married, filing jointly

so yesterday was designated as mine and jonathan's "tax day". oh, the fun! being my first year out in the world with daddy not doing my taxes (for the two times that has been needed in my life), i was a tiny bit more involved. though, of course, jonathan pretty much did my taxes for me :). i'm a lucky girl.

i spent the afternoon running errands to the grocery store, home depot, etc. in the rain. i hate running errands in the rain. when i finally got things unloaded and settled in, i sat down and figured out jonathan's mileage he put in for church business write offs and such. i had to look up about a bajillion places and do some investigative measures because most of the time he just listed "church to starbucks", "home to rudy's house", "church to funeral home in dobson". in the end, it didn't matter because the total mileage of like 3,000 didn't exceed some kind of automatic deduction of some sort. i don't get taxes.

then, i had the pleasure of shredding a grocery bag full of papers. i know...oh, the fun! i had to work in about 20 minute sessions because the thing would get overheated and refuse to do its job for about 45 minutes until it cooled off. i don't think its aware thats not how it works in the real world. its lucky i showed it some grace because i was getting pretty aggravated with it.

so a grocery bag size of paper ended up shredding into two giant trashbags full of shreds. i'm still amazed at that.

the amount of taxes we had due was all over the place...from a couple thousand to a couple hundred, a thousand, and finally we ended at owing a very nice number: $74. that was about the same we owed turbo tax for using their software for the day. yay for us! april 15th, we are not afraid (but we're crossing our fingers we did it right!).

still waiting...

i interviewed for a job at havertys last thursday. it has now been over a week...three days after he said they'd get back to me by. things aren't quite looking up, but i'll have to contact him again to see what the status is. i think this is the most frustrating thing about job searching...people not responding in a courteous fashion. but i trust that the Lord has things under control.

on another note, i'm greatly anticipating the arrivial of monday! i spent all day getting things ready for it. i'll have plenty to post about things monday evening...you'll have to check back then because i know i'm being vauge. :)

oh, and today is mine and jonathan's 9th month of marriage! yay!

still mistaken for a high schooler...

jonathan and i went to the movies friday afternoon to see the watchmen. personally, i thought it was a terrible movie and did not enjoy it at all...but i don't do movie reviews so i'll leave it at that.

i've graduated from college and been married for the better part of a year. so friday was both mine and jonathan's day off work. we are both wearing our wedding rings, obviously married. well, jonathan asks for two tickets to see the R rated movie and what does the woman at the ticketing booth do? she asks to see some ids.

yes. she apparently doesn't think i look older than 16. i'll be 23 next month for goodness sake. not only that, but did she not get a chance to check out the bling on the left hand? how many 16 year-olds are married? or realize that its the middle of the school day for 16 year-olds? or see the handsome man standing next to me who would at least be a sufficient "guardian"? geez. so both jonathan and i had to get our ids out, laughing about how ridiculous it was.

we continued this laughing inside, and as we approached the guy inside to have our tickets torn, he says, "well, you know i'm going to have to see them too." what? did we not just have to show them twenty steps back outside?

so i asked the guy "how old do i look?" he skirted around it saying "some people just look really young."

well, jonathan asked him how old he thought he was...the guy's response: 19. ??? that was a stupid guess. that would make me about 13. jonathan laughed and said "i'm almost 30!"

the guy had jonathan guess his age...jonathan estimated about 23. i would have guessed 26. well, jonathan was right. but i want to point out that that guy was MY age and he's carding ME!

i've complained about this a number of times. when i was 20, the flight attendent asked if i was old enough to sit in the exit row (you have to at least be 15). everyone keeps saying that one day i'll appreciate it. i'm sure i will. but i would like to at least be mistaken for a sophomore in college rather than a sophomore in high school.
so the picture of me on the left is me at 16. the picture on the right is me back in november. i look older!! goodness.

awana grand prix

the church held the awana grand prix tonight for the kids. it was a pretty cute event...all the kids decorated their cars and submitted them to "race" down a ramp. everyone sat in a big circle around the ramp and everyone cheered. i got to judge the car designs along with a few other church members that don't have kids in the program. obviously, many of the kids didn't do their own, but some of them were pretty amazing! i took some pictures so jonathan could use them for the site. i thought it was fun so i though i'd share a few.

this is the car that won. pretty creative! but i don't think it was done by a 5 year-old! :)

hanging rock hike

yes. five days ago, we had 5" of snow on the ground.

well, this morning i stepped out of the apartment in a t-shirt and shorts into 77 degree weather! it was glorious. jonathan and i climbed into the car next to the spot where we had built the snowman (the one in the blue hat below) and there was still about a snowball size chunk of him still melting. THAT is how close together these completely opposite weather days were.

we decided to make the most of this premature spring day by finally going on a hike together. the whole last summer, with tons of closeby hiking trails to explore, we never went hiking in NC. nor did we go camping. the only hiking we did was up in virginia at peaks of otter...which was quite amazing. that is, until, i severely rolled my ankle at the tail end of the hike...as you can see! don't worry, its all better now!

