happy december 31st!

guess how many photos i took in michigan for christmas? one. and it was blurry.

blogging fail.

anyway.... we are BACK to our darling home. welcomed by 50 degree weather. joel's out washing our cars in his t-shirt. he even had to get the hose back out from hibernation!

we're spending the day preparing for our new years lunch tomorrow. i've been cooking/baking up a storm and joel cleaned the entire house. tonight my bff is hosting a little dinner party and we're bringing chairs & homemade hummus. should be a grand time. (ie: relaxing before the craziness that will be tomorrow morning!)

on our 1-year anniversary

ok i realize that our anniversary was one month ago tomorrow. and i realize that we didn't take any pictures & posts are relatively lame without them.

however, this year was way too big not to reflect upon. plus, i kind of imagine myself reading this post next year so i want to have some record of my thoughts.

and because i love lists, that's how i'm going to organize them...
1. this year a lot of miscommunication happened. i thought i was good at speaking clearly and expressing myself. apparently not. there were so many occasions where joel thought one thing and i thought another. but we both thought we thought the same thing (see, just explaining miscommunication is confusing!)

2. even though waking up to the 5:50 alarm is hard (mostly because we just want to hang out with each other all day), it's also easier knowing that the next 50 minutes will be spent with the love of my life. eating breakfast with joel, making our lunches, talking to him while he showers/i brush my teeth, and kissing him goodbye as he gets dressed in his shirt & tie.as i drive to school i'm optimistic & joyful & filled with gratitude because my morning began with joel.
3. my husband is so.incredibly.selfless.goodness, this man! he does it all: washes the dishes, irons, cleans the floors, unloads the dishwasher, scrubs the foreman grill (my LEAST favorite task!), carries in the groceries, listens to me, hugs me, etc. etc. etc. joel has loved me beyond what i thought were human capacities. i'm so grateful to call him mine.

4. i think i was doing alright before joel & got married. i had a steady job. i ran fairly regularly. i was emotionally stable. i was relatively kind to others. i was pretty patient. BUT this year, being married to joel has grown me in unbelievable ways. his love has given me freedom to pursue grad school, comfort to cry when it's necessary, perseverance to run farther & push myself more, patience to avoid yelling at my students (one.more.time.), and courage to branch out in my community.

words really can't describe how much this year has meant to me.

thanks, joel, for choosing me, and for loving me unbelievably well.

[note: i decided to add a few random pictures. simply because they break up the text nicely.]

new years lunch: planning

we're hosting a new years day lunch for some friends & neighbors on january 1st. here's what i'm gonna make.

main courses: black bean salsa chicken (with rice. which i'm making in my rice maker. for the first time ever), homemade mac'n'cheese (for the kiddos, mostly), pumpkin sage pasta
sides: raspberry walnut salad, hummus with crackers,grandmommy's rolls (1st time ever making them by myself!)

desserts: brownies, monkey bread, poppy seed bread

i hope it's enough food. i'm super excited but also semi nervous.

class, tree, book, hair: in other words, no semblance of order

i just finished my first grad class ever. it's one in a series of four that will earn me a certificate to teach ESL. no final grades have been posted yet, but above is part of my final project. i think it was probably the first poster i've done since middle school science fair. hopefully i've improved since then. [once, after a gigantic project, my then-about-6-year-old brother said "i'm sure glad we're done with our math fair project." operative word being "our" since it was actually mine. but i totally procrastinated (like always) and it ended up being a whole family endeavor. sorry, mom & dad!]

 i loooooooooooove our little christmas tree! it looks seriously darling.

 this is my current read. written by one of the writers/actors on the show "the office." SO freaking hilarious.

whenever i read a blog and see a woman wearing a scarf as a headband, i think to myself, "that looks utterly darling," so i try it myself. and usually end up thinking it looks absurd (bordering on disgusting!). this morning i realized there are 2 reasons for that fact. 1. if my hair isn't perfectly high on my head, i look bald. never a good thing. 2. i'm usually not wearing makeup whenever i decide to do my hair like this. add a little blush & some mascara= much better overall appearance & better feeling about the scarf/headband. ha!

blog awesomeness

1. i can never remember where i found cool stuff online so i always blog about it. but then i can't ever find the specific post. darn. anyway, in attempt to save this cool i idea i saw (on a blog, of course), here's a photo. and here's where it came from. the family apparently has a similar clothespin chart for quality time with mom & dad. brilliant!

2. i saw this beautiful doily blanket on another blog i read (zoiks, can you tell i'm obsessed?!) it's way too expensive to buy for myself, but i think my bff will make one for me. if i can choose a yarn. which is turning out to be slightly impossible.

tonight and tomorrow and friday

my bff found this blog on pinterest (which i'm avoiding on purpose. internet, don't tempt me.) i don't use my crockpot as much as i imagined, since it automatically goes to "warm," and leaving food on warm while i'm busy being a teacher (about 6:30 to 4:30pm) actually ends up with burnt dinner. SO. i do have a few classics that i make, but they tend to be on weekends.

report card conferences start tomorrow. can't decide how i feel about them. i'm not really nervous. i'm excited about conversations with some parents. i'm not thrilled about meeting with a few.
 
on friday, to celebrate the conferences being over, we're going to get our christmas tree. i'm totally jazzed about this. about a month ago i got white lights while they were still in stock. [side note: last year around this time white lights were nowhere to be found. joel kindly offered some blue lights he had in the basement. my newly-wed self struggled silently for a good long while before quietly thanking him and putting on the blue lights. it actually turned out cute and will be a special memory in my heart forever. first.married.christmas. success.]

 

here's what the living room looks like tonight, with the addition of a few handmade christmas gifts from momma. and with an updated arrangement of a nativity set we got as a shower gift. i like it on the mantle a lot.  

2 quick things

there are 2 blog posts you should all read:

1. my friend rachel and her husband are having an auction. it started yesterday and their are some AMAZING things!! all the $ goes towards adopting their little Ethiopian.

2. this recipe looks delicious. i may try it. next week, though, because my meals are already planned for this week. and the ingredients are purchased. so it'll wait.