TGIF

I'm so excited to be inching my way towards the weekend.  TGIF!!

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the football God's and how they saved my marriage

I am from a small town where football brought us great fame by holding the national record for "most consecutive wins" in the early 1970's.  Our 72 straight wins was beat by Concord (California) De La Salle Spartans football team when they piled up 151 consecutive victories between 1992 and 2004.

When you grow up in a town where all you know is "football" and the only place you want to be is near the football field and the only day of the week that ever really mattered were Friday game days....You tend to take the sport a little serious.  And by "serious" I mean "IS THERE ANYTHING BETTER THAN FOOTBALL SEASON!!!"  The crisp fall air, the cheerleaders, the coaches, the announcers, the fans, the hot dogs and hot cocoa....I'm giving myself chills just writing this.

And being that I am from Michigan we grew up not only loving our beloved Tigers from our hometown, but LOVING the Michigan Wolverines.  For as long as I can remember my Saturday's have been dedicated to college football.  And thankfully, my husband is also a Wolverine fan or else we just might not have been deemed compatible in my eyes :)

We got engaged on 10/9/08 and when we started wedding planning we thought it would be a great idea for our wedding day to be exactly 2 years later which would have been this Saturday 10/9/10.  Thankfully, a year into our engagement we decided to change the date, due to Michigan weather and how unpredictable it can be this time of year.  Our July wedding was perfect and given that it's been freezing in these parts for a couple weeks now I'm so happy that we chose against it.

But, truth be told, there is no way on God's green earth I would have been able to get married tomorrow!  Tomorrow, Oct 9 is the big rivalry game between Michigan and Michigan State.  The Paul Bunyan Trophy is at stake here people....and tomorrow is the Wolverines chance to regain possession of the trophy!  This is HUGE....maybe not as "huge" as say, a wedding would have been, but you get the idea!

Just another incident where I believe "everything happens for a reason".  I think the Football God's had a hand in changing our minds about our wedding date!

GO BLUE!!    HAIL TO THE VICTORS!!

My Life...In Quotes





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D-Day

The next 24 hrs may go down in history as the hardest day of my life.  Please pray for my strength to get through.

The Bagette

Every year my hometown has a women's golf tournament called "The Bagette".  My mom has been golfing in this tournament since the first one (about 18 years).  About 4 years ago she needed someone to fill in for the 4th spot on her team so I did it.  And no, I did not do it because I like to golf, or am remotely good at golfing.  (I've only golfed 4 times in my life with this year being the 5th)  I did it because it sounded like so much fun to spend the day with a bunch of fabulous woman having the time of our lives.  And that is exactly what we do....have the time of our lives!

Here is a look back at our Bagette days....(for some reason I don't have any pictures from 2009)

The Bagette is tomorrow and I can't wait!!!

In my opinion, it's disturbing

For the record....this is MY opinion.  I do not expect everyone/anyone to feel the same way as me!


I was reading a story today about a family of a newborn baby who are asking for donations of breastmilk after his mother died unexpectedly one week after giving birth.  Although my heart is broken for this new dad and sweet baby who will never know his mother, I just can't get past the fact that this father will be giving his baby breastmilk that came from complete strangers.

There are no laws or guidelines against doing this which seems utterly ridiculous to me.  How do you have any idea what your baby will be ingesting?  Who know's what kind of diseases or substances could be unknowingly/unintentionally passed on to this baby.

If a stranger on the street walked up to you and offered you their breastmilk for your baby, would you take it and give it to them?  Without knowing anything about them, their habits, their health, etc.

I think it is very kind of so many mothers to want to help, but I have to say, that for myself, I would never consider giving unscreened breastmilk to my baby.  Not that I have a baby...or have ever had a baby, but just sayin!

And as I stated above...This is MY opinion!!  And maybe if I were a mother I would feel differently?  I don't know.

blah

That's exactly how I feel lately....blahhh!!  I don't know what it is, but I can't seem to get out of this funk lately.

