Many moons.

I have been gone for many moons. I haven't posted in almost 3 months!

That is terribly awful, but the world has moved along just fine.

Soon I will post about the rest of a crazy-awesome summer- gosh, I can't even remember all that transpired before we got married. But Seth and I definitely did get married, and go to the Bahamas, and come back and start living life together!

Oh, and we got a kitten named Falcon. She's super awesome and playful and we love her!

From Lizzy's wedding

My beautiful friends Thomas and Elizabeth got married on 6-9-12. They had an awesome wedding and both Seth and I were in the bridal party. Here's awesome proof at how fun it was:

Basically, it was a blast.

Simpler Times

In simpler times, we could watch 3 episodes of Lost in 1 night, just because we wanted to. We could take a walk or go shopping or hang out with friends until whenever we wanted. In simpler times, we didn't have calls to make, tasks hanging over our heads, invitations to assemble, obligations that fill up entire weekends, or full time jobs that begged for us to get to bed at a decent hour.

But then again, in simpler times, the summer was just the summer. In the end, he'd go home and I'd stay here, and it would be back to letters and Skype dates and calls. And those goodbyes we always dreaded. And there was that depressing countdown in the back of our heads the whole time, knowing that the time together was guaranteed to have an expiration date.

So yes, these days have been busy. And expensive. And full of big decisions.
But I wouldn't trade them for the world.

Oh and PS, then I see pictures on my camera like this one, and I'm assured that as busy as life together will be, simple moments will still happen. And those will be the best.

Yes I did drop off the face of the planet

...Into the abyss of long weekends, craziness, a cut toe with sand and nasties in it, wedding invitation designing, wedding stuff, going to a wedding, friends, zits, funny tan lines, chicken at the beach, Frisbee, falling more and more in love with my fiance, work, and stuff.

Just stuff.

Life is busy. And it won't calm down anytime soon. And that's alright by me.

Instagram Photobomb

 Hot date

 Lotso fries

 Poker night 

 Beautiful waterfall near our wedding venue

 The love of my life

 My dad's cool old cameras

 My dad was the coolest nerd ever...

My awesome sauce momma

I don't know much...

...But one thing I do know is that in less than 3 months (88 days!) I will be the bride to the person that-- for many years now-- I have been hoping, and wishing, and praying would be my groom. And I can't help but think of the sovereignty of God, and how He has so clearly opened and closed doors in all aspects of our lives. And how those doors have opened right up to each other. And how the situations we have been in have shaped us to be the perfect matches for each other.

That's a pretty neat thought.

Some photos of life:

 The grad

 We loved Lincoln Park! (Yes, I am wearing basically the same outfit as I am in the photo before, and yes, they were taken on separate days. I didn't exactly pack well for that trip...)

 Tribe game at Progressive Field- the blimp always makes an appearance!

 I love this guy.

Life's busy and good

Last weekend was a blast! Graduation, engagement shoot, Lincoln Park (I SO want to live there now!), staying in an awesome loft, Moody church, and friends and family.

And then this week has been crazy. Seth  and his friend from WI moved into the apartment we got. By mid next week, there will be a third boy living there. I'm partly happy and partly wondering how long it will take to air the place out once they leave and I move in. UGH, why are boys stinky?

Anyway, we've been running around with furniture and boxes and food and stuff. It's been hectic. I slept in this morning and it was DELIGHTFUL. Oh yeah, we also have 5 boys staying in our basement for the past 2 days.

Random fact: I will be attending a wedding the next 4 out of 8 Saturdays. And we've already been to one wedding. And there will be a few more later in the summer, and then ours. It's this time of life man, everyone's getting hitched!

This Weekend

My weekend starts Thursday night, right after work-
Drive to Wisconsin and get there at like, 2 in the morning.
Watch Seth graduate.
Open house.
RELAX (it's been a long and frustrating week.)
Go to Chicago.
Engagement pictures!!
Get home and get back to the madness.