i was a little more careful today, keeping this injury in mind. anyway, we decided to drive about 45 minutes north of us to hanging rock. of course, we got a little turned around on the way because my iphone which was giving directions died, but we made it. being a little higher in elevation, there was still quite a bit of snow piled up in shady spots in the parking lot up there. again, it shows the craziness of the weathr this week.

we hiked down a couple different trails...saw some small waterfalls and cool rock outcroppings. we ate our subs at the picnic area before we went on the long hike. seemed like everyone else in the state had the same idea as us. beautiful springlike day: go hike at hanging rock. seriously, everybody and their dog was out. lots of dogs. big, small, tiny. all varieties. i can't wait til i have my puppy to take hiking!

anyway, it was quite a lengthy hike, but the view up there was incredible. tons of people were up there and it was almost difficult to just find a place to sit down. the breeze felt awesome up there. i was suprised to see a little maltease all the way at the top...i was tired from the mile and a half hike up there, i'm sure he was exhausted!

but we had lots of fun and plan to check out pilot mountain nearby in the future! i love warm weather!!!

interview report: first round

well, i had the interview this evening. met with the guy for about an hour and fifteen minutes...which seems like a long time which may mean good things, perhaps? he basically just had me talk about myself. he asked me to give him examples of things like "tell me about a time when you had to deal with a really difficult client?", "what are some hobbies you have?", and "tell me about an instance when someone snubbed you?". that last one, especially, caught me off guard. i'm not one who likes to hold grudges and my memory is a little fuzzy when asked to give a specific instance of such a thing. i definitely know how it feels to be snubbed, but bringing to mind an exact case is difficult. i tried to come up with an answer...which was probably not clear and answered his question pretty poorly.

so basically i guess he was just trying to assess my people skills in general. it is a retail position (not particularly what i aspired to do when i walked across the stage at graduation a couple months back), so i think he could read that i'm not necessarily crazy about the job. he could tell, however, that i was passionate about designing. that could be good or bad i guess.

overall though, i think it went okay. there are still two more rounds of interviews left. i'm just looking to tack on another half of the work week. updates, i'm sure, to come.

blizzard of '09

we've had a couple of light dustings of snow here in winston over the course of this winter. jonathan and i managed to make a snowman in our garden at the end of january, but it required all the snow from the lawn outside our apartment door!

i was hoping that living further north, we'd get some good snow. well, on the cusp of spring weather, we got snow. march 1st was our lucky day. the storm swept across alabama and georgia first and their snowfall ended before ours even started! it had rained all weekend and through all of sunday, but by 7 pm, our snow set in and continued through the early hours of the morning.

we got 5" and i dragged jonathan out of our cold apartment (we don't have the heat on) to play in the even colder snow earlier than he wanted to. but it was a gorgeous day and the snow really blinded you. i had to squint all morning because i broke my only pair of sunglasses awhile back. anyway, we walked around in the snow, built a couple snowmen, made some snow angels...you know, the typical snow stuff.

now, three days later, we still have snow sticking around on the north side of all the buildings and in the shade. it won't last much longer--its supposed to get up above 70 degrees this weekend! crazy weather.

job searching

like the rest of the nation right now, i'm attempting to get more hours in my work week. right now, i'm only getting less than 20 hours a week. i've been continuously searching for more job opportunities in the design field, but everyone i've interviewed with has told me they just don't have the positions right now. what a great time in the economy to graduate from school.

well, a couple weeks ago i sent my resume in to havertys. they're hiring right now and i figured if i can get a part-time job at least to supplement the hours i'm not getting where i work now, i'd be doing alright. well, they had scheduled an interview with me for this past friday. i had planned the whole day around the thing...of course to get a call an hour beforehand to postpone it to next thursday. postponed interviews seem to be the story of my life.

so the interview is this thursday at 5:30 pm. fingers crossed, this will be something i can do and more importantly, make money at doing.

kicking off 2009

i can recall my 13-year-old self ringing in the year 2000 in the basement of my parents house, surrounded with my best friends, staying up all night making hilarious videos. i can't believe that was almost a decade ago. now here i am, a married woman, a college grad, working as an interior designer in north carolina. its amazing where time takes you, with God's provision, of course.

the year 2009 will be a great year. though the economy has gone to the dogs, as they say, i know God is at work. with people getting laid off from their jobs left and right, i'm appreciative that i at least have a part time job. jonathan and i have worked out our budget to get ourselves out of debt...slowly but surely. it would help to have the opportunity to work full time, both in the purpose of furthering my career and speeding up the debt free process. i've been proactive in searching for something a little more substantial than the part time position i currently hold, but its clear after another round of resumes to about 40 places in the area that i'm right where i'm supposed to be. and i'm okay with that.

my twin sister's wedding is quickly approaching...down to about the two month mark, and i've been busy planning her shower for the weekend, as well as trying to offer her some creative ideas and plan her bachelorette weekend getaway. she's doing a rustic kind of theme in a rather industrial building thats in downtown atlanta. her colors are green and yellow and she's been using birds as a motif throughout. i thought it would be adorable to use cutout bird shapes for guests to write their wishes on and hang on a small "tree". later, they could take all the birds and place them in a scrapbook as a guestbook! i think it would be absolutely adorable!she is going to use green and yellow jelly beans for her favor...another cute idea i have is to make little bird nests out of spanish moss or something economical and making them double as place holders (they'd look like little eggs!). anyway, to fit the rustic feel, she's using galvinized watering cans, gingham cloth for the table centers, and wildflowers. i'm telling you, i'm just too full of ideas.
photoshop and i are good friends.

