sick day.

Today I'm taking a sick day. The last two days have consisted of the most miserable cold I've ever had. I'm just thankful the cold waited it out until the weekend to really get me.

And all last week I thought, "Hmmmm... this cold ain't that bad. Maybe my body's just doing a really great job of keeping the symptoms at bay."

And the whole time my cold was thinking, "Ha. This is just the pre-cold, sucker. You just wait till Friday night."

I barely slept on Friday night, since I could barely breathe from my mouth (dry scratchy throat) or nose (stuffed up). Woke up at 6am on Saturday morning, lay in bed for an hour being very sad that I wasn't sleeping in, took a really long shower, and went to lay down on the couch and watch Netflix. I wanted to let Chris enjoy his Saturday morning sleep-in, even if I couldn't enjoy mine.

While I slept on the couch later that day, Chris took to the stores to get me all sorts of drugs to try out. He even called Sarah (who used to work in a pharmacy) to get her input, and when he came home he had throat spray, drugs to help my headache, sore throat, and congestion, loads of soup, Sprite, and the cookies I'd requested. :) He immediately got to making me a hot bowl of soup, before going on to clean and organize the house.

LOVE that guy.

I felt and looked gross all weekend. I kind of wanted to hide from Chris every time he came into the room. Don't look at me! I wanted to yell. I'm so ugly and gross right now! And he'd just laugh and say whatever... though he did have me switch from using toilet paper for blowing my nose to some moisturized Kleenex he happened to have in his car... because he did notice that I was beginning to look like the ring leader of a very well-known pack of flying deer.

On that note, I've blown my nose so many times these last two days, that it is raw. When I took a shower last night, my face burned when I went to wash it. Ow.

Okay, enough about being sick. I'm starting to feel a lot better today, so I'm ready to put this thing behind me. Today I'm focusing on getting some stuff done.

On the agenda today:
Clean up the office.
Prepare our bills for a discussion with Chris tonight.
Pick up stuff around the house, since Beth is coming over later to cut Chris' hair.
Cook some chicken so I can eat up the leftover rice from last week, and have something more substantial for lunch than soup.
Work on my lesson plans some more.
Go through my computer files and do a backup.

I plan to do a lot of the paper and research stuff from bed, while I watch season one of How I Met Your Mother. (Yes, we now have a TV in our room- it's just like our days at the old condo, when we had roommates and never left our room! Except... now we do leave our room. So really the only thing that's the same is that we can watch DVDs from bed again...)

I've already been slightly productive today; after Chris left for work, I turned on my laptop, caught up on some blogs, and got super excited by Ali Edwards' recent post on digital scrapbooking. So I made up a page during the first few episodes of HIMYM:

I'd been playing with making my own paper and elements a while back, and this patterned paper and the butterflies were some of the more recent creations. I wanted to finally start working on some wedding pages, and I just started with one of the first images we got from our photographers, the dress shot. Looking forward to having time to keep working on this project (and the bazillion others I want to do). :)

life

So I pretty much couldn't sleep all last night due to lack of breathing from being sick. Yeah. My big plans for the Saturday following my last week of two crazy classes were changed from sleeping in as late as I possibly can to finally giving up around 6am to take a very hot, very long shower and take my pillow and blanket to the couch so I don't infect my sleeping in husband, who is able to breathe just fine.

So now I have a dilemma. Do I:

a) Check up on our accounting and update our ledgers, start relinking all our bill payments to our new joint checking account, etc.
b) Figure out why my doctor when I was on Blue Cross thinks it's okay to charge me for an office visit from April of last year, because Blue Cross told them I terminated my coverage... in May. I don't see the reasoning here, either.
c) Start writing up about our wedding and honeymoon (I know, finally, right?)
d) Watch season six of the Office, the latter half of which I've never seen (because let's face it, the Office started taking a dive in season five, and became unworthy of a weekly spot on TV Thursday).


Hmmmmm... I need option e): Convince my husband to go get me some soup and orange juice. And some cold soda for my sore throat. So I can breathe again.

Husband....

The Haps

It's Thursday, ya'll! Only two more days of my dual classes and then I'm free! (Kind of.)

We have a photography name picked out... details to come soon!

I am sick. Dislike button. And you know what? It's not fun sharing a bed with someone when you're sick. Said someone will demand that you face the wall and not breathe your gross germs all over him.

Said someone's been working from home a lot. Difficult time for him at work- too many projects, not enough Chrises!

