a big tuesday night!

We got a new toy. I'll let Patrick tell you about it though because it's really his toy.

It is not good for man to be alone (and hungry)

I had scrapple, bacon, and eggs for dinner. Becky was busy with some girl stuff, so I was left unattended and hungry.

I think when God said it wasn't good for man to be alone, I think it's because he knew we would make every meal like this and die at a young age. Again, I apologize for the cruddy cell phone pictures.

My tool shed

I have a baby. Let me show her to you:

From Blogger Pictures

Isn't she beautiful?

(Sorry for the cruddy cell phone picture).

This is my tool shed. She is the keeper of my expanding tool collection. You see, when we first moved in, she was nothing more than an outdoor junk closet. The landlady was keeping junk in it. The first thing I did was 1) move the junk worth keeping to the attic and 2) throw the junk not worth keeping to the curb. After that, she was just a shell stripped down to the studs.

My first step was the pegboard. I've always wanted a place to hang my tools on a peg board, so I bought one with some gift cards and put one up.

After that, I just had some stuff accumulate, nothing fancy. Then I took some scrap wood from the butcher block project and made some shelves, which helped get some stuff off the floor. I even made a shelf for some speakers so I can hook up my iPod while I'm outside working! One of tomorrow's projects is to work on the cable management so it looks clean. I also used a hook I got at my tool shower as a way to store my drill!

what a week!

We've been taking it easy this week. Patrick's been sick until today, and now I am not feeling so hot. :-(

So pretty much we've been relaxing and ignoring the 80% stained coffee table in the living room. The weekend will be spent getting ready as much as we can for Missouri (where we are heading a week from today!) so that I can work a lot next week before we go.

Maybe next week we'll have something exciting going on! Thank goodness it's almost the weekend.

This is hard work! Part One of Three or Four.

When I was a freshman in college, the guys I lived with in ramp J of T.O. Walton Hall played this game, "Generals: Command and Conquer". You were supposed to try to build an army and defeat the enemy. You could build runways for jets, underground tunnels for troops, and bunkers for artillery. I was never any good, but I watched them play a lot. Your construction guys were basically slave labor and when they had been building for a while they always said, "This is hard work!" It was very robotic-esque and sounded like, "Thees es haurd wurk!" Now, whenever I'm hot, tired, and completely worn out, I say that to myself like the little slaves from Generals: This is hard work!

I tell you that because I said that to myself today. It's a Saturday. I shouldn't be saying things like that! I know, but it's Valentine's Day. In an effort to woo my bride I took it upon myself to try to extend my talents by offering to re-stain our coffee table as a gift. This morning, after Becky made me some excellent bacon and eggs and blueberry muffins, sipping my coffee, and after reading up on Ralph and Nadine McCampbell of Island City, Missouri, we went to Lowe's, yes Lowe's, to pick out our stain and buy the necessary supplies.

Becky picked out a great stain, while I found some 80 grit sandpaper to remove the old stain and some semigloss polyurethane to finish up with. After stopping by Becky's parents to borrow their sander again, we came home and I got to work. I don't have the most ideal working conditions. I do not have an enclosed garage or saw horses. I only have a covered car port, a nickel in my pocket, and a dream. Maybe that's too dramatic.

I got started sanding. It took me about an hour and half to get it where it needed to be to stain. I took a quick break, had Becky give her approval, and started staining the top. I put a coat on, sanding it with some 220, then applied another coat of stain. As of now, it's in our living room with the top stained and the rest sanded down. It looks very cottage-like, so I thought I'd show Becky and give her the option of taking it as is or having me finish staining it.

I think I will finish staining it tomorrow and give it a good sanding. Small group was canceled tomorrow evening, so I may even be able to put on a coat of polyurethane.

Check out some of the pictures below:

We never posted Christmas pictures.

This was our first married Christmas! Watch the slideshow carefully. On the picture where Becky is really laughing hard, it's because I only wrapped the top half of the box when we ran out of wrapping paper. :-)

We did our VDay-ing a day ahead. Take that Hallmark!

This is Patrick. Let me say something that may make the world hate me. I have mixed feelings on VDay. I think the whole idea has become over commercialized, much like Christmas and Easter. However, Christmas and Easter are important celebrations central to our faith. On the other hand, Valentine's Day is only central to Hallmark's 1Q financial report.

I don't mean to be cynical, I really don't. In fact, I read a great blog on VDay this morning, making me neutral. I am not opposed to the idea of taking a day to rekindle romance and let someone know how much they mean to you. I am opposed to the current-day chocolate and card obligation with the intention of merely checking off a holiday to-do list.**

I know how much Becky desires to be pursued. After a good Google Chat with Chris, I walked away (rather, signed off) knowing that our wives only want to feel thought of, not robotically Kroger-outdoor-flower-stored.

