Days 18 through 27

Hi all,

Lots of catching up to do. So I'll get started right away.


Day 18 features my shiny new pedometer that a group of my coworkers and I got from our office's gym. Our goal is to walk four thousand steps a day, a goal that has proven to be very attainable. Mine has been giving me lots of trouble, so I got a new one today- so hopefully the trouble is finished. It has made me aware of how much I should be working my body- just by taking more steps!


Day 19 was January 19th- MLK Jr. Day. And guess where I went, bright and early? Yep, to work... This is my parking garage- EMPTY! Usually you have to fight for a good spot, but I got a space right next to the door. One of the only perks of working on US holidays...


Day 20 - Home sick. This was my meal of the day. One piece of toast.










Day 21, the multiple sets of stairs at work helps my step count for the pedometer challenge. I am used to taking the stairs- it's nine flights every morning and every evening! :) It gets my heart pumping for sure.










Day 22- I've been working on my bridemaid's gifts for a while now, and in this photo they are ALMOST complete! I need to attach the fasteners, but other than that, they are pretty much ready to go. The little silver boxes I made out of thick silver paper and attached labels on the lids. I love the tutorial that I followed to learn to make them! I can't wait to give them out.








Day 23 was Friday- I was feeling sick with a cold- I know, two different illnesses in one week, fancy that. So, I was in bed early, but my parents were out partying! :) My dad's company had their Christmas party on Jan 23. Don't ask me why...
The theme was 80's, so they had to submit photos of themselves in the 80's. My dad submitted one of their wedding photos. Aw... So sweet... :) Here's the fun-loving couple post-party.






Day 24 - Saturday. Weekends are supposed to be great fun, but for me it was another lay around in bed day... Not so fun. But towards the end of the day, I regained some energy by taking a nap and was able to function well enough to finish the necklace that I'll wear with my wedding dress! A big item crossed off my list! Here it is in the planning stages.




Day 25- Yet another sick in bed day. This one was hard-core. Everyone was gone from the house, so plenty of quiet to sleep and get better. I think it worked
a bit, because I'm feeling ok now... Sunday's picture is of my mom and my pedicures we got on one of my non-sick days a while ago. It was our first, so it was very exciting. We're thinking about doing it again closer to the wedding. It was such a nice treat (it was my birthday present, we wanted to do it after the holidays though). Thanks Mom! Aren't our toes lovely? I can't lie, a picture of feet kinda creeps me out.






Day 26 (I'm almost caught up!) Was Monday- for me that means drugstore deal day! I grabbed up my deals at Walgreens and CVS after work and then came home to watch a movie with the family and clip coupons. What a perfect evening. :) Ha, I have to laugh at myself. Here's the fruit of my labor. My grandma shares her coupons with us also, so this was what I cut from a large stack from her. Thanks, Granny!



Day 27 is TODAY! It was a snowy one, not really slick on the road, even though it looked it was. The snow looked so pretty on the city, and I even went walking (in the parking garage to cut the wind) with a coworker (to get in our coveted steps) and I didn't think to grab my camera to get a daytime photo of the snow. It's hard for me to get any daytime photos during the week. I'll try harder at that...
Here's the city and the snow in the dark. :( It's still kinda pretty, I guess.
I'm really sleepy, so good night!

Days 15 through 17

Happy Saturday!
I've got a little bit of catching up to do. Thursday after work I got to hang out with my grandparents. My grandma has been working on some hemming and other alternations for my wedding dress. Day 15's photo is a close up of the beading on my dress. I didn't want to show too much detail in case my fiance looked at this post- we're not seeing each other in our wedding attire until my dad gives me away. :) The old fashioned way...

