honeymooners

yo! matt and i met with a triple a travel agent this morning to discuss possible honeymoon locations. turns out we will end up finding the place ourselves (she wasn't as thorough as we thought she could be) and then perhaps will go to them for the insurance. anyways, we both got to go into work late and after the meeting we went out to breakfast together. it was twenty bucks. which i realize may either sound like a lot to some people or like nothing to others, but to me at the time it sounded like a lot. i have grown surprisingly cheap as i've gotten older, but i admit it, so it's okay. now truly i just like to save money, and it takes some talking into for me to spend money when it comes to clothes, or good hair stylist, or pedicures (i got one once and it hurt, so besides the massage part i don't really like it) but i do realize at times it's worth it to spend a little more on nice clothes and things of that nature. yes i just said "things of that nature" when i was in training for work i was noticing people using sayings like that all the time but in odd ways "so forth" and "things of that nature" basically wrapping up the answer with a very vague statement barely answering the original question. like ellen degeneres talks about trying to end a story when you are in the middle of telling it and forget the ending... "well, it's a slippery slope my friend!"... made me laugh for some reason. okay, back to breakfast we have a lovely time and as we leave i needed matt to remind me that spending the twenty bucks was so very worth it because we rarely get the chance to do that (even if we did it every day it would still be worth it maybe just a little excessive). between the triple a meeting and heading to breakfast matt is in heaven with the a.c. pumping (his car doesn't have any!) looking over the brochures of mexico we just got, and i am blasting some enya. enya, anyone? other than my mom? it was one of my old cd's i made with nothing but relaxing music on it (great for baths, meditating) and now after work from a twelve hour day. or just pleasantly enjoying a drive with your fiance. believe me, i enjoyed it. i enjoyed it so much that i broke out in laughter and could not stop. my eyes were watering, i was making those weird gulp and quiet laughish sounds that happen when it takes your whole body in order to try and hold in a laugh, matt's crazy look over at me soon forced him into a hilarious laughing fit, and he had no idea why i was laughing which made me laugh even more uncontrollably. (alisa, you'll know what i'm talkin bout... we used to get to the verge of getting kicked out of class because of this laughter). my mom and me in restaurants can get this way sometimes. and now matt and i in the car, listening to enya in a very happy cool state. it was a great start to my day.

My dream last night...

So my dream starts out standing in a room with people, I don't really see their faces or feel like I know anyone but there are people in the room with me. The t.v. is on and there is one wall of windows looking out to a city of some sort. What is happening on the t.v. is the same as what's happening out the window, does that make sense? So all of a sudden on the t.v. there is a huge ocean wave building and building and coming towards us, I look to the window and the same thing is happening and right when the first rush of water starts to break over the top of the window I turn to my right and run to the door. (My first thought is if the water touches me I will probably die instantly... I know this is a depressing thought, but I can't hold my breath very long and drowning is one of my biggest fears). But I am the first one out the door and I start to lead this group of people behind me. I find the stairs quickly and run up a floor it was like we were in an apartment building or something. I am nervous but not really scared at this point, I had a sense that we were going to be okay. We keep running and gather all the people up over the wave so when we suddenly come in contact with the water we are on top of it and sort of swimming in it. I am relieved we didn't drown but now we have to float and swim in this water and I begin to worry about what possible creatures are in the water (I still sometimes think there could be sharks in lakes... not scientifically or anything, just a thought that will occasionally cross my mind if I am ever in a lake). So we start to swim a little fast to where we are near more people and we all seem to feel safe... and then the dream ends. I looked up a few things on having dreams about water and it seems to be pretty common (I have had a few vivid dreams with water) I don't always look up dream meaning stuff and sometimes I think the unconscious is just molding random memories together and making a dream however sometimes I think there may be meaning behind them. I found this online:

"Water dreams also come in the form of waves which may represent emotional fluctuations. If you are currently experiencing a period of tranquility and peace, you may be dreaming about calm waters and gentle ocean waves. This dream suggests that you may be gathering energy and recharging emotionally. However, more commonly people dream of violent and dangerous tidal waves. Tidal waves or tsunamis suggest a period of emotional upheaval. Anxiety, stress, and unconscious materials may be coming to the surface and affecting your daily moods. Giant tidal waves may symbolize current emotional unhappiness and psychological stress, which are threatening to destroy you. The outcome of this dream may reveal how much strength you have to "ride out" personal storms. For example, surviving the tidal wave suggests that you have enough strength to overcome challenges..."

