So last week I was a little busy with having company that I didn't post my Thankful Thursday. It's not that I was not thankful last Thursday.
Here's this weeks highlighted thankfuls:
1. My sister. Sometimes little life events happen and she is the only person who can empathize with me and appreciate what I am going through. She has been the recipient of several text messages this week. That's what sisters are for, right?
2. Emily. Emily was my suitemate my last semester living on campus. She was also a bridesmaid in my wedding so she was the the one who got to see my tears and happy moments that come with planning a wedding. Even if she and I had planned to hang out and Caleb's schedule would suddenly change and he was able to hang out with me, she always encouraged me to hang out with him instead. Our friendship that semester was definitely a lot more "give" on her part and she was the best friend I could have had during that season of my emotional life. She came to visit me this past weekend and I had so much fun hanging out with her. We spent a lot of time shopping, hanging out, watching the Office, and just talking about life. I like her. :-)
3. Caleb's family. Caleb's parents and brother came to visit Monday-Wednesday. I didn't get to hang out with them very much since I had to work, but I know Caleb enjoyed being able to spend time with them. Caleb's dad also helped him get the blowers on his dashboard in his car working so that when the air conditioning is on, cold air will blow on your face!
4. Rain! It has been so dry over the past few weeks and the entire state of Indiana is under a drough thingy where you are supposed to closely watch how much water you use. We got a few days of rain last week and now we have strong potential for rain today and tomorrow. Best part about them this week is that they are going to be storms! I've always loved storms, as long as I'm at home and not out driving. I'm praying that these storms will hit after I get home today and tomorrow. Also, I'm thankful that we weren't parked on the other side of the street last week. We were sitting on the couch and heard a loud noise. We looked outside and there was a big tree branch that fell on the neighbor's work truck. Fortunately, I think it didn't cause much damage because it fell part way in the bed and broke off on the side of the truck. Had it been my poor little Harvey over there, he would have had even more dents than his minor hail wounds. He probably would have also flooded from the hard rain and lack of sewer system over there.
5. A working washer and dryer IN our apartment that I don't have to share with anyone. :-)
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Week 2 in pictures!
Week 2 (in a row! yeah!) Here's a bit of what my week was like:
Sunday:
Caleb was trying to finish up his last summer class and had a bear of a 500 page book to read and a 6-10 page paper to write. He said if he had a soda he would be more motivated to read. Off to the gas station we went! We also detoured a bit a took a stroll around New Albany. It didn't last long because of it being so sticky outside.
Monday:
Seriously, who doesn't love coming home to a mailbox that looks like this?? The box was a self defense weapon/pen for Caleb that he had been wanting and the envelope was from my parents and it had some new shirts and a gift card to McDonalds!
Tuesday:
It was a pretty boring day. More like a twiddle your thumbs kind of day. Busier days at work are ahead, I'm just waiting for it to happen :-)
Wednesday:
We go some much needed rain! Only, it came right as I was driving home from work. It was pretty scary as I was merging onto the highway because I couldn't see hardly anything in front of me, let alone to see if anyone was in the lane I was merging into, and there wasn't much of a shoulder for me to pull off to in order to wait out the storm. I managed to get home on a lot of prayer! As I got closer to home, the rain let up and when I got home and got out of my car, the ground was completely dry. Crazy weather!
Thursday:
This week gets two rain pictures because we havent had rain in so long! We had some good storms roll through. We heard a loud thud and looked out the window and a big branch had fallen on our neighbor's truck! Fortunately the way it fell it didn't do much damage, if any at all.
Friday:
Emily, my suitemate from college, came to visit and we went out shopping all day on Friday. One of the many stores we went to was Hobby Lobby and we found this Christmas section! Now, here lately I'm all for Christmas and cold weather but I feel like there could be a better use of this section of the store other than Christmas. It's July!!
Saturday:
Caleb, Emily, and I decided to stop into the art museum that is down the next block from us while we were out book saling and garage saling.