anyway, jonathan and i have also been quite busy with church events. we took the youth snow tubing last weekend. i can't quite explain how hilarious this was, but i'll attempt. jonathan let me go down ahead of him one time and i was waiting for him at the bottom of the long steep hill. he wasn't slowing down at all and i barely got my tube out of his path when he went barreling by, launched up the 4 ft snow berm (which was there to stop people) like it was a ramp, and all of a sudden he was 5 feet in the air, tube going one way, feet kicking in the air, silly hat heading in another direction....he landed in the muddy area on the other side (everything was manmade snow and none was in the area behind the berm) on his butt. it was irristably funny. whew. i was rolling on the ground in tears it was so funny. sadly, there is no picture of this hilarious event.
apparently, jonathan thought it was too cold to look at the camera. the only shot i got of us together the whole day :(.
a good one of jonathan in his funny hat.

splitting time at christmas

being married, you've got to spend time with both sides of the family. especially if its feasible. since our parents only live about an hour apart, this setup is quite obvious.

we spent christmas eve at my parents house and were able to take part in the traditions i grew up with...roast beef, candlelight service, christmas music blasting, hot chocolate and french toast casserole breakfast, clemintines, gift exchange. rebecca's fiance michael was there this year, so jonathan had a lot of fun because there was a bit more of a balance in the house :). we spent christmas morning there and left for jonathan's parents just after noon.

as ususal, the day started late there...i think everyone was up and ready for christmas festivities by about 3:30 in the afternoon. we had yet another delicious meal and took part in the gift exchanging. we were able to stick around for a couple days while the guys enjoyed guitar hero on the wii and i completed a number of word finds that kept me occupied.

after a short couple of days back, we plan to drive back down and spend new years at jonathan's parents' as is tradition (this will be my fourth new years there!) and we'll spend a couple more days at my parents' house again. busy busy! i guess thats how we'll be working this time of the year out for quite a few years!

west coast adventure

so jonathan and i spent our first major holiday as a married couple not in georgia, in our beloved home state with either of our parents, but actually almost as far away as you could get from it.

we spent turkey day in oregon. that state seems to be popping into my life a lot lately. i had previously not been conscious of anyone in my sphere of existence having any connection to that northwest corner of the states. but within the past year, i've met two people who grew up in oregon and now know two couples who have made the cross country move from the peach state to the...beaver state? funny how that is.

of course, one of those couples is my sister-in-law, jessica, and her husband, brandon. since they have planned to return to georgia over christmas and couldn't make it for thanksgiving (plane tickets aren't cheap as we all know), jonathan and i decided to make use of the flying priveledges we have and purchase some discounted tickets for a thanksgiving vacation in oregon.

of course, travelling on standby isn't the least stressful way to travel, so we had made plans to fly out well before the influx of holiday travellers descended upon the airports. we booked our flight for tuesday morning at 6:40 am. we arrived at the airport well ahead of time, groggy of course. i won't go into all the details as i have in the past with all the drama standby travling causes, but as usual, we almost didn't get on and as late-comers kept making their way to the desk AFTER last call it was looking pretty hopeless until we finally got our seat assignments.

we made our way outside to board our tiny jet plane that would carry us from greensboro to atlanta. we settled in our seats and waited. but, of course, things can't go that smoothly. we wait and wait. then the pilot notifies us that there is something wrong with the cockpit chair and we must deboard the plane. already 25 minutes after scheduled departure, we were realizing that we very well may not make our 8:55 flight out of atlanta to portland.

after they wasted another 20 minutes or so, we all boarded the plane again and ended up making it to atlanta just as our connecting flight was taking off. of course, i wasn't suprised. we looked at a number of options, but in the end we decided to just take the next direct flight to Portland...8 hours later.

lucky for us, my parents were spending the day in atlanta anyway, so they picked us up from the airport and we spend the majority of the wait with them. eventually we made it to portland.
our first full day in oregon, we spent exploring the coast. i love sight seeing and seeing waves crash against big cliffs was at the top of my to see list. we had an unexpectedly sunny day. unfortunately on the way up the winding mountainous roads, a suv that was trying to pass us skidded across some black ice, swerved and srieked across the road and took a nose dive into the ditch and up the hill slightly into some trees. it was quite scary, being the only serious accident i've ever seen (hopefully the last) and the fact that none of us had a cell phone signal to call 911. jessica and i wanted to make sure they were alright and attempted to cross the road...we both slipped and fell on our butts in the middle of the road on the same black ice. some locals told us told us we should get back in the car and move on since it wasn't safe...they took care of it from there i guess. i think the driver was okay because i saw them open their car door and get out.

aside from that, we enjoyed the scenery...lots of green mossy trees and light shining though the trunks and branches. very pretty.


our first official stop was at the tillamook cheese factory. we indlulged ourselves in samples, tried to educate ourselves in the cheesemaking process, and guessed at what exactly the factory workers were doing down there. i'll tell you what, though. they make a heck of a lot of cheese!

