Thanks.

I'm weak and an emotional wreck. Do I have every right to be? Nope, I'm pretty blessed. Is it difficult to keep reminding myself of that? Yes, I'm selfish.

I'll go ahead and thank God for putting up with my ridiculous prayers, also Stephen, my family, and close friends for putting up with me being so annoying, giving me pep talks, and shouting out some more sane prayers than mine.

There are a lot of things I want to change, I'm not sure where to start.

I Have Swine Flu

Not really again, I just like fooling you, cause I hear it works. As you may know from my last post, I'm real sick. I'm told that I have some weird, mysterious viral infection but it hurts, bad. I've gone through tons of sicknesses and I'm actually really tough but I have never, ever felt anything like this and it really sounds so simple and easy to get through, just a headache and some nausea, no problem. Now, I also understand that my imagination is too big for my own good but when I'm at my worst, my thoughts look something like this:

"Oh geez, I seriously do have swine flu. What if it just takes a turn for the worst? What if I have to go to the emergency room tonight? I hate the emergency room. Plus, I would need a place to lay down because there is no way I would be able to sit up for hours. This isn't going to work out, I'm going to die. I really could die, like tonight, because I probably have a brain tumor. What happens then? Surgery to take it out? Do I have cancer? Oh no. I need Stephen to google some stuff cause if I do I'll pass out. No, I can't, he'll remind me how ridiculous I'm being, because I am. But people really do get brain tumors. I probably do too. I just won't say anything. It'll all go away if I just ignore it, right? I can't do this anymore, I'm losing my mind."

No joke, that's literally what has gone through my mind every night this last week. I can't believe I'm admitting to this. But my point is, I have WAY too much time on my hands right now.

But maybe all this extra time is a good thing. If you look two posts back it's basically me talking about how much I don't like wedding planning. Well, as of a few days ago, I'm on a roll! Calling and emailing people who have barns, posting questions and looking for networking on forums. Finding tons and tons of new wedding websites and blogs, which by the way, is flooding my google reader. Even though I can't see anything that's getting accomplished, I at least feel like I'm doing something and moving forward in is crazy process.

By the way, I feel like a lot of people don't know about google reader and you should. Basically you just enter all of your favorite blogs and websites in and it just lets you know when they have been updated and have new posts and stuff. I love it. :)

Sulking

I get so restless when I can't do anything...or eat anything. I got this bad headache yesterday and took ibuprofen on an empty stomach right before a huge dinner with the fam. Turns out that was a really bad idea, I started to feel super sick and couldn't eat anything and I was really looking forward to Santa Fe Basque. So I just came home and slept my life away hoping all would be better in the morning so I could have a perfect three day weekend.

Nope. I woke up bright and early and headed to Stephen's office to meet him and others to take his youth group to the Poverello House (which I really enjoy). Got there, decided it was a terrible idea, went home, and threw up. I know, I know, I could have left that out. Whatever. Now, I still have an awful deadache and feel sick to my stomach only when I sit up or stand up. So, I'm refusing to get up for longer than a couple minutes at a time and I freaking hate it so I'm complaining to you, five readers of my blog.

AND to top it off, I can't figure out what I did with A Beautiful Boy yesterday, the book I'm obsessed with right now.

Oh and I realize that I accidentally spelled headache wrong but I looked at it and decided it fit better the way I spelled it.

Thanks for listening...reading. I need a hug. I was sooo looking forward to this weekend.

We Eloped!

Okay, okay, I kid. But really, sometimes I go through these little spurts when I honestly think I would rather do that. Maybe I'll be the first bride-to-be to admit it but I don't like wedding planning so far. I teared up a bit yesterday thinking about it...I just want a location, so simple right? Nope, apparently not when you just want an old barn that isn't a "real" wedding location. Or maybe I don't like it because I have no idea how 10 grand is considered a "low budget wedding." Or maybe I don't like it because I am not looking forward to people saying things to me for cutting our guest list by about 70%. Also, when I'm sitting here wondering how I'm going to come up with textbooks for this semester, I also get caught up wondering how we're going to come up with our unrealistically low budget.

I just want to marry Stephen. That's all.

Then, my wheels start turning again and I think about all the fun things about weddings and obviously I want it to be amazing. Like how I want the seats to be straw bales and drink out of cute little mason jars and all kinds of vintage and rustic looking cotton prints and linens in yellows, beige's, and oranges. And a barn dance. And to just have fun with my closest friends and family.

I feel like I'm playing tug-o-war with myself. I'm done being a Negative Nancy, I'm glad I saved to good stuff for last. Phew!

Home for Sale!

I have this AWFUL love/hate relationship with the house I live in. Like, really bad. Not even a little healthy. It's been for sale for about a year, which isn't all that bad since we're sure it will be at least another year until it sales thanks to the outrageous price. But tomorrow is the second showing in a week and part of me is saying, "no worries, its not like its going to sale or anything." and the other part is "oh no, where am I going to live if it sales?!"

So, in honor of these showings and open houses, I've compiled a list of reasons why you, (future viewer of home) should not buy this house.

