Week of Thanks, Week Three.

31. Having dinner (and wine =]) on the table for Evan when he gets home so we can act like a family and not roommates with the whole "cooking" sitch.

32. "Love in the Present Tense." So good.

33. Cute children at my job. This one totally clung to my side for the hour that her sister tried on dresses. And I snuck her into a dressing room with a pretty little dress and she strutted her stuff around the store for a good 30 minutes in that thing. She was the cutest and made the fact that I had to stay like an hour past my shift end, a little better.

34. Engagements. Duh, I work in weddings. But when people I know get engaged, it brings me back to when I did. (That totally made me sound like I am 95. Yikes.)

35. Bjorg. My favorite Norwegian bff at work. And joking with her about how she's an illegal alien, teaching her to count to three in Amharic and learning in Norwegian, showing her my Ethiopian pictures and my ice skating videos, her telling me I look like I'm going to the beach in my cute little dress, and her calling me a snake because I have tattoos. I adore her.

36. Wearing a dress to work. (Minus the fact that these tights fell down all day and I had to sneak off and pull them up every 3 minutes.) But it was still cute.

37. Finally talking to a nice person at Qwest who basically told me everyone who works there is an idiot and he would fix all my problems. Thanks, Luis!

38. Getting my wedding ring back from the jewelers; newly replated and saudered.

39. The sweetest texts from Evan. "We are biased. We hate ourselves. There are few people who truly love themselves so much to call themselves perfect. That is why we have each other. You are beautiful." Evan, I adore you.

40. Finishing two books in January. Two down, forty eight to go.

Sunday Funday.

Yesterday was such a fun, fun day.

Evan and I slept in and sat around until it was time to get ready.

I got all dolled up and put on my Green Bay jersey just to make him mad. Which it did. I win!

But then I took it off because I am a girl and I feel like it's weird to wear a jersey sometimes. Especially when you like the rivals of your husband.

We went to our favorite sports bar, Hooligans, and ate a delish pizza, drank beer, and were totally surrounded by Bears fans. Once again, glad I didn't wear my jersey. Would have been shot.

My 8th grade homeroom teacher bought us beers, that was fun.

Then the Pack won! So Evan was craaaaaabby.

We did get in one cute picture before he turned into a toddler, though.

Actually two cute pictures. Because he didn't do what I told him to do the first time. Also please disregard the grease spots on my jersey. The only reason I even own a jersey is because I had to for a serving job I once had. Yes, I was forced to spend $60 on an article of clothing I can't even wear in public because I am the only person on the face of the planet besides Brett Favre who likes Brett Favre.

I also really, really wanted the Jets to win because then it would be the battle of the Favre's old teams, but they didn't. And I hateee the Steelers. But whatever. All that matters is that my team beat Evan's team, and now he owes me a nice dinner.



Lc

I'll be back later with day four of "Celebrate your beauty."

Week of Thanks, Week two.

18. Double dates with our dear, dear friends. And going to TWO movies in ONE week. Hurray for Larissa, bein a big girl!  (Not thankful for spilling that illegal soda all over my purse, book, journal, and wallet. Lame.)

19. Saturday pot lucks at work. Snacking on yummy food all day? I'm down.

20. Speaking of yummy food, at Saturday's pot luck, my coworker brought artichoke jalepeno dip from Albertson's and oh. my. gosh. Pretty sure it has crack in it because I ate the entire thing. It is SO good. I want to have a party so I can introduce all my friends to it.

21. Remembering the rules to "four on the couch." Who wants to play?!

22. Power naps with the hubs before late night movie dates. =] Unfortunately now I'm wide awake and will be for like three more hours. Which means I'll be reading. Double thanks!

23. Memoirs. And how my Kindle lets me preview 1584085963534 before I buy them.

24. Evan packing my lunch before school. And by school I mean work. He's so great.

25. Having a 100-percent-good day at work. Seriously. After all the ups and downs I go through with my jobs, it's so nice to come home haphaphappy.

26. Getting a 40 dollar tip from a bride!

27. Finding a table for my sewing machine! And restyling it to match "us."

28. Eating dinner with the in-laws.

29. Spending an evening in with Evan and nerding it up.

30. Making friends at work. Seriously, I am so comfortable there now it's amazing. It's still difficult and a challenge but the people I work with are awesome. And, I love the new girls. All of them. What a difference being nice to people makes! Seriously. I should have done that sooner in life. Anyway, they're all amazing. They make work enjoyable.

Once upon a college education...

This one time, when I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, I applied to this amaaaazing school in California for design. Some sort of visual merchandising junk.

I applied.

I paid the 1597049 dollars in fees for them to even look at my application.

I spent hours neglecting my finals for the real school I went to to apply to this design school.

I wrote a million essays.

I spent hours stressing over my telephone interview and practicing answering the inevitable questions.

I spent days, literally days without sleep, on three projects.

This is one of them. I look at it from time to time and fall in love with it and a teeny, tiny piece of my heart wonders where I'd be right now if I hadn't stayed here. If I had found the courage to move away. If I hadn't lost that friendship. If I hadn't worried about my future and just lived in the moment, just for the heck of it.

Can you even see that? Adjust your freaking screen thaaaangs so you can see that masterpiece! =]

This project was for a window display, made out of whatever medium I wanted. I can do art and junk but such open ended projects anger me slightly. I need to have some sort of direction or I kind of start over 600 times before I finally fall in love with it.