after enjoying some delicious ice cream at tillamook, we continued our drive to the coast. We stopped at cape meares and i got to cross the whole waves crashing against cliffs thing off my to see list! it was quite spectacular and, of course, gorgeous. we were so happy to have a sunny day to get such a lovely view of everything! there isn't much more to say...pictures can do the rest for me.

next, we hit the beach. but not in the bikinis and flip flop kind of style. on our drive along the coast, we stopped at a couple of beaches to look at the scenery. rocky beaches are definately not what you see in your florida and southern beaches. but its a cool element to add to the scene for sure. this is our album cover for our next cd....
these next few are from canon beach...

jonathan claims this as his first true opportunity to watch a sunset. i'm a little skeptic to believe this, but its a romantic statement ;). of course, it was really amazing, as you can see. it seemed like everyone on the beach owned a dog. we enjoyed watching the dogs chase the seagulls...and eachother. we came across and adorable little dog that reminded me a lot of my childhood dog, maggie. he was a havanese, which is related to the bichon frise. i want one. :)

the true challenge of the trip was thanksgiving day. this was mine and jessica's first thanksgiving without our mom preparing all the yumminess we remember from years past. our first time preparing the huge meal by ourselves. now, i've been cooking some pretty simple things, but this was truly the first trial for that. jessica, with the aid of her mom on the phone all day, and i prepared the turkey, struggling with it as you would expect. it was heavy, huge, and akward to move. we didn't know where the giblets were, we didn't know how to insert the thermometer correctly, we didn't know a lot of things. but we certainly learned and all turned out okay. we made pies, sweet potatoes, cornbread, stuffing...you know, all the typical fixings. it turned out a success. since jonathan was in bed all day sick, i had to carve the turkey, too!


on friday we explored the river region. multnomah falls was by far the most intriguing of the falls we saw...it looked like it was straight out of a lord of the rings scene or something. a little further down the road we went onto a trail and hiked about 5 miles round trip to see about five other falls along the way. we packed a picnic lunch of turkey sandwiches and chips and enjoyed it while watching the water rush down the biggest of the falls.



on saturday we just spent the day relaxing and hanging out around portland. we checked out a mansion on top of a hill that overlooked the city of portland. it was a bit drizzly, so no such luck on seeing a view of mt. hood. but we were able to see a rainbow at least!

we took monday to drive up to seattle and check it out...we were on the west coast anyway, right? we ended up leaving pretty late...so we didn't arrive in seattle until about 4 pm or so. it was fun to check out a city you've always heard about...of course, we made it to the space needle (didn't go up because even though you couldn't see anything because of fog, they had no discounts on the $30 ticket). but it was a great chance to wander around and see the fish market and the bay.
and that pretty much sums up our west coast adventure! we had high hopes of skiing on mt. hood, but since the weather was mostly 60 degrees and drizzly, it didn't work out for us. hopefully one day we'll be able to make it back up there.

a new beginning...

i'm a tad late on marking the start of my new beginning, but at least i've gotten around to it. if you are one of the few who had visited my blog in the past, you'll notice that my lovely blog has gotten a facelift, as well as a new name.

"snippets of my college life" was good while it lasted. i had intended to keep a record of the day to day events of my experiences in college. this was all well and good, as I had some extra time on my hands. however, after meeting my husband (through this blog, true story) the extra time seemed to escape me and i indulged myself in other activities, such as spending hours into the night talking to him on the phone, starting my very involved interior design program, and scrap booking instead. so, obviously, as i've confessed many times before, my blog sat on the back burner for the last two years of my college life. it has been pretty pathetic.

but, new resolutions are not just for the new year. after graduating from the university of georgia in may, getting married in june, moving to winston-salem, and starting a job at a design firm, i've finally made myself sit down and do the tedious update. and i hope to, seriously now, at least do a post once or twice a month.

i figured since i had named my previous blog "snippets of my college life", i'd allude to it by posting my thoughts henceforth as "the grown up life". so, dear friends and loved ones, if you would like an update on my life as a newlywed, feel free to check in every once in awhile.

hello, i'd like a job.

beginning to write this post reminds me of one i wrote a couple of years ago in regards to finding a summer job at a camp.

with that job and a few more under my belt, i've been able to fill up the resume to be a little more presentable to prospective employers. i'm currently interning with a wonderful woman and helping her out with designing various spaces, picking out materials, filling out finish schedules...all the good things interns could want to do. sadly, i don't get paid.

but now is the time in life where i must find a job that pays. and not just one that gives me a little extra cash on top of my monthly allowance. that piggy bank hits the road when the wedding bells chime. well, actually the month before that when i ring the chapel bell on north campus for graduation. yes. i'm about to enter the big bad world of reality and that reality requires starting a career.

last semester, i spent hours working on developing my digital portfolio, refining it to present my best work. i worked on different layouts for my resume and generated a quality cover letter. i had high hopes to get the job search underway over christmas break. wedding planning kinda took over that. i reset the goal for the beginning of january. then school started and brought the business with it.