Got the keys to the new apartment this week! I won't be moving in until after the wedding, but it's nice be there and get things ready for Seth and know that it's almost home.

I can't believe this whole long distance relationship thing is a few days from being over for good.
That's an awesome thought

Forks

Friday night. Four friends. Forks. Fifth (unknowing, not home) friend's yard. Fun.

Pulled a little prank on Friday night with Tim and Becky and her boyfriend Brandon. Poor Thomas, it was his last night formally at his dad's home before he got the keys to his apartment. We bought 400 plastic forks and figured those would make a nice farewell gift to him.

Good ole' Thom, he knew it was us right away. He even guessed the number 400 right away! Smarty pants! Anyway, he was a good sport about it all and was especially glad when I agreed to help him clean up the utensil-stricken lawn Saturday morning. That also appeased his father, who was angry because he was planning on mowing the yard that morning. Anyway, Thom put together a lovely video of the tragic event and it's... well, forking fantastic!

Forks, Forks, Forks!

Summer bucket list, items one through six

I suppose the most obvious item on this list would be to get married. Let's just assume that one as being automatically above all other cool things and start this list.

These will be in no particular order. I will add to this list when I think of more items. These items do not have to be big or costly. They must be jolly.

Item number one: A best friend long weekend trip. Me. Becky. Driving. Beach. Cute town. Three day weekend. Where?

Item number two: Wake up early and go to the beach for a breakfast picnic. Be sure to get there just in time for the sunrise. Do this before work. Do this twice: once just with me and Seth, once with a whole gaggle of friends.

Item number three: Weddings. Both Seth and I are in and going to a lot of weddings. We will make sure these days are fun. We will not let them stress us out or break our bank. We will not compare. Comparison is the thief of joy. Our wedding will be a wonderful, happy day. It will be our favorite day. This will be a fact and will not be based on whether or not we had the best decor, prettiest invitations, most creative cake, happiest playlist, cutest video montage, etc...

Item number four: Recreate the color run. All the cool kids I know wanted to do this. But it filled up fast. Oh, and I've never run 3.1 miles at a time at any point my life. Somehow, we will gather friends and have a color party. And it will be messy and we will be jubilant. (P.S. maybe an item on this list should be to make myself run 3.1 miles? I dunno, that's pretty ambitious...)

Item number Five: Learn how to cook. Simple, good meals with fresh ingredients and not much prep time. (I'm already getting a head start on this one and I'm going to be so domestic by the time I'm a wife.) Learn how to grocery shop efficiently and with the perfect balance of cost-effectiveness and wholesome food purchasing.

Item number six: Spend one really good, really long day alone in prayer and Bible reading. Make it less about a laundry list of my woes and more about being awed by my Savior.

I think I just made something cool

What do you get when you have a groom who's not much taller than you, a propensity to trip when walking in heels, and an outdoor ceremony venue? You get a bride who wants to wear flats.

And that's me.

And so I bought these boring gold glittery flats. Okay, so gold and glittery don't exactly equal boring, but the shoe itself was really plain. And I wanted to make something to jazz it up. And this idea just BAM! Popped into my mind!

And so I purchased a few cheapo hair clips from Forever 21 today, and I ripped them apart and pulled out my hot glue gun. And I started attacking my ribbons and markers.

And I think I really like the final product.

BO-RING!

Forever 21, thank you for being so full of cheap hair goods.

Rip to shreds, color a bit (just for fun.)

Hot glue like it's all the rage!

Hey Mikey, I think she likes it!

He is risen!

My Jesus lived a perfect life. And then He died for MY sins! And then He rose again three days after that so that I- thousands of years later- can serve a living Savior!

His love and holiness were perfectly displayed. He fulfilled His Father's will. He abolished a rigorous system of laws and in its place established grace- the only thing that can save, the only thing that can genuinely change a life.

I have no choice but to live my life being in awe of Him!

