New Year, New Start

Happy New Year! I have been seriously lacking in my posting. What better time than to start up again than the new year!!

The past year has been so good to me, but I am ecstatic to see what's coming in 2011!

Things to get excited about:
- After over 4 months of being married, we finally get to actually BE married.

- This is the year that I FINALLY finish school! On the same note...

- This is the year that I FINALLY get a grown up job! (here's hoping anyway...)

- Since this is the first time I am actually living with all of our wedding gifts, I get to actually start using them. Which means... cooking adventures starting soon! (Right now I'm thinking... "Tasty Tuesdays"?)

- Last but not least: New Year's Resolution #1 - Better posture and standing up straight! Hit me over the head if you see me slouching!

Next post coming soon, I promise!

My favorite thing right now...

Right now my favorite thing is hunting down cute odds and ends for the house. I've found a few things but haven't actually found places for them yet. Here's a sneak peek!

I ordered this off the internet a few weeks ago (from Modcloth) and its still not hung. I haven't found the perfect place for it in our room yet but I am so in love with it!

It's a jewelry holder (necklaces hang off the hooks) with little clips for pictures. Love it!

I'm also way excited about these little antler hooks, I got two of them from Anthro. They even got Brandon's seal of approval!

Fortune Cookie

Got this little fortune the other day, thought it was cute and so true!

This is neat.

My aunt put this on facebook the other day....

Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God picks you from the patch and washes all the dirt off of you. He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff. He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed. He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see.

The Hugs Project

Yesterday, I decided to take some time off from studying. Because apparently I can't handle more than one day of studying anymore. I'm such a bad PA student. Even worse, I'm perfectly content with that.

One of the things I did while I wasn't studying was go to The Hugs Project with my Mom. My Mom has been going to Hugs once or twice a week for several years now, in addition to volunteering with the Red Cross once a week to sew stuffed animals for sick kids, doing free taxes for the elderly during tax season, going camping with Girl Scouts, and all the other little things she does (like go one 4 kayaking trips for example). Pretty amazing, huh? 

It was my first time at Hugs. They are currently taking up two large rooms at Crossroads mall to get all the Christmas boxes out to the Soldiers. (sidenote - Crossroads is not scary at all at 11am with all the 70 year old mall walkers on the loose)

To sum it up - these people work so hard, they are incredible! I was amazed at all the boxes of food, candy, presents for children overseas, notes of support, reading materials, dvds, pillows and hygiene items that they are getting to soldiers. Since these are the Christmas boxes, there were also stockings stuffed with wrapped goodies and candy canes!

one of the assembly areas

There is another room packed with sewing machines and material that people were using to make the pillows for the soldiers and small stuffed animals for them to give to kids.

sewing room

My job was on the assembly line, I just went down the rows of table putting items into boxes.

it was a loooong line!

And this one of the boxes I packed up! It's so hard to fit everything I wanted to into the boxes to get to these guys. They just weren't big enough!

One of the cool Christmas items were these little Christmas trees! Someone got the idea of recycling old prescription bottles and putting little trees into them. I thought it was neat!

Overall, it was a great experience, these people put a lot of hard work into making our soldiers overseas feel loved and appreciated. I'm glad I got to be a part of it for a day!

My Mom - the volunteering superhero!

Oktoberfest & More

Our first whole weekend together of the month was filled with so many fun things! Friday night we went to Oktoberfest of Tulsa with some friends. It was my first Oktoberfest ever and quite the experience!

Just a few things I learned/observed:

- Chicken hats. Everyone was wearing them, maybe it has something to do with - 

- The Chicken Dance Song. I don't know for sure, but I think this must be the song of Oktoberfest. It plays every five minutes and if you don't stand up on your table when it plays and do the Chicken Dance, you are not cool.

- Throwing pennies. The object of the game is to toss your pennies into other peoples' pitchers or cups. Why? I could never get a clear answer.

- Polk Meisters. A band that was flown in from Germany. They are a big deal. They all wear the aforementioned chicken hats and have the traditional costumes. In addition to Polka, the can play the YMCA. Yeah.

- Apple Streudel. Yum. Turkey leg. Yum.

bad iphone pic at Oktoberfest

On Saturday, to continue Oktoberfest weekend, we ate lunch at Siegi's. Old Siegi started out with some kind of deer processing company and now he has a full Austrian restaurant. I only know this because Brandon's family takes their deer meat to him and he makes some delish summer sausage out of it.

This one was all Brandon's idea, I wanted to go to a bagel place. It turned out to be quite the experience!

I wasn't sure if I was going to like my "sandwich" (you'll get the need for the "" in a minute) so I wanted to order an appetizer as a back up to make sure I wouldn't go hungry. I chose the giant pretzel. By "giant" what they really meant was "size of a small planet." 

so good!

Now, for my "sandwich." The Siegi's Holzfeller. Shaved ham and swiss cheese between two.... potato pancakes... with honey drizzled on top. Weird? Yes. Good? Yes. It was hard to get my brain wrapped around it, it tasted like a sandwich, but it was definitely not the right texture for a sandwich. But overall, it was pretty good!

potato pancake sandwich, anyone?

Brandon got the Triple Decker, which had corned beef and I think salami, which was also a hit.

Overall, Siegi's was a winner!

After Siegi's, we visited a little secondhand furniture store we had heard about, it had lots of cool vintage things, and some crazy things. Like this...

The full version of the leg lamp from Christmas Story?

And it was rainy that day, so please ignore my frizzy, out of control hair.

And then.. studying and football for the rest of the weekend!

:)

I looooove Fall!

Fall is my favorite season for many reasons. Most of those reasons involve sweaters and boots. But I also love the cooler weather, pretty leaves and the coming of the Holidays. To celebrate this amazing Fall weekend (3 1/2 day weekend for me, and Brandon actually has a full weekend off - first time this month!). I decided to show my first seasonal tablescape! I also want to show off our beautiful new grown up dining room table, quite the step up from my previous Walmart dining room table. We love this thing, it's mid pub height with leather padded chairs and rustic detailing.

We got this really awsome bowl from Pottery Barn as a wedding present. I thought it was too pretty to put away in a cabinet. Also, it is very large, and does not fit in any of our cabinets.

I went to Target (where else?) and bought a box of Fall items - pumpkins, pine cones, some kind of pod things. I got two additional pumpkins at Hobby Lobby. And ta-da!

If it wasn't for spending a year living with two certain people who have an intense love of seasonal decor, this would never have happened. Just thinking about decorating the house for the holidays makes me miss living with them :)