Our Little Focus

12/01/2010

I took a picture of our car. While we were in Pigeon Forge in October amidst the beautiful trees I had an impulse to take a photo of our car. We’re not car people and we’re not in love with our car; it just needs to get us where we’re going. So, we didn’t really have any intentional pictures of it.

This little green Ford Focus has taken us on a lot of journeys; about 150,000 miles worth. She was Jason’s and my first big purchase (read: first big loan), six months after we got married. This car drove us from Erie to Nashville and back many times before our move in 2004. It drove us up to my parents house in Pennsylvania for holidays, to my sister’s wedding reception in Philadelphia, on vacations to Virginia Beach, Hilton Head Island, Cincinnati and many a day trip to Atlanta. The weekend of this photo it took me halfway across the state to spend a much needed 3-day weekend with my husband. It has carted many friends and family members around to work, to church, to homes, to stores, to the airport and back. It’s carried amps and guitars, groceries, lumber, straw bales, 100s of pounds of rocks, loads of IKEA purchases, packages, luggage, dogs and moving boxes. It’s had it’s share of problems through the past seven years but our little vehicle has been good to us.

In the season of thankfulness, I’m extending some gratitude to our little engine that could:

Dear Green Meanie,

Thanks for running strong these seven years, for carrying us and our treasures all over the place, for stopping on a dime and taking off fast, for not quitting us even after two hit-and-runs, for turning sharply enough to parallel park in one try, for chugging along despite your bolted-up rather than truly fixed back windows, missing lug nut cover, cracked and dented front fender, dashboard stickiness from many a drink spill, and overdue oil changes. You’ve been the setting for many kisses and fights and important conversations. You’ve been sung in, slept in, kicked, washed infrequently, snowed on, rained on and hailed on. You’ve been worth ever payment we made, the chili cheese fries we ate in celebration of paying you off, and for every dollar we’ve paid for repairs and maintenance. Yes, you’ve been a good little car.

This year you got a new battery, a new alternator, a new driver’s side mirror, a new fender, new tires, new brakes and some other new parts I can’t remember the names of. Now, please accept this long overdue tune up as a token of our appreciation … and continue on for the next seven years!

Sincerely,

Your Drivers

 


Busyness

11/30/2010

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. (Has anyone even noticed? I’m sure you’ve all been busy too.) My amazing husband has been home a little over a week and I haven’t figured out where to reinsert blogging into my schedule. I’m still soaking up all the evening and weekend time I can with him. We had a great Thanksgiving. Jason smoked a 13 lb. turkey (it took 8 hours!) and we enjoyed all kind of deliciousness and fun times with his parents, my parents and a sweet family of 6 from our church (including a precious 2.5 week old baby girl that I had the privilege of holding for a wonderfully long time.) We put up our Christmas decorations, tore out some walls, chainsawed up some bushes, polished the cloffice (it’s almost done) and caught up with friends and family. It’s been a good week.

How was your Thanksgiving?


Happy Birthday, Jessica!

11/18/2010

Happy birthday to my favorite big sister today! I miss you, Jess. Glad we’ll get to roll Swedish meatballs together again this Christmas Eve.


Where have you been?

11/12/2010

Sorry for my absence this week. Aside from my day job I’ve been soaking up lots of Jason time: going out for dates, meeting up with friends, taking a day trip to IKEA, working on landscaping projects in the dark, entertaining new friends at our home, watching shooting stars from a hot tub on a cool night … we’ve been been busy, y’all!

Where have YOU been this week?

Bonus phone photo this week: Lucy sticking her tongue out at me after I gave her a bath and a haircut.


Good-Looking (and Yummy) Ice Cream Cake

10/25/2010

Jason’s birthday was back on September 16th and I decided to give him a mini surprise by making homemade ice cream cake and taking it to our small group to celebrate. (Small group = Jason, me and three other families from our church that get together once every 2 weeks to hang out, encourage each other, pray for each other, etc.) I’ve made homemade ice cream cake a few times before but it always turned out kind of … ugly. I mean, you can’t go wrong with the taste but it has never looked anything like the $15-25 store-bought kind.

