we did.  Nothing super challenging or exciting but still fun.

 First, here's the completed picture frame project from the last post:

The picture frame idea was from Pinterest as was how we hung them.  I beg you-if you're ever going to hang multiple pictures use this technique:  First we cut wax paper in the same shapes and sizes as the picture frames.  Then I marked on each sheet of wax paper where the nail hole was for the frame.  We played around with the wax paper sheets until we found an arrangement we liked (and that we wouldn't be nailing into electrical wires to hang up!).  So simple.  No extra nail holes to try and fill in or anything.  It was great.

This next one was a new project (and yes, it was from Pinterest too).  This one is a little different than the original idea I found (smaller and less ornate).  We just used a simple picture frame (spray painted it white), cut out some cardboard to fit, adhered burlap and the painted letter (that we painted and then roughed up to age a bit).  It was a couple of steps but really fun.  We're planning on giving this to some friends as a wedding/housewarming gift.

Now for the not so good news: I lost my job on Monday.  Very not good news given that we're trying to plan a wedding now.  I was given a kind of b.s. reason for getting fired (that I wouldn't continually work extra hours because that's not what I was contracted for) but I have a feeling the real reason is I challenged my boss' lack of ethics.  Apparently that is a no-no.  In all honesty I really didn't like that job and I didn't like the environment/culture.  But, I did like having a job (and a paycheck).  As for my boss, she got some instant karma in that my co-worker (the only other person besides the boss who worked there) put in her 2 weeks notice immediately after I was fired.  Her loss on both accounts in my opinion.  So now I'm back to the job hunt.  I've got some interviews set up for retail part time positions just to keep some extra income coming in.  I'm hoping something will break quickly so I can get back to work.  I'm to the point of trying to be optimistic about everything but it certainly is hard.  At least I am better off as far as connections in the area than I was when we moved here 5 months ago.  Hopefully this will all work out quickly.

Projects!

I really have no idea how the time is going by this fast!  It's crazy to think that in just over a week I'll have been here for 5 months.  I honestly wasn't sure I'd last this long!  Well I did and I've had to try and find ways to keep myself busy; hence the title of this post!  I promise I will write a post soon that is more about what's been happening in our lives rather than just what we've been doing.  Tonight just isn't that night.

Work has definitely helped with keeping me busy but it's also created a bit of a stressor too.  It isn't quite what I thought I was getting into.  The foundation I'm at and the leadership that is running it just isn't a good fit for me.  I fortunately/unfortunately figured that out pretty quickly.  The conundrum now is what to do about it.  I'm still working on that answer.  At least I have somewhere to go for 40 hours a week now! :)

Matt and I have been keeping busy on the weekends.  Mostly with commitments for family or friend's happenings.  We're kind of at that age where we're going to be having quite a few weddings to go to in the next couple of years and that's already started a bit.  So all of the peripheral social things have been good fillers on the weekends.  But...we've still managed to make some time for projects.

This pictures shows the fruits of all of our gardening!  Well not all but we did at least get a successful, albeit early, tomato harvest.  Matt even made a fantastic tomato/vodka/cream sauce one night with them.  A lot of our other plants got eaten up by some of the most disgusting and largest bugs/grubs I've ever seen.  I won't make you look at them.

I think all of the remaining projects came from ideas on Pinterest.  That has to be one of the most addicting and yet useful websites of all time.  I love it.  But anywho, back to the projects :)  This one is just a basic art/decor project.  I took a plain white canvas, painted the entire thing a light seafoam-y green color and then with the help of my Mom who found doilies, spray painted over doilies on the canvas.  It didn't turn out perfect but overall I'm pretty happy with it.  Plus....it's a non-pink addition to our bathroom :)

This project was helped along greatly by my Grandma and Mom who found all of these frames for me. This was also a nice joint Matt & Katie project.  Gotta love those!  All we did was cleaned up the frames and painted them!  It was a great way to spend a Saturday night (or it could have been a Friday night....either way the message there is we're pretty lame 20 somethings!) and I'm looking forward to putting pictures in these and hanging them up in our back hallway.

These two are my favorite.  I love how the detail of the frames looks with the paint.

 All of the finished products:

This project has to be one of the more lame things I've ever done on a Saturday night.  A couple of weekends ago Matt had a bachelor party out of town so I was on my own for the weekend.  Clearly this ended in me doing a whole heck of a lot of cleaning (and listening to the Harry Potter movie marathon on ABC family).  I find cleaning when I'm alone to be one of the most therapeutic things I can do.  Well this particular night I decided to tackle our bathroom floor grout.  Here's what it looked like before (notice how the grout is kind of an indeterminable color):

Here's what it looked like during the process.  The white stuff is a mixture of baking soda and bleach.  I found the recipe on Pinterest but then kind of went off course a little and just kept adding baking soda and bleach until the consistency was decent.  The whole process took a little over two hours....and we don't have a very big bathroom!  I started by sweeping and wiping down the floors and then tackled the grout with a toothbrush.  Then I went back over all of the grout with the toothbrush plus the paste.  By the time I made it to the front of the bathroom it was time to go all the way to the back and start wiping/scrubbing off the paste.  Time consuming but I think worth it.

The floor after all that scrubbing and kneeling on tile floors:

 The grout looks amazing!  I can actually tell what color it is.  I thought the best testament to the difference it made was when Matt came home and as soon as he walked in the bathroom asked if I cleaned the grout.  I didn't even tell him I was going to do it....he noticed completely on his own.  Amazing!

This next project was pretty fun.  Again, I found the idea on Pinterest but modified it a bit.  This is a present we put together for some friends of ours who just bought their first home.  It's a bit of a fixer upper so I changed the idea accordingly.  The party was a "stock the bar" themed housewarming (fantastic idea, by the way).  So we bought them an assortment of alcohol.  Each bottle has a label with a different "first".  For instance, the big bottle on the back left is a wine called "Evolution; Luck or Inspiration"  this became "First DIY Project Completed."  The bottle in the back middle is peppermint schnapps with hot chocolate, this is "First Snowfall."  The back right is a bottle of wine called "The Slammer" clearly this one had to be "First Night Married." :)  The front left is called "Simply Red"  this became "First Fight Her."  The middle front is Jack Daniels-this is for "First DIY Injury."  Last but not least is a beer called "Arrogant Bastard" that one is labeled "First Fight Him."  All in all I think it turned out pretty well.  They seemed to think it was pretty dang cute.

So even with work we've been keeping busy.  I've been neglecting the garden a bit but it's still chugging along okay on it's own.  I'm planning on taking an evening next week and giving it some TLC.   I'm glad I've got space and resources to do some of these projects now.  It's amazing how moving away from all of my family and friends has really reinforced just how much I am my parents' daughter :)