another friday afternoon...

Here is what Dave's doing, even as I type.

Note the concentration, dedication, intensity...

But he brought me this today, so I guess it's okay: (hmnmm, I wonder if the 2 are related)

I will never understand guys and video games. But, being a man of tradition, I guess there's this game he's played and mastered every Halloween since he was 14 (that's a long time) so who am I to stand in his way? To his credit, I should add that this is the first time he's played any video games since we're married. There is this computer game... but we won't go there. Anyway, I'm fine with it as long as I don't have to act interested or intrigued at all... a great time to blog. ha ha. And it doesn't take him too long to beat it, so maybe we can go for a walk afterwards. It's a gorgeous day in the neighborhood -- upper 70s and sunny. You can't beat that, can ya? Well, nothing too new and exciting around here, so I'll letcha go.

Pictures of a bridge and a man making pizza dough (creative juices are not flowing)

We went for a walk on Sunday and again, saw a gorgeous sunset, although the sun was mostly down till we got there so the pictures are sort of dark and not nearly as amazing as it was in real life. Oh well, here's a peek, anyway.

I feel as though you should be tired of seeing dorky self-portraits of us, but just in case you're not, here's another one.
I wonder why everyone doesn't post pictures of their baking? Is that odd? Well, they were just sitting on the counter looking picturesque... they are from the Nisly food blog so there's some free advertising for them. Turned out quite yummy.

Ahhh, here we have Dave learning to make pizza dough. He has an interest in learning to make pizza from start to finish. Who am I to stand in his way?

Well, I guess that's all for now folks. I'm terribly sleepy. And I wish I had more exciting pictures and anecdotes for you all, but I don't. So, until next time, um... keep your stick on the ice?

the real question...

So, Dave and I came up with a plan a week or so ago. Of all the wonderful, noble, and sweet things he is and does, I would have to say that tidally (is that a word) picking up after himself would not generally be listed as one of his strengths. So one particularly frustrating day, he came home from school and I asked... "WHAT DO I DO THAT REALLY ANNOYS YOU????" He was nice and pretended to think for a long time. Well anyway, sometimes I use a word he doesn't like very well. Okay, so we came up with a plan. Every time I have to put something away or throw something away of his, he gets a point. Every time I say the word, I get a point. Whoever has the most points at the end of the week has to clean the bathroom. Well, the week drug on and the game make him a little cranky. (and I only counted about half his points, because I felt so bad) The real question is this: do I count points for the cleaning supplies he left laying around after cleaning the bathroom? sigh. Or do I just give up and bring back the time-honored concepts of grace, servanthood, and love keeping no record of wrongs back to our 2 month marriage? (Poor Dave is convinced he'll be cleaning the bathroom till he's 70.)

In other news, I have once again allowed myself to be drawn into other worlds, namely the world of 24. I watched it probably 2 years or so ago with my roommate in Indiana. Oh my - it completely sucked me in. Dave and I started watching Friday night and now he's hooked and I'm trying so hard not to give anything away.

Yesterday I am rather proud to say that we got a lot of stuff done and crossed off the list, and then had several hours reserved for 24. I organized the bookshelf in the living room, Dave rearranged the cords that were hanging from all the electronic gear to make them aesthetically pleasing, something that's been bugging me for ages. Oh, and the angel that was hanging on the wall in our room (refer to a couple posts back) is now on the table where the tv is and that helps to hide all the cords. I finally got my stereo set up and finally, that side of the apartment looks rather nice. This was sad. The friends who had given us a lot of furniture gave us a wood cabinet with a glass door. I put our games in there and the stereo on top. After I hooked up the stereo, I was moving the cabinet back against the wall and my dumb knee, I guess was pushing too hard against the door, and the glass just shattered. WHAAA!!! I did nearly cry, but decided against it. On the bright side, we can now just reach in and grab a game with out the pesky nuisance of actually opening the door.

One annoyance we have been facing and fighting with valor, is tiny, jumping, flying BUGS. They are SO obnoxious! We have discovered that they particularly like the garbage (rotting food I assume) and any food left in dishes in the sink. So we're trying to keep all the dishes washed all the time, etc. But what in the world are these things? I don't think I've seen anything quite like them until moving here. Does anyone else know or have the same thing?

Okay, I think that's about it for now. Dave's working on Math and I'm waiting for him to get done so we can watch some more 24. Oh, and my Indiana roommate for the past almost 5 years (minus the last 2 months when I got a different roommate) is coming to see me!! Whoo hooo! can't wait. She's coming in November. And we're going to paint the town red. All on a shoestring budget. Not sure how we're going to do that exactly, but anyway, we're going to have a blast!!