so february comes along and i begin to get stressed for my lack of diligence. i frantically begin critiquing my portfolio and resume, sure that it isn't good enough. after a few weeks of that, i finally had a great coordinated portfolio and it all written onto a cd and packaged complete with a ribbon. of course, this is a very expensive process, so i decided to give prospective candidates to receive my portfolio a call. i figured it would ensure that information i got online was up to date and give me a bit more of a feeling for what kind of company it is.

it was a brilliant idea. turns out, over half of the business phone numbers i had on my list had been disconnected. a good number of the others had moved locations and changed their number. and to my embarrassment, at least three of them had passed away. yes.

i had the pleasure of contacting my first deceased business owner and having a rather awkward conversation with a relative about it. i would always greet the person on the phone and tell them i am an interior design student searching for a job and that i would like to submit my portfolio. well, the poor man had to stop me in mid speal and inform me that ms. gibson had passed away about three years ago and, therefore, she is no longer in business. oh, i felt terrible. i apologized, he wished me luck, and i hung up the phone with the knowledge that my information is indeed quite out of date.

that was the only personal contact i had with anyone. but another company i called had their number disconnected. i found that a couple of other companies this occurred with had relocated and changed their number. so i searched the company name, which happened to have the person's name in it. i did not find another number. however, i did find the man's obituary dating back to 2001. it was then i really understood how old this information was.

but in the end, i got my resume out to about 20 businesses and i now sit on pins and needles as i await a phone call or e-mail from someone. hopefully before the end of the week.

parking isn't free

its my first and only year at school with a car and it has pretty much been the best thing of my four years here. a bit exaggerated, but not really. as soon as i knew that i would have my very own car to take to school with me, i signed myself up on the parking waitlist.

the only problem is that before i had my car at school, i was barely breaking even with my living expenses. toss another $75 a month for gas in the mix and my bank account is dwindling. i was able to select five lots to be put on the list for. i started off around 250 for about all of them and waited it out. of course, the first ones to be assigned (3 months later) to me were the $30 a month. obviously from my previous statement, i couldn't stretch my bank account that far. and the waitlist was a joke as well. i'd be as low as 12 one week, and the next i'd fall down to 78 or something ridiculous. its much like how georgia got cheated out of the national championship by the bcs this year.

so i made do. i would leave 45-50 minutes before class every morning to ensure that i could snag one of the last parking spaces at a church off lumpkin. 10 minutes to drive, 15 minutes of walking until i got to my class. i couldn't complain much because, hey, it was free. but that certainly does not make things easy.

it especially made things difficult when i had to get myself over to the intramural fields for my ultimate frisbee class. i know, i know. its like my favorite thing ever and yes, its a class. its impossible to get over there on foot in the 15 minute window we have. its impossible to get there by bus because basically all the lazy people on campus get on at one stop just to get off at the next. plus i'm not a fan of being shoved up against people i don't know...especially sweaty ones that need a shower. so, i've been trying to find the solution to my transportation problem. i've tried quickly trotting to my car (cut it down to about 11 minutes) and then driving to the back of the IM fields...i was late. i attempted the bus. no good. but finally, things went in my favor.

last friday i was notified via e-mail that i had won. i finally was assigned a parking pass. yes, it was $20 a month, but i've got four months of parking left and i've already saved all that parking money from last semester. its glorious. i drive 6 minutes. walk 4. it takes like no time at all. i actually arrived at my frisbee class early yesterday.

so all this to say, i have a parking permit. yay for me!

wanted: stolen tulip side table

the walls are seafoam and buttermilk and the air is filled that distinguished smell of fresh paint. the txmi department has finally, after many promises of "next semester", moved into our very own building. well, floor at least. since the beginning of my days as a furnishings and interiors major, we've had to share our studio with the messy drawing I class that gets charcoal everywhere, had professors prohibit us from completing our projects on time because we couldn't use the plotter, and have to climb up and down flights of stairs to leave the building. i know, they seem like major problems to you. please note the sarcasm. but even so, only half of my classes have moved to the new buildings and neither one of the CAD labs are fully functioning yet. yes, some construction is still taking place. but for some reason, the hall has not been properly locked after hours.

mrs. scheuneman came into class today rather flustered. she went on to tell us a story of the morning's events. our department owns a eero saarinen tulip dining room set. if that doesn't mean anything to you, just know that its true 1960s icon furniture. since the building has not been properly locked as of late, one of the side tables disappeared between thursday and monday. after realizing that it had indeed completely disappeared and had not just been relocated to a different part of the building, she filed a police report. they had come in this morning and began to ask questions about the said tulip end table.

"what exactly does this table look like?" questioned the officer, who had clearly, like you, never heard of such a thing as a tulip side table. scheuneman tried to articulate the wide base, smoothly transitioning to a narrow stem and then curving gracefully out again into a flat surface, but he could not imagine it. so she decided to pull up a visual via ebay, entering "tulip side table" into the search engine. she clicked on the first image that popped up to enlarge the image and realized that the table was listed for pickup only at a town about 10 miles from the university.

yup. it sounded suspicious to her, too. so later on, playing investigator, she called up the number listed to slyly question the seller. after all, they aren't all that common.

