Pat K.

Hello All,

This weekend was a whirlwind.  Chris’ grandma passed away on Thursday night after a battle with Alzheimer’s and pneumonia.  I personally have not known her without the Alzheimer’s but really enjoyed listening to the stories about her before she got sick and knew she was very special to Chris.  His mom told me that “Nan would do anything for Chris” and I can easily see that.

She came down with pneumonia a couple of weeks ago and survived eight days without food or water.  She had a living will that dictated what efforts could be made so in the long run we just had to let time take its course and are grateful she is now at peace and in heaven spending Christmas with Pa.

It was really sad to see everyone mourning her loss but it was also good to see everyone in the family together.  I really enjoy Chris’ mom’s family and had a great time catching up with all of them this past weekend minus the circumstances.  I got to meet the rest of Chris’ cousins and an aunt that I had not met in person.  Everyone in the family has been very welcoming to me and has made me feel a part of the family since day one.  Hopefully next time we all get together it is for a happy occasion.

We received prayer cards at the visitation this weekend that I wanted to share because I thought they were really nice:

The Memorare

Remember O most gracious

Virgin Mary that never was

It known that anyone who

Fled to thy protection,

Implored thy help, or

Sought thy intercession

Was left unaided.

Inspired with this

Confidence, I fly unto

Thee, O Virgin of

Virgins, my Mother.

To thee I come; before

Thee I stand, sinful

And Sorrowful.  O Mother

Of the Word Incarnate,

Despise not my petitions;

But in thy mercy hear and

Answer Me. Amen

In Memory of Pat K.

March 16, 1930 – December 15, 2011

Thankful November Wrap-up

I haven’t had a chance to catch up with my blog since I got back from our Thanksgiving trip so being it is now the last day of November, I thought it would be a good day to wrap up my Thankful November posts.

Today I am thankful for a number of things, but first I want to talk about how thankful I am for family.  Chris and I traveled up to SD with my Dad and Stepmom last week to go visit my brother’s for Thanksgiving.  Although the 9 hour drive in the car each way was brutal from a comfort standpoint, it gave us a chance to catch up with my dad and stepmom.  Even though we are in the same greater metropolitan area, we still live an hour away from each other so it was nice to be able to catch up. 

I am also thankful that we got to see my brothers, sister-in-laws, and niece/nephew for Thanksgiving.  That was the first time all three of us and our spouses were able to be together in the same location.  Paula (and somewhat Tom) put a LOT of work into making Thanksgiving lunch and they were wonderful hosts.  Thank you for having everyone at your house for the weekend.  I think we all needed it.

I also had the opportunity to Skype with my mom on Thanksgiving Day.  It was sad to not have her there with us for the weekend, but it was good to see her face and catch up.

I am thankful for our friend Daren for watching Gypsy while we were gone.  She hates going to the kennel so it was really nice of him to watch her while we were away so that she could be comfortable in his house instead of being anxious at the kennel.

I am thankful for my friend Vicki and want to wish her a Happy Birthday tomorrow.  Although we live states away from each other and don’t get to chat as much as I would like because life gets in the way, I always know she is there if I need her.  I am grateful for her friendship.  It’s her husband’s birthday tomorrow as well.  They were born exactly a year apart.  I always thought that was kind of cool that they shared the same birthday.

I am thankful that Chris and I both have jobs that we like and that we have been fortunate to have stable income these last couple of years while the economy has been struggling.  We both have some great coworkers that makes our jobs that much more enjoyable.  We also were able to find a renter for my condo up north this year which has helped as well.

All in all, 2011 has been a really great year.  The best yet in my opinion.  I have had a lot of major life changes this past year and they have all helped me grow as a person and made my life better.  I hope the rest of the week goes well for everyone.  I know I still owe pictures of the painting of our bedroom but I still haven’t gotten around to taking a picture of the finished product.  I haven’t forgotten and will get to it eventually…

Bessie

Let the holiday family gatherings begin!

I hope everyone had a good weekend.  We had a wonderful weekend here full of friends and family.  We also started the holiday season early.

Chris and I went to the Melting Pot on Friday night for dinner.  Two hours and four courses of food later, they pretty much had to roll us out of there.  The dinner process at the Melting Pot is really an experience and it usually lasts about 3 hours.  They were not as busy as usual which cut out about an hour of time.  Personally, I would rather they have mad it last longer so that I had more time to let the food settle but we had a great time as always.  It made me very thankful for a nice date night out with my husband.  I love sharing those moments with him.

On Saturday we did the 1 hr drive over to my dad’s to celebrate Thanksgiving with my stepmom’s family.  We had a great time and were thankful to be included in the day.  I hadn’t saw my stepmom’s parents since our wedding so it was good to see them as well as the rest of the family.

Saturday evening and Sunday for football we were able to get together with some friends to hang out.  I have really fit in well with Chris’ friends here which has made my move so much easier.  I can hardly believe I have almost been here two years already.  Time flies when you are having fun!  I miss my MN and ND friends ever day but am glad that I made the move further south.  The weather this time of year makes it worth the move as well.  No snow here yet!

I am anxiously awaiting to get through these next two days so that we can head up to my brother’s for Thanksgiving.  This will be the first time all 6 of us (siblings and spouses) will have gotten together at the same time.  It should be a great time.  I will be packing Loaded Questions with so that we can get in a round or two of board game fun!

Bessie

Friday MishMash

So I haven’t kept up very well this week on the blog front.  My apologies.

Today I am thankful for my friends Mary and Kevin.  They were some of my first friends in MN and I am glad we have been able to stay in touch.  They both just accepted positions with a company in Columbus, OH and will be moving in a few weeks.  I wish them all the best in their move.

I also want to wish my dear friend Barb a happy early birthday.  I hope she celebrates the weekend and that she has a wonderful year to come.

Finally, today I am thankful for an “all-clear” on my foot injury.  I can finally go back to wearing something other than tennis shoes all the time for the first time in 4 months.  Don’t get me wrong, the tennis shoes are comfortable; they are just hard to coordinate with when I need to dress up once in a while.  Hopefully my crappy high arches hold up better now so that I don’t have to eventually have surgery.  I successfully avoided it these last few months and hope that continues.

