Julie and Julia

Last week I got free tickets for an advance screening of a movie. We get these every once in a while in the mail at work and sometimes the free tickets are to a movie that I actually want to go to. The only catch with the free passes is that you have to get to the theater really early so that you can get a seat (since they send out free passes to many businesses) and they only give about two days notice before the preview so many times you already have something going. Anyway, these passes were for the movie Julie and Julia. I had no clue what it was about, but the night we got them I went home and was watching TV live (which isn't normal since we usually only watch our DVR) and saw a preview for this movie. It's based on two true stories and looked really cute.I just have to say that it went beyond my expectations. If you are looking for a good wholesome movie, this is it. It's not a love story but it's not a comedy. We laughed almost the entire way through it. It is the true story of Julia Child and how she wrote her famous cookbook. She had a wonderful supportive husband and it was extremely interesting to see all of the old fashions. The movie bounced between her story and a modern story about a girl named Julie, who needed something more in life and decided to make every recipe in Julia's cookbook and keep a blog about it. I loved the stuff about her blogging because I completely understand when she got sooo excited about her first ever comment on a blog:) And then she started getting tons of comments and followers and got really popular in the blog world. She eventually wrote a book about her story and then wrote this movie!

If this is any indication, when it ended and the credits started rolling everyone clapped. It's a feel-good movie and I think guys even enjoyed it. So go get your husbands or boyfriends and make them take you to see it August 7th when it is released in theaters! We have to support these clean movies when they come along! (I may need to go see it again!)

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I just sat in the garage reading blogs and typing this while my wonderful hubby finished making the second set of shelves and then organized all of our crap...ahem...useful garage items on our new shelves. I totally forgot to take a "before" picture, but I may need to post an "after" picture soon because it's such a beautiful sight that I just wanted to stand and look at it! :)

Our Weekend and Big Mable

I'm sitting in our garage keeping my hubby company as he assembles a new garage shelving unit. We bought two and tonight he decided he needed to put one together. Of course the directions are practically in a foreign language, but luckily J is smart so it actually looks like a shelf! Yay! Now we can start organizing the stuff in the garage...while I sit on the laptop! haha :)

This weekend Jonathan golfed with my dad in a golf scramble for my old high school, so we traveled up to Toledo (with Dakota of course) for the weekend.

My mom and I occupied ourselves during the day on Saturday by going to my Aunt and Uncle's pool (can you tell I had issues again with sunscreen on my arms??), going to Lily's Warehouse sale, and the mall (that will have to be another whole post about my fun cheap stuff I got a Charlotte Russe and For Love 21! I hate the feel of cheap fabric, but sometimes I can get over it if it's something that's just for fun!). The golf scramble had a steak dinner included, so my mom and I got to go out to dinner at the Cloughan Pub...yum...their fish and chips are amazing! My mouth is watering! We all met up Saturday night to celebrate my birthday since my parents won't be able to see me on the actual day:)

Sunday we got up and went to an early service for church. We visited a new more contemporary church than my parent's normal church and j and I really enjoyed it! I do have to say that we really do take our wonderful church here in Lexington for granted! I can't imagine moving away and ever finding a church that's even comparable.

Anyway, we went to an early service so that we could get out on the boat! My aunt and uncle have a house on the Maumee River (which is a little murky but we just looked past that), so my twin cousins took us out on the boat for a ride. I was really excited because they have a ton of water sports and just recently bought a parasail and I really wanted to ride it. Unfortunately once we got out on the water, it was windy and they didn't feel like it would be safe to go up in the air. Oh well. Next time. Even though we didn't parasail, we did get to go on Big Mable! Yes, that's the name that is on the side of it! LOL! J and I went out and the guys did a good job of trying to throw us off...but we stayed on! Then my parents decided that they needed to be able to tell my mom's sister and brother-in-law that they had conquered Big Mable...although the boys did slow the boat a little for them:) But they did great! We were laughing so hard seeing them out there like kids:) Way to go mom and dad!

