Why We Aren't Ready For Parenthood, Reason #39

Brian was out of town last week for three days for work. He flew to Seattle to pick out a laser...some engineering thing that's over my head. Before he left, he gave me one task: "Please remember to feed the fish. Try really hard not to forget."

I got it. "No problem," I said.

What did I do? Ate popcorn and ice cream for dinner every night and watched Friends. Late into the night. Every night. It was lovely. I finished season 1 and season 2. Awesome.

It was day three, Brian would be home in a few hours, and I noticed the fish were acting strange. About 2 hours later after walking past them again and thinking they were not being their normal selves, it dawned on me that I hadn't fed them yet.

We had two babies. Now we have one. Sorry, Brian!

the baby is in the center of the photo - in front of the purplish/pink rock

again, the baby is in the center of the photo - next to the castle

Why We Aren't Ready For Parenthood, Reason #27

I couldn't decide if I should break this up into two posts or not, and I didn't. Consider yourself warned

This weekend was awesome. Seriously something we've been waiting for since we moved here nearly two years ago. Why was it so great? Because we did something TWO nights in a row! (cue choir of angels) Hallelujah!

The following is a background to the point of this post:

When we moved here from Rapid City on Monday, August 30, 2010, we had been married exactly one year and eight days and were ready to start our post-college life together. We were extremely reluctant and hesitant to move here because we both swore we'd never live east river South Dakota again. However, we both felt extremely led to move here - like it was meant to happen. This was the only job B was offered (after numerous interviews all around the U.S.) and his sweet mother was just beginning chemo for her rare and aggressive breast cancer. We thought this was the perfect chance to be closer to loved ones and couldn't pass the up opportunity. Since we both felt so certain this was where we were suppose to be, we thought it'd be an easy transition.

It wasn't. Everything about moving here was extremely difficult. It was all I could do to not cry when we pulled away from our first apartment together. When we were only 1 hour from Yankton, I hit a pothole on the interstate - leaving the car with significant damage and undriveable (yup, made up that word). I cried some more. It set us back three entire. whole. hours. I cried some more. When we fiiiinally pulled up to our place with both cars being towed, I dreaded the idea of unloading everything. I thought this move was suppose to be grand? I thought it was suppose to be easy? After all, this was B's first "real world" job and I was certainly going to find something within my degree soon, too, right?

Damaged tire and the bottom side thingy

It complete bent the rim. We had to get 4 new rims so everything matched and a new tire (we just got these tires before we left Rapid City)

Wrong. I didn't start my job until January 10, 2011. No joke. Four and a half months of sitting on the couch, looking for jobs and wallowing in my own misery...oh, and watching Little House on the Prairie on PBS. Just when I was about ready to give up on a job within my degree and settle for flipping burgers, I found a graphic design job. Phew! But why is this adventure so hard? 

Then came the issue of friends. In Rapid, we honestly did something at least five nights a week with friends. Ample friends. Some really good, really close friends that we couldn't imagine leaving. But we did. We didn't think making friends here would be so hard, but it was. We didn't have any and weren't making any and didn't know how to get connected in the community. Then in November 2010 we started to hang out with this amazing couple from our church that has the sweetest, most adorable little lad (that was actually born the weekend we moved here!). It was beyond awesome - truly so good for us!

I'm going to get a little personal here and confess that in our weakest points that first winter we moved here, we both contemplated having a child. *Shutter* We figured we were the closest to home we'd ever be (we're both from the same town), so it'd be great for our families since it'd be the first grandchild for both of them and we weren't making many friends, so maybe it was time to move on with our lives? Now I progress to my point: kids - we aren't ready.

We absolutely love kids and love our friends' little boy, but I'm so glad that neither of us actually desired to have a child at the same time.

This weekend was awesome. It was completely unplanned and everything happened on a whim. Friday night I did nothing but watch two and half discs of Friends. It was awesome, but B decided it was pathetic and said we were getting a fire pit so that never happens again...so he promptly bought one the next day. Saturday evening/night we went out on the boat with a FRIEND and went wakeboarding and just had a great time. Then we came home and had a fire in the new fire pit - it was awesome! Sunday we floated the river with more FRIENDS and it was the absolute highlight of my entire time here so far...seriously! I love that a NEW friend asked us the day before if we wanted to float the river, and we were able to just accept with nothing to worry about. After we floated the river we asked them to stay at our place and eat dinner with us (completely unplanned), and then we had a fire again, this time with our friends. It was wonderful.

