Kentucky Football

Last night Jonathan and I went to the Kentucky vs Tennessee football game. It was a GREAT first half, but then Kentucky forgot to show up in the second half. We eventually lost in overtime. So sad! The Tennessee fans were so obnoxious. We actually saw two fights break out between UK and UT fans! People are crazy (and intoxicated)!

Anyway, a guy that Jonathan works with couldn't use his season tickets so he gave them to us for free! (Jonathan is on a list for season tickets so hopefully we'll have them next year.) Then he gave J a tip to park in the library employee parking lot and sure enough when we got there, they regulate the parking lot and with Jonathan's employee parking pass, we got to park in a near empty lot for FREE! (If you don't count that we pay monthly for that pass!) :) We walked through campus to get to the stadium and it brought back J's memories of being a student. He showed me his old dorms and places he hung out. How fun!

It was a perfect night for football. We thought it was going to be freezing so we layered. I guess I layered too well because I didn't even need my coat till half time and even then I didn't have to zip it up! But it was nice to not freeze during a November football game! (Sometimes the south really surprises me!)

I didn't want to carry my camera around so I only was able to get some pics from my phone, but here they are.

A cool formation for Senior Night before the game.

Before the stands got full. I couldn't get a good pic with the field behind us. They kept turning out blurry!

A very packed arena!

Because of where we parked, we missed sitting in all that traffic! It was perfect! We hadn't been to a game in years and we had so much fun. (It didn't hurt that it was such a huge game and the place was sold out! Kentucky pride is so awesome!) I wish that wasn't the last home game of the season! Now I can't wait till next year so we can go again!

Bring on those calories!

Thanksgiving morning Billie and I (yes she was 4 weeks -to the day-postpartum) ran the Thoroughbred 5K Classic. I was so excited to run. Last year on Thanksgiving my sister-in-law and I ran the Smoke The Turkey 5K in Toledo and it was such a great experience on Thanksgiving morning that I wanted to do it again. This year we were in Kentucky to spend the holiday with Jonathan's family so we found this race which is in its 24th year.

I think a lot of families like to do Thanksgiving runs together. It really is a fun time and a great atmosphere! This race was actually pretty organized (other than not being able to find water after the race), but there were a lot of people in a small area! The race was held at Keeneland (for those of you not from Kentucky, Keeneland is Lexington's horse racetrack.) and we ran through the rolling hills from barns to beautiful countryside. It was a beautiful day and a really pretty course, but a little narrow for over 2000 people. Usually runs kind of thin out part way into the race, but not this one. It was like we were running shoulder to shoulder with people the entire way. (Not my favorite.) But oh well. We had a good time. And yes, since we ran and burned those calories, there was no guilt for having a second helping of Thanksgiving dinner:)

Here are some pics:

Before the race

A mass of people from Jonathan's parking spot.

We were surprised J actually saw us in the crowd! (See how many people?) We'd be running and someone would just slow down or stop to walk right in front of us and we'd have to dodge them... Crazy!

We always have to do an "after" picture! Beautiful Kentucky white fences in front of one of the horse barns.

Billie placed 65/100 in our age group finishing at 32:21.

I placed 67/100 in our age group finishing at 32:21.

If you ask Billie, she will tell you that she was slow. But she's just used to finishing way before me:) She didn't seem slow to me so we ran together the whole way. Plus we had to do a lot of weaving at the beginning which slows you down and takes a lot out of you. We even kicked it in at the end and sprinted as best we could (sprinting is hard to do when you're dodging people) and stepped over the finish line at almost the same moment! I'm so proud of her! I'm pretty sure I'd be using the excuse that I just pushed a child out of me 4 weeks ago, so no, I will not go run 3.1 miles, but please bring on the Turkey! But not Billie! She's a champ! Hopefully this will become an every-other-year tradition (for the years we're in Kentucky and not Toledo). Now we get to start training for our half!

Coolest Kid on the Block

I know you all have been holding your collective breath to see the "after" pictures of my office. Before I get into the pictures, I just have to say how amazing my friend Jes is. You know your true friends when they give of their time and themselves without anything in return. First of all we spent about 5 hours on Saturday painting the circles. Tonight she came over to my office after she got off work and we worked for about 2 hours assembling, repainting, placing, drilling, measuring, and cleaning. (All while we were hungry! Didn't think ahead about dinner!oops! Thanks to Jonathan for having a yummy dinner ready for me when I got home!)

Everyone should have a friend like Jes! I'm pretty sure that everyone else in my office will want to hire her once they see my office:) I love that my office is so modern and "cool". I'm gonna feel like the "cool kid" and I love it! I felt like I could take some fun "risks" in my office that I couldn't really do in my house, so it doesn't feel like "me"... but on the other hand it does. Does that even make sense? Can I use any more "parentheses" in one paragraph?? I think not! :)

Here is the view from the doorway. I wish I could get the true color of green to show in these pictures. Try to envision a really really bright green! (If you want to see the correct color, go to Southland's website and look at the green in the logo. That is the color of the walls.) Here is the wall with all of our hard work! (Yes, the lantern lamp was not on because I need an extension cord and I went to the store on lunch to get one and totally forgot it till I walked back into my office!)

This is the view from inside my office to my other wall. Jes gave me this mirror from Ikea. She had it in her room when we lived together and wasn't using it now so she gave it to me! I think it's perfect and I love with the way that the circles reflect in the mirrors!

Here are some other views.

OK, seriously does this look like a church finance office? No? Okay good! :) I don't want to look boring. Jes said once people see my office they will want me to be on the creative team instead of the finance team... Well, lets just say that if they were to do that they would be sorely mistaken. HA! I will happily give them Jes' name and number because she won't disappoint:)

Circles, Zebra and a Friend

I'm sorry that it's been so long since my last post. I just haven't felt like I had anything exciting to write about...that is...until today!

