138 days until Christmas

And, per theknot.com, we have been married for 764 days. That is a lot of days. I mean, not in the grand scheme of things I guess, but it seems like a lot when you count in days.

I'm looking for a weekend getaway place in Texas for the fall. Any ideas? Since we vacationed with the fam again this year (not that I'm complaining, it was WONDERFUL), I figure we should do something just the two of us. And (gasp!) I'm not thinking the beach. I'm thinking more along the lines of Fredericksburg maybe. Something where there's nothing on the agenda. Not a big city. A bed and breakfast or a cabin or something. Anyone?

Something like this:

Yeah yeah, I know. That doesn't exactly scream 'Texas'. But a girl can dream.

"Journey" by Patrick Gilgour

I regret to inform you that this is blurry and terribly done and does not do my husband's Journey belting abilities any justice. And it's sideways and apparently I'm not very youtube-literate. But it's worth it. (Please, watch to the end.)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LITWsqQUrv4

Thank you, Matt and Alyssa, for getting married and allowing me to see this. And see all of your fine brothers dancing skillz. And, sadly, not see Jon get to a 'level 6' where apparently he just wants to dance. :-)

Best day of the week: Benday!

Last weekend we got to babysit sweet Ben. Ohh my goodness, I love that kid. He is precious.

Please see below two of my favorite people in the world:


Activities involved:

• Climbing the stairs roughly 893045890348590 times with numerous attempts to nose dive down on his own. Thus giving his babysitter many near-heart attacks. But look at that kid, he wanted to climb the stairs, no chance I was saying no! (Don't worry, I was very careful.)
• Taking a nap. Ohhh this was a favorite for me. He fell asleep on my bed with me. Precious.
• Cuddle time post-nap
• Lots of pointing and saying 'dog'
• Lots of trying to share Cheerios with the dog (we were dog sitting also)
• Playing with the knobs on the bathtub and being really impressed when the water came out
  
• Baby pool date with friends Landon and Ryan, where the fountain was quite intriguing (My favorite part: the swim diaper was on backwards, so it was too narrow in the back and showed half his little bottom, in a very sumo wrestler fashion.)

You can stay with us any time you want, Ben!

Answer: 'complete mechanical failure'

Question: The #1 thing you never want to hear your mechanic say about the transmission in your car.

Sigh. The rodeo is no longer with us. Below you will see a picture of Patrick selling my car. The rodeo is now with someone named Raz. Or something like that. Thank you, Raz, for buying a non-functioning car.

Me: "Aw, Patrick, we have so many memories in that car."
Patrick: "We argued a lot in that car."*

:-) It's all about the sentiment with that one, folks.

**Disclaimer: He wasn't talking about, like, last week. More like about 2004. Or something. Maybe not 2004, but that's my way of saying it was not last week.

ANYWAY, my parents bought me that car on August 20th, 2003. Like 3 days or something before it journeyed to College Station with me to begin my life in Aggieland. (whoop) And sat in lot 40 for 99% of it's next year of life. (The good news is that when your car is half a mile from your dorm and therefore never gets driven, it keeps the 'new car smell' for a long time. That's really the only good news.)

So we embark on the 'find a new car' journey. And we are very lucky to embark at a slightly less hectic pace, as we are currently borrowing a car from my dad. (Thanks, Dad!) I would like to add that when someone else is paying for the car, say, your dad, it's really a more enjoyable shopping experience. (Thanks, Dad!) But in fact this time around, what with the purchasing it ourselves, not quite so much bliss. Plus it wasn't really in the plan right now. But that is ok, we are prepared, Patrick has done about 82930489032 hours of research, and we will hopefully be driving a 4runner (the car of choice) home very soon!

Goodbye, Rodeo! I will not miss your severe blind spots. But I already miss your paid-for-ness.

Confession.

I am a worrier.

I need to say it again just to remind myself how dumb it is. I am a worrier.

We talked about it tonight at church, but the more I think about it, holy moly I am a chronic worrier. How ridiculous. Let's think about my life right now. Two stable incomes. A beautiful house. A really great marriage that I thoroughly enjoy. Wonderful (and I do mean wonderful) friends and family that I can't get enough of. A very, very comfortable lifestyle. What in the world do I have to worry about? If you got in my head, you wouldn't know I have it so good. You wouldn't know that I get plenty of sleep, eat three meals a day, get up to a reasonable commute and work daily with people that I really, really like. Drive my reasonable commute home to a house that I love, see my husband who is my favorite person alive, spend my evenings either relaxing with him or with friends, do a decent amount of traveling to places that are wonderful.

And yet.

I can talk myself into a panic attack at any moment. Isn't that RIDICULOUS?! I can talk myself into it. And I do. Oh but it gets better! Once I talk myself into it, I can't talk myself out of it! The mind... it's crazy. I realize my life won't always be like this. I realize this is a season. I can assure you, I've had my share of seasons. I've had my share of days where I wasn't overcome with things that are wonderful about my life. And here is the worst part of my confession: the times when something is seriously wrong are the times that I worry the least. My mind focuses on something real, and I deal with it, and somehow I block out all the worthless worrying over things that don't matter. (You should all probably step away from your computers now, lest the lightning bolt that will soon strike me somehow to get to you; I'm pretty sure saying things like 'I live best when some major crisis is taking place' is an open invitation for God to test me. I take it back. Really.) Trust me, I don't desire a crisis. I just desire not to worry. Not to have any anxiety. Ugh.

On a happier note... I get to do a little babysitting this weekend and you KNOW how I love to sit on a good baby! Ha... I know. That's a terrible joke. But I really do love babies, so I'm all over it. Maybe I'll get in a picture or two.

Love to all! Feel free to just scroll through my posts in your google readers. They have been of little use to you lately.

One of my more lame posts

I'm exhausted. Two weeks of whirlwind vacationing. So wonderful, so worn out.

We got to go to Baltimore this past weekend to see my wonderful family. It's one of my favorite places to be. They are such great people. We had to cram everything into a pretty short time, but I think we did it. We had snowballs and crabs and lots of family time. And we came home with Berger Cookies so all is well in our world.

This is my first full week of work in quite some time now. Blah. The great news is that I now get to work normal hours again! YAY!! Oh it feels so so so good to come home in the daylight. And have time to do something other than eat and sleep in the evening.

Ok that's all I have right now, there's a couple pictures of Baltimore to come but I'm too lazy to get up and do all the plugging in that it takes to upload them right now. :-)

Have a great week!

Happy 2nd anniversary to my fantastic husband!

I don't know how 2 years flies by so quickly but it does! We spent the day today sleeping in, unpacking and cleaning up some, doing a little shopping and going out to dinner. We'll end the evening with some Big Bang Theory season 1 I'm sure. :-) Sounds perfect to me.

Happy anniversary, Patrick! I love you!