I'm about to begin lesson planning for an entire two classes! Excited and nervous about these classes every other second! I also need to figure out how to fit 15 kids into a spare classroom that is the size of our guest bedroom....

I really want to cook something. Sadly, I made too much of other somethings last weekend, and we've had leftovers up to wazoo all week. Dislike button again. I want something new!

My new somethings, when I'm allowed to cook them, are Chinese fried rice and orange chicken. Excited to see what that stuff tastes like homemade and, you know, not from the Lucky Chinese place.

And that's the haps.

C + J | 4 Months

C + J | San Francisco | July 2010

January 20 marked four months of marriage for us. 1/3 of a  year! Yeah!

Just for the record, I love that boy dearly. Not a day goes by that I don't thank God for the amazing blessing he's given me in my wonderful husband. :)

Friday night.

Oh, how I really truly love Friday night. Friday night means:

1) I can come home from work and take a nap. And not have to worry about not being able to fall asleep at an appropriate bedtime hour.
2) I can take a break from homework. Because I've been doing it all week, and I've got one more day to shove the rest onto.
3) I can do stuff I want to. Today included reinstalling programs on my laptop (I wiped the drive yet again due to issues), looking up a good week long recipe list online, and putting together a list of items for my math classes (which start in two weeks!).
4) I can stay up late! I do like staying up late. (Although I find I want to stay up late Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights... and by Friday I just want to go to sleep, so that stinks. I will stay up late tonight and get things done, like the nocturnal hamster I am during the week!)
5) I can sit back and contemplate life.

I'm on #5 now.

We've had some exciting things happen lately. You know, the house, getting unpacked, and me finding out I get to student teach at my school, and getting two whole classes all to myself, to teach in whatever way I want, and gearing up to start our photography business. Life is one gigantic creative canvas right now, and as much as I love it, it freaks me out. Sometimes there's a lot of pressure to be creative. And when it's pressing on from all sides like this, with so many projects I want to jump into wholeheartedly and design the heck out of, sometimes I get scared and want to curl up into a ball inside my fluffy down comforter because I just don't know where to start with it all. It's a little debilitating sometimes.

I want to do all these things. And I want to be great at them. But there's this teeny tiny voice in my head, wondering if maybe I can't?

I'm going to go ahead and blame it on my upbringing. According to my educational psychology textbook, kids who have perpetually excelled in school become so entranced with getting the highest grades that they find anything short of 100% completely unacceptable. They begin seeing themselves as failures... even with a 95%. And don't even thing about a grade that drops below 90! Isn't that incredibly sad... yet so true? I was one of those kids, and holy cow, that perfection stigma has followed me into adulthood.

I am not perfect. I don't need to be perfect. I need to remind myself this all the time.

It's very hard.

So that is my life contemplation for tonight. No answers. No grand realization of how I can choose to live life without an expectation of perfection looming over me. Just a confession that it's there.

Happy Friday night contemplations, everyone. Try to stay up late and sleep in tomorrow, 'kay?

Home, sweet home, on a Wednesday evening...

Working away in our little house! Me doing homework in the office, Chris doing a painting job in the hall. Don't ask me what that face of his is about. Clearly the paint brush has been back talking...

January.

January is every bit as crazy as I'd anticipated! Taking a quick homework break to write something on the blog- I hate the feeling of not recording the happenings for more than a week at a time. I feel my ninety year old self will be sad as she reviews this blog of the past (in whatever format blogs happen to be in by then) and has to guess what was going on during these missing chunks.

Around here it's been nonstop homework and unpacking. For me anyway, for Chris its nonstop unpacking and fixing everything that keeps breaking. He's a trooper, let me tell you. I'm so very happy I married a guy who knows how to fix things. Takes a lot of the pressure off me!

Know what I also like about that guy? His blogs. (Especially the new one.) They're few and far between, but I love reading them. Even though we live with each other, see each other every waking and sleeping hour (except for work, of course), and I think we know each other's thoughts and feelings pretty well, it's always nice to read his thoughts. There's something about the written expression of someone's thoughts that's always exciting. And I like when he talks about what we've got planned for the year; I like knowing we're walking this life road together, with the same goals. It's much easier accomplishing goals with two people pressing on.

What are some of our goals? Among other things: finishing my credential and getting "a real job," buying a new car, getting an iphone (February 10, woot!), starting our photography business, getting professional equipment, writing books, making beautiful creations, and designing a fabulous life.