I talked in my last post about decorating my office. Well this week I got a green (and I mean *bright* green) accent wall. (I had a choice of green, blue, and orange...but if you know me well, that was not really a choice for me!) Somehow I procured a bit of the green paint that was used on my accent wall in order to make a piece of art for one of my white walls.

Jes, my old college friend always has such amazing ideas for art. She had a whole bunch of mdf 2 foot circles left over from a set she had built, so she gave them to me for FREE! Seriously!! She thought we should do a grid of circles, so today was the day to paint them! We decided that black paint would look best with the bright green. We went to Lowe's to get some black paint and found some brownish/black paint on the discount/reject shelf for $3.50! We asked the worker nicely if he could put more pigment in it and he said he wasn't supposed to, but he did it anyway. How nice of him!!!

After we had a bunch of circles painted black and a couple painted green, we attached some zebra fabric I had with spray adhesive to two of the black circles to give an extra dimension to the wall! The result is awesome!!! Here are some pics: (I realize the green looks a bit yellowish in the pics, so you'll have to believe me that it is really really bright green!)

I left the circles in Jes' garage/art studio to dry and she said she would probably move them around a dozen more times to get exactly the right layout!

I also have a square on my green wall that I needed to cover up, so we used a ring that we painted black and stapled the zebra fabric to the inside. It looked great! We're going to hang two black circles, one above and one below the fabric one. LOVE it!! Here's a pic!

This entire project cost me about $10 (black paint, spray adhesive, and screws)! Can you believe it??

I got a HUGE white lantern lamp from Ikea for $6 so I think all of the circles are going to look soo good! We're planning on hanging all of this stuff on Monday after work. Hopefully I'll have some more pictures to post after they are on the walls! :) Can you tell I'm excited?? :)

My new office...

It's been too many days since I've posted!! What am I thinking??

I'm LOVING my new job. Isn't it wonderful to wake up in the morning and be happy to go to work?? I haven't had that since....well, I never had that working at the bank! Some days I could tolerate the bank more than others, but all in all I hated sales. There, I said it! I hate sales! How liberating! LOL!

I love that I work with wonderful happy loving people. I have no sales goals! I don't have anywhere close to the stress of my previous job! Every single day I wonder if I will wake up (I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true. I've literally thought that I will be devastated if I wake up and have to go into work at the bank.)

Right now, I'm trying to decorate my office to make it "me". Of course my personal interior designer, Jes came over to see my office to get some ideas for a painting she's going make for me! OK, so she's not an interior designer by trade, but she just has that "eye" and she's pretty much decorated my entire house so I trust her with my office!

Once we get into the decorating process, I'll post some pics! I'm excited to make this room my "own".

BTW, Billie and Eli are doing fabulously! He is just such a perfect little baby! AND Billie thinks she'll be ready in a couple of weeks to start training for a half-marathon (gasp!!) with me! OK, she's a rock star! And I'm deathly afraid of a half marathon. I will post on our progress...I need to start training sooner rather than later because my new office has homemade treats every day right outside my door!!!

Happy Birthday Jonathan!

Yesterday was Jonathan's 29th Birthday! Only one more year till the big 3-0! Oh no! :) Friday Jonathan and I went out to Abuelo's to celebrate. Of course we gorged ourselves with yummy Mexican food, then they gave us a free dessert so we had to squeeze that in too!

Saturday we spent the afternoon running errands. (I had to run to Hobby Lobby while the Home Accents and Wall Decor were 50% off so I could find some decorations for my new office!) Then Jonathan's mom, sister, and nephew drove in from Louisville to go to dinner with us to celebrate. Of course the UK game had just let out, so all of the restaurants were packed! So we ended up going to Ruby Tuesdays and had a bad table, bad service, but at least the food was good.

Then we came back home and had cake and opened presents! I always order our cakes from Tinker's Cake Shop. (If you remember from Billie's shower.) Last year I asked them to do a golf bag with argyle on the sides (J loves argyle). This year I had no ideas, so I told them to just do the same thing as last year. Well they called me back the next day and said that they would like to do a fondant golf ball on top of the cake so it's different from the cake from last year. (This is why I love this place. It's a husband and wife and they know us by name. Their show room is gorgeous and their cakes are delicious!) Anyway, I told them to do whatever they'd like!

This is what they came up with:

It was so cute! We all loved it!

This is last year's cake.

Here's Jonathan and his nephew.

This year has been a trying year for us, but we have come out stronger for it. This time last year we were both in a completely differerent jobs than we are this year. I'm excited to see where we will be next year at this time!

My First Day!

Today was my first day at my new job at the church! I had a great experience. I got my HR orientation in the morning and then got the tour of the offices and met tons of people. (I still have lots more people to meet since some people don't work on Mondays.) My department took me out to lunch and then in the afternoon I started learning my actual job!

Jonathan asked me if I was overwhelmed. I wasn't overwhelmed with my job...I think the most overwhelming this is how many names and faces I have to learn! :) Everyone was sooo nice though.

My parents sent me this pretty arrangement that was waiting in my new office for me! (Sorry the picture is blurry!)

As I sat at my desk working, listening to Air1 on the Internet, I just thought about how God had been preparing me to work here through my 6 years in banking. All of that hard work and so much unhappiness...God had a plan that entire time! Wow. Pretty cool huh?

So, all in all, it was a wonderful day and I can't wait to go to work tomorrow! (I have some decorating to do in my office:) Thanks for all of your prayers for me to get the job and also for my first day! :)