Yay weekends!

We have been so spoiled lately with very little we HAVE to get done on the weekends and I love it. The months before the wedding were jam packed with things that absolutely had to get done. Then after the honeymoon, we were still in wedding season mode and had several others to go to for the rest of July. But August and September have been amazing. Our weekends are generally pretty lazy. That won't be quite the case in October, but this break has been very nice.

My grandmother is coming in October! Two weeks from now in fact. My extended family is in Baltimore, so visiting is not terribly common. We have been spoiled with our trips there in the last couple of years. Circumstances have taken us up there ever few months or so for almost 2 years. Most of them came down for the wedding, so we got to see them in July but then no trip planned until Christmas! Bummer. But we get a treat! She's coming from October 9-14. So I'll take some time off work which is always a plus and have some fun times.

Speaking of Christmas... I got some Christmas ideas from my mom this afternoon (trying to spread out our Christmas expenses this year!) and it makes me VERY excited about Christmas. We also discussed our sleeping arrangements for Christmas this year since the Diehls/Palmours have a new member of the family... Patrick! :-)
Have I mentioned how much I love Christmas??

We are staying at Patrick's parents house tonight to watch the dog and his sister. This allows us to set off some bug bombs this evening before we leave to permanently rid ourselves of the little creatures in our house. I won't even go into it. So gross.

Alrighty, more later!

Patrick: Tagged by Elijah Davidson

The rules are:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.

2. Mention the rules.

3. Tell six unspectacular quirks of yours.

4. Tag six bloggers by linking.

5. Leave a comment for each blogger.

I was tagged by Banjo

1. I love pie.

2. I eat a bag of peanut M&M's every day at work at 4:00 in the afternoon. This helps me "get over that hump" that lasts from about 4 until 5, 5:30, or even 6. I bust out my bag of colorful goodness and chomp away for all the office to hear. I know they're envious. And its not that I'm rude (not entirely), I just don't hear their jealousy over the crunching of my candied pleasure. Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.

3. I wear my dress socks multiple times before I wash them. This is easily justifiable because I simply don't have enough dress socks to make it through the week if I don't. Plus, they're work socks. These aren't my running socks, hiking socks, or cycling socks. These are work socks. Allen Iverson said it best: They're just work socks man. We're talking about work socks. Not smelly socks, but work socks. Not smelly socks, not smelly socks, but work socks.

>4. I, like my wife, am a little "excitable" over other people's blogs. I check blogs for people I don't even know. The radio station in Houston has a DJ named Liz Jordan and I read her blog so that I can find out what her boyfriend is doing. He's an amazing photographer and I just want to see his stuff! Another guy, his name is Bruce Nelson, and he used to be a smoke jumper in Alaska. Now he is through hiking the Continental Divide Trail! That means he is hiking all the way from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. As of last post, he was in East Glacier, Montana (my home away from home!). This is sort of like therapy.

5. This isn't a quirk, but it should be publicly announced: I want to be buried in my Chaco sandals. Love them, hate them, whatever them: just bury me in them. These beloved footwear units have been atop Grinnel Glacier in Montana, the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, the shores of Maui, and everywhere in between. The only thing these sandals can't do: Win the eye of my wife. She hates them.

6. I love pie.

Tagged by Mrs. Land!

The rules are:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules.
3. Tell six unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag six bloggers by linking.
5. Leave a comment for each blogger.


1. I am addicted to blogs. I LOVE to read about people's lives. Even people I don't know well. Stalker-ish? Possibly. I just love it.


2. I LOVE to go on vacation. I am a different person on vacation. Patrick can attest that in vacation mode, I am pretty much a happy camper. I prefer the beach. Something about being at the beach (or at my grandparents' house) just puts me in a happy mood. That's a picture of Maui, where we went on our honeymoon.



3. I dislike all cooked fruits. I also especially despise cooked carrots. YUCK! Something about the texture I just can not handle. I planned to put up a picture but the thought of cooked carrots grosses me out that much... no picture.




4. I love to write papers. It actually makes me excited. My business degree didn't require too much writing, but I had a few classes that did and I got really excited about it.




5. I am overly sensitive about my food being fully cooked. For whatever reason, I am very conscious of that when I'm eating, and how sanitary the place is. I will only eat steak if it is completely well-done, which Patrick thinks is a crime. BUT... for whatever reason I like Chinese buffets. Patrick says it makes no sense that I freak out about food and yet will eat at a place that has a sneeze guard. But for whatever reason, I like them.

