love dare continued

today the love dare got a little interesting.

we were supposed to make a list of things we don't like about our spouse and a list of things we do like.

then hide them somewhere to use for a rainy day (aka i think another love dare is going to use them) and sometime throughout the day tell your spouse one thing you like about them and how you appreciate them for being that way.

easy peasey.

case in point:

my folding drew's socks instead of balling them up inside each other (I HATE THAT SO MUCH!) and he looks at me while eating hershey kisses and says, "oh yeah. another thing to add to my negative list about you."

cute :)

he then proceeded to tell me while we were driving to the gym that "i had beautiful eyes" and he thanked me for that. :)

I complained that the list wasn't supposed to be physical characteristics but he argued it could be anything he liked about me and that is what he chose to share with me.

hahahaha.

i checked the book and he was right. So much for that, "oh lindsay I love your kind and gentle heart..." :)

so after dinner I sat down to make my list.

it was so weird. I would get on a roll with great things about my hubby and then I would think of a random "negative" thing. That would get me on a bad path and a few minutes would go with frantic writing on the negative list.

the point of this love dare? the book talked about how whatever you focus on is what you will cultivate and grow in your relationship. 

try and stay away from that negative list. or if you have to visit it occasionally, write LOVE in huge capital letters with a sharpie over it. (theoretically :)

i think drew was getting nervous because although I had written my list, I hadn't "thanked" him for any of the characteristics. Look what happens to mosey into my lap after dinner, served by Drew.

peanut butter track icecream and some wine. without me even ASKING. :)

he was sucking up ;)

i waited awhile and then thanked him for what I was going to thank him for even BEFORE the butler service. :) 

thank you Drew, for being thoughtful :) 

"your spouse is a living, breathing, endless book to be read. Dreams and hopes have yet to be realized. Talents and abilities may be discovered like hidden treasure. But the choice to explore them starts with a decision by you.

you MUST develop the habit of reigning in your negative thoughts and focusing on the positive attributes of your mate. This is a crucial step as you learn to lead your heart to truly love your spouse.

It is a decision that YOU make, whether they deserve it or not."

so yes. cheesy. cheesy. cheesy. almost as bad as Drew thanking my for having beautiful eyes or him delivering me icecream and wine. it's more fun to focus on that though, instead of his horrid laundry folding abilities. (nah, who needs their pants unwrinkled? not me. ;)

three months

well. we have officially completed three months of wedded bliss. take that kim kardashian. :)

:)

i remember someone asking my friend Katie how married life was after she got married and she said, "well. i'm not going to lie. it's not like it's all glitter rainbows and unicorns but it's good!"

that stuck in my head and i just wanted to thank her for being so honest. (she probably doesn't even remember saying this :)

planning our wedding was so fun and then you kind of just expect everything to be perfect. you get to play "house" and are officially grownup. rainbows and unicorns, right? :)

Katie's confession still helps me. When I start to panic about the fact that there are some things we just. don't. agree.on. or just things that still make me feel like we are the worst couple in the world, I remember it's not all rainbows and unicorns, but it still can be good.

some differences I have noticed as of lately:

1.) he is in my life for a reason. 

i made cinnamon rolls for my last day of work on Friday. :( up at 6AM, slaving away... Drew took Friday off so while I was scurrying around he was in bed yelling, "babbeeeee. can i pleassseeee have one?"

they looked so pretty all snug in their pans and I REALLLY did not want to take one out for him. 

I finally did, to make him stop whining and my knife hit a hard spot when I was cutting it. 

UMM?!?!!>? had it not been for my husband who wanted to taste a cinnamon roll, I would have brought 3 dozen CHARRED cinnamon rolls to work, and had absolutely NO idea. 

after I left them on the counter in a huff, he texted me later to let me know he found one that wasn't burnt on the bottom and it was delicious. haha. thanks :)

2.) He does math in the grocery store.

not like adding up how much we have spent or anything like that, but more like he likes to figure out how much per ounce or per beer bottle and get the best deal. My hubby is a Costco boy at heart. He loovvessss bulk. 