But all good things must come to an end...unfortunately. We had to get on the road for our 5 hour trip back, so we went for one more ride and the boys just pulled us back to the dock. I feel old because I am soooo sore today. It's been a while since I've done any water sports and boy can I tell. I can't imagine if I had tried to ski!! That just would have been bad...I think I really would have called in sick today:)

I could spend every weekend on a boat. It has to be the most relaxing way to spend a summer...anyone want to go in with us to buy a lake house and boat?? Any takers?? No? Everyone's poor? Crap! :)

Anniversary - Part Two

I know all of you faithful followers..ahem...are on the edge of your seats just to hear what my anniversary surprise was! :) Yesterday, Jonathan had an entire day of surprises planned for us! The alarm went off around 9-ish which is early for me on a Saturday that I don't have to work. He told me that we would need to drive to another city. I was completely in the dark about what we were doing. He kind of made it sound like we were going canoeing which I wasn't too excited about because it was cool out. Then I saw that Jonathan wasn't wearing scrubby canoeing clothes. So I tried to dress accordingly. Anyway, we drove for a bit and I looked up and saw a sign for Frankfort.?? Um, are we going the right way? What is in Frankfort? Nothing! I've never even been there other than one time when i visited my girlfriend who worked for the Governor. Then i was completely confused!

All of the sudden we turn in a driveway to the H2O Salon and Day Spa!!!! It was a really cute old house that had been turned into a spa. I was so excited! I love going to the spa! Then Jonathan told me that we were both getting 60 minute massages, pedicures, and manicures!!! Whoohoo!!! The massage was quite amazing! Then J helped me choose some color for my nails and toes... and just because I know that everyone wants to know...I decided on DC Apple Blossom on my toes and Feelin Hot-Hot-Hot on my fingers! :) It was a wonderful way to spend our afternoon together! Jonathan enjoyed his first ever pedi and mani too! I'm quite picky about spa's, and this place was so cute that I will definitely make the drive to Frankfort again to go back! I was enjoying it so much that I completely forgot to get my camera out of my purse! No pics:(

We then had dinner reservations, which were again a surprise until we pulled up! We went to eat at the Regatta! Yum! It is one of the best seafood places in Lexington! And its on a pretty little pond so you feel like you're not in the land-locked city! We love eating outside, but last night it was barely even 70, so we decided to eat inside so we wouldn't be too cold. (I, of course was wearing a tank top because it's summer and I wanted to wear it even though it was cold out!) We had a wonderful dinner and then wandered around the Joseph Beth Bookstore. All in all it was a wonderful day.

Now I'm procrastinating doing laundry and organizing closets...it's so hard to get back to reality after a wonderful carefree day like yesterday!

Anniversary Day - First Half!

Jonathan and I had a fun anniversary night. He grilled steak and I made salad, potatoes, squash and zucchini... and of course we had some dessert - "Death By Chocolate Cake". I didn't make it...that's just too much and we don't need leftovers so I bought two individual pieces in the Kroger bakery and I savored every bite!!!! I need to stop thinking about it or I might get in my car and go buy another piece!

We exchanged some gifts but Jonathan's main gift to me is something he has planned this weekend, which will be a surprise to me! :) I'm excited! I gave Jonathan an outfit and work pants from Express...I know he was as thrilled with clothes as he would have been with a new golf club, but frankly I have no clue how to pick out a golf club and I KNOW how to pick out clothes:) hehe!

This was my gift!

Aren't the Calla Lilies beautiful?? I think it's pretty romantic that he gave me the flowers that I carried on our wedding day:)

The bowls are kind of a joke...but a really great joke. At the Kroger Marketplace, they sell home goods along with groceries. Every week when we walk down the isle an intire shelf of all of these different cute painted UK serving dishes are calling my name! I LOVE this chip and dip set and every week beg J to let me buy them! After all, now that he's working at UK we'll need to become extra big fans! I think this set looks like it's from one of those pricey boutiques that I would never pay full price at:)

Its exciting that we had such a nice day yesterday and then get to celebrate all over again this weekend! I'm sure I'll be posting all about it! :)

Three Years Ago Today...