Anyway, I like to cut up magazines, I totes went through this "magazine collage" phase for a really long time and finally threw them out per Ev's requests. Jerk. So I cut out this chick, doing some cool pose, in a fancy pants dress, and I cut out two other dresses and their accessories. The lettering says "Disappear" with "Re" over the top of "Dis." I was so, so proud of this. My mother helped me, kudos mom, and they loved it.

Anyway, I stayed in this lame-o town for the boy I loved (but wasn't even dating. That there, that is love.) And I didn't go to the school. Right now, I am so content with the life I am living that I don't regret it. I can't imagine not living my life for the benefit of others. Redecorating someone's house or creating window displays for the rest of my life would not be as fulfilling as teaching my Ethiopian babies English.

But that dream was fun while it lasted.


Lc

Ps. I was accepted two days before my 20th birthday and it was definitely one of the best birthday presents ever. =]

Oh em gee, this is bigger than the Super Bowl!

Dear Evan,


The Packers are going to destroy the Bears. 


Love,

Your ever faithful-Brett Favre jersey wearing-Bears hating-loving-sweetheart of a wife. 




Ps. And when they do win, you still owe me one date with ice skates and a fancy pants dinner.


That is all.

Week of Thanks, week one.

I want to be more thankful this year. I want to appreciate the little things, and keep track of everything that makes me happy to wake up as me. So I'm starting my own thang. And I'm calling it "week of thanks." So I'll post my thankfullnesses every Sunday, join if you want =]  My goal is 365. I'm a week behind so my life better be extra great to make up for my sicky sick week.

1. Cuddling in bed, singing the most beautiful songs with Evan before we go to sleep. Especially how cute it is when he doesn't know the song so he makes up the words (and gets them wrong hahhaha).

2. Waking up and feeling almost 100% better (thanks to Ev and his amazingness bringing me a real burger after work on Sunday =]) and not feeling like I'm going to puke and pass out all at the same time. =]]]] Yay!!!

3. Losing my favorite earring by accidentally hitting my ear and feeling it fly out into the abyss of the carpet. But then finding it by accidentally stepping on it 30 seconds later after I canvassed the entire area on my hands and knees and believing it was gone forever. This is literally my favorite earring, okay, people?

4. Talking to a customer today (January 10) and telling her that I am going back to school in the fall, blahblahblah, this stupid thing that I've rehearsed a million times but don't really mean because all of the sudden I didn't want to do it, but saying it today (January 10) and meaning it. Feeling it. Really, honest-to-God wanting to go back to grad school. That felt.....good. =]

5. Evan giving the best back massages in the whole world.

6. Evan waking me up because he's laughing in his dream. Not a better way to wake up =]

7. Date nights with the hubs.

8. Forgiveness.

9. Grocery shopping with Evan who keeps me on track for our diet. He's the best =]

10. My mother's encouraging texts.

11. Friends! And not solely the ones pictured here. But especially these ones, because these are my bests.

12. Celebrating a wonderful six month wedding anniversary with my husband. It's already been half a year? No. Way.

13. Exhaustion. Is that a weird thing to be thankful for? Probably. But I'm thankful that my body gives me enough energy to get through my hectic day, and then tells me when it's time for bed.

14. Getting my first paycheck with commission! Even if it was only $17.50. (The commission, not the paycheck. Holy cow that would suck.)

15. Evan. He's so adorable. Tonight, after having a bad day at work, he made me come visit him at his job, he bought me dinner (which is not really true because it's my money, too) and he leaned over the bar and kissed me. Even though he could get in soooo much troub-a-dub-dub for that. But he's so sweet. I adore him.

16. Game nights with Evan's friends. I love his friends. Seriously toned my chubby face from laughing so hard at the things coming out of their mouths. And Cam's terrible sentence structure. (And I had a Dirty Shirley so the night was good =] )

17. My new Kindle. And how it turns on the first time I tell it to. And it doesn't freeze when I do junk on it. So stinkin excited to buy some bookies!!!

The best of 2010

Every year seems to go by a little quicker than the last. I swear time used to take forever as a kid. The time between my birthday in May and Christmas in December was probably about 22 years.

But now suddenly I'm grown up and a college graduate and married and traveling the world and thinking about babies and buying a house and moving out of Billings and changing the world.

So here's my favorite parts of 2010, one of my favorite years so far =]

I turned 22 with a tiny group of friends at a random Karaoke bar and don't mind that terrible picture of me.

Evan and I rented our first house! 

And we painted it and decorated it. But these pictures are before I put anything on the walls.

Jamie and I folded paper cranes for my wedding. Count: Jamie-10912409, Larissa-2.

I got married! =] (Not to Allie...)

I couldn't stop shaking to take a picture with my dad.

We went to Disney World.

I am indeed wearing pants...

And Evan got really mad about our 10 dollar margaritas. But it was our honeymoon so it was legit.

We creatively retook our wedding pictures with my mom.

And they are SO good. =]]

We went to London and saw Big Ben.

We went to London and saw the Palace. But not the queen. Or the guards.

We went back to Ethiopia and saw our babies.

And loved our babies.

And made our babies laugh.

And let them steal our cameras and be funny.

And got really really dirty and took cute pictures.

Took cute pictures with our favorite people.

We went to Kenya, and didn't shower for 30 days.

Kenya has cool trees and cool animals and that's it.

We saw giraffes and fed them...

We saw elephants and watched them be adorable.

We had our first married Christmas and our first Christmas tree.

I told you 2010 was a great year. I cannot wait for all the surprises 2011 has in store for us. Hopefully more trips to Ethiopia and not Kenya, hopefully more travels in the US, and more memories together. Because I love my husband.

And now I'm going to go ice skating at the park, and make the first best memory of 2011. Happy New Year!!!

Lc