have no fear

for anyone out there still reading this...... something new is coming soon. i promise.
have faith and hang in there

:)

16 random things about me

waiting for mat to get home so we can go to the stock show. decided to take a cue from heather again and enlighten the wondering minds. or wandering minds... :)
1) i try really hard to be a vegetarian. but sometimes, it's easier to just eat meat. and sometimes (like tonight) i just really want a corn dog. what's wrong with me?
2) as much as i complained about working at borders, i really did love it.
3) i have no idea what i'm going to do when i finally finish with college. i think it's just a security blanket
4) i heart peanut butter. so much. i hope i don't get salmonella.
5) i have truly horrible time management skills.
6) my favorite color is purple, just like my momma.
7) my socks have bees on them right now. buzzzzzzz
8) i hate hate hate the way grateful is spelled. it looks like cheese grater. what's wrong with "greatful" ?????
9) i can't believe we've almost been married for 5 years. sometimes, i can't remember before marriage. it just skips from high school, to dts, to being married.
10) i can't ever decide what color i want my hair to be.
11) my etsy shop has had only one customer....my momma. that makes me sad...
12) songs get stuck in my head far too easily. today, at work brandy sang "say my name" for all of 5 seconds and....yup....it's in my head. drives me crazy!!
13) i can't handle not having painted toesies.
14) almost done..... i hate having people follow me up the stairs. esp mat. i always think he's going to scare me or smack my bootie or something. i either have to follow him or run up the stairs really quick like. which leads into number
15) i scare super easily. even during funny shows or movies things can scare me. riding in a car is torture. too sensitive i suppose. but i still love scary movies and shows. strange.
16) i drink iced tea almost every day. definitely every day in the summertime. so delish!
thanks for playing. :)

self portrait

i like the idea of taking a self portrait every week. i don't know if it's something i can hold to, but so far it's been fun. since it's already three weeks into the new year, here are my three sp's so far for 2009

i was not looking the hottest a couple nights ago....... so i thought i'd do a foot shot. but i really love my toes. most people hate feet, but i like my bare piggies. i heart my tattoo, it reminds me of florida and my honeymoon with my wonderful hubs. i love my toe rings, bought in thailand. and my pink tootsies :)

kinda a scary pic, but it was really cold today. and we got about 6 inches of snow. hehe :)

some pics

i couldn't figure out the pictures with my last post, so here are some from the weeks of christmas and new years. in no particular order.

mat and i playing guitar hero together. we played on one guitar, my sister on the other. level, expert.......she still beat us!!!con and mat playing guitar hero..... can you tell what he got for christmas? :)

katie, mat's sister, and wyatt...one of the twins :)
me and ashton about to open presents. he just learned how to whistle before they came out from california....the whole time they were out here, you could hear him whistling wherever he went......so cute!!!

chef jaidyn and ashton.

clockwise: wyatt with mom catherine, jaidyn, ashton, carson and willow using mat's guitar hero boxes as a racetrack for their cars.

chase strumming what he thought was a guitar.....it was a fishing pole! :)

mat with willow, the other twin. :) looks good holding a bebe, doesn't he? ;)

so there is our christmas in a few pictures. obviously lots of kiddos, presents, guitar hero and family. such a great time!! now, to watch football! :)

recap

i only have a couple minutes to post: my uber fancy velveeta-salsa dip is microwaving. i know, i'm pretty fancy. i'm taking a cue from heather and summarizing my holidays in some lists.

gifts i gave:

* an uber nice wool peacoat to the hubs

* a multitude of gifts at thanksgiving time--i only shipped O-N-E gift this holiday season!

* christmas plates and cups for little kiddos

* everything covered with stars for my sister

* pricess walkie-talkies....how much cooler does it get?!?!

* a beautiful frame to my bestie....with some great pics of us from way back when

gifts i received:

* "sacred marriage" "sacred influence" and "sacred parenting" by gary thomas....excellent books!

* a beautiful sewing machine....that i can't figure out!

* music on my cell phone from my babes

* delightful scentsy warmer...it's amazing!

* two puffy warm vests. they are amazing!!

* a wonderful sinus infection from the 8 month old twins....well worth it! :)

who i met:

* mat's grandpa leon and his wife alice. been married almost five years and i've never met him. he's not nearly as angry and scary as everyone made him out to be!!

* great-aunt gladys (mat's grandma's sister) and her husband and daughter. it was great to meet them and spend time with them

* wyatt and willow, the afforementioned eight month old twins

* my dear friend joy's man, russ

traditions we held to:

* a real christmas tree, despite all of the needles i am still finding everywhere!

