So long and thanks for all the fish

First things first: I made my first cute cake for Tanya the other day. She posted it, and I'm super proud of it, and you can see it on her blog.

Anyway, Thanksgiving was awesome.

We spent the first two days with Cory's family on the St. Johns River. We played with Jet-skis, smoked turkeys and went fishin'.

Cory's great grandmother has spent the last 90 years perfecting her fishing skills, so I decided to let her take the lead in that department. Cory thought it was mean of me to make a blind woman wrestle a small, wriggly worm onto a small, very sharp barb. But hey, she offered.

I woke up around 5 AM on Friday to hit up some sales with my family. There wasn't really anything we had in mind to purchase, we just...wanted to spend money I guess. The first store we hit up was Michael's. My mom and I grabbed some carts and started scoping out the deals...then we saw them. 

Cricut machines! Retail value: 200.00 buckaroos. Black Friday Price: 59.00 big ones!!!!!

Our hands seemed to have a mind of their own as they placed the boxes in our carts. 

If you're not familiar with the cricut, you should know that it cuts paper/vinyl. If that doesn't sell you on it, just watch an infomercial and then tell me you don't want it.

I was a little unsure of what Cory's reaction to this purchase would be. As far as he knew, I just spent $60.00 on glorified scissors.

But as we sat down to figure out how to use the thing, he really seemed to get on board the with it. We plugged the little design cartridge in, and punched in a phrase ("Cory is amazing" was his request), and watched it go. He says, "Oooo, this is like a video game for crafts." 

Exactly.

We finished the break with some awesome steak made by my dad, enough pies and desserts to cause a 3-day sugar high, and a killer wasp attack. So, we had a wide range of positive and negative experiences. 

Anyway, we're thankful for all the memories we made this past week, and all the blessing we have. 

As I struggle to find the motivation to get school work and actual work done, it's been really nice to be reminded to be grateful for the chance to go to college, and have a job to pay the bills. Yay!

To Do

My Happy Place. I'll be there someday. Also, one of the many pictures I need to develop from Cory's Mission.

I like to make to-do lists. I used to make them in all my notebooks, and then leave them randomly around the house. This was especially fun when I had room mates. I don't know how many times I found "Tell Kristen she is awesome and beautiful/the best room mate ever" on my lists. And then I would HAVE to do it. Just so I could mark it off... I might have a problem.

I've found a few of the lists in my old notebooks, and it's like reading a journal! I can see exactly what I had to do one week five years ago, right down to the "Finish college application essays" (check) and "Paint Toenails: You've earned it" (also check).

Here's a little to do list for me. Let's see what I can accomplish over these next three weeks.

To do:

• Write Wordsworth final paper (8 pages. I can do this)
• Read/print Wordsworth assigned readings.
• Write 18th Century Drama Final paper (Also 8 pages.)
• Finish Web Design Project
• Take Web design Quizzes and Exam
• Edit and Print handouts/posters for Ward Christmas party.
• Make paper snowflakes/coffee filter wreaths/table decor/banners for said Christmas Party
• Re-do the bulletin board after Thanksgiving
• MAIL OUT THANK YOU CARDS (They've been written for months. That was my job. Cory was in charge of addressing them. Now, I'm in charge of addressing them. I am so, so ashamed.)
• Make a mail out a home-made gift to my Craftaholics Gift Exchange person (by November 30th)
• Use up 2 gallons of milk before it expires (12/1/10) to prove Cory wrong (that's healthy, right?)
• Plan an awesome girls cruise for May 2011. (I am so ready.)
• Work out. Every day. 30 minutes. At least...
• Visiting teaching. I'm feeling good about December...
• Get Visit Taught Tuesday: be home by 6:30. Don't forget, silly!
• Develop/Frame Cory's awesome mission pics. Christmas present potential here.
• Decorate my house for Christmas! Yay!
• Get ready to leave Wednesday for Thanksgiving fun in Jacksonville!
• Come back Thursday for Thanksgiving fun in Marianna!
• Plan awesome after school activities for the rest of this/next semester with Bridget.
• Clean out the car already. It's getting embarrassing.
• Make Hummingbird thank you cake as unfair and unequal payment for services rendered.

Sometimes the list gets away from me. But, it's important to have the big picture in mind, right? Right.

The school stuff I have zero interest in. That's going to make it difficult...but at least there's a few fun things in there to keep it interesting. I can't wait to get started on the Christmas decorations!

Wish me luck!
Lindy

Also, thanks for all the feedback on the Crafty banners! I was surprised at how passionate a response the pennant banner elicited. People either love it, or really, really don't. I'm going with option number three just to stay out of the controversy. (Sorry Becca. Please visit the Po'C anyway?)