Yesterday was so super snowy and the drive to work was horrible. So horrible that I got into an accident on the highway. My car was only bumped- you can see my bumper in the photo of the day. The two small white spots are where the guy's license plate holder hit my car. Behind our little fender bender, there was a much bigger accident- I counted 14 cars involved, but I couldn't see them all. There was a semi and some kind of public transit vehicle in the mess. One poor car was flipped up on its side. Very scary stuff. I wish I would have had my phone in my hand when I was walking and talking to the other drivers so I could have snapped a photo. But I was very shaken even though my damage was very minor. It worked out okay, even with all the craziness, I was only 15 minutes late to work!



Today was such a huge contrast in weather- it got up to 45 degrees and I was outside in short-sleeves! I was doing my regular Saturday errands: the church to print the bulletins, the library to return and pick up books, and the post office to mail off shipments (usually Amazon, but today I shipped some wedding postcards for Keith's family). This photo is an artsy little sculpture outside the library. There's a gym in the same building, so that explains the basketball in the one guy's hand. Our town is building a new library right now, it looks like it will be really nice! I wonder if they will move this happy little group to the new building... We'll see.

Days 9 through 14

Whoa. I'm way behind. Sorry about that! I faithfully took a picture each day, even though I took a short break from posting. There seems to be so many small projects with the wedding prep that I get overwhelmed... And now thinking about buying a house on top of it all, I'm scared.

Day 9 illustrates this fact. It seems that I have Post-Its running around all over the place lately, demanding I complete the tasks I have set before myself before the deadlines I have in mind. Mostly wedding tasks, but the every day tasks are mixed in there also. I can't wait until that's all on my list. Don't get me wrong, I love planning the wedding, I just have to remember to step back and remember why on earth we are doing this. :)

Day 10 is the carrying out of one of the on-going tasks on my list- gathering the supplies needed for the reception tables. We've decided on white taper candles in various candle holders, while this will be in sync with our homey garden look, it takes a while to gather up around 174 candle holders! I've been pretty lucky with the two thrift stores in our town, the bags that you see in Day 10's photo are all from the Goodwill here and are filled with glass taper candle holders and low vases (which are mostly juice glasses, but will suit our purposes perfectly) for filling with hydrangea. I've very pleased with the variety that I have found both at the Goodwill and the other thrift store. I guess my small town had a lot of excess glass laying around. I'm hoping that people will discover more excess and haul it down for me to scoop up!

Day 11 was Sunday and the conclusion of Christmas 2008. It was a great time, everyone was present (plus some with girl/boy friends!), which was especially nice since we did not get to see everyone on Christmas Eve this year due to weather... My cousin's son is the star of the photo of the day- he's a cutie!

Day 12 is cooking class night! I love this class that my mother teaches at a local grocery store. She presents how to make a whole meals worth of recipes based around a theme for the evening. When the meal is all finished, we all sit down to enjoy our creation. Over the months, regulars have developed and its been nice to get to know people through this once a month experience. The people who come genuinely love food and preparing food, so I like to listen to their (over-my-head) culinary discussions. :) This is the start of pineapple salsa that we had over grilled chicken. Our theme for the evening was "Resolutions"- as in eating healthy to keep the food resolutions that so many make for the new year. All the recipes were yummy and didn't taste "overly healthy", if you know what I mean... Very good!

Day 13 "Happy Birthday to Me!" Keith got me the gift of my dreams this year for my birthday- the complete series of King of Queens. I'm in love with the box- an IPS truck complete with a lifting hood (which holds the episode summaries), a leather handle for the back delivery door and a cardboard pallet underneath all the DVD's. This show makes me laugh consistently- I haven't found an episode that I thoroughly didn't like. There are several that our local channel that plays the show twice on weeknights, overplay and that causes us to groan, but the episodes themselves are still hilarious! Thanks Keith!

Day 14: today! Finally caught up. Here's one of my projects that I have been diligently working on. Bridal party gifts. They are necklaces that I have made from Scrabble tiles, covered with patterned paper and made shiny with some liquid glass ( I don't think that is the right name for it, but it describes it well). It's really a simple process. I found it on a great website called Makeandtakes.com. I couldn't get the link to post, but you can find it easily by googling.
I can't wait to try a tutorial I found to make little paper boxes (Paper is on good sale at JoAnn's!) to gift them in. I have welcome bags for all the out-of-town guests and I will put the necklaces in the bags, along with the bracelets I'm making for them to wear during the wedding itself. I'm pretty excited to make those, but nervous to get them right. I also have to start on my own bridal necklace. That one makes me more nervous!