It has been a quiet week in our house.  Nothing major going on.  We spent the evening watching football and the TV show Whitney.  I LOVE this show!  I find myself laughing out loud every time I watch it.  If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, I highly recommend it.  It was a good break from the very slow moving football game last night, but once again Tebow proved everyone wrong in the last 5 minutes of the game to score a touchdown to win the game.  All of his four starting wins this season have been very ugly, but who said it had to be a pretty win right?  I think it great that he continues to prove his critics wrong.  At least they are winning games unlike my Colts.  I gave up on this season a while ago and am hoping for a full Peyton recovery and a good first round draft pick.  It's called “Suck for Luck” for a reason!

We are both very ready for a vacation next week.  Hope you all enjoy the weekend!

Bessie

Weekend Roundup

So after a three day weekend I have a lot of catching up to do for my Thankful November.  This will be things I was thankful for from the weekend as well as today.

I want to wish a happy Veteran’s Day to all of our retired and current military members, especially to those that are my family and friends.  For the first time in a while, I can’t think of anyone that is stationed overseas at the present moment.  My generation has done a lot of tours overseas with the two wars we were fighting and for that I am grateful.  It is because of you all that I enjoy the freedom that I do each and every day.  Thank you for risking your lives for the betterment of the rest of us.

I am also thankful for technology.  The other night, we took Gypsy for a walk around the block and noticed a very bright star just off to the right of the moon.  It hadn’t moved while we were out so we knew it wasn’t a plane or satellite so when we got home, Chris went inside and grabbed his phone so that we could pull up the star app.  He held the phone up to the sky and it identified the “star” as Jupiter.  Pretty fun that at the touch of a button we are able to learn something new.

I am thankful for my awesome dog Gypsy.  Not sure what has gotten into her lately but she has been very loving these last few days.  She would always jump into my lap, sit there for a minute and jump back down to go lay down on the floor.  Not lately…lately she has been jumping up into the chair with me and lying down for at least 30 minutes.  She has even let me hug and squeeze her without getting all jumpy.  I’m not sure what did it, but I’ll keep it!  I love my puppy dog!

I am thankful for Sunday afternoon football with my husband.  It has turned into tradition that Sunday afternoon we go out and watch the first round of games with friends, and then we come home to watch the second round of afternoon games before we go to church.  It makes for a fun and relaxing Sunday afternoon.  During the second game  I usually catch up on laundry, cook, bake, nap, etc so we aren’t lazy all afternoon (unless it’s for a nap) but it makes for a fun day.

I am thankful that my coworkers like the help support my cake decorating habit by serving as guinnea pigs for my projects so that I can continue to bake and not get fat from eating it all myself.  I brought in a strawberry and blueberry “checker board” cake with cream cheese frosting and am going home with an empty container and lots of compliments. 

I think that is all for today.  I am looking forward to cuddling with my dog this evening!

Bessie

TTA Burnouts

Today I am thankful for my former coworkers in MN.  For the past 5 years I have been playing in a fantasy football league with my former coworkers from my first team in MN.  Not only do some of us live in different states now, only one of us still works for that department.  My first team in MN really made me feel welcome and I have met many of my lifelong friends (and father-in-law) from that group.  Not many people can say that they still keep in touch with former coworkers and I am blessed that this FF league has given us an opportunity to keep in touch.

Many of us have had major life changes (new marriages, new babies, new jobs, new homes, new states) and even through all of that, we can count on getting an invite each fall to join the football league.  I look forward to the challenge of beating everyone in the league (this year that is not really happening, I am about the middle of the pack) as I have 2 out of the last 5 years.  Mostly though, I look forward to catching up with everyone to see how the summer went for each of them and reminiscing about the past.

Bessie

In-Laws Visit

Hello everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  Chris’ mom and Mike came down to visit us this weekend and today I am thankful for them.  I am very lucky and blessed to have such wonderful in-laws.  I really enjoy spending time with them and it was great to have them in town for a few days even though it was a quick trip for them.  They started their 10 hr drive back to MN today and I am hoping they have good roads today being it was raining here when they left.

I knew my mother-in-law and Mike before I even knew Chris.  It was because of Mike that I met Chris in the first place.  I hear from other friends “awful in-law” stories but I do not have that at all.  I feel like part of the family and really enjoy spending time with all of Chris’ immediate and extended family members.

Mike did a LOT of work for us around the house this weekend.  I felt really bad that he spent his vacation time working around the house, but he taught both of us a lot of things.  They ran speaker wire for the two back speakers for the surround sound, changed out a couple of the light switches, and installed a ceiling fan.  They one project we thought would be quick and easy was hanging a shelf to put one of the speakers on in the family room.  It turned out to be the most difficult including needing an extra trip to Lowe’s to fix it.  If there is one piece of advice I can give on home ownership, it is to NEVER buy a “floating” wall shelf.  We finally ended up buying some decorative wall brackets to mount underneath the shelf so that it would hold on the wall instead of continuing to fall off the back bracket.  In doing so, we determined that the shelf itself was warped and would not lay flat on the brackets.  After resting the speaker on the shelf for a while, the shelf started to settle and the warping seemed to ease.  Needless to say there multiple people had a few choice words throughout that project.  Now we know to just buy shelves with angle brackets to begin with.  It would have saved us a lot of headache.

We did squeeze in some board game fun this weekend as well as a lot of eating out so it wasn’t all work.  All in all it was a great weekend and we look forward to seeing them again for the holidays.

Bessie

PS – as a follow up to my last posting, Grandpa is now out of the hospital with antibiotics in tow to help get rid of his pneumonia.

Grandparents

Today I am thankful for grandparents – both mine and Chris’.  We both have been blessed to have gotten to know all of our grandparents and even being in our mid-late 20’s I have 2 grandparents living and he has 3 still living and we hope they will be around for a long time to come.  I was just told this morning that my grandpa was admitted to the hospital today for pneumonia.  From what it sounds, he should be fine but they wanted to keep a close eye on him.