And because I can't resist a silly Cory story, heres a little gem from earlier this week. I walked in from a very long day, and I was really not looking forward to making dinner. He greets me with:

Cory: I went and bought stuff for dinner!
Me: Yay! What are we having??
Cory: Sausage-dogs and chips. And root beer.

Yum : )

Whats in a name?

Cory likes my name. A lot.

He's been substituting my name for anything and everything that has about two syllables.

He does is ALL the time, but the only ones I can remember right now are:

Me: Cory, do you want Chicken pot pie or Hamburger pot pie?
Cory: Lindy Pot Pie!!

He came in one day singing,(to the tune of "My Humps")  "My Lindys, My Lindys, My Lovely Lady Lindys..."

He also has some seasonal variations.

(To the tune of America the Beautiful) "A-Lindy-ca, A-lindy-ca!"

And more recently:

"Lindy Bells! Lindy Bells! Lindy all the WAY!" (That's Jingle Bells, if you were wondering)

He's not much of a singer, but I think that adds to the charm. I'll try to remember some of the more creative of his little outbursts, and preserve them for posterity. I really don't know where he comes up with this stuff.

Here's an engagement shot by Kim Brock. I love our pictures so much. :)

Also, I need your help, if you don't mind! I'm a little obsessed with the heading of our crafty blog. But I can't decide which heading I like the most. So, help me--pleeease.

Number 1:

Number 2:

Number 3:

I keep asking Cory, but I think he's about to go crazy trying to come up with opinions about  font, color combination, and which minor placement tweaks should be made....

Birthday Madness

About 2 months ago I saw a Mario themed birthday party a Mom put together for her 6 year old son. It was so cool! I thought, "Man, it'll be so much fun to have themed parties for my kids someday." But I just couldn't wait that long.

I don't have any kids, but I do have a husband. A husband who loves Mario. And a sister-in-law who loves it more. And you work with what you've got, you know?

So, I pitched the idea to Tanya, and she was totally game. She was willing to bring over their TV's, original, super, and 64 game systems, along with pretty much every Mario game invented for a little party in honor of Cory's 23rd birthday. So we did. And it was fun!

Jesse, Tanya, and Lara all came over and were my little party minions. They seriously worked so hard get everything done, and didn't even back talk me when I asked them to do crazy things. Like, cut a million triangles of construction paper to make a raceway banner, make a crown for my drink dispenser (Princes Peach Lemonade, I mean, without a crown it just doesn't make sense!), take out the trash, vacuum, and build a scene out of two pounds of cubed cheese. I love them. 

Tanya's pictures turned out waaay better than mine, so you should click here to see them on her blog.

Tanya, will you please e-mail me your pictures??

Also, I guess I could something like, "23 Reasons I love Cory" in honor of his birthday, but it's not like he would read it, so forget it.

I will say that after 4 months of marriage, he's finally starting to get me. For example, the other day he and his mom were looking through his stuff in their attic. I was helpfully laying on the bed outside of their attic. This is what I heard:

 

Cory's Mom: Well, this is trash. Just throw it out.

Cory: No, Lindy might want it, I'll give it to her.

Cory's Mom: What? No way. This is trash.

Cory: No, this is the kind of crap she buys all the time.

This is what he hands me when he comes out:

Elmer's Spray adhesive and black felt!!!!!! Jack pot!

I used them to make some Mario mustaches for Cory's party, and some pillow cases for the living room. (You can see the pillow cases on Pile o' Craft. Shameless plug, I know.)

He also gave me a large, surprisingly sturdy cardboard tube the other day. He said, "Here. Maybe you can make something out of this."

What a sweetie.

Q & A

Holly tagged me! So I'm gonna answer these questions.

1. What are you going to be for Halloween, and what made you choose that?

Cory and I wanted to go to our wards Fall Festival in somewhat of a couples costume (What's the point of being married, if you can't dress up in corny couple's costumes??) We looked around the house to see what we already had lyin' around, and came up with the idea to be a Cowboy (Cory) and an Indian (Me). Cory wasn't completely onboard though. I quote," Lindy, this isn't really a couple's costume. Lindy, Cowboys killed Indians. And Indians killed cowboys." We ended up going with that costume idea anyway, but I don't know if anyone realized that we were even together. Oh well. Here's a picture that we took in the photo booth Friday night:

We had a bunch of leftover instax film from the wedding laying around expiring, so we brought it and put it to good use. (Also, then I got to take pictures at the photo booth, and see all the fun costumes! Win-win-win) With that and all the upcycled newspaper decorations, we're pretty much some of the greatest environmentalists of our time. You're welcome.