Happy Easter

Soon.

 

"Soon." It just about sums up everything in my life right now.

Ombre the world and I'd be happy

Anything ombre I love. A while back I painted these letters ombre in coral and turquoise for the wedding. Well last night was a boring Friday night wherein I took an awkwardly-timed nap, made perogies for myself and curled up to watch House Hunters and tweeting my random thoughts throughout the evening.

So I had these Erlenmeyer flasks (laymen term:  glassware for a lab) I salvaged from a "garage sale" in the hallway of my work a while back. I decided they needed to be blue. I bought blue glass paint online (The kind that people use to make regular colored Mason jars look like the cool colored Mason jars.) I tried to paint my flasks that way. It did not work. Not to say the product is no good, I just think its hard with a weirdly angled container to try to get the liquidy paint evenly swirled inside the glass.

So I scratched that idea and used just regular paint (the same kind I used to make the letters) to color these guys happy. It obviously gave an opaque look instead of being transparent like the glass paint would have, but I super like it! I painted the inside of the glass so that it looks smooth from the outside and so that you can still see the flasks graduations (laymen term: little lines that show how full your container is, like on a measuring cup.)

Hence the final product. I'm not sure If I will use these for the wedding or not. I think it would be a quirky touch to personalize the wedding if they were sporadically used as vases on the tables. We'll see! But for now I think they look super cute on my dresser, sprinkled between ones that I decided not to paint.

 

 Bonus pic: My dog looking awesomely happy with his head out the window

Dentist...

I love my dentist.

For a while there, I really wanted to become a dental hygienist. "Cavity free and lovin' life" has been my motto throughout the ages.

Every 6 months since I was a wee tot, Dr. Cohen has come in at the end of my cleaning, checked out my pics, told me to bite down, then said something along the lines of "Gorgeous, girl!" Or "Those are the best looking teeth I've seen all week!"

And I have this huge ego boost and I tweet about it and make all my dumb friends with dental issues feel inferior. Kidding. Well kinda.

Anyway, I'm running around today. Things to do. Places to go. Dentist appointment. I go in, I get all polished and foamed and x-rayed and whatever else. Then....Dr. Cohen comes in. And he takes longer than normal to look at my pictures. and so then I turn around and ask the dreaded question, "You seeing something in those pictures?"

And he says, "Quite a few somethings."

And I thought he was joking.

But no, I have like, 6 little cavities. And now I just feel like a degenerate, good-for-nothing bum who has to carefully brush her teeth at night with this old lady fluoride treatment. Goodness. Looks like it's no more Pepsi for me.

A good week

Seth was here this past week. This is the last mid-schoolyear visit EVER!!! Next time I see him will be at his graduation. And after that he'll be moving to the great OH to start his job and then become my man officially.

I like this.

We had a good week of working (he went into work at his new job during the week to keep from being bored while I worked and to get a head start on all that boring training stuff.) We rode bikes and played played frisbee and went on double dates and watched The Hunger Games. SIDENOTE: I am totally turning into "That Loser" I always despised growing up who adamantly proclaimed "The book was better." Between the Hunger Games books (all three of which I have sped through,) and The Help, I am totally loving books more than movies. Which is saying a lot, because both the first Hunger Games movie and the movie The Help were phenomenal.

Anyway.

We also apartment hunted. And hunted. And debated. And stressed. And made little pro and con lists. And still don't have an apartment.... We are waiting on the Lord's timing and taking a lot of factors into consideration. I just want to live somewhere with a great location, updated everything, lots of outdoor space to feel like I have a backyard, cheap rent, and a great/reliable office staff. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? This whole being engaged thing sure does come with a lot of stressful decisions.

Fun pics:

Waffle house pic = essential and typical

Swings N Things (and a stray sideburn curl?)

 I may or may not have accidentally thrown the frisbee into the cold river. He's a good man.

 Bright red/orange shoes and dark red pants. Check.