Sunday:
Caleb was trying to finish up his last summer class and had a bear of a 500 page book to read and a 6-10 page paper to write. He said if he had a soda he would be more motivated to read. Off to the gas station we went! We also detoured a bit a took a stroll around New Albany. It didn't last long because of it being so sticky outside.
Monday:
Seriously, who doesn't love coming home to a mailbox that looks like this?? The box was a self defense weapon/pen for Caleb that he had been wanting and the envelope was from my parents and it had some new shirts and a gift card to McDonalds!
Tuesday:
It was a pretty boring day. More like a twiddle your thumbs kind of day. Busier days at work are ahead, I'm just waiting for it to happen :-)
Wednesday:
We go some much needed rain! Only, it came right as I was driving home from work. It was pretty scary as I was merging onto the highway because I couldn't see hardly anything in front of me, let alone to see if anyone was in the lane I was merging into, and there wasn't much of a shoulder for me to pull off to in order to wait out the storm. I managed to get home on a lot of prayer! As I got closer to home, the rain let up and when I got home and got out of my car, the ground was completely dry. Crazy weather!
Thursday:
This week gets two rain pictures because we havent had rain in so long! We had some good storms roll through. We heard a loud thud and looked out the window and a big branch had fallen on our neighbor's truck! Fortunately the way it fell it didn't do much damage, if any at all.
Friday:
Emily, my suitemate from college, came to visit and we went out shopping all day on Friday. One of the many stores we went to was Hobby Lobby and we found this Christmas section! Now, here lately I'm all for Christmas and cold weather but I feel like there could be a better use of this section of the store other than Christmas. It's July!!
Saturday:
Caleb, Emily, and I decided to stop into the art museum that is down the next block from us while we were out book saling and garage saling.
We found this interesting looking piece of art. Emily and I decided to get a closer look...
We definitely had a good laugh over this picture. :-)
Sunday, July 15, 2012
More Wedding Dress Pictures!
Here are more of the pictures that we had taken by Becca at Prima Luce Photography! We went to Huber's Orchard in Floyds Knobs, Indiana. Perfect evening! Don't I have a handsome husband?!?!
Saturday, July 14, 2012
My Past Week in Picture Form
My cousin, Sarah, used to take a picture every day and post it on her blog. Whether significant or small, it was a picture that represented some part of her day. It's something I thought would be fun to do, but I never had the commitment to do it. It would be neat to look back on years from now. One day this week after looking through some pictures on my phone, I realized that I had almost made it an entire week with taking at least one picture each day, minus Sunday. I'm certainly not saying that this will happen every week, but I would like to think that it would. Most of my pictures are from my phone, so they are a bit low in the quality area. Most of the time my phone is more readily accessible than my camera and it's easier to be a creeper with a phone.
Monday:
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This is what my odometer looked like when we got back home from Missouri. We just needed to drive another half mile to get it to change. If I wasn't so anxious to get of of the car, I would have had Caleb drive around the block just so it would be all sixes. Maybe I've just watched too much Monk.
Tuesday:
A traffic nightmare. Normally it takes me 10 minutes to drive home from work. This day, it had taken me about 40 minutes just to get to where I am here, and it took me a little less than an hour to get all the way home (a total of six miles). This is on Highway 64, which leads to the Sherman Minton Bridge that had been shut down for 5 months in the past year. Since it was completely shut down, the bridge on highway 65 got a lot of wear and tear on it, so now that bridge is almost completely shut down while they repair it. They are trying to detour all of the semis to take 64, which really slows everything down. I started taking a diffferent, but longer, way home the next couple of days and I was able to make it home in a half hour. It looks like we will have a few more weeks of construction, but I'm sure the repaired bridge will be much nicer for those who use it everyday.
Wednesday:
So a few weeks ago, my mom and my sister both bought some ridiculously bright shoes. I'm not really a fan, but I saw this guy out walking downtown on Wednesday and it made me think of my mom and sister. Actually, the next day I was walking behind a man with super bright neon yellow shoes, and i snuck a picture of his shoes as well, and as I was looking at the picture I noticed that a girl walking the opposite way with neon flip flops also got in the picture. What are the odds?? I'm not so sure about this new fad.