1. It looks amazing from the outside front...not so much in the back. Or inside.
2. The only place in the house that has shaggy carpet is the bathroom. And by bathroom, I do mean the bathroom. Gross. Everyone knows carpet of any kind should NOT be allowed in the bathroom.
3. There are WAY too many wolf spiders. BIG ones.
4. There have been cockroaches lately. BIG ONES.
5. There are black widows outside. BIG ONES.
6. I constantly go to make a meal just to find weevils in the food. ...SMALL ONES.
7. Train.
8. Graffiti nearby.
9. Racing cars.
10. Creepy. In more ways than one.
11. Hardpan dirt. I mean, who wants that, right? Makes gardening no fun.
12. Awkward layout.
13. Helicopters looking for bad guys. I just remembered this one because I can hear one now.
14. There is no Trader Joes for miles away.
15. ...Or anything else for that matter.

See. You don't want it.

Fine. I guess I'll try to be a little more upbeat...here's a list of good things.

1. Sanger is about 10 minutes away if your into that.
2. There's a gas station about a mile away.
3. I'm literally drawing a blank. ;)

K, seeya. I'll post a picture of how cute it is after I move out someday.

I hope nobody that shouldn't read this does. :)

Engaged! :)

As some of you out in the internets have heard, Stephen and I are engaged! It actually happened around noon on Saturday July 11th but we wanted some time to keep it top secret so we could tell some of our VIP's in person. I thought I would let all you guys know by telling the story in my blog since I know the questions will be coming sooner or later.

We'll do it in two parts... Stephen's story leading up to the actually asking and then my part.

Stephen:
So I actually wanted to propose around the 4th of July in San Diego but that didn't work out and what made it even worse was that everyday in San Diego Jess was like, "Today was the PERFECT day!" and it made me want to make it even more perfect.

I didn't ask because it would have killed me to do it without asking her parents. I had been trying to get a hold of her parents but I couldn't track them down. I drove to their house, actually drove past their house the first time because I was so nervous to stop but then pulled back around, but they were either asleep or not home so i just had to go home. The very next day Jess, myself and my mom were leaving to San Diego and I thought I'd give it one more try. I drove up to Jess' parent's house and NO ONE! I waited in the drive way for about a half hour but the time came that I had to leave to pick up Jessica and my mom to leave for SD.

Well after returning from SD I was trying to figure out the best time to get a hold of her parents. Thursday night, July 9th, We went to NewCov's college group and Loren, NewCov's college Pastor, and I had talked a little on how I could get away to drive up to Jessica's parents house to talk to them. The best idea we could come up with was that Loren's wife needed help with some boxes ASAP! That is when I drove off to see her parents. At her parents things went well, I got approval.

I had planned to ask her the next day, Friday, but things were going horribly wrong. Her mom had to go out of town to work, and she had to pick up her dad, then her parent took her out to eat and it was getting later and later and finally I had to say, it wasnt going to happen.

So we talked and I said hey lets go jogging the next morning and to make it a fun jog we will get geocaches along the way. She wasn't really up for the whole idea of running, she was more interested in napping lol. I finally did get her to go even though she wasn't too thrilled. I had planted a fake geocache the week before and programed it into our GPS. This is where Jess' side of the story comes in...

Stephen thought it would be a great idea if we went out for a jog in Woodward Park on Saturday morning...I didn't think it was quite as good of an idea as he did. Some of you may have even read my "tweet" or facebook status stating, "Who the heck does this Stephen guy think he is?! Hungry, jogging, and hot are not meant to go together." I was a little bitter but he somehow lured me in by saying we could take little stops by geocaching in different areas and taking the dogs. (*Side Note* Geocaching is like a worldwide treasure hunt where each "cache" is marked by coordinates that are entered into a GPS.)

As we followed the GPS, we got to this hill and Stephen had told me it was within 10 feet away and that they said this one was "tricky" I started looking in the crevices of the tree and turned around to find Stephen holding up a perfectly cut clump of grass. Underneath was a container he took out and said "there is some kind of story behind this one, oh, here's a letter, read it." As I took it out of the envelope and began skimming it I got very excited and said "Awww someone proposed here!" Then started reading it outload. As I was reading I started thinking to myself, "Wow, these people are a lot like us...I wish we could meet them, I bet we would get along great!" When I finished I looked up to see Stephen on his knee, holding a cute little black box with me beautiful ring. Then I cried a bunch. The End. :)

PS: Jessica didnt say anything for the first 30 seconds, I(stephen) was kind of nervous at that point in time!

P.P.S. Any questions about a wedding are unknown to us too...other than it being next summer or fall. :)


(click to enlarge)

Time for a puppy?

My dad's friend from work took in a stray dog with 10 puppies, ready to be taken the end of next week...and basically...I really want one.

The big mistake was going with my family to see the puppies.

Here, Katy is sporting the little cutie I want:

Brett and Katy's: (Arizona)

And my mom's:

So bring the opinions on! Should I get her? I mean, this isn't just some 6 month commitment...Ah this is so hard! :)

AND If I DID get her...any name ideas? So far I really like Petunia and Olive...