So, here's attempt number one at being outgoing. My fantastic, supportive hubby helped me do it :)
We invited a few couples over to our house for Friday night. We bought a big lasagna a while ago because it was on super sale, and we'd have leftovers for a month if we ate it just the two of us, so we'll be eating that, with some other stuff, and have super yummy symphony brownies for dessert (brownies with a layer of symphony bar chocolate in the middle - I'll probably do either a ganache topping or just powdered sugar, depending on time), and then we'll play games after! I'm excited. And I have friday off of work - no idea why - so I'll be done with classes at 12:40, and have the afternoon to clean and prep. Hopefully it goes well.
When planning this, we realized there are a lot of couples in the ward... too many for one night. So, we're planning another such night for sometime in March.
Phase number two will be tomorrow - sitting by people at lunch, instead of upstairs where it's safe. Wish me luck!
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Becoming Outgoing
Some people may see that and think, "What? Lori is one of the most outgoing people I know!" Sorry Mom, I used to be, but I'm not so much anymore.
But that is going to change. I've decided I want to be outgoing again. I'm tired of hiding upstairs at institute and eating alone (except Mondays, I eat with Anna on Mondays :-D ). I was reading Justin's textbook (don't judge, you know you read your spouses textbooks too... okay maybe not, but it's really interesting!), and it was talking about networking, and how you need to create a network before you need it. And I realized, if I was more outgoing, that would help Justin's network too! And then I might have friends who are in a similar situation as me!
The only thing is, I've become quite accustomed to living my own little life, enjoying my lunch upstairs alone. So I need some help on ideas of how to become less chicken. :)
My first plan is to just find someone to sit by for lunch. Easy enough, right? Hopefully. But how else can I make more friends? There are a bunch of fun couples in my ward who are in the same boat as me, fairly newly married, no kids. How to I become friends with them?
Any suggestions are appreciated. Also, I need you to follow up and make sure I actually do something this time. Comment, email, pester me and make sure I'm networking! Or making friends, or whatever you want to call it. Either way, I want to have people I can invite over to my place for fun game nights and such.
Thanks for reading!
But that is going to change. I've decided I want to be outgoing again. I'm tired of hiding upstairs at institute and eating alone (except Mondays, I eat with Anna on Mondays :-D ). I was reading Justin's textbook (don't judge, you know you read your spouses textbooks too... okay maybe not, but it's really interesting!), and it was talking about networking, and how you need to create a network before you need it. And I realized, if I was more outgoing, that would help Justin's network too! And then I might have friends who are in a similar situation as me!
The only thing is, I've become quite accustomed to living my own little life, enjoying my lunch upstairs alone. So I need some help on ideas of how to become less chicken. :)
My first plan is to just find someone to sit by for lunch. Easy enough, right? Hopefully. But how else can I make more friends? There are a bunch of fun couples in my ward who are in the same boat as me, fairly newly married, no kids. How to I become friends with them?
Any suggestions are appreciated. Also, I need you to follow up and make sure I actually do something this time. Comment, email, pester me and make sure I'm networking! Or making friends, or whatever you want to call it. Either way, I want to have people I can invite over to my place for fun game nights and such.
Thanks for reading!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Happy Happy Birthday, From Myself to Me!
So, it's the first day in a while that I have nothing pressing, so I'll blog!
Today is my birthday, I'm finally no longer a teenager.
I'm excited to eat monkey bread, not go to work, go shopping, and spend an entire day with the man I love. Today is going to be awesome. Much better than last year, when I only saw Justin for 20 minutes (he happened to have an accounting test that evening. Who gives tests at 6:00 at night?)
So, life has been busy. Being in Young Women's is really fun, but definitely keeps me busy. And concerned. I always believed my leaders when they told me they loved me and wanted me to be happy, blah blah, but now that I feel it, man, I didn't have any idea. It's weird, I see these girls a few hours a week, I've only known them a few months, but I really do love them and really want them to make good choices so they can get to the temple.
School has been fairly light for me (I think it's to make up for the fact that Justin is having a really tough semester). It's strange because I'm taking more credits, and more upper level classes, than last semester, but it's way easier.