This year I was googling recipes that use ice cream sandwiches because they make the ice cream step a lot easier. I found this Oreo & Fudge Ice Cream Cake recipe from Kraft that uses just five ingredients: ice cream sandwiches, oreos, cool whip, fudge, and jello pudding mix. It was pretty simple and it turned out really pretty!

Once the cool whip on the outside started to thaw it started to get pretty messy but the slices turned out pretty good looking. Most importantly, everyone thought it was D-to-the-licious and the birthday boy was very appreciative.


Phone Photo Friday

10/22/2010

Have you ever tried Grilled Hobo Fruit Packs of Awesomeness from Today’s Letters? What the what what? First of all, if you’ve never checked out the blog Today’s Letters – go there now. Sweetest blog I’ve ever seen. Everyday Emily writes love letters: two to her husband and a few other to important people and silly loves in her life. Emily and Tim have the most playful and sweet relationships I’ve every witnessed through blogland. Oh, and she responded to my tweet about subbing gingerman cookies for ginger snaps in Fruit Packs of Awesomeness so we’re totally twitter friends now. 🙂 If you want to know what the heck I’m talking about go to the link and MAKE some. You won’t regret it!


Weekend Update

10/04/2010

This Weekend I …

• went to my favorite Mexican restaurant with my husband, his brother and our sister-in-law

• watched the ultrasound video of our little baby niece

• made lasagna at midnight with Jason

• took lasagna to our friends and got to see their precious, teeny 5 day old Matteo

• spent the afternoon in the Tennessee hills at the home of the musician Jason will be touring with through the fall

• helped Jason finish installing bamboo floors in his studio

• went to church and lost track of time

• had a lunch date with my sweet husband

• put on “Wild Pacific” and took a much-needed Sunday nap (felt GLORIOUS afterward!)

• pulled my favorite winter hat out of storage (it got cold yesterday!) and headed out to our neighborhood coffee shop with Jason (in our pus) for hot chocolate and some website design

It was a wonderful weekend!


Poster Portrait

09/21/2010

I wrote about Jason’s great-grandpa Carl back in July after our trip to Naples and our visit to the lot where his house used to stand. We both really loved this portrait of him. His horned-rim glasses, his raised eyebrows, the pencil behind his ear, the stubby cigar he’s smoking, the strap across this shoulder … it’s all part of the story of this character that I only know about through second-hand stories. Jason considers Carl to be an inspiration for various reason (explained more in the original post) and he wanted a poster of this portrait to hang in his studio as a reminder of his great-grandpa and as a reminder that if we keep working hard maybe we’ll get that mid-century modern beach house in Naples we’re dreaming of…

Anyway, I just wanted to share this really good deal I found. This 20″ x 30″ photo poster was only $7.28 ($17.12 with shipping) through Vivyx with their first time customers special offer! Most other sites are sound $21-30 for a poster this size. Score! Plus we found a frame for it at Michael that was originally $29.99 but was on sale for 40% off plus another 25% off with coupon. Came to around $12. Bonus!


Happy Birthday, Ginger!

09/10/2010

Today is my sister-in-law Ginger’s birthday. I don’t think she reads my blog but I wanted to give her a happy b-day shout out here anyway. I hope this year is an amazing one for you—I know it will be! I can’t wait to find out if that’s a sweet pickle or a dill pickle you’ve got in there!

I feel very blessed to have a brother-in-law and sister-in-law that we’re so close to—right across town—but also that Jason and I are good friends with. Ginger is one of the most thoughtful and caring women I know. She’s got a huge heart for people, especially the vulnerable and oppressed. She’s got strong faith and a beautiful relationship with God. She can be serious and also completely silly—the best kind of friend. In 5 months she and Dan are expecting their first baby and I’m so happy for them! Also, I totally can’t wait to be Aunt Martina to that little baby and shower him or her with love.


Phone Photo Friday

07/23/2010

Sorry, I know I’ve been a major blog-slacker this week. Do weeks ever just slip away from you? I can’t believe it’s already Friday! Hopefully this cute picture will make up for my lack of posts the past few days. Have you ever seen an 11-month-old with shoulder-length hair? Jason and I babysat this sweet little girl last Friday so her parents could go out on a hot date.