One year ago...

On Monday, it was one year since this...

June 13th, 2010 was a magical day!  This year has really flown by.  I feel that to say we made it through a whole year is an accomplishment!  Not that I doubt us by ANY means, its just that we hear a lot that the first year is hard.  Its a true story...the first year IS hard...we are navigating through a whole new life here together at the same time under the same roof...if someone tells me its not that hard, its a lie.  But, more then the struggles of married life, which arent that bad, it really is beautiful!  Having my best friend right there all the time with me, always having someone to laugh or cry or vent to, that is a blessing.  Having some to SHARE life with is amazing.  We've had a great year, lots of fun times & great memories, and hardships that we have gotten through together (ie his dad passing away, me not having a job, things that life just hits us with randomly) we have come so far already and I can't wait to see what years 2 -150 bring;)  I thank God so much for blessing us so much!!  Love you baby:)

To celebrate our one year anniversary, Dave suggested we go to St. Michaels for the day!  It was so fun!  We stopped at St Michaels winery and did some tasting, we walked all up and down the main street there, its SO pretty...

 having a class at St Michaels Winery

 Lovebirds!

 The main street in St Michaels, so so cute!  See, I wore blue & orange - because those were our wedding colors:)

 We left our mark in an little Italian Shoppe, she let us do this, dont worry;)  It will be fun to come back here one day and see this here!

 We did a little walking on the water...well, on the pier of course!

My hair is messy and the sun is glaring, but this is us at the southernmost point of this part of MD...we drove all the way down through Tilghman:)

It was a great day!  My mom made us a fresh cake top to share - since I think ours was ruined and she said she didnt want us eating old cake:

My mom is awesome, look how sweet & cute that little cake is!!!  Thanks Mom!



Overall it was such a wonderful day.  We laughed and joked and loved on each other all day long:) 

I finished Wicked and will be writing that review later.  I'm still slow as molasses on this reading thing...but, I am constantly trying.  I wonder why I was so fast at it in the winter?  Maybe that is just it...it was WINTER!!  Oh well, I'll finish what I can when I can...my goal is still 10 a month!  Not much is getting done in the home decor department, but I did buy something really fun for the kitchen project - I'll leave you hanging on that one!

Enjoy your Wednesday!

Where will you celebrate?!?

Ok, so maybe its my familys English heritage (My aunt lives there, my grandmother grew up there, my great grandmother was born there - all on moms side) or whatever but I love love love learning and reading about the Royals in good ol' London!!  I was obsessed with Diana as a kid, her dress was my dream wedding dress (now I think, WHAT was I thinking...lol - I know, it was the style back then) and I never really cared about weddings until I watched Diana and Charles' wedding on tape which I was like 6 or something and then I was always thinking about mine!

Needless to say, I am freaking excited about the Royal Wedding tomorrow.  Of course, it starts at 4am and I do NOT function well at 4am.  If I didnt have to work all day, I may try it, but since I have to be awake and peppy for a full day of counseling students, teachign guidance lessons, and running small groups, my DVR is doing the work at 4am and I will watch the big event with my friends tomorrow night!  Shout out to Katie Drost and possibly Crystal Conklin for a Royal Wedding Watching Party:)  I will probably leave my TV on overnight and if I happen to wake up, so bit it.  I'll just be tired!

I get happy tears thinking about their big day!  Look how happy they are:

Maybe it's because I'm a newlywed myself (June 13th will be a year) and I have so many happy memories from my day:

Or maybe it's because my older brother is getting married in 3 weeks:

That's his finace Krystal - they get married on May 15th!!  This picture was taken at our wedding, which they were both in...

Whatever the reason, I get all giddy and sappy just thinking about weddings these days!  This Royal one is huge, and even though I don't know Will or Kate personally, its part of history and I feel like being a part of that!

So tomorrow night we will gather with pizza (classy, I know) and a heart shaped cake I am making just for the occasion (corny, I know) and I will probably just wear my PJs (which would probably make Kate faint, PJs to a wedding?!?) and we will watch history!  I sincerely wish the couple happy and full of love days ahead!  Best Wishes and Congrats!  I can't wait!



Life, Love and Book 5:)

Good (EARLY) morning friends!

Have I mentioned lately that I have trouble sleeping?  I dont know what it is, maybe an over active mind these days, but I wake up at a good time every am (8 or 9) and I hardly ever nap anymore, especially on week days, and even though I'm exhausted by 10pm every night I never get in bed at that time and then I think I miss my window!  And then...well, I blog...late at night....when no one is up to read it;)

I hope everyone enjoyed their Valentine's Day!  I know I did, we had such a great day.  I'm excited for our "just us" night on Friday night but it was really sweet sharing Valentine's Day with Dave and Ashley, as a family.  Good times!  My husband really is the best man alive, I love him so much!  He is such a great hubby and father and he takes care of us and is so supportive of me and whatever I choose to do, job wise.  I've been so stressed about it lately and he just makes it all better by just being him.  He is special, he is a blessing, he is my soul mate:)  Ok ok....enough gooshy romance....on with it, Tina!