Today Jonathan and I are celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary! These three years have flown on by. I can't believe it! When I was looking back through our pictures to have some touched up (since it's been yes, 3 years that I've had empty picture frames on my walls - yikes!) I couldn't believe how young we look!! I don't think we even look like this picture anymore:)
Jonathan, we have had many ups and downs this past year with losing a job and with that money struggles and then gaining a wonderful job. We had to have a lot of trust in God this year, which I can tell has made you a stronger Christian and an even better husband than you were (if that was possible!) I would go through this last year over again because it has strengthened our relationship so much and taught us so much. Through the next many years we need to remember this difficult year and how God guided us through it and had a plan for an even better life for us. I know that some people are not as fortunate during trials and it tears them apart. That's why I thank God for you and for us every day. I love you so much and am so blessed to be able to spend the rest of my life with you as my husband! 143

Attic Happiness

Today we went to see the specialist for Jonathan's possible glaucoma problem. The issue was that we were waiting for about an hour and a half before they called us back. Then we found out that the doctor was called in to an emergency surgery...so all that waiting for nothing! We rescheduled for next Wednesday so I will fill you all in then.

We have been working on our attic project since November! Well, let me rephrase that. We only had a square access hole to our attic, so Jonathan installed the attic stairs in November. Then we had a hiatus from spending money and doing projects. So, yesterday Jonathan borrowed Tim and his truck to get some plywood to floor our little storage attic! Tim, Lindsy and Kennedy will be staying with us for a couple of weeks until their house sale goes through and I have many items to organize in closets so that they have some space to live. So this attic comes at a great time! Now I can put all of my bins in the attic! Yay!

Here is our wonderful stairway!

A before picture - That green bag is our Christmas tree.

Is it wrong that this pile is just Christmas and harvest decorations? Don't worry I have tons more bins of other stuff too! :)

Hard at work! Don't put an attic in in July...it is HOT!

How beautiful is this? Ahhh! An attic!

I enjoy projects around the house...although Jonathan would roll his eyes if he could right now because I dream up projects and then he has to execute them:) hehe! But he does a great job in executing! :) Our next project is to organize the garage and put shelving up and to be able to do that we need to sell an old TV entertainment center to make room! First things first:)

Bad New Bears? I think not!

Sometimes life just gets so busy that even though I have something to post, I don't have enough time in the day to sit down and write! Our days this weekend were full! Right now my wonderful hubby is in our hot attic screwing in flooring! Yay! We can finally call it an attic AND we can store more stuff up there! I have taken some pics in action so hopefully I'll have time to post those tomorrow!

So, I posted last week that I wasn't going to play in our softball game on Thursday due to my sore hand. Billie and I showed up to the game in our running gear to get a good run in. The problem occurred when we realized that 2 of the girls would not be able to make it to either game of the double header. That meant that I had to throw a shirt on and suck it up. I was not going to cause our team to forfeit!

Billie got some in-action pics during our first game. We had a bunch of athletic people who are good softball players on our team but so far our games were looking more like the Bad News Bears than anything else. It was embarrassing how bad we lost in our first game and also the week before!

Here's Jonathan pitching, Chris on 3rd, Tim on Short, and Derek in Left Field

Here's me playing 1st and Nevada playing 2nd

Here's me batting! You like my running skirt with my softball shirt? HA! How does my stance look, Dad? Same as it used to?

So the second game came around and we were told that we were playing the best team in the league (that orange team watching in the last picture) so imagine our excitement! Yeah right! Anyway, either they were missing some players or we were immediately amazing because we WON! and we won by a lot! I got a picture of the scoreboard before they cleared it after the game! I wanted to remember the moment:) Our team really needed the W to lift our spirits. We even had a 3 run home run during the first inning! GO ROOKIES!!! Whoohoo!!!! (And I lived thru it and my hand was fine although I missed running that night)

After the win we were all smiles! (Do you like the orange running tank under my teal shirt? Nice!)

A Taste of Summer

I had a half day today since I work on Saturday, so I came home and made a pasta salad for a get together tomorrow. As I was putting the finished salad in the fridge I realized that I should have taken pictures of the ingredients so that I could share my recipe on here. Well I don't have before pics, but I do have after pics and a recipe! Not to brag but I think I make a pretty mean pasta salad. My mouth is watering just thinking about it! I think there are as many pasta salads as there are potato salads out there but I'm quite picky about my pasta salad. So here it is!-One box of Rainbow Rotini (it needs to be rainbow to make the salad look extra exciting!). I like to under cook the pasta a bit to make it a little chewy.

-One cucumber chopped

-Two tomatoes chopped

-Half of a jar of mild banana peppers strained and chopped

-One can of sliced black olives strained

-Half of a package of peperoni chopped

-Wishbone Italian Dressing

Mix it all together. Add 1/3-ish of the bottle of dressing and let sit in the fridge overnight. (The above picture is how much I used for a double recipe.) The next day, stir it up and add more dressing to taste. (It really does taste better the next day!)

