Almadean-y

This post actually started in 2000(ish). Big Poppa's Mom (Almadean) passed away around the time I was graduating/ going to Baylor. (Sic 'em Bears.) And, as families do, we had to go through all of her things and pick what stayed and what went. I chose a few baubles-- costume jewelry, mostly-- to keep. A few of those were kept in a special place-- to one day be used at my wedding. Namely, a necklace that I (eventually) re-fashioned into a headband, and two necklaces I strung into one. 

I woke up on the morning of the wedding and headed to brunch with all my fave ladies (hey-oooo)!! Lo and behold, Aunt Amy (Big Poppa's twin brother's wife... catch that?), showed up with a GIANT box and demanded I open it immediately. And to my complete surprise and amazement, I found the rest of her jewelry. Things that I figured had been sent to the thrift store for some other person just like me to find and enjoy. But noooo. IGETITALL. It was probably one of the best presents I have ever gotten in my whole entire life. I found rings, necklaces, bracelets, clip-on earings (BOOM.), and in just about every color combination possible. I was in heaven. 

I returned from the honeymoon to a (merged) home with junk in seemingly every crevice (still feels like that at times). And the one small hope for the second bedroom is that it would one day turn into a relaxing, homey, wonderful place that would (somehow) showcase Almadean's jewels. (I say jewels loosely. They're all fake. DON'TEVENTHINKABOUTSTEALINGTHEM. Amidst all the clutter (seriously, embarrassed to show you a picture of the rest of the room), I find respite on top of my dresser and on the walls (trying not to turn around to piles of clothes and/or dogs and/or dogs on top of the piles of clothes). 

This is my new favorite place to be. (Other than in my lover's arms. OOOOOHYEAHIJUSTDIDTHAT.)

Last Night.

As we prepare for domestication, we spend most of our nights cooking (and eating) dinners together, followed by crossing things off our to-do list.

Last night's to-do list was as follows:
Work out (body by Heath for me!)
Grocery Shopping (J's favorite chore)
Cut J's hair (my third attempt, with successful results.)
Practice songs for a wedding this weekend (obviously, this was not my task.)
Wrap wedding presents (obviously, this was not J's task.)
Wash dishes from dinner

It was in the last task where we arrive to our story. My house is about 40ish years old, on a crawl space, and near the beach. Aka, I have bugs. Lots of them. Big ones. Frequently. I've been pretty good about killing them myself, always having a flip flop around with which to kill them, and disposing of dead bugs. Except for last night. Conversation was as follows:

GAHHHHHH! COME HERE! BRING YOUR SHOE! HURRY!
what? OMG THAT THING IS HUGE!... WHERE DID IT GO?
BEHIND THE SHELF. Hold on. I'll move this stuff out of the way. (pause. pause. pause.) THERE HE IS!
WHERE DID HE GO?
OGIAOIGNSGOIN!!!! (flick giant cockroach to the floor)
WHY DID YOU TOUCH HIM?!?! (smash)
Gross. His head and his body are in two different places.

Welcome to the House of Gold.

a little more about him...

Shortly after getting engaged (as in about 2.5 hours after), I was asked by a girlfriend how I knew he was "the one."

Imagine, for a second, what it might feel like to continue to want to be around someone after a few months. And not only that, but be constantly delighted by them. A man that recognizes if you are unhappy and encourages you to talk about it with him, even if that involves tears. A man that will carry you over a puddle, getting his feet wet, so you don't get your running shoes wet. A man that repeatedly makes you proud to be associated with. Someone that makes you laugh when you're cranky, makes you smile when you're sad, and makes your heart bounce around inside your chest whenever you think about seeing him next.

I knew, within weeks, that this was the man I was to marry. There was never a doubt in my head that, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and health, this man is to be my other half. He makes my life better, richer, healthier.

This man makes me proud of him on a daily basis. He is excellent at everything he does. Or, if not, strives for excellence in everything he does. He is a gifted musician, incredibly intelligent, compassionate, diligent, caring, strong, manly, and worth my respect. He has been through much, and has proved himself to be a man that seeks after God regardless of his circumstances.

I have 47 days until I can call this man my husband. It is a fantastic thing that I will be able to spend the rest of my life loving and caring for him.

My friends.

I have some very funny friends.

 me:  i want stretchy pants tonight.

so bad.

unnamed friend:d:: i'm not even wearing pants....

ha

May 27, 2012

The day started in a typical vacation-y fashion. I woke up in the RV after sleeping in a bit, and received a text from J... "Good morning love! It's a beautiful day in paradise!" This immediately triggered my spidey senses, seeing as how I normally wake up to a text of... "I feel like crap", "I'm so tired", or (my personal favorite) "It tastes like a cat took a dump in my mouth." I replied with a hearty "You're all sunshiney today", replied with a "Because you're in my life shuger face britches head." (side note... I love this man.)

I went ahead and got ready for church, along with Mom and Dad, where we met J and his 3 besties from out of town. They came over for a cookout at the RV after church (but not before J's car broke and I had to go rescue them), which consisted of about 3ish hours of hanging out. (side note... the car was fixed in 10ish minutes by our amazing mechanic-friend.)

J started the whole process by telling me Saturday night that he wanted me to go with him to the beach Sunday night, so we could hang out... just the two of us. No bros. I was hesitant then, seeing as how I enjoy my quiet time. He persisted on Sunday afternoon, telling me that the bros were all going to go to the beach and fish, inviting me to go along. I was not interested in doing that. He asked again, saying it'd be fun. I thought it would be more fun to go back home, put on some stretchy pants, and scratch Ed. Finally, minutes before the bros were to leave, J swiped my keys and informed me that he would be driving me back to his house, where we'd all change and go to the beach. I had no choice.

