When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year...

I'm a huge Friends fan. Huge. Unfortunately, I didn't discover it until a year or two after it had been off the air, but that's OK, I'm still a fan. A late adopter, but still a fan.
This statement has nothing to do with the post I'm about to continue with, and everything to do with the title of this post, which is from the Friends opening credits.

It's not so much that it hasn't been my week, because it has been a great week, but more that the week has gotten away from me. Just yesterday Geoff and I were wondering where the weekend went, and I was wondering where the whole week went! How is it Monday already?

This past week was very unusual, schedule-wise. I hardly worked for the census, didn't make it to youth group, worked many more hours than I intended babysitting (the money is helpful though), went to a bbq with Geoff's co-workers, and completely space and forgot the fact that I promised our youth leader I would help him in the office this week. Our life has been almost nothing but a whirlwind for the past week and a half.

I feel invigorated, excited, scared (no, terrified!) anxious, happy, busy and stressed, all at once. There are a few big big changes happening around here that I am not yet at liberty to talk about, but will soon. On top of that, I feel so behind! I'm behind with my 365 project (still taking pictures daily, just not as good or creative ones as I'd like), I haven't been to youth group in 3 weeks (granted, the last two were simply study nights for finals), I missed helping our youth leader, as previously mentioned, and my sister-in-law's birthday is in two days and I have picked out her gift, but haven't even ordered it, let alone sent it on it's merry way to her!
I'm stressed.

However, unlike school stress, this almost feels good. Sure, I don't like that my kitchen is a mess, that I'm running around like crazy and that we ate out three times last week because I was just too tired to cook (and we got home too late). But in a way, it's fun. It's like real life has begun, finally. There's always something going on, but it's exciting. The weeks are flying by and I'm cherishing my hours spent at home, rather than dreading them, like when that was all I was doing.

Right now, life is fun and crazy, and I'm just trying to hang on for the ride!

It's a jungle out there!

My garden continues to grow, and grow, and grow, but I still haven't seen any fruits (or vegetables) of my labor! Well, that isn't 100% accurate. I have eaten about 4 strawberries off our small plant!

At the grocery store on Sunday we found the perfect tomato plant for us. It's "bred" to never get bigger than it is now, and will produce a lot of tomatoes, too. I'm very excited, since my other plant was, apparently, not going anywhere fast.

Since tomatoes need a lot of sun and warmth, I had to set up a little greenhouse area for it to help it along. It's been very rainy here for the past month, but I'm hoping that, since this little guy is already started, it will be happy with it's foil contraption and ripen those tomatoes for us!

How does your garden grow?

Check me out!

I was so excited when my friend, and fellow librarian, Elizabeth asked me to do a guest post on her blog! I've been waiting for this all week, ever since she told me it would be published on Thursday!

What are you waiting for? Check me out!!

Menu plan Monday...back in the game!

It has been a while since I've done a Menu Plan Monday, and both our weight and budget have reflected that! I do have an excuse, however. A couple weeks ago either one or the other of us was out one night all week, which made it difficult to plan. Then we were away, and last week was just funny because we never got around to grocery shopping, since we got home late Monday night.
But I'm back in the game, and hoping to keep on track this week!

Sunday: Breakfast for dinner: eggs, bacon and fruit

Monday: Crock Pot French Dip sandwiches with homemade (hopefully) rolls

Tuesday: Pasta with asparagus, and I'm adding zucchini and broccoli to the recipe

Wednesday: Chicken parmesan from a Weight Watchers Cookbook with broccoli (if there's leftover) or zucchini, or another veggie...

Thursday: Grilled steak, mashed potatoes (both from the freezer), Napa salad

Friday: Shrimp quesadillas with tomato avocado salsa, leftover salad

Saturday: Sourdough pizza and cheesy bread (the recipe makes too much dough for one pizza and I can't freeze it or it won't rise!)

So, here's to a delicious week, I hope.
Coming soon...some BIG changes in life...

Learning to be handy

I have never really been into refinishing furniture, or fixing or repurposing things. I did paint a dresser once, but that's about it. I have an old steamer trunk at my parent's house that I swore I would fix up that hasn't been touched in years. All this changed, however, when I got married, wanted nice things, and realized we couldn't afford them quite yet!

You all know my obsession with Freecycle by now, right? Well, I have to admit that when I can't get something for free there, I will also check out Craigslist! Because if I can't get something for free, might as well get it for cheap, right?

Our coffee table (which only happens to be clean for this picture, normally it isn't!) was my first Craigslist find. I absolutely LOVE the baskets underneath, and for $65, can you really go wrong? I tried to find a similar table online to see how much it cost, and the closest I could get was this one, which I don't even like and which is almost $300! So I was very happy with this find. It didn't even require any touching up!