I'll leave you with a final quote for your preponderance. I saw this on a book of Dave's called "Body By God" - the title alone is enough to make me shudder, or roll my eyes, or something. But this is what REALLY got me: "How to eat like an elephant, but look like a gazelle." There are SO many places I could go with that, but I think I'll just leave it at that for now. (can I at least here a resounding, DUH!!- here, eat this entire pizza and you too can grow hooves and fur! yeay!)

A HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU... A HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU....

I guess that only sounds good if you're hearing the song in my head, and how could you be doing that? Hopefully you are hearing it in your own head. Well well, it's my sister's birthday today. And there's no way I could possibly out do what she did for me on her blog for my last birthday. So in light of that fact, and the fact that this isn't one ending in zero, I'm not even going to try. Ohhh, she might kill me for this... but I thought a trip down memory lane might be fun. Sadly, there are more of these treasures to be posted, but the computer is being absolutely annoying and won't let me scan anything. So I'm left with what's at my fingertips... and I have no clue why this is all underlined. But I can't get rid of it.


Anyway, after being so mean, I should say that I love my sister to pieces and she's been more than a friend to me the last, oh, however many years I've been alive. And this year I could go on and on about how wonderful she is because I don't think I could have gotten married without her. She tirelessly worked her butt off for me/us along with her husband. And we miss them a lot and appreciate them like crazy. Thank you thank you thank you for all your hard work. I hope you have the best day and the next year is wonderful Jenni! You're a wonderful mom, teacher, sister, friend, etc., etc.

Can you help me?

What do you think of this arrangement? Because there is some question as to whether or not it looks good as is, or needs to be done differently. Please give me your honest, and if need be, brutal, opinions. Thank you.

Before and after....

I thought I'd give you a peek of what I've been up to lately. Here's some before and after of the living room/dining room. This wall needs things on it, but here it is for now.










































Ahhh, the computer desk. I won't show you before pictures of this room, at the time, because there are no after pictures. But the desk has been driving me nuts since we moved in and I've been meaning to tackle it. I finally did last week and it makes me SO happy to look at it now. The pictures of us have no befores, but if they did, it would be sweaty people riding bike. We had a wonderful weekend. Saturday we lazied around and then went for a nice 12 mile bike ride. I'm so annoyed I didn't take my camera. We were on a trail and it goes a lot farther than we thought - right to downtown. It was a great ride and a gorgeous sunset. So then we were going to go to Olive Garden as mentioned before in previous post. So Dave offered to get all dressed up with a tie and everything. I about fell over, but anyway, we had fun. And then we came home and watched "Remember the Titans" which was also fun. I really like that movie and it involves football so Dave liked it a lot too. (It's rare when that happens) Oh, the pictures were taken with the self-timer on my camera - you know where you push the button and then run to get in the shot? Such fun.

whatever Jenni wants...

So here I am to say hi. I don't have anything to say really. Except that I'm crushed, damaged, wounded, and my spirit is wilting as we speak. See, I wanted some attention, so I changed the colors on my blog, updated my profile, and put a picture on my blog... then waited, waited for significance, waited for the world to notice and applaud... and... nothing. After crying myself to sleep for a week, my sister told me that I should update. So, here I am to update. I just want to please.

I have some pictures to put on soon. That'll wait till later. I'll looking forward to this weekend. Last weekend was not the best. Okay, last weekend stunk. Dave had had a crazy busy week and wanted to relax for the weekend. I had a list a mile long of things I wanted to get done. Saturday we worked all day at that stuff and had very little time to just relax and spend time together. This weekend I made a lot of progress during the week (I have pictures of the progress, stay tuned) and I don't feel like there's a ton of things hanging over my head. So, we are going to have some fun this weekend - just hang out and relax and not do 25 loads of laundry and things like that. Tonight the little mister and I (how come people never say that??? It's always the little missus. Sounds pretty dumb, eh?) went for a bike ride and that was nice. Tomorrow we want to go biking again (it got dark before we were ready to quit) and some fabulous person sent us a gift card for a restaurant. Since we're not much into delayed gratification, we thought we'd do that tomorrow evening because that sounds phenomenal! And a perfect addition to our fun-filled, stress-free weekend. So, that's the news from around here. Hope you all have a fabulous weekend. keep your eyes peeled for more bedazzling photos and comments, coming soon to a blog near you. or something like that.