Ahem....I realized that I never mentioned my replacement book for the one I tossed (Postmortem).  I got a called from the library saying one of my requests was in, so this one is book 10:

How to bake a perfect life by Barbara O'Neal.  It looked cute.  Anything about baking is good times.  I love dreaming about being a baker and opening up a cupcakery someday (I never will.  Had I acted on the idea when I first had it about 3 years ago I would've beaten the TWO that have sprung up in our town in the last year, lol!!!). 

So that brings my final February reading list to:
1.  The Lucky One by Sparks
2.  Mysterious Benedict Society by Stewart
3.  Heart of the Matter by Griffin
4.  Dead in Dallas by Harris
5.  Breaking Free by Moore
6.  Total Money Makeover by Ramsey
7. Encyclopedia of Frabric Crafts by Stewart
8.  Wurthering Heights by Bronte
9.  Backstage with Julia by Barr
10.  How to bake a perfect life by O'Neal

I'm done 1,2,3, & 4...I just finished Dead in Dallas today (oops I mean yesterday).  It was ok.  I get sucked into the story but Harris' writing is a little dark for me.  It's so....vampire adult dark.  I'm not sure I like it.  I may wait a while to read her next one, if I read it at all.  There is some element of mystery and a few twists but this one...eh it was just ok.  I think if you reeeeeeally love the vamp lit genre, you would love love love this.  I only like Twilight, lol, other than that I don't think I'm a vamp lit girl.  So..I give this book a 2.  Only read it if you have read the first one and like that!  Then, give this a chance and it will help you decide if you want to continue the series.  Sookie travels to Dallas in this one to work with another sector of vampires, with her beloved Bill (although I'm thinking their relationship is more...physical and addictive that anything?) and drama happens, blah blah blah....I won't ruin it because I know there are some people who love this stuff.  I'm just not into it anymore!  I can't love them all, right!?!

Tomorrow I will start Breaking Free by Beth Moore.  This is definitely a spiritual book, a journey if you will, and I am excited about it.  It's been a while since I've had a good soul searching read - I'm excited for it!  I love Jesus and I love going to church and being with Christian friends but there is something so special to me about reading a book and finding Jesus in it waiting to teach me some new lessons in life.  In a good way! 

I'm really enjoying the variety of books I am reading!!  In the past month I've read mysteries, history, love stories and kids stories and books about cooking and food - it's just so much fun! 

Also I'm making some changes here and there to my blog!  Right now I'm torn between the nice neat white background or a really cute vintagey lovely background.  I like how it looks now...so I'll keep it like this until I get bored.  I made that cool banner up there, isn't it cute?  I wasn't kidding about the graphic designing thing...I may teach myself!

Ok, that's all, goodnight!

Feeling inspired....

Do you sometimes ever feel...inspired by certain things you see?  I do!  A really cool book, a beautiful old building, a cooking show, or a picture in a magazine, or a blog post that has meaning.  I am very...."inspirable" lol I KNOW it's not a word, but I'm saying it anyway.  I am a sponge and I soak up ideas in the world around me, take them in and create something of my own.  Right now, in my crazy in-between life, I feel most inspired!  I really could do anything?!  I could write a book, or paint a wall magenta (Don't worry babe, I wont!), or cook up some really crazy swanky recipie.  The only problems is, I have SO much inspiration that turns into SO many ideas, I dont know how to harness it all in and actually DO something about it?  I mean, ok, sometimes I do make really fun, fancy dinners....or randomly decide to paint a little basement room one day to turn into a craft room...but these are just a few of the millions of "ideas" I have in my head that I want to act on!

 Is anyone else like that?  Reading does this to me!!  I'll read a book and become so absorbed in it that I want to experience the life of the book for myself.  Well...not all books, I just got done reading a murder mystery but don't be scared, lol, the only thing that was inspiring in that book was the psychology of it all - which mean me remember how much I really love counseling people.  I read that Disney book the other day and now all I want to do for the rest of my life is read about, write about, and travel to Disney.  It's just a phase (well kinda...I will ALWAYS want to travel to Disney!)  Or I read the blog I love, Young House Love, and I'm inspired so much to do little updates around our home!  Then...I'll think about how fun it would be to do other updates, and remember I need a job for money to do this stuff, and then I'll be inspired to get online and apply to 100's of crazy jobs (believe me, in 2 years of almost complete unemployment, you can get creative!)

Anyways, these are just thoughts going out to the void...it may not make any sense.  I know that I love being this way.  I love thinking that anything is really possible if we put our minds and hearts into something.  I feel that as this blog begins to live and breathe you will see a lot of my ADHD inspiration going around...cooking, decorating, writing, reading, traveling...I know this started as a reading challenge blog and that is still what it is...but with life all around it - I'm not just about reading and therefore am not sure I can confine myself to just writing about that!  The Disney stuff I'll save for my little side job of writing for the Examiner;)  Unless it's something really good!  There may not be rhyme or reason to this little blog I've started, but after almost a month, I really love doing it, even if no one is reading!  It's there for me, to get my thoughts and ideas out into the world - however crazy or unimportant they are;)

Ok well it's off to clean, and come to think of it - to make Ashley stop playing Wii and clean too (sounding a little evil stepmotherish?  I'm not, I promise!!!  She has weekly chores!)

Good night!