So we aren't ready to settle down and enter the "real world" (what we call having children). We still feel young (and absolutely are!) and carefree and love the idea of being able to pick up and go boating or float down the river whenever friends ask!

This is what we've been praying for since we moved here two years ago. So friends, please continue to invite us to spend time with you. You have no idea what it does to our heartstrings and it is music to our ears. Also, even if you invite us over to your home to do nothing, we will accept. We love spending time with people and developing meaningful relationships. So let our phones ring!

note: I don't want to belittle any of our dear friends and family that have children or are pregnant. you guys are absolutely wonderful for pursuing what you feel is best for your family. we honor and respect that about you guys. you are truly amazing and a heck-of-a-lot more daring then we are! keep on having them babies...after all, I need to be an auntie somehow ;)

Running Success

I was able to check an item off my bucket list that I've had on it for quite a few years and have attempted a few times in the past. On June 3, I ran my first ever half marathon! Yup, believe it, baby! Without too much thinking ahead of time, I signed up for the Minneapolis Half Marathon about 3 months ago. 

Running a half is something I've wanted to do since high school and my sophomore year of college I decided I was absolutely going to do it. At that time, I didn't have a particular race in mind, but I started training. I was up to 6 miles, which isn't a ton, but for me that was the furthest I had ever run before. It felt like a huge accomplishment. For some reasons that I can't remember anymore, I stopped running. Just stopped. Went cold turkey. 

That was the end of my running "career", but I still had that half marathon written on my list of things to do before I die (I seriously have a list), and it was staring me in the face. May of 2011, my friend Rachel and I started running together and we ran a 5k in town. It was anything huge, but it was my first  race and again it felt accomplishing. Again, for some reasons that I can't remember anymore, I stopped running. Just stopped. Went cold turkey. 

This year, Rachel and I signed up for Grandma's Marathon (we were going to do the half) and were super excited for it! It's held in Duluth, MN...can you say gorgeous?! It's a lottery drawing and they would be picking something like 6,000 people, so we thought for sure our names would get drawn. They didn't. We were devastated. 

Rachel found the Minneapolis Marathon, and it isn't a lottery, so we signed up and paid the fee. The fee is the real kicker here, guys. I don't think I could have continued my training if I hadn't forked out something like $70 just to enter the race. I persevered through the training with just 12 short weeks to go from running 1 mile to running 13.1 miles. I had to wake up at 5:50am during the week to get my longer runs in before work and to stay clear of the insane spring heat. I stuck to the training schedule and pushed through lots of knee pain at times and I made it. My longest run was 12 miles and I felt MORE than prepared for race day and couldn't wait to kick it's butt.

In the corral waiting for our turn to start 

Race day came and it was awful. It was honestly one of the hardest thing I've ever done. By mile 6 I was feeling exhausted and by mile 9 I felt defeated. It was hot and I was tired. I could have probably walked just as fast as I was running, but it was my goal to not walk...no matter what. Somehow we made it to mile 13 and when I saw that finish line, I wanted to be DONE! I bolted for that line and could hear my sister cheering my on and calling out my name to look at her and her sign, but I couldn't. I couldn't do anything other than cross.that.line.

Off we go! 

About mile 2 and feeling wonderful! Feeling like I could do this all day

Mile 5ish and slowly starting to feel the drain.

Mile 12 and feeling defeated. I could not pick my legs and was dragging.

We made it and found shade! YAY!

He's always been my biggest fan. 

I'm toying with the idea of running another half this fall and really working on getting in shape throughout the summer. I want to work on building muscle and doing some cross-training help prevent injury. I'm not completely committed to the idea of another miserable race (hopefully the next one wouldn't be so bad since I know what to expect), but I would like to see how it compares to this one. I also am hoping to participate in the sprint triathlon in Yankton this fall.

The Swing of Things

So I realize I haven't written in a really long time...like a really. long. time! and kind of apologize for it, but I know no one really follows this anyway so I don't feel too bad. I want to try to get back in the swing of things. 

I was going through photos on my computer and found some topics I've been meaning to blog about...they're all on things I've sewn or baked, yay! 

In the meantime, I hope you all are enjoying the start of summer! I know we are! Here's a picture of B and I last night at our Hobie Cat sailboat having a little picnic date (dates are something we manage to never do...maybe that's because it's always just the two of us already? Maybe we should try double dates?) Our date was complete with wine, Subway and sushi. It was lovely.

It appears as though one of us wasn't ready...despite the red flashing light!

Really? Resolutions?