In the beer aisle, I usually just start looking at all the new Skinny Girl Margarita flavors instead of trying to help him decide which beer to get. 

It REALLLYY irks him that a six pack would be on sale, but not the case of 12. He will figure out how much one bottle costs in each instance, and go from there. 

i suppose it is a good thing. it just takes us 3 times as long to get out of the store. and by then, my pumpkin icecream is melting. and i am not a happy camper. :) 

3.) we do NOT have the same taste in color/decorating combinations.  (aka i don't think there is anything in the world that he cares less about then decorating. :( )

like really. all i needed was a text confirmation about which one he wanted for his "man cave". 

"I can't tell the difference"

and

"I don't care"

are not helpful answers and get my blood a'boiling for some silly reason :) 

but really?! "can't tell the difference?" commmeee onnn :)

i think he has started just ignoring me when it comes to questions about color shades. but really. this is VERY important, right?! dandelion and sunshine are SIGNIFICANTLY different :) 

i won't even go there with all the things that Drew has learned about me. 

all the condiments have to go on the same shelf in the fridge or else. 

i realllyyy don't like cleaning food out of the kitchen sink

and for some reason I leave water glasses alllll over the house. 

these little things? had someone told me on my wedding day that in three months I would get sooo irritated when it took 15 minutes to go down the chip aisle, I would love laughed and said "no way."

rainbows and unicorns everyday. 

photo by the lovely holly aprecio

three months in?

i love this man more than ever, color-blindness and all. :) 

there are moments when I want to leave him in the grocery store and get a taxi home. I am sure there are points when he wants to scream at my lack of taking out the garbage. it's not always pretty, but as Katie warned us, it still is good :)

perhaps even great ;)

we survived

so don't worry, this blog will not be a place where I air out all of our "dirty laundry" but I also want to be real and this is a part of my life :)

i think drew and i had our first "married" fight. 

i think it was about how the TV is dedicated to football thursday night, all day saturday, all day sunday and monday. :)

is it really that much to ask to go to the pumpkin patch?

then it turned into how drew cooks a lot of the time and i don't like to wash dishes. wet food in the drain reaaaaaalllly grosses me out. so sue me :) 

so maybe drew cooks a lot? he associates that with me being a bad cook. ruuuuude :) 
(remember this is my blog, i can tell my side of the story ;)

we had a reallllllly fun weekend, but were both a little tired yesterday aka crabby. 

so i got home from work, drew was already home and we didn't just went about our business not necessarily speaking to each other. 

juvenile, i know. but sometimes that's just how things work out. :)

i had said i was going to cook waffles and bacon for dinner so I started cooking and drew came in and asked if  i wanted any help. 

clearly, i said NO.

i made our Belgian waffles, drew started flipping the bacon and i swooped in and said, "I SAID I DIDN'T NEED HELP."

so off he went to eat his breakfast for dinner.

I ate mine in the dining room, and then before long I notice the house is getting a little foggy, almost hazy. 

and man, oh man did it smell like bacon. 

so i open up the doors, turn the fan on and deal with the bacon grease. 

Drew comes into the kitchen and says, "did you forget to turn off the stove after the bacon was done?"

"NO!" I snapped. "Of course I didn't."

he has a little smile on his face. 

because clearly that is EXACTLY what i did to almost set the house on fire, but yet I am still denying it. 

i look at him again with my "serious face" on, and he still has that cute little smirk on his face. 

how else can i explain that i almost burnt down our house?

as hard as I am trying to keep a straight face, I start smiling. 

and then giggling. 

and then i cannot. stop. laughing. 

so that ended our little "two hour of not-talking thing"

whatever it takes, right?


i was talking to some coworkers and they were talking about how cute it was that we had our first married fight. 

then they started talking about how important it is to have that fight. to learn how to fight. to learn how to make up. 

i had never even thought of that. 

learn how to fight?