* eggs benedict for just the two of us on christmas morning

* gifts from santa

* christmas with mat's whole family on the 26th

* new years eve at mat's aunt and uncle's with prime rib and crab legs

* another year of not attending zoo lights

* watching elf

the past two weeks were insanely busy and hectic, with working so much and still spending so much time with the family. we made countless trips to boulder to see the family, plus a trip to cheyenne to see grandpa leon, but it was so worth it. i love mat's family, and it is so good to spend time with the kids and adults, catching up and laughing together. it's good for my heart. if i can't be around my family at christmas time, there is no other family i'd be with. they are amazing people, full of life and love and joy. it was an amazing time!

december so far...

the reason for the season

christmas cards in the mail....which means real mail..not just bills!!

plates of cookies from our rockstar neighbors

lights on the house

snow and coldness

the favorite penguin ornament (you pull the cord and his arms and legs move. he even has little ear muffs on....he's the best!)the angel

lights on the tree

the tree and the smiths. kinda a cheeseball picture....but i guess we are just cheeseballs! :)

i have lots of thoughts in my head, lots going on, but little motivation. i have cookies to bake for our cookie exchange at work, cards to make for my co-workers, gingerbread houses to make, christmas lights to look at....and a husband to find (6:00 and still not home from work...) being done with school is a welcome relief, but as soon as the semester ends, i just lose motivation for anything. like it's go-go-go all semester and as soon as the semester ends, i dont' want to do a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g..... and i'm not sleeping well again.... boo. however, i'm feeling a new aire of energy coming on. and if not, at least these pictures will hold you over until next time :)

my new 2nd favorite christmas song....

can it be? another blog post??

i'm shocked!!at the relient k/tobymac concert the night before we trekked to mt.... mat's... excited??
honestly....can't tell who this is. probably the relient k boys.....so awesome!!
three and a half of my most favorite people in montana!!

thanksgiving morning we ran a 5k. yup.....you heard right. a 5k. and i ran it in 4-0 minutes. forty minutes for my first ever 5k. pretty respectable, i thought.

here we are, refreshed and hungry after our cold run

playing uno thanksgiving afternoon. mat's in the zone..

mom relishing one of mat's few losses ever.... doesn't look like a poor loser, does he?

the next day was "christmas"... te amo mi familia that was our trip home for thanksgiving in a nutshell. we had a really good time. it was much more low-key than when we went home in august. we told less people and had a less-stressful time. but it was still a great vacation. spending time with the people who mean the most to us. mat got to go hunting with his dad (i chose not to post the pics of bambi on here... but he did shoot a nice young buck!) i spent lots of good time with my sister and my Rona. it was a refreshing and relaxing vacation. my heart is still full!

my new favorite treat

cinnamon bears plus

chocolate equals

chocolate covered cinnamon bears.

so delicious. thanks for getting me hooked, adam :)

how cute!!!

day 15: finally...i am done!!

well, i finally made it. today was not without it's bad money decisions, but i'm done being accountable for my spending (to someone other than hubby)... :) every week there is a broncos game, at work they have a pool, a grid more or less, that you can buy squares, then the squares are numbered, and a the end of each quarter of the broncos game, whoever's square matches the score wins $25. they still had 28 open squares this afternoon, so i thought i'd buy a few. who knows, maybe i'll get lucky. and i had my $10 for this week, courtesy of the husband. so i bought five squares. poor money decision. if the broncos had won, it might not have been so bad, but not only did they lose terribly, the didn't even lose according to the squares i had bought... :( so i'm out $5 for the week. i feel like it will be a long week. however, i have plenty to keep me busy this week. so that shouldn't be a problem. and, my darling friend joy was over tonight for our weekly dinner and bible study, so that made the pain of blowing half of my weekly budget in one fell swoop easier to handle :)



to sum up my past two weeks: i has been interesting. i have learned a lot about myself through the process of not spending, but when i think about it, i have even more questions i haven't begun to ask myself. why do i spend so incessantly in the first place? what am i avoiding by shopping (i know, usually it's homework, but there must be something else) by buying things secretly, by spending more than i know i should, by buying things i really don't need. i know that my gift is gifting people, but sometimes i wonder if i have a hidden motivation behind the gifts i give people and the motives and attitude behind my generosity. is it really generosity if we really might not be able to afford it? don't get me wrong, i'm honestly not putting things on credit cards and raking up huge debt....but sometimes, paying off the little debt we have, or putting into our savings is more important than buying something for someone, just because. reading in my sociology book tonight was interesting too, talking about the different social classes. what am i trying to portray by buying things and acquiring "stuff"? i really feel like i have learned a lot, about society and myself, through this whole project, but part of me thinks i have only hit the top of the iceberg. i have a lot of other things to work through. it's becoming more important to me to be a good steward of the money we have been entrusted with. and the huge-ness of that trust. and what that means for us in the future. thoughts spewing out everywhere. need time to process.



however, that being said, i'm very positive about this experience. i'm glad for the restored peace in my marriage (not that it was terrible before, it's just nice to be getting this area under control...) and i'm excited to see what the upcoming weeks have as i stay on this allowance/budget. it'll be a good, stretching time, just as these two weeks have been. thanks for hanging with me on this journey. give me a few days to process this all, but i'll be back!