College!!

Remember how I went on and on about hopefully pursuing LPN training? Well, that's changed. But for the best, I think. Just when I was pretty sure LPN training was right for me, stuff kept coming up that seemed to lead me in a different (but similar) path.

So... I'm now planning to go into the dental assisting program. More good news? So is Beth! :-D

We've been making trips to Everest College this past week to meet with our admissions adviser, take qualifying tests, and get enrolled. SO much paperwork! Unfortunately, we don't qualify for any kind of government assistance, so that's adds to the stress level. But I'm feeling extremely optimistic, and I think it will all work out if we're careful.

The program we're enrolled in lasts for 9 months and involves a lot of hands-on work in the lab, which I'm very excited about, because it means we'll already have lots of hands-on experience when they send us to a dental office for the 160 hours required during our externship (yes, it really is called an externship instead of an internship).

I'm SO excited, but definitely nervous, as it's a huge financial commitment, but it would mean being done with school by this Christmas, since the program starts March 26... so soon!! The college had a 100% success rate for finding graduates jobs directly out of college last year, which is yet another incentive for me to get going with my schooling.

Please pray that things go smoothly for us.... :-)

(And if anyone knows a dentist that would be interested in hiring... lol....)

Valentines Day

Ok, it's official. I have the sweetest husband in the world. :-D

I woke up to my husband standing over me with a red rose and starbucks in one hand, a slice of red velvet cake in the other. Can I just say it again? I have the sweetest husband in the world. He'd even arranged for me to have a massage, but the place called him back after he scheduled to say that they were actually booked up. Who cares? Just the fact that he thought to do something like that for me was adorable. :-D So instead, he took me fabric shopping. Yep, he read my blog last night (I didn't realize it till later, but my post almost sounded like I was mad at him... which I was NOT!! It just sort of came out that way... I'll pay more attention to how I word things from now on lol). After we got my fabric, we headed over to Best Buy and emerged with a 32" TV for our bedroom. Woot!!

I don't know how I snagged such an amazing man......

Fabric? Por favor??

I've been sitting here just staring at my lonely sewing machine, sitting all by itself in its corner. I've officially been bitten by the quilting bug. The only problem is.... I have no fabric. Sigh.... so I've spent countless hours online sifting through quilting patterns, deciding on my first project. Unfortunately, unless my sweetie takes me to a fabric store for Valentines Day (please, please!), it will probably be a while before I get around to starting on anything. (I'm fairly certain no such trip will happen... and I'm too nice to hint lol... and the chances that he'll read my blog before tomorrow are slim, so I'm safe to ramble on about it. :-) )

Today has been one of those days that just sort of drags by. I started out great; I did interval training, then 7 miles on the bike, then cleaned the house... but then all my energy just sort of wandered off. Steve got new game and has been in his happy little xbox world all afternoon... and it gets really loud in the living room when he plays, so I've just been sitting here on our bed, wandering around the internet. I really need to get files done, but I keep putting them off cuz it's really hard to hear the audios with Steve's game going... and I don't wanna bother him, he deserves a day to just do whatever. :-) I'm thinking I'll get them done tonight.... I don't want to end up having to do them on V-day!

For the last week or so I've been craving red velvet cake.... to the point that it's beginning to feel like an obsession... lol. Last night I dreamed someone made it for me, and I ate way too much.... it was amazing!! Lol! And the weird part is.... I've never even had red velvet cake. So I can't figure out why I want it so bad! :-P Maybe I'll finally make one tomorrow; I can cheat a little and eat some, it IS V-day, after all!

Well, off I go to stare at more quilts. If I can't make one right now, the next best thing is to distract myself by looking at the ones other people are making. (It doesn't really work, though.)

Adios!! :-D

Ramblings

So today has been surprisingly productive... I finished work, got the grocery shopping done (and there was plenty of it!), got home in time to put pork chops in the crockpot for supper (yummy!), and made a dent in the laundry.

Yesterday I finally finished a sewing project I'd started a couple of weeks ago. It's one of those hot/cold rice bags that are AMAZING for headaches. I got the idea from Make it and Love it. I seriously love that blog. Here's a pic of how mine turned out... not perfect, but I'm happy with it.

Now for a random picture of what I see every morning when I sit down to work:

Kia is in a different awkward position every morning, without fail. Funny dog.

Stuff

Well, I've had a good day so far... got in some quality Jillian Michaels time, biked, got to talk with an awesome friend (Hi Gina!!), hung out with my hubby.... my kitchen is even clean. On the downside, Sable had been consistently trailing after me, bringing me his leash at every opportunity so that we can play. He even took over my mat when I was working out. That cat.....

I reread a favorite book of mine today: Sorcery and Cecilia or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot. It's by Patricia Wrede and Caraline Stevermer. It's one of those books that you just sort of stumble across and it turns out to be ridiculously charming and funny.

Another random piece of news: I'm planning to go to nursing school to become an LPN, and possibly/eventually an RN.... it's something I've been looking into with my sis-in-law Beth. Even if Beth ends up getting cold feet (don't you dare!! Lol!) I'm pretty sure I'll still pursue it.... There's one prerequisite I have to take before I can apply to be accepted into the nursing program, which is kind of frustrating, since I've already taken all of the basic classes that are required.... which kind of feels like I'm wasting a whole semester. But oh well... I'm sure there's a good reason God has waited until now to make me realize this is what I want to do.
If any of you nurses out there have any advice you'd like to share, I would LOVE to hear it!! :-)

Christensen & Cardoza Day

I just love watching my brother-in-law fall head over heels... it's great. Hehe.....
It doesn't hurt that the girl he's smitten with is completely amazing and exactly the girl I would have picked for him to end up with. :-) I'm going to like eventually having another sister.