It felt nice reading this so I am going to attach this meaning to the dream I had last night. I know I have a big positive change coming in getting married and all the planning about it has taken up most of my brain space and there have been moments of stress but overall I keep sticking to our original vision of what we want that day to look like and who we want to surround ourselves with. This has been a learning experience for me in some days letting go of my ego a little and taking suggestions, and some days truly listening to my own voice and making the decisions for me and Matt and not anyone else. I had a conversation with a friend about not inviting another friend to the wedding. I know it would still be very fun if we were to have my entire extended family, and all of our friends even the ones we haven't talked to in a while or friends of friends... but we just can't and truthfully the more intimate guest list works for us. It has grown a little more than I thought it might, but it just reminds me that we are very blessed to have really great people in our lives.

And I have grown throughout this process and I know I will continue to. I will come out on top of the water and gain more strength in myself and my relationship with Matt. There is something to learn in having disagreements, challenges, or doing things that at first seem uncomfortable (like a phone call to a friend, or a disagreement with a family member) but you soon find out it's worth it, and it will turn out better than you thought it could.

disclaimer

hey there. now this next post is all about our dog jaxon. disclaimer; if you have kids and or have never been a dog person you probably have no reason to continue reading. my mom let me have my first dog when i was a sophomore in high school. it took some coaxing and conversation over many days and weeks where i would bring up dog names i liked (cooper was the number one choice) and finally one day after school i noticed in my moms bedroom that on the floor was a stack of books about dogs. that's when i knew i had succeeded. soon after we went to a farm and chose between a light and a dark colored beagle, we chose the darker one with tan and white spots. we probably could have trained him better when it comes to obeying (for instance he will steal food out of your hand if you let him) but we instantly fell in love with him. and now that he is turning eleven (a typical beagle life span is 12.5 years) we began to reflect on our lives with him. it was during a somewhat hard but very special time that my mom and i got to spend together, and with cooper. anyways fast forward several years and matt and i now have two dogs of our very own. we love them oh so much. we feed them, bathe them, take them on walks, brush their teeth (our vet says we have to do that every week now, who does that? but we are going to try to) basically they are our children with fur. and until we have kids it will stay that way and even once we have a child these two creatures will still be an important part of our family. i love coming home to them. i love being near them, and i can tell they like it too. right now jaxon has positioned himself underneath my chair. last sunday morning i saw jaxon laying down but his foot was kind of hanging in the air. i was busy running around the house and i asked matt to look at his foot, come to find out that his toe nail (like his pinky finger) was sticking completely out to the side and there was blood. long story short we took him to the vet once it opened in the afternoon and he had damaged his toe pretty badly. the vet suggested she sedate him and cut it off at the knuckle and then i guess it just grows back. we ended up doing that and left him at the vet for five hours (we've never left him anywhere except our house or matt's moms house) and when we picked him up it was like picking up our kid from college. believe me i know how rediculous that sounds but it was true. i was excited and nervous and couldn't wait to hug him. he came out from the back room and he was drugged. the vet warned us about this but it was just so bizzare to actually see. his eyes were watery, he was wired, and bumped into things as he walked. matt had to sit in the backseat with him because he was just falling all over the place. sunday night we took turns laying with him because he was so wired he would not lay down, but if you sit next to him he will lay for hours. ellie knew something different was going on and was just as weirded out by the fact that he wasn't really recognizing any of us. jax finally passed out and seemed to have little or no pain the whole week, but he did have a lovely little cast on for a couple days. everything seems to be healing just fine and he is acting like his regular cute self again.

Dogs

So who else is sick of sob stories about car trouble? How about some pictures of our pup's instead? It's a special treat for them to get a new toy because Ellie (the little one) goes nuts and rips any toy to shreds in about four minutes. Thankfully toys are the only thing she chews on but when she does, look out. Jaxon will get a toy and just pose all cute, like he is here with his duck. Also his eyes are half open because of the flash on my camera, but it works out because this is what he looks like on rainy days, we call him squints.
Ellie is displaying her new toy, a red and white ball that was actually very hard for her to rip into, so good purchase.
And after a long day of playing these two usually curl up together on Jaxon's bed. Hope you had a great weekend, will post more soon!

What a pain...

So, after that really great weekend we had it ended in a not so fun way. After our bike ride on Sunday we decided to pick up lunch from Jimmy John's and the second I finished eating I felt sick. It could have been a culmination of things including but not limited to; over exercising, eating the wrong foods, dehydration, etc. But all I can tell you is I have never experienced those kind of pains in my stomach before. I could barely move, and spent the rest of the evening on and off heating my stomach because that was the only thing that gave me temporary relief. I even called in sick on Monday to my new job, it was that bad! Matt had a somewhat surprise procedure Monday morning on his tooth that made half of his face completely numb so he decided to take his lunch hour at home (to check on me, also to wait till the drooling subsided before going back to work :) We were quite the pair, but thankfully he felt better quickly and finished out the work day. I decided that if the pains were the same in the morning I would go to the doctor because it even hurt to roll from one side to the other. I went in to work this morning, even made it through a new family meeting and had an afternoon appointment with the doctor.

