C + J | 4 Months

C + J | San Francisco | July 2010

January 20 marked four months of marriage for us. 1/3 of a  year! Yeah!

Just for the record, I love that boy dearly. Not a day goes by that I don't thank God for the amazing blessing he's given me in my wonderful husband. :)

Friday night.

Oh, how I really truly love Friday night. Friday night means:

1) I can come home from work and take a nap. And not have to worry about not being able to fall asleep at an appropriate bedtime hour.
2) I can take a break from homework. Because I've been doing it all week, and I've got one more day to shove the rest onto.
3) I can do stuff I want to. Today included reinstalling programs on my laptop (I wiped the drive yet again due to issues), looking up a good week long recipe list online, and putting together a list of items for my math classes (which start in two weeks!).
4) I can stay up late! I do like staying up late. (Although I find I want to stay up late Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights... and by Friday I just want to go to sleep, so that stinks. I will stay up late tonight and get things done, like the nocturnal hamster I am during the week!)
5) I can sit back and contemplate life.

I'm on #5 now.

We've had some exciting things happen lately. You know, the house, getting unpacked, and me finding out I get to student teach at my school, and getting two whole classes all to myself, to teach in whatever way I want, and gearing up to start our photography business. Life is one gigantic creative canvas right now, and as much as I love it, it freaks me out. Sometimes there's a lot of pressure to be creative. And when it's pressing on from all sides like this, with so many projects I want to jump into wholeheartedly and design the heck out of, sometimes I get scared and want to curl up into a ball inside my fluffy down comforter because I just don't know where to start with it all. It's a little debilitating sometimes.

I want to do all these things. And I want to be great at them. But there's this teeny tiny voice in my head, wondering if maybe I can't?

I'm going to go ahead and blame it on my upbringing. According to my educational psychology textbook, kids who have perpetually excelled in school become so entranced with getting the highest grades that they find anything short of 100% completely unacceptable. They begin seeing themselves as failures... even with a 95%. And don't even thing about a grade that drops below 90! Isn't that incredibly sad... yet so true? I was one of those kids, and holy cow, that perfection stigma has followed me into adulthood.

I am not perfect. I don't need to be perfect. I need to remind myself this all the time.

It's very hard.

So that is my life contemplation for tonight. No answers. No grand realization of how I can choose to live life without an expectation of perfection looming over me. Just a confession that it's there.

Happy Friday night contemplations, everyone. Try to stay up late and sleep in tomorrow, 'kay?

Home, sweet home, on a Wednesday evening...

Working away in our little house! Me doing homework in the office, Chris doing a painting job in the hall. Don't ask me what that face of his is about. Clearly the paint brush has been back talking...

January.

January is every bit as crazy as I'd anticipated! Taking a quick homework break to write something on the blog- I hate the feeling of not recording the happenings for more than a week at a time. I feel my ninety year old self will be sad as she reviews this blog of the past (in whatever format blogs happen to be in by then) and has to guess what was going on during these missing chunks.

Around here it's been nonstop homework and unpacking. For me anyway, for Chris its nonstop unpacking and fixing everything that keeps breaking. He's a trooper, let me tell you. I'm so very happy I married a guy who knows how to fix things. Takes a lot of the pressure off me!

Know what I also like about that guy? His blogs. (Especially the new one.) They're few and far between, but I love reading them. Even though we live with each other, see each other every waking and sleeping hour (except for work, of course), and I think we know each other's thoughts and feelings pretty well, it's always nice to read his thoughts. There's something about the written expression of someone's thoughts that's always exciting. And I like when he talks about what we've got planned for the year; I like knowing we're walking this life road together, with the same goals. It's much easier accomplishing goals with two people pressing on.

What are some of our goals? Among other things: finishing my credential and getting "a real job," buying a new car, getting an iphone (February 10, woot!), starting our photography business, getting professional equipment, writing books, making beautiful creations, and designing a fabulous life.

Oh, and making cute babies.

(But not in 2011. Everything else has to happen first.)

Fridge = Ice = Cold Beverages = Happiness

Among other things, our fridge was broken. Chris and I went down and picked out a new one from Sears Scratch and Dent over the weekend. We were super excited about our selection, which has the much coveted ice and water dispenser on the door. Yes, we are getting fancy.

The Sears delivery guys, however, did not share in our excitement. They in fact refused to bring it up our stairs, stating they weren't allowed to lift the fridges. Excuse me, what? We're paying you to bring our fridge to its allotted space, and you say you can't lift the fridge? You can only slide it up the stairs? Boo, Sears delivery guys. Boo.

So, we had them leave it in the garage and told them we aren't any pansies around here, and we'd take care of it ourselves. And with the help of Justin, Jesse, and Ryan, we totally did. (And by we, I mean that I helped by taking pictures and offering encouragement in the form of, "Wow! Look at those awesome biceps at work!" and "Justin, you may not want to place your neck in the six inches between the corner of the 250 pound fridge and the wall.")

 Zoey was there to cheer on her dad. But she was very concerned toward the end and had to get some hugs in when he finally made it up the stairs. 

Where's Christopher?

First Home.

So we're in our new house, finally! It's pretty awesome... except for the parts that aren't. Like leaks from every possible spout. And the painted over cable cords. And the fridge that won't work. And the electric problems that need to be fixed. Oh, and the washer that started leaking last night... after the plumber came out to fix the pipes behind it.

It sounds like we're really suffering, but really it's been great. We're taking the bad with the good. Chris has been amazing with the fix-its around the house; I seriously have a rocking roommate. We're starting to get the majority of boxes under control. Really, the only things left are things we don't have a place for yet, like the TV and players and cords that go with it, or our boxes of old school memories (me: journals, chris: basketball cards). Our dining room table is up, and we had our first official meal of canned chili at it on Saturday night. We can almost sit on the couch, once we move out some empty boxes. And with Chris finding my box of work clothes last night, I think we finally have all our clothes and shoes accounted for and hung in the closet.

I'm eager to set up my craft stuff, but worried about the amount of room in our office. I need to figure out a way to really utilize the closet space, and I'm thinking a long, short bookcase, like the ones you see at Target that you buy the canvas drawers for. Hmmmm... I think I need to pop over to Craigslist...

Welcome, 2011.

First picture of the new year.

Sometimes the change from one year to another really doesn't bring all that much change. 

This is not one of those years.

1) We moved into our wonderful and splendid condo the day before New Year's Eve. This is easily the biggest change for our new year. We've got a whole huge place to ourselves, where we can put our things anywhere we want! It's like a dream! And no roommates! It's taking some time getting used to the fact that we can now make out in the living room. (What? Who said that?)

2) Along with moving houses, I'm also moving along in my teaching credential program. The end of this month will mark my halfway point and that start of my student teaching semester. As I put on my facebook status today, I feel both accomplished and overwhelmed right now. Accomplished because some of the hardest parts are behind me: the CSET, TPA 1 & 2, and the majority of my core classes. Overwhelmed because I just finished TPA 2 today (and still haven't gotten over it just yet) and am starting a month of double classes. Let me tell you something: It is very hard to sit here at my desk, in our not-put-together office, and look out into our not-put-together-living room, and not go crazy with wanting to unpack some more boxes. But such is my life this month. 

3) We also got a new bed. This is the first real, grown up bed and mattress for both of us. It's a little hard to get the hang of awesomeness, when you're so used to sleeping like a college student for so many years. I feel very... formal when I go to bed at night. Yes, formal's the right word. 

4) I'm also looking forward this year to getting back in shape. Yes, I know everyone's probably blogging this exact same thing. But I really am tired of feeling tired and some of my clothes not fitting anymore. Also, it's not cool when you get invited to play indoor soccer but say no because you know five minutes of running will render you helpless for the next week. (Seriously.) For Christmas, Ryan got Chris and I some cool workout equipment... including the big blue ball of awesome! I'm really looking forward to using that thing for crunches. Along with exercise, I'm thinking of doing the Master Cleanse at some point. Part of me thinks I could totally handle it. (The more sensible part of me thinks I like food too much and have no self control.) But not quite so soon. I don't think I could handle a double load of classes, a house of boxes, and no food, without snapping. Maybe in February.

All righty, break's over. Gotta get back to those dual classes now. 

Happy New Year!