So today the whole Cardoza clan is headed over to the Christensen homestead, and all of us married Christensens have headed over as well, so as not to miss any of the fun. Plus, a couple of us just like watching Timmy and Heidi. It's great fun. (Sorry guys... :-D)

So adorable...... *Sigh*

Moving on....

So today is all about establishing family relations. Lol... actually, I think that's already happened. But we'll get a chance to hang out and hopefully get to know everybody better. If only everybody lived closer to each other, we could do fun days like this more often. Poor Timmy.... He doesn't get to see his sweetie nearly enough. (I DO hope he forgives me for this post :-P)

But seriously. I'm pretty sure they were made for each other.

Finally!

I've been sitting here on my laptop, munching walnuts and working on my never-ending hunt for the perfect quilt. This quest has been going on now for probably close to a year, and before today I was nowhere close to finding any pattern, let alone colors, that captivated my interest. But lo and behold, today I stumbled across the blog of a woman who runs her own quilt shop and makes the most gorgeous quilts!! I've finally figured out that it's not the design so much as it's the colors you use. I think I want to go with bright reds and aquas/turquoise for our quilt, and eventually make one for our future guest room in oranges and blues, with plenty of white and a little brown thrown in. It's way more color than I ever thought I would go for, but after seeing some of her quilts, I love it!!

Here's sort of the colors I'm thinking of for ours, only with a bit more vivid blues.

All pictures in this post were taken from Camille Roskelley's blog. Her site is amazing. Check out her blog, Simplify.

This is more of the design I was thinking of, just with the colors above and more vivid blues.

I would like to applique something (maybe the word "LOVE"?) in big, red letters on the quilt towards the foot of the bed. Just something to make it a little more modern.

As for the other someday-quilt, I'm thinking something like this as far as colors go:





Not sure why, but I LOVE that color combination. Any thoughts? Ideas? Advice?

If these colors are actually a really bad idea, please say something. Lol... I've never been particularly good at any form of decorating... I can barely match my clothes. :-)

Let me know what you guys think.

Yucky Weather

Well, it's snowing again. Hurray. I get to run in this weather tomorrow.

I'm not a fan of winter. If it was up to me, we would pack our bags and move down south. Obviously, it's not up to me; we're still in MO. :-)

I miss summer!! The sweltering heat, the longer days, barbecues, all of it. And for some reason, wintertime always puts me in the mood to garden, so I end up getting stacks of gardening books from the library and poring over them as Steve gives me an occasional worried look. No, I am not going to attempt a garden in the dead of winter. :-)

Here's some of what came up for me last year.

My hibiscus...

And some dahlias...

And celosia, among other things...

To pass the time, I've been working on a 1,000 piece puzzle for the past couple weeks. The first week was absolutely pitiful.

Luckily, my friend Joy came over Tuesday afternoon and helped me put it together. We stayed up way too late finishing it, but I love the way it turned out.

The next morning I left it on the kitchen table, planning to glue it sometime soon. I left the room for maybe five minutes, came back in and it was all over the floor, with Sable playing in the pieces. Let's just say that if I hadn't been in such a mellow mood, kitty kitty would be living alone. *sigh* Why do these things happen to me? Lol.... oh well, it teaches me to roll with the punches I suppose...

First Post

So... here I am... attempting to start a blog. We'll see how this goes. And if it lasts. *insert hopeful grin*

My life has been decently eventful lately: Trevor Klein and Hannah Blach are now officially Mr. and Mrs. Trevor Klein. The wedding turned out beautiful, largely because of my wonderful mom-in-law, Natalie, who is incredible when it comes to decorating for weddings (among other things). I cannot even begin to grasp her energy level. I vaguely remember standing around in a state of confused exhaustion, watching her breeze past to help with this random thing or that little mishap. At one point she passed me, we chatted, I asked how she was doing, and she replied (bouncing from foot to foot) "Oh... bored". Not bored as in she didn't want to be at the wedding, but bored as in she needed something else to do to help out. I shake my head in awe. LOL.

But like I said, the wedding was lovely and everything went pretty smoothly. Hannah's dress was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. and I cannot wait to see how the wedding pictures turned out. She looked incredible in it. Thankfully, I have an amazing mom who is a whiz at sewing, since we ended up making our bridesmaid dresses. My poor mom juggled so many things to get it done in time. Tax filing for their crate business, homeschooling my little brother and sister, helping my older brother deal with a crisis, running a business, and caring for their dog who had been hit by a car. Yeesh! Needless to say, she deserved a break after that week.

My sister-in-law was totally awesome at the wedding and despite the fact that it was her B-day and there was probably a lot of things she would rather be doing, she offered to take pics of Steve & me, among other cute couples (Timmy & Heidi!!!!!!).


Photo by Bethany Christensen


In addition to the wedding activities, Beth and I have decided to run a 10K this spring. Which means actually getting up and running. Yuck... I am not a fan. But the end result is worth it, plus having a running buddy really helps motivate me. We went on our first run today and made it one mile at a decent pace without stopping, then walked and did another mile. So... not great, but still better than I expected of myself. Luckily, we have 3 months to train for it, so we should be fine. Now, if I could only convince my hubby to do it with me..... :-)