Also, last week I received a typed letter from Chris’ gram in PA.  She shared a few of her favorite recipes with me as well as let me know how they are doing.  She is such a sweet lady.  I have only gotten to meet her once in person but we try to talk to them regularly on the phone.  It was so sweet of her to send me that letter.  It made my whole day.  People don’t write letters anymore so I am looking forward to writing her back.  Her and Pop (Chris’ gpa) have very much welcomed me into the family and for that I am very grateful.

I hope that when we have kids someday, they will be able to know and be as close with their grandparents as we have been with ours.  It makes me sad that Chris and my grandma V never met, but we started dating a couple weeks before she passed and I was able to tell her all about him.  She was very happy for me and said that he sounded like a nice young man.  It was nice to have her approval and I know she would have loved him.  My great aunt Toni(Grandma V’s sister who passed about 1.5 years ago) also told me that same weekend that she thought that Chris had a “nice mouth” after she saw a picture of him – lol!  She said, “Most people are eyes people.  Not me.  If they have a nice mouth, that catches my attention first.”  I love it when people say exactly what they are thinking and my grandma and her sister were very good at that.

Grandpa – I wish you a speedy recovery!  Sorry I can’t be there with you today but you are in good hands with the nurses!

Bessie

I’m Singing in the Rain

Today I am thankful for two things, rain in November and the gift of being able to sing.  As I was driving into work this morning through the rain I had to sit back and appreciate the fact that it was raining out in November.  My hometown is expecting snow this weekend.  I am quite glad that we are still having rain here instead of having to deal with snow already.  I am not ready for snow yet.  Spring and Fall are my favorite months as far as weather goes so I am glad that I now live in an area where I can experience seasonal weather instead of the two seasons we had up north: Winter and Road Construction.

I also was singing along to the radio on my way into work this morning as I do most days to keep myself awake.  I am not a morning person so if I have to sing to wake my brain up for the day, I do it.  Just within the privacy of my own car J  God blessed me with a great voice for singing and for that I am very grateful.  I have been singing ever since I can remember.  I made my first public solo debut as a 1^st grader at the school talent show and never looked back.  When I was a sophomore in HS, I was ranked #5 for Sopranos in the state of ND for All-State choir.  I have had the pleasure of singing at my brother’s wedding, sang to Chris at our wedding reception in Mexico, and will be singing at my mom’s wedding next summer.  It is such an honor to be asked to play such an important role in a wedding and I was able to do it while being a bridesmaid as well (scheduled to be MoH at mom’s wedding too).

As I have gotten older, I am no longer part of a choir so I have lost some of my vocal range, but I hope to get that back at some point.  I pray that I am able to continue to sing for the rest of my life.  Music is a very big part of my life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Bessie

November 2, 1889

Today I am thankful for my home state of ND.  122 years ago today, North Dakota was admitted to the Union when President Benjamin Harrison signed the Proclamation of Admission.  I don’t really keep track of this date, but I am a news junkie and I tend to catch up on the happenings in Bismarck each day by visiting the Bismarck Tribune’s website.  I mainly glance at the headlines of the main articles and then check the nubs of the news to see if anyone I know had a baby.  It is also Sunday tradition for me to check the Celebrate section to see who is getting married although this section is starting to make me feel old as there are kids that were not even in HS yet when I graduated that are now getting married.  I digress…

Anyway, even though I no longer live in ND, it will always hold a special place in my heart.  It is a little crazy that it has been 6 years since I lived there last.  It doesn’t seem that long.  A lot has changed up there since I left.  Every time I go back to Bismarck for a visit, I am amazed at how much it has grown over the past 6 years.

To top that off, the whole western half of the state is now being referred to as Boomtown, USA as a result of new technology allowing for the oil under the state to be drilled.  I remember travelling to Williston for my brother’s basketball games and hating the trip because it was such a long drive and there was nothing there other than the Super 8 hotel with a swimming pool.  With this oil boom growing as quickly as it is, people are now living in their cars because they can’t keep up with the housing demand.  It is almost the exact opposite of what the rest of the country is experiencing in this economy.  I am very happy for the state and the condition of the economy up there and hope that the crime and small town feel are able to remain intact as this boom continues.

I have many fond memories of ND including faint memories of partaking in the 100^th Anniversary of the state 22 years ago.  I look forward to my visits back to see family.  I can only hope the next 122 years of ND are as beautiful and as prosperous as the last 122 have been.

Bessie

Things I am Thankful For

For those of you that follow my blog, last November, I tried to post something I am thankful for for every day in the month of November leading up to Thanksgiving.  I can’t guarantee a post every single day but if I do miss a couple of days, I will make up for it in the next posting.  Also, we painted our master bedroom this past weekend so I hope to sneak in another post in the next week to show you pictures of the finished project.

Day 1 – Today I am thankful first and foremost for my husband.  I gush about him a lot on here and maybe it’s because we are still in the honeymoon phase, but I truly am blessed to be married to my best friend.  I had a rough day a few weeks ago, and when I got home from work, I ended up unloading a lot of built up frustration from the day on Chris.  I tend to do that once in a while as I don’t like to share with others when I am having a hard day, but every once in a while I let it all out at once and usually end up in tears.  I used to do this with my dad prior to Chris coming along and unfortunately he has now inherited the having to listen to me when I am upset.  He was so sweet.  He listened, helped me feel better about everything, made sure we had a fun night the rest of the evening, and the next day when I came home from work, he had gone out and bought me flowers.  Those flowers made my whole day.  It was completely unexpected and unnecessary but it made me love him even more.  I tend to be a pretty independent woman so to have someone else take care of me once in a while is nice.

My favorite part of each day is coming home from work and seeing his face.  I love that man with all my heart and I am grateful that I was delayed on a flight 6.5 years ago to be able to meet Mike and in turn meet his step-son Chris.  It was a work of God that brought us together and I wouldn’t be where I am right now if it wasn’t for that one plane ride.