The silent-treatment used to be my ultimate fighting method of choice. with my parents, with boyfriends, didn't matter. :) silent treatment was the way to go.

drew and i used to fight like that too, when we were dating. see who caved first. who gave in. 

now? i am realizing it's not about "giving in."

so yeah maybe the first hour of not talking and passing silently in the hallway was fun, i slowly started to realize there was no point. 

it's not about who "wins" the fight.

it's just a bummer it almost took the house burning down to realize it :)

andddd we may or may not have had a good laugh when we woke up this morning and the house STILL smelt like bacon. oooops. :) 

life keeps moving

i showed my hairdresser a picture and said I want THIS, but longer. don't think she heard the "longer" part. so now I have a little stub for a ponytail :) 

 the deer are getting out of control. this is a typical morning when i walk out the door. oh hey little buddies. 

fall is in the air! which means lots of fun stuff in the Target Dollar section ;) much to Drew's delight. :)

more Halloween decorations. oh wait. Nope. that is a REAL spider. vomit. 

don't knock the cola in the crockpot with the pot roast till you rock it. delishhhhhh. 

and just like that it's almost the MIDDLE of October :)

10/9

this exact day one year ago I was minding my own business, carving my pumpkin when I pulled out something more than pumpkin seeds and guts...

this day last year this really cute boy gave me this ring and promised me forever. 

oh what a difference a year makes.  :)

friday night married life

it's Friday night, 

drew and i hit up Costco (horrible idea. first: Costco in general. second: costco on a friday night. third: costco on a Canadian holiday. fourth: costco on THANKSGIVING. ahhh. you did NOT want to get in the way of those 5 dollar pumpkin pies. let me tell you.)

we survived and managed to make it out alive with our toilet paper and paper towels and jalapeno dip. oh, the necessities of life, right?

after we had those essentials, we each got to buy one "fun" thing.

drew?

these PlayStation3 headphones so he can talk to Marcus without having to use my iphone headphones. and imagine this, they block out outside noise. great. for the price of these things, they should whisper the winning lottery ticket numbers to you or something. or predict the stock market.

and who sold them to us? a cute girl whose name tag said, "gaming specialist." ummmm... i had to pull drew out of there. ;) 

so drew had his "fun" thing, so it was my turn.

something is MAJORLY wrong with this picture. 

looks like we each will have a new hobby this fall. ;) 

getting it all together???

so my 6th weekend of being a married women, running a "household", trying to work out, cook, clean and make sure we have clean clothes to wear, I feel like I should be starting to get into the flow of things. aka not like a chicken with my head cut off when i go into work with my sweater on inside out because the wind or the scary raccoons got into the garbage so i was all flustered trying to pick it up at 8AM when normally i would think, "well that's a bummer. sorry dad" and get into my warm car and drive away. but that's a different story for a different day. :) 

how did i do?

let's see, shall we?

1.) we went to the gym.

but then I realized that my wallet/purse REALLY needed to be sorted out. so I did that important job while Drew did box jumps :) 

2.) I made a pinteresty craft. 

second attempt at chalk paint. (do not get confused with chalkboard paint, like i did)

but then apparently my dad needed a tool that I had "borrowed" from their garage. and when my dad is in the middle of a project and he needs a tool, he needs it RIGHT THEN! like i had to turn off the oven and literally jump in the car with my slippers to bring him his beloved handsaw. whooooops. 

3.) i cooked.

well. drew cooked. i was in charge of the garlic bread. but apparently i thought it just had to be microwaved. but i guess it needed the oven? So like 5 minutes before the rest of the meal was done, i realized I still had to preheat the oven and then cook the bread for 10 minutes. psshh... preheating is over-rated. So i turned on the oven to broil and just stuck the bread in. 

and forgot about it until i started smelling burnt toast. 

fine. i conceded that I was a horrid cook and decided to just eat the rest of our meal, and make some butter rolls following the REAL instructions. preheat to 350.

welllll. that would have been fine. except that I forgot to take OUT the burnt garlic bread while the oven was preheating for the butter-rolls. :)

4.) i talked Drew into cleaning my car :) 

well, he offered. 

we got a new shopvac and he was detailing the inside while I ran some errands. I came home to a beautifully clean car but i knew it was too good to be true.

disgusting. 

he probably failed to mention that the chicken was more than likely on the PASSENGER SIDE WHERE HE SITS! :)

so yeah. i got some work to do in this whole wife department. :) but you gotta start somewhere, right? :)

crisco

it all started this weekend when I used hairspray and a did a little teased hair poof :) ya know, where you "back-comb" I believe is the proper term?

well anyways. that turned into a sweaty messy bun when Drew and I rearranged the house AGAIN this last Saturday.