I usually make a double recipe because it goes fast when you take it to a party! (Plus it's always nice to have a little left over for yourself to take home!) It tastes like summer:)

And there you have it...my famous...er...my yummy pasta salad! Try it, you'll be hooked!

Summer TV

Today has been a whole lot less painful than yesterday - no more injuries!

Enough about me...what about some TV shows. I'm so sick of bad summer TV! We are literally OUT of DVRs to watch, so here we are once again watching Wipeout! It is just so wrong. I mean seriously. Have you all watched it?? Tonight is couples and for some reason a lot of the couples have fat women that are seriously unathletic. I guess they do that on purpose so people actually wipeout. I can't believe this is entertainment! But here we sit with the rest of Americans watching it.

We do have 2 shows recording right now - So You Think You Can Dance and America's Got Talent. Really there isn't much else to even record! I do enjoy SYTYCD! Do you?? I just wish I had such talent! I have some favorite dancers but can't pick just one couple to root for just yet.

But the thing I'm most excited about this week....Big Brother starts tomorrow!! WHOO HOO! Finally some quality...er...entertaining TV! I get completely addicted to this show. Not addicted enough to buy the live feed, but addicted enough to stay entertained until real TV starts back in the fall! I'd like to be on this show...live in a house where you get to play games, relax, work out, and lay out during the day all summer. Guess I should have been a teacher! HA!! Seriously though, it would be nice to have summers off and just be able to go down to the Keys for a couple weeks, wouldn't it mom and dad? :) hehe!

Tomorrow we have a double header for our softball team, but I won't be playing since I don't think that my hand would appreciate throwing a ball until it at least scabs over:) So I think while our hubbies play, Billie and I might go for a run...I gotta stay active with all this TV I'm gearing up to watch! :)

Coda got his hair cut today and he looked so cute, I just had to post a pic! Now I can say that I don't always post pics of him when he's scruffy.

An extra special surprise!

OK, so maybe that is dripping with sarcasm. Tonight Billie and Nevada and I got together to go running on a long run (the same trail as last Tuesday but we added a little bit). Billie brought her two sweet boxers with her for the run. They are good little (ok not so little compared to Dakota!) runners. Poor things though because it was so hot! But they enjoyed themselves... that is until mile 4 when another person on the trail came out of nowhere with his dog who was bearing his teeth. Well, Bear lunged toward the other dog and that meant he went right in my path... Can you tell what's coming up next? Yes, I bit it big time! All three of us could see me falling but couldn't do anything about it. So I poured water over my bloody knees and hand and turned my ipod back on and continued another 1.5 miles! You know...I'm hardcore like that! LOL! Ok, not usually, but I really had it in my head that I wanted to finish the 5.5 miles we had set out to do! (We finished although I'm a little stiff now.)

When i got home I think I surprised Jonathan. You know, since he's not used to seeing his wife walk in the kitchen with blood running down her legs. He's been so sweet taking care of me and trying to find band-aids big enough:) He made dinner and yes while we were eating I bit my lip...twice! Now it's bloody too! What's wrong with me??

Just gotta laugh it off! Such is life some days:) I think I need to go to bed and start over! HA!

Yummy Dessert

It's a dark dreary day here today. J and I rented Get Smart from the Library so we're spending the day on the couch! I hope it's funny! Did you all have a great holiday yesterday? J and I had a great time at his aunt and uncle's house last night. They live outside of the city and have a huge yard...too bad it was raining. We had to move the corn hole into the garage! His uncle had rented a dunk tank, but the rain didn't deter the kids from using it. They had a great spread of food...yummy pulled pork BBQ sandwiches (how funny that we had that two days in a row!). I guess the meat was something that his uncle and cousin caught...I didn't find that out until after I ate it but it was good either way!

This is what I made for dessert...thanks to Billie! At the last minute on Saturday I found out that I needed to bring a dessert and I had just bought these cute star dishes and Billie gave me the recipe for Fruit Pizza! Yummy! I made a double recipe because there were going to be a lot of people at our get together.
Jonathan's uncle is really into fireworks and had a HUGE firework show with the help of a bunch of the guys. Luckily the rain stopped for a long enough time for us to go outside and watch it! I can't imagine how much money was spent on all of those fireworks! But they were beautiful! And we didn't have to deal with fighting crowds to go downtown. All in all it was a great holiday weekend!