-Bessie

Happy 3rd Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful niece/godchild Madeline!  She is 3 years old today!

Also, her little brother Charlie was 6 months yesterday.  They are getting so big and get cuter by the day.  I hope you have a wonderful day celebrating your birthday Maddie!

Love, Auntie Bethany

A Twins Fan in Cardinal Nation

These last couple of weeks, St Louis has been all about the Cardinals.  The team that was thought to be out of the playoffs back in August already are now one day away from starting their first game in the World Series against the Rangers.  Growing up a fan of baseball, I totally get it, and if it was my team in the series I would be right there with my fellow fans going crazy.  I however an not going crazy over the world series this year as I was born and raised a Twins fan (rough year for the Twins barely escaping 100 losses for the season).  I have bled blue and red since I was born and have full intentions of being a Twins fan for the rest of my life.

When I was little, our family vacations every summer would be to the Twin Cities and we would always plan our trip around a Twins game.  When I moved to the cities after college, my passion for the Twins continued to grow.  I really miss being able to go to a game whenever I wanted to during the five years I lived there.  After I moved, Chris and I bought the MLB package on tv last year just so that I could still watch them play.  I even have a standing agreement with Chris that if Joe Mauer asked me out on a date, I could go, as long as I came back when I was done (he has this same agreement for Jessica Alba although it will never happen for either of us).

After moving to St Louis, many of my coworkers have had a hard time understanding why I don’t cheer for the Cardinals.  To make it clear, I don’t really cheer against them, I just don’t cheer for them because they simply are not my team.  I would be a hypocrite to say that as soon as I move to a new city I automatically jump ship from my former team’s bandwagon just to join a new one.  I have nothing against the Cardinals, I am just a Twins fan married to a Cubs fan and there is no Cardinal love in my house.

I have no reason to change teams.  I survived the late 90’s bust of the Twins when they were a terrible team to watch and the next closest people in the stands were two rows away, but I still went to the games and supported them.  Cardinal’s fans on the other hand, began jumping ship mid-season when they thought the team was done for the playoffs.  You could buy tickets for as cheap as $5 for a game this summer as people were just dying to unload the seats instead of going to the game.  A normal standing room only ticket was about $20 this year and that doesn’t even buy you a seat!  You could however go to stubhub and but tickets off of other fans for dirt cheap.  I don’t understand this concept and how Cardinals fans say they are the best fans in baseball when they abandon their team at first chance.  After being married to a Cubs fan and seeing his passion and the passion of other fellow fans, I personally think Cubs fans are the most dedicated to their team.  To still stick with them when they haven’t won a world series in over 100 years is dedication.

So no, I am not planning to jump ship and join the Cardinal’s bandwagon.  If someone from St Louis moved to MN I would not expect them to become a Twin’s fan.  We are all entitled to cheer for whoever we want and we should not feel bad about it.  I will be cheering for the Rangers in this series as they are the AL representative.  Nothing against the Cardinal’s, but I just have to stick with my Division on this one.  I have proudly worn my Twins shirt to work on both Cardinal’s pride days as I think of it as Baseball pride day.  I am not doing it to spite the Cardinal’s fans, I am merely doing it to support my team.  I love baseball and may the best team win.  With that said, I am looking forward to the 2012 season and hope my MN Twins can pull out a better season than this last one.

-Bessie

Vegas Baby Vegas!!!

Normally, “What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas,” but I thought I would share a little about our most recent trip.  I attended a training conference in Vegas last week for work and being my evenings were going to be free to sight-see, Chris decided to come with me on the trip.  It was so nice to have him with.  We left the day before the conference at 6 am so that we would have a whole day together.  With the time change, this gets us into Vegas really early in the morning.  The conference was at Caesars so it gave us a chance to stay in the middle of the strip which was a lot of fun.  We watched a lot of football, ate really well, and did some gambling each evening of the trip.  I am even proud to report that I did not fall up an escalator, rip my toenail in half, scrape my knees on the bottom of the pool, or have any drunk friends walk me into an endcap in Walgreens this time around!  It was a much less adventurous trip this time around than it was the last time I was in Vegas!

Chris taught me how to play Paigow poker.  I had never been one to play card games but I had a blast playing this game.  It was very easy to learn and is slow moving which I like.  This means you can lose your money slowly and drag out the time, but it can also mean that it can take a long time to win as well.  One evening while there, I won $65 over the course of 2.5 hours.  A perk of this also is that if you are gambling in Vegas, the casinos provide you with free beverages.  Chris and I were both feeling really well after 2.5 hours and we even came out ahead.  Over the course of the 4 days we were in town, we lost more than we won but we chalk that up to entertainment money.  We still came home with some so that is definitely a nice positive.

Rachel and John were in town on Friday night with John’s mom so we were able to meet up with them to go to the Cubs/Cards baseball game.  Chris came out a very happy dude when the Cubs won the game.  He has been to two Cubs games this year and they won both so I told him we will have to go see more next year being he seems to be good luck for the team.  Maybe sometime in his lifetime he will be able to see the Cubs win a world series.  After 100 plus years of not winning a series they have to be up for one someday. J  I really have no room to talk considering my team is the worst team in the AL this year and currently have 99 losses on the season (please don’t make that number 100…)

I was hoping after this terrible baseball season to look beyond to football and cheer on my team to victory!  Unfortunately, this season is looking like a loss so far for my Colts as well.  It has been a long year for me as a sports fan.  Hopefully they learn to start functioning without Payton on the field and actually win a game this year.  Sunday’s game looked much more promising but they need to learn how to throw the ball again in order for the offense to start putting points on the board.  I have faith in you boys!  Prove everyone wrong who thinks you are a one man team!

Ok – I’ll stop with the pep talk.  Just trying not to be a Debbie Downer the whole football season.  All in all, everything is well in our household.  It‘s just another week in our normal lives!

