july 21

While I was looking at my planner and marking down bills and wedding dates and all sorts of other things, I realized that today my husband and I have been married for two months!  Wow...where did the summer go?  I go back to teaching in a little over a week and my summer will be done.  I haven't been in the water but maybe one time...even on our cruise I didn't really do any swimming or anything.  This feeling is a a little bittersweet.  My single summers were spent on boats and laying by the pool with my girlfriends.  Now that I'm married, I have to work more and have no time to take up invitations to be "fun."  But, I wouldn't trade my first married summer for anything in the world!  It kicked off with MY WEDDING, and I have gotten to watch two of my bridesmaids start their journeys as married women, and a third one coming up next month.  I had an awesome honeymoon on a Disney cruise and can't wait to go on another one for our anniversary next year!

Here are some pictures for ya!

This is my wonderful mother.  Yes, we look alike.

Now I'm off to work...  until next time!!!!

new recipe success!!!

Today has been such an amazing day for my husband and me!  We started out with waffles and then our daily Bible study.  We finished the book of Job and started my favorite book:  Psalms!  I always love the reminders that each Psalm offers to me and I'm thrilled to be studying these great words with Kyle.  Anyway, back to my amazing day...   Next we managed to overcome a very strong obstacle in our relationship and we both feel so relieved!  It has taken a very large load off of our shoulders and we are ready to move forward.  We also went to see Harry Potter.  We left the theatre talking about how well-written the stories are and how awesome these movies have been.  I'm pretty impressed at how well all the sequels and prequels and other "quels" have been made.  You don't see that kind of movie in Twilight.  Next we came home and together we made an awesome, yet simple, chicken recipe.  I found it on a website called my fridge food.  This website has you select all these different items that you already have in your pantry or fridge and gives you recipes consisting of what you have.  I love it.  Anyway, here is the recipe:

Wild Butter Chicken (serves 4)

Ingredients:
2 beaten eggs
1 cup crushed butter round cracker crumbs
1/2 tsp garlic salt
ground black pepper
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/2 cup butter, split into pieces

Preheat oven to 375º
Put the beaten eggs in one bowl, and mix crumbs with garlic salt and pepper in another
Dip chicken in eggs and then dredge in the crumb mixture
Arrange coated chicken in a 9x13 baking pan
Place pieces of butter around chicken
Bake 40 minutes or until no longer pink.

Now, I'm off to another movie date on the couch with my handsome hubby!!  Enjoy your night!!!

sore muscles and pictures.

I have come to the realization that I'm not meant to work in retail any longer.  I loved my job at Charlotte Russe in my past life as a college student and the discount was AMAZING but now that I'm working at Deb, I hate it.  I have been there for all of three weeks and I'm pretty impressed that I haven't shopped in there once.  I haven't bought one single piece of merchandise while on the clock or as I'm coming in or out.  You can be proud of me; I am!  My husband is also very proud of me because our bank account has been very appreciative!  Anyhow, I worked an 8 hour shift yesterday and I've worked longer days but this was murder on my body.  I am walking around today feeling like a fever is coming on because of how my muscles feel.  When they ache like this, I am usually getting sick.  This time, I don't think that's the case.  I think I overdid it yesterday.  I don't even get soreness like this after working with 30 preschool kiddos all day long.  I am a VERY friendly person but after a shift at a store like that, I lose my motivation to talk to anybody and be nice.  I will welcome my teaching job back on August 1st.  It cannot come soon enough!

On a completely different note, I feel I should explain my pictures!  My dress originally had a white piece of fabric around the waist when I chose it.  But from day one, and I actually chose a different dress on day one, I have planned to have blue on my dress in some way.  Why blue?  Because I have blue eyes and I have blue sapphire stones in my ring!  I figured it would go well with my features and it would fit right in with my unique style!  I'm sure there are better pictures of my dress but I have a process of selecting which pictures I blog and I'm trying to go in order!  I am slightly strange like that.

Please come again soon for more pictures!

ivory.

My dress was not pure white.  I didn't even realize this until I was searching for material to wear on my head.  I wanted pure white because I am very very VERY pale-skinned and did not want my wedding dress to be the same color as me.  However, I guess I got so carried away when I found the dress of my dreams that I didn't even think about the shade of white.  So once I came to grips with the ivory color of my dress, I began hunting for jewelry that would match.  I went with pearls.  In my personal opinion, I came out with a mixture of vintage and princess in my bridal look.