6. I absolutely love bread. In sandwiches, I prefer very large pieces of bread and just a little bit of whatever is on it. Panini's for example, there is a ton of bread on a turkey panini. You barely notice the turkey. That's how I like it. I also only like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that have been sitting in the refrigerator, and I have been eating one of those just about every day for lunch since the first day of kindergarten.

I was tagged by Jeni.

I wasn't sure who to tag. If you want to do it, consider yourself tagged!

Ike

Hurricane Ike hit Houston (and of course moreso Galveston) full force. We are very, very blessed to have come out of it as well as we did. Patrick and I both got off work early on Thursday and were off all day Friday for people to prep/evacuate where necessary. Needless to say, it was necessary for people to take at least minimal precautions everywhere. I don't think that we realized quite what Ike intended to bring us until we were in the middle of it. Patrick and I have decided that as soon as the city is up and running again, we will buy the necessary items for a hurricane kit for next time. Considering there are already other storms in the gulf. Next time, we will be prepared.

We knew for sure we'd be without power for awhile, but we didn't know how long. So Friday before the storm hit, we went over to my parents. They had boarded up and done all kinds of things to prepare. I knew I'd be going crazy if we got stuck in our house due to flooding, so we went to visit beforehand so I could store up some out-of-the-house time. Then we went home, taped the windows, spread out some candles, strategically placed our flashlights, and got ready. We started watching a movie in bed around 11. The power flickered sometime around midnight. At about 1 am, we lost power. At that point, I thought the storm was in full force. It was howling and throwing rain at our incredibly old windows. Several hours later, I realized I had been wrong. It only got worse. For over 6 hours, Ike raged full force against our 40 year old townhome. And it's original windows. And the trees on both sides. It was insane. We had covered up all the windows, so when my mom called at 9 am to see if we were ok, we thought it was still the middle of the night. We went outside to assess the damage and were just amazed at what a hurricane can do.

The neighbors' 40 year old oak tree had fallen into our front yard. Completely uprooted. It missed our front window by less than a foot. I could stick my hand out the window and touch it. It almost just crashed into our house. Crazy. We just stood in the rain in our front yard and stared amazed at the damage. We were SO so blessed. No roof damage, no limbs in our windows, no flooding. The street looked like a warzone, but amazingly nothing had actually affected our home. (Pictures to come.)

Even so, we were without power. That morning, Patrick took a shower (with what was apparently the last of our water) and we headed to my parents. They had some roof damage, a couple leaks, but also faired well. We called lots of people to make sure they were ok. Then we went back home and found that we had no water on top of no power. And then we got GREAT news. Patrick's parents got power back that afternoon! We said we'd be right there and were thrilled to have air conditioning. We actually had some fun. So many people were without power that we were all just congregating at places that had it. This morning, I was supposed to work (they apparently got power yesterday) but when I got there this morning they had lost it again so I came over to our house which is right across the street from my office and we HAD POWER!!! I was so excited. We came back over here and started cleaning. And we are feeling very blessed to be here in our air conditioning. Still not sure if work has power or not. Patrick's working from home tomorrow. We are praying for everyone, especially those in the Galveston area who have lost their homes. There are so many of them. I can't imagine what that's like.

Pictures to come tomorrow. Lesson learned: next time there's a hurricane like this, we are boarding up our windows. Even if no one else around us does!

Productivity

Last weekend was a productive weekend. Patrick, being the amazing husband that he is, painted the kitchen. :-) Yay!! So that's finally done. Oh, and the weekend before he fixed the smelly garbage disposal. So handy. Anyway, we've had the kitchen half painted for over a month. Phew. And we got a bath rug for the half bath downstairs, and we got a bedskirt and some curtains for our bedroom. (On gift cards of course.)





That's him putting together some furniture before we got married. See? So handy!


Then we went to celebrate the soon-to-be Breens engagement! YAY! It was a good time. We got to watch through the window when he proposed. It was precious.


Friday night was full of friend time. We went to dinner with the Allemans and then went to House of Pies. Then we met more fun friends at Barnes and Noble until they kicked us out, and we went to visit Lauren and Paul's house. It was probably the latest I have stayed up (except the week of the wedding) since I started working a year ago. But it was lots of fun, and I am so glad we did it. Then Saturday I ran errands and Patrick painted and watched some football. Before we went to the engagement party, we went to a thing at church to see the Ryans, who have moved to Arizona and we miss very much! Austin sang at our wedding. And did crazy things to get there for it, so we are SO thankful for them!

The Sweet Ryans!