Day 7 and 8

It's been catch up time the last couple of days- on sleep, on wedding tasks, and on errands.
I took a picture at the gas pump Wednesday night. I thought I should document the gas price while it's still semi-low, since it's been creeping up the last week or so. According to Bloomberg news, the oil prices are dropping again, so it may be only a few days until the gas prices reflect that. I sure hope it goes back down soon. It's been so nice not to feel guilty about driving my car. :)



Today's picture is from the meandering stairs at my office building in Kansas City, MO. I love the views that I see from working downtown. Our office is on the very edge of the city, so I don't have to deal with a lot of downtown traffic, but still get the plus side of the beautiful view. We're on the fifth floor and have a pretty cool balcony, so I'll take a picture from there sometime- when it's nicer outside! It's been pretty chilly lately. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the high 50's though. Weather in the Midwest is pretty unpredictable, but I love being able to feel the changes in season. I am a happy Kansan.
Until next time...

Day 6

Love, love. My fiance, Keith, left today for his last semester of college. So we spent all of last evening watching Season 3 of The Office. Can't get enough of the show! I can't wait for new episodes! I'll post Day 7's photo later... or tomorrow... :)
Until next time.

Day 5

My view at my desk for 50 hours a week. Lovely.
The calendar in the background was a Christmas gift from my wonderful friend, Allison. Thanks girl! It brightens my day.
As you can see, I'm feeling illness coming on, so I'm downing a couple of Vitamin C's every couple of hours. I think it's working. :)
Until next time,
Laura

Day 4

My fiance came back from Texas tonight. That makes me a very happy lady. I picked him up from KCI and here's a shot of him as we were headed to the door. I always manage to park on the complete wrong side of the terminal, so we always get some exercise in. :)

Day 3

Today was a busy Saturday, lots of running around. My main goal today was the weekly church bulletin- which starred in today's photo! I love to see the finished product all together, ready to be passed out to our church family.
Until next time,
Laura

The beginning of something new!

Hi! I'm so happy to be starting this new project- Project 365! I meant to do this a couple of years ago, but I never really got started. This year, I'm determined. This blog will keep me motivated to keep going.
The goal is simple really: take a picture every single day for one full year.
I'm a couple of days behind already, but that's remedied simply enough.
Even though I'll be taking a picture everyday, I'm not going to force myself to upload and post a blog entry everyday. That's pretty overwhelming...
The sunset photo is Day 1, not an impressive start, but the sunset in person was absolutely perfect! It closed out a perfect day of spending time with one of my best friends, Allison! We shopped and shopped for all things wedding. Our goals were to find candles and slips for the bridesmaids and we were successful on both counts! After we sped through Price Chopper to find all the ingredients for some yummy Loaded Baked Potato Soup, we were walked out to the car, and the sunset stopped us in our tracks! God gives us such beautiful art through nature. I just had to snap a shot on my handy-dandy camera phone.
Day 2 is our silly cat, Cloudy. He's really a sweet cat, even though I have a low tolerance for him. We recently got a new kitten (I'm sure you'll see pictures of him soon) named She-fu, and the size difference between the two is very humorous. Cloudy is frequently described by friends as the largest cat ever seen. I wouldn't go that far, but he is fairly large. :) He's also pretty photogenic. I'm hoping I won't take too many pet pictures, as it seems like the lazy way out for this project. (Like tonight, I realized at 10:30 that I still hadn't even thought about a picture for the day. :))
I can't wait to see what the coming days will bring. I'm so happy to be doing this as I think it's so special to document your life to be able to look back and see the everyday type of events, as well as the big ones. This will be a great year, God is good.
Until next time,
Laura