Thursday:
Time to call it a night and start a new week tomorrow!
Monday:
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Tuesday:
A traffic nightmare. Normally it takes me 10 minutes to drive home from work. This day, it had taken me about 40 minutes just to get to where I am here, and it took me a little less than an hour to get all the way home (a total of six miles). This is on Highway 64, which leads to the Sherman Minton Bridge that had been shut down for 5 months in the past year. Since it was completely shut down, the bridge on highway 65 got a lot of wear and tear on it, so now that bridge is almost completely shut down while they repair it. They are trying to detour all of the semis to take 64, which really slows everything down. I started taking a diffferent, but longer, way home the next couple of days and I was able to make it home in a half hour. It looks like we will have a few more weeks of construction, but I'm sure the repaired bridge will be much nicer for those who use it everyday.
Wednesday:
So a few weeks ago, my mom and my sister both bought some ridiculously bright shoes. I'm not really a fan, but I saw this guy out walking downtown on Wednesday and it made me think of my mom and sister. Actually, the next day I was walking behind a man with super bright neon yellow shoes, and i snuck a picture of his shoes as well, and as I was looking at the picture I noticed that a girl walking the opposite way with neon flip flops also got in the picture. What are the odds?? I'm not so sure about this new fad.
Thursday:
I spent my evening learning some hymns on my keyboard. I can't wait to live in a place where I can have an actual piano. My momma is keeping hers tuned for me! :-)
Friday:
I really like this church. It's a catholic church in downtown Louisville and it's beautiful inside and out. I was out on my lunchtime walk and happened to look up and thought this was neat with the clouds behind it.
Saturday:
In an effort to have a productive weekend, I cleaned out all of my pet children's housing. Also, I think I have failed to introduce this little guy, Bruce. I know it can be tricky to tell what kind of an animal he is, but he is actually a hermit crab, not a shark. ;-) He was a bit of an orphaned hermit crab. Sort of. My sister baby sat a little boy who had this hermit crab and his mom told my sister that she didn't want it anymore since her little boy quit taking care of it, so my sister brought it to me. He is definitely an active little guy. Apparently the little boy who had him used to let him out and forget about him. This crab is definitely used to that because as soon as I set him on the floor while I changed his sand, he started crawling around and I almost lost him. His pal, Lester, my other hermit crab, died a few weeks ago. :-(
Oscar also got a clean house, complete with new river rocks! It's an attempt to making cleaning his aquarium a little easier since the rocks will be bigger and easier to manage. The only problem is that we got them from Walmart's lawn and garden center so they were really dirty and clouded up his water even after rinsing them well.
Time to call it a night and start a new week tomorrow!
Friday, July 13, 2012
High Five for Friday!
Since Lydia gave me permission to steal any ideas from her blog, I'm stealing the High Five Friday that she got from here:
High Five for Friday is a weekly post about your five favorite things recently.
it's a chance to stop and reflect on the things that you've enjoyed over the
past week. Since Friday is my most favoritest day of the week, I thought it might be fun! So here's my high fives! (Please don't mind some of the grainy pictures. My camera was out of juice and I didn't have time to try to fuss with it to get it to take decent pictures.)
1. Our outdoor wedding dress pictures. I just love them. We had so much fun doing these. They make me almost want to get timeline on Facebook just to make one of them my cover photos. Almost. Here's a peek at another one.
1. Our outdoor wedding dress pictures. I just love them. We had so much fun doing these. They make me almost want to get timeline on Facebook just to make one of them my cover photos. Almost. Here's a peek at another one.
2. I recently got season seven of the Office. Caleb and I really like that show. We now have seasons 1-7 and I'm sure that they will be watched often once we finally get rid of netflix someday. The best part about it....I got it for free at work! We had a prize drawing at work and one of my co-workers one this dvd and I won seasons 1-2 of Seinfeld, and he traded me. Woo hoo! I also got some t-shirts, other televsion show swag, and a season of That 70's Show.