Spring has sprung!

 

It's springtime. Seth is here. It's 80 degrees outside.

Buds are budding and blooms are blooming.

All is right in the world.

 

This weekend, and stuff...

This weekend:
Go to bed at 8pm Friday night. Yes I WILL and CAN do this.
Wake up early early.
Drive myself in Brenda, my new car, to southwest Indiana for a wedding (longest I've ever driven by myself!)
Watch some of Seth's friends get married.
Bring Seth home with me for his week of spring break!
Be tired.
Help at a widow's dinner at church
Take pictures for my photography class because I SO never remember to do that.

And now for the "and stuff..." part, in picture form:

 Rarely do I actually find a comic funny. This one was.

Flowers and stripes

My Antrho owl cookie jar

My cat = model. P.S. went to the humane society today and saw a kitten named Jimmy with "special needs." Cutest cat ever! Apparently he walks like a drunkard. I want Jimmy.

A neat find from the Miscellaneous Building place I went to last weekend. They're ceramic coasters!

We put an orange seed and an apple seed in my aloe plant's soil at work. They actually sprouted. We don't know if the bigger one is the orange or the apple, but we are SO PUMPED for fresh fruit!

Denise from the front (vampire or evil chipmunk, right?)

Denise from the back (old toothless man smiling, right?)

Brenda and I are already famous friends.

Seth sent me these "just because." I love that fiance of mine

Denise --> Brenda

Denise looks either like a lady vampire or a chipmunk with an evil vendetta from the front. From the back she looks like a smiley old man with no teeth. She is my '99 Saturn that my parents bought for me a few years ago. I'm thankful for her and the many wonderful journeys we've shared together (aka the thousands of times I've driven her to Target.)

But recently Denise has become costly! To fix her up to make her last me a few more years would cost almost more than she's worth (Cover you ears, Denise, you know you're invaluable to me.)

Thus I began to go on a hunt for a new car. James 1:5 says that if you lack wisdom, you should ask God for it and He'll give it to you. Well I've been doing a lot of that. Cars are a big, big purchase!

After lots of research, a few visits and test drives, and chats with my parents, my fiance (heck, soon this won't just be MY car payment...) and my brother (a former car salesmen) I think I've found "The One."

Brenda is an '09 Nissan Sentra SL FE+ (Which OF COURSE stands for So Lucky, Forever Enjoyable). She's pretty and nice and soon to be mine. Thanking God for wisdom!

This weekend:

-Read and relax
-Get warm. Decent weather forecast for the Cleveland, eh?
-Meet a caterer at the wedding venue for chats about chicken and salads, I suppose
-Church and fellowship with my spiritual family
-A potential trip to a local, very random, huge vintage store/estate sale/junkyard/fixxer-upper furniture with an equally confusing name. It goes by Miscellaneous Barns and Building Three, and Red Barn and White House. Great treasures await me.

That sounds like a nice weekend.

P.S. Can you the believe internet doesn't recognize "fixxer-upper" as a word? AS IF.
(Should it only be fixer-upper? Yes, it seems as though the internet is happy with that. And yes, the more I stare at it, the dumber I feel for EVER thinking it had two x's)

Life Lately

Instagram is just so overused. Yet I happen to love it. Lots.
Just some pictures of my life lately: Wedding ideas, animals, work, school, friends.

Silly Momma made some fun picture props.

We made the dog try them. He dislikes being made to look like a girl.

He likes to look manly.

The Importance of Being Earnest. Best. Movie.

Red lips.

Birthdays at work are simply the best.

Craft night with the Bestfriend.

My cat. 

He's actually kinda nice and cool, you know, when he's not trying to hit your eye out of its socket.

The whiteboard at work. Always some creative things on there!

 Paper flowers. That Martha Stewart, she has the best ideas.

New bedding from West Elm for our future home! (Apartment hunting coming up soon.)

That's my life, in overused-photo-app form.