And of course Sunday was as busy as always. We went to church, ran errands, ate with Patrick's family, and went to small group. I was quite proud of my creativity this week. Our theme for small group dinner was 'foods named after people.' The Flicks are our small group leaders, so we brought Cesar salad and.... cookies in the shapes of F-L-I-C-K! :-) That's creativity. Patrick's mom helped me make them. It was a bit more of a process than I had planned, but that's ok. They turned out great! Oh, and I "had" to buy cookie cutters to make them, so the only ones I could find came in a huge box with all the letters, numbers, holiday shapes, etc. you can think of. So that will be fun come holiday time!

Did I mention I love holidays??

Heck yeah my wife cooks!

I love it when Becky cooks!! Seriously, it's the best. I enjoy grilling. I think its man in its most primitive state, meat + fire. If only I could bag my own dinosaur and drag it back to the cave. I guess Costco is pretty close to that.

This week has been good for us. We're getting to the point where being married feels "normal". Not old, dull, or boring, but something that we know we can be successful at. It wasn't a rough or shocking adjustment, I just think we weren't expecting it to be that way. I know Becky was aware it stunk after I used the bathroom and I knew she liked to watch TLC and HGTV way more than I do, but we're really learning how to best serve the other person. And it is fun. Not fun like Cowboy Troy and Gretchen Wilson at the RNC, but fun like watching The Office reruns fun.

Cowboy Troy < Paper cuts. /rant

September redeems itself

In the last post, I dissed September because it lacks holidays and therefore decorations. So I decided after that to find out what holidays there are in September. (For a more extensive list, click here.)

First off, it's Read-A-New-Book Month. I love to read, especially in the bath. And I haven't gotten a new book in quite some time so that's motivation enough for me to get a new one.

Some holidays that I am interested in:

September 5: National Cheese Pizza Day
September 7: National Grandparents Day
September 11: Patriot Day/World Trade Center Remembrance Day
September 18: National Play Doh Day (we are totally making edible play doh this day)
September 21: International Day of Peace
September 28: Good Neighbor Day

I plan to honor said holidays. Not a lot of decorations, but I'll take what I can get until the pumpkins come out.

I'm so domestic!

Before we got married, my cooking abilities were limited to chicken crescent roll ups, macaroni, and peanut butter and jelly. Oh and spaghetti. A turkey sandwich for lunch every now and then. Honestly, that's what I lived on in college. I'm sitting here trying to think of other meals I ate, and there were very very few of them. Most of which someone else cooked. Apparently everyone knows this about me, so I got cookbooks from the day we got engaged, throughout the shower process, to the wedding day. I was perfectly content for the first month or so we were married. Patrick likes to grill, and I can handle a salad or some veggies or pasta or whatever went with the meat. But then I decided I should probably cook some. So of course I started very simple. I got a magazine with some 20 minute meals in it and have tried I think 5 so far. One was kinda gross, but the others have been pretty good. Definitely a learning process. But Patrick gets SO excited when he comes home from work and I am about to put dinner on the table. So that's nice. I had a unique ravioli recipe (I know... it doesn't sound hard, and it's not but it's not just throwing it in boiling water and heating sauce!) I think that's been the favorite so far. But I know he likes it because he raves about it all evening and the whole next day and they are not all that impressive, the meals. So I guess it's my domestic attempts that count.

September is not my favorite month because it keeps me from October when I can decorate for fall. I know September is fall-ish but not in Houston. It's super hot, and it would be ridiciulous to put up lovely fall decorations as if the seasons had changed here. Even though I know it will be hot some in October, by that time I will determine that the Gilgour household will be fall in October and full of fall decor. I LOVE decorating for holidays/seasons/birthdays, you name it! I have decorations for just about every occasion. Last year, since I was living at home with my parents, I didn't have a need for decorations. So I waited and bought decorations after holidays were over on clearance. And now I have even more of them! It's so fun. I did notice that decorations at Marshalls are pretty much cheap even before holidays, so I may have to check that out because I am such a sucker for them. And for cheap things.

Speaking of, this month marks our first attempt at being full blown, Dave Ramsey gazelle intense. :-) (You'd have to be a Ramsey follower to get that.) So we are going on an envelope system. This means I will start carrying cash around in envelopes. I am actually pretty excited about paying attention to where our money goes; that has always been more my thing than Patrick's so I'm glad we get to be on the same page in this. Anyway, hopefully we'll really stick to it and watch our savings grow! Woo hoo! Retirement at 35, here we come! Haha. Well... we'll see anyway.