Happy 4th!

Happy Fourth of July!!! So far this morning I've been quite productive. We're heading to J's Aunt's house in Louisville this evening to celebrate the holiday! J is an early riser and woke me up earlier than I prefer when I have a "sleep in day". But no hard feelings because he brought me breakfast in bed! How sweet was that. He knew I was going to go out running, so he made me an omelet thinking that I would still be able to run with that on my stomach! Seriously, how sweet is he?? I went out running and set my ipod for 4 miles and ended up going 5 miles! Yay! It was quite cool (for this time of the year) so I think that helped with my endurance. I heard from Nevada and she finished her first 10K race this morning in a really good time! Good job girl! She just started running in February and she's already running 6.2 mile races! We'll have to run one together soon!!! Can't wait!

I have to tell you all about my very romantic day yesterday! I took a vacation day since Jonathan had the day off for the holiday. He surprised me with a picnic lunch at Jacobson Park!!! How romantic:) He bought me this really cool picnic basket from Pier 1 3 years ago and I'm embarrassed to say that we had yet to use it! The park has a little pond and we sat by it and it was so nice! The weather was a little overcast but the sun eventually came out! Here are some pics from our fun date!

We went to get our groceries from our local Kroger Marketplace...if you don't have one, you're missing out! It's smaller than walmart, but bigger than a normal grocery store! Anyway, we got our normal groceries and then they had a display with 4th of July dishes 50% off! So I got some fun star shaped platters and bowls. Here's a pic of the bowls ($7 for the set of 3!)... Can you guess what I'm making for our get together? I'll post pics of the final thing!

After grocery shopping we got back in the car and again I had no clue where we were going! We ended up going to dinner at Corky's BBQ! Yumm! Pulled pork sandwiches taste so good in the summer! And then we went to a movie. I was a little bummed to not see The Proposal, but we ended up seeing The Hangover (Mom- don't go see this!!). It was absolutely hysterical! We were laughing until I had tears in my eyes...but it's a little dirty, so I don't recommend it to the faint of heart.

Do you think I'm spoiled or what?? Thanks Jonathan! I love you! It wasn't even our anniversary! (That's 2 weeks away still!) I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July!

Random

So I'm sitting here reading blogs and we've run out of shows on our DVR, so we have resorted to watching live TV (oh no!) and J has this Wipeout show on. Maybe it's a guy thing. People covered in mud and falling and wiping out...thus the name. Too much for me. But I do admit that there is not much TV on during the summer. Although I do love SYTYCD! It's actually recording right now, but since it's 2 hours long we won't start it until it's an hour into it:) Love our mentality don't you? (He just caught me laughing at this stupid show...oh no!) :)

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Today was trash day so I was emptying our bathroom trash and Dakota got a Q-tip. It reminded me of Sue's post a couple days ago about her doggy sitting experience! I had to go get the camera. He kept looking at me with it hanging out the side of his mouth. It looked like he was smoking. Sorry Coda, no smoking in this house! :)
Look at that tongue! :) I'm not really sure why I only post pics of Coda when he needs a bath or to be groomed! He looks a bit scruffy! HA!

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Last night Billie, Nevada and I decided to do a long run through the Beaumont neighborhood and trail. We made it close to 5 miles. It's been since last summer that I have done any runs that were longer than 4 miles. Unfortunately my ipod ran out of batteries halfway through our run so I was upset because a) I had no music, although that was ok because I had people to talk to b) we weren't sure exactly how fast we were running since no one had a watch on and c) we weren't sure how far we'd gone. Thankfully, Billie had done her homework before our run and had gone to mapmyrun.com and mapped out a run so we knew approximately how far we were! Nevada and I did a little extra to make it a little closer to 5. Next time we'll actually make it to 5... or maybe even a 10K (6.2 miles)... we'll see how that goes.

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We have a softball game tomorrow. This will be week 5 of our games and we have yet to actually play a game. We have played in this church league for years and have never had this happen. It has rained every single Thursday since the beginning of the season! There is 0% chance of rain tomorrow so I really hope we can play! Billie, Nevada and I are getting together before the game to get a short run in! Let's all hope that we get some sunshine and not rain! I'm itching to play already!!!!