Mysteriously, all the bros had to go to Kroger to get shrimpbait for their fishing escapades. I sighed with some relief, knowing that I'd have some alone time with J. We went to one of our favorite beaches that had zero people on the shore, set up our blanket and chairs, and spent some time just catching up. (side note... he kept checking his pockets on the drive over there. Spidey senses were once again raised.)

He pulled a note out of his pocket (one of my favorite things to get from him is notes), and had me read it. (It was real nice and even had a drawing of the two of us and our dogs. The man knows how to draw his stick figures.) Then we chatted some more, and he pulled a second note out of his pocket. (Spidey senses on code red high alert at this point.) It said... "Will you marry me?" and had three boxes to check... all of which were variations of "yes". Then he pulled out the ring (the exact one I was hoping for). Through happy tears, I said yes.

Then all the bros popped up over the sand dunes like prairie dogs and congratulated us.

It was a good day, spent with some of my favorite people.

I can't wait to marry this man.

So. This boy...

So I've been dating J a little over six months now. A record holder, if you will. And it was his birthday this past week, which meant that I had to think of something AMAZING to give him. I mean, this guy is something special. Present must reflect that special-ness of the glitter and sunshine feelings he gives me. Right? RIGHT?

I thought about this present for a few weeks. Brainstormed with myself, essentially. And finally decided that since he moved from GA a year ago, he needs to immerse himself in beach culture. Which essentially meant... he needed a cruiser. I set off to craigslist and found this monster.

Not even a little rough around the edges... this guy needed some work. Luckily for me and my under-preparedness, my parents are in town and offered their help. I began by sanding the white paint down and disassembling the ENTIRE bike. (Tires were removed completely, bike rack taken off and thrown away, old grips were thrown away, pedals were thrown away, and cup holder was tossed.)

Then we got to the fun part... paint. You know me and my love for some spray paint. So, naturally, the bike had to be gold.  Tires, rims, and all accessories had to be black. The only original things left on this bike are the chain and the seat. (Chain to be changed as soon as I figure out how to get the old one off and a new one put on.)

And... well... this beauty emerged!

Annnnd he loves it. 

Awkward moments with me.

I get really uncomfortable when people ask questions like the following:

Sooo what have you been up to lately?
What do you do for fun?
What hobbies do you have?

I mean, they're just really vague questions that people ask when they really have no knowledge of your life whatsoever and are just fishing for information.

So braintrust and I had an informational brainstorming session a few weeks ago, and it finally paid off.

I played golf with some Marketing-y folks yesterday, and... well... read for yourselves.

"soooo kelly. what have you been up to?"

"i've been working on my taxidermy skills."
 "okay, i'll give you another chance. what have you been up to?"

"i've been taking my dog's fur and making pillows."

FINALLY!!!

In more ways than one, this post is a big ol sigh of relief. First, I haven't updated in a looong time, and yet I've had PLENTY of things to post about. I've sewn LOTS of flowers, decorated the churchy (getting ready to redecorate for spring this weekend), made reusable shopping bags, dyed old dresses, spray painted no less than 75 items... and that's probably not an exxageration, helped J redecorate his place, and traveled to just about everywhere, it seems. Sooooo needless to say, it's been a busy time... but really fun time. I've come to a place of such hope and peace and happiness, and my life just feels settled right now. It's pretty fun.

*Disclaimer. The pics aren't that great. Iphones are great, until you want nice pictures to put on a blog. Then they're useful in conveying information, but not in getting a fancypants picture.*

Soooo along with all those projects, J had this tv cabinet. I didn't particularly care for the cabinet, as it was, and... well... it needed to be painted. And sanded. And remade.

We took our happy little selves to home depot for some supplies (screws, nails, magnet closures, quarter round, flat trim, mdf, something to wrap fabric around for the door inserts, new feet- we saved about $20 by using fencepost toppers instead of actual furniture feet- and kilz), and started hacking away. Suprisingly, the supplies cost us somewheres around the $50-60 range, which was WAY more than we were expecting. But I took a few things back that I decided I didn't need, including the kilz (because we bought an entire gallon, and I wasn't convinced we'd need it), we probably still had around $40 invested. And then lo and behold Ace had a free giveaway of a quart of paint... so J and I marched our little selves to the store and picked up two free quarts, color matched to the shade of grey we had already picked out. (And we still have about 1.5 quarts leftover! What else can we paint??!?!?)

Essentially, all the front panels needed to come off- the two interior ones were operable, while the two exterior ones were fixed. This made no sense to me, so I decided to have the interior open, with the two end doors operable. Which also meant I had to finish out the interiors to make it an actual compartment. (It was completely open on the inside.) Lots of cutting, adding quarter round (worst day(s) ever were figuring out how to get the angles correct for that), caulking, sanding, gorilla-glue-ing, screwing (into pressboard, which is no easy task), and general frustration ensued. In all my years of constructing and crafting, I don't think I've ever come across pressboard as hard as this. I broke off two screw heads attempting to get the feet secured. Which, btw, don't use drywall screws for these kinds of jobs. Duh.

Anyway, I think I was more anxious to get this finished than to do everything 100%- there are things that will either get fixed or will fall into the "nobody else besides us will know" category. But... THE GRAND REVEAL!! I'm real excited to have this complete.

But now we need to change up some other things to go with the new tv cabinet. :)

Also, two things to note: I won the office pool for March Madness, by selecting the winner on team colors and mascots. FINALLY, my methods paid off! And also, Sic 'em LadyBears.