Family Time

This past Labor Day weekend, Chris and I went home to MN and ND to visit family.  The original plan was to drive the whole way but after coming across some great flight deals we ended up flying to MSP and rented a car to drive to ND and back.  The was probably the best decision we could have made as it saved us about 20 hrs of driving, gave us more time with our families, and saved a lot of whining and complaining about being in the car for so long (mainly from me as I get so tired with my fatigue problem).  The only bad part about this decision was that we could no longer bring the dog with us and with everyone out of town or busy for the weekend, we ended up putting her in the kennel. She HATES it there.  Being a rescue dog, she thinks that we are leaving her and never coming back so they usually have to pull her into the back room when we take her there and it breaks my heart.  Chris ended up having to drop her off this time which is the first time he did that so he got to experience the sadness this time instead of me.  The good thing about it though is she is so excited to see us when we pick her up, she can hardly stand it.  We are so lucky to have found such a sweet girl at the shelter and we can’t imagine life without her at the moment.

Anyways, back to our trip.  We were able to pack in a lot of fun this past weekend: MN State Fair with every kind of food you can imagine on a stick (even spaghetti and meatballs on a stick), met our nephew Charlie for the first time, spoiled my niece (she has to be the cutest kid ever even if I am a little biased), had a wedding reception picnic with family and friends, motorcycle ride up and down the Missouri river (had to turn around twice because roads were still blocked from the flooding), Dinner with Mom and Steve, Bonfire with the Dosch’s, two rounds of the board game Redneck Life, lunch at the MoA with the in-laws and my dad/step-mom, and three hour flight delay home which led to a two hour game of Settlers of Catan at the coffee shop in the airport.  All in all the weekend was very relaxing even though we crammed in so many things.

It was so great to see so many of you this past weekend!  The time went by way to fast.

Bessie

Painting Surprise!

Good morning everyone!  I hope this week flies by for everyone so that we can all enjoy an extended holiday weekend!

After having Darla, Rachel, and John stay at our house two weekends ago, I couldn’t stomach the thought of having anyone else sleep in our guest room with the current color scheme left to us by the previous owners.  As noted in a prior post they really enjoyed painting the walls in our house very bold obscure colors.  To their defense, our current guest room used to be the room of an 8-10 yr old girl and when I was that age I would have loved to have that room, but pink and purple walls don’t really go very well with our stuff, especially since we do not have a pre-teen child and won’t have one for quite a while.  So, Chris was gone this past weekend for a bachelor party camping/float trip so I decided to take the time to paint the guest room a more neutral color and surprise him when he came home.  The surprise wasn’t so much the color as anything would be better than what it was before, but the fact that he doesn’t really enjoy painting so by me doing it while he was away, it got him out of having to paint another room in the house.

Unfortunately, I really screwed up and forgot to take a “before” picture of the room to show you how awful it looked, but I did take a couple of “after” pictures to show you the current condition.  After discussion with Chris a while back we had decided that the guest room would be a great place to display all of our MN Twins and Chicago Cubs art work and gear.  (Fortunately, we cheer for teams that have the same color scheme.)  I consulted the expertise of my good friend Barb on what color to paint the room being she did such a great job helping us with colors in the main level of the house.  Barb and I decided it would look nice to paint the room a light grey that had some slight blue undertones.  This would make the room look bigger and is still neutral so that if we decide to change the theme of the room, we could easily do so without having to repaint.

I taped everything off and primed the walls on Friday night, and then my friend Lena came over on Saturday morning to help me put the coat of paint on the walls.  The room looks 100 times better now except that the previous owners did not tape off the room when they painted so you can see pink and purple paint on the trim…

I didn’t get a chance to start hanging our pictures in the room yet so the room isn’t 100% complete yet but it is at a point now that the next time we have guests I won’t be embarrassed to have them stay in that room.

Chris got home on Sunday morning and said he really liked the color.  I was a little nervous because if he didn’t like it, I would have spent a lot of time and money painting just to have to redo it again.  In hind sight I should have probably told him what I was up to for the weekend so I got lucky that he liked it.

Guest Room After with new Grey Paint

 

Guest Room After with new Grey Paint



The rest of our upstairs will need to be painted in the near future as well but will make for a good winter project.  I think had I been able to move the furniture myself, I would have probably tackled our bedroom first because the dark blue walls are driving me crazy, but I think that room is too much for one person to do alone.  We have nothing but time to get it completed!

I hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!  Ours will be filled with family and friends and I am so excited to get it started early J

-Bessie

Company, Concert & Cakes

Good morning everyone!  I hope you all had a good week this week.  Ours has been crazy busy but I am looking forward to a somewhat relaxing weekend that will include sleeping in J

Last weekend was a blast!  It was so good to catch up with Darla, Rachel, and Johnathan as they all came down for the Blink 182 concert.  As you know from my last post, I was scheduled to drive to visit them, but because they are such great friends and family, they came to us instead so that we could go to the concert together.  The concert was AMAZING!  They put on a great light show and the one liners they threw out in between songs were pretty funny.  It was a gorgeous night to be at an outdoor concert too.  I have to say, Travis Barker is one of the best drummers I have ever seen in my life.  I was in awe watching him play and he did a really cool drum solo where they lifted him and the drum set up in the air above the crowd and tipped him forward so that he was playing vertically.  VERY COOL!  I have heard in past concerts they had him set up to flip completely upside down while he was playing too but this was still pretty fun to see.  It was well worth the cheap $20 we spent to go see them.  One more thing I can check off my bucket list although if they ever come back again I would not hesitate for a second about buying tickets.

Rachel and John left on Saturday morning to head back home so Darla and I took the rest of Saturday to watch parts 1 & 2 of the 7^th Harry Potter movie.  Chris hasn’t really gotten into the whole HP series so it was good to be able to find someone to watch them with me.  I have read all the books and bought part 1 of the 7^th movie when it came out on DVD but hadn’t found 3 hrs to sit down and watch it yet so Darla and I decided to watch it at the house and then catch the second half at the theater that night.  They did a great job of closing out the series with these two movies.  Still a little annoyed that they broke the last book up into 2 movies just to make more money off the series before it was all over but they were both really good.  Sad to see the series over but I am looking forward to reading the books and watching the movies with my kids some day.