Needless to sayyy, I was excited to blowdry my hair when Monday morning rolled around.

i showered and started blowdrying when I realized I had a HUGE tangle in one spot on the back of my head. I couldn't figure it out, it was almost like I had gum in my hair, so I threw my hair up in a low bun and hit the grocery store before work for some little kid's detangler spray (ya know, the Fish bottle kind :).

went to work and decided to leave my hair in a bun and deal with the tangle that evening.

got busy, forgot about my hair issue and Tuesday rolls around. I was going to go to the DMV to change my name on my driver's license so I woke up extra early to make sure I had cute hair.

UMMM....

that little tangle? you guys. I had a knot in my hair that was as hard as a ROCK! I tried for about 30 minutes to brush it out (including using an ENTIRE bottle of conditioner on it) and had no luck. THere was NO way I was going to take my driver license picture with a rat's nest on my head so I get ready for work and make a pit stop at Supercuts.

Who knew Supercuts was open at 8AM? not I.

So i walk in, and show them my issue. She plops me down in the chair, and washed my hair with her "intense conditioner". another stylist joined in on the fun.

TWO HOURS LATER, my scalp is hurting soooo bad and they have made NO progress on this stupid thing. I am about in tears, because it is about an inch from the top of my head, so cutting it would give me little alfalfa pieces.

i go to work and i am trying to cover it up with a side-braid thing. i show my friend and she is like, "ohhh Lindsay, I can get that out!"

Then they look closer and touch it and say, "OH MY GOSH! WHAT IS THAT?!!"

guys, it wasn't like a loose matted little ball of hair. see that thing? IT WAS HARD AS A ROCK. I couldn't even get one part of a pick comb into it. not one little bristle.

so then a coworker had a brilliant idea. She suggested I get some lard and soak it in my hair. Umm.. minus the fact that I have no idea where I could get lard, I decided that might just work. 

next best thing?

oh yeah baby. 

i had a plan of action.

got home from work on Tuesday night and let Drew play an EXTRA game of Madden on his PlayStation. He was wondering why I was being extra nice...

little did he know the plans I had for him... ;)

i lathered up some good ole crisco in my hair and then kinda asked Drew to comb it out. 

hahahah. you should have seen us. He had a comb and you would have thought he was stabbing something the way he was handling that thing. 

he would stab the "hairball" and then I would just hear a ripping noise as he destroyed my hair!!

and then he would narrarate, "oh BABE! THIS IS CRAZY! What is this?????"

I thought he was making it worse, but he was starting to loosen up the knot. 

after I saw the pile of hair that he had pulled out, I decided it was time for the scissors. 

He snipped off the knot (how my hair got that that I still do NOT know) and then I SOAKED my head in some keratin stuff. 

ta-daaaaaaa :)

there wasn't even a bald spot. :)

and my hair has never been so moisturized :) 

the trooper that is my husband looked up at me at one point, wearing ziplock baggies on his hands and sticking them in Crisco and said, "hmm. is this how I will be spending my nights now? Is this what married life is about?" :)

but his best remark from the evening: (even beating out one point when he was saying, "oh babe, we are at the BEAST of the knot. We got it made."

"okay linds. you have to wear a Katniss braid to bed so this NEVER happens again."

:) 

sunday night brain dump

my brain is so full.