I met with a doctor I have never seen before. It turns out she was a younger woman and a breath of fresh air in the amount of time she spent actually listening to me and trying to figure out what was wrong, what we could do next, etc. (Rather than a doctor I have had before who doesn't listen, talks too fast, and he writes prescriptions so fast your head will spin). I had some blood drawn and I know it will all be just fine and I would much rather they say "you obviously can't handle pain well, go home ya baby" then to have anything be wrong. So it will all be just fine. It was kind of funny though when the nurse was drawing blood.. it usually never bothers me and when she pulled the needle out I actually said "ow!"

So I leave the doctor's office a bit more in pain then what I started with. But to add some flavor to this already long day of mine, I get no more than 50 yards out of the parking lot and as I am on the phone with Matt I said "I have to go, my car is making a weird noise". He said "what kind of weird noise?", and I said "well, it sounds like it did when my lug nuts fell off... I bet I have a flat tire... oh jeez, I'm gonna have to call you back". I pull over, put my hazards on, go to the suspected tire and sure enough I have a flat tire!

I call Matt back and by this time my energy is pretty well spent. I had a quick vision of me having to change my very first tire by myself, in my work clothes, without the proper tools. And instead of breaking a window, I start to cry. Not a real full on cry, but a I am so frustrated I just want to be home and I kind of want to hit something kind of cry. Sometimes in moments like these guys hit things, and sometimes women cry. Matt is somewhat familiar with this behavior and he is ready to leave work to help me, but I figured I call my Dad because he might be on a break from work but he doesn't answer, then I think to call my brother because I was somewhat in his neighborhood.. much more so then I would have been near Matt's work. But my brother was still at work even further from where I was. So after calling the men in my life (my sister is busy with her son, and my mom just had foot surgery)...

Finally I realize the best and easiest solution is to call Triple A for the second time in about 4 months (Thanks Dad for my membership!) and within thirty minutes these two nice young guys come to my rescue. The one guy gets out and sees that I have a band aid where they drew blood, and he says "ahhh, first that now this?" It made me smile and reminded me that it was just a stupid flat tire and there are much worse things. I immediately felt grateful and drove away completely fine. Bonus- five cars pulled over to ask if I needed help in that short time I was sitting there, so that was refreshing.

Surprisingly my stomach feels a little better, I had some more watermelon and I am going to eat a delicious dinner and get some good sleep tonight. It's funny how sometimes these things, these life annoyances come all on the same week, or even the same day. And you just gotta roll with it, and that guy whipping his arms about like a mad man in road rage on my way home made me smile and throw him the peace sign (which probably made him more upset) but perspective is what it's all about. And my perspective tonight and hopefully most nights is gratitude and being present.

4th of July!

To keep with our tradition that we started three years ago, we spent the holiday at my sister's house and the minute it got dark we began to play with sparklers, a flashlight, and a long exposure. Matt was the master mind behind the photography, and woah, he is talented.
We started the night with delicious appetizers, then cooked out on the grill and spent the entire evening on their back porch. Kestan was busy running all over the back yard, taking rocks and putting them near the dogs, trying to dig holes with Uncle Matt and overall just being a cute, really really cute, sweaty little boy.
Kestan also fell from the sky.
Me and my sparkler friend.
Of course a classic Star Wars recreation by me and Matthew. It was a really great weekend. Both Matt and I had Friday off, by the way I am in love with three day weekends. I cooked a delicious tomato basil quiche. We went on a bike ride to my dad's house on Saturday and then Sunday we met two women I work with and their husbands for a lovely bike ride. The weather was gorgeous and we all had a great time. Hope you enjoyed your fourth as well!

Grandma and Grandpa

After we spent the day in Omaha we made our way up to our grandparents' house. It was the first time I remember ever having just the two of them and myself, dad, sister, and nephew. We are blessed to have such a large extended family, but it was very nice getting a chance to really catch up with Grandma and Grandpa with no agenda or family reunion to compete with.
They have maintained and share a very beautiful garden near their apartment, after my first ham sandwich for lunch (not a huge fan) we spent the afternoon breezing in the garden and in a pretty gazebo just catching up.
My dad and Kestan spent some time chilling in the garden as well.
My grandpa has had this "tilly" hat, I believe it is called, for as long as I can remember. And once Kestan started wearing his big ol' cute hat for the summer it immediately reminded me of grandpa's hat... so naturally we had to get a nice picture of the two of them looking so good.