Okay, so I'm not one for being big on new year's resolutions...in fact, they really irritate me and I think they are so overrated. I do not understand why we, as a society, feel the need to pressure each other into making resolutions that we all know we will have broken by the end of January or February. I think it's highly discouraging.

However, I do believe in always bettering yourself and striving for something more from life and yourself. So this year I made a list of things I would like to work on for myself and get control of in 2012. (yeah, I know, sounds a lot like a resolution, right? well, it's not. it's just a list/set of goals to become a better person and there's no pressure if i don't succeed because becoming a better person is a LIFE process people...so back off)

The list is in no particular order, as I just wrote down ideas as they came to me, so I will type my list in the order I wrote it:

- more organized ~ this is huge for me because I am an extremely busy person with a full-time job and literally three part-time jobs. B helps a ton and is saint-like.
- less anxious ~ also important to me because I am a very anxious person...could it because because I work 4 jobs, plus play on the church worship team, plus help out with youth group? Anyway, this is really important to me because I feel like anxiety runs in my family and it's a character trait I don't want to pass onto my children. I want them to be able to see how to handle life and all it throws at them. I also don't want to be an anxious, psycho pregnant woman. I think it would be bad news for B and the baby. disclaimer: i am not pregnant. there has been some confusion.
- find more about my passions & develop them ~ I'm 24 and don't know what I want to do with my life. No surprise there, right? I mean, who does?! I have a college degree in photography and graphic design, but I want to take that to the next level. I've had this fire raging inside me for something more and I don't know what that is or how to develop it. Thus, 2012 goal.
*focus less on me & more on B ~ (that's literally how I wrote that one) Brian is my personal cheerleader and supports me in everything I do...I mean everything, people. Because he's so good to me, I constantly find myself in a state of not being good enough to him. I know I shouldn't be treating him like he treats me and comparing my support for him from his support for me, so this year I intend to learn how to support him how he needs to be supported. Sound confusing? Too bad. It makes sense in my brain.
- read more ~ books. I love books (we have two bookcases full of books) and I love reading. It comes from my mom. She was ALWAYS reading when we were growing up (which would also lead to her using complex words that our tiny brains couldn't understand. therefore we learned fast how to use context clues to determine a word's meaning). Although I love books and love reading, I haven't done it in a looooong time. I need to make time.
- simplify ~ ok, this one I have circled on my list, but I can't do that in blogger, so just imagine I circled the word "simplify". We already have a pile of stuff to put on a rummage sale in May that we're having with our friends. Not only do I want to simplify the junk we have, but I want to simplify our lives and minds. This will prove to be the hardest goal.

I know most of you don't care about these, but it feels like more of a commitment to bettering myself when I type them out for the world to see.

On a side note (because I feel bad not giving you a photo), B built a cajon (a wooden box drum that even has a snare head inside) and I designed this little "logo" for him to burn into the wood on the bottom right corner. I included a YouTube video below for you to see what a cajon sounds like and how to play. One of us will do a blog post on the cajon later.

Need photography or design work done? check out my website:
www.jensenphotographydesign.com

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Long Overdue

So it's been a very long time since I last wrote...like almost a year! But it's a new year, and with new years come new goals and ambitions, so here it goes again.

This Christmas was wonderful. It was only a four day weekend for us, but it felt like a week. It was well-needed, to say the least.

This is the third year we've sent out Christmas cards. I just love it. It seriously makes me so happy to send them out. For me it's a little reminder to all our friends and family saying, "Hey, we're thinking about you and love you! 'Tis the reason for the season!" p.s. I designed this card, so if you ever want any design work done, it's what I do so get a hold of me, please!

The back side reads, "wishing you hope, love, joy and peace this 2011 holiday season"

Because we went to see family over the weekend, B and I had our Christmas at our place before we left for the weekend and again after we got back (one of us ordered gifts late and they didn't get here until after Christmas...)

I absolutely LOVED our tree. I called it our "homemade tree" because B and I made popcorn garland, I made the paper star for the topper and it was filled with ornaments from our childhoods and our life together. I completely adored it!

Well, I actually had more photos for you, but for some reason they aren't uploading. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and be sure to start 2012 off right with lots of love, laughter and fellowship!

Oh, and be sure to check out my photography website:
www.jensenphotographydesign.com

Easter

With photos!

So this Easter was unlike any other for a few reasons:
1. Now that I've fortunately/unfortunately graduated college and work for a non-corporate company, I had to work on Good Friday for the first time in my entire life. Tragic? Very.
2. I also had to work Easter Monday for the first time in my long 23 years of living.
3. That meant it was a normal weekend and, therefore, short for a holiday weekend, so Brian's family graced us with their presence to share the holiday with us down here!