During the week this week I baked cakes for 100 people for the back to school gathering at Kenrick Seminary.  My brother’s good friend Tom is attending the seminary here in MO so he called and asked me to make the cakes.  It was such an honor and I had a great time putting them together.  The first cake was a ½ sheet blueberry cake with a picture of the Vatican flag on top.  The second cake was a 2-tier (12in and 9 in) carrot cake designed to look like the roman collars that priests wear.  They both turned out great and Tom said the guys really enjoyed them both.  While there to drop off the cakes, Tom gave Chris and I a tour of the chapel too.  It was really beautiful.  I could spend a lot of time in there just admiring the simplicity and beauty of the place.  I am so glad to see Tom enjoying his time at Kenrick and pray his journey continues to go well.  Hopefully I will have the honor of baking again for them for another future gathering. 

My cakes have come a long way since I started taking classes this winter.  It has become my new favorite hobby.  I have always known how to bake but have been learning the decorating side of it now and am really enjoying it.  My coworkers are enjoying my new hobby as well.  When I brought in a cake for the 4^th of July, I put it in the break room at 8 am and it was gone by 9 am so I guess that is a good sign that they enjoyed it J

-Bessie

Bucket List – Concerts

Over the last few years I have somewhat come up with an unwritten “bucket list” of sorts of things I want to do in my lifetime here on earth.  I have been able to scratch off a lot of the more simple things since being with Chris like parasailing, zip lining, snorkeling with the fish, travel to Mexico to stay at an all-inclusive, learn to properly play golf (lesson #2 of 3 is next week), etc.  I also have bigger things that I want to do such as travel to all 50 states (I am up to 35), travel to Australia, Italy, Ireland, Germany, attend an Olympic Games, etc. that I am still working on and will take me longer to accomplish.  But outside of the travel and adventures, I have always wanted to see a few music artists in concert: Bon Jovi, NKOTB, Blink 182, Aerosmith, Elton John.  I am glad to say that we were able to see Bon Jovi in concert the night before we left for our trip to Mexico and it was worth every second of being there, staying up late, and having to get up at 3 am for our flight the next morning.  I have come across an opportunity to scratch off another of these concerts tomorrow night.

At work, we have an internal website called Loose Change which is our way of having an internal “craigslist” site of sorts.  Please post items out there to sell, trade, list items they are looking to buy, etc.  On Tuesday morning a lady at work posted an ad for 2 tickets to a Blink 182 concert here in St Louis.  My jaw dropped when I saw this.  How did I not know they were going to be in town?!?!?!  I thought they were taking this year off after touring last year?!?!  I missed them in MSP twice when I lived there because of work trips!  I was so excited until I clicked on the link and saw it was this Friday.  Why are they coming to town when I am scheduled to be out of town again!!!!  I had planned about a month ago already to go to Peoria this coming weekend to visit my cousin Darla and my friend Rachel being I hadn’t seen either of them in a while and was missing both of them.  Now, don’t get me wrong, these two people are way more important to me than a concert, but after missing these guys for now what would be the third time, I was a little disappointed.  I sent Chris a text and told him about it and after dwelling on it, decided to email Darla and Rachel to see if either or both of them would be interested in coming to St Louis this weekend instead so that we could go to the concert together and still get the opportunity to see both of them.  They both thought it was an ok idea and agreed to drive to me instead of my drive to them so now I get to see them and the concert too!  I promised them I would make the next visit to them instead of making them drive to me being I haven’t been up there yet for a visit since I moved to IL but I am SUPER PUMPED to see this concert.

One good thing about finding out they were coming to town so late in the game is that there were about 1000 seats left in the stadium that they decided to offer them for $20 including fees each.  That is super cheap for a concert so we got a really good deal for what would have been the price for standing room GA on the lawn we now have reserved seats in the rows that are also covered in case it decides to rain out.  Because they both decided to come down and Rachel boy John and my hubby decided to join us I bought tickets straight from the venue instead of from the lady at work being she only had 2 seats.  I am just grateful that she posted the tickets out there though otherwise we would not have known about it and would not be going.

There will be more time in the next few months to get to Peoria to visit my friends in their town instead of making them drive to me like they are now doing.  I am very blessed to have such great friends that share common interests as I do so that now “I can have my cake and eat it too” J

Speaking of cake, I got a call from a good friend from ND that has moved to STL for school and he asked me to make a cake for 100 people next week for their back to school party.  This is the biggest cake order I have ever had and I am super excited to see how it turns out.  I will fill you in next time about how they turned out and let you know how the concert was.  In the mean time, I hope everyone has a good weekend and I look forward to seeing a lot of you in the next few weeks!

-Bessie

The BEST Two Years of My Life

Two years and counting.  It was two years ago today that Chris and I started dating and my life turned in a whole new direction landing me in Southwest Illinois.  These past two years have been two of the greatest years of my life and I have my amazing husband to thank for it all.  Many of you know the story about how Chris and I came to be “us” but I thought this would be a good day to document it.

I met Chris over 5 years ago at a Twins/Cubs baseball game.  At the time I was working for his stepdad and had been given two of the company seats for the game (they were awesome seats about 10 rows up from 1^st base btw).  Mike had kept the other two seats so that he and Chris could go to the game.  Chris grew up watching the Cubs and so he had come up to MSP to visit that week so that he could take in a game or two as well.  The Twins won the game and I gave him a lot of grief throughout but after the game we went our separate ways.  At the time, it didn’t cross either of our minds that we would ever see each other again as he was just the Boss’ son that lived 3 states away.