"hi, i live in the area and was thinking about coming by to see the tulip side table you have listed. do you mind me asking when you got the table in?"

"about 6 days ago." gotcha! that fell in perfectly with the time frame. so she called up the police and told them to go investigate...but she didn't seem hopeful when recounting the story to us that any action would be taken. alas, the bid would end in 6 hours and our tulip side table would go to the highest bidder for a price well over $100.

missing years

i'm afraid i've failed over the past couple of years to document my college life. freshman year i had this idea that i'd provide weekly or even daily updates on my journey through college...i'm not quite sure how much insight i believed i would have over the four years my test run as an independent would provide. i seemed more interested in having something to look back over, stories to laugh about that years from now i would never remember. those are the kind of things i've lost over the past couple of years by not blogging. in ways, its disappointing. i've had a few (and i stress few) people comment to me over the past few months about how they used to enjoy reading my blog.

i hope i could do those few people a favor by taking time out of my facebooking addiction, or evening hours tweaking my projects, or other small bits of time to produce an interesting story or thought every week. maybe people might still be interested to hear what is relevant or exciting in my life. after all, this little blog did play a major role in meeting my future husband :). i should treat it a little more lovingly.

the rainy season

yes. those of us in the state of georgia are suffering from a historic drought. for about two months now, we've been told to shorten our showers, refrain from running the water while we brush our teeth, and reminded that "every drop counts". i myself have tried my best to be conscious of my water usage and minimize where i tend to waste. you may see no relation whatsoever with this drought and flag football, but i will soon make clear the irony of it all.

in september, i signed up with a flag football team...for the most part, we all know eachother from RUF but were not technically associated with them this year. i wasn't in charge of the team name selection, but when i found out our name was a mouthful "we make it rain", i was a little puzzled. it wasn't quite witty or intimidating or relating to our association with one another like all other team names in our league. i was told it derived from some rap song where "making it rain" references throwing money into the crowd or something. okay. still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. but we went with it.

well, our first game it sprinkled the whole time. our second game it misted. our third game got rained out. our makeup game got rained out. we managed to make that third game up finally, and our fourth game was dry, but we lost that one. we made it through our entire fifth game before a thunderstorm broke out. we only had a little precipitation for the first game of the tournament. it began pouring halfway through our second game and they had to call it quits for the night. our third game of the tournament was the semi-finals, but no rain was to be had. we lost.

maybe you can see the pattern, but i'll make state it a little more matter-of-factly. despite us being in a severe drought, somehow it rained practically every thursday night for us. we thoroughly enjoyed the irony, and though through this post i've basically skipped over the juicy plays of the season, that is probably the best way to summarize. we played well, had some great catches, near misses, knuckles separated, bruises, scrapes and everything else related to a great football game. i somehow managed to rip the shorts off a poor girl in the tournament. that was entertaining.

jonathan came to almost all of our games and brought his camcorder, so he's planning on making a clip of the season and all. perhaps i'll be able to post it on here. anyway, all in all it was an awesome season of rain.

the postponed interview

so i spent my final precious days at home before classes started researching places to send my resume so i can get some experience before graduation. i worked on my resume, printed out cover letters, addressed and mailed them to about 10 different companies in the athens area.

turns out, only one really responded to me, which is still in itself exciting because it has potential. she got my resume the second day of classes and i called her for a follow-up. she seemed very friendly and wanted to set up a lunch interview...and me to pick the place. now i wasn't sure if she was leaning towards expensive italian or over-priced fast food mexican, so i went with the in-between sandwichy-lunch place called trans met. of course, she had never heard of it, so i tried to explain where it was without knowing exactly what the street names downtown are. i'm sure that looked great on my behalf. anyway, we got that nailed down and it was supposed to be august 27.

well, i spent the week trying to prepare and get things in order so that i would have something to impress her with. a portfolio of sorts. though i didn't have a trendy little folder or bound graphically designed booklet with my work in it. i went out shopping for a button-up shirt to wear to my interview. i got home sunday night before my interview and played model for the roommates as they tried to get my as professionally-trendy-and-grown-up looking as possible. we finally decided on an outfit and i was off to bed to get some rest.

i had a 9 am class and my interview wasn't until 11:30 am, so i had plans to go to class and then come home to get prettied up for my interview. but while in the midst of burning my tongue on some freshly nuked instant oatmeal, my phone began the annoying random i'm-not-sure-why ring of "hello moto" (i never even selected that as a ring tone) around 8:30 am. it was an unknown number, so i tried to pretend my tongue was less burned and like i didn't just spring accross the kitchen to my bookbag and dig through colored pencils, umbrella, wallet and ipod to get to my phone as i picked up to casually say "hello?"

well, it was the woman who i had my lunch interview with and she sounded a little distraught.