Sunday was Chinese New Year, and we were invited to celebrate with a family from Justin's old ward. It was really fun, we had a nice Chinese dinner and then just talked. They are a fun family, 7 kids, the dad went to Taiwan on his mission too, so he and Justin had fun talking, asking if they remembered this or that. The kids were so funny too, one of them was telling me I could keep the chopsticks (they were the disposable kind), they were surprisingly well maintained for there being seven. It was really fun though.
Well, I need to go check on my monkey bread, so have a great day, everyone! I certainly will!
Today is my birthday, I'm finally no longer a teenager.
I'm excited to eat monkey bread, not go to work, go shopping, and spend an entire day with the man I love. Today is going to be awesome. Much better than last year, when I only saw Justin for 20 minutes (he happened to have an accounting test that evening. Who gives tests at 6:00 at night?)
So, life has been busy. Being in Young Women's is really fun, but definitely keeps me busy. And concerned. I always believed my leaders when they told me they loved me and wanted me to be happy, blah blah, but now that I feel it, man, I didn't have any idea. It's weird, I see these girls a few hours a week, I've only known them a few months, but I really do love them and really want them to make good choices so they can get to the temple.
School has been fairly light for me (I think it's to make up for the fact that Justin is having a really tough semester). It's strange because I'm taking more credits, and more upper level classes, than last semester, but it's way easier.
Sunday was Chinese New Year, and we were invited to celebrate with a family from Justin's old ward. It was really fun, we had a nice Chinese dinner and then just talked. They are a fun family, 7 kids, the dad went to Taiwan on his mission too, so he and Justin had fun talking, asking if they remembered this or that. The kids were so funny too, one of them was telling me I could keep the chopsticks (they were the disposable kind), they were surprisingly well maintained for there being seven. It was really fun though.
Well, I need to go check on my monkey bread, so have a great day, everyone! I certainly will!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Crafting
For Christmas this year I did a lot of home-made gifts. And now I am finally getting around to showing all of you!
For Dustin and Sarah, I made an ornament wreath (I stole the idea from Ashley, she's got lots to spare though.)
Theirs was actually slightly different, it had gold instead of silver, and a red bow, but you get the idea. This is the one I made for my own home.
For Benjamin and Curtis:
A lot of it was tracing, but pretty much everything I modified from the picture. The race track, garage, park and house were free hand, no tracing. Justin did a lot of coloring in the roads. He's so great :)
For Abigail:
For whatever reason I didn't take a normal picture of the tutu, I just took a crazy one of it on my head as a hat. At least I'm making a normal face in this one. I wish I had gotten a picture of Abigail wearing it though.
For Justin:
I bought the paper lantern at Michaels (on sale!) and wrote our name in Chinese. I think it turned out pretty good :) Plus look at those gorgeous books behind it... I'm such a nerd. (By the way, if you're wondering, from left to right, they are the complete works of: Douglas Adams [Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series], Lewis Carroll [Alice's Adventures in Wonderland] and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [Sherlock Holmes]).
One of my coworkers just recently turned 66 (she's awesome), and we decided to celebrate. Someone brought in decorations, someone cookies, and I brought these cupcakes:
There's a reason for the ducks.
Our company recently got new insurance, and so they were giving away these Aflac stuffed ducks. They only gave out like three, and Phylis (the one who turned 66) got one of them. I would constantly talk about how cute it was, and it has now become the official duck of scheduling. We dress it up for the holidays (it's been a turkey, Santa Claus, a partier [for new years], and will soon be cupid). So, duck cupcakes! I think they turned out really cute! Ashley is the one who suggested how to do the ducks. I didn't have a cookie cutter that would fit on one cupcake, and there is no way I'm going to try to free-hand that. So it's a mosaic affect!
That's what's been keeping me busy lately.
And, as always, thanks for reading!
(P.S. I just posted two in a row, because I had a lot to blog about, so there's another new one just below this)
For Dustin and Sarah, I made an ornament wreath (I stole the idea from Ashley, she's got lots to spare though.)