I am not happy with life right now and so I just try to get through each day the best I can.  I know it won't always be like this, but I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I feel like I don't have that "get away" place I so desperately need right now.  I am miserable at home, miserable at work and even miserable on my commute between home and work.

Calgon take me away!!!

A "NEW" ME....

Since the wedding I've been feeling very "blah" about myself.  I've gained about 7-8 lbs, my crows feet around my eyes seem to be getting worse, I've lost all signs of a once golden brown tan.  I never take the time to do my hair anymore and the closest thing to makeup that has touched my face the past couple of months has been vaseline and/or lip balm.

I decided that maybe a change in my hairstyle was just what I needed to give myself that extra boost of confidence.  It would make me excited and want to take the time to "get ready".

Unfortunately, the exact opposite has happened.  Not one person who has seen my new hairstyle (in real life, not in pictures) seems to like it.  I think my self confidence is worse now than it was before making the change.

Here is a picture of the husband and I a couple weeks ago.  I had recently gotten bangs cut thinking that a small change like that would do the trick.

My "bob" style cut I have had for years with added bangs

Here is the photo (from iPhone) just after leaving the salon

"NEW" Look

And this one was taken yesterday in my car (via iPhone)

Wow...my glasses never seemed SO big before...LOL

What do you think of the new "do"?  I'm trying to like it since it is SO easy to get ready, but I just don't think it's "me".  Looks like I'm officially growing my hair back out....

Life

Life has taken over....Let's just say so much has happened in the past couple weeks that there are days I can barely form words to speak.

To make a long story short, my husband is having some medical problems and it's scaring the living daylights out of me!!  I always knew in the back of my mind that there would come a day that my husbands spinal cord injury would cause him some issues.  I was thinking more like 30 years down the road, not less than 2 months after getting hitched!

The main problem at this point is that there are SO many different things going on, that the doctors can't pinpoint a diagnosis to fit all the symptoms.  Seriously people...it's been over 2 weeks of hospital visits and trips to the ER.  Can't someone please tell us what is going on?  The cat scan of his brain didn't show anything disturbing, we are meeting with a neurologist tomorrow, and driving to University of Michigan hospital on Monday to meet with some specialists and have an MRI done.

As much as I "don't" want them to find anything wrong, it would actually be nice at this point if they "did" find something wrong.  Then we would have some answers and be able to move forward.  At this point we are at a stand-still and in the meantime, my husband is not getting any better.  There are days where he is actually getting worse.

Please send your prayers our way because we could surely use them!

People are so Rude!!!

The image below is our DIY Photo Wall from our wedding.

I was contacted immediately after our wedding by a wedding planner about purchasing this from me.  Of course I agreed!  She also wants an inventory of all my other wedding items I'm willing to sell...Awesome!

I was recently approached by the wife of someone my husband and I know about renting it for a family reunion.  Since I haven't technically sold it yet, I didn't see the harm in letting someone else enjoy it.  Oh, if only I had known then what I know now!!

Yesterday was the family reunion so they came to my house to pick it up.  I helped them load it in the trailer and gave them specific directions that it needed to be laid flat in the trailer because it's top-heavy.  I even went as far as lending them a sheet to lay down in the trailer so the fabric wouldn't get dirty.

6 hrs later they pull up in front of my house with the photo wall basically in pieces!!  They tried to stand it upright in the trailer and the wind caught it and it flew out onto the pavement face down.  The legs on one side were broken off, one of the frames came right off, and the large antique frame in the center is broken into dozens of pieces and chipped all over.

I understand that accidents happen, but I specifically told them to LAY IT FLAT IN THE TRAILER!!!!  It's not so much that its broke, as I think I can probably come up with a way to fix it, but the fact that they were laughing about it!  They literally just kept laughing as if it was the funniest thing that's ever happened to them.  It's not so funny if you ask me!

And not that I would have taken any money from them, but maybe if they had OFFERED to give me some money to repair the damage I wouldn't be this pissed.

PEOPLE ARE SO RUDE!!!