3. Baby plants! I love when my plants make more plants. This is one of two baby plants I have right now. There's just something about succulent plants that make them so fun and cute.
4. Oscar. He just makes me smile. I love having a turtle as a pet. Especially when he gets all happy and goes crazy when I get up in the morning. It may be because he likes to eat, but I like to think he's just excited to see me.
5. This hasnt happened yet...but Emily is coming to visit me this week!! I am super stoked. I haven't seen her since Thanksgiving and I definitely miss her! For those of you who aren't privliged enough to know Emily, she was my suitemate my last semester of college that I lived on campus and she was one of my bridesmaids. :-) Is it Thursday yet??
High Five for Fridays!!
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Thankful Thursday
Another Thankful Thursday! I keep meaning to do this every week but sometimes life just slips by too quickly.
1. Family. I was reminded again this past weekend how much I appreciate family. Caleb and I like to make visits back to Missouri to spend time with them. Caleb got to light off explosives and shoot guns with his brothers and dad (only resulting in three fires), and I got to go shopping with my mom! Definitely things we miss all the time. Leaving always seems to be the hardest part.
2. Air conditioning. It has been so hot lately, along with the rest of the United States, and what a blessing air conditioning is. Even in my car, it was definitely nice to have some relief driving to and from Missouri (we even turned the air down to 1 for awhile!). Even though we keep the temperature warmer at home, it usually feels good to me because I pretty much freeze all day at work. Today I kept my space heater on for most of the day along with a cardigan and fleece jacket. I posted this sign on the wall that Caleb found on pinterest:
But still, I would much rather have to try to keep warm than to sweat. Can I get an amen?
3. The little ways that God takes care of us. Last month our electric bill was much higher than I was expecting. Double what I was expecting. I tried figuring it out with the electric company and they weren't much of a help. I think our meter is just working properly now that they have replaced it, and it was just dying a slow death for the first 6 months we lived here and was running slow (schucks, I was really hoping we could figure out how to get our old rates back!). And then this month it went up again with the crazy hot temperatures. Once our meter reading was posted online, the nerdy accountant in me tried to calculate what our bill would be based on our past bills so I would be prepared for a huge bill. Then we got the bill and it was $80 less than calculated. They refunded our deposit since we have lived here for a year and have had good payment history. Woo hoo! Then came the gas bill. During the summer time it is pretty low...but the number I saw on the bill was $60 more than expected. I kept thinking that I just can't catch a break with these crazy utility companies. Then I realized that it was a negative number...they had also refunded our deposit, so now we don't have to pay anything for quite a few months!
4. My husband. He loves me. He takes care of me. He's cute. He builds stuff. He's all around great.
Also, we just got some awesome pictures taken by Becca from our church. Check her out here! I got to put my wedding dress on and she took some outdoor shots for us since we didn't take any on the day of our wedding because it was a wee bit chilly out.
5. This may sound petty, but I am very thankful to have a Target close by. After living in Hannibal where the closest Target is almost 2 hours away, it makes me more thankful for little things like this. Target always has some pretty good sales and even coupons on their store brand, and the quality of their stuff and service far surpasses Walmart. Oh, and they provided me with a job for 5 months after we moved here.
What a great Thursday to be thankful!
1. Family. I was reminded again this past weekend how much I appreciate family. Caleb and I like to make visits back to Missouri to spend time with them. Caleb got to light off explosives and shoot guns with his brothers and dad (only resulting in three fires), and I got to go shopping with my mom! Definitely things we miss all the time. Leaving always seems to be the hardest part.
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| My Smith family |
2. Air conditioning. It has been so hot lately, along with the rest of the United States, and what a blessing air conditioning is. Even in my car, it was definitely nice to have some relief driving to and from Missouri (we even turned the air down to 1 for awhile!). Even though we keep the temperature warmer at home, it usually feels good to me because I pretty much freeze all day at work. Today I kept my space heater on for most of the day along with a cardigan and fleece jacket. I posted this sign on the wall that Caleb found on pinterest:
But still, I would much rather have to try to keep warm than to sweat. Can I get an amen?