Oh, and making cute babies.

(But not in 2011. Everything else has to happen first.)

Fridge = Ice = Cold Beverages = Happiness

Among other things, our fridge was broken. Chris and I went down and picked out a new one from Sears Scratch and Dent over the weekend. We were super excited about our selection, which has the much coveted ice and water dispenser on the door. Yes, we are getting fancy.

The Sears delivery guys, however, did not share in our excitement. They in fact refused to bring it up our stairs, stating they weren't allowed to lift the fridges. Excuse me, what? We're paying you to bring our fridge to its allotted space, and you say you can't lift the fridge? You can only slide it up the stairs? Boo, Sears delivery guys. Boo.

So, we had them leave it in the garage and told them we aren't any pansies around here, and we'd take care of it ourselves. And with the help of Justin, Jesse, and Ryan, we totally did. (And by we, I mean that I helped by taking pictures and offering encouragement in the form of, "Wow! Look at those awesome biceps at work!" and "Justin, you may not want to place your neck in the six inches between the corner of the 250 pound fridge and the wall.")

 Zoey was there to cheer on her dad. But she was very concerned toward the end and had to get some hugs in when he finally made it up the stairs. 

Where's Christopher?

First Home.

So we're in our new house, finally! It's pretty awesome... except for the parts that aren't. Like leaks from every possible spout. And the painted over cable cords. And the fridge that won't work. And the electric problems that need to be fixed. Oh, and the washer that started leaking last night... after the plumber came out to fix the pipes behind it.

It sounds like we're really suffering, but really it's been great. We're taking the bad with the good. Chris has been amazing with the fix-its around the house; I seriously have a rocking roommate. We're starting to get the majority of boxes under control. Really, the only things left are things we don't have a place for yet, like the TV and players and cords that go with it, or our boxes of old school memories (me: journals, chris: basketball cards). Our dining room table is up, and we had our first official meal of canned chili at it on Saturday night. We can almost sit on the couch, once we move out some empty boxes. And with Chris finding my box of work clothes last night, I think we finally have all our clothes and shoes accounted for and hung in the closet.

I'm eager to set up my craft stuff, but worried about the amount of room in our office. I need to figure out a way to really utilize the closet space, and I'm thinking a long, short bookcase, like the ones you see at Target that you buy the canvas drawers for. Hmmmm... I think I need to pop over to Craigslist...

Welcome, 2011.

First picture of the new year.

Sometimes the change from one year to another really doesn't bring all that much change. 

This is not one of those years.

1) We moved into our wonderful and splendid condo the day before New Year's Eve. This is easily the biggest change for our new year. We've got a whole huge place to ourselves, where we can put our things anywhere we want! It's like a dream! And no roommates! It's taking some time getting used to the fact that we can now make out in the living room. (What? Who said that?)

2) Along with moving houses, I'm also moving along in my teaching credential program. The end of this month will mark my halfway point and that start of my student teaching semester. As I put on my facebook status today, I feel both accomplished and overwhelmed right now. Accomplished because some of the hardest parts are behind me: the CSET, TPA 1 & 2, and the majority of my core classes. Overwhelmed because I just finished TPA 2 today (and still haven't gotten over it just yet) and am starting a month of double classes. Let me tell you something: It is very hard to sit here at my desk, in our not-put-together office, and look out into our not-put-together-living room, and not go crazy with wanting to unpack some more boxes. But such is my life this month. 

3) We also got a new bed. This is the first real, grown up bed and mattress for both of us. It's a little hard to get the hang of awesomeness, when you're so used to sleeping like a college student for so many years. I feel very... formal when I go to bed at night. Yes, formal's the right word. 

4) I'm also looking forward this year to getting back in shape. Yes, I know everyone's probably blogging this exact same thing. But I really am tired of feeling tired and some of my clothes not fitting anymore. Also, it's not cool when you get invited to play indoor soccer but say no because you know five minutes of running will render you helpless for the next week. (Seriously.) For Christmas, Ryan got Chris and I some cool workout equipment... including the big blue ball of awesome! I'm really looking forward to using that thing for crunches. Along with exercise, I'm thinking of doing the Master Cleanse at some point. Part of me thinks I could totally handle it. (The more sensible part of me thinks I like food too much and have no self control.) But not quite so soon. I don't think I could handle a double load of classes, a house of boxes, and no food, without snapping. Maybe in February.

All righty, break's over. Gotta get back to those dual classes now. 

Happy New Year!