it's the little things...

I'm not a super religious person. I was raised that way but I think life events and education have turned me away to some degree. I believe you can be a good person without attending church weekly. I think that how you live your life is more important than that one hour each week. But whatever works for you, that's great. I won't try to steer you in my direction and I like it when you avoid trying to persuade me as well. So when it came to deciding on who would marry us, I was unsure. I don't have a "go to" religious figure. The Fiance does have a church he fairly regularly attends (and I've frequented a few times) but it's so big that I feel no connection to the minister. And he bashed the election of our current president. In church. Yeah, no connection. After a bit of thought, some emails, some discussion with The Fiance, and ultimately deciding we didn't want someone we know marrying us via a certificate from the internet, we decided who we wan

And I would drive 223 more... It was another trip across Texas this week for work. I'm very glad to be home. This concludes my crazy 4 weeks of travel. Instead of celebrating with a dental appointment, I'm on an annoying conference call. Dentist will have to wait (apparently till July 3rd--sheesh). Now begins about another week or two of crazy office time. I'll need to work over this alleged long weekend. I'll need to sift through my now 125-strong inbox backlog. At least I'm home. I'll also need to be working on invitations this weekend. I bought stamps this morning. Most exciting stamp purchase ever! I have three weeks to get them assembled, addressed, stamped, and out the door. Can you believe it's already time to send invitations? 78 days... No other big plans for the weekend. You? I imagine we'll end up doing a little yard work. I may do some shopping on Monday (take advantage of those weekend sales). Anyone want to feed me BBQ? Anyone?

I love my house. I love spring. There has just been so much progress in the yard these last several months. You should come over and see. Or just look at the pictures. Here's the front bed. This one is for the butterflies. And hummingbirds and happy little bees. The potted plant is the new lime tree. It won't end up living there but will go in the only bed we haven't finished prepping. I'm very excited the flag is up again. That crazy tornado-like storm we had awhile back ripped it and the holder off the porch. Still the front of the porch. I love how this garden blends from one plant to the next (except in the area shown above--things are still filling in there). The little purple ball flowers in the foreground are new this year. They like it here. In the picture after that, the purple flowering bush is new, too. That one has probably quadrupled in size since I planted it probably around February. I love it. I think I put in several new purple plants be

It's finally here! And I'm excited! It's a nice change from being stressed and bitter about work. Bygones... Everything went much more smoothly yesterday than I anticipated. Last week I got home from Atlanta at about 9:30pm on Friday. Then I had to turn around and fly to California on Sunday afternoon. I wasn't expecting to get home until after 1:00 this morning. But! I finished work early and was able to get an earlier, direct flight (instead of one stop plus one layover). I was home a little after 8! Woohoo! Well, not home. I had to stop to pick up some flowers so I could make my bouquet last night. I have to tell you, this is the beginning of the end of my perfectionism. Bring on the "it's good enough!" There weren't a whole lot of orange and green flower options at the local grocery store. Good thing the gardenias are blooming out front. They provided nice filler. So here we go. My first attempt at bouquet making (less than fantastic pictures). Als

Traveling for work has its perks. Free airline miles. Free hotel stays. Spotting celebrities like this and this . Today I was leaving out of our more ghetto airport on our bargain airline and who is a few folks ahead of me in line to check in and again at security? Who did I almost bump into when we were both leaving our respective restrooms? This guy. Keeping it real. I noticed him because he was dressed a little too nice for the ghetto airport. Then I thought, "Hey, I know that guy. Wait... Um, no, I don't. I just recognize him from tv." It's been a long couple of weeks, people.

Man, am I tired. I had a very disturbing dream last night/this morning (which was not the first one of its kind and a person doesn't have to be Freud to figure out I'm overwhelmed). This time, it was suddenly August 7th. It dawned on me at about 10pm that, "Hey, we're getting married tomorrow." Thing is, I didn't have any more done than I do right now on May 6th. Huh. Not good. I was a little stressed in said dream... I have bridal portraits next week. I'm very excited about them. I look forward to wearing my dress with hair and make-up done. For the first time! And for The Brother to see the dress on me in person. And to work with our photographer whose work I love so much. Of course because now is the time to be careful with myself, all sorts of injuries and accidents are happening. Between Thursday and Sunday alone, I got a burn about half the length of my forearm, busted my lip, cut my right index finger, and have been attacked by mosquitoes and fleas.

I'm sorry for being a nightmare lately. I'm really stressed. Work isn't great right now. So when I'm snarky, don't take it personally. (Unless you're that one person from work--and maybe that one other. You should take it personally.) Hope to be back to normal soon but you really shouldn't expect improvement for another 3 weeks. And if you're curious, I'll be celebrating coming off of a month-long road trip nightmare with a trip to the dentist. Rock on. Sincerely, cjh

First, you must go here to look at the before pictures. The Ugly Bathroom was the first one I discussed. I mean, what the heck...that bathroom was ugly. After that post, The Brother fixed the door so that I could close that room off while all the other rooms got pretty. I'll be honest. I ignored it for quite some time. I also waffled quite a bit on a lot of different aspects of it. Finally, over the last 3 weekends it became this. The Brother came over and added beadboard: I guess the not-pictured first step (oops!) was me putting down a new floor. Um, and then painting the ceiling, trim, door, and cabinets. With the addition of the beadboard, the bathroom was less than half as ugly as it was before. At this point, I left the door open. It made me excitedly motivated. Next up? Paintable wallpaper. I picked a kind that looked reminiscent of old tin ceilings. And so it was not The Ugly Bathroom. It was the totally white bathroom. Like I could have a white room in my hous