As this was my first time hosting a holiday at our place, I was a bit out of my element. I'm not particularly fond of holiday meals...you know: turkey, stuffing, gravy, the whole shabang...and it is for this very reason that I have learned to hate where my birthday lies, smack dab over Thanksgiving! But that's for another post when the time comes.

Anyway, Brian's work gave him a Turkey as his Christmas "bonus" and seeing how I was more than super duper excited about that, it's been sitting in the bottom of our deep freeze ever since. Deep down I was hoping we'd forget about it and it'd get incredibly freezer burned and we'd have to throw it away, but since we were hosting Easter, it came in handy to help keep costs down. So the search began for a yummy in our tummies turkey-on-the-grill recipe. I found one through my beloved site www.allrecipes.com that I gave the a-ok for since it had 5 stars, lots of reviews and over 52,000 people saved the recipe! So we made the turkey and I everyone loved it (even our friend Jeremy who enjoyed some leftovers!) and I thought it was just ok.

Here was the Easter "Dinner" (we ate at about 3pm on Saturday afternoon) meal:

• Turkey - stuffed with all its goodies and drenched in a white wine
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes with skin on and real garlic
• Gravy - Brian was persistent about having gravy & Janet (Brian's mom) miraculously pulled it off by making it with the leftover turkey juices (we didn't think they'd be good since there was a lot of white wine)
• Green Bean Casserole - that has no cream of mushroom soup (I hate mushrooms!!)
• Spinach and Strawberry Salad - which was soooooo yummy!!! except when I make this again, I will use about half the liquids.
• Grape and Cream Cheese Salad - we made up a recipe and also added strawberries to it and sprinkled it with turbinado sugar and it was sooooo yummy! I had something very similar to it at a wild game feed through church that I was in love with!
• Pink Salad? - not sure what Alan (Brian's brother calls it) but it's just basically whipped cream with jello or strawberries or other fruit? I'm not sure since I didn't get a chance to eat any of it.
• A Blush wine
• Cheesecake Easter Baskets - Janet made these for dessert. In a cupcake liner: wafer, cheesecake recipe and bake. Then top with coconut died green as grass (1 drop of green food coloring in a bag and shake around) with jelly beans on top and licorice as the basket's handle!
• Carmel and Cinnamon Rolls (Easter Sunday morning)-  my grandma's famous caramel rolls that we ALWAYS have at her house and I finally got her to give me the recipe! She made up the caramel recipe for them and it AMAZING! Thanks again grandma! I also use her rolls recipes to make cinnamon rolls that I then use a dear friend's mom's Christmas cookie's buttercream frosting recipe as the frosting for the cinnamon rolls....sooooo yummy!

The Easter Bunny came!

The wreath I made used as a centerpiece!

Brian's first turkey! and his dad, Jim, helping to pour out the juices for gravy.

Limited view of the spread

Dessert - cheesecake baskets! (minus the licorice handles)

Grandma's super yummy caramel rolls recipe (she made up the caramel recipe! soooooo sinfully delicious!)

Unproductive

WARNING: this is long, but it does have a picture :)

So this whole least week I've been, well, lazy and selfish...except I prefer to call it unproductive. Seriously though, it's been bad. I blame it on the funk I've been in, which I blame on the weather because I'm being selfish and nothing is my fault :) These cloudy, rainy, sun-don't-shine days are terrible. How can people stand living in places where the sun doesn't shine for weeks at a time?? It was only a couple days since I last saw the sun and I was going CrAzY (yup, bringing back the ol' 5th-grade-make-every-other-letter-a-different-size cRaZE!!)