I continued to work for Mike for about 1 ½ more years before I took a position on the Distribution team.  I wanted to travel a little and get it out of my system before I settled down and with zero dating prospects at the time I was ready to take the jump.  About a month after moving teams, I ran into Mike in the hallway because I still was on the same floor, just had moved down the hall.  He asked how I was doing and then mentioned that “someone was asking about me”.  My naive mind thought it was someone that I had worked with in IT in the past so when he said Chris, I was a little surprised but still didn’t think anything of it.  I assumed he was just wondering what I had been up to since that game so I asked Mike how he was doing, told him to tell Chris hi from me, and went back to my desk.  ½ hour later, as I was at my desk working, Mike stopped over after a meeting he had just finished and told me that Chris wanted to know if he could have my phone number.  To this day, I think Mike was secretly setting us up, but it finally sank in why he was telling me about Chris.  I assumed that Mike was just playing matchmaker and that Chris would never call so I told him it was fine.  To my surprise, he called less than 24 hours later.

I was at home when he called that first time and I was a little weirded out about the whole thing (why is this guy calling me when it had been 1 .5 years since we met???) so I let it go to VM.  My roommate at the time was scolding me for not answering and after both of us listening to the VM, she said she would stop talking to me if I didn’t call him back.  We ended up speaking on the phone every month or so from that point till about a year later.

My dad moved to St Louis area when I was a senior in college so he lived in the area that Chris did, and with Mike and Chris’ mom living 10 minutes from me, we finally got together for dinner in April 2009.  I had taken a trip to STL to see my dad the weekend after his 50^th bday so that I could celebrate with him before I left for another work trip.  The Friday night that I got into town, my dad had to work late so he picked me up from the airport, drove back to his office, and I took his car to go meet up with Chris for dinner.  We went to Trailhead brewery and ended up talking for 5 hours that night.  I picked my dad up from work at midnight (oops!  Good thing he had a lot to do!).  From that point forward, we met up for drinks at our favorite wine bar in STL in June when I came to town to watch the Twins play the Cardinals, and then we went to dinner and a comedy show on August 15, 2009.  In between visits, our phone calls became a lot more frequent (about once a week) but we both thought we were so far in the friend zone it would never lead to anything more.

That night in August, I picked Chris up at his mom and Mike’s house and we went to Chang Mai Thai in uptown MSP.  After dinner we decided to go see an improv comedy show at Comedy Sports but had a little time to kill in between so we went to a bar next door to the show to grab a drink.  As we were sitting there, Chris said Mike told him “I bet I know where Stephanie is going to take you to dinner tonight!”  (As a reference point, a restaurant had just opened in Blaine that I had worked at its parent company during college and Mike thought I would take him there)  I looked at him and said “who’s Stephanie?”  He quickly apologized and said she was no one.  Based on his reaction I knew she was someone so I pressed him about it.  He told me that she was a girl he had dated about a month ago but it didn’t turn into anything.  I informed him that he was lucky we were just friends because if we were dating and he called me by the wrong name, I would not be happy.  He asked me what I meant by that and I told him I would give him a LOT of grief about it being we were friends but I would be really upset about it had we been dating.  He clarified his question and asked what I meant about “if we were dating”.  He asked me if I was interested in dating, I told him yes and he said yes to my same question.  The rest of the evening we went to the show, had a couple of drinks at “The Drink” in uptown and then I drove him back to his mom’s.  We hung out again the next night before I had to leave again for a work trip and decided that we were going to try to make this work even though it was long distance.

Eight months later, I moved to STL, a year ago yesterday we got engaged, were married in May and that brings us to the present day.  The long distance time of our relationship was by far the hardest part so far, but it lead to a lot of late night phone chats, and when we did see each other, our time together was that much more special.  I wouldn’t trade our time together so far for anything.  I am truly blessed to be married to my best friend and look forward to many years of love together!  So babe, thank you for calling me Stephanie that night.  If it wasn’t for that, we may still be stuck in the friend zone.  I love you babe!

Bessie

Old Lady…

I feel like a 28 year old stuck in an 80 yr old body lately.  I have been going to the doctor quite a bit lately to take care of the last of the remnants of my illnesses I acquired on my trip to India 4 years ago.  I have really good insurance through my current job so I decided that I need to go in and get everything checked out while it’s reasonably priced so that I can move on but as a result, I feel like I have to keep a separate schedule to keep track of all of my appointments.  Fortunately we are starting to make some headway on how to treat everything and nothing is life threatening, just more annoying than anything. 

But unrelated to India, I went to the foot doctor 2 weeks ago to get fitted for some new shoe insets because I am due up for some and my feet were starting to hurt.  I inherited a lot of wonderful things from my mother, but her crappy feet is not something that is the most pleasant thing – sorry Mom.  We both have very high arches in our feet to the point that if I would get my foot wet and make a foot print on cement, you would only see my heal and the ball of my foot because my arch does not touch the ground at all.

Anyway, the doctor asked me if I was having any pain in my feet and I mentioned that the arch of my left foot would start to hurt after being on my feet for about an hour.  He decided to take a couple of x-rays, which then led to an ultrasound of my foot and the discovery of planters fasciitis.  Most people that have this injury get it in the heal but because mine is in the arch it is going to take more effort to heal.  So much for just going in to get new inserts…I came out with a cortisone shot in the middle of my foot, a very “sexy” boot that I have to wear to bed for who knows how long to stretch the ligament, inserts on order to come 3 weeks later, and a follow-up appointment.

My follow-up was on Wednesday evening and the situation appeared to have gotten worse so I was given another cortisone shot, a doctor’s note to wear tennis shoes all the time, and was told if there is not progress in two weeks I may end up in a walking boot.  So, I am hoping for lots of progress!  In the mean time, the tennis shoes have really seemed to be helping and now I can wear my hot pink ones to work every day!  My inserts will be in next week so that should help as well.  As a side note, I used this as an excuse to get a new pair of shoes that were a little more work appropriate than my very loud hot pink ones so that they at least blend in a little more.  However, the pair I purchased is black with turquoise bottoms and laces so I can still have some fun with them!

