rollling along

As many other bloggers have noted, life can seem somewhat uninteresting at times. It feels that way for me right now, a little. Last weekend (for Memorial day) Staci and I somehow ended up with a 3 day weekend. We rarely have the same day off together and somehow had 3.

We thought about going to a concert at Six Flags this past Saturday but tickets for the concert, with vehicle parking and park admission, were going to be very expensive. Sigh... so instead we agreed to help Staci's brother Bryan by watching his kids so he and Heather could go out of town for their anniversary. It ended up being fun watching 4 kids together but it reminded us that when the time is right we hope to have our own kids one at a time!

By Sunday night they returned home and so did we. Monday morning we woke up and sat up in bed, wondering how to spend the day. It has been so long since we had the opportunity to do ~whatever~ together that we honestly sat there a moment in a stupor of thought. Seeing as we couldn't clean graves of family or any other memorial day type event, we agreed to go to Lowe's to buy a pantry shelf and some curtains (both on sale :) and then spent the rest of the day installing them. the apartment is feeling more "homey" (?) now but we're both at a loss for things to do. it seems all we do right now is work work work, and try to squeeze our church callings in somewhere (not to mention laundry, dishes and all the other mundane things.)

Putting our lives events on 'paper' makes me wonder what we have to be so busy with. or stressed out about. It seems we've gotten to the point where we run and run waiting for a 'breather' and when we get one we don't know what to do with it. Life is still a game of hurry up and wait.

if anyone has advice it's more than welcome. I'm sure everyone can commiserate however :)

the next chapter

Now that Staci's done with her cleanse diet, life for us can get back to 'normal'. (what is normal anyway? :)

We've both decided it was good she went through it, as it changed our perspectives on what we eat. Both of us agreed to have more fruits and veggies, organic when possible. (although I hate the 'organic' terminology, namely that it has nothing to do with the carbon-containing 'Organic compounds' we learned about in high school science class. It's now just a label to charge more. jump on the trendy bandwagon i guess.)

she's feeling a lot "lighter" (as she puts it). not to mention the nutritional response testing showed her body had several chemicals to detox (including aluminum, which we found was in almost every women's deodorant! who'd have thought). crazy.

Her brother Bryan is good at finding that sort of thing. That's probably why he's so into his job in nutrition, chiropractic, and acupuncture. here's his website if you're interested. and who knows, if you call you just might get Staci on the line ;)

I am looking forward to fall when I start school again at a local community college. my only concern is how to juggle working and school. not to mention what job works best to help me get through it (I'd rather not continue the banking avenue but I may not have a choice.) seems we're all going through life's little challenges. yet the simple things get us through it. namely Dr. Pepper and chocolate!

Very proud!

just a quick update to say I'm so proud of my beautiful wife Staci! she's currently detoxing her body through a 21-day purification program eating raw fruits and veggies. read about it here.

currently she's lost 10 pounds! ... and a parasite :P  -haha.      I know it's important to her and I'm very proud. not to mention, since we haven't been eating out for dinner, and neither of us have had any soda or chocolate in over a week, I've lost weight too! (about 5 1/2 pounds!). add that to the last year's worth of weight loss and I'm 2/3 rid of my newlywed chub!(seriously, ya stop runnin' around and settle down, and pack on the pounds, what's up with that?!)

way to go baby!

Throwback to Christmas '09!

hey y'all

for whatever reason I was reminded today of this past Christmas season's festivities and thought I'd flashback to last winter as Staci did in her blog.

in Frisco, TX the local town square is decorated in holiday lights, flashing in unison to music that was broadcast over a local radio frequency by this guy. they played a song by Trans-Siberian orchestra called "Wizards in Winter". it rocks!

there's no online video of the main street display, but I found a video of his house. watch it here!

Let it Snow!
                .-------.
      *         | #     |    *
                |_______|         *
               _|=======|_             *
   *          [___________]
               .'       `.   *   | /  
              :   @   @   :     \|/_
              :     <     :     //   
     \~_s~-~s~s`._`...'_.'     //      *
  *   `--~-~-~~s~/`"""'  `-.  //
            /'/s/   _       `//
           / /s/   (_)       /
          ///s/     _        :  *
    *    ///s/     (_)      .'          *
        // |/`.           .'
     __//    .-''-------'`-.
      /|\  .'       _       `.      *
     / | \:        (_)        :
         :          _          :
         :         (_)         :
  *      :          _          :     *
         :         (_)         :
          :                   :
  ""'"""'""`.               .'"'"""'""'""
             `-._       _.-'
                 `"""""'

6 weeks later

wow, I hadn't realized it had been so long since my last post!

--SO SORRY!--

Anyhow, much has happened and much will happen in the weeks to come. since my birthday last month Staci and I have worked hard to shape up our apartment (including an all-evening rearrange of our 2nd bedroom/ Office). we're finding we're both so busy we rarely have time to be at home, nor enjoy it.
each day we have to be at work (respectively) between 8:30 and 9:30, work a full day and both of us get off around 6-7pm. bear in mind Staci works longer hours but I have a farther commute.

I seriously hate that drive. every day it takes between 30-45 minutes each direction to go about 12 miles. the only major road between that could speed up the process is a toll road that racks up 4 dollars a day. ouch! the good news is Staci and I have been working full time and like the extra income (40+ hours a week), the bad news is with a commute and lunch hour, we put in a good 50+ hours away from home. some nights we come home, make dinner, and go right to bed :P

but life is good. our cat Fry ("Phillip J. Fry") is growing larger by the day. last time I checked he was 15 pounds. and 2/3 the length of my arm. yeah he's a big kitty (or a small cougar!) but we love him. we're slowly introducing him to the same room as our cockatiel bird, Behr. their first meeting Fry charged the cage, but now he just sits on the floor and falls asleep. we gotta watch that guy though, he's probably just waiting till we let our guard down.

anyway things are good for us right now. we're trying desperately to get residency for me by August so that I can get school at the local Community College for 1/6 the price. they're pretty strict about the rules for residency though so we'll keep you posted.


Beyond that Staci and I are striving to improve ourselves, through better nutrition and an upcoming excersize program. heck, just this past week I finally went to our apartment's Gym. for the first time. ever. (been here since november...) -It was great! they have several machines I can appreciate, as well as some high tech stuff (the treadmills have touch screen LCDs you can flip to TV while you're power-walking!)

goodnight!

Birthday bash & a bounce house

Hey folks! this past Friday was my birthday and Staci decided to go all out, fulfilling a childhood dream. I'd always wanted a bounce house! sure, i'm a little over a decade "too old" for that sort of thing, but I've secretly always wanted to play on one. never had the chance. I had A LOT of fun!
Staci is by far the GREATEST PARTY PLANNER EVER!  Here's a few photos, enjoy!