Weekly Wrap-Up

Joshua and I have been busy bees this week. It seems like we've only had time to see each other for maybe 20-30 minutes before heading to bed every night. Joshua has class late Monday-Wednesday, so I've found activities to occupy my time. I have Bible study on Monday...which is part of our normal schedule. Tuesday night was consumed with a phone party for our Partner's Campaign at work. Since we are a non-profit...and part of our mission is to provide "membership for all," we have an annual campaign to raise money to provide scholarships to families in the community that cannot afford the full cost of membership or programs at the YMCA. While Joshua was contemplating his future in law last fall (and had briefly decided to part ways with law) I had recruited him to help raise money during our annual campaign. Well, he decided to stay in school and has class until 9:30ish Monday-Wednesday, so I've been put in charge of raising his portion, on top of my own. So this year, I was responsible for raising $1200! So Wednesday night was also consumed with a calling party, and then the weekly watching of the Bachelor at Ashley's.

Thursday was much better, as Joshua only has one class in the morning and I get off work between 5 and 6. Since we seem to never have time together during the week I do what I can to at least be in the same space as him..even if he is doing school work. So Thursday night I went to the library to hang out while he worked on a paper that he is working on with one of his professors. We then grabbed a quick dinner and then went to the 2010 Dedman School of Law Follies. It was so good to see some of his law school cohorts that I haven't seen in a while..plus we got in a good laugh. The follies were shown at the Magnolia theatre, which is this cool movie theatre in West Village. The preview of the show is below. The film was great and there was a great deal of time dedicated to it. Hopefully the whole film will be up soon!

This weekend Joshua and I are looking forward to relaxing, maybe grilling out and on Saturday night we'll be going to a benefit dinner with Ashley and Jayson! I'll post about that later.

Snow weekend

Last weekend Dallas got a taste of what the east coast has been experiencing...SNOW! We got about 12 inches...which is the most snow Dallas has had since the 1970s. The snow was absolutely beautiful..big flake, perfect for snow balls and snow men. We made a giant snow man at work..a good 6 1/2- 7 feet tall! The bad thing about the snow...it knocked our power out, along with 200,000 other Dallas residents. But, we made a bad thing into a good thing and went over to our friend Ashley's for the weekend. We had SO much fun! We made dinners together, played in the snow, and played lots and lots of Wii. Here are a couple pictures of our weekend of snow.

Our street as we leave for Ashley's.

Out playing in the snow! I would never get sick of playing in the snow. I love it!

Joshua outside. He loves that hat.

Obviously a little bit of excitement!

The Vincent House!

I spent last night transferring a ton of pictures over from my old laptop. It is being converted into Joshua's "garage computer" to help him with the Duc's programmable ignition. While getting all the pictures off, I found the pictures I took of our new place...though not so new anymore. We've made some changes since taking these, so I'll have to post those changes later. Here is a little glimpse into our quaint home.

This is our main living space...where we spend most of our time. The room is pretty long and I was standing close to the tv.

Bathroom! Thankfully, our stuff already matched.

Kitchen. I love our corner sink and the ample amount of storage we now have. The stove, refrigerator, and portable..yes portable..dishwasher are all to the right.

Our awesome patio area outside of the kitchen. Joshua used this area a lot this fall to have his weekly cigar chat with his dad.

I've already shown our bedroom, but here it is again. I love that every room of our house has windows. It makes everything so bright!

The path from our side patio to our backyard..great crepe myrtle in the yard.

The backyard...you can see the home of our future grill..and the stepping stones to it.

The only thing i don't have pictured is the garage and the office. The office is constantly in flux (aka very messy). We love our little place and are looking forward to warmer weather so we can enjoy the yard again!

Stanley, the neighbor

Neighbor CAT that is. Joshua and I moved into our quaint duplex about 6 months ago and we immediately noticed that our neighbor has 2 indoor/outdoor cats: Stanley and Alex. They both came over to meet us pretty quickly and one night, during a horrible storm, they were both crying at the door. So, while watching Coraline, we let them come in and explore. Alex was a little skittish, but Stanley was very friendly. Stanley has continued visits..and from time to time will even curl up with us at night and sleep over! So, without having a pet of our own..we get the perks! Stanley is a very very loving cat and she (yes, she) is SUPER talkative. She meows up a storm..and will meow back when you talk to her. It's a riot. The other night Stanley and I were cuddling when waiting on Joshua to get home and I captured a really cute picture of her.

While I'm at it...I took some new pictures of our bedroom. As I clean up the house a make a few changes here and there, I'll be sure to post pictures of other portions of the house.

Some details of the room, including my bedside table, and my dresser with the candle holder I got during the Walton's Dirty Santa exchange:

More house updates to come. The pretty ivy that used to cover part of our kitchen window became a little too unruly and was crawling through the window...so that has all been torn down. I'm sure I'll regret tearing ALL of it out because it was so pretty. But I'm glad it's no longer creeping in to our kitchen!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Joshua and I had a wonderful Christmas. We were able to spend a few days before Christmas with his parents before heading to Michigan to spend Christmas with my family. Once we reached our final destination, we had a very relaxing, restful time. We stayed with my grandma, on the farm...which made me feel like a kid again. I've spent every Christmas except for 2 in Michigan, so it was kind of like going home.

I got some pretty cool gifts, including some gorgeous books that I've been pining over. I received Great Expectations and Wuthering Heights from my cousin's wife, Devon. The cover design is by Coralie Bickford-Smith and they have been all over design websites. I absolutely love the designs and I've actually never read either, so I'm looking forward to diving in.

So we are on to 2010! Time to start setting goals...and sticking to them. Of course, along with the rest of the world, I have a goal to eat healthier and live an overall healthier lifestyle. Goals are abbreviated below. I really haven't thought to much about these...but some things I would like to accomplish:

1) Cook and eat more meals at home.

2) Exercise more regularly. I do work at a gym, after-all!

3) Send more hand written cards. There is just something about snail-mail that I absolutely love.

4) Become more fiscally responsible. I think I do a pretty good job of not spending money on a whim, but I want to keep a better record of expenses this year.

5) Grow my hair out. I miss my long hair...and thus, I am growing it out.

6) Keep our house more organized.

That is my list for now...I'm sure I'll be adding to it in the coming weeks.

One other cool thing I found today that may be a fun way to help me attain #1 comes from a website I absolutely love called Design*Sponge. It's a diy project for a grocery planner. now, I am truly a sucker for paper products and things with purpose and beauty...so I may have to take this project on. Here is the idea:

You can find instructions for the project here. And, if you like design and prjecting, I encourage you to check out the rest of the site. There are some pretty cool before&after projects.