2. What is one random fact about you that not many people are aware of?

I absolutely hate scary movies. I hate them. I think by now a lot of people might know this, but I feel it needs to be said. I hate the tense feeling I get. I hate the not being able to sleep in my own room afterward. I hate the way other people are manipulating my emotions. I won't watch them with you. I won't. I won't even watch preview of them with you. So don't ask.

3. If you could go on a trip to anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Umm, Europe. Duh! We're actually planning our dream vacation there right now. In about 3 years Cory will graduate from FSU with his degree in Engineering, and we are going! I'm super excited. It's going to be hard to maintain this level of excitement for three years, but I feel confident I can do it. Also, it gives me a reason to save money. So, Europe or bust 2013!

4. What color best describes you, and why?

I asked Cory. He said, "I don't know...pretty colors?"

Exactly.

5. What is one piece of jewelry you absolutely can not leave the house without wearing? (aside from your wedding ring, if applicable)

My bird necklace. It's pretty and silver. People comment on it sometimes, and I always tell them "It used to be my Mom's." Then they give me a really sad look, and say, "Oh, I'm sorry." And then it gets awkward, and I say "Oh..she's alive. I just took this from her. She wasn't using it. " And then they think I'm a thief. So, it's pretty emotional for me. I'm wearing it in the following picture, taken a la myspace style.

Anyway, now you know 5 more things about me than you did before. Which is pretty awesome.

I'm kind of a party pooper and don't think I'm going to tag anybody...but I really just want to tag everybody. So, if you read this, you should do this. You'll have fun and we can all get to know you better. Win-win-win.

Lindy

At least I have my health.

Sometimes I have trouble keeping track of things. I make allowances for this behavior.

For instance, I often lose my keys. Or lock them in the car.

And so, I have a set of spare keys in my purse.

Not to mention, I'm often running late.

And so, I'm really nice when I get there.

And when I lock my purse AND my keys in the car.

I've prepared by scattering spare sets of car keys throughout my friends, family and mere acquaintances.

So you see, I've developed a pretty fool proof set of measures to protect myself from myself.

But, against all odds, sometimes my system fails me.

I was running short on underwears, which around here means its time to do laundry. (Yes, thats how I gauge the need to do laundry). But it just didn't seem right. It really felt like I had done at least some laundry with in the past week recently.

I shook off that feeling, and decided to make the bed. It had been left unmade for some time and was starting to look a little sad. I smoothed the sheets, and began to pick up the mountain of pillows and blankets heaped up in one corner of our room.

At the bottom of the mountain, hiding under all those pillows, I found a basket.

A basket full of my and Cory's clean underwears.

Mystery solved.

We all Scream.

Basically, every day I learn something new about Cory.

A few of these things have surprised me. A lot.

While we were dating I assumed we had similar taste in T.V. programming. He liked all the same shows I liked! We had very specific dates with hulu every week to catch up on Bones, Lie to Me, The Simpsons and The Office.

Not usually all at once. But, sometimes, yes. All at once.

We still love those shows, and watch them together as much as possible but, where in the world was he hiding his love for the History Channel?? He has a crazy love for shows like the following:

1) Swamp People: The good people of the swamps and their adventures/trials huntin' gators.

2) Ax Men: The good people of the logging companies and their adventures/trials cuttin' trees down.

And the greatest compilation of Cory's love and interests so far: 3) Swamp Loggers: The good people of the swamps start a logging company. I call it the Perfect Storm.

So, I've been learning a lot about swamps and logging lately. It's a whole new world, that I never thought I would be a part of.

Also, when we were picking out some ice cream at the store the other day, Cory decided to go with the giant container of Neapolitan. I never get that kind for two reasons, which I revealed to him:

1) Why get that plain kind when they have tubs of deliciousness like Cookies and Cream, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and basically anything you can dream of?

2) Strawberry Icecream is the grossest thing ever, and I would never waste a serving of icecream in such a careless manner.

His response? "I like Strawberry icecream."

Oh. So we got it.

Less than 3 days later:

I laughed so hard when I opened up the container. Cory didn't get it.

Cory: "Why are you laughing"?

Me: "You ate all the strawberry ice cream!? And only the strawberry ice cream? In three days?!"

Cory: "I thought you said you didn't like it?"

He really likes swamps, logs, and strawberry ice cream.

Oh, and of course, ME :)

I just couldn't resist the sappiness/corniness. It was tooo easy.