The thing that really stinks about this whole thing is that I finally am on some medication to treat my daytime hypersomnia so I am feeling wide awake during the day now and have energy to be more active but now I can’t because of the foot issue…oh well, at least it is all getting taken care of and I am starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel.  I thank God every day that it is only these things and not something life threatening like cancer.  I try to remind myself that I could be much worse off and that I have a wonderful support system in my husband, family, and friends.

I think I will always be glad I had the opportunity to travel to India and experience a place I probably would have never otherwise seen, but after the battle I have been fighting since my return, I have no intention of going back there again.  My food borne illness could have just as easily happened here in the US, but after my experience, I can’t even smell curry without feeling a little ill.  If only I wouldn’t have ordered the chicken for dinner that night…

-Bessie

Kodi :(

Yesterday I had a pretty rough day.  After a lot of thought, Chris and I decided that it would be better for all involved if we brought Kodi back to Stray rescue and ended our trial adoption with him.  He was such a sweet boy but had some bad habits built up that would be hard to break considering his age.  It was hard for me to take him back to his foster mom because I had gotten attached to him after only a week but with having Gypsy and the potential for having kids down the road we decided that he would be better off in a different home.  The positive about stray rescue is that they are a no-kill shelter so we know he will be happy with his foster mom until he is able to find a new home to call his own.  She promised me she would let me know once they found a home for him so that I didn’t worry about how he is doing.

On my way to meet Tina to drop Kodi off, I drove over something on the interstate and blew a tire.  I have no idea what I drove over as I did not see it but I definetely heard the tire go.  It was already a drive I was having a hard time with so to throw that into the mix made for a pretty craptastic evening.  Thankfully an IDOT emergency road assistant was not far behind me so he pulled over about 2 min after it had happened and changed my tire for me.  He was really nice and my safety was his greatest concern.  He was a hero to me last night and got me on my way in about 10 minutes.  I personally have not changed out a tire since behind the wheel training when I was 16 so it would have taken me a long time to figure it out.  Plus, I was just outside of East St Louis when it happened which is not the safest area around so that made me a little uncomfortable.  I had called Chris to come help me but the emergency assistant got there so quickly, he didn’t end up needing to come out.  Once the spare was on, Kodi and I were on our way again and we met up with Tina to take him back.

After a long evening, I came home and cuddled with Gypsy to get my dog fix.  She was looking for Kodi when I got back and seemed confused that he wasn’t with me at first but she quickly adjusted to enjoying every minute of her first quiet evening in a week.  I think she will like being the queen bee again without having to share her people and space with another friend.

On a happy note, I have my first golf lesson today after work.  I have always wanted to learn how to play and Chris is a pretty avid golfer so I asked for golf lessons for my birthday in June.  I have gone to the driving range with him a few times between last fall and this spring but want to be properly taught how to play before I step onto the course.  I golfed once in Jr High and shot a 99 on a 9 hole so I really have nowhere to go but up from there.  I am aiming to beat that score and then some. :)

Until next time,

-Bessie

Mexico!!!!

From mid-May to this past weekend, life has been a little crazy in the Malone household.  I will try to give you all a quick recap of our summer so far.

Chris and I left on May 23^rd for our wedding/honeymoon trip to Mexico.  We had a wonderful time on our trip and were really glad we made the decision to do a destination wedding.  We had 23 family members and friends join us and we were grateful they were able to make it down to celebrate with us.

The wedding turned out beautiful.  The ceremony was held in a gazebo by the resort and the breeze from the ocean helped keep it a little cooler although everyone was pretty hot by the time it was done being we had the 1 pm time slot.  Our pictures turned out awesome.  I don’t have them with me at the moment so I will have to post them another time.  After the reception, we all decided we needed to cool off so we went to the pool and hung out there the rest of the night.

Besides a lot of relaxing by the pool and the ocean, we went parasailing, snorkeling in a cenote (underground river), zip lining, repelling, toured the ruins in Tulum, and Chris went deep sea fishing.  The zip line was my favorite by far.  It was so cool flying above the trees in the jungle.  Chris’ favorite was the deep sea fishing with the guys.  He caught a sail fish that was about 100 lbs and around 8 ft long.  He was so proud.  The picture has been gracing his fb page since we got back.

Mexico was so beautiful.  I would recommend taking a trip there to anyone.  The area of Riviera Maya and Cancun is still pretty safe even though the rest of the country is having some safety issues.  We even went into Playa Del Carmen one afternoon and not once did we feel unsafe while there.  The all-inclusive resort was a great option as well as once we were there we didn’t have to worry about a thing.

Since we have been back we had 4 weddings (attended 3), had our marriage blessed by the church, had a wonderfully lazy 4^th of July weekend, and are in the middle of a trial adoption for a second dog.  So far it is going well, just want a couple more days to see how Gypsy is doing with having another one around.  He is a really cute st Bernard/terrier mix that is about 55 lbs fully grown and about 3 ½ years old.  He is very sweet but has a lot of training to do so if it works out to keep him we have a lot of work ahead of us.  If he was an only dog I would have already said we would keep him for sure, but with having Gypsy we are trying to balance making him feel welcome with continuing to give her the attention she deserves as well.  I will keep you posted on how it is going.

On the home front, the painting has taken a back seat until this fall.  I was hoping to get our bedroom and the guest room painted before it got too hot out.  When we left for Mexico it was in the 70’s and we returned to 100 degree weather so with that said, the thought of painting upstairs in that heat just wasn’t going to happen.  It will be a good fall/winter project for us.  We have instead focused on our yard.  The landscaping at our house was nice but it was all rock and no plants so in the last few weeks we have added three trees, bushes in the front, and flowers in the front and back.  It has added a lot more color to the yard and we are pretty happy with how it has turned out.  We have a couple things left that we want to do in the yard but we are getting close.  I will post pictures when we are done with that as well.  I think my blog is lacking from a picture standpoint so I am going to try to do better at that.  With that said, I don’t have any pictures with me at the moment so they are going to have to wait for another time.

I hope you all have a great weekend!  We are going to focus on doggie daycare and determining if it is going to work out to keep Kodi so I will have updates soon about that.

-Bessie