However, our end table, which I decided was another vital piece of furniture we needed, did.

I can't really complain, because for $25 we got a matching-style table, but it definitely needed a little bit of work. The top was scratched pretty badly, and the legs weren't the same color as our coffee table, which was nothing a little spray paint couldn't fix.

Happily, a friend of ours is doing a lot of work in her home, and we were able to use both her expertise and some of her tools to work on the table!

So we sanded, finished, spray painted and glued (there was a loose piece of wood on the bottom of the table).

And finally had something we were happy with!

It didn't turn out as shiny as our coffee table, but I'm OK with that. I put a coat of Old English on it, screwed the legs back on, and now it sits happily next to our Freecycle couch! I even got a new table lamp with wedding gift cards for it.

All in all we probably spent about $60 on the table, which includes buying it and the materials we used to work on it, however, most of those we will be able to use again (we didn't use all the stain, for example). Plus, I searched for this online as well, and the closest thing I could find was this, which is just as much as the new coffee table!

Maybe I could make a living refinishing furniture...

A librarian from the beginning

I suppose, sometimes, that I was meant to be a librarian right from the beginning. After all, both my sister and I were named after characters from a book. I am named after Meg, from Little Women (my mom is the oldest of four girls and really related to her) and my sister is named after Laura, from the Little House books, which I was reading with my dad at the time she was pregnant.

It's interesting how little things in your life can shape you later. I love listening to audio books. I find it very soothing, and I will even (easily!) fall asleep to an audio book if I'm lying in bed and not reading it in the car. Don't worry, I don't fall asleep while driving!
This I can pinpoint to my younger years, when my father read to me. I'm sure he read many books to me, but the ones I remember best are the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I remember sitting on my parent's bed, listening, absorbing information that I can now quote because I've read and reread it so many times.

I have a little issue with books, though. I don't like to read them! Well, that's not entirely accurate. I love reading books, I just don't like reading new books. They scare me! What if I read a book and I think it'll be good, and it's not?? What then?? Therefore, I have a bad habit of reading the same books over and over again. In my defense, I have been getting better at this, but it's still a work in progress. As is noted by the books I've read in the past month:

The Giver (reread)
Gathering Blue (reread)
Messenger (reread)
The Hunger Games (reread, in anticipation of the new book coming out this August!)
Catching Fire (reread)

And, when I'm done with Catching Fire, I'm going to move onto these beauties.

Yes, those are the original books I got new, on my birthday in 1988. Just a few months before my sister was born.
What's that? They're in worse shape than my copy of The Giver?

It's possible, of course. Though, to be fair, I did keep Farmer Boy in pristine condition. Which could be because I have never read it. As a child I didn't want to read a book about a boy and as an adult...well, see the above paragraph about my issue with new books.

Anyway, I think the next month or so will be spent reliving my childhood through these books. After which, hopefully, the new Hunger Games book, Mockingjay, will be out and I can delve into a new book that I know I will love.

Memorial Day weekend and a bunch of pictures!

I must say, my blogging and internet break was very refreshing. Which is not to say that I am not very happy to have my computer back up and running!

It was a busy and fast long weekend for us, and though I enjoyed every minute with my family, I have to admit that I'm also glad to be home again. We had an open house down in Idaho for people who couldn't make it to the wedding, so we came home with bags loaded...both with presents and stuff from our parent's houses because they want it out!

I flew in on Wednesday, along with my mom. Thursday my dad and sister arrived (they were supposed to come on Wednesday too) so we spent most of the day going to the airport to get them and driving back...and taking our time. It was a long day! Friday we relaxed and then my husband arrived. Saturday the ladies got pedicures! My toes were sorely in need, because they still had my wedding nail polish on them!

After that we headed to Shoshone Falls, a waterfall where Geoff and had gone to four years ago for a mini-date (with friends!) That was at the beginning of our dating relationship.
This was us four years ago...we look so little!

And here we are in the same place (relatively speaking, not the same lookout) four years later...at the beginning of our marriage!

It is merely coincidence that he is wearing the same shirt!
After taking a few family pictures...

And a few pictures of the falls themselves...

(I really like this last one!)
...we headed for some shopping. Of course!

Sunday was our wedding open house. It was very pretty and fairly subdued, but exactly what we wanted. Most of the people who came were friends of Geoff's family, so I had a few introductions to work through, but it was nice to see friends of the family that I remembered from previous visits!

We were going to play nice, but then Geoff changed his mind...

So I reciprocated!

Like I said, the weekend was way too short, but it was so fun.