I digress. After having these mixed feelings for several days, I decided to buck our routine Valentine's Day. Instead of buying her chocolates and taking her out to dinner, I decided to make her a romantic dinner and let her know that I care about her.

I went to Costco on my lunch break, picked out a few fine selections, and got stuck behind some foreigners who made me late back to work. On my way home I stopped and got a few more items. Before Becky got home I had the white table cloth and china out on our table. She was pretty excited. We were both much more excited than our usual Valentine's Day entitlement attitude.

I made a roast, garlic mashed potatoes, some rice, a salad, and I made brownies for dessert! Please enjoy the pictures below.




**Disclaimer: If you take time to get your significant other (s.o.) a nice gift with the intent of woo-ing them, please do.

You can't steam out those wrinkles. Or is that plaid?

(I failed on that title, sorry.)

Tonight Becky and I listened to a Ben Stewart podcast on marriage. It was good. I'll be honest, I didn't pay attention as well as Becky did because I was making dinner at the same time. Dinner was good, though! (FYI, the creamy tomato-alfredo hybrid isn't all it's hyped up to be.)

After dinner we went to Marshall's. I'll be the first to admit I love Marshall's. It's in my top five favorite stores, behind REI, Costco, Apple Store, and HEB-Central Market. Each time (and each store) is different. Plus, it's just so stinking cheap. It'd be foolish not to shop there. I got two new pairs of cool pants! One pair is to replace my khaki's, which like your tax dollars, got owned by AIG. Well, their chair owned them to be more specific. They frayed the right hip a bit and I haven't found a suitable replacement. (No pun intended.)

The second pair is a really cool Calvin Klein trouser that is black/ gray plaid. Apparently plaid is back in? Evan, my boss, was wearing a pair of plaid pants today and I thought they were cool. So, being female, I went and bought a pair of plaid pants tonight. Maybe I'll take a picture of me wearing them and upload it tomorrow.

We came home and put them in the Dryel dry clean at home bag. Here's the result: . If that looks like nothing, it is. This system isn't very good and, at best, does nothing but leave your clothes smelling like dryer sheet concentrate. It doesn't get the wrinkles out. I should've known that a wet, smelly paper towel imitation couldn't replace the commercial-grade iron and press machine of my preferred neighborhood dry cleaning service. The price: about $10. I think we'll get about 12-14 garments out of this, so it saved about $2.50-3.00, but that doesn't include the time Becky and I spent ironing out the wrinkles it left in. Bottom line: .5 Gillies (of 5 Gillies), for the smell.

Also, Becky is an amazing wife. I give her 5 Gillies and bowl of Blue Bell.

Top 16.5 Moments from the Last 5.5 Years (3 Presidential Terms X 5.5 Years)

This is a Patrick list, so it will be entirely awesome!

1. Getting married

2. Graduating from Texas A&M University

3. Honeymooning in Maui (and the sunsets)

4. Owning the Grand Canyon

(The following are in no particular order)

5. Aggie Ring

6. Pine Country Pie

7. Wii tennis domination of the world

8. Glacier National Park

9. Going to the Bahamas (with SCUBA diving, moped riding, and yachts)

10. Getting engaged in Central Park, NYC

11. John Fogerty at the Houston Rodeo. Twice. This is a value moment!

12. MacBook/ iPod/ Apple in general

13. Going from being debt free to endebtedness and back to being debt free again

14. Moving into my own place (and then living with Becky)

15. Skiing in Colorado

16. Baltimore, MD (including Berger Cookies, crabcakes, scrapple, and new family)

16.5 My great (and only) tackle in football

Three presidential terms!

5.5 years ago I was...

A recent high school graduate

Getting ready to move to College Station to attend Texas A&M University (whoop)

Coming back from Maui for a trip my parents took me on

Picking out bedding with my soon-to-be roomie Brooke

Getting REALLY terrible highlights using a new hair stylist who turned my hair orange (for the first day of college. sweet.)

Getting a new (to me) car

And, five and a half years ago, on August 9, 2003 'officially' dating Patrick Gilgour. :-)

Patrick and I have been together now (well, as of two days ago) for 5.5 years. I know, that's the third time I've said that, but whoa! We are on our third presidential term! (Two were the same president, but still.) We used to celebrate our half year anniversaries at the same time as Valentine's. And our year anniversaries came in August. But now our real married half anniversaries come in January and our real married year anniversaries in July. Did you get all that?

Either way, I am told there is a surprise coming on Valentine's Day and I am pumped.

Isn't it crazy how many things happen in 5 years? Since we started dating, he has graduated from high school, we have both started and graduated from college, we have both lost very special family members, I have been to Europe and Patrick has found a love for national parks, we have become totally different people, we got MARRIED, we moved into this townhouse, we have become debt free, we have both started our first jobs... phew.

Happy five and a half years!

Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as he loved himself

On Sunday, my pastor preached on how love wins in friendship and used the story of Jonathan and David, two best friends, as his illustration. It was a great sermon. I loved hearing how God designed friendship and seeing that present in my life with my friends.