~knowing that this little cutting cake is in my mom's freezer from our wedding (to cut on our anniversary) is killlling me. it was soooooo good and i drool just thinking about it. it is torture knowing that it will just taunt me for a year. and by the time I actually get to eat it, it will be gross. so i say the only logical solution is to eat it now, right? happy three week anniversary, time to eat cake! :)

~i love this. i am trying to make it my mantra for the week. i don't need to run a zillion errands to be a successful friend/daughter/wife. and it's like one of those things. I don't necessarily think the Kardashian's are the best influence on our society and I complain about their silly antics, yet I stiillllll tune into their show and I stilllll follow them on Twitter. I play into it. I'm working on that. :)

~so remember when I was painting signs for the wedding and this happened?

well. i still haven't been able to get it all off. yep. i got married, went to mexico and STILL have pink paint on my legs. (not near this much of course!) I don't know what to do. i have gone through like three bottles of exfoliator. oh well... ;)

~i got a new purse! I love it. but i did NOT love the lady who sold it to me. okay. i am a friendly person and i get that retail is a hard job.

look at cute display of bobby-pins with cute flowers. want one.

look at price tag prominently displayed with bins. $4 flower bobby pins.

buy one.

rings up as $6

i say, "oh was that not $4 in a polite tone?"

she says, "no, it rang up $6."

I walk over and say, "oh man, the price tag says $4, look right here!"

she says word for word, "that's too bad, the correct price is always in the computer."

rruuuuude.

i should have said I didn't want it anymore. but i did. so i paid $6. but still. that is NOT good customer service, when your sign clearly has the wrong price. right???

~i love these little pumpkins.

~decorating a house is HARD. it's like i want everything all new yet antiquey/ original yet pinterest all done NOW. but it doesn't work like that. it makes me mad. i have visions of what I want different rooms of the house to look like, but I can't actually FIND what I need. it is annoying. Drew and I had a fight in Target today because I compared me needing a desk area to him needing to hook up his video games. He said a desk isn't just something I should get to get, I should look around. I kindly told him that 2 hours into our moving extravanganza he said he NEEDED to hook up his video games before the night was over. That's how I feel about my desk area. I neeeeeed it. and i want it cute and chalkpainty with a cute upholstered chair and a cute rug. ugh. and i want it NOW.

have a great week :)

disposable

i have a fancy camera (that i don't know how to use but still). did i bring it on our honeymoon with us? noo...

so what is the logical solution?

buy some good ole disposables from the resort drugstores.

after i got over the shock that they were freaking a million pesos (i could go to costco and buy a digital camera for the price of my two disposables but whatever that is a different post for a different day)

we got to work. 

it was funny. i would take a picture and then automatically look at where the screen should be to see what it looked like. no such luck.

and then the flash? oh my gosh. we had like a 10 minute conversation around dusk every night about if the flash needs to be ON in the dark, or OFF in the dark. yep, we have come to depend on auto :)


flash forward to the airport.

i made a big fuss at each xray machine making SURE that the workers knew I had film and to make sure the x-ray machines wouldn't ruin it. I loved it; I am sure they thought I was a fancy world-class photographer with all sorts of fancy pictures of the Mexican Rivera on my camera.  Little did they know it was 48 kodak pictures on a disposable camera.

THEN I had to find somewhere that developed the little buggers. COSTCO, the mother of EVERYTHING, didn't do it. I was speechless. Rite-Aid? Nope.

Walgreen's? Yes sir.

Another arm and a leg later (seriously though, after the cost of the cameras and then the film development I could have boughten a new lens for my DSLR camera. after all of that, i was soo excited to get the pictures back today.

totally worth it....

and another...

and like 30 more. of the 48. 30 look just like that :) :( :( :(

but oh wait. the rest? the ones that aren't just gray splotches? pictures I took of beverages. yep. numerous photos of DRINKS. 

 i got one in there of us WITH our beverages, at least :) 

some more of these pretty pictures... look at that beach ;)

the pictures of the freaking ANIMALS turned out. i am so glad. NOT :( why i took this i don't even know. 

 and let's round out the honeymoon pictures with another great shot. 

right when i was about to give up and throw away the disk's of pictures, for some reason I decided to click on the second to last picture. 

and i am sure glad I did :) 

maybe we started to figure out the flash button just a liiiiitle too late. ;)