Ok, all silliness aside, I've also been a bad wife :S Not mean, just a little snippy and highly unhelpful. I don't want to cook, I don't want to clean, I don't want to think and I haven't even wanted to talk these last few days, which is soooooo not like me!! Aahh! I was driving myself crazy, and I can't imagine how poor Brian was feeling. So needless to say, we had breakfast for supper last night (that Brian took 100% care of, which happens often since we split meals about 50/50 because he thankfully likes to cook!) and Monday night we had some super awesome oven-baked tilapia (not) - that I will talk about in a minute. And just to give you an idea of my snippiness (totally not a word, which will happen often so don't get hung up on them), I'll tell you this little story: this morning Brian had to go to work at 7:30, which is 30 minutes earlier than normal and I never even bothered to ask why he was going into work early. I absolutely didn't care why he was going in earlier than normal. When 6:50 rolled around, I made him get out of bed (by pretty being annoying (some would call it nagging)) because I told him I didn't want him to fall back asleep and be late for work, but secretly my intentions were I wanted him to get up NOW so I could get a solid 40 minutes of sleep in before I had to wake up (see how selfish that was?) He got up and showered and came back into the room to get dressed like he always does, except this time I swear he was making exceptionally more noise than normal. Whether or not he was, doesn't matter, I proceeded to be rude. In a very groggy and irritable tone I said, "Why are you making so much noise?!" and I said with a lot of edge and annoyance in my voice, "why on earth are you going to work this early anyway?!" However, I didn't really care why he was going into work early and I immediately fell back asleep to the soothing sound of his voice telling me why he was going to work. I only said the last remark as rudely as possible to let him know I didn't appreciate him being up this early nor did I appreciate his noise. I was just being selfish. See my husband is so gracious and considerate that he gets ready every single morning in the complete dark as to not wake me (I don't have to be to work until 9 so I sleep in later than him). I should have been nicer to him this morning. He is a far better person than me.

Anyhow this day ended with the sun finally breaking through the clouds late afternoon to make for a b-e-a-utiful day! I came home and made leftovers, washed dishes, cleaned the kitchen, made a menu for our Easter meal (Brian's family is coming and this is my first time having to make a holiday meal...eeek!), made a shopping list so I can get groceries and other supplies tomorrow, cleaned the dinning room/living room and finished a graduation announcement for the most amazing, kind-hearted graduating senior ever (one of my best friend's cousins)! What a night! I sure accomplished a lot!

On to our tilapia. We had some thawed tilapia in the fridge that we needed to do something with before it spoiled. We had the brilliant idea of coating it and baking so we could enjoy some healthy, crispy fish. So we rolled it in eggs and coated it in crushed crackers with seafood seasoning, lemon pepper and pepper and we topped it off with chunks of freshly chopped garlic and a dash of lemon juice. The meal was made complete by steamed vegetables and glass of wine...mmm! It smelled and looked amazing so one would think it tasted amazing...wrong! It was not so yummy at all! The fish was waaaaaaaay too salty and the only "salt" on it was garlic! We've made this plenty of times before and it never tasted nasty, and the only difference was the seafood seasoning so I'm blaming that. We'll have to test that seasoning out again before chucking it, but seriously, it was salty!

Anyway, I had more for tonight, but since it's so late, I'm saving that for another day (hopefully tomorrow!) Good night world :)

'Tis the Season for...

Easter!! Yup, it's Easter time and I'm pretty excited about one specific aspect of it, but before I get into that I should probably share a little about this blog. Big news: I'm dabbling into the blogging world full-speed with complete hesitance. I'm not sure how this is going to go and honestly don't know what to expect of it, so for the few (if any) followers, please don't expect much :) Hopefully this blog is going to be a conglomeration of the trials and tribulations (okay, so maybe not quite that dramatic!), joys and day to day happenings of our lives – probably mainly only mine! I also feel it's important to note that I will not be proof-reading these posts, because that's just how I am, so hopefully they make sense. If not, it's up to you to interpret! Anyhow, enough of me trying to justify this blog, on to the post...

So the object of my affection right now is my wreath! That's right. I made an Easter wreath. Full of purply goodness with hints of green and white to balance it out perfectly. Yup. It's perfect. Now obviously our Savior's death and resurrection is THE MOST important part of Easter; we wouldn't even have Easter if it wasn't for Him! Not to belittle any of that by this post, but I am just super duper excited about my wreath. Two things made me decide to make it: 

1. Our near and dear (that's my affectionate term for them lately) friends Rachel and Jeremy had a LOVELY holiday wreath that Rachel made hanging up in their apartment during the Christmas season. I was in love with it and was in aw at the simplicity of it. I had often thought about making one, but had hesitations until I saw hers. It was beautiful!

2. Our neighbors (who consequently happen to be our friend's parents!) have a wreath hanging on their front door that I am in love with. I am not sure if Jo made it, had someone make it for her or bought it. Regardless, it's fabulous and I wanted one. Have to keep up with the Joneses, right?

I feel like it's important to note that the viney wreath was purchased for $3 at Wal-Mart and the flowers were $9 at Dollar Tree. So simple :) 

Enjoy my beloved new prized possession and I hope you feel a little inspired as well!

The whole wreath

Up-close details

Hanging up outside our house...I love it!