3. The little ways that God takes care of us. Last month our electric bill was much higher than I was expecting. Double what I was expecting. I tried figuring it out with the electric company and they weren't much of a help. I think our meter is just working properly now that they have replaced it, and it was just dying a slow death for the first 6 months we lived here and was running slow (schucks, I was really hoping we could figure out how to get our old rates back!). And then this month it went up again with the crazy hot temperatures. Once our meter reading was posted online, the nerdy accountant in me tried to calculate what our bill would be based on our past bills so I would be prepared for a huge bill. Then we got the bill and it was $80 less than calculated. They refunded our deposit since we have lived here for a year and have had good payment history. Woo hoo! Then came the gas bill. During the summer time it is pretty low...but the number I saw on the bill was $60 more than expected. I kept thinking that I just can't catch a break with these crazy utility companies. Then I realized that it was a negative number...they had also refunded our deposit, so now we don't have to pay anything for quite a few months!
4. My husband. He loves me. He takes care of me. He's cute. He builds stuff. He's all around great.
5. This may sound petty, but I am very thankful to have a Target close by. After living in Hannibal where the closest Target is almost 2 hours away, it makes me more thankful for little things like this. Target always has some pretty good sales and even coupons on their store brand, and the quality of their stuff and service far surpasses Walmart. Oh, and they provided me with a job for 5 months after we moved here.
What a great Thursday to be thankful!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
A 4th with Fireworks
I meant to post this awhile ago, I just forgot to publish it. :-/
Last year on the fourth of July we kind of missed out on any celebrations. We had just moved here and we went down to the river front in New Albany to watch some fireworks on the 4th and all we found was a trashed lawn. No people. No fireworks. It turns out that New Albany always does their celebrations on the 3rd instead. So this year I made sure we wouldn't miss out.
Tuesday night we headed down to the river where they had bands playing and what not. A cute little boy was sitting in front of us, and I'm not sure if I enjoyed the fireworks or watching him watch the fireworks more. When they first started he jumped up, threw his little arms in the air and started yelling "FIRE!!" after each one. He finally calmed down after awhile and then began giving a commentary on every single one which was usually either "that's the biggest firework I've ever seen!" or "MOM! LOOK!"
I took a picture of him but it didn't turn out because it was so dark, and you can't be a creeper with a flash.
Last year on the fourth of July we kind of missed out on any celebrations. We had just moved here and we went down to the river front in New Albany to watch some fireworks on the 4th and all we found was a trashed lawn. No people. No fireworks. It turns out that New Albany always does their celebrations on the 3rd instead. So this year I made sure we wouldn't miss out.
Tuesday night we headed down to the river where they had bands playing and what not. A cute little boy was sitting in front of us, and I'm not sure if I enjoyed the fireworks or watching him watch the fireworks more. When they first started he jumped up, threw his little arms in the air and started yelling "FIRE!!" after each one. He finally calmed down after awhile and then began giving a commentary on every single one which was usually either "that's the biggest firework I've ever seen!" or "MOM! LOOK!"
I took a picture of him but it didn't turn out because it was so dark, and you can't be a creeper with a flash.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Don't Sweat the Little Things
Matthew 6: 25-27 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
I like to coupon. A lot. I love being able to go into a store with a handful of coupons, load up my cart, nearly wet myself after seeing my total, and then be amazed as I watch the dollars fall off after the check out (it's best if my total gets cut in half or better).
I started off when I was working at target and I would keep an eye out for when things would go on sale and find a manufacturer coupon and a Target coupon, then stack on my team member discount to score some good deals. Being around all of that everyday, it was pretty easy. Then I got a grown up job.
I still love shopping at Target, so I started looking at totallytarget.com every week to find good deals and do the sales/coupon matching for me, and last week I started looking closer at websites like southernsavers.com or wildforwags.com for stores like walgreens, cvs, rite-aid and kroger. It's almost overwhelming when you look at all of the different drug stores and grocery stores and trying to find all of the coupons you need, then thinking about planning an 8-store shopping trip just to pick up a few things at each location, and hope that your coupons work (printable coupons can be tricky.) and that they have everything in stock that you want to get because everyone else and their brother also find those good deals online.