To start, I never thought I'd have the kinds of friends that I do, so I certainly don't take them for granted. I didn't have friends like I do now when I was younger. Sure, I had great friends, but not Jonathan-like friends. And to be fair, I wasn't really a friend like Jonathan was to anyone else.

I wouldn't trade my friends for anything. I love my friends like I love myself and I hurt when they hurt and we share each other's successes and it is good. Our God is good and friendships are good.

From Road Trip of a lifetime

And I'm the worst friend in the world for not having taken a picture with Chris at any point in my life.

From Brazos Bend SP

I'm also friends with Becky, too, but that's a little different....

PSA #1

If you know Becky, you know she's a huge John and Kate Plus 8 fan. Usually the kids line up and say "on this episode of John and Kate Plus 8" and they go to a bunch of previews for the show. To reduce costs "due to the economic crisis caused by Nancy Pelosi" (for my fellow 30 Rock fans out there), TLC is replacing this dynamic clip with one they can use all season long.

Now, they have all the kids lined up and have them say, in unison, "On every episode of John and Kate Plus 8" and they just cut to their endless supply of clips of Kate screaming at John for something immaterial and insignificant.

Thankful.

I just put up my March calendar at work! Whoa! (We put up two months at a time.) Our upcoming months are full of exciting things! Patrick's trip to Big Bend is in just a couple of weeks now, and Valentine's Day is next weekend! We are going to Missouri at the end of February also, and then Patrick's birthday is the first week of March! He will be 23. :-) We will be the same age for almost 3 months. I will relish those months when we are older I'm sure.

Lisa McGown gets a birthday week, and considering that I get VERY excited about birthdays/holidays, I have been trying to convince Patrick that I, too, would thoroughly enjoy a birthday week. But I really love everyone's birthdays, so in anticipation of my wonderful husband creating a week of birthday bliss for ME, I am going to have one for HIM! I'm pretty excited about it. Lisa does Friday to Friday, but since Patrick wants to go camping Fri-Sat after his birthday, he will get the previous Saturday to that Saturday. Yay! I have lots of things up my sleeve. :-)

On another note, I watch Good Morning America every morning, and the statistics of how many people have lost their jobs/homes/etc. gets more staggering every day. And we know we haven't hit the bottom yet. (And being in the mortgage industry, I am hit in the face with the dire situation of the economy every day.) I am so thankful for my very stable life at the moment, for our jobs and health and roof over our heads, and plenty of food in the fridge. For our healthy marriage and family that is close by (and lots of wonderful family who are not close by!) For our wonderful friends that we love so much and get to spend so many fun times with. For our church, our Wednesday night youth, and our own grown up small group. For the fact that we can afford to just go to Missouri in a couple weeks to see Patrick's family. For our emergency fund. :-)

And if you read this, I am positive that I'm thankful for you! Happy Friday Eve!

**ps I don't know why this posted on Wednesday; I posted it Thursday, which is why I said Friday eve!**

The Significance of Insignificant Items

This is Patrick... (as if the random title wouldn't give that away)

I place far too much significance in insignificant items.  I'm sort of a pack-rat, albeit an organized one.  I save too much stuff, thinking this is important to me.  For example, I used to save the tags off of dress shirts if I thought they would somehow influence my life.   It's weird, but I've mostly stopped.  Mostly.

As January ends and February begins, I'm starting a new Burt's Bees stick today.  I love Burt's Bees, almost as much as pie.  In fact, Burt's Bees is an untold secret in my life, that only my closest friends know about. If this is the first you've heard of my love of BB, sorry, you're just not quite in that upper tier yet. If you're not a "bestie", then consider yourself warned: I don't really "just do things". I'm an all or nothing kind of guy. If I'm not willing to pledge my life to its causes, then I want nothing to do with it. If I'm not willing to name my first born after its creator, it's meaningless. Digressing, if someone said, "Patrick! You're going to be stranded on an island! And have to pick between 'Bees and Pie," I'd be torn.  I'd probably take the 'Bees.  

I find this last stick of Burt's Bees really significant.  It has been through a lot.  I'm a meticulous 'Bees keeper, so it hasn't been washed, frozen, melted, or anything to limit its powers.  This particular stick has stood by me (or in my pocket) through the most significant events in my life.  She was there when I received my college degree, she has been the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back, she watched a sunset (or six) with me in Maui, she was there (along with my trusty Gerber pocketknife) when I held my bride's hand at the alter on our wedding day, she was the for our first dance, when we moved in together, my first day of work, and when my truck was hit.  It may be that my life has just had a lot of great changes lately and I happened to only have one stick of Burt's Bees, but I do think it holds some kind of magical powers.  

My 'Bees is a trusty companion.  I hope this next stick brings as much adventure, laughter, and joy as this last one has.