"i'm sorry, Jeannine, but i'm going to have to postpone our interview for today..." she kind of trailed off.

of course, i'm a little stunned...at first i thought of "postponed" as meaning "cancelled" which are two separate words, and when i came to that realization, i was able to tune back into the phone call. i quickly said that it wouldn't be a problem at all, curiosity most likely oozing from my tone. well, it was soon satisfied, but was certainly bad news. i could tell it was painful to tell me that her father had passed away unexpectedly over the weekend and that she needed time to take care of things. my previously curtious "no problem at all" was then replaced with a sympathetic one.

i guess at first, i may have been thinking that the last minute phone call was due to a double-booking or business issue...something that would push me back because there were more important things to do. but the fact that she had suffered a great loss made me wish that it was the reason...it would be better for me to get my feelings hurt than for someone to lose a father. i really felt sorry for her and told her she should take all the time she needed.

we re-scheduled for two weeks later. so, i sent out my resume in mid-august and don't get an interview until mid-september. i guess that gives me more time to get my outfit in order, more time to organize a portfolio, more time to practice my interviewing skills. of course, i haven't gotten much of that done, even though it is now less than a week away. i'm hoping this interview goes well...it looks like a really great place to work and get experience, she seems like a friendly lady, i just don't know if on an interview you should ask how someone is doing since they lost someone two weeks prior.

anyway, my interview is on monday. hopefully it will go well and she will see how much i want to work at an interior design firm.

the second era of summer

yet another month passes by with no word on the blog.

this past month has been crazy as far as life goes...and it has been the greatest summer ever by far. not only did i get to travel abroad in greece and italy and see so many awesome things, but now i'm engaged to the love of my life! when i was abroad, it felt like i was gone forever and i was so ready to get home. its funny now because now it seems so long ago, as if i've had two completely different summers.

well, to give you an update on things, jonathan and i have selected June 14th for our wedding. we hit the ground running trying to select a place for the reception and find a photographer, etc. it was pretty stressful trying to find a place, as june weddings are in high demand. i already knew that i was going to have the ceremony at my home church, which i'm a member of and have grown up in. a photographer was also an easy choice, since i worked at a photography studio last summer and they're great...though expensive. And for a reception, we were looking for somewhere that had a big room with a dance floor and was affordable. its really amazing how expensive it is to have a reception. jonathan and i have agreed to limit our guest list to 90 people each, which is quite difficult when you want so many people you love to be there and celebrate with you. but i guess everyone has to make cuts somewhere.

anyway, one place we considered was a golf course clubhouse that has an antebellum feel, a winding staircase, crystal chandeliers, and a big ballroom upstairs. this is a year in advance and yet two of the four weekends in june 2008 were already booked earlier that week. we had our appointment toward the end of the day and left thinking about it as we went to our next appointment. we drove for a good 20 minutes and the person who was to show us around never showed up. we then decided that the price at the other place was very reasonable and went back to make the deposit and sign stuff. of course, on a friday, people dip out as early as possible. i had to leave a message with the woman in charge telling her that we wanted the place and that we would drop off the deposit as soon as we could the next day.

well, my mom went in to drop off the check after she got off work. turns out, another bride had called that morning requesting our date and willing to come by right then. thankfully, the coordinator told them we were coming in and they couldn't have it until the next tuesday. if they couldn't get that date, then they wanted the last one in june. of course, we put down our deposit and secured the date, but its crazy how in just one week's time, june 2008 was booked up.

so that was God's blessing there. since then, i haven't made too many big decisions. i selected my bridesmaids! my maid of honor will be my twin sister, rebecca. my other bridesmaids will be my sister, kaitlin, future sister-in-law, jessica, two of my best friends from high school/roommates now, anna and colette, and my best friend from college/roommate now, amy. so i will have a total of six, which is a little big, but certainly do-able.

colors are still unknown to me. its an important decision and i just have no idea what i really want. i've been wedding dress shopping a couple of times and found a bunch that i really like. i really have to make a good decision because with everything i've already done so far (church, reception, photographer), i've already spent almost 3/4 of my budget.

so aside from all the wedding stuff, i've still been pretty busy. my girls and moved into our sweet new house on july 29 and we got settled in pretty quickly. i've been trying to find design businesses to send my resume to so i can get a job this year. i've also been back and forth to the lake with jonathan a few times. but, summer is dwindling to an end and i start classes first thing on thursday morning.

so long sweet summer.

the question

there are many stories to still be told of my two month travels abroad in greece and italy. but the story i have now trumps by far any of those which i have been intending to post when i got the chance.

jonathan had told me about a week or two before that he had a big welcome home date planned out for us when i got back home. of course, it made me very happy to know that he was already putting so much thought into a special date. he planned to pick me up at 8 a.m. on saturday and had tossed around some different ideas of going on a hike in north georgia or going to athens and sorts.

i was up for 24 hours traveling on friday and didn't crawl my jet lagged self into bed until about 1 a.m. so i called him up as i was going to bed and asked him to push it back one more hour so i could get some extra rest. i still didn't sleep well, anxious to see my boyfriend after not seeing him for months. when i finally got to hug him again on my driveway, he was just as handsome as i had left him, but 17 lbs lighter :).

we swung by chick-fil-a for some chicken biscuits...so much better than the rolls with chocolate spread i've been having for 50-something days in a row! we got on the road by 10 and started driving up i-85 north. i had no idea where we were going, so i just settled into my passenger seat and we talked the entire way. talking in person is so much better than over the phone. i had really missed that. we pulled of the interstate in north georgia and stopped at a publix to get some of our traditional picnic food: turkey subs, snapples, and chips.