For Benjamin and Curtis:
For Abigail:
For Justin:
One of my coworkers just recently turned 66 (she's awesome), and we decided to celebrate. Someone brought in decorations, someone cookies, and I brought these cupcakes:
There's a reason for the ducks.
That's what's been keeping me busy lately.
And, as always, thanks for reading!
(P.S. I just posted two in a row, because I had a lot to blog about, so there's another new one just below this)
A weekend of giving
And receiving. Mostly receiving on my end.
My husband had a camp out this weekend, so we spent our first night apart since getting married. It almost killed me.
To keep from thinking about it too much, I invited myself over for a sleepover at Kristi's - I figured, it would make things more bearable for me, and I think Jenny had a blast :)
As I was heading out to go to Kerry's baby shower, Kristi says to me, "Oh, by the way, there's a grill in the garage if you want. It's our old George Forman one, we upgraded recently, but it still works great. Has detachable plates for washing and everything."
I just looked over at her and said, "Really?"
What she didn't know was that I had been planning on asking for one for my birthday. I think my stunned reaction made her think I didn't want it, because she kind of excused herself, saying "you don't have to take it if you don't want it."
Needless to say, I took it, with much gratitude. :) I've been aching for a home-grilled hamburger for months.
So, trying to think of something else to pad my birthday list...
Justin and I have been talking about how when we move to a bigger apartment it would be really nice to get a desk. Then just this past week, we've been thinking maybe we should get one sooner than that. We have a wall in our bedroom that would fit a small desk, and it would be really useful.
So we were talking to Justin's mom about how we were looking for a desk, and I was planning on maybe asking for one for my birthday, she says, "well, if it would fit, the one in Justin's old room doesn't get used very often." Justin's sister and brother still living at home both have desks in their rooms, so the only one really using it was Travis when he would come home from the dorms. Yeah, it didn't get used very often.
So we all troop into the room to take a look at it, and it definitely is small enough. Justin leans over to me and says "You know, I bet that would fit in the Explorer right now."
So, ta da! We now have a desk. Family rocks.
My husband had a camp out this weekend, so we spent our first night apart since getting married. It almost killed me.
To keep from thinking about it too much, I invited myself over for a sleepover at Kristi's - I figured, it would make things more bearable for me, and I think Jenny had a blast :)
As I was heading out to go to Kerry's baby shower, Kristi says to me, "Oh, by the way, there's a grill in the garage if you want. It's our old George Forman one, we upgraded recently, but it still works great. Has detachable plates for washing and everything."
I just looked over at her and said, "Really?"
What she didn't know was that I had been planning on asking for one for my birthday. I think my stunned reaction made her think I didn't want it, because she kind of excused herself, saying "you don't have to take it if you don't want it."
Needless to say, I took it, with much gratitude. :) I've been aching for a home-grilled hamburger for months.
So, trying to think of something else to pad my birthday list...
Justin and I have been talking about how when we move to a bigger apartment it would be really nice to get a desk. Then just this past week, we've been thinking maybe we should get one sooner than that. We have a wall in our bedroom that would fit a small desk, and it would be really useful.
So we were talking to Justin's mom about how we were looking for a desk, and I was planning on maybe asking for one for my birthday, she says, "well, if it would fit, the one in Justin's old room doesn't get used very often." Justin's sister and brother still living at home both have desks in their rooms, so the only one really using it was Travis when he would come home from the dorms. Yeah, it didn't get used very often.
So we all troop into the room to take a look at it, and it definitely is small enough. Justin leans over to me and says "You know, I bet that would fit in the Explorer right now."
So, ta da! We now have a desk. Family rocks.
Justin setting everything up
Hard at work
So, it's been a pretty good weekend. Other than the whole camping trip thing. But all the free stuff is awesome. Thanks everyone! The desk fits perfectly, and I can't wait to use the grill.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
New Years Celebrations
What did I do for New Years?
I slept.