Now I'm stuck with the following dilemma:  Do I put more $$ into the board to fix it in order to sell it to wedding planner?  I'm just not sure I will get my money back out of it.  Or, do I not sell it and just keep it for myself?  But, where am I going to store it?  It's huge.  Or, do I sell it damaged and consider it a loss either way?

Hurry, Hurry

I can't wait for this work day to be over with....the past couple weeks have been sooooo long!!  And then the weekends go by sooooo fast!

We've got  a lot on our plate for this weekend, but I'm still looking forward to time away from the office.

Tonight I'm hanging out with one of my best friends Lindsey...I love "girl" time!

BFF Lindsey singing me a song at my wedding

Have a great one!!

Life is Like a Roller Coaster

There has been an update in my earlier post.  My stepson will no longer be coming to live with us.  I can't get into the details here, but know that we are all crushed and heartbroken!  The past couple days have definitely been a roller coaster of emotions.

But, as my sister told me this morning "everything happens for a reason and if he is meant to live with us then it will happen".

Things are about to change.....

The husband and I made a HUGE family decision last night.  My 15 year old stepson is going to live with us full time.  This is something we've been throwing around for well over a year now, but the time just never seemed right.  Finally, all the pieces are falling into place.  This is going to require him starting off Highschool in a different school, but he is more than ready for a change and we (as parents) are more than ready to get him into a different environment.

I'm looking forward to this and know in my heart that this is the best thing for him.  Not to mention, this is a dream come true for my husband.

Summer Projects

We had a huge list of home improvements we wanted to accomplish this summer, but here it is almost the middle of August and very few items have been crossed off.

I don't think we anticipated the amount of time we would spend at my parents house getting ready for the wedding.  Our house definitely took a backseat on our priority list as we were prepping for the wedding.  But, as soon as the "I Do's" were said, we jumped right in.

In the last few weeks we have pulled out all of our landscaping from the front of our house.  And I use the term "landscaping" lightly as we pretty much just had a bunch of dead evergreens, a couple bushes and a lot of over-grown ivy plants.  So far we have been able to lay down mulch and have purchased a few plants that still need to be planted into the ground.  It may not be a finished product yet, but the changes are remarkable already.

The original "landscaping"

(not sure why this is sideways)  After we removed the "Landscaping"

We also cut down 5-6 trees from the backyard opening up our back corner.  We aren't sure what the previous owners used this corner for, but it was nothing but dirt, weeds, and a lot of buried garbage.  This was not a simple project as this area is almost 50 ft long by 30 ft wide.  It's a BIG area that needed a lot of work.  We managed to use the rest of the leftover mulch from the wedding in this area and oh, what a difference.  I also moved some of our hanging plants back there to add a little color.  It's not a finished product, but boy does it sure look better than when we started. (sorry I don't have any "before" pictures, but you should consider yourself lucky that you will never have that image stuck in your head)

Corner in the backyard

And finally, we decided that the front of the house needed a pop of color. We decided to paint our green shutters BLUE! We love it and the change is just what we were looking for. (see the green shutters in photo above)

Green Shutters have now become BLUE!!

Picture Overload

The wedding day was nothing short of amazing!  I've never smiled so hard in one day in my whole life.  I couldn't help myself.

I felt stunning and gorgeous, but most importantly I felt loved.  The entire wedding party radiated from the joy and excitement of the day.

I was on a high that lasted the entire weekend.  It was a dream come true to see all of our family and friends in one place.

It was a perfect wedding!  Literally, the best day of my life.  And to be honest, I wasn't shooting for perfection...it just happened that way!

I was making big, life-altering promises to the man I love and I was surrounded by the most important people in my life.

I danced like a mad woman and laughed and screamed with joy!

I'm so glad that that everybody came...I'm so glad that we didn't take on anymore DIY projects...I'm so glad I have such amazing women in my life...I'm so glad we composed our own ceremony and vows...

I'M SO GLAD WE DIDN'T ELOPE!!!

If I had known the wedding would be so amazing and that marriage would be this good, I would have had a MUCH shorter engagement.

To watch our families intertwine to a degree that they appeared as one made my heart melt.