as our drive continued, i realized we were heading for chattanooga. it was kind of drizzly, so jonathan casually asked me whether i wanted to go to ruby falls because it was in a cave out of the rain, or rock city on lookout mountian and hope it doesn't rain. i thought my indecisiveness just lead him to choose rock city so we didn't push our luck with the weather holding up, but it turns out that was the plan all along. we pulled into the parking lot and jonathan seemed pretty upset because there were a lot of cars there, meaning there were a lot of people there as well. i just couldn't understand why this would make him so annoyed when it was a tourist attraction on a saturday in the middle of the summer.

we bought tickets to both places and then began exploring rock city. it was adorable, with all the trails paved with stone and the paths leading between walls of rocks that you had to suck in and shimmy through sideways to get through. jonathan had a backpack on, so it didn't seem much easier for him. we wandered and took some pictures along the way-i was happy because i love being outside and doing these kinds of things. he knows me well :). our destination for our picnic was lover's leap, the place where theres an overlook where you can see 7 states: georgia, south carolina, north carolina, tennessee, virginia, kentucky, and alabama. the view up there is amazing, even on a cloudy day.

i was carrying some umbrellas in case the sky decided to break loose and jonathan carried the cooler and his backpack. we found a nice picnic table with an umbrella that could keep us out of the light drizzle and sat down to eat our turkey sandwiches. as we were eating, jonathan kept watching the overlook and complaining when groups of people would trickle in and crowd up the place. he had taken about 3 bites of his sandwich before declaring that he was full, while i was just taking my time enjoying the wonderful date we were having and being happy to be with him again. i believe i have picked up a bit of a european habit of taking forever to eat lately.

meanwhile, jonathan is telling me about how excited he is to give me my welcome home presents and is trying to jump at every opportunity for us to go over there as soon as people leave. he also keeps telling me that he is excited about it because one of the gifts he made himself and it was really special to him-its nothing really expensive or anything. because he was so anxious, he had me open a card he had written for me while i was still eating. finally, i decide that i guess i could be done and just wrapped up the rest of my sandwich and we walked over to the ledge. he had me put everything down, including my camera, and opened up his little shopping back that held my gifts.

he first gave me a t-shirt that he had designed for his youth group. he had mentioned it a while ago and i was excited to finally have gotten it. he had me close my eyes for the next gift. i did so gladly because this is how jonathan likes to give gifts. its more fun than wrapping paper anyway :). when opened my eyes, he had placed a car charger for my phone in my hands. he told me he wanted me to have it because, since i'll finally have a car at school, he wants to be able to be there for me and protect me any time i need him. again, he had me close my eyes and placed a journal in my hands. i flipped it open as he was telling me that it was a collection of his thoughts and prayers for me while i was gone. he prayed for me everyday while i was gone and was going to pray for me for the rest of my life. i loved it and gave him a huge hug and told him how i couldn't wait to read it. i thought that was it. i thought that was the big gift he was excited about.

but then he said "and the next gift i have for you" and went on to explain how much he missed me over the two months while we were apart and how he loves me and never wants us to be apart again, how he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, as he lowers himself to one knee and asks me to marry him!!! i was so overwhelmed and it was all such a blur after that- all i remember is that i immediately blurt out "YES!" as i lunged on him to give him a big hug...of course, the white bling of a sparkling diamond in the box he was holding caught my eye on the way! i gave him a good squeeze for about a minute, hanging on his neck mumbling who knows what along with "oh my gosh's" and all. after awhile, i heard jonathan say "can i put the ring on you now?"

it is absolutely gorgeous! he picked it out all by himself and there couldn't possibly be a more perfect ring for me out there! my hand was shaking from adrenaline i guess when he put it on...i was in shock and it was so surreal. i hardly remember what all went on in the minutes following, but i made sure i had someone take a picture of us right away and then we wandered around the park on cloud 9 just talking about everything.

but oh, the story continues! we later leave for ruby falls and enjoy that together. i was amazed that my ring could still sparkle in a dark cave! anyway, we finished wandering around and finally got in the car and started heading back. we stopped at olive garden along the way and picked up some chicken parmesan to go, i had no idea why it was to go. we had gone to olive garden for our first date. we end up at his sister jessica and brother in law's place where jonathan had them set up tea candles and 4 dozen roses everywhere with romantic music playing and everything. it was so beautiful. so we had a private romantic dinner. jonathan tried moving the vase of roses over a bit because he thought they were getting burned and accidentally spilled the water, but it was kind of funny in a way and it didn't spoil anything (just so jonathan knows).

we finally got back to my place and i had to drag my mom downstairs after she changed out of her pjs to tell her the news! becca and her date michael came home some time after that and she flipped out...it was the best reaction ever. the next day i had to keep it a secret at church so i could get together with the girls later that night and tell them the good news!

its been crazy the past few days trying to call everyone and let them know. we're working on a date and already checking out reception venues and everything. its funny how new this is all to me. i don't know how to be engaged. its one of those things you can only learn by doing i guess. as for now, its still sinking in. i can't believe that i am engaged to such a loving, wonderful man who makes me laugh and couldn't make me happier.