Justin and I went over to my parents and played wii games and made yummy hot chocolate things and then watched tv with Ashley and Zach, and Ashley fell asleep first, then I did, then Zach did. Somehow Justin stayed awake. Probably has to do with the fact that all growing up he rarely went to bed before midnight. That was an adjustment for him when we got married, me going to bed at nine :)
Justin woke us up (well, he tried to wake up Ashley but she was too disinterested and tired to actually wake up), and we did the countdown thing. Then I went back to sleep.
We're finally getting over the sickness that has been lurking in our home for the past week. It's been nice to have the energy to do things outside. I was getting really stir crazy.
I used to get really into making new years resolutions, and every now and then would actually keep some.
This year, my main goal is to make dinners that actually have nutritional value instead of just fast and easy (not every night, but get some fruits and veggies in there several times a week), and to keep my house in a state that is, if not up to my standards of clean, at least not embarrassing if someone stops by. Wish me luck, neither will be easy with as sparse as time can be at my house.
Hope everyone had a great new year!
I slept.
Justin and I went over to my parents and played wii games and made yummy hot chocolate things and then watched tv with Ashley and Zach, and Ashley fell asleep first, then I did, then Zach did. Somehow Justin stayed awake. Probably has to do with the fact that all growing up he rarely went to bed before midnight. That was an adjustment for him when we got married, me going to bed at nine :)
Justin woke us up (well, he tried to wake up Ashley but she was too disinterested and tired to actually wake up), and we did the countdown thing. Then I went back to sleep.
We're finally getting over the sickness that has been lurking in our home for the past week. It's been nice to have the energy to do things outside. I was getting really stir crazy.
I used to get really into making new years resolutions, and every now and then would actually keep some.
This year, my main goal is to make dinners that actually have nutritional value instead of just fast and easy (not every night, but get some fruits and veggies in there several times a week), and to keep my house in a state that is, if not up to my standards of clean, at least not embarrassing if someone stops by. Wish me luck, neither will be easy with as sparse as time can be at my house.
Hope everyone had a great new year!
Monday, November 30, 2009
6 Wonderful Months
Today marks six months that I have been married to the man of my dreams.
We celebrated by having a nice dinner - turkey potato casserole, goat cheese with crackers, rolls with honey-butter, and some cheesecake for dessert. (we're poor and couldn't afford a $20 meal at Chili's - this meal cost a total of $2 for the Goat's cheese, everything else was leftovers or we bought on sale a while ago)
It's been a really amazing six months. Very stressful, but definitely worth it. Justin makes me happier than I ever imagined I could be. The past few days have been tough as we've been looking at our diminishing budget, and I've been looking at my not-so-diminishing load of homework. But somehow everyday Justin makes it better. He sends me a text telling me how beautiful I am, he washed my car while I'm out shopping with his mother and sister, he buys me goat's cheese, he cleans the kitchen. He's so selfless, and sometimes I wish I knew how he does it. He has such an amazing testimony, and works so hard to provide for our little family and make sure we are comfortable.
We celebrated by having a nice dinner - turkey potato casserole, goat cheese with crackers, rolls with honey-butter, and some cheesecake for dessert. (we're poor and couldn't afford a $20 meal at Chili's - this meal cost a total of $2 for the Goat's cheese, everything else was leftovers or we bought on sale a while ago)
It's been a really amazing six months. Very stressful, but definitely worth it. Justin makes me happier than I ever imagined I could be. The past few days have been tough as we've been looking at our diminishing budget, and I've been looking at my not-so-diminishing load of homework. But somehow everyday Justin makes it better. He sends me a text telling me how beautiful I am, he washed my car while I'm out shopping with his mother and sister, he buys me goat's cheese, he cleans the kitchen. He's so selfless, and sometimes I wish I knew how he does it. He has such an amazing testimony, and works so hard to provide for our little family and make sure we are comfortable.
I don't know what I'd do without him. He is exactly everything I've ever hoped for, and knows how to make me feel happier than ever before. I'm so happy that I get to spend eternity with him - these six months seem to have flown by, and I'm glad I don't have to worry about running out of time with him. Yay for temple marriage :)
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