people i love.

,

Today I am going to tell you about my absolute favorite cousin, miss Hannah Elizabeth Friskney.  I am mostly inspired to do this because she came over to hang out tonight and I love her so.  She is seriously SO funny and smart (valedictorian!) and awesome and pretty and she totally humors me when I want to dress her up like a scene kid and take pictures in the snow (see below).

Being six years younger than me, she's like the little sister I never had.  She was also my maid of honor.  Han just got home from a semester abroad in England on this past Christmas day (!) and I am so excited she's decided to finish up school in Cincinnati so now she is super close again (!!) and we have opportunities to hang out more (!!!). 

So yes.  There you have it, my favorite cousin.

money/future

You know I have to say it: at the end of the day we will have completed two weeks of this p90x bullsh.  I feel like we are pretty awesome for that.

Anyway.

Rob and I have talked and kind of decided we are going to live as frugally as possible for the remainder of the year.  This is for a bunch of reasons, including but not limited to: Rob is going back to school full time in the fall to complete his bachelor's at NKU and that's going to cost us, we need to start paying off our debts (cars and Rob's school loans), and saving up to buy our own home.  Living frugally for us will mean not eating out all the time (or hardly at all), choosing our entertainment wisely (aka no movies all the time), and not buying shoes or clothes or things for the house unless we absolutely need them.  It's going to be super difficult, but our goal right now is since Rob was bumped up to salary and is making a bit more than he was previously, that we would be able to deposit the entirety of my pay into savings and live only off of his income.  Of course, if this is not enough we would have the option of depositing only like seventy-five percent of my income or something to savings, but really, we are shooting for really, really frugal living.  I already miss shopping. 

But, it should be worth it.

I could take this in a different direction and talk about how as a society we hoard up all kinds of junk we don't need, anyway, and especially as a Christian, I am being ridiculous by spending all my money on things for myself.  You probably already know what I mean by that, though.  So I'll leave it at that.

The reason I wrote this down is mostly for accountability.  So if you see me at the mall, tell me to go home and put my money in the bank.

kthxbye.

thursday, thursday

Yep, it's Thursday.  Obviously that means things are not going right.

Last night I fell asleep thinking, "Yes! I am so excited that tomorrow's work out is only 45 minutes".  Well, I was wrong to be excited.  For early morning cardio at 7 AM not only is not exciting, it kind of blows.  Yep, it was pretty terrible.  I barely made it through and afterward I prepared a breakfast of cottage cheese and fruit.  After eating only 1/2 strawberry - ONE HALF - I proceeded to be so overcome with nausea that I had to run to the kitchen sink and vom it right up, before vomming some more, but since there was nothing else in me besides water, I spent a good few minutes dry heaving.

Awesome.

And now to match the morning little girl is being such a delight*

*sarcasm


Thursday, we really need to set aside our differences and just try and get along.  This song and dance is getting kind of old.

++++++++++++++++

If you read this, sorry for all the complaints.  I am actually feeling pretty good since we started working out.  This is day nine, so I like to think of it as being 1/10 of the way there!  Not too bad; I feel pretty proud of us for sticking it out even this far.  The most annoying thing is how long the workouts are and how much time and effort goes into planning every single thing we put in our mouths, hence why we have began attempting waking up before work to get the exercising out of the way.


Anyway, here's to Thursday.

things i want.

Warning: materialistic and ridiculous.

Monster. I have actually only seen the the first three discs on DVD, which I believe is only 15 out of 74 episodes!  They never made any more!  Originally in the Japanese (duh), this manga was made into English I think in 2006.  Rob and I watched it for the first time a couple years ago and it is AMAZING.  I am not really into manga or anime or anything like that but the story line is so interesting and well written. I finally found a site that sells all 74 in Japanese with English subtitles, so Rob, when you read this - hint hint.  

Puppy.  I really do want a puppy, though I know I will not get one any time soon.  This is due to several factors, including but not limited to how often Rob and I are gone during the day, the smallness of our house/backyard for dog exercise, and obviously all the expenses that come with properly owning a pet. It wouldn't be fair to raise a puppy in our current situation.

 Some day, though, little puppy, you will be mine!

To go to Hawaii. Or at this point, really any place that is at least 50 degrees warmer than here.

Or if I was to get real ambitious, New Zealand.  Specifically sites where Lord of the Rings was filmed (duh). Seriously, how epic would that be?

Yes, I got this image from Harry Potter Wiki.

To apparate.  Because then I could get to previous locations freely and with ease.

Do I sound cool yet?

From FannyFishVintage on Etsy

And if I had a baby, this hot air balloon quilt.  What?  Why is this the cutest baby blanket ever?  I told Rob, after I had seen it, that he was lucky he hasn't knocked me up yet, because I would have ordered this thing posthaste, even if it is $180.

The end.

weekend summary

So, I'm going to get the P90x talk out of the way.  We are finished with day 5 and I can honestly say that I like it, though I'm pretty sure Rob hates it. So far, I have found yoga x the most undesirable.  It is 95 minutes of agony.  Plank to upward dog x 45 minutes is the bane of my existence.

Moving on.

This weekend has been pretty crazy. We ran so many errands this weekend getting groceries and equipment we needed for the coming days in the program.  We spontaneously made an eye appointment for Rob in Mason so that took up four hours of Saturday.  Also half my week's wages. Plus side: we got to stop over at Rob's parents for a little bit and visit.  At Christmas, Jane (my mother-in-law) showed us the crocheted afghan she was working on and when we stopped in on Saturday, we got to take it home.  It is seriously so pretty, and I love it!  The colors are awesome.  She is very talented!

 

Today was less hectic than yesterday, but we still were out a bit.  I got my car washed, we picked up a capo for Rob's guitar, ate Chipotle (we attempted to make it P90x friendly), and went to Target.  When we got home we did our workout and I got to work on the lemon garlic chicken from the nutrition guide.  I was worried because when it started baking it smelled way too strong and pretty terrible, but luckily it did not taste the way it smelled, ha.

Oh!  And I made Rob take pictures with me in our little backyard today.  I know he loves that sooo much.

And lastly, my latest drawing.  I thought about not posting it because I don't like it too much.  The polar bear cubs look a little weird.  Whatevs.  It was also too big to scan so I had to take a picture of it.

 

I have some creative ideas floating around in my head but I do not feel like I have enough time or energy lately to actually do anything about it.  Hopefully that changes soon.  

Oh!  And lastly, Freelance Whales.  Have you heard this band?!  They don't have any official video that I know of for the song I want to share, but they are wonderful.  Our favorite song from them is "Broken Horse".  It sounds very Sufjan Stevens-esque and is pretty,pretty, pretty.  Basically I'm saying to go HERE and buy this album now.  The end.

 

End post.

nanny diaries?

Why do I always hate Thursday the most?  It always seems to suck more than the first three days of the work week.  Probably because my patience is wearing thin and I just want it to be the freaking weekend already.

I feel like little girl is doing everything she can lately to push my limits.  Unfortunately, being mild-mannered with children is something that has taken me over a decade to master, and after a full day with one that has acted particularly rotten, it is all I can do not to flip out and kill everyone (not a death threat).

We went to the museum again today, and she was too busy being cranky and defiant to actually get any good out of it.  I'm sick of her telling me, "No".  I would also like to point out that at this point sometimes when I am talking to her she will slap me in the face and then watch for my reaction.

Oh my.

The final straw came tonight at dinner, after I spent over a half hour getting together her meal.  I was putting her in her chair and she kicked her tray, spilling all the food all over my clothes and the floor.  At that point I literally wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and just leave forever.  Not an option.  Instead I had to very calmly fix the tray, clean up the floor, find her new food to eat, and not make it obvious to her that there were tears running down my face.


Now I guess I should go do our work out.  Endorphins.  I need endorphins.

day one

First day of P90x = check.

It really wasn't that bad.  Minus the wallet rape-age I described in the previous post, of course.  The food was pretty easy to get together and the workout, though intense, was not as bad as I thought it would be.  We were able to make it through the whole hour (kinda) and after Rob manages to pull himself away from Call of Duty we are going to create our own menu for the rest of the week.  Hopefully we can stick with it.

I promise I'll stop writing about this one day.

The end.