Saturday morning Caleb and I went to Rite-Aid to get some cereal that was B1G1 and I had coupons (making Honey Bunches of Oats just $2 a box. Hot Diggity). I also wanted to get some chips that I had coupons for, but I couldn't find the right sized bags. Then we were headed to Kroger to get some sandwich bread and vegetables. As we got to the parking lot, a man told me that they blew a transformer and they were letting anybody in. This just meant one thing...we HAD to go to Target across the street.
We didn't get a cart because we were only getting bread and vegetables. But then we found all of the fresh produce on sale...and then we found the meats marked down because the sell by dates were quickly approaching...then we found the chips that were almost half off, plus the coupons I wasn't able to use at Rite-Aid. Two hand baskets later, as we were walking up to the check-out I began thinking about how much my target credit card (that I NEVER carry a balance over on...I know what some of you were thinking. I only use it for the extra 5% off of everything.) was going to be this month. When the cashier told me my total, it was only $26. The total savings on my receipt was $27. And I only walked in there with 2 coupons, both -.55 each. Over half off. And no planning.
It was really comforting as the Lord showed me that I don't have to worry about couponing every week. Even when our freezer is almost out of deer meat (that lasted us an amazing 6 months!), He is still going to take care of us and provide for everything we need. Sure I will still coupon because I feel it is a good way to be a good steward of the money the Lord has provided us with, but there's no need to stress over it and do micro planning just to save a few cents.
Stay tuned for more ways God keeps providing for us!
I like to coupon. A lot. I love being able to go into a store with a handful of coupons, load up my cart, nearly wet myself after seeing my total, and then be amazed as I watch the dollars fall off after the check out (it's best if my total gets cut in half or better).
I started off when I was working at target and I would keep an eye out for when things would go on sale and find a manufacturer coupon and a Target coupon, then stack on my team member discount to score some good deals. Being around all of that everyday, it was pretty easy. Then I got a grown up job.
I still love shopping at Target, so I started looking at totallytarget.com every week to find good deals and do the sales/coupon matching for me, and last week I started looking closer at websites like southernsavers.com or wildforwags.com for stores like walgreens, cvs, rite-aid and kroger. It's almost overwhelming when you look at all of the different drug stores and grocery stores and trying to find all of the coupons you need, then thinking about planning an 8-store shopping trip just to pick up a few things at each location, and hope that your coupons work (printable coupons can be tricky.) and that they have everything in stock that you want to get because everyone else and their brother also find those good deals online.
Saturday morning Caleb and I went to Rite-Aid to get some cereal that was B1G1 and I had coupons (making Honey Bunches of Oats just $2 a box. Hot Diggity). I also wanted to get some chips that I had coupons for, but I couldn't find the right sized bags. Then we were headed to Kroger to get some sandwich bread and vegetables. As we got to the parking lot, a man told me that they blew a transformer and they were letting anybody in. This just meant one thing...we HAD to go to Target across the street.
We didn't get a cart because we were only getting bread and vegetables. But then we found all of the fresh produce on sale...and then we found the meats marked down because the sell by dates were quickly approaching...then we found the chips that were almost half off, plus the coupons I wasn't able to use at Rite-Aid. Two hand baskets later, as we were walking up to the check-out I began thinking about how much my target credit card (that I NEVER carry a balance over on...I know what some of you were thinking. I only use it for the extra 5% off of everything.) was going to be this month. When the cashier told me my total, it was only $26. The total savings on my receipt was $27. And I only walked in there with 2 coupons, both -.55 each. Over half off. And no planning.
It was really comforting as the Lord showed me that I don't have to worry about couponing every week. Even when our freezer is almost out of deer meat (that lasted us an amazing 6 months!), He is still going to take care of us and provide for everything we need. Sure I will still coupon because I feel it is a good way to be a good steward of the money the Lord has provided us with, but there's no need to stress over it and do micro planning just to save a few cents.
Stay tuned for more ways God keeps providing for us!
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