These are my mom's pearls.

This is a good shot of a few of my accessories.  Headscarf came from LOTS of material at Hobby Lobby.  The headband came from Claire's.  And I have no idea where the earrings came from :-)

Ignore the wedding ring on my finger..had it on for portraits..shh!!!

One of my favorite pictures.  It's the perfect color and you can see my long pearly/rhinestone necklace also!

blogging..

I have been slacking in my posts lately.  I literally have nothing exciting to talk about anymore.  I've just been working part-time at the mall and sitting around while Kyle is at work all day.  I've never been more ready to go back to a job in my life.  My teaching job starts back up at the beginning of August and I'm still trying to find a way to let the store know that I won't be staying..

I do have some exciting news but it won't be nearly as exciting for anyone else as it is for me!  I have received my discs that hold all the THOUSANDS of pictures from our wedding.  Since they have been in my possession, I have uploaded them onto my computer and shrunk them down to normal computer size and did some heavy elimination of the ones that I didn't see a need for.  The amount of pictures that I posted on Facebook are still rather excessive but I wanted a CD so I could share them!  I'm trying to decide how I can start adding them to my blogs.  I guess I will just start going in order of my most favorites and post one every time with a short description?  Let's give it a shot!

I chose to wear a pair of Chucks under my dress.  Since high school, I have worn shoes like these.  My very first pair in 10th grade ended up being a work of art.  I colored on them with markers and went crazy.  I have kept that particular pair but no longer wear them due to their "ugliness."  Since then I have always had at least one pair and have never written on them again!  I had a hard time deciding between the Converse idea and boots.  I grew up country but in high school I took the punk rock direction and made it my own.  I actually wore my converse to prom under my big pink dress!  I have outgrown that phase and now I just wear them with everything as a fashion accessory.  That being said, thinking back to my prom days and the last few years, I decided the Converse were the shoes I should wear under my big white dress!

Hope you enjoyed my first photo post.  There will definitely be more to come!

fourth of july weekend

My husband and I got to experience our first Fourth of July together this past weekend.  But before we were able to celebrate the independence of our wonderful country, we celebrated a wedding of two of my friends from college.  I have been searching high and low for a picture of their BEAUTIFUL wedding but nobody has posted any on Facebook yet and I have none because I was a bridesmaid.. I do have a picture of Kyle in our hotel though...

After this weekend, I highly recommend using Priceline to get a good deal on a hotel stay!  We were told to try it by some friends and I will never use any other method to reserve a room.  We put in a bid for the date and the price we wanted to pay and it found a hotel with a rating you select and reserve your room.  We were given a reservation at the Fairfield Inn for $50.  It was perfect for what we needed.

We got home late late late Sunday night (actually Monday morning) and we both had to work yesterday for the Fourth.  But...we both got off at 6:00 and we were able to drive home to my parents' for our tradition of hot dogs and burgers with the extended family.  We played with homemade ice cream and a couple of firecrackers for the kiddos, then my parents, my brother, Kyle, and I drove the trucks out into our pasture on top of a hill to watch all of the distant firework displays for an hour or so.

I look ghostly white but my flash is insane lol..

Overall, I'm proud of the way our first Fourth of July went down.. I can't wait to spend many many more with my husband!!!!!!

from one poor wife to another...

While browsing around on The Nest a few minutes ago, I found an article that I think will prove itself very useful in my new married life!  The article is called "Easy Ways to Save $1000+"

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been living paycheck to paycheck lately.  (For me it's more like living from Kyle's paycheck to Kyle's paycheck..haha)  This next month will be our tightest financial month.  That's the downside to being a teacher for a school that's out all summer.  I don't start my job again until August and that's still a month away.  Kyle is at the risk of losing his position because he was only hired as a seasonal employee and has yet to get another one lined out.  He's had a couple of calls and we're praying that God's plan involves one of those places!  Hopefully we'll have your prayers too.  We wrote down the due dates for all of our bills last night and I'm hoping we didn't leave any out that will come back to bite us.

Anyway, that article is simply wonderful and I'm really glad that I read it because it will teach me to be frugal.  That word has never existed